How to Create a Social Media Strategy for Your Daycare
Today I want to start by stating a fact you may not want to hear: Having a social media presence for your business is essential.
With 3.6 billion people using social media in 2020, and users and engagement increasing daily, there’s no better way to connect with your customers and create a brand that will help customers find and embrace the excellent services you provide!
Although this might seem intimidating, I’m here to tell you that you can create a social media presence today without being an expert, by simply setting up and carrying out a basic social media strategy for your center.
Today I will walk you through the basics for creating a plan for your child care center’s social media usage. This plan will include setting up goals, knowing your audience, updating your profile and creating a content calendar.
By following this plan you will be able to set your center up for success by reaching the largest audience possible, because after all, if people don’t know about your awesome business, they’re missing out!
Set goals
To get started it is important to define what your goals are for your social media account. Unlike your personal account you must be strategic about when and how you’ll use your account(s) in order to achieve your goals while keeping the upkeep manageable.
A few suggested goals to start with:
- Increase enrollment for your center by increasing the amount of clicks from your social media account to your website.
- Grow your followers on social media to increase your reach and sales potential.
- Increase the level of engagement from your current followers. This would look like the amount of times your followers are engaging with your social media account by reading content, liking posts, and commenting and/or reacting to your stories.
Once you have defined for your center what your goals are and how they can be measured, you are halfway there. Knowing these goals will help you assess everything else you do. As you post, always go back to your goals and think, “is this post going to help me achieve these goals?”
Know your audience
The second part of building a strategy is to know who your audience is. Your audience is the demographic that is already following you. Are you attracting 20-29 year olds or 50-60 year olds? It is important to know who you are talking to.
The great thing about having a page for your center is that you already know many of the families that are following you. As you plan for your page think about these people. What does that age group and type of people want to see posted? What life experiences do they share with you or could relate to?
When considering your audience, think about the following to start:
- Age group
- Stage of life
- Female vs. Male
This will help you plan what type of posts will engage your audience. For example a group of women might not be interested in posts about football, while men won’t necessarily be interested in a new recipe. Of course, you could hit every audience with a well planned post, such as a recipe for your favourite superbowl snack!
Stay up-to-date
So many times, in the busy child care world especially, I notice that centers have information on their social media that is out of date. If you are going to have a page to represent your business it better be up to date! It also looks unprofessional if you have posted once a day for two months and then disappeared for three weeks. This is one of the things that creating a plan helps with, as you can plan content months down the road, allowing you to create content during less busy times so that you can continue to post during the busy times.
As you update your profile, here are a few things to consider:
- Is all your information up to date? Make sure to complete all profile fields.
- Is it clear from your profile who you are?
- Is your contact information/website link clearly visible on your account profile?
- Do you have a clear, high quality profile picture that represents your business?
- Make sure that your profiles are consistent from social media account to social media account. For example having the same profile picture for your Instagram and Facebook will help people locate your profile, and keep things consistent with branding as well.
Having a clear and updated profile is something that will set your center apart from others. There is nothing that will turn away a potential customer like a messy website or social media account. This might not seem fair, but it’s just the way it is. Think of your profile as your one chance to have a first impression. A good first impression is especially important in the childcare industry where parents are choosing to leave their little ones in your care for much of the day.
Create a content calendar
Now that you have a plan on what you want to accomplish with social media, know who your audience is, and have everything up-to-date, it’s time to make a plan for posting. Having a specific plan for what to post and who will post it is essential to create a brand and sustain your social media presence for the long-term.
When creating a content calendar here are my recommendations for creating a manageable plan:
- 1 post per day (you can choose more or less, but stay consistent!)
- 1-2 videos or LIVES per week
- Post a mix of information: some entertainment, some personal and some business-oriented
- Don’t forget to have fun with it by being real and letting your personality shine :)
Final Notes
I hope today's blog post helped you see how easy it is to set up a social media strategy for your child care center. With so many people spending more and more time online, social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools that you can use today. If you are consistent with mailers, signage, ad’s, but not using social media as a form of reach out, you are missing out on an essential part of your childcare center’s marketability and future growth. The best part is it’s free to set up a business account with all major social media outlets so you have absolutely nothing to lose!
