1. How to Expand Your
School’s Online Reach
using Social Media

2. What is the Internet Anyway?
Clip from Today Show 1994
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?
v=JUs7iG1mNjI&vq=medium#t=34

3. Do you have a school website now?
Did you have a website 5 years ago?
Do you have a school
Facebook/Twitter?

4. Traditional Marketing

5. Today’s Marketing
WORDPRESS

6. “For the last 50 years, companies used large
amounts of money to efficiently interrupt
their way into businesses and consumer’s
wallets using outbound marketing
techniques.
The outbound marketing era is over. The next
50 years will be the era of inbound
marketing.”
Halligan, Shah and Scott, Inbound
Marketing: Get Found Using Google,
Social Media and Blogs

7. What’s different today?
 The places we advertise
 The world wide web
 The desire for authenticity
 The power of referral in an online world
 The world of social media
 The need to be in a conversation
 The importance of creating remarkable content

8. Some School Marketing Observations
 We often take a shotgun approach to
marketing.
 We have a plan for improving our school
but don’t have a marketing and social
media plan for growth.
 School brand and website looks like it
was created by the previous
administrator at your school
 Schools are afraid of jumping into social
media outlets

9. What are the top two
ways that parents
find out about your
school?

10. Top Two Sources
n Word-of-Mouth - Consistently
ranks as the number one way
families hear about your school.
n Online- The first place a parent
looks when they hear about your
school.

11. Website
First let’s visit your website . . .

12. Website
 A Tool … Your website is your most
important marketing and communication
tool for your school.
 Prospective parents … will research
schools first online and continually go back
for more information.
 First Impression … It is critical for your
school to have a first-class website and an
online presence!

13. Key Elements of Website Design
 Brand—It is important to convey a strong
brand for your school—including your logo,
colors, and tagline.
 Photos—Large, professional photos on the
home page will draw the visitor to your
school.
 Content—Dynamic content and a
compelling message is important to keep
users returning to your school’s website.

15. Social Media
Next, let’s visit social media
outlets for your school . . .

16. Publish Everywhere
 Website*
 Blog*
 Facebook*
 Twitter*
 LinkedIn
 YouTube*
 Most important areas for schools
© 2010 Cherry+Company

17. Why Schools Should Use Social Media
 Cost effective
 Easily accessible
 Computer via the Internet
 Mobile devices (i.e. cell phones)
 Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants
 Everyone seems to be using social media, so why not tap into
this resource?
 Control
 You determine amount and types of information disseminated
– don’t have to wait for an article to come out

18. Why Use Social Media?
 Reaches different audiences
 Encourages participation, conversation
 Builds new connections (possible donors?)
 Provides more ways to tell your story
 Serves as early warning system
 Fuels word-of-mouth, viral PR
 If you don’t, someone else will (referral search)

19. What should you communicate?
 Events
 School Closings
 Meetings
 Live scores/updates from athletic contests
 Weather
 Emergency information
 Student honors
 Staff accomplishments
 Direct traffic to your website and/or other media outlets
 Generate donations for special events

20. The Tools

21.  Microblogging
 Enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to
140 characters known as “tweets”.
 Link to cell phone
 You can use Twitter to notify your followers of new blog posts
or Facebook updates.
 To create an account, go to www.twitter.com/signup and fill
out the online form.
 Tweet once per day!

23.  http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2012/01/twitter-hashtags-for-independ
by Brendan Schneider
 #ismarketing –issues related to all things marketing at independent schools including
SEO, inbound marketing, etc…
 #isadmission –issues related to all things specific to the admission process at
independent schools.
 #isfinaid –issues related to all things specific to the financial aid process at independent
schools.
 #isalumni –issues related to all things specific to alumni offices at independent schools.
 #isfundraising –issues related to all things specific to fund raising and development at
independent schools.
 #isedchat - topics related to independent school teaching, learning, and sharing.
 #indyschool –general issues related to independent schools not covered by the above
hashtags.
 #isathletics –topics related to all this specific to independent school athletics.

24. Blog
 “A website usually maintained by an individual with regular
entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material
such as graphics or video.”
 Wikipedia
 “A blog is just a website. But it’s a special kind of site that is
created and monitored by a person who is passionate about a
subject and wants to tell the world about his or her area of
expertise.”
 David Scott, The New Rules of Marketing and PR

25. Pi
Blogs
 Typically posted on your school’s website and may contain
categories such as Alumni, Parents, Events, etc.
 Use the Alumni category of your blog to build your online
community and interest among your alumni.
 Feature “Then and Now” articles on prominent alumni.
 Discuss accomplishments of your current students and successes
of your school.- Post video once per week. People want to be a
part of a winning team
 Promote social events among alumni.
 Inform them of upcoming fundraising campaigns and how
you are investing their gifts to improve the school.
 Then update your Facebook fan page with links to each

26. Blogging Drives Web Visits

28. WORDPRESS Pi
WordPress
 WordPress is the largest self-hosted blogging tool and
publishing platform in the world - FREE
 Features include:
 Search engine-friendly structure
 Comment management
 Spam protection
 Full user registration system
 Many website content management solutions have built in
blog functionality. Check with your webmaster.
 To download WordPress, go to www.wordpress.org

29. Pi
Flickr
 Flickr is an online photo-sharing tool owned by Yahoo! with 51
million registered members and 6 billion hosted images.
 The service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they
imbed in blogs and social media.
 Features include:
 Enables users to upload, tag and comment on their photos and other
users photos.
 Provides the ability to search photo tags and display the images.
 To download, go to www.flickr.com/signup, where you will
first be prompted to create a Yahoo! account or log into an
account that you already have.
 Invest in Flickr Pro for $25.

