As the 2012-2013 admission season finally winds down with the beginning of the school year I hope that you are able to take a well-deserved minute for yourself to rest, recharge, and prepare for the upcoming admission season.
Take one minute.
Now – don’t you feel better?
As you begin preparations for the 2013-2014 admission season I encourage you to take stock of your social media marketing efforts. Now is actually the best time to update and make changes to your strategy because the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefits won’t be felt for a few months – right in the heart of the school fair and recruitment season. Below I’ve listed four items that you should think about to make your social media marketing efforts really take off this year: Register, Focus, Goals, and Experiment.
1. Register
As more and more people participate in social media the ability for you to select a specific social media ID for your school will dwindle. As a result, I encourage you to register social media ID’s for your school at all the major social media channels including: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest. I haven’t forgotten about Google+ but they’ve only recently begun to slowly roll out vanity URL’s but I would still create a page for your school.
There are a few things to think when you create your school’s social media accounts:
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Try to be consistent across social media channels with the same ID. If you can’t get the same ID try to select a main ID and then be consistent with your secondary ID.
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Use the same profile picture across channels to remain consistent with your branding.
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If you don’t plan on using the channel right away publish an initial post saying this is the official account for your school and that you be participating in the future.
2. Focus
Although I just told you to create accounts for your school on all the main social media channels I don’t feel that it’s necessary to participate in all of them right away. I just want you to have reserved your school’s ID for when you are ready to participate.
My reason for having you focus is to select however many channels you feel comfortable participating in and doing the best you can with those. It doesn’t matter if you select three, two, or even one channel. Just make sure that you do the best you can with the channel(s) that you select.
3. Goals
Now that you’ve selected the channels you are going to participate in you’ll need to determine goals to measure your efforts.
I encourage you to create goals specific to the specific social media channel as well as goals tied to your admission efforts. Let me give you an example using Facebook:
At Sewickley Academy, we currently have 1,069 Fans on our Facebook Page and a channel specific goal would be for us to have 2,000 Fans by the end the 2012-2013 school year. My companion goal for the admission office is that I would like to increase inquiries by 10% for the 2012-2013 school year.
A word of caution – social media can be a great marketing tool but don’t get too caught up in the social media goals, i.e. 2,000 Facebook Fans. Make sure that you pay much more attention on the admission goals, i.e. raising inquiries 10%, because ultimately that is how you will be evaluated by your Head of School and not by the number of Fans on your school’s Facebook Page.
4. Experiment
I learned a long time ago that to grow personally and professionally I needed to challenge myself and leave my comfort zone. This same idea also applies to social media.
I challenge you to experiment this year with a new social media channel. If you are uncomfortable just launching into a new channel for your school I think it’s very appropriate for you to begin participating in the target channel for yourself. As you use the new channel for yourself your confidence will grow and will allow you to eventually adopt the new channel for your school.
Good luck with your social media marketing efforts this year and as you begin the new admission cycle I wish you many inquiries, more applications than last year, and abundant financial aid.
About Brendan Schneider
Brendan J. Schneider is the Director of Admission and Financial Aid at Sewickley Academy. He is one of the leaders in the field for teaching on and knowledge about inbound marketing for schools. He presents and consults on inbound marketing, branding, marketing technology, and social media at the regional and national levels. With his workshops, the SchneiderB.com blog, and over 40,000 tweets of insight over the last four years, he continues to advance the abilities of the independent school admission, communication and marketing professional.
Brendan is also a Board of Director for the Association of Independent School Admission Professionals.
Find him on Google+. Subscribe to his blog and receive his Social Media System for Schools ebook for FREE. Download the eBook now!