Social media for schools

Social Media for Independent Schools

Wednesday January 30th 2013

@brainstormdsgn

uk.linkedin.com/in/brainstormdigital

30th January 2013 Social Media for Schools 2

Key Learnings

• How to build up your audience and engage with your followers• How to integrate social media with your other marketing• How to convert your audience into customers and leads• The pitfalls and dangers of social media• Future trends you should know about• How to develop a successful social media strategy

• Platforms we will cover:- Facebook- Twitter- LinkedIn- Pinterest- Youtube- Google+- Hootsuite


What is social media?

• “All forms of electronic communication (e.g. blogs, forums) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as video)” Merriam Webster

• “Think of social media as a telephone conversation that you can hack into without breaking any laws” Danny Bermant



Facebook facts

• Over 950 million users• Mostly B2C oriented• Popular for posting rich media: photo albums, videos etc…posts

featuring images generate 53% more likes• Enables you to add “apps” which link to other sub-pages within

your Facebook page e.g. photos, videos, competitions etc…• Facebook pages can attract “fans” but you can’t connect with

individual Facebook users• 2012 saw introduction of promoted posts - if you have over 100

likes, you can pay extra to see your updates at the top of a news feed

• You can set up pay-per-click ads to attract your target market. Target geo-specific areas, age groups or specific interests


Your Facebook home page


How your school should be using Facebook

• Educate, inform and engage with your audience• Showcase the school’s achievements e.g. link to press releases• Showcase the school through photo albums and video• Share the schools view e.g. blog post from head teacher• Think of ways to promote user generated content:• Engage with parents and pupils through quizzes, discussions,

competitions and even games• Use Facebook apps to enhance your teaching• Difficulty finding relevant content?

Use www.google.co.uk/news and www.google.co.uk/reader

http://www.google.co.uk/news

http://www.google.co.uk/reader


Facebook is all about Informing, educating and engaging


Use the timeline feature to promote your heritage


Do this through status updates, photos, events, milestones, polls


Blow your own trumpet!


Photos can showcase a day in the life of the school. Videos can be used for testimonials


Photo tagging is widely used on Facebook but unsuitable for schools


Get parents involved with pupils education


Use apps for attracting fans, building engagement and for educational purposes


Control when and how posts appear. Control who views them


Treat negative publicity as an opportunity, not a threat


Check your analytics to ensure you’re engaging your audience


Facebook security


Group exercise:Create your Facebook strategy

• What is the USP of your Facebook page?• How can you make effective use of your Facebook timeline?• How will you educate, inform and engage with your audience?• How could you use Facebook as an educational tool?• What other apps could you offer to engage with your audience?



Twitter facts

• Over 500 million users• Strong for both B2C and B2B• Over 340 million updates posted per day. Tweets have a short

shelf life - you need to post regularly• Profiles can be both branded and personal • You can follow and communicate with anyone

(provided they don’t have a protected profile)• 2012 saw introduction of promoted tweets - you can pay extra to

see your updates at the top of a news feed• Tweets and profiles can be easily searched. The more niche

your area, the easier it is to be discovered by your target market


Twitter profiles can be branded or personal. Ensure bio is complete!


How your school should be using Twitter

• Your bio must have a USP• Twitter should be a two way communication not just a news

feed • Educate, inform and engage with your audience• You need to reach out to influential tweeters. Ensure you follow

relevant people • Showcase the school’s achievements e.g. link to press releases• Share updates that are on your Facebook page• Share the schools view e.g. blog post from head teacher• Think of ways to promote user generated content:• Engage with parents and pupils through quizzes, discussions,

competitions and even games


Find influential followers using “discover” tool.


Use Lists to track their activity


Check a user’s Klout score


Use keywords, #hashtags and lists to track relevant discussions


Inform, educate and engage. Include hyperlinks where possible


A monologue


A dialogue


Tweets have a short shelf life. It’s ok to repost earlier updates


Group exercise:Create your Twitter strategy

• What is the USP of your Twitter bio?• What will be the main objective of your Twitter campaign?• Who will you follow?• How will you educate, inform and engage with your audience?



LinkedIn facts

• Over 175 million users• Often described as “Facebook for professionals”• Used mainly for B2B marketing but even B2C companies use it

for sourcing staff and finding other businesses to collaborate with

• Contains both personal and company profiles • Has groups where you can network with like-minded

professionals • Has a high conversion rate. 2.74% of visits convert to leads


How your school should be using LinkedIn

• Recruitment of staff, consultants and other professionals• Brainstorming with other professionals and swapping ideas on

best practice• Building alliances with partners who will help promote you• Seeking out private donors• Networking with alumni


Profile should include a professional headshot and professional headline explaining how you add value


Steps to completing your LinkedIn profile

• Professional summary• Status updates• Full summary• Recommendations• Increase your connections• Experience• Projects• Languages• Certifications• Apps: polls, reading lists, publications, portfolio display,

publications• Displaying your profile in other languages


For LinkedIn to work effectively, you need to grow your network


Does your school have a LinkedIn company page?


