With nearly four billion users across all platforms, social media is a great way to communicate with families, boost your student enrollment, and build your school’s online brand and reputation.
Perhaps your school has a phenomenal use of social media. Perhaps you use social media but it’s not your focus. Or maybe your school doesn’t bother with social media at all.
If you fall into the latter category and are wondering if social media is worth your time, yes! Your school needs social media:
Setting goals for your school’s social media matters because you’ll have something to aim for and be able to get buy-in from leadership when you make larger requests, such as getting an advertising budget for social media ads.
Think hard about what you want to accomplish with your school’s social media. Do you want to attract new students? Gain followers? Deepen engagement with families? Share school communications?
You probably want to do all of those things. Setting SMART goals — specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals — for your school’s social media plan will help you:
To help you create your SMART goals, sign up for our free SchoolMint Enrollment Academy, where you can download a nifty SMART goals template (among many other things).
To learn how you can get free, unlimited access to materials in the academy, click the button below:
Once you’ve decided what you want to accomplish with your school’s social media, determine where it stands currently. Start by reviewing some basic information about your platforms:
Do a quick audit your competition, too.
You probably have a good idea of who your “competition” is, so do a quick review of what schools in your area are doing on social media:
This review doesn’t need to be ultra-detailed. With some basic information, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors — and the opportunities for you to swoop in and have the best school social media around.
All platforms ask for the same general basic information: your school’s name, address, phone number, a brief description, logo, and so on.
If your presence across platforms varies wildly, people may question the professionalism of your organization.
Here are some things to check/update:
I know this all seems like very obvious, tedious work, but trust me — you’ll likely find at least one thing that’s wrong. It happens to me all the time in my own education marketing role!
Your school social media options are plenty, spanning from the major players — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — to the barely used (did you know Myspace still exists?).
I recommend establishing a presence on the two major social media platforms for schools — Facebook and Instagram — and getting a YouTube account.
Also, know that it’s best to do a few platforms well than to do many platforms poorly.
It’s all about the massive population on each platform and the age breakdown of the people using it:
You can create a school account on TikTok and other platforms if you wish, even if it’s just to claim your name so that no one can use your school’s likeness for parody or malicious purposes (not that any bored middle school kid would ever do that).
Also, not every platform will reach the right audience for every message. If you’re announcing an upcoming Open House event, Facebook and Instagram will reach your target audience better than TikTok.
Now, if your cheerleaders want to show off a new cheer? By all means, use TikTok!
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Choose a person who will run point with your school’s social media accounts. For school leaders who are already stretched thin, you’ll benefit from having someone manage social media.
This person will coordinate resources, enlist help from the school community, and be accountable for reaching social media goals. When you have a question or request, you’ll know who to go to.
Even though your school or district very likely can’t budget for a dedicated social media manager, you can still get others involved to maximize your marketing resources. For example, you can get students involved!
With a social media calendar, you’ll avoid scrambling each day, frantically wondering what you should post. You can plan out content in advance to align with school initiatives, holidays, events (e.g., the 100th Day of School, Teacher Appreciation Week, etc.), and deadlines.
Your calendar will also determine how frequently you post. If you can manage only two or three posts a week, that’s fine.
You can make your own with a simple spreadsheet. Or you can sign up for our awesome SchoolMint Enrollment Academy, where we have a free social media calendar ready and waiting for you to download!
The academy hosts a bunch of school social media resources for you to use at your leisure — including, of course, a holiday calendar (see below) for those weeks when you just can’t think of what to post.
Three things go into a great school social media timeline: variety, consistency, and quality. What that means is you want to consistently post a variety of high-quality content.
People use social media for many reasons. Some want to keep in touch with family. Others want news articles or funny videos. Some want cat memes and national parks (i.e., me).
Your current students and parents will want school updates. Prospective families will want to get an idea of who you are.
Keep a variety of content on your calendar to keep your timeline interesting and to hit on all the different ways people like to digest information. For example, create posts that use infographics, videos, photo sets, polls, and more.
