Most schools have social media channels these days – but it can be hard to know exactly what to share and how to create engaging content.
Here, Account Manager Keira Pearson shares her five top tips to make sure you are sharing content that your audience wants to see on your school’s social media channels.
We all know that your school’s profile won’t be the only account your audience are following. So, it is important to make sure that your content is eye-catching so followers don’t just scroll past.
Using different types of visuals can help with this, whether that’s photos, videos or even graphics.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Photos of the school and other relevant images can often showcase more than text. Here, the caption should just add a little bit of context to the photo and not take away from what the image is showing.
Videos enable you to show some behind the scenes action from the school. Examples can include a teacher setting up an activity they have planned for the day, the children’s learning progress or a show around the school. Video provides more insight to your setting – one of the reasons it is currently the most engaging type of content on social media channels.
Graphics can also be used to portray a message. They can be created to advertise an event, such as an open day or a fundraising event set up by the PTA. They can also be used if a relevant image is not at your disposal for something you would like to shout about.
There is a high chance that a lot of your followers are those with family members that attend your educational setting. Therefore, the content that they want to see involves the activities that your pupils are participating in.
Whether it is the everyday maths lesson, the annual sports day or an external visitor has come to inspire your pupils, parents and other family members would enjoy seeing what is happening in school.
They are even more likely to engage with the content if their relative is featured in the post, either reacting, commenting or sharing with family and friends.
Other members of your audience are likely to be those that work at your school, have family members or friends that do, or they could be potential employees in the future – so it is important to showcase what they do in school too. That’s especially true given social media’s power as a recruitment tool.
With thousands of schools across the country, you need to showcase what your educational setting does differently and how you go above and beyond to attract new, high-end talent.
Students will also go home and talk about the staff to their family members, so they might also relate to content about particular members of staff and engage with this content too.
As well as this, relatives tend to follow each other’s careers and support them in their career journey. Therefore, content that features staff members is also likely to get high engagement.
Every school has values they stand by and social media is a great way to demonstrate how they are implemented day-to-day.
One way of doing this is by posting about awareness days that link with the school’s values. For example, if one of your school’s values is respect, you could showcase how your school encourages this throughout the community by celebrating World Friendship Day on your social media channels.
Another way to showcase values is through specific parts of the curriculum that relate to the school values. For example, if you are a Forest School with values to encourage adventure, these can be linked together and shared on social media.
Finally, social media is called ‘social’ for a reason. One mistake a lot of businesses make – not just schools – is that they do not encourage conversations.
You could encourage conversations by asking questions, creating polls or creating quizzes or puzzles. It is important to keep these linked to the school though, so it is not irrelevant content that your audience is not expecting from your account.
Inspired to kickstart your school’s social media but need some assistance? Email Keira at keira@prominentpr.co.uk or call 01473 276126.
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