I am a morning person.
I like to get to the office by 6:00 a.m. each morning.
Getting to the office this early allows me to get things
done before most of my staff arrives to start the day. The quiet time with no disturbances from
co-workers means I can get a lot done.
Here is my morning ritual during the first two hours when I
arrive at work.
1. Energy Boost for
the Day
I do not dive into my work when I first walk into the
office. I have to have my morning coffee.
Walking to the break room allows me turn on all the lights around the
administration building while I take a deep breath before I dig into the day.
I always fix my pecan-flavored coffee with no sugar and a
bit of cream. After my levels are
correct, I crack open my laptop and begin my workday.
2. Current Events and
my Love of Marketing
I am obsessed with news.
I want to be in the know. This is
why each morning I read the headlines and jump over to my favorite blogs to see
what is trending in marketing and social media.
It is crucial to stay current with your industry and
see what is hot.
Here are some of my favorite blogs to read in the morning:
I highly recommend bookmarking these pages to get your daily
dose of marketing and social media tips. They are great reads by industry professionals.
3. Moneyball my
School Marketing
My second obsession is data.
I love numbers and I love spreadsheets.
That is why I always check my website and social media analytics each
morning. My big three are Google
Analytics, Facebook Insights, and Twitter Analytics.
Google Analytics is my go to analytics platform for my
website visitor data. I use Google for
both our main district website and our School-A-Hoop parenting blog.
My favorite dashboards and numbers to look at are:
- Content Analysis- what were the most popular sections of my website
- Referral Traffic- how did people get to my website
- Bounce Rate- are they exploring more of my site, or one and done?
- Location of Visitors- where do my visitors come from? Local?
- Navigation Summary- what did they do once they made it to our site?
Most of our parents are on Facebook. This is their social
media platform of choice. That is why it
is crucial that I check Facebook Insights each morning. It gives me a great breakdown of how people
are engaging with my content. It also
lets us know what content is working and what is not working.
My favorite insights
are:
- People- who was my audience for the last seven days?
- Reach- how far did my content go? Did it go beyond my fans?
- Engagement- did my post cause the audience to take an action
- Competitor Analysis- always check to see what other districts are doing
Although Twitter is not as
powerful when it comes to audience engagement for our district, I still like to
analyze the numbers to see what content is working for us.
Here are the statistics I look at:
- Tweet Impressions- how many people saw my post
- Follower Count- check to see how my content pulled in new audiences
- Engagements- see how people are interacting with my posts and my CTA’s
Remember, numbers are your
friends. They can help prove the
effectiveness of your campaigns and social media content.
4. Social Media for the Carpool Crowd
Every morning during the school
week, I plan a Facebook post and a tweet to be delivered during our morningcarpool. It’s a great way to target a
captivated audience as they wait for the school doors to open.
The content always determines what
time I schedule my post. If it is an
elementary school story I post during their carpool. If it is a middle school story I post during
their drop-off. If the morning story has
to do with one of our high schools, I will post about 15 minutes before the
first period bell rings. High school
students love to hang with their friends and their smartphones before school
starts.
Another great time to schedule a
social media post is during the afternoon pick-up times. Parents typically have to wait in front of
the school much longer waiting on their child.
5. Exercise While I Podcast
The last fifteen minutes before my
team arrives for the day is my daily walk around the board room. This allows for me to get some steps on my
Fitbit before I start my morning meetings.
It also allows for me to listen to marketing podcasts while I exercise. Most of the time I finish a podcast that was
not quite finished during my morning commute.
I love catching up on all the
industry and marketing trends while I walk.
The majority of the time I listen to marketing or social media content,
but occasionally I will listen to some MLB podcasts to get he latest headlines
for my favorite sport.
*Creating Content Marketing Gold
The above rituals are the norm
four of the five days of the week.
Wednesday is a tad bit different.
On Wednesday I put on my publisher hat and edit blog posts for our
School-a-Hoop parenting blog.
Every Wednesday I will take an
expertly written piece of content from teachers and administrators in our
district and I will prepare it to be published on our blog.
Here the editorial steps I take to get it ready to be published:
- Read for Grammar- I always read for typos and grammatical mistakes
- SEO Optimization- I write my headline and create SEO tags for the post
- Photshop my Visuals- I always prepare visual content for my posts
- Prepare a Social Media Post- I create a separate visual and engaging copy
Writing the article is only the
first step when you write for a blog.
You must prep your article to be seen by the masses.
My First Morning is Now Complete
The stuff above is usually accomplished
before my co-workers hit the office. I
am tired by the end of the week, but I always feel accomplished. Luckily I have
my own key and alarm code for the building.
It would be pretty lonely waiting in the parking lot trying to find a
WiFi signal.
your writing is like a breath of fresh air. Thank you for sharing
ReplyDeleteI have no words to appreciate you over great articles provided.
LIC Plans