Social media marketing for child care is an important aspect of your center’s online marketing strategy. Social media is also FREE, which is great for any child care center’s budget. Here are some social media marketing tips for child care centers across the country!
1. Social Media Marketing for Child Care
A lot of child care center chains have a strong web presence. How can your local child care center compete with the big kids of child care? If we are talking about your social media marketing strategy, the answer would be interacting with people. If you can learn how to engage on social media platforms, you can stretch your online marketing dollars to get more bang for your buck!
Many big companies in the industry treat their social media pages more like landing pages and announcement outlets. Make your social media strategy focus on providing helpful information and news to parents. Use your social media platforms as a means of engagement to build a community.
2. Child Care Centers and Privacy
You may want to show pictures of your child care facility and various events throughout the year. Make sure all parents of enrolled students have given you permission to post photos of their children. Neglecting this is one of the fastest ways to lose trust with current parents and tarnish your reputation.
3. Social Media Marketing Strategy
Your social media activity should extend beyond offering a promotion online or just having accounts on these social media platforms. You want to use your social media presence to provide helpful tips for parents and give a sense of community. Parents are involving you and your staff in the task of raising their children. You will find yourself on the right track if you consider your social media marketing as an extension of this very important task.
You can use your various social media platforms to share helpful child care blogs or mention fun community activities in your area. If you approach your social media marketing strategy from this angle, you build your authority and trustworthiness. This will make it much easier for parents to decide they want to send their children to your child care center. They already feel like they know you and trust you, so it is easier to leave their children with you each day.
Building your social media marketing campaign can take time. As long as you focus on providing quality content that is short and sweet on social media, you will see growth.
4. Social Media Platforms
Have you ever noticed that when you type a name of a company or individual that some of the top results are from Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Social media unification can help you boost your company’s web presence. Social media platforms serve different purposes and cater to different groups of people.
Each social media platform caters to a different audience. Who are you trying to reach with your online presence? You may want to consider having Pinterest if time allows since many parents find fun activities for children or mommy blogs through Pinterest.
5. Hashtags
How is it that one little symbol has so much power? Some online marketing sources report that a quality hashtag can be one of the best ways to tap into a following on a particular trend.
Hashtags are most commonly used on Twitter and Instagram so that people can look for posts and pictures about that specific topic.
6. Budgeting Time on Social Media
We all know social media networks can become a black hole. Budget your time on your social media marketing. You cannot spend too much time on social media. As a childcare business owner, you have bigger fish sticks to fry. You may only have time for fifteen minutes a day when it comes to social media. If this is true, think about quality instead of quantity. If you are spending too much time on social media, other parts of your business may suffer.
As you develop a social media strategy for your child care center, you will want to think about how much time you are willing and able to invest in developing your online presence. On Facebook, you max out at two posts per day as a business. You also get more mileage out of your time if you use your page to engage with other businesses or community members on the social network. Like and share other people’s content on your page.
7. Mobile Marketing for Child Care Centers
If you want to see big returns on your investment in building your online presence, here is the #1 most important thing for you to do: Make SURE your website is optimized for mobile users. Did you know moms are on their phones for more than 6 hours each day?
If your website is not easy to use, parents will move on to the next child care center website.
Your social media marketing strategy can only take you so far if your website is not up to par with industry standards. If parents hear about your child care center through social media, they will more than likely click through to your website to investigate. Since you have more creative control over your website than a social media profile, website visitors will judge your website as a representation of your child care center.
Local Child Care Marketing Social Media Strategy
Local Child Care Marketing can help you build your social media marketing strategy. We can take care of marketing your child care center so you can focus on the more important task of running a safe and encouraging child care center!
Local Child Care Marketing supports the online presence of over 75 child care providers across the country. Our team has set up and unified over 350 social media accounts for child care centers. We post on average over 200 social media posts each week on behalf of our child care center clients.
Start building your social media strategy today! Engage with parents and build a sense of community online. Call (855) 215-3838 to speak with a Local Child Care Marketing team member about how to build your online presence.