Tips for Schools on Social Media

So, you’ve been told time and time again that your school should be on social media, but with school budgets being tight, being understaffed and overstretched it can be quite the task to remain consistent and keep on top of your social media strategy. Which is why we’ve decided to write this blog to give you a few pointers to help you with your strategy.

Using Facebook groups

Facebook’s algorithms have changed quite a lot within the past couple of years. It’s becoming harder and harder to get your organic content out there to your desired audience. This is where Facebook groups can come in handy. You can create groups for a specific audience, for example; parents. The benefit of this is every time a message is posted in a group, everyone in that group receives a notification (if they haven’t opted out) – it also gives a closer sense of a relationship between school and parents and can make them feel more involved, it’s like creating a community.  It’s best for keeping everyone in the loop. You can invite people to join via email with a message as to why you’ve invited them.

Combatting negative Reviews

This is something we get asked about a lot. Can you delete negative reviews on Facebook? The answer is no, you can’t. What’s the best way around this? Be a step ahead of the game and flood out the negative with the positive. Build up your community and the hard work should pay off, encourage parents and students to leave reviews, don’t do a mass callout though, build on the individual relationships and ask in person. Another way to tackle a negative review is to try and resolve the issue offline. Get in contact, set up a meeting and deal with the grievance. Once the issue is resolved, ask the user politely to remove the review. It’s always best to resolve these matters offline as you want to avoid a social media war where possible.

How can I use Paid social?

Paid social media, especially on Facebook is a great way to reach local parents and potential students. As we mentioned earlier, it’s getting harder to reach a new audience organically, so sponsoring posts can be a great way to generate exposure for your school.

How can we keep our content engaging?  

To avoid content getting stale, it’s a good idea to try and engage with your audience in creative ways such as with caption competitions, asking students about their favourite lessons/memories at the school. Another consideration is staff/student takeovers of certain social media accounts for specific school events, these can be really easy to organise and can be a good way to keep content fresh and give a good feel of what your school is like.

Whatever you’re posting, try and make it as visually engaging as you can.

Check out our blog about developing a social media strategy for your school here.

For more about our education services click here.