31. Facebook
 Facebook can be used to connect with alumni, parents and
friends of your school. Facebook is the world’s leading social
networking site, with more than 750 million active users.
Approximately 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any
given day.
 Your Facebook “Fan” page will serve as the foundation of
your alumni’s online community.
 WordPress, Flickr and YouTube create or store content that is
linked to the Facebook page, and Twitter directs traffic to the
Facebook page.
 The goal of the page is to encourage your online community
to interact with one another and remain connected and
invested in your school.

32. Pi
Facebook continued . . .
 To create a Facebook “Fan” page:
 Go to www.facebook.com/pages.
 Select “+ Create Page”.
 Select Local Business of Place.
 Choose a category of Education and fill out the fields provided.
 For your Facebook Page name, spell out the complete name of
your school to optimize search engine results.
 If you are going to have a unique page for alumni, append the
school name with “alumni”.
 You cannot change the name of your Facebook Page later, so
make sure that you do it right the first time.

33. Facebook
Facebook is currently the leading social media site worldwide.
 Began in 2004 and has grown exponentially the last eight years
 More than 750 million active users
 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
 Average user has 130 friends
 Average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events
 Average user creates 70 pieces of contact each month
 More than 100 million active users currently access Facebook
through their mobile devices

35. Edge Rank in Facebook
 Your Facebook page is ranked just like your website using
Edge Rank. Make sure it carries a lot of weight.
 Videos, photos and links carry the most weight. Text
updates have the lowest weight.
 Upload videos directly to Facebook rather than just
uploading to You Tube.
 Post photos of an album of a gala for instance. Ask people
to share, comment and tag themselves in the photos.
 Links are lightest in terms of weight when looking at FB
Edge Rank. With Weight – comments rank highest, then
likes then reshares.

36. Edge Rank in Facebook
 Time Decay – amount of time that has passed between
when you posted and last time someone commented on
post. Fresh and frequent content are heavy players as to
when your post is seen.
 How often to post? Studies show 3 times per day. Keep
your stories fresh in people’s minds. The shelf life (or half
life) of your post is about 3 -5 hours. Post different times of
the day – morning, noon, afternoon.
 Some schedule posts in HootSuite, but Facebook docs
those kinds of 3rd party applications – not good practice. Go
directly to FB to post. Don’t schedule and go if you want to
boost your EdgeRank.

37. How to Boost your Facebook Ranking?
 Give clear calls to action. “Happy Birthday to our Founder –
Can anyone guess how old he would be if he were around
today?”
 Clearly ask people to re share information.
 Content Rules suggests using Google Alerts to receive
notifications when Google finds your school’s name in a
new news story or blog post – then share!

38. Pi
YouTube
 You Tube is the World’s most popular and highly visited
online video community, 3 billion user views per day – 2nd
biggest search engine.
 It provides a free service that allows you to easily post, edit
and store video on your “YouTube Channel”.
 You can then link the video to your website, blog or
Facebook account.
 To create a YouTube Channel, go to
www.youtube.com/create_account.
 The username you select will become your YouTube vanity
URL, such as www.youtube.com/yourschoolname.
 It cannot be changed in the future so reserve wisely!

39. YouTube
 Share school accomplishments, retreat/trip updates
 Showcase student work, events, athletics
 For videos larger than 10 minutes, use Vimeo (also free)
 You don’t have to spend a lot of money producing a
professional video! People don’t expect it today. Content is
more important than polish with the younger generation.
 Link below describes how to feature your school’s video
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug1dnlVEz5Y&feature=youtu.be

40. YouTube
 Use key words in the description of video
 To boost views – key words such as boarding schools,
financial aid, private school, etc.
 Make use of tags. You Tube takes tags into account in its
ranking. Map location and date stamp your video. Google
YouTube key words – shows how often those key words are
used in searches! Can also use Google Key Words tool. Do
this anytime you post something on You Tube.
 Don’t forget to link video back to your website. Link FROM
your web site as well pointing back to that You Tube page.
Attaches search authority and builds momentum around
viewership for your content.
 www.edsocialmedia.com

42. Best Practices for Schools
 Keep your dialogue professional
 Remember your role within the school community
 Think before you post to the internet (Digital footprint)
 Inform stakeholders on how you will utilize social media
 Update regularly (time well spent)

43. Prepare Parents for Social Media
 Let parents know in writing that you will be communication via
Twitter and Facebook
 Give them detailed instructions on how to setup Twitter and
Facebook accounts

