Tell your boarding house's story on social media

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There are always lots of exciting stories waiting to be told from the boarding houses at your school. Not only does it provide your current parents and pupils with great content to consume, but it also helps with marketing your school.

People will fall in love with your school when they come to visit because they feel the personality of the school and can see the wide range of opportunities available. Why not provide some of this experience online? Great storytelling through copy, photos, and videos can emotionally engage your audience.

Getting started

Most of your storytelling about your boarding houses will be integrated into your current online communications, through:

  • News
  • Calendar
  • Videos (YouTube / Vimeo)
  • Photos (Flickr)
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email newsletters

Should my boarding house be separate?

If you can create enough quality content, on a regular basis, then yes… do it! It can be beneficial to build your own community, and to localise your content to a specific interest. However, it is dangerous to your school’s brand to create multiple accounts that are then left to become a ghost town.

A dedicated boarding house channel is a great way to voice a house’s personality in an authentic way. If you don’t think your boarding house will be creating enough content on a regular basis, then introduce it into your main school channels.

Twitter, Vine, Instagram, and now Facebook, support the use of hashtags. Tell your boarding house’s story through these channels but use hashtags to categorise, and archive them. This way people can follow along with the hashtags to see the specific content, without the need to create a separate account.

What channels?

Of course, you can (and should) tell your boarding house’s stories on all your social channels. But if you are going to create a dedicated account for your boarding house, then you will need to choose a relevant channel.

Not every channel will be relevant to your boarding house. Channels that promote ‘micro content’ are the ones that will reap most success. Micro content is quick to consume and quick to create. This benefits not just you, but your audience.

To have your own:

  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Instagram
  • Vine

Only for main school:

  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Flickr (create sets)
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest (create boards)
  • Google+

The main distinction between the groups are that the first one can provide a much more real time experience - it can show people what’s happening at the school. The second group is more for what has happened at the school.

How to manage the content

Each channel has its own lingo. Twitter is short and sweet copy. Facebook is longer copy with large imagery. Tumblr is fun animated GIFs. Pinterest is imagery. Vine is short video. Instagram is photography. And so on…

The marketing person will be overseeing the social channels to ensure the social strategy is being adhered to. But, ultimately, there needs to be trust involved to allow the staff members to publish and promote the content.

This comes down to training. If your staff members are well trained, inspired, and motivated; then your school will have strong foundations to succeed with social media.

There are lots of stories ready to be told at your school, and there must be a process in place to allow these stories to be told.

Take a look at some of the examples below to get inspiration for your school.

Examples

Boarding Blogs:

Boarding Houses on Twitter:

Does your school have a good boarding blog? Tweet us yours @intschools using #BoardingBlog

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