Next September may be a long time away, but for the parents of pupils looking at their options for next year, the search for a school begins right now.
At this stage, parents will have heard about various schools from friends or they may have read reports in the press, and the first thing they are going to do is google your school. It comes without saying that you’ll have a website, but what about your social media presence?
It’s not enough to simply set up a Facebook or Youtube channel. You need to ensure your social media features prominently on your home page so that parents (and prospective pupils) notice you straight away. Yes, there may be glowing reports about your teaching and you may have achieved high exam rankings, but what parents really want to see is what life is like at the school. Your video channel will be the closest they get to visiting your school, so here are a few tips that will help attract more enquiries…
- Make sure that visitors to your home page can easily find your video channel. e.g. North London Collegiate have a video on their home page. Clicking on it takes you to other videos: http://www.nlcs.org.uk/
- Cater for the diversity of your audience. Why not feature a series of video testimonials from pupils benefiting from different aspects of the school e.g. the sporty kid, the kid who loves science, the spiritual kid. E.g. Tanenbaum CHAT do this http://tanenbaumchat.org/parents/
- Why not have a video detailing “a day in the life of the school?” It can be a series of short clips showing lessons, activities, meals, sports, and even leisure activities. It will give parents a feel of how the school operates on a day to day basis.
- Embed statistics in your video. Your audience will be more interested in watching a video than a long web page about exam results. E.g. In between clips of pupils talking about how much they love science, why not include written stats or graphs to back up how well the school performs when it comes to the sciences.
- Ensure your videos can be easily shared. By uploading your videos to Youtube, you will have rich media content that can then be easily embedded on your website and shared on your other social media channels. If your audience find it interesting, they can then share it with their friends. That’s free publicity!
Remember, your visitors have a very short attention span. A 1-minute video will do more to sell your school than reams and reams of text.
If you would like to find out more about how to promote your school on social media, why not come to our 1-day course "Social Media for Independent Schools" taking place 18th October? For more information, click on the button below, or call us on 020 8953 8820.
