Digital marketing for schools – part 4

Well, this post marks the fourth and final in this series on ‘Digital marketing for Schools’. As the last one was a ‘narrative of best practice’, then (as you’d expect!) this is a ‘narrative of worst practice’. So… let’s jump straight in!

As could be expected, there is, generally speaking, a spectrum. At the ‘worst case scenario’ end, there are the schools which have taken a ‘denial’ approach, and refuse to look at their digital footprint. This is ludicrous in my opinion, as no one is monitoring what is being said. I know of one school, with zero official digital presence, that had not one or two, but three ‘hate’ groups on Facebook, filled with the most negative opinions and expressed in the filthiest language that teenagers can provide. No one knew.

A slightly better, but not by much, scenario, is where the school has created official social networking accounts, but then let them lapse. These quickly fill with spam at best, and have the potential to generate negativity towards the school. Not good. Of equal slackness is the lapsed monitoring of generalized information such as Wikipedia pages. Even big schools fall prone to this, and would probably be embarrassed to learn what their wikipedia page has on it.

Finally, having a website which no one visits, or other accounts which have little to zero ROI, are rather a waste of time.

When it comes to digitally marketing your school, it’s no good to just ‘hope for the best’, or worse, sit on your hands. You need to be actively involved if you want digital marketing to be effective!

So where does your school fit? At the ‘best practice end’? Or sliding down the scale a little bit? If so, feel free to contact me – I can offer suggestions, help out, or even do some of the work for you, if you like?!

CC Image courtesy comedy_nose at http://www.flickr.com/photos/comedynose/3856524294/

Digital marketing for schools – part 3

So this is Part 3 in the ‘Digital Marketing for Schools’ series. Today we’re looking at a ‘Narrative of Best Practice’…

A school using best practice has a dynamic website that meets the needs of both current and future parents. It is the place of choice for the most comprehensive information about your school. It is easily navigable, with dozens, if not hundreds of excellent images, embedded videos, and a password protected portal for the student and parent bodies, where they can access the digital component of their studies.

The school’s Facebook page is updated daily, reminding parents of events, fundraiser deadlines, and reporting on school activities. It showcases great photos of school events (and every photo only contains students whose parents have given permission for their child’s photo to be used in marketing / promotional activities!) The school’s twitter account is used in a similar manner, but also contains links to a wide variety of further reading, in the fields of education, technological developments, or even parenting tidbits. Together with the school twitter account, it is the place parents can turn to in times when up-to-the-minute information is needed, for example when floods cause bus services to cease operating, and road (or even school) closures.

The school’s YouTube channel has a variety of videos, each of which is also embedded into the school website. These range from school events such as grandparent’s days, sports carnivals, cultural events, and camps, to classroom activities, interviews with staff, parents and students, to maybe even a school tour. A new video is added every month or so,and these videos are of a high quality.

The school also engages with its community via email, and SMS where appropriate.

The school features in online school directories, and these contain the same information that is in the school’s Wikipedia page and any other online account. The school is also discoverable via google maps, where several reviews rate it as a very good place to educate children, and also through articles in online newspapers.

In general, a school using best practice is active in both its maintenance and its monitoring of, its digital presence, ensuring that it is an accurate reflection of the school, and is consistent with its marketing campaign using traditional media.

So – over to you! Can your school check all these boxes? The next post is the final in this ‘Digital Marketing for Schools’ series. As you can expect, it’s looking at the opposite end of the spectrum; the ‘narratives of worst practice’. Stay tuned!

CC image courtesy PNASH at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pnash/5227436224/

Digital marketing for schools – part 1

Digital marketing is marketing done online, as opposed to promotion of your business using traditional media – newspaper ads, radio ads, TV if you can afford it. Also billboards, posters, flyers, and even the humble newsletter.

Digital marketing, on the other hand, occurs through the screen. Information that you send ‘out’, such as via your website, or emails to your subscriber lists, is classified as ‘outbound marketing’ and is used to maintain relationship with existing clients. In 2012, outbound marketing channels should include engaging with your school community through Facebook, twitter, and maybe even YouTube, Flickr, or your own school’s smartphone app.  However, the true power of digital marketing lies in ‘inbound marketing’ – literally, where potential customers discover your existence through the many and varied channels that they stumble across you, online. Perhaps they are on YouTube and one of the videos from your channel appears on their sidebar of suggested videos to watch. maybe they’re on Wikipedia, and the link to your school’s Wikipedia page is in the related article that they are reading. Or they are on google maps and notice your school’s name and a great photo appears on their page. All of these examples are the reason why a school should be strongly considering what type of digital footprint is out there for their school.

