The top 10 HMC schools on Twitter: What are they doing right?

Each year, during the very busy school conference season, we boot up our #SocialScore tool and analyse how schools are performing on Twitter.

This year, we wanted to share our findings - taking a more analytic approach to what the top Tweeting schools are doing to be hitting a high #SocialScore.

So, without further ado, here are the top 10 HMC schools on Twitter. 

Top 10 (listed)

SEE HOW YOU COMPARE - CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW TO FIND OUT YOUR #SOCIALSCORE.

First impressions: Basic principles of a good Tweet

Take a look at the Moment above, showcasing the top Tweets from the schools in our top 10 list. What do you notice?

For us, these Tweets adhere to best practice techniques for good content:

  • each Tweet contains visual content (pictures and videos)
  • most make use of Mentions or Hashtags
  • they all reflect school culture - this is the content your community WANTS to see over anything else

These are three very simple rules to help craft your Tweets. Understanding and following these rules can help improve your #SocialScore.

Looking deeper: Developing a content strategy for Twitter

Let's take a look at Nottingham High School, one of the top 10 HMC schools on Twitter, and see what trends we can identify in their feed.

Again, their feed is filled with visual content. The content is engaging to their community because it is for their community! There are videos of and about the school, and lots of pictures of pupils.

Most importantly though, they are sharing #SchoolStories because they have an effective strategy in place. You can see a large portion of the main account's Tweets are in fact retweets from their other school accounts.

These school "sub-accounts" are run primarily by teachers (not the marketing team). It works because staff are capturing stories as they happen throughout the day - something that one or two marketing individuals simply cannot hope to do on their own. 

For more information on how teachers can use Twitter - something we are strong advocates for - take a look at our Start with Twitter: Monitoring #SchoolStories article.

Looking at the winner: A strong school community (on Twitter)

How about Bablake School (this year's number 1 HMC school on Twitter) - what can we learn from them? 

Bablake adhere to the same best practice rules noted above:

  • visual content
  • mentions and hashtags
  • lots of #SchoolStories
  • school's main account is retweeting content from departmental school accounts

What sets them apart however, is how they have fostered a strong school-wide culture for sharing resources on Twitter.

Take a look - you will notice shared articles and blogs; or posted infographics and illustrations. These are resources that Bablake's staff have curated themselves - to share on Twitter and deliver opinion or create conversation with their peers. 

This is the beauty of social media, and in particular Twitter. It is also a fantastic way for teachers to actively demonstrate their own CPD! 

What can we do for you?

Social media training for your staff is important. The impact of your school (and staff) using a platform like Twitter can be seen just by looking at these 10 awesome school Twitter accounts.

We are here to help! We see the future of school marketing residing within social media and want to see more schools sharing their unique, amazing #SchoolStories with the world.

We offer training days for schools - where we will come and talk to the whole school, to inspire their part in marketing and sharing all those great #SchoolStories. We will help define a strategy that can be employed across the entire school - making you ✨stand out✨ from your competitors. Pretty cool right!

As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts and feelings on this topic. Please comment below. Thanks for reading. 😃

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