Here are some ideas for your school’s social media calendar:
Consistency is important for school social media because anyone looking at your profile will see you’re active and engaged. It’s not a good look to go on a school’s profile and see it was last updated in 2019.
Additionally, social media algorithms prioritize pages that post frequently. Note, though, that this doesn’t mean spamming your audience. Restrict yourself to posting quality content at daily or twice-daily intervals.
And really, if in doubt, worry less about how much you’re posting and more about the quality of it. If you have multiple great things to share in one day, do it. There are no rules in social media — except the ones you agreed to when signing up; you did read that user agreement, right?
A high-quality social media post contains information your school audience wants to see. A good social post for your school is something like:
Or it’s a post celebrating your high school graduates, such as this one from Glendale Unified School District:
Your followers want posts that are informative, funny, thought-provoking, or authentic.
These posts will connect them deeper to you, which increases the chance they’ll do what you want them to do: like, comment, share, and follow you for more. If they’re a new parent, this may even be the impetus they need to start the enrollment process with you.
User-generated content (UGC) is content that someone outside your organization creates and lets you use. The key advantage of user-generated content is that it’s authentic.
Here’s an example of UGC in action, courtesy of the social media masters of National Geographic:
Just be sure to ask if it’s all right for you to repost content or make it known your school will be featuring any submitted photos.
Any chance you get, promote your school’s social platforms. Here are some ways you can do that:
In the image below, notice the dark blue link in the Instagram bio of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
They use a tool called Lnk.Bio, which makes it easy for you to link your social media accounts (plus other links, such as your website, enrollment page, etc.) in one place. LinkTree is another popular tool for this.
Encouraging followers to like, comment, and share your posts is a mantra for increasing your school’s followers on social media. Posts with high engagement rank higher in people’s feeds than posts with little engagement.
This creates a ripple effect: When someone interacts with a post, that post will then appear on the timelines of people they know, which expands your reach to people who don’t even follow you.
For example: Sarah is a parent whose child is enrolled with you. Sarah follows your school on Facebook. You post a picture, and Sarah comments on the post. Nathan is friends with Sarah, but he doesn’t follow your school’s Facebook. But because he is friends with Sarah, the post appears on his timeline, too.
Additionally, if someone comments with a question, answer it! If they leave a comment, acknowledge it.
What about negative comments? Don’t focus on them. If it’s a serious matter, invite the person to get in touch off social media. If it’s someone just “trolling,” hide their comment. They’ll see their remark, but no one else will.
While you can get very technical with social media data, even high-level insights can drive big improvements with your school’s accounts. For example:
Even if you can answer only those questions, you can learn which platform deserves the bulk of your energy, what you should post more of, and when you should post it.
Any school doing social media should automate posting (there are many platforms that offer free versions for this) as much as possible, especially if you work in an enrollment or communications role. If you invest time creating “evergreen content,” automating your posting will be even easier.
Evergreen content is content with a long shelf life — meaning it’s something you can, in theory, post at any time of the year.
For example, a post about your upcoming Open House isn’t evergreen because there’s a specific date and time it’s happening.
However, posts like these would be evergreen:
Advertising your school on social media will get your school in front of brand-new audiences — such as prospective parents who don’t know your school even exists.
To reach new families and increase your enrollment, add paid advertising to your school’s social media strategy for Facebook and Instagram.
For an example of a great school enrollment ad, check out this one from our SchoolMint Engage and digital ads client, Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy (part of Chicago Public Schools):
Learn how we helped Maria Saucedo enroll 175 new students in the case study here.
The key benefit of school social media ads is that you can target people in a set geographic area.
When you run ads for your account, you can rest assured you won’t be wasting money advertising your school to families across the country.
Additionally, with social media ads, you can get your message across to people who haven’t followed your school on social media, changing their perception of your organization.
While paid school ads are something you can do yourself, it has a steep learning curve, and it can take time to learn best practices for school social media advertising.
So if you have the budget to run some school ads, let SchoolMint help!
SchoolMint offers social media and search engine advertising services for charter schools and school districts. With our digital advertising solution for K-12, you’ll work with a consultant to advertise your school(s) on Facebook and Instagram.
