By Mark Mahoney
Tweeting and FBing are common activities and well-known phrases among the “socially” in-the-know: Specifically the “social media” in-the-know. If you’re in the dark about what these terms are all about, chances are you are missing the social media craze and the many social media vehicles that are out there.
What is social media?
Social media is the latest way that people are discovering, sharing and reading information of all kinds from a broad range of sources. Social media has blended sociology and technology to transform the way people communicate and interact. Social media operates on social media networks. These are internet sites – web-based tools and services – that are designed with the purpose of helping people and companies connect and interact instantaneously and with asynchronous feedback. (Asynchronous feedback is response that happens subsequent to the original communication.) Can social media outlets help you generate leads and increase your enrollment? I believe they can.
Here, I will provide you with very basic profiles of some of the social media sites and tools available free of charge and to introduce you to ways that you can begin to use them to increase your enrollment and maintain your currently enrolled families. My hope is that I can turn your social media light on and inspire you to use social media in marketing your business.
Social media sites
Listed and described below are the most used social media sites. As of June 2009, Facebook dominated its peers – averaging 70 million users. Twitter comes in as the fastest growing – averaging 17 million users. As of October 2009, Twitter had reached 5 billion tweets.
Facebook – www.facebook.com
Briefly defined: Formatted social networking site open to anyone over 13.
How it works: Uses include status updates, photo/video sharing, event update and invitations, interactive quizzes, and search capabilities. Used to connect with members of your center and other registered businesses and utilized to reach potential members.
Twitter – www.twitter.com
Briefly defined: Micro-Blogging site that allows you to share your business news with other in 140 characters or less.
How it works: Based on the idea of “following people,” Twitter lets you search for a member and “follow” them through updates via email or text message when a new post is made.
YouTube – www.youtube.com
Briefly defined: An internet platform for posting self-made or production-quality videos.
How it works: Anyone can search and view posted videos; Logged in members can post comments about videos. Use to post examples of classroom strategies or training opportunities or to highlight events or staff accomplishments.
LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com
Briefly defined: A business-relationship connection tool that allows “A” to meet “C” through “B.”
How it works: Based on the concept of enabling introductions through common contacts. This site provides greater web presence control and outreach potential than the others mentioned.
Blogs
Briefly defined: A type of website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular — typically chronological — entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material.
How it works: Offer a platform for posting current information and including comments/responses from those who would like their perspectives to be known.
The many benefits of social media for Class-based Programs
Communication. The most obvious benefits of social media for children’s activity centers relate to word-of-mouth recommendations. Current parents and students, who have developed trust in you, want to share that experience with others. Social media platforms provide a forum for them to casually talk about you. Their spontaneous testimonials help establish trust with people you don’t know by encouraging conversations and allowing for expanded networking through your customers. These sites also help people find your program, give you tools to connect your website to conversations, and can attract visitors to your website.
Social media outlets also allow you to use the methods of communication that your customers prefer to stay current with them. Today’s young parents and students represent over 33 million who are immersed in digital media. They are fluent in blogging, texting, IMing. FBing, tweeting and emailing because technology is part of their lifestyles. Using the Internet for almost everything they do is second nature to them. They regularly use most, if not all, of the methods mentioned above to see information that is circulating about everything from shopping to schools. And they are plugged into their social media network 24/7.
Use this to your advantage by making sure that information about your program finds its way into their social media world. To speak in social media jargon: You are using “viral” marketing to get your message out. That means your message will not only spread from friend to friend, but will spread “infectiously” into your friends’ networks and into the networks of friends of your friends and so on. I think you get the picture.
Social media also can be used for emergency notifications and alerts such as facility closings or program cancellations because of illness or weather and website maintenance schedules. Think of it as an avenue to immediate visibility with your contacts.
Website promotion. A less obvious use of social media is sharing your URL. This is important because it gets your social media network involved with your website. Let’s look at using Twitter and Facebook for sharing your facility’s programs and generating leads.
Twitter.
To create a connection between your website and Twitter, suggest that your visitor follow you in the anchor text of a link, and then direct the link to your Twitter profile.
Facebook.
Share your website by using http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=(the URL for your website). When your visitors share your link on Facebook, it appears on their profile pages and on the Facebook homepages of some of your visitors’ friends.
Your center can create a Fan Page using Facebook and send your currently enrolled families there instead of joining your friend network. This allows you to maintain a professional relationship with them and to keep your circle of friends strictly limited to your actual friends.
Twitter and Facebook can add a new layer to your Internet marketing efforts by helping you lure people to your site through the networks of your friends and their friends. And they can increase your site traffic (the number of visitors to your site) if you make it easy for your users to share your site in their tweets and on their pages.