Groups enable you to brainstorm and network with other professionals as well as alumni


Create your own LinkedIn group


Group exercise:Using LinkedIn more effectivelyYour personal profile• Change your LinkedIn professional headline so that it explains how you add

value?• Add some new sections• Who can you approach for a testimonial?• Which new sections can you add to your profile?

LinkedIn groups• Search for a suitable LinkedIn group where suitable contacts can be found• Think of a discussion that will enable you to connect with them

LinkedIn database• Draw up a list of who you’d like to connect with?• Carry out an advanced search• Are there people in your network who can introduce you to the people you’d

like to meet?


Other social media tools


YouTube

• Over 800 million monthly users• Accepts most video formats• Can be easily shared on all social media platforms making it

easy for the videos to go viral• Can be easily uploaded from a smartphone• Can be easily embedded on websites and blogs• You can stream live events• Popular with both B2C and B2B sectors. Used for ads, customer

testimonials, interviews with staff, sharing product information


If you run events, share them on Youtube


Video testimonials from pupils will give more credibility than video content from employees of the school


Share interviews with senior staff


Pinterest

• A photo-sharing website that allows users to put together collections of photos (and video).

• Popular themes include fashion, food, homes and design but might be completely eclectic

• Launched in March 2010, grew to over 12 million users in under 2 years

• Has a mainly female audience• Photos link back to the website they were sourced from• Now the 4th largest driver of traffic worldwide!


Pinterest is a great way to personalise your school


Pinterest is a great educational tool


Google+

• Has the appearance and many of the features of Facebook• Users can post status updates and other users who are

connected can respond. • Users can also hold video conversations, known as a hangout,

with their audience. Up to 9 people can join these conversations• Hangouts can also be streamed via Youtube and embedded

within the user’s website• Like Twitter, users follow each other rather than more formally

connecting with them• Because it is integrated with Google’s search engine, it has the

potential to upstage both Facebook and Twitter. It currently has 400 million users, 235 million of whom are active monthly users


Create photo albums, events and even communities

http://mashable.com/2010/09/16/mcdonalds-foursquare-campaign/


“Hangouts” can include up to 9 delegates and can be streamed


Developing a successful strategy

• Internal responsibilities for social media• Internal processes and tools• Developing an integrated strategy• Measurements and effectiveness: KPIs• Social media policy for the staff


Internal responsibilities

• Does your marketing executive have a clear job description?• Social media is a full time job!- What are your target audience saying about you?- Several major social media platforms to monitor plus smaller

ones your audience may be using- Researching and generating ideas for content- Engaging with your audience - Finding followers / new connections- Online networking- Integrating social media with other marketing activity- Is your marketing executive communicating with employees who

are managing your other marketing channels?


Internal processes

• Is there time blocked out in your schedule for social?• Do you have a power hour where you can brainstorm with

colleagues?• Do you have a strategy and content plan?


Having a strategic plan

• In order to build up a loyal audience that will engage and ultimately buy from you, your marketing team needs to have a social media strategy. By having a weekly/monthly/quarterly plan, you can

a) Ensure that you send out a deliberate, consistent message across all your social media platforms and that new content builds on what was previously posted (e.g. a series of blog articles).

b) Plan ahead for local events e.g. If your busiest time is Easter, you may need to start planning and executing the build-up from before January.

c) Regularly check that all efforts are leading towards its desired objectives.

d) Have content prepared in advance without struggling at the last minute to think of something to say.


What a strategy should include

• Key message to get across• Will there be a personal brand as well as a corporate brand?• Who is responsible• Job description for those implementing the campaign• Which platforms to focus on• Who to target, who to follow and connect with• Driving traffic and engagement• How to “capture” customers / subscribers• Guidelines on posting - ratio of educational to promotional posts • Technology to use e.g. Facebook apps, smartphone apps• Frequency of posting and response times• Where will you source content from?• Content plan • How social will be integrated with other marketing activity• Social media guidelines for staff


Do you have a strategy for driving traffic to your social media channels?


