13 October Content Ideas to Drive Traffic & Increase Engagement

13 October Content Ideas to Drive Traffic & Increase Engagement

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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9 Things to Keep Your School Volunteers Happy

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I admit that my possibly offensive title probably sounds like I think volunteers are a nuisance.  Actually, the point of this article is to help you find practical ways to involve school volunteers who are always asking, “how can I help?”

First of all, while volunteers are a blessing, they come with conditions.  It cannot be denied that volunteers on your marketing team operate differently than paid staff or outsourced consultants.  Administrative officials and hired contractors work for results which are often tied to how much money they make or how long they keep their job.  It’s one reason to consider NOT assigning critical, timely marketing tasks to volunteers.  While they may indicate a willingness and eagerness to help, they MAY not operate with the same sense of urgency you have.  Nor may they offer the same level of excellence you would demand of an employee or contractor.  You want to have the freedom to dislike their work without feeling like you are going to offend them and run them off from volunteering ever again (or worse, writing a bad review about your school . . . uh, see #7 below).  You want to be able to “fire” them if they do not perform.  But how do you fire a non-paid volunteer?

So what jobs can you create for your eager beavers?  Here are 7 ideas your school volunteers can do from any computer or mobile device: (more…)

Enlarge your school’s marketing army with this little secret

While Twitter and especially Instagram occupy the mobile devices of most of your young students and young families, most Christian school marketers still need to reach their audience through the most common network: Facebook.

Of course if you are at all familiar with Facebook, you know their algorithm changes often and lately, your posts are definitely not reaching 100% of the people who have liked your page. If you’re an admin of your Facebook Page, you probably see your actual reach significantly lower than the number of likes on your page. Discouraging, but reality. (On a side note, consider increasing high quality, shareable, remarkable content that your audience will like, comment and share. If you are not getting this “triple play” on your posts, then consider changing up your content. In addition, boosting your posts will help also help extend the reach of your posts. You can set a budget and this can work well – not for every post, but on some important ones.)

Enlarge your Christian school's marketing army with this little secret

One trick I suggest is to form a secret Facebook group (that’s Facebook’s language, not mine…click here to learn about the different types of groups  you can set up). When you set your group as “secret”:

  • Anyone can be added but they have to be added or invited by a member
  • Only current members can see who is in the group
  • Only current members can see what is posted in the group
  • Current members can get notifications when something is posted in group

Using a secret Facebook group for marketing your school

  • As the admissions/marketing/communication director, you (and you alone) should invite specific staff members or parent ambassadors to join this secret Facebook group. Invite a small group at first, so you can see how it works. Start small with trusted parents and staff who can be trusted.
  • Now, whenever your school’s Facebook page posts something, you should go to the group and make a posting about the new content. Encourage the group members to like, comment and share the new post that your school’s page just posted (if necessary, include the link to the post). Since the Facebook algorithm limits your reach, this ensures that your best ambassadors see the content.
  • Group members receive notifications for every group post (and these notifications serve as reminders, even a day or two later, to take action).
  • Not just on Facebook, but when there is a new review on GreatSchools.org, something new on Twitter or Instagram, you can alert your members to share the content. You can also send urgent notifications when there is a negative review on your Google page, hopefully spurring members to write a review themselves or call out to their cavalry of friends to post positive reviews (on GreatSchools.org, they are currently listing the latest 10 reviews, so you want to be diligent to get that negative review pushed to page 2 as quickly as possible; or at least pushed way down the page where it gets “lost” among so many positive reviews).
  • You can also use your Facebook group to alert members of other marketing-related activities….for example, signups for video testimony day (which I suggest you do).
  • As well, members of the group can post content or ask questions of the group (and while the discussion shows up in your news feed, it is not visible on anyone else’s feed). Perhaps an ambassador parent hears another mom at Starbucks talking about a great success story, then the members can alert the professional staff to contact that family to share their story on a video or in a new blog post. Or a parent sees a good article elsewhere on the web that would help your school marketing. If members wanted to collectively brainstorm about a new marketing campaign, this secret group would provide an easy forum for sharing without having to assemble the group in person (who’s got time for another meeting?)

Setting up a secret Facebook group of your school’s marketing professionals and parent ambassadors can give you a marketing army who can help you market your school even better!

-Randy

If you want to discuss this idea further with me, please sign up for a free 30-minute phone consultation and let’s talk about how this can help you!

BONUS: Here’s a more lengthy article on how to set up the secret group (with step-by-step instructions and screenshots…although they may be outdated since FB changes so often): http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-secret-facebook-groups-to-enhance-your-business/

@AISAPinfo Annual Institute: My 14 Favorite Fun Facts about Fort Worth

@AISAPinfo Annual Institute: My 14 Favorite Fun Facts about Fort Worth

I am excited to welcome AISAP members to my town of Fort Worth, Texas!  I am honored to be on this year’s Faculty and I will be teaching along some other amazing school marketing leaders. You can read more about the Faculty here. I would love to see you in my MarCom class called, “Why You Should Be using Pinterest and Instagram to Market Your School”.  Here’s more of what you will learn in my class:

Visual content matters in a cluttered social media world.  Instagram and Pinterest are two exciting platforms that not enough schools are using to market themselves to prospective families.  Both of these platforms are also perfectly suited to cultivate a strong loyal ambassadorship among current families, but their power to connect with prospective students and their parents is not being harnessed by schools.  In this session, you will learn why these two platforms are unique for reaching your target audience and creative and practical suggestions on the type of content that you should post in each platform.  Even though you are already busy enough with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you will also learn the tools that successful schools use to incorporate Pinterest and Instagram into your marketing system of recruiting, retention and referrals.