Blogs
These social media tools can seal your social media success. There are tools available to build blogs. (See comparison) Many of these are free, easy-to-use, and can help you create a very professional blog. You can also use your Facebook Fan Page as your blog.
Blogs allow you to create a virtual highway into your website that will help you establish yourself as an authority in your area. Establishing expertise is a “must” that social media gurus recommend in building your networks.
Blog tools, such as the Facebook-Twitter links, help you build bridges between your social media outlets and to your website. You can simply post news and link to resources that your readers may find valuable (such as your website). You can post articles that you have written that share your expertise.
Blog sites are separate from your website so they can contain content that you may not want to include on your site, but would like your network to have. Blogs also allow you to use interesting themes to build follower networks. This is a powerful way to develop relationships even before your readers become customers.
Sharing pictures and videos
Social media also allows you to publish pictures and videos. Facebook has an entire photo section as well as a video posting area. YouTube is probably the most widely known and posts videos so that you can immediately see what the content is. This is a great place to share videos of your events, award ceremonies or special occasions at your facility. Be sure to only post items that present your organization or program and those who are in the video in the best possible light. Once you tag your post, it will appear in search engines when people search on any of the terms you use, so put a lot of thought into your tags. Tags that are too specific will require that searchers know about you. More general terms will attract those who may need to know about you!
Professional networking
Professional networking is very important to you and LinkedIn is a great tool for becoming introduced into high-value relationships. Not only can you find professional contacts that can be valuable to your business, but you can view the contacts of your connections and ask them to make introductions for you. You can connect with media and advertising contacts, vendors, other center owners and program administrators, and others who provide products and services for your potential customers.
Creating a presence is important.
Using social media networks should be a vital part of your marketing plan, so go about it strategically, as you would any other effort that impacts your business growth.
Here are some guidelines for a Social Media Strategy:
Go at it with a plan. Decide what kind of image you want to project and how much information you want to share. You might consider sharing new program offerings, new facilities, recent event news, or upcoming activities.
Create a measure of your effectiveness. Monitor your website to see if visits jump, but benchmark your traffic prior to beginning new activity. Good information on measuring your social media activity can be found at www.ragan.com. Information about the latest on social media’s use by businesses can be found at www.businesscommunicationblog.com.
Check yourself. Anything and everything that you post will be viewed/read by someone. Anything negative will most likely reach the subject through their social network – or word-of-mouth!
Make this one person’s responsibility. You wouldn’t have multiple people overseeing payroll so don’t do it with your social media strategy either. Make sure your team agrees on the content you want out there. You can use a consistent message for multiple locations. For example, your lead person may email your Social Media Team (SMT) and ask them to post their attached content on or by a specific date. This ensures that your news breaks evenly – and consistently – across sites.
Check out the competition. Use groups and searching areas of the sites to “listen in” on your competition by viewing articles, events, awards, and new program offerings in your business sector. These sites help you learn about these things before your own customers tell you! To find items, you can search on “dance classes” or “gymnastics” in a Twitter account and bring up a vast array of “tweets” that are relative to your search term. These searches are global in nature and reach far outside of your own circle of influence. Make your search more relevant to you by including your city after your general search word. “Dance Classes in Minneapolis” for example, would result in tweets that concern any post that talks about dance classes in Minneapolis.
Be a Blogger. If you have the ability to create a Blog in your website, you can also have your SMT post news and information on it. Be sure to use key words that will help search engines find you.
Monitor results and replicate success. Regardless of how many activities you launch, monitor how they are working. Get feedback: Find out from your SMT what people are saying on posts, identify website traffic increases and track, through your registrar, how people indicate that they found out about you on the internet. Does your facility’s name show up in any new places when you search it? After a reasonable timeframe – perhaps 3-6 months – review the information you’ve collected to evaluate your social media efforts. Determine which activities you will continue based on the results that seem worth the efforts of your team. The services are free, but you don’t want your team’s valuable time to be consumed by site updates and site activities. Also make sure that your team members working for you and are not spending time
on their personal social media presences.
Make sure your social media light is on. It is really quite simple. Your customers probably have several options for getting the services that you provide. Use social media to make your facility the one that is on the tips of their tongues and the choice that is the most relevant to their lifestyles.
Learn more about all that is social media by visiting www.mashable.com – the Social Media Guide. It is a great place to get a handle on what
is available to you in the world of social media.
Author Bio
Mark Mahoney is co-founder and President of Jackrabbit Technologies where he designs, develops, implements, and supports management software for businesses that offer education to students of all ages. Jackrabbit helps its clients manage their businesses using one application that is web-based, easy to learn and use and flexible. Visit Mark at www.JackrabbitClass.com.
Jackrabbit has solutions for gymnastics, dance, cheer, dojo, swim, music and camps. Jackrabbit also provides solutions for child care centers through EZCareOnline.
