Attention to social media is at the heart of the visibility and accessibility of your school. But for social media to help you achieve specific marketing and communications goals, they need to be used effectively. Your school may have many live social media accounts, but if you do not use them effectively or if you are not regularly active on these platforms, you will not achieve the result that you want. For social media, quality and quantity are visible. Posts need to be relevant and meaningful and your presence needs to be frequent and consistent.
Of course, the logistics of hashtags are really quite simple: use the # sign before a word or term, making it easier for others to search for the hashtag or join the conversation using the hashtag of their own. But do you know how to use hashtags properly, for better targeting your school’s marketing campaigns?
To make the most of your schools’ hashtags here are our #5 top tips for superior marketing campaigns.
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#1. Branded hashtag
- This is probably the most important thing you can do for your campaign. With brand hashtags, as the name suggests, you have your school/brand name. But it can also be your school’s slogan, a specific event name, or one of your campaigns.
- There are two main advantages to using hashtags. The first of these is the ability to track the progress of your campaign, just focusing on the hashtags of your brand.
- The second is user-generated content. Once a user enters one of your brand’s hashtags in one of your posts, the presence on social networks increases.
#2. Reach and grow your audience
- Using hashtags are a great way to get more of your target audience to follow or like your page. When your school has an important message or promotion that you want to share with the right people, most social networks, hashtags can help.
- If your posts are publically visible, hashtags can help your school get them in front of the right people. For example, if you are tweeting about your school open day, you could add the hashtag #SchoolNameOpenDay. Anyone who finds it after sharing it may see your latest tweet. With the right content, images, and visual captures (your hashtag), your post has the power to not only reach that person, but also encourage them to stop scrolling, spend time on your post, and click to read in detail.
#3 Build a community
- Hashtags can help you build your brand, which is just a small step towards building a community. If you can create the right hashtag for a given campaign, not only will your followers be able to communicate through conversations or messages, but they will be able to connect with each other using your hashtag.
- These communities can help you connect with great people in your niche who can help you both within your school and outside of it. They can share the same values, goals and missions with you. Eventually, together you can use this community and create a positive movement.
- Make sure the selected hashtag is original and has not yet been used by another school, group, or community.
#4. Interact
- Make sure you are never idle on your schools’ social media platforms. The point of social media is to actually be social, which entails taking the time to interact, converse, explore and discover other people’s thoughts.
- When you launch a hashtag campaign, make sure that your school is actually involved in the conversation. This involves looking up and interacting with other users that are using the hashtag, as well as actually using the hashtag multiple times.
- Ideally, your school’s hashtags will catch on within your school’s physical and social media community, and a great way to help this happen to give your hashtag steady momentum.
#5. Keep it simple
- Reminder to keep it simple. There is no point in posting something on social media that your audience can’t understand, this will just waste your time and resources.
- You need to choose a hashtag that people can easily remember.
- Millions of short and long hashtags are scattered throughout the world of social media. However, a simple hashtag can provide greater availability and engagement than longer ones. Long hashtags are difficult to pronounce and may not provide the desired results.
- Make sure to use short and simple hashtags in your social media posts so that they reach a wider audience.
Hashtags help your customers find your content. To use them effectively, you can create a list of hashtags that analyze the competition’s business and school news and include them as needed. You do not have to use 30 hashtags at once and make them relevant.
Used strategically, hashtags can provide many benefits. They can be used to present your content to a wider audience, make your brand known, reach a very specific group, increase SEO and among other things use trends and important topics to your advantage.
If you would like more professional tips on marketing your schools do get in touch with the Digithrive For School’s team who are always happy to help. contact us here