Identify the best times to post for your school’s social media so that you’re serving up content to your followers when they’re most likely to be checking the platform. When is the best time and day to post?
The social media marketing experts of Sprout Social report that, in a review of 30,000 Sprout customers, the best time to post was 9:00 to 10:00 AM, Tuesday through Thursday.
However, social media for schools can work a little differently. As a general guideline, the best time to post for your school should align with the times your families are most likely to be checking social media:
Content in all its various forms takes significant time and effort to create. But I’ll let you in on a secret: it’s okay to reuse content.
By recycling content, you’ll save a lot of time (and potentially money) by reusing or repurposing content. Additionally, your whole audience won’t see something the first time you post it.
For example, say you create a guide to all the clubs at your school. You could then use the guide and individual pieces from it in your school’s marketing efforts. For example:
For example, Gunston Middle School in Arlington, Virginia, made this video featuring the faculty sponsor of each program and some students:
You can take one idea very far. While it requires some initial effort, once you’ve created your various pieces, you’ll have a lot of content to use and repurpose.
To get started, think about what your school offers that makes you a great education option. If it’s your high placement of students in prestigious universities, create content about your students’ incredible academic achievements!
By and large, your school’s audience will be your current families and teachers. However, don’t ignore potential families either.
When a new family is looking to enroll somewhere, they’ll likely scope out your school’s social media and form an impression of you based on what they see:
So while you’re mostly posting for your current families, keep in mind your school’s social media does play a role in increasing student enrollment.
A post like this (from the Instagram of Hartford Public Schools) would appeal to both current and new families:
The importance of school reviews can’t be overstated. Having multiple school reviews boosts your school’s search engine ranking — a key part of making your school discoverable even to families who may not know your school by name.
Good reviews also give prospective parents and guardians a great first impression of your organization.
You can ask families and school staff to leave reviews on your school’s Facebook page so that when potential new parents visit your school’s Facebook, they’ll learn firsthand that your school is a great place for their child to get an education.
On Facebook, schools commonly create groups for current families, faculty, and alumni. Keep the good word-of-mouth testimonials flowing by creating a Facebook group, and reach out to current families and alumni to join.
You can use this group as an additional communication channel for school-related news and use it to keep in touch with alumni.
Best of all, a school Facebook group will increase the organic reach of your social media posts to the members of the group.
You can also control whether the group is public or private. For example, in addition to their regular Facebook page, Blackstone Valley Prep in Rhode Island also has a closed group for parents:
In the description of their group, they outline some guidelines for posting in the group as well as who is and is not allowed to join.
Bonus: remember how I mentioned user-generated content earlier? Creating a Facebook group can be a goldmine for obtaining UGC.
Imagine it’s Spirit Week. You can make a group post asking families to submit their best school-spirit photo. A few days later, you can then share these photos, demonstrating to the public that your school is a fun, engaging place that students love to support.
No one wants an emergency or crisis to befall their school. But the unfortunate truth is they do happen, and schools need a communication plan for these instances.
If something happened tomorrow — for example, a fire, tornado, or power outage — how would you communicate that to everyone on and off campus?
Social media should be part of your crisis communications. When there’s a campus emergency, social media can be a quick place to update everyone on the situation, what you’re doing, and if authorities are involved.
Even if your organization has an automated messaging system in place, social media alerts will help spread awareness to people who miss the system.
Each person in a school can help your social media marketing efforts.
However, using social media may not be something everyone is comfortable with. Hosting training can help get staff on-board and learn some best practices for school social media.
Here are some things that training may cover:
Social media continues to be an important communication channel for schools, and definitely it’s one you can’t ignore. And to reach Millennial and Gen Z parents, you must be in the digital space — which is often the best and (sometimes only) way to reach your target families.
SchoolMint can help you promote your school on social media with our school advertising solution.
Let us handle the heavy lifting of promoting your school and connecting you with great new families so that you can focus on what really matters: keeping your school(s) running smoothly.