If you operate a day centre such as a Richmond daycare, you know that it’s a tremendous amount of work to take care of children while keeping mom and dad happy. Oftentimes, managing your social media becomes the bottom of your priority list. However, social media is an imperative to help your childcare business remain visible online and help your organization stay on consumers’ minds; it should be a top to-do item for your business. To help you manage your social media in a more time-efficient manner, here are three social media tips you can use.
1. Select the Right Audience
The very first step in expanding your business is to take the time to understand who your customers are. Yes, you spend the most time with the tots in your care, but your customer base is the children’s parents and families.
Hence, when you create content later on, you should keep in mind that you’re developing content for parents. For example, if you’re promoting Richmond summer camp or math tutor Richmond via social media, make sure that the content is catering to parents who are thinking about registering their children to a summer camp. If you’re running a campaign to promote cooking classes for kids in Richmond, make sure your content is related to culinary for kids.
2. Pick the right Platforms
While Facebook is a great launchpad for your social media marketing, you will eventually want to expand your presence to other social media platforms. Once you are confident in actively posting on Facebook, start exploring other mediums to connect with prospective families and grow your daycare business even more.
Each social media platform has its unique personality and audience. Take the time to pick a few platforms that are best for your target audience and your business. Common social media platforms used by child care businesses include:
- Facebook. As the most commonly-used platform, Facebook is a powerful resource for quickly spreading content. Though you’ll need to compete for attention with posts from friends, family and local and global headlines, Facebook can help drive enrollment with easy engagement and a high-traffic newsfeed.
- Instagram. Instagram is the most visually-driven platform and is a great way to give customers a peek into what is happening with your child care business. Instagram provides easy engagement in the form of liking, commenting and sharing posts. Increasingly, Instagram can also be a great place to post content about helpful resources for parents.
- Linkedin. LinkedIn is the most professionally-driven platform. It can be an effective tool for connecting with other businesses as well as keeping up to date on trends in child care and daycare.
- YouTube. YouTube is a dynamic platform that exclusively hosts videos. Entertainment and educational value are key when it comes to success on YouTube. This is the perfect place for a virtual tour or child safety guide.
Pinterest. Pinterest features boards with selections of ideas or upcoming trends. It is a great way to drive traffic to your website or to other social media channels. It is also an excellent platform for driving traffic to blog posts and other resources.
3. Create Relevant Content
Now that you know each social platform has its unique qualities and strengths, it’s vital to create unique content that’s a good fit for each channel. You can — and should — follow the same concept or theme across platforms, but you should tailor each post to suit the channel.
Once you’ve settled into the platforms that work best for you and feel confident in how to use them, it’s time to analyze the type of content you’ll create.
Being intentional and consistent in your content can have a huge impact on engagement and connections online. Here are a few helpful questions to ask yourself before you post:
- Does this post align with who we are? Creating an identity for your business is key. Posting content that reflects the unique qualities and values of your child care business will help you connect more effectively with your customers.
- Does this post encourage a conversation? Engagement is a powerful tool for connecting with customers and driving traffic to your website. The perfect post is one that invites customers to like, share or comment on it.
- Will this post create a sense of community? Creating a sense of community between customers is essential. “It takes a village” is a sentiment that resonates with many families. If you can create a village through your social media presence, you’ll increase the sense of community tied to your business and boost customer loyalty.
- Will this post foster a connection? If a post connects with just one lead, it can be counted as a success. Social media is a powerful resource for making lasting connections with your families.