So a quick question then – what sort of digital marketing efforts is your school doing?

(Image made using tagzedo.com. Cool, hey!)

The incredible growth of Pinterest

Uploaded to YouTube on February 6, 2012

Is your Website Layout holding you back?

It’s often said that, in the online world, that ‘Content is King’. Those who hold to this opinion, believe that the most important aspect of any website is the amount and quality of the content uploaded onto it.

Well I’m sorry, but I disagree.

Source: stumbleupon.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

Think about your own searching habits for a minute. When you’re online, trying to find specific information, you click from link to link to link, checking out various websites to see if they meet your needs. In real terms, you visit half a dozen or so (at least!) websites – maybe even more than this, depending on the accuracy of your search terms in the first place. And because you’ve only given yourself a limited amount of time in which to find this information, every website you visit, (prior to finding the one that has the information you want, of course) you probably spend less than half a minute on. In fact, there’s every possibility that it’s a lot less. 20 seconds. 10 seconds. 5 – or maybe not even that long.

Now – think back to your own website. Does it capture your visitors’ attention? Remembering that you may only have 5 to 10 seconds (or less!) before they click away, is it the brilliant first impression for your business that you REALLY want it to be? Does the appearance of your website enhance your business image? Or hinder it?

I wrote recently about the importance of customer service. How image is everything – and reputations last longer than we’d like to admit. I wonder though, if sometimes we forget that our website also has a role to play in promoting our image. Your own website appearance – what image does it give about your business? Is it too cluttered? Too sparse? Is it covered with ads? Do you have clear About / Contact information, above the break (the point in the page where the visitor has to scroll down)? Or is your website expecting too much from your visitors – making them click around to a number of various places on your site, trying to find the information they need? Remember, the last thing you want to do is to frustrate a potential customer!

This post marks the first in a series ‘Designing a Successful Website Layout’. This series will show you how to optimize the appearance of your website, so that in those all-important seconds when a visitor discovers your site for the first time, they are impressed enough to stay; to read; to maybe click around a little bit. Or – even better – to return again.

Improve your Library’s reputation: use RSS feeds

How did you view your High School Library? If you’re among the majority, you saw it as a repository of books and ‘some other stuff’; dry words on dry paper; a place that you would voluntarily enter only if you were in Lower Primary, or one of the few Seniors in the Debating Team. How sad. How can this reputation be changed?

One solution is to enlist the help of RSS. Below is a 4 step plan; implementing it should enhance the profile of the Library.

1. Subscribe to RSS feeds from websites which students are interested in.

By subscribing to feeds from sites that are popular with kids, internet terminals within the four walls of the Library become places where students want to be, so they can keep up with the latest information. They can then be ‘the first of their friends to share’ this information. What prestige! (Talking about their discovery with their classmates, also helps to increase their sense of importance – and get the message out there that these RSS are now available in the Library.) Unfortunately, the interest in the Library will probably begin and end here, unless the students are shown, and encouraged to use, the Library for other information-gathering purposes. How then to channel this enthusiasm into more scholarly pursuits?

2. Enlist the help of the teaching staff.

The Teacher Librarian needs to work closely with the teaching staff, informing them of the most current websites and blogs available, on the topics staff are covering, so that RSS subscriptions can be made to these sites as well. Once the teachers are aware of the availability of this wealth of resources, they are more than likely to use these, or at least refer to them, in their classes. And if assessment pieces require student research, it is to these same RSS feeds which students could turn.

3. Keep it current.

Teenagers interests change. Teaching topics change. Therefore, the RSS subscriptions should also change, to reflect currency. Otherwise, the Library quickly becomes irrelevant, and vacant, again. Keeping current with teaching topics is fairly easy, with regularly maintained Work Programs. Keeping current with teenagers is more difficult. One option is to use RSS again – in reverse. Set up a Library blog with an RSS feed, and encourage your customer base to subscribe. Not only can you receive immediacy in feedback to your posts, but you can also seek advice, obtaining valuable information about the opinions of your customers in the process.

4. Inform, inform, inform!

The task then becomes one of exposition – showing, regularly and effectively, the continually updated benefits that the Library has to offer those who are interested. And not just through the blog, and through the teaching staff, but through other channels as well. Noticeboards, newsletters, announcements at Assemblies, etc., all help to get the message ‘out there’ that the High School library is now a place of relevance and interest.