Having a content plan

• The content plan can be monthly, weekly or even daily. By using tools such as Hootsuite, companies can schedule updates on Facebook and Twitter weeks or months ahead. A content plan should include:

• A table summarizing what content should go on each media platform daily/weekly/monthly

• A main theme that will be promoted in different ways across the various platforms

• Secondary themes that will help keep content varied• A detailed plan to promote key local events or promotions in plenty of

time before they actually take place, in order to drum up interest• Details of any specific customer group to be targeted and engaged with

in a given period• The goals the company wants to achieve in each stated period e.g.

20% increase in web traffic from social, 30% increase in conversion rate.


Sample content plan


Setting Objectives and KPIs

• It’s commonly assumed that you can’t set up a KPI for social media because of the difficulty in linking activity with leads. In fact, there are several ways you can measure leads. And there are many other functions of social media that can be directly measured as well, and which are part of the sales process:

• If you want to measure brand awareness, you need to look at page impressions, frequency of visits and reach. Who’s receiving its messages and how far are the messages spreading? Don’t get obsessed with superficial elements such as ‘likes’ and number of followers alone.

• When building brand engagement, look at retweets, comments, replies, shares, and likes. How often are people participating in discussions or talking about the brand?

• When measuring website traffic, which URLs are shared and clicked on and which website visits lead to conversions?


Metrics

• Facebook gives detailed stats that show how many people have seen a post and how many have gone on to share it with others.

• LinkedIn offers detailed stats for company pages, groups and your personal profile. Results include seniority, industry, function, region and company size. In particular, your profile page stats show exactly who has viewed your profile during the last 90 days (although you will need to have the premium package to view this).

• LinkedIn Signal can be used to measure the number of people talking about a company or its products. You can see who is talking and what industries they are coming from.

• Google Analytics measures how many visitors have come from your social channels and what the conversion rate is


Tools for managing and monitoring social media

• www.Hootsuite.com Schedule updates from all the main social media platforms. Monitor the volume of discussions on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn that contain specific keywords or phrases. Also produces customised reports detailing a company’s social influence, reach and engagement. These can include charts and graphs

• www.radian6.com is a monitoring tool that enables companies to track their influence on all digital media, giving detailed stats. A company can track clients or anyone else talking about their products on websites, blogs, forums, video sharing sites etc

• www.klout.com enables you to measure you social influence. The score goes up as you reach larger audiences and as their interaction increases. A receptive audience is more likely to make a purchase.

• www.google.com/alerts to notify you about relevant content on the web• www.google.com/reader to stay abreast of what is being said in

relevant publications

http://www.Hootsuite.com/

http://www.radian6.com/

http://www.klout.com/

http://www.google.com/alerts

http://www.google.com/reader


Hootsuite enables you to manage multiple platforms


Use Hootsuite to schedule tweets directly from any article


Using Hootsuite to monitor keywords, phrases or hashtags


Hootsuite can also run off reports about your activity


Google Alerts will notify you on all the relevant stories


Google Reader enables you to read your favourite publications on one page


Facebook insights show which posts are attracting the highest levels of engagement


Monitor how much of your content is being shared


Do you have a social media policy for your staff?• Tone to be used (serious/playful/non-aggressive etc)• Frequency of posts• Percentages of posts that are (a) informative (b) educational (c) interactive (d) sales

related• Where to source content from and keywords to track.e.g. Google Rader and Google

Alerts• How, and how quickly, customers’ complaints are to be responded to• When, if ever, it is acceptable to refer to business matters on a personal account and

vice versa. Is it enough for an employee to use a disclaimer stating that their views are their own?

• Infringement of copyright – what material can employees post from elsewhere?• Avoiding conflicts of interest• Rectifying mistakes• Disclosing confidential information• Not damaging the reputation of the employer or their clients, partners, and suppliers

Examples to follow:• http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html

• http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/social-networking-guidelines

http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html

http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/social-networking-guidelines


Future trends?

• Gradual move away from PCs to mobile and handheld devices as 4G network grows

• Social media increasingly used on the move

• Social media on mobile devices have location based functionality

• As a result, social media become increasingly localised e.g.Facebook mobile search results bring up local businesses

• Users are becoming increasingly wary of who they connect with and what they share online due to privacy concerns e.g. employment

• Private networks such as Yammer and Communispace will become increasingly valuable

• Google+ monopoply of search will enable them to to erode Facebook and Twitter’s domination of social


Group Exercise: Developing an integrated Strategy• What is the key objective for your campaign• Will there be a personal brand as well as a corporate brand?• Which social media platforms will you focus on, which ones will

you be avoiding?• What sort of content will you be sharing?• How will you integrate social media with other marketing

activity? • What issues need to be addressed in your staff social media

policy?

Documents

Social media for schools