Your school’s social media requires improvement.
As harsh as it sounds, it’s probably true. You’re school is more than likely getting social media wrong. How do we know? Because 95% of schools get it wrong. If you’re one of the 5% that is getting it right, then feel free to leave this article now - it’s not for you. In fact, we’ll probably say something not-very-nice about you in a while, so it’s actually best if you go now…
To the remaining 95%ers, in this article we’re going to go through some red-flags that suggest you’re getting social media wrong. We’re going to explore some of the most common excuses, and offer some ways to improve immediately. We’re going to make you feel a little bit better about your social media, and at the end we’ll hopefully have persuaded you that you can and should be doing better - and that giving the responsibility of your most visible online presence to the new teaching assistant with a camera, is not a good idea and won’t serve you well.
The truth is that badly organised, poorly put together and off-topic social media is bad social media and could be damaging your reputation. It’s also true that your school’s social media is probably only bad because you’re not giving it enough attention. Hopefully that’s because you’re busy doing your job - you’re looking after the pupils, their education, their future - it’s possibly right that you don’t have time to make engaging content. Hopefully it’s not bad because you don’t see the importance of it. If that was the case, then you probably wouldn’t be reading this, so we’re over the first hurdle - you realise that it’s important and you want to know why your social media requires improvement.
Firstly, let’s try and settle some nerves. Don’t beat yourself up about the quality of your social media. It’s not really a problem when the majority of your ‘competition’ is getting it wrong too -you’re comparatively average, and average is okay. Okay isn’t great, but it will do. School’s don’t really do exciting and engaging social media. It’s just a fact. But, when we compare 95% of the social media that we see to that of the 5% that get it right… that’s when your school’s might start to look a little bit silly. But don’t worry too much, there is hope!
Let’s quickly recognise some examples of bad social media.
Overly focussed content - if your there is a room change that day, or a teacher is absent - send a message or call people, please don’t post for everyone to see that year 8 maths period 2 has been moved next door to room 14a rather than 14b.
Boring content - if it’s national hugging day, no-one cares that you know that or post about it. If you were to attempt to break a world record of how many people one person can hug in a minute, then that might actually make a good piece of content. Can you see the difference? One is generic and boring ‘happy national hugging day’ and ‘during lunch at school X we tried to break the world record for number of people we can hug in a minute’.
Self focussed content - if your content is always about me, me, me, we, we, we, us, us, us, and I, I, I, then it’s not likely to be very engaging. Ask questions, start conversations, offer options/opinions and discussion, but make it relevant. Don’t ask ‘what is your favourite biscuit?’ - that’s trivial and boring (see above).
None-shareable content - and we don’t mean that it has a share feature or button. We mean that the content isn’t worth sharing. Before you post something ask yourself ‘what would my audience want to share?’ Normally it’s informative or entertaining. The latter is overwhelmingly more shareable.
We could spend all day giving you exampleS of bad social media, but you’ve probably got the picture now. You may even be recognising some aspects of the above in your own social media. Again, that’s okay, we’re not here to bash you over the head for getting it wrong, we’re here to help you get it right. Already there will be some people bursting to make an excuse as to why their social media is bad. Let’s look at some of those now:
‘We don’t have time.’
We get it, you work hard and your schedule is full. It’s not possible to allocate hours and hours during the week to getting this stuff together and creating engaging content. We understand, and it’s how most businesses think about social media at first. Until they realise that that is where their audience is. That’s where the attention of the potential pupils and their parents is. That’s where their pupils are. That’s where their community is. It The key is to make the most of the time that you do have. The best way to do this is to have a solid social media strategy, and a way of managing your social media; what goes out, when, where, why and who is going to engage with the engagement when it comes. There are companies like ours that help schools to make the most from the time that they do spend on their social media, reach out to one of them.
‘We don’t have budget.’
We hear all the time that school’s can’t afford to do social media properly. The truth is that you can’t afford not to do it. Having bad social media is not only unacceptable by today’s standards (remember your audience are used to on demand tv, next day delivery and super fast broadband), but it’s more than likely actually damaging your reputation. Like your school roof - you have one sure, and on the whole it does its job. It keeps most of the rain out, and the missing tiles and misshapen trusses add to the character, right? Well like your broken roof, if your social media is broken people aren’t going to feel safe. When seeing your decrepit school roof, they’re not likely to want to come in for an open evening are they? Think about it. Yes it’s going to cost to get a new roof, but the ROI makes it worthwhile.
‘We don’t know what to do.’
Why would you? We wouldn’t know how to run a school, employ teachers, deal with Ofsted or how to impart a lifetime of experience into a disengaged pupil during period 5 geography on a sunny Friday afternoon. You know how to run a school, educate and inspire. You’re not marketing experts, and you’re not PR professionals. But we are, and we want to help. We help schools across the UK to make small improvements to their ‘school roof’, their social media, their website, or their advertising. We do that for free at our online training events.
There you have it, that’s why your social media requires improvement and thrown in for good measure there’s also some ways to improve it. If you’d like more help with developing your digital marketing or your digital and online presence, then get in touch, we’d love to talk to you about how we can help your school - like we’re helping others around the UK and growing that 5%.
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Company Ten helps schools all across the United Kingdom do digital marketing better. From video production and photography to social media management and training, and a lot of things in-between - we are specialists in helping schools use ‘digital’ to their advantage. We’re not just flogging our services either, we actually want to help! So that’s why we offer free monthly training in digital marketing - to help you and your school improve and do better. We want you to be able to utilise everything that the world of digital marketing in education has to offer.