By implementing these 4 steps, the student body and teaching staff alike,  will probably place their faith in the Library as being no longer just a place for ‘old school technology’ and out-dated ideas. Instead, they will believe that it is a place where current information can be found, on sites of interest to them. Mission accomplished!

Image courtesy Allie Des Meules at http://pinterest.com/pin/11188699043725379/

Weekly review

Source: myrecipes.com via Cristina on Pinterest

This week has been quite a huge one. Not only did the St Paul’s poster campaign finish at Morayfield Shopping Centre, we also ran our flyer campaign through the Australia Post, to several thousand homes in and around the Caboolture area. Unfortunately, non-stop rain – and at times the odd storm or two – prevented the brick wall at the front of the school from being painted, so even though the 3D signage was manufactured and ready for installation on Friday, unfortunately that’ll have to wait until the weather clears. Meaning that it won’t be installed before children return next week. Oh well. Can’t win them all. Friday also saw several last-minute phone calls organising a newspaper ad campaign in two of the  local newspapers, so that’ll be some designing work to get stuck into, this weekend!

At St James in Hervey Bay students return on the 30th, so that leaves one more week for the newspaper enrolment campaign, which commenced last week, to take effect. Even so, there’s been quite a surprising amount of activity on the College’s facebok page, considering the term hasn’t yet commenced. But it’s great to see a school community so involved in engaging with their school through social media.

Online, both the St Paul’s website, the St James website, and GoodOldTalk have had tweaking done, ready for the explosion of activity over the next week or so. In particular, the newly created ‘Admin blogs’ on the St Paul’s website will be a marked difference to the amount of up-to-the-minute content on their website! The Bloxham Marketing website has also had a bit of a facelift, with a daily blog joining the regular tweets and facebook page updates. This week, posts focused on How To’s – firstly, how to successfully plan for writing a blog; and then, after my discovery of www.ifttt.com, an introduction of same and a How To – get started with ifttt in 5 easy steps. Alexander Tibbets, the “go-to guy at ifttt” continued to amaze me with exceptional customer service, topped off with an invitation to connect on LinkedIn. So now one of my 40 connections is one of the creators of ifttt! I impress even myself at times…

All in all, a very productive week. I don’t know about you, but I look forward to seeing what next week brings!

Planning for successful blog writing – Step two of two

In Step One, I wrote about the importance of planning ahead. Not just working out ‘what you want to say’ but also ‘when you want to say it’. Using tools to help you schedule your life – and when it comes to writing blog posts, using scheduling tools to ensure that posts (previously written ones, and that’s where the ‘being ahead’ but comes it!) are published on time.

Step Two covers the ‘what you want to say’ section of the plan. The actual writing process. And for this, I find it helpful to think about three main tasks.

The writing process

A good blog post isn’t just about the words. If your readers just wanted words, they’d read a book (as in, an off-line one, with no links to follow). Look at the posts that you yourself enjoy reading, and you’ll see that they’re more interactive than just text. And why shouldn’t they be? Just look at the functionality of the medium that can be exploited!

1. Words

Firstly, before we look at bells and whistles, let’s get the basics right. And by basics, I mean the words. Make sure your writing makes sense. Are you using accurate sentences? Are they varied in style? Do you have spelling errors? Are your posts too long or too short? Is your information too superficial, or have you tried including too much? Finally, how have you formatted it? One big paragraph which is hard to read? Too many little paragraphs? Have you made use of headlines or bulletpoints well? Or is it, like this paragraph, far too full of questions? (Yes, this was intentionally an example of a bad paragraph, by the way!)

2. An image

Then, once your words are the way you want them to be, start thinking about an image. Again, thanks to @katiedatwork for explaining the ‘image credit’ process, and pointing me in the direction of Creative Commons! For those of you who aren’t sure what I’m referring to, it’s basically all to do with copyright. If you simply pull up an image in a google search, and copy and paste it somewhere you want it, you’re breaking copyright. Instead you should, go to search.creativecommons.org and run a search for an image that you can use. Here, you’ll find that you have access to the same range of images (through flickr, google images, etc) but you can see what licenses the photo owners have attached to their images. Generally, most will just want attribution. As in, you state who took the photo, and link back to it. Pretty simple. You don’t break copyright, and the photographer gets the credit that he / she is due. Everyone wins! Oh, and by the way, this post’s CC Image is courtesy jjpacres at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jjpacres/3293117576/sizes/m/in/photostream/