44. How Do You Track you ROI for Marketing
With Social Media?
“Return on investment (ROI) helps
tremendously as we share what we’re doing
with supervisors and as we evaluate our
own time and manpower. After all, social
media is one more thing on our plates; it
had better be worth something.”
http://lorriej.wordpress.com/

45. ROI – Recruiting Students
 Recruiting Students:
2. What are the referring sites – how did
prospective parents find your site? Google
Analytics will help
3. Ask them – have you visited our Facebook?
What did you think?
http://lorriej.wordpress.com/

46. ROI – Retaining Students
1. Look at Page Insights – total visits, users
by gender, age group, city – page
interactions
2. Consider total membership (total followers,
subscribers, group members)
http://lorriej.wordpress.com/

47. ROI – Retaining Students, cont.
Encourage Participation!
 Create a hashtag for your most popular sports team
(#goABCLionsFootball) and ask folks to retweet wins and
other messages during the season.
 Create a cool Facebook profile picture with the auction logo
and ask folks to donate their profile picture for a given week/
month to the auction to help promote it.
 Ask a direct question on Facebook such as, “Name a favorite
teacher past or present and how he or she made a difference
in your life”
http://lorriej.wordpress.com/

48. ROI – When Raising Money
 Promote on Facebook, track in your database.
Schools are getting new donors, young alumni who have
never given, through fund-raising promotions on Facebook.
Use Facebook to publicize your Annual Fund, Capital
Campaign, and link folks back to online donation forms on
your school’s Web site.
 Make giving online unique.
Create unique e-mail addresses (
annualfund@abcacademy.org) to track giving from online
sources. Use URLs on Facebook, Linkedin, etc. that are
unique to these sites: www.abcacademy.org/annualfund.
Then track giving rates to these e-mails or URLs and compare
to giving rates elsewhere.
http://lorriej.wordpress.com/

49. Social Media
How can an online presence
make your staff’s jobs easier?

50. How to make staff’s jobs easier
 Use a Professional Content Management
Company and/or website design
 Online Applications to streamline
admissions process
 Direct interface with your SMS – eliminate
duplicate entry!

51. Content Management Systems (CMS)
Advantages of using content mgt. company such as
School Site:
 Establishes consistency and uniformity in site
design
 Easy for the end user to upload and edit content
and photos
 You don’t have to be a web programmer to make
changes to your site
 Flexibility for making navigational changes to the
system
 Data integration with SMS

52. Website Integration with your SMS
 One point of entry for both Parents Web and School
Website
 Online Applications which populate student
database
 Online new family inquiries which populate student
database
 Lunch menus
 Staff directory information from school database
 Calendar
 Announcements
 Donate Online

53. Benefits of Data Integration with SMS
 Paper application process is going away
 Put forth a professional front with online inquiry and
application containing school’s brand
 Integrate it with your SMS to reduce data entry of
applications
 Market to your prospects immediately!
 Simplifies completion of the application process for
parents, resulting in more submitted applications
and higher enrollments.
 Provides enhanced Admissions process tracking
and funnel reporting – including dynamic email lists.

54. Online Application -Integrated Request
Information Form
Request Information
page allows parents that
are not ready to submit an
application to contact the
school.
Configurable form allows
school to select the
information and data to
collect, including Student
Interests and Current
School drawing upon User
Defined lists in RenWeb.
Submission of form
generates a configurable
thank you email to parent.

55. Online Application -Parents Receive
Completion Status Feedback
Parents receive feedback
on the status of completed
forms.
Green check marks
indicate all required fields
are completed.
Yellow caution signs
indicate required fields
have not been completed.
Left Menu displays for
parents where they are in
the application process.

56. Online Donations
 Donate Online is a tool that allows you to configure
a micro-website or add a link to your existing
website which allows individuals to donate to your
school.
 Add Home Page details & graphics
 Create unique web pages that provide campaign
details & graphics
 Tie the campaigns displayed on your website to
campaigns & efforts in your donor fundraising
software.

58. What to Watch for in the Near Future
 Google + -
http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2011/08/google-in-schools-som
 Pinterest
 Pinterest draws more visitors to company
websites than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn
combined.
 Article: Why Schools Should Be Jumping on the Pinterest B
 Pinterest: What’s in it for You?

59. What to Watch for in the Near Future

60. Summary
 Outbound Marketing Techniques – no longer effective
 Publish your school everywhere starting with website
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
 Your online presence should be a living breathing “hub”
allowing interaction with parents/prospects and the school, not
just a “static brochureware website”
 Make your staff’s jobs easier with a Content Management
Service for website and Online Applications and Online
Donations with SMS integration.
 COMPETE in today’s private school market with an online
presence – build brand awareness among current families
and prospective families.

61. Suggested Reading
Excellent resource on
how to get found by
using Google, Social
Media and Blogs
Also see:
www.hubspot.com for
many online resources
including webinars and
presentations
© 2010 Cherry+Company

62. Pi
Suggested Reading

63. RenWeb School Management Software
 ForRenWeb information or
copies of this presentation:
Kim Conner
214-215-7715 – cell
325-672-3550 – office
kconner@renweb.com