Instagram is not only a network tool where you share your photos with family and friends, but it can become a powerful means of communication between your School, millennial parents, and Gen Z students.
To engage with them, you have to share high-quality content that truly depicts the authentic spirit of your School community and what your School has to offer.
Before you start
Before diving into planning your strategy on how you can convert your Instagram audience into admissions and enquiries, you should know some key terms.
Business Account
By converting a personal account into a business account, you can display your information on your profile. If you don’t know how to convert your account, you can follow the steps by Instagram.
Explore page
The explore page is a section where you can find new and interesting content that suits your engagement with content before.
Stories
An Instagram Story is a feature that allows you to share photos, videos and other content that disappears after 24 hours.
Highlights
Highlights allow you to keep your Stories visible on your profile beyond the standard 24-hour limit.
Reels
Reels are an effective way for your School to engage with your audience. These are videos less than 15 minutes long. Reels can be found on the explore page and be discovered by parents and students.
What makes a good Instagram post
Before starting creating Instagram posts, you need to think about what you’re trying to achieve with your posts. Is it engaging with current students or is it increasing your admissions? There are some key elements that are essential to each post regardless of your objectives.
The image
You need to use vibrant and high-resolution images to grab the attention of your audience. Each image needs to tell a story and showcase your community. One example could be a photograph depicting your students in the science lab in action. This image not only shows your facilities but also your commitment to certain lessons.
The caption
Your caption should describe your image. Finish by asking a question or add a call to action. This can be to sign up for your open days, or to follow your account for updates, events, or to click on your bio to read your recent blogs. Lastly, it could be just a simple: ‘Please DM us for more information’. There are lots of free AI tools that can help you with your tone of voice.. One of them is the HubSpot Free Caption Generator.
The hashtags
Do your research first. Start by finding what hashtags your competitors are using. Next, find out which hashtags are trending. RiteTag can help you generate hashtags by typing your social media caption and uploading the photo that will accompany your caption. It gives you an immediate hashtag report.
Also, start analysing which hashtags were more successful and helped your content to be discovered by your audience. If you notice a certain hashtag does well, make sure you include it in your next post.
How many hashtags you should use? HubSpot’s recent posts give you the answer. Choose from 3 to 5 hashtags. After deciding which hashtags you’re going to use, consider using spacers (per line) so your posts won’t seem spammy.
Type of content you can share
Allow your students to generate content for your Instagram account
User-generated content gives authenticity to your content. Consider asking parents to send you photographs of candid moments with their children in your School community.
Another idea could be to create a challenge for your students and give them a branded hashtag.
Share testimonials
People in your community have their own personal stories to tell. These include current students, staff, alumni, and parents. All of those stories will highlight the benefits of being part of your School.
Type of format
Instagram stories
According to HubSpot, you should stick to 1-2 stories per day. After conducting some testing, 1-2 stories/day can give you 2% engagement with an average reach of 93.8.
Instagram reels
Reels remain the most engaging content on Instagram with an average engagement of 1.23%. While there’s no magic number of reels you should post, the recommended is 1 reel a day.
Frequency
Whether you choose to post a carousel, a static post, or a reel, you should aim to post 3 to 5 times per week.
Time of posting
If you want to engage with your audience you should start posting midweek – with the best day for posting being Wednesday. As you start growing your following count, you can start looking at what time your audience is active the most.
In a nutshell, Instagram can become a powerful tool in your marketing toolkit for increasing your School’s admissions and enquiries. Key takeaway: have fun, be authentic and connect with parents and students.
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