Social Media Marketing
Making the Most of Facebook
Advertising
Lancashire Childcare Sufficiency Team
Social Media Marketing
Making the most of Facebook
If your business doesn't have any kind of social media presence and you don’t have a Facebook business page for your nursery or childcare setting... now is a good time to set one up. The majority of your potential parents will have access to some form of social media or their friends and family will, and Facebook is probably the most popular. Details of how to set up a business page can be found here…… www.facebook.com/business
There are also many YouTube tutorials and online guides to help you and also to use the added features of Facebook such as Facebook Insights, or Ads Manager to see how/if your business page is reaching potential new customers/parents.
Your main Facebook business page can be used as a 'landing page' for purely marketing purposes. There are ideas to help market your childcare setting in this guide and 'groups' are an extra feature and something worth investigating. Safeguarding/Privacy Settings
If you are intending to include children on your Facebook page, you must seek written permission/consent from parents or carers. This is to ensure you protect children's identities when using social media. Asking parents' permission and obscuring faces helps to protect children. However there are further privacy measures you can explore on Facebook if you have particular concerns, such as setting up a closed 'group' for your setting. This may be a more appropriate way of communicating with existing parents and sharing nursery life. Facebook Marketing
To make the most of marketing your setting/business on Facebook there some things to consider.
Common Pitfalls
Not posting enough or posting too much:
Recommended posting schedule, 3-4 times per week but some consistency is better than none and ending up with an inactive or 'ghost page.'
Content isn’t engaging enough:
Remember the basics! - schedule regular posts which show what you offer i.e. opening times and weeks of the year, age range, Early Education Funding and sample menus etc. These things are often overlooked and are the first things parents want to know. Again consistency with these messages are key.
It's important to VARY your content, i.e. use a combination of subjects related to early years and your childcare setting (content ideas below) and change the presentation of the information, for example text only posts, posts with photos, post videos, add stills or videos to the 'Facebook Stories' feature. Post links to relevant articles. These can be based on any subject from the importance of playing, talking and sharing books with children, weaning, routines, toilet training, starting nursery, snack and meal ideas, or anything that may keep new parents engaged with your page/setting. You could use quotes about childhood or early years, these don’t take much thought at busier times. See what's trending or current and how you can link it into your content i.e. washing hands, ideas for looking after children's/parents wellbeing, offering reassurance. Show a bit of personality, add fun posts, and keep your potential parents coming back.
Facebook Content Ideas for Childcare Businesses
Reassurance: Existing and new parents will want to know what measures you have in place to protect staff and children following the Coronavirus outbreak. Think about how you can get this message out via social media.
Staff: Why not share a 'meet the staff' profile each week or each month, again as a video or a standard post. Staff if they are comfortable, could be filmed with the children (obscure children's faces) or sharing a step by step of an activity parents can try at home.
Virtual tours of nursery/pre-school or childcare setting: Let prospective parents see what you have to offer, have you any areas you want to show off in particular? Can you talk about the learning/play opportunities each area has, or tell any stories about what children have done already in these areas.
As well as an overall tour of the provision or as an alternative, you could post a different video with a more detailed focus, for example look at the baby room one week and pre-school next week or outdoors another. Videos can be saved on your page.
In the same way as right move attracts potential new home owners it's an opportunity to showcase what you have to prospective parents/children before they come to view the setting.
'Childcare Choices' website: Again share as above and vary the way this message goes out, generally parents need plenty of reminders and time to get organised and there are some who won't know what and indeed if they are entitled to any help with their childcare costs.
Early Education Funding for 2, 3 & 4yr olds: Regularly make parents aware of Early Education Funding so this information appears often in their news feeds. Vary the way in which this info can be viewed. Repost childcare choices, LCC's own adverts or your own funding advertisements and offer. Some could be short text only posts, some with a photo, use videos and the Facebook stories option to maximise reach.
