LinkedIn isn’t always top of mind for school marketeers who seem to focus on other social media channels to reach parents and students. But LinkedIn has a lot to offer, being the largest professional network. Its professional audience and unique targeting tools make it the perfect platform for connecting with prospective parents and students ready to invest in quality education.
LinkedIn can become a dynamic hub for your School’s extended community, a place to celebrate milestones, share important updates, post job openings and grow your alumni network.
In our guide, we outline our top tips on how to optimise your LinkedIn online presence, strengthen connections, expand your reach, all without adding extra hours to your day.
Plan your content strategy
Having clear objectives is crucial for creating your content strategy. Start by defining your top three goals, whether it’s increasing your page followers by 20%, doubling your engagement, or attracting more applicants. Once your goals are all set, you can tailor your LinkedIn profile to achieve them by optimising your “About” section to highlight your School’s values.
With your goals set, it’s time to craft content that speaks to your School’s unique strengths. A content calendar will help you stay organised and keep upcoming open days on track so you can maintain a steady stream of content, promoting them across your social media channels. You can also include highlights of representatives of your business partners visiting your School or celebrate students’ achievements.
To get you started, we have created a list of some post ideas you can use across different platforms.
Types of content for LinkedIn
According to Buffer, you should be aiming to post 2-5 times per week.
Repurpose your website content
You don’t need new content ideas to post on LinkedIn. Announcements, blog posts, and upcoming open days are all great content for LinkedIn.
Staff spotlight
Staff spotlights build personal connections with your audience. You’re showing the faces behind your students’ success.
Alumni updates
Reconnecting with alumni on LinkedIn is a great way to revive relationships and tap into their networks. Share alumni successes and career milestones. Remember to tag alumni to increase visibility and remind your followers of the positive lifelong impact of your School.
Community engagement
Start responding to comments, answering questions, or simply liking and sharing posts. A little engagement goes a long way in helping you understand what really matters to your audience.
Don’t forget to repost posts that you are tagged in or repost recent updates from your staff.
Use hashtags
Using hashtags on LinkedIn is a great way to get your posts in front of more eyes, even those who aren’t connected to you! When you add hashtags, your content can pop up in the feeds of people searching for those tags, which broadens your reach and can attract new followers. But here’s the catch: using too many hashtags or the ones that don’t quite fit can actually backfire your efforts.
To keep your strategy effective, LinkedIn recommends 3 to 5 hashtags per post that really match your post’s content or your industry. For example, if you are celebrating the World Teachers’ Day, you can start with a broad hashtag like #WorldTeacherDay and become more targeted with hashtags like #ThankYouTeachers or #InspireExcellence.
If you’re ever stuck on what hashtags to use, just start typing in the search bar, and LinkedIn will suggest some related tags for you. There are some free hashtags generators that you can use like Hootsuite Free Hashtag Generator for Social Media.
Advertise your next open day using LinkedIn banners
Promote your next open day using a LinkedIn banner with the exact date on it. It’s an easy and eye-catching way to inform your network when your next event is happening. All you have to do is to make the date of your next open morning or evening stand out.
Create LinkedIn Alumni Groups
You can create an alumni group to keep your alumni community engaged and informed about any planned events. You can find new ideas, get feedback from your alumni and stay connected.
The Dulwich College International Alumni Network Group for example is a great place for alumni from Dulwich College international schools in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Seoul, and Singapore, and Dulwich College international high school programs in Suzhou and Zhuhai to connect.
Track your analytics
By tracking your page’s analytics, you can understand what’s resonating with your audience and identify areas for improvement. With LinkedIn Analytics, you can gain a high-level overview of important metrics such as unique visitors, content impressions, follower growth, and even how your page stacks up against your competitors. For instance, if you notice that your video content is consistently driving high engagement, you’ll know that your audience favours this format.
You can access your analytics by just clicking on your page name under ‘My pages’ on the left side of your LinkedIn homepage. By regularly reviewing these insights, you can optimise your content strategy, ensuring you’re delivering what your audience values most.
Just spending a few minutes each day on LinkedIn can significantly boost your online presence, improve your content strategy, and help grow your follower base. Whether you’re responding to comments, sharing updates about School events, or connecting with alumni, these small and consistent efforts can lead to increased engagement and ultimately boost admissions over time!
If you need help with developing a marketing strategy for your School, our team can help. Digithrive For Schools has helped many schools increase their enrolments and open day sign-ups whilst decreasing their ad spend. Contact us here