I call Fort Worth home now and have for pretty much the last 25 years. It’s a great city – here a few of my favorite fun facts about Fort Worth:

  1. NOT DALLAS – it’s a longtime rivalry between the two neighboring cities that make up the DFW metro area. But Fort Worth folks do not like it when out-of-towners lump us all into one big city. When you are coming to the AISAP 2016 Annual Institute, you are coming to Fort Worth, not Dallas (said with a little wink and a lot of swagger). I grew up out in West Texas but spent holidays and summers visiting my grandparents not too far from The Worthington Hotel where the conference will be this year. He used to tell me stories of how the mayor of Fort Worth would take a sack lunch from home when having to have meetings in Dallas because he didn’t want to “put any good Fort Worth money in Dallas county!” That’s rivalry!
  2. WE WERE ONCE A REAL FORT – the U.S. War Department established Fort Worth in 1849 as the northernmost of a system of forts for protecting the American Frontier after the end of the Mexican–American War. The City of Fort Worth continues to be known as “where the West begins.” After the Mexican–American War In January 1849, U.S. Army General William Jenkins Worth, a veteran of the Mexican–American War, proposed building ten forts to mark and protect the west Texas frontier. After his death, his successor was assigned to find a new fort site near the confluence of the West and Clear Forks. On 6 June 1849, General Arnold established a post on the banks of the Trinity and named it Camp Worth in honor of the late General Worth. In August 1849, Arnold moved the camp to a north-facing bluff that overlooked the mouth of the Clear Fork. The US War Department officially granted the name “Fort Worth” to the post on 14 November 1849.
  3. COLLEGE SPORTS – in college football, the BIG 12 is one of the best conferences and Fort Worth is home to the Fightin’ Frogs of TCU (that’s “horned frogs”, not just regular little Kermits. Here’s how TCU describes their mascot).
  4. PRO SPORTS – admittedly, Dallas has the Stars in Hockey and the Mavericks in the NBA. But since Fort Worth is the county seat of Tarrant County, we like to lay claim to the NFL great Dallas Cowboys and one of the greatest teams in the MLB, the Texas Rangers. Both the Cowboys and Rangers play their home games in Arlington, which is another great city in Tarrant (not Dallas) county. Another braggin’ right!
  5. GOLF CARTS AND FAST CARS – Fort Worth also hosts the annual Colonial golf tournament and north Fort Worth is where you can find the Texas Motor Speedway, one of the largest NASCAR racing facilities in the nation!
  6. BETTER DOWNTOWN THAN BIG D – I continue my defense of Fort Worth by stating the obvious to anyone who lives in the DFW area: Fort Worth’s downtown experience is far above that of Dallas! I’m sure there are varying opinions from locals, but while I lock my doors in Dallas, I gladly take my family out walking around the amazing open air downtown experience in Fort Worth’s Sundance Square.
  7. NO BOOTS – while Fort Worth is know as “Cowtown”, not everyone wears boots and belt buckles. At risk of being kicked out of town, I admit I do not currently own a pair of boots. But if I was going to own a pair (like I did when I was younger), I would own a pair of Justin boots, made right here in Fort Worth, Texas!
  8. MONEY IS MADE HERE – even though the economy is great in Fort Worth, I am actually literally referring to the. U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth where  60 percent of America’s paper money is printed. The only other place money is printed is in Washington, D.C.
  9. COWBOY & CATTLE CULTURE – while Fort Worth is a cosmopolitan city, there is a lot of cowboy and cattle culture around. Fort Worth is home to the oldest stock show and rodeo in the country – the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show (our family attends every year!) Fort Worth also hosts the world’s only twice-daily cattle drive in the Stockyards National Historic District.
  10. TRADE IN THE BOOTS – Fort Worth is home of the Cowtown Marathon, Ultra Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K and 10K events. The Marathon and Ultra are both Boston Marathon qualifying events. As a matter of fact, Fort Worth’s Cowtown Marathon is the largest multiple-distance event in Texas.
  11. JFK – President John F. Kennedy delivered his last public speech at a Fort Worth Chamber breakfast before leaving for Dallas, where he was later assassinated that day in 1963.
  12. MUSING OVER MUSEUMS – if you have the time to visit any of them, Fort Worth is frequently called, “the museum capital of the Southwest.” There are dozens of galleries and museums around the area, but within walking distance of downtown and The Worthington Hotel you can find 5 major cultural museums: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth Museum of Science and History and National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame.
  13. STRAIT COWTOWN SONG – American’s “King of Country Music”, George Strait, rose to stardom in the early 1980s. Especially notable on his rise was the release of his wildly popular 1984 hit, “Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind.”
  14. FOOD – it’s hard to pin down my favorite but Fort Worth is well known for its amazing taste in Tex Mex food, great bakeries (a friend of mine owns the Swiss Pastry Shop which sells its world renown Black Forest Cake) and recently was named by readers of Conde Nast Traveler as one of the Top 10 Burger Cities in America (Fort Worth is #6 and the top-rated city in Texas for burgers!)

Can’t wait to meet you in Fort Worth!

~ Randy Vaughn, School Marketing Consultant, @schoolmktg

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