An introduction to how and why childminders can use social media, with a look at Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and blogging.
This presentation was made to the Devon Association of Childminders in October 2014.
1. Social Media for
Childminders
Joanna Bowery
Cosmic Frog Marketing & PR
E: joanna@cosmic-frog.com
W: www.cosmic-frog.com
T: 07779 991509
2. Session Summary
• Why do you need social media?
• Which platforms?
• What to post?
• When and how often should you post?
• Safety considerations
3. Why do you need social media?
• Promote your business to new parents
• Keep in touch with existing parents
• Network with other childcare providers
• Generate and share ideas
• Establish yourself as a trusted expert in childcare
• Drive traffic to your website and phone call and email
enquiries
4. What is
Facebook?
• Biggest social media platform
• Around half the UK population
has a Facebook account - biggest
demographic (26%) 25-34 year
olds
• Profile? Page? Group?
5. Why use a Facebook page?
• Your public childminding profile
• People can just follow you and receive updates - they don’t have
to request to be a ‘friend’ or join your ‘group’
• Ideal for raising awareness and generating interest
• You can have multiple administrators
• Insights give your information about how people are interacting
with the page
6. What to post on your Facebook
page?
• Share content about childcare from other sources
• Update followers with information about what you’ve been
doing (with photos*)
• Ask questions and generate discussion to improve engagement
• Post news and blog posts
7. Why use a Facebook group?
• Can be closed or private - you control membership
• Great for developing a sense of community
• Easy way of keeping in touch with parents
• Good for sharing best practice and resources with
other childcare providers
8. What to post in your Facebook
group?
• More personal updates including photos
• Let parents know about your plans
• Ask questions / run a poll
• Encourage group members to get to know each other
• Social events
9. What is Pinterest?
• Pinterest is a digital pinboard or scrap book where you can post
and find the things you love.
• More than 2m UK users (July 2013)
• 70% of users are female
• Brilliant for driving traffic to your website
10. Why use Pinterest?
• Great for linking back to your website or blog
• Shows current and prospective parents what you get
up to
• Helps you share best practice
• Non-salesy way of communicating with target
demographic
11. What to post on
Pinterest?
• Craft activities
• Seasonal activities
• Learning activities
• Cooking activities / healthy food
ideas
• Anything else of interest - nursery
decor etc
12. What is Twitter?
• Micro-blogging platform - 140 characters or less
• 10m UK users (May 2012)
• 2/3 Twitter users are aged 34 and under
• Even male/female split (29%/51%)
• 82% users access content from mobile device
13. Why use Twitter?
• Let your followers know what you are up to
• Promote your business and drive traffic to your website
• Build a community - especially through using hashtags
• Find out what others are up to - Twitter is a great ‘listening’ tool
• Keep up to date with industry news
14. What to post on Twitter?
• Share local and childcare news, opinion and best practice (you
can use hashtags such as #childminder)
• Rule of around 4 shared posts vs 1 original post
• Promote your services in local awareness hours such as
#Devonhour
• Share updates on activities, the weather, what’s for tea... (and add
photos)
15. What is a blog?
• A blog is a frequently updated journal
• Place to share your news, thoughts and
ideas
• Ideal post length is 500-700 words
16. Why blog?
• Fresh content means people will visit your website more
frequently.
• Higher search engine ranking - Google likes frequently updated,
quality content and ranks it higher
• More content to add to your other social media platforms
• More opportunity to be seen as a trusted expert
17. What should I blog about?
• News - awards, Ofsted report, fundraising etc
• Your own continued professional development (CPD). What
courses or conferences have you been on and what did you
learn? Why not blog about your experiences today?
• Latest resources
• Anything of interest to parents
18. When and how often to
post?
• When you have time!
• Quality and consistency better than stops and starts
• Use scheduling tools (Facebook scheduler / Hootsuite etc)
• Don’t try and do everything - pick and choose based on who
you are targetting, what you want to say, and what you want to
achieve
19. Promoting your social media
presence
• Include links or the logo of your social media on everything you
send out (email signature, bills, letters etc)
• Like or follow people or organisations of interest and share and
comment on their content
• Encourage people to share your content
20. Safety
• Make sure you have a social media policy and share it with
parents. (If group - ensure parents are made aware that they
cannot share photos of other children - just their own)
• Photographs
• Never disclose privileged or confidential information
• Keep your personal accounts separate