Getting ready for nursery: You are the experts here and there is a raft of content you could create yourself via video or ordinary posts, or re post/share around this subject e.g. what to pack for nursery, what to expect from nursery, the role of a keyworker, a typical routine at your childcare provision, what the settling in arrangements are etc.
Getting ready for school – Similar to above with a focus on school readiness (this means different things for everyone) but generally independence with dressing, un dressing, toileting, listening skills and any easy early phonics activities such as going on a 'sound walk' at home as an example.
Testimonials/reviews from parents – Regularly ask for feedback and permission to share/repost reviews and thank you's. Even verbal feedback can be typed up or cards and letters can be photographed and made into a Facebook post or video of stills. This is an easy way to keep your page active when you are particularly busy and don’t have time for a lengthy post. There is nothing more effective than hearing a positive opinion of another parent when making the decision to leave your child.
Focus on an area of the EYFS every month – For example 'communication and language' could be explaining how sharing different experiences such as a walk in the woods a trip to the seaside/zoo encourages children's talking as does sharing books and simply playing with children.
You could also create posts on how you observe, assess and plan for children's learning and development, and how parents can help at home.
Promote how the setting facilitates the characteristics of effective learning, for example 'playing and exploring'. This could be ideas for parents around sensory play... i.e. simple everyday activities involving sight sound, touch taste or smell. Or simply just link the EYFS into your general photos and posts.
Regular info about child development/development matters – Post links to parent friendly documents such as 'what to expect when' from 4children.
Increase Your Facebook Reach For Free
Top fifteen things to do today!
1. Develop an advertising strategy with your management/staff team – set out who is responsible for what and by when, get staff involved in creating and sharing content, often big users of social media and will have great ideas. 2. Make sure you complete all relevant information in the 'about us' section 3. Call to action button i.e. make sure you have a 'call now' or 'message now' option on your page 4. Think about the time of day you post i.e. when parents are likely to be able to look at social media (the average post only lasts 3 hours before it is lost, stories tend to stay up for 24 hrs) 5. Ask parents to invite their friends to like your page – explain how. 6. Build relationships, give 'love' to other relevant business pages or pages in the local area - hopefully they will like, share and tag back and widen your audience. 7. Link your Facebook page to your email signature. 8. Link your Facebook page to your website or other social media channels 9. Boost top posts/repost previous popular posts and videos. Use an app to schedule posts for you. 10. Share relevant articles, images, quotes which will keep your visitors coming back. 11. Use ' groups'/ give people reason to comment on posts, get a conversation going, ask questions, and ask for opinions – give people a reason to interact with you. 12. Refer a friend contest, encourage likes and shares, giveaways, be interactive and engage with audience – think 'potential parents'. 13. Mix up the content – photos, videos, links, and use the stories feature – video is a very popular way of posting/viewing content at the moment. 14. Use 'Facebook Insights' to see how your page is performing 15. Use the integrated 'Facebook Business Manager' Tool
Paid Advertising – Facebook Ads
You don’t have to be an expert to start advertising on Facebook. You can create and run advertising campaigns for as little as £5. Once you have created a campaign you can just leave Facebook to run the advertising campaign for you. You can also use the built in features of Facebook to track your campaigns progress. These are Facebook Ads Manager, and Facebook Insights.
Facebook Ads Manager
Facebook Ads Manager is an ad management tool to make, edit and analyse paid promotional Facebook campaigns. To get to your Facebook Ads Manager, you can click on the drop-down arrow in the upper-right corner of any Facebook page and choose “Manage Ads” from the drop-down (or you can use the Facebook Ads Manager mobile app.
Facebook Insights
Facebook Page Insights gives you detailed analytics for your Facebook Page, so you can track what works, learn how people interact with your content, and improve your results over time. Facebook Audience Insights helps you understand your Facebook audience so you can better target ads and create more relevant content. To access Facebook Page Insights, go to your Facebook Page and click Insights in the top menu.
If you want to start looking at paid Facebook Advertising there are many tutorials on the internet and the following links/guides may be useful: www.facebook.com/business/ads https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-advertise-on-facebook/ www.buffer.com