3. Links

And finally, the last main task to a blog post is the links you embed. DON’T go linking every single concept! Nor should you only link to Wikipedia! But think about your audience (who you should be thinking of, anyway!) and work out what links you will need to make your writing more understandable. Think of it as another way of giving the credit where the credit is due, in a way. If you’re writing about a cool idea you’ve discovered, provide the link back to that original source where you discovered it, and that way your readers can go check it out for themselves. Again, pretty simple! And once they’re all in, PLEASE go and check that they all work. Imagine how frustrating it would be for your reader, who invests time reading your post and tries clicking on a link, only to find that it doesn’t work. Plus, it doesn’t reflect too well on you…

Now, these three tasks are obviously not all you could include in your blog posts. But they are the basics. Start here, and then get adventurous once these are second-nature. Well, that’s my recommendation, anyway. But I’d love to hear your thoughts. What is it YOU do with your blogs? What hints or tips would you give with regard to successful blog writing?

Planning for successful blog writing – Step one of two

I’ve often read how important it is to plan ahead. In a blog, I guess that means ‘work out what you want to say, ahead of time’. Which is good enough in theory, but when it comes to putting it into practice, sometimes that’s when things go awry. So I’ve decided to not just work out what I want to say, but when. And by this, I mean scheduling.

Schedule, using the right tools for you

Scheduling – the planning of a certain event to happen at a certain time – is helped enormously by the huge variety of online tools that others have made, that we can use. We are no longer restricted to a pen and diary-with-pages (remember them? I actually still use one – do you?!), or even a computerized version of diary / calendar. Since the explosion of Web 2.0 we now have tools that schedule or day for us (or around us, as the case may be!) and all it takes is a little bit of planning. I discovered, last weekend, the website www.ifttt.com and I think that this might quickly become a big part of my ‘organizational’ life, as it were. I also am enjoying playing with, understanding, and using HootSuite to schedule tweets from the variety of twitter accounts I oversee. So now it’s just blogging that I need to schedule.

As you can probably tell (you’re reading it!) I use WordPress to blog. A huge thanks to @katiedatwork for introducing us, in the INN333 course, Sem 2 2010. And although I haven’t played much with the ‘scheduling’ section of WordPress, I  will be. That way, I’ll be forced to keep ahead with my writing, which is always a good thing. Write ahead of time, edit, make it what you want, then determine when it is you want that post to be published. Easy! And one less thing to worry about. Again, less worrying – always a good thing!

So, that’s what I’ll be doing. Scheduling. What I haven’t done in the past, which is why last Friday’s post only happened Saturday morning. How about you? Do you schedule? If so, what tools do you use? If not, why not? (And what’s your favourite colour!)

CC Image Courtesy Earls37a  at http://www.flickr.com/photos/indraw/4857101224/

 

So you think you want to blog?

Interesting statistics, courtesy HubSpot.com, indicate the wisdom of regularly blogging for your business. With the wide variety of free blogging platforms, and even wider variety of advice on *how to* blog for your business, it’s definitely something that even the smallest of businesses, with the most limited of budgets, could do to promote growth and generate interest and potential income. But if you’ve never entered into the blogosphere before, it could all be a little daunting. Where should you start? And what should you write about?
My suggestion would be to start with research. Before you hit ‘create’ in your choice of blogging platform, decide exactly what sort of blog you want to have, and start reading up -as much as you can- on that type of blog. Obviously, a personal blog will differ greatly from a business blog, but so too will a business-to-business blog differ significantly from a business-to-customer one. What type of business are you in? What blogs can you read that are similar in nature to this? Now, the research starts. Not only do I recommend subscribing to blogs (a dozen or so, to start with; then you can add / cull to this list as you get to know the blogs better) but I’d also strongly suggest you find decent *how to* articles that will help you to write the type of blog posts you want to write. There are literally hundreds of these helpful little articles out there. Some (maybe even most!) will actually be blog posts themselves, so this will be more avenues for you to learn from, if you subscribe to these blogs as well.
Then, and only then, are you ready to begin. You’ll create your blog and customise its appearance, write your first post, add the links and maybe an image (giving image credit,of course, if it’s not your own personal photo!) and then it’ll be time to think about how to promote your blog. And how to measure its effectiveness. And then finally, what to write in your second blog post!
So, are you still keen? Needing more help with it all? Or maybe you’re already a successful business blogger with more ideas and tips to share? Leave a comment! Let us know!

(CC Image courtesy Kristina B at http://www.flickr.com/photos/barnett/2836828090/)