As a parent looking for a new school for my child, there are two places I usually check -the school’s website and Instagram page. You can gather a lot of information from these two. I personally love to check Instagram because the pictures say what words can’t.
Recently, I was at an event where a school owner talked about how she gained new students after their parents visit to their Instagram page. So, let’s ask some basic questions;
Do you have a website?
Do you have an Instagram handle?
Do you have a Facebook account?
Even if you don’t have a website, start with Instagram or Facebook. There are over 100 million people in Nigeria on Instagram. Your potential customers are most likely on Instagram. Its free and doesn’t need any technical expertise to set up.
Here are few tips on how to use Instagram to increase school enrolment:
- Your school’s account bio must state clearly the uniqueness of your school. This is a place to sell yourself with a few words.
- Content is key -have different contents and themes for each day of the week you post -funny, humour, educational, inspirational and of course pictures and videos that showcase the beauty and value of your school.
- Decide on the colour theme and layout of your page. The look and feel of your post should align with School colours (don’t forget to ensure your logos are on all your posts).
- Before inviting people to follow you, ensure you have at least 6 to 9 post, so they have something to see when they get to your handle.
- Build initial followers by encouraging parents, teachers and friends to follow. Send messages to people on your contact list to follow your page.
- Ensure you post at least thrice a daily. Best times to post are 6-1am, 12-1pm and 5-7pm.
- Use hashtags for each of your post e.g. #school name, #events tittle, etc.
- Hype achievement of your school and students, post school trips, extracurricular activities.
- Videos are more engaging than pictures and tend to get more likes and comments. It is important that you post only good quality videos and pictures.
- Instagram is a social platform so your relationship can not be one side. You need to follow back but make sure your followers are way more than those you are following.
- Like and comment on your followers’ posts to active engagement (remember reciprocity is key to building engagements and growing your number of followers).
- Comments are king on Instagram. So be sure to like and respond to comments on your posts.
- Encourage followers to like your post, comment on your post and share your post within their networks.
- Engage your followers through contest, quizzes and giveaways.
- Use other features of Instagram like Instagram stories and highlights to help spread your school’s post and page.
With Instagram, you can do more than just to tell followers how great your school is—you can show them.
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9ijakids – the Fun Learning Company.
