My 2016 School Marketing Social Media Draft

In the spirit of this year's NFL draft, our district has put together our 2016 - 2017 Social Media Mock Draft.

Does your district have a ranking?  Are you ready for the new future of social media?

1. Facebook

This is our highest engaging social media platform.  Driven by parents (we don’t see students here much anymore), this social media powerhouse just reported record earnings fueled by advertising.  Our strongest demographic on the platform is women aged 35 – 44.

How Your District Can Benefit from Facebook Audience Optimization

You don’t get much bang for your buck with organic posts like you use to, but this veteran can score you some engagement wins with target and retargeted paid ads.  Ads can be very cheap compared to traditional media such as newspapers, radio and television.  Now with Facebook Live, you can broadcast live video straight to your timeline.  Game Changer!

2. Instagram

We get most of our student traction from social media on this Facebook owned platform (we are early into SnapChat with no official launch).  Students in middle school and high school don’t mind mentioning us on their feeds or interacting with our posts.

7 Awesome Ideas to Kick Your District Instagram Account into High Gear

Now that you are not limited to a square pic, and that you can post video, this is an awesome resource to reach your students.

3. Twitter

Unfortunately, this star has fallen quite bit in engagement and reach.  We do get some interaction from the parents and students, but we have noticed less and fewer students want to interact on Twitter.

We do think it still has some potential with the ability to post video and to conduct Twitter chats with parents and the community.  Twitter does work well with community and business partners, as they tend to retweet our content.  I think the company needs to overhaul some things to have a fourth quarter resurgence.

4. LinkedIn

This is on our list to great things for our district in the 2016 – 2017 season.  LinkedIn is not just a tool for HR.  It has become a content hub for professionals.

We feel this platform will be a superstar when it comes to engaging our community and business partners.  Now with “showcase pages”, we can provide strategic content to our different audiences.  We are looking to take our content marketing to the next level with this professional player.

5. YouTube

I do not really consider YouTube social media (it is more like a search engine for video content), but it still has some social aspects that allowed us to have it ranked number five in our mock draft.

Video is power in marketing.  With broadband internet pretty much the norm, you do not have to worry about the dreaded buffering pop-up like the past.  More and more marketing departments are investing in video.  It is time your district invests in the “number two” search engine in the world.

6. SnapChat

This will be a game changer in video marketing.  I am sure in next year’s draft; this young platform could reach number two. 

Millennials are now the largest demographic surpassing baby boomers… and they are all on SnapChat. Now with the Story Tool, this has become a powerful way to publicly communicate.

If you are scared to tip your toe into the SnapChat waters, there is still a way to be noticed on the platform.  I suggest Geo-Filters.  It is a great way to target SnapChatters in certain zip codes to interact with your brand or district.  Geo-Filters alone would make SnapChat a safe bet to draft this rookie at number five.

7. Periscope

This platform had a quick rise, but has lost much of its luster with Facebook introducing Facebook Live.

10 Periscope Ideas for Your School PR Department 

Periscope is still a great way to interact with your Twitter followers in a live setting.  I don’t mind picking it up in the third or fourth round.  Here are some suggestions on great ways to use the platform from an earlier post on my blog.

8. Pinterest

To be honest, our district needs more of a Pinterest presence.  It is still a powerful tool to interact with parents, especially moms.

The key is to be strategic with your posts and not go pin crazy.  We need a clean-up on aisle Pinterest in our district.  We do get some nice engagement using the Pin-It button on our blog visuals.  Try to find this WordPress plugin for your blog.

9. Vimeo

Not as widely accepted as YouTube, but it is a great for embedding clean video on your website and blog.  The best part is there are no ads or pre-roll to get in the way of your content.

10. “Mr. Irrelevant”

Google Plus

You would think Google would be able to get at least one hit in the social media landscape, however, this is not really a game-changer for our district.  We do use it to drive small traffic to our blogs, but other than that we rarely use this dying platform.