The start of a new school years means it’s time to start stepping up your social media game! Maintaining your social media pages and building a positive online reputation in your community is essential to gaining enrollments from millennial parents.
If you’re ready to throw in the towel on this year’s social media plan because you don’t think you have enough content to share or don’t have the time to invest into doing this, think again. I promise you that creating engaging, sharable content is much easier than you think.
The ideas of what you can leverage on social media are endless, but to get your creative juices flowing, I have created a list of the five most effortless and effective content ideas you can leverage on your social media channels this year.
1. Reviews & Testimonials –
If you haven’t already been leveraging your awesome parent reviews, now is the time to start doing so. You should be sharing your social media worthy reviews all year long, but it is especially important to make sure you are sharing them as the school year approaches – you never know if a last minute parent is frantically scrolling the Facebook pages of their local preschools and basing their enrollment decisions off of those pages.
With so many different tools and resources available to collect reviews, I’m sure your school has an array of reviews all over the place in different formats. Sometimes it can be overwhelming choosing which ones or what kind to share. The answer is easy though – share your best ones!
Sharing an awesome review will have a powerful influence on your school’s social media presence no matter what form it is in. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Facebook review, Google review, video review, SoTellUs review, or even a written review you created into a sharable image – the key thing is to just start sharing them!
*Pro Tip: Encourage families to provide you with a video or written testimonial that you can use on your website and in other marketing materials by entering everyone who does so within a certain timeframe into a raffle of some sort. You can advertise this in your lobby, through emails, or even your daily communication apps that you use.
2. Blog –
Having a consistently maintained blog on your school’s website is an incredible marketing tool to use on social media that also helps you build “expert” credibility. Millennial moms are more blog obsessed than ever and are always eager to share the resources they love with their tribe.
Maintaining a blog might seem like just another “to-do” on your checklist but the time invested in doing this will be well worth it. Topics can be simple and align with holidays and what is going on at your school or in your community. Once you get your blog off the ground, content creation will become easier and can be delegated to others. Ask your teachers if any of them are interested in writing on
a topic (you’ll be surprised how many are) and create a content calendar based on their rotation. You should also ask the parents at your school if any of them are interested in being a guest writer – the flattery alone will convince a handful of moms to share their parent expertise.
*Pro Tip: When it comes to sharing blogs, your business Facebook page, local mom-to-mom groups on Facebook, and Pinterest are the best places to do so.
3. Unique Benefits and Features –
By now, hopefully, Kris and the coaches have you singing their song about finding creative ways to share your unique benefits and features on social media… But just in case you need a reminder I am here to tell you that you NEED to be doing this.
Do you have a farm to table program at your school? Share photos of children picking the crops they planted. Did you just get new playground equipment? Share photos of the kids having the time of their life playing on it. Do you offer organic snacks? Share photos of some of the yummy snacks being enjoyed that week.
It doesn’t take much to stand out from your competition. As long as you are continuously putting the needs and wants of your children and parents first, you will always have a list of unique benefits and features that you offer.
*Pro Tip: If you don’t think you offer many unique benefits and features compared to your competition, visit the websites and social pages of Child Care Success Academy members/other child care businesses in your surrounding area for inspiration. You will probably realize you offer a lot of those same things in one way or another and you never thought of them as being unique until now.
4. Emrace the Holidays –
It doesn’t matter which one it is, any holiday is the most ideal time to gather cute photos of the kids and staff at your school to post. Family members will be happy to see adorable photos popping up in their timelines.
It’s a good idea to collect as many as you can when you do go to take photos during a holiday activity or party. Gathering a small reserve of sharable, social media-worthy photos for each holiday is a smart investment of your time.
If you are having trouble obtaining parents permission to share photos of their children on social media, don’t worry – just snap some photos
of whatever fun craft they made or of your holiday- themed lobby/classroom and share those! It still shows holiday fun and exhibits the fun environment that the children are in. You could also blur or hide a child’s face with a fun emoji using Canva.
*Pro Tip: Avoid sharing photos being taken in the classroom on social media until after the school day has ended. You never want parents to question if your teachers are too distracted by posting those photos to social media and you especially don’t want them to walk in on them “playing” on their phones.
5. Contests –
Whether the contest is being held in the school or you are holding an online contest, they are fun to share on social media and attract a lot of engagement from families!
Some contest ideas are…
Food or Toy Drive during the holiday’s to see which classroom can collect the most
Classroom Coloring Contest where you post a photo of a group drawing from each classroom on Facebook and whatever photo gets the most likes wins
Costume Contest between teachers during Halloween and post photos of the winning contestants
Employee of the Month Contest and post a photo and brief bio of the staff member recognized each month
The point of posting about contests isn’t to show off who is better than the other, it is to demonstrate that you are a fun-spirited school that recognizes the time and effort your staff and families put in. Families will enjoy seeing these silly photos or recognition of a job well done and won’t hesitate to engage on these posts.
*Pro Tip: Avoid holding contests online or in your school that only recognize individual children. They may create more issues between the kids and parents than it’s worth. When involving the children, make the contests classroom-wide.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Child Care Success Academy™ or how working with our team can be of service to your child care business, we invite you to schedule a free 45-minute Coaching Call with one of our Coaches!
