When driving traffic to your website or increasing engagement on your social media platforms, one of the best strategies is to curate or collect stories of things going on at your school that corresponds to local, school-wide, national or global holidays or special calendar events.
The month of October is filled with many different events, such as:
- Are You Aware?
- National Bullying Prevention Month
- Domestic Violence Awareness Month
- Breast Cancer Awareness Month
- Custodial Staff Appreciation (2) – these individuals do the tireless, often behind-the-scenes work of keeping your campus safe, clean and helping you create a welcoming presence to campus visitors. A nice shout-out to them on social media reminds everyone to take a moment to say THANKS to these special members of your staff.
- World Smile Day (7) – have some fun with this on Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook. You can simply feature throughout the day students and staff smiling. Or you could post a contest of a super closeup of a smile and everyone has to guess who’s face it belongs to.
- National Dessert Day (14) – take a poll among your students and staff as the favorite dessert on campus; certainly invite boosters or parent fellowship organization to bring desserts up for the day; you could use the event to invite key community leaders to your campus for a lunch to raise money for local charities or even to draw attention to one of the “awareness” days mentioned in #1 (this is called “earned press coverage” – create an event that ties your school to a broader recognition or celebration and invite media and community leaders to attend to extend the PR coverage)
- Teachers’ Day (15) – certainly an ideal time to feature your faculty so that current families can brag on them to their friends!
- Bosses Day (17) – use this day to bring attention to the key leaders at your school. Create some short videos from other staff praising their bosses (such as Head of School, principals, athletic director, etc.)
- Mole Day (23) Celebrated annually on October 23 from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m., Mole Day commemorates Avogadro’s Number (6.02 x 1023), which is a basic measuring unit in chemistry. Mole Day was created as a way to foster interest in chemistry. Schools throughout the United States and around the world celebrate Mole Day with various activities related to chemistry and/or moles.
- National Chocolate Day (28) – I don’t think I have to give you any ideas on this on!
- National Cat Day (29) – if your mascot is of the feline family, this is a fun time to draw attention to that fact; also, invite faculty to snap a picture of their favorite feline pet
- Halloween (31)
- Snapchat – in the spirit of Halloween, you could draw attention to your school’s efforts in Snapchat by telling the story of Snapchat’s logo, named Ghostface Chillah (based on Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan). Ghostface Chillah a ghost to represent the “There, then gone” nature of Snapchat’s photo sending service.
- Knock-Knock Joke Day (31) – have a contest with administrators and students on who can tell the funniest knock-knock jokes – these make great short videos for Vine, Instagram, Facebook, etc.
- World Series – the Hunt for October features the Major League Baseball playoffs. Depending on the outcome of the actual World Series games, the 2016 World Series champion could be crowned in the month of October. Feature your school’s baseball team (and/or softball). Or you could invite student-athletes to do short videos about their favorite MLB player. Anytime you can talk about your unique sports program (offerings, values, achievements) and do so while really talking about something/someone else, the better! Weave your successes into the frenzy around the World Series and you will hit a homerun! 🙂
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