We are now on Instagram! I have used it personally and debated on whether or not I should use it for sharing school marketing ideas since we already do that on Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and our Facebook page. But after listening to a podcast from Social Media Examiner about Instagram, I was convinced this was a space we needed to be in!
Admittedly, I am still in the process of determining my social strategy for Instagram (if you do not have a strategy, you should sign up for our free webinars in September that will tackle the issue of social media strategy). Currently, I am posting inspirational quotes, marketing ideas, visual action items that encourage you to go to an external link (I so wish we could hyperlink the links in the descriptions) . . . but I also figured it would be a place to share with you pictures of my 4 kids and my Yorkie named Hunter Thunder.
Here is Hunter’s first appearance: (more…)
I am writing this post from the airplane.
Perhaps not significantly noteworthy since much of today’s content is created on the fly (on a mobile device or literally in the air). What makes this post unique is that I am writing as I return from a 11-day mission trip to Africa (yes, the picture above is from my window seat at some point in my international flight). You can learn a lot about yourself in 11 days.
Admittedly I do not like to be away from social media for that long. I miss posting useful school marketing tips on our website’s blog. I did not peek into Facebook for over a week (I do confess to have scheduled a number of school marketing updates via our Facebook page because I do not believe that just because I am away does not mean our followers are). And yes, I did make a conscious effort to advance schedule daily tweets so I could keep my Twitter audience fed with practical school marketing content even during my hiatus (I hope you found it helpful!) As many social junkies do, I confess that as soon as I had access to WiFi, I was “all-in”, opening multiple apps open on my iPhone in order to reconnect (email, texting, Facebook and Twitter at a minimum). I think my flurry of social frenzy is also evidence of a bigger problem and perhaps yours, too.
We all have too many apps open, more than enough irons in our social media fire, and way too many tabs open. I am not talking about how we behave on our mobile devices or 13″ desktop computers. I am convicted that this is just a pervasive problem in our lives in general. Metaphorically, our batteries are draining.
Perhaps I will write more another time about what I did on my mission trip to Benin, West Africa (it’s not my first trip there – my family actually worked as missionaries for almost 10 years in that country). I already recorded an audio memo on my phone in my Africa hotel room that I hope to soon share via our school marketing podcast. But similar to New Year’s resolutions, as many of you do, I look for vacations, sabbaticals and mission trips to refocus, renew and restart.
As the new school year launches, I join you in looking for ways to trim off the excess in our lives, eliminate the incessant “busy” excuse, and to pour more into the lives of others. Here are 3 ways I commit to doing this in my life: (more…)
As private and Christian school marketing consultants, we get many of the same questions about how to increase enrollment, how to improve word-of-mouth marketing, and a lot of questions about using social media for schools.
Probably one of the most common questions we get is:
“What kind of things should we post on our school’s Facebook page?”
The answer I give them can also apply to other social platforms, especially your school’s blog, Twitter and Pinterest. (more…)
WHDH-TV 7News Boston Bernie Zak believes his Twitter campaign (using hashtag #ACCEPTBERNIEUCLA) helped him get into UCLA,the dream choice of colleges for this senior of Brooklyn High School. UCLA officials say not so much. Regardless if Zak’s social efforts had any real impact on UCLA’s decision, the university says they were aware of his tweets (he scheduled a 50-tweet blitz but after only 18, he received his acceptance notification from the Bruins). This is yet another example of how your students are taking to social media to do things that we never did at their age. Here are 5 questions you should ask: (more…)
Parent to complaining to another parent: “I just didn’t think we mattered to that school. My kids never showed up on the Facebook page nor anywhere on the website. They were not the top athlete, the 4.0 scholar, nor the best in theater. It seemed like it was always the same “pretty people” kids that got their pictures taken. I just got tired and transferred to nearby school where we feel just as important as everyone else.”
This was what one parent told me at a private school last year in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She regretted leaving the previous school because she had graduated from high school from that same school). But her pain and frustration was real. (more…)
As private and Christian school marketing consultants, we get many of the same questions about how to increase enrollment, how to improve word-of-mouth marketing, and a lot of questions about using social media for schools.
Probably one of the most common questions we get is:
“What kind of things should we post on our school’s Facebook page?”
The answer I give them can also apply to other social platforms, especially your school’s blog, Twitter and Pinterest. (more…)
