The Most Common Downfalls of a School Social Media Strategy

In the digital age, social media has become an essential tool for schools to interact with current students, parents, the wider community and of course your prospective audience. From sharing updates on events and accomplishments, to sharing the gems of everyday school life, social media offers unrivalled opportunities for school communication and marketing. However, amidst the allure of social media triumph, lies a minefield of potential pitfalls that can thwart even the most well-intentioned strategies.

Infrequency of Posts

The most obvious threat to a school’s social media strategy is not posting at all. With over 5.04 billion people using social media worldwide, the likelihood is the vast majority of your intended audience are using at least one form of social media, by failing to use social media at all (or infrequently) means that your competitors will actively be grabbing the attention of prospective audiences away from you. Whilst they are showcasing all that their school has to offer, your school’s everyday school successes go unknown.

We recommend posting to social media at least once a day as a bare minimum, this lets your audience know that your school continues to thrive and avoids any misconceptions that your school ‘isn’t keeping up with the times’ or that you do not have any achievements or enjoyable stories to share. Stories that you may consider to be a part of ordinary everyday school life, may actually be fascinating for your parents and prospective audience to see. Therefore no story is too menial or small!

Lack of Breadth

Whilst we do encourage you to keep your content consistent, fresh, and regular, it is important that the content you share covers all year/grade groups, all subjects, extra-curricular activities, and appeals to all stakeholders equally. Say for example you are a school that has an athletics / PE department that posts on Social Media multiple times a day, yet your award-winning musical theatre department is severely lacking in content, people may falsely brand your school as a ‘sporty school’, resulting in some prospective students and parents with a passion for the performing arts looking elsewhere.

The same principle applies to your different stakeholders. If you are constantly posting content about alumni events and successes, current parents may feel frustrated that the great work their child who is currently at the school is demonstrating is going uncelebrated. 

The One Voice Approach

Another key mishap that can sabotage the success of a school social media strategy is not allowing your students and staff to get involved with making content. As the beating heart of your school, your teachers and students are the people who can provide the most raw and authentic insight into life at your school. Whilst carefully crafted marketing lead campaigns are also an important part of any school marketing strategy, it’s these authentic insights into the everyday life of the people who make your school a great place to be that speaks volumes for your school’s community ethos and proves that the opinion of students and teachers is both valued and promoted.

Right Content, Wrong Channel

As authenticity is the cornerstone of school marketing, it can be very difficult to post ‘wrong’ content. However, with so many different Social Media platforms to choose from, with new channels popping up left, right, and centre, it can often be difficult to know exactly where you should post your content. Whilst the multi-channel approach is the safest way to ensure that your school reaches as large an audience as possible, not all content should be posted to all platforms.

Let’s take Pinterest for example, an arguably less mainstream app majoritively used by schools for sharing and inspiring creations, whether this be in Design Technology, Art or Textiles. If you were to post a promotional video designed to increase admissions that you had spent hours and hours meticulously composing and you decided to post it to Pinterest, all that time would be wasted. However, if you were to post this video to YouTube , a platform much more widely used and intended for this kind of high quality promotional video, your post is much more likely to have the intended effect. 

What Next?

If you are interested in what channels should be used for specific content and at what frequency, please reach out to our Digital Storytellers at social@interactiveschools.com, who will be happy to share our new #ContentStrategy Blueprint with you.