Private Schools Day www.iansymmonds.com @LaboeKelly Kelly Laboe - Director of Enrollment Management Consulting
> Rules of the session Interactive process - please share! Dialogue based session I am here to facilitate discussion Enjoy!
The invisible Inquiry What is the first step in inquiry into an institution for parents and students? It certainly isn t a phone call to the admissions office. Today, the inquiry is invisible as the first step for families is culling through websites and social media outlets to separate the competition among independent schools. Very few independent schools institutionally structure a social media content plan as a priority.
The Enrollment Manager s Woe Admission Directors are increasingly expected to own their institution's social media presence. In effect, they expected to be an expert in a dynamic system of providers that they invariably have received little to no training. As social media and web presence being an afterthought, institutions are often missing out on the most effective and inexpensive means of reaching a maximum number of constituents to share their unique school culture. We are living in a world where social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter are the vehicles for not only sharing but shaping the public s perception of each school s particular experience.
What we know.. The need to effectively engage readers and drive demand through social media content is a must yet many institutions leave this on the back burner. Directors of admission and enrollment management are often tasked with instantly becoming marketing professionals in a marketplace that is driven by a proliferation of new media. Although this may be an institutional challenge, content marketing through social media is a mission critical tool for driving the top of the enrollment funnel.
Here's the deal about social media from our vantage point. We have never had so many intuitive, audience-friendly, engaging, inexpensive tools available to engage our audiences before in this industry.
The truth about social media Intuitive - Come on. Social media is really easy to use. If you can run an app on your iphone, you can run a social media site. Audience-Friendly - This is where our audience is. On social media. We don't need to work so hard to find them if we become one with them. Engaging - Social media allows organizations to stop promotion and start engagement. Our audiences are tired and skeptical about promotion. Inexpensive - Social media is cheap. Really cheap compared to the print and advertising alternative.
It is all about content Don t confuse activity with meaning - social media marketing must be: Consistent - No matter what tools your school uses, let's make sure that you are being consistent in all media the messages that you want to convey. Volvo is not just about "safety" in some materials and not in others. Integrated - All marketing communication strategies need to be integrated so that the tools in a system work in concert. Effective - What are you really trying to communicate? Make sure that the key message is crystal clear. "What" is conveyed in a viral video should be the same message in a website or print media. It is the "how" that message is conveyed that is different.
How to get started - three foundational steps Choose a Position or Area of Focus. This is an all important task as it will define your content for the future. Pick something that is in line with the mission of your organization and of relevance to target audiences. Develop Mature Channels of Distribution. You must have a "hub", which is generally a blog or website, with many "hooks" to drive readership to the site. Our website here uses Facebook and Twitter, as well as our own client collaboration platform, to drive people to our blog site. Generate Content Consistently. A strong content marketing effort relies on content. If your organization cannot produce dynamic content consistently, you may want to revisit whether this strategy is right for your toolbox. Nothing is worse than going to a static website with blog entries that are old.
Content marketing is focused on the client and culture rather than on the organization. Think of content marketing as the creation of a digital commons that advances the thinking on a particular topic in line naturally with the mission of an organization.
Wrapping Up It's pretty simple. Social media offers a great new set of tools that we all need to embrace at a foundational level. Content marketing can serve as a highly effective tool to drive demand into the institution if it is approached carefully with relevant content generated, strong readership cultivated, and audience engagement achieved.
Kelly Laboe Director of Enrollment Management Consulting www.iansymmonds.com - @LaboeKelly - KBLaboe@gmail.com