27 February 2014
Social Media Examiner have written a great article below on the trends to watch out for in social media over the coming year. I’ve decided to look a little closer at each of these trends, throw in some relevant Australian stats, and show you how they relate to schools and educational institutions who are thinking about, or actively using, social media.
Trend 2 – 61% of small and 82% of medium Australian business have invested in social advertising*.
Over 60% of Australian small & medium businesses are already using social advertising, and the amount they are intending to spend in 2014 will be at least the same, or more (see graph). Did you know that 95% of Australian social media users access Facebook (That’s over 12 million active monthly users!).
Australians are very actively engaged in social media, the question for schools is how and where to engage with you current community, and prospective students / parents, alumni, etc.
There are many forms of social media advertising, which can get confusing – so it’s best to start small and test before you re-invest.
From Social Media Examiner – Here’s a simple plan to get started with social ads:
- Establish measurable marketing goals. “Are you looking to find new prospective students for your school, if so, how many? What do you want them to do when they get to your page – Like, Share, Register for an event, Download a welcome pack?”
- Set your budget (start small). “Run a small test campaign over a two week period, and tweak your message / audience every few days based on what’s working best”
- Know your audience’s needs. “Where are they accessing your site from, what information are they looking for expecting to find?
- Pick the channel. “Do some research to find out which social media channels your target audience is most active on – if you are talking to parents of students, versus recruiting school leavers, these groups have very different social habits”
- Research different ad types (how they work, how to leverage them and how your audience will perceive them).
- Check out the competition. “What are other schools / institutions doing in your area – how are they marketing?”
- Optimize your landing pages. “If you are promoting a specific message or offer in your ads, ensure you direct them to a specific landing page, or at least ensure that the message on your main page is consistent so they don’t have to go searching.
- Experiment and create ad copy (two or three versions). “Don’t try and be too formal on social media, speak to your audience in the language and tone that’s casual yet informative”
- Test and measure. “Ensure that you are measuring against your goals – how much are you paying per Like or Call to action? Can you do a better job next time in being more effective. What ad worked best and why?”
Here’s the link to the full article below:
5 Social Media Trends for 2014, New Research Social Media Examiner.
* Statistics and image sourced from the Yellow Pages Social Media Report 2013. Download the full report here Yellow Pages Social Media Report_F