• Are you a head teacher?
• Are you active on Twitter and Facebook?

With social media impacting on so many people’s lives, to merely treat it as an afterthought could seriously damage your school’s reputation, especially if you’re looking to attract sixth form pupils.

The question is, which social media platform should you use and how should you use it?

Facebook in particular should be exploited for use as an interactive brochure or window into life at your school. So much more interesting than a prospectus! Through videos, pictures, commentary and documents you can promote your school’s:

• Exam results
• Introduce yourself and your teachers
• Show examples of your school’s teaching style
• List, describe or show what a typical day at your school might be like
• Share your students’ school experiences from trips and lessons to extra curricular activities.

You may be actively tweeting about your company or updating your company’s profile on Facebook but how many of your customers even know you exist on social media?

Unless you build your audience and direct your customers to your social media channels, you’re talking to a brick wall!

So how do you direct people to your social media activity?

This is more of an ever growing list but for an introduction here are a few suggestions:

1. Include your social media addresses in all your offline/printed marketing:
1. In Adverts in papers and magazines and on posters. Depending on the size of your advert you can include your company’s twitter account, Facebook page, phone app and QR code.
2. In mailshots – this can be done like the adverts of more as a campaign in itself where the mailshot becomes a teaser for a promotion on on of your social media channels.
3. On POS or merchandise such as bags and clothing even if displayed on something unrelated to your service or product. As this particular advertising will be aimed at people noticing them in passing it works better for easily remembered names and in particular twitter or Facebook.
4. On all company stationery such as letterheads and compliment slips.

The majority of us use social media to keep in touch with friends and family. Some of us even us it professionally. But how many of us are using it as an educational tool?

A few teachers do try to use YouTube as a way of making lessons more “fun” and to help explain topics in a more visual, engaging way but generally that is as far as it goes. Increasingly though, sites such as YouTube are being blocked by tightened school filters.

Yet social media could go a long way towards engaging with and encouraging children and young adults alike to be creative, outspoken and to more actively participate in group discussions compared to traditional classroom teaching.

So what about education specific social media?
What sites are available that won’t be blocked by your school filters?

We will be open at the following times during the Christmas period:

• Christmas Eve: Open 9.00 till 4.00
• Christmas Day: Closed
• Boxing Day : Closed
• Thursday 27 December: Closed
• Friday 28 December: 9.00 till 2.30
• New Years Eve: 9.00 till 4.00
• New Years Day: Closed
• Wednesday 2 January: open as usual

Our opening hours in the new year will be 9.00 – 6.00 weekdays

Wishing you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year! Thank you for choosing Brainstorm Digital.

As we have discussed before, you can’t dabble in social media, it is a major time commitment and now more than ever you need to continuously monitor and update your social media activities for success.

To run a successful campaign, follow this basic social media check-list:

1. Come up with compelling content
2. Create a content plan to manage posting your content
3. Be able to share it across all the relevant platforms
4. Find people to follow and connect with
5. Identify followers who could be clients or referrers and engage with them
6. Track what your competitors are doing
7. Create campaigns that will build loyalty and engagement e.g. competitions
8. Track the results of your campaign
9. Ensure social activity is coordinated with other marketing activity

It’s clear from this that to raise your social media presence and deliver the right results is a long-term process and probably needs close to full-time focus. It’s true that great social media doesn’t cost money but as highlighted above, it can cost a lot of time. We are talking about several days a month, not several hours. So what are the options?

Anyone remember the Tamagotchi? It was a small handheld digital "pet" that required constant feeding as well as attention. Failure to take care of your "pet" could lead to its unhappiness, sickness and even death. The same applies to your social media campaign. 

The question is, how much of a commitment do you need to make? The answer depends on which social media platform you are using.  If you only have 15 mins/day or less, you can limit your activity to LinkedIn. By simply keeping your profile up to date, increasing your connections and putting out a daily status update you will help attract attention. If you have a bit more time, you can raise your profile by participating in the occasional LinkedIn discussion. 

If you have more than 15 mins/day, you might consider Twitter which requires at least a few status updates each day as well as regular interaction with other users in order to build up a serious following. 

But let’s be realistic, few of us can commit to our social media campaigns on a daily basis when there are regular distractions such as meetings, conferences and clients that need attention. So instead of spending a few mins each day on social media, why not set aside a couple of days each week, where you can spend at least 30 mins planning your content? The more time you have to think through what you want to say, the better quality it will be.