How Your District Can Benefit from Facebook Audience Optimization

If your district is like ours, Facebook drives much of your social media engagement and audience interaction.  CFBISD has a strong Twitter and Instagram following, but nothing compares to the engagement we receive from our Facebook posts.

Now Facebook has created a new tool to allow your district to select the parents, students, community members, or businesses most likely to interact with your post.

Here is a quick overview of Facebook’s newest feature called Audience Optimization. 

How to Get Started Using Audience Optimization

 

It's actually quite easy to use this tool.  When posting a status on Facebook, there is an option to select audience optimization (reach people who are more likely to engage with your post) before you publish your content.  Simply click on the icon that resembles a gun scope and it will open the optimization menu for your post.

Selecting Preferred Interests for Your Audience

This menu allows you to select certain categories or keywords your audience might be interested in.  For example, if your post is about an awesome Kindergarten program your district offers, you might select interests like "Early Childhood", "Elementary School", or "Preschool".  If it is a post about your football team winning state, you might select interests like "Football", "Athletics", or "High School".

Facebook helps in regard to selecting keywords. Simply type in the first letters of a keyword and Facebook populates a list of keyword ideas.  Once you select your first keyword, Facebook gives suggestions of other words you might use.   

Social Media Examiner makes note that your preferred audience selection will not limit the people who see your post, but rather will tell Facebook that this is your preferred audience to see the post.

Facebook also offers a browse feature that allows you to look at categories of keywords in case you might be stumped on what to include.  Here is a screenshot of that feature below.

 Setting Audience Restrictions for Your Post

The second feature of this new tool is awesome.  This allows you to narrow your audience even further by allow you to select AGE, GENDER, LOCATION and LANGUAGES.

For example, if you want to inform your community members in your of new voting policies, you would want to limit your audience to people over 18.  This feature allows you to post and not "SPAM" your fans who would have no interest in your post.

The Best Part of Audience Optimization

I am a big "Data Geek".  The best part for me about this feature is be able to track certain audiences reactions to your posts.  After using this for a couple months, you should have a better understanding of who interacts with your posts. Knowing this should allow you to target certain audiences that result in the biggest engagement for your posts.

Do you need a more in-depth look at audience optimization?

**Kristi Hines at Social Media Examiner posted an awesome in-depth look at this new tool: Facebook Audience Optimization: What Marketers Need to Know

Do you have any questions about Facebook or Audience Optimization? Leave your questions in the comment section below.

4 Quick Tips to Build a Better District Blog

Is your blog a strategic tool or a glorified newsletter?

Do your posts help your reader or do they just recap district news?

The type of content on your blog could determine the success of your blog.

Crafting content that is useful, or creating content that solves a problem for your audience, can help build trust and define your district as the leading experts in the field of education.

In this post, I will break down key elements of what makes our blog posts impact and drive engagement with our audience.

1. Headlines are Very, Very Important

Most parents won’t read past your headline if it is not engaging or personal to them or their child. You need to create headlines that describe your post, but more importantly, headlines should feel like they are talking to the reader.

Figure out key words that will trigger a response with your audience.  Here are three headlines from recent posts on our blog:

Notice that our headlines use key words that will trigger parents to click on our articles. They are all about helping our audience be better parents. We want them to think that if they don’t click on the post, they are going to be losing valuable information that can help their child.

2. Keep it Short and Simple

We are not writing War and Peace. We don’t want to waste our parent’s time.

All of your posts should use easy to read language, chunked into short paragraphs.  Lists and bullet points are a great way to deliver information quickly to your audience.

Here are a few examples of how we use short paragraphs, lists and bullet points:

http://schoolahoop.com/the-importance-of-social-studies-in-the-elementary-classroom-you-can-help/ 

http://schoolahoop.com/20-ways-of-identifying-gifted-children/

3. Encourage Your Parents to Leave a Comment

You don’t want to end the conversation when your blog post ends.  Your district is here to help. Encourage parents to leave questions they have about your post in the comment section. 

This gives you the opportunity to interact with your audience and further become their trusted source on childhood education.

4. Always Include Social Media Share Buttons

The best way to build your audience is by word of mouth.  Parents are more likely to trust other parents.  By enabling your audience to share your material is the best way to spread the greatness of your posts.

Some of the best buttons to include are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.  The more your article is shared on these networks, the more times people are going to see your posts.

Do you have other tips about building a blog for your school district? Leave your tips in the comment section below.

Have a Plan Before You Go Viral

It's every marketer's dream to go VIRAL.

We dream of creating that one video that takes our YouTube Channel to the next level.

Before you go viral (which is really hard and requires a lot luck) you need to have a solid plan to make your YouTube Channel the best it can be. Because here is a secret... views are not the most important thing on YouTube.

Here are five things you must do before you create your next hit video:

1. Bring Your Brand to the Channel

Your brand is one of the most important assets you have when it comes to marketing your school district.  Every social media platform you are on, every post you create, should have your brand associated with it.

Do not let social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube do the branding for you.  Your brand is not a Twitter Egg.  Your district's logo should be your profile picture.  Action shots of your teachers and students need to be your cover picture.  There should be no excuse when someone visits your YouTube Chanel that they do not know what district or school is being represented. Be proud of your logo. Show it off.

2. Have a Link to Your Website

Just like your logo, you must have a link to your district's website on all of your social media platforms. It is critical that YouTube is not be your visitor's final resting place. You need them to be on your own turf.

You do not own YouTube. No one knows what what the future holds for their platform or their rules. However, you do own your website, and it is important that your marketing, including YouTube, draw them to your "Hub" of resources... your website.

Once you have them on your own turf, you can show them other content and have them sign-up for your newsletter or email list. By doing this, you now have a database of people you can invite to events and share additional content with. They have given you permission to market to them.

3. Create a Trailer Video

An awesome feature on your YouTube channel is the channel trailer.  This powerful feature allows you to highlight a video and make it the focal point of your YouTube channel. My district has great success with these videos.  They gather bigger views and more engagement than our normal content on YouTube.

My advice would be to rotate various videos using this feature.  Do you have a program you want to highlight? Do you have an awesome event you want to promote? Use the trailer feature every time you have an important message to push. When you don't have a program to highlight, use a generic district trailer to give an overview of your district.


4. Have Other Great Content

Your viral video should not be your only content on your YouTube channel.  Build an arsenal of content before you heavily promote your channel.  You want to have more than one piece of marketing when your audience visits your channel.

5. A Call to Action?

The goal of having a YouTube Channel is not to get a bunch of views.  Having a lot of views can be fun, but that is not the most important number you should be focusing on.  Engagement and ROI should be what you are looking for.

Where is your audience going after they watch your video?  They need to be going somewhere.  You need to give them a Call to Action.  You can drive them to your website. You can have them sign-up for your newsletter. You can invite them to an event.  Video is power. Use it as a tool to drive engagement.

The best way to implement the above tasks is to have a plan.  You need a plan on every social media platform you are a part of.

Do you need help with YouTube? Amy Schmittauer at Savvy Sexy Social offers great tips on all things video.

Do you have any other YouTube tips? Leave them in the comment section below.