We have already spoken about the impact of podcasts and their continual rise in popularity as highly consumable content. In a previous blog we even looked at education podcasts that would be perfect for school staff to begin listening to and the Top 8 education podcasts around.

But what about schools starting their own podcasts? A school podcast:

• Is relatively easy to do, requiring minimal equipment and a little editing experience.

• Is proven to be a leading form of content, with more people tuning in then ever before.

• Can lead to desirable skills being learnt by pupils at the school, such as project management, confidence, working in a team, and media skills.

• Can help lead CPD experiences for staff at the school.

• Aligns neatly with the fact that more people are tuning into podcasts as a format for learning.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) are likely to be two terms you have heard a lot of when it comes down to digital marketing. They are both methods you can employ within your content and marketing strategies to drive better reach for your website and online presence.

SEO is how you can get more traffic to your website from “natural” search results on search engines. It requires an understanding of how you can optimise your website, and the content on it, as well as the algorithms popular search engines use, to help your website rank higher on search results. The ultimate goal is for your site to rank number one on Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

PPC is how you can get more traffic to your website by running ads, which show on search engines, but only pay for if they are clicked. It requires an understanding of keywords (the words and terms people are likely to use when searching for your school, or schools in your area) and how to set up and optimise your adverts.

Both SEO and PPC have an incredibly relevant place within your school marketing, but which one is better? Which one yields a greater return of your investment in both time and money? Let’s review.

SEO

With Instagram’s continual (and considerable) growth, influencer marketing is a current hot topic. In short, influencer marketing is where focus is placed on an influencer or influential people who have an influence over a certain demographic, instead of targeting the demographic itself.

For example, a small fashion chain might look to the likes of Kim Kardashian or Justin Bieber to promote their clothing on Instagram (or other social channels), which will generate incredible traction versus tailored marketing campaigns that simply target a specific demographic. Knowing that a large part of the fashion chain’s core demographic may be fans of Kim or Justin makes this a sensible and effective undertaking.

I’m old enough to remember when hashtags were called pound signs, and we played tic-tac-toe on top of them. ~ Anon

We love #SocialMedia! It is a wonderful representation of the ebbs and flows of the tech-led world in which we live. Right now, it does not feel like there could be any limitations to where it can go and how it can further connect us all.

It has been fascinating to watch how social media has developed in a particularly short period of time, and what trends have stuck since the early days. One such trend that most, if not all, readers here will recognise is the #hashtag.

For years we have witnessed hashtags appearing all across our feeds on our favourite social media platforms, even becoming an accepted part of language today.

With more and more data available to marketers, and the continued refinement of how this data is analysed and sorted (especially with AI), it is becoming easier to understand audiences.

• Who they are.

• What they like.

• Where they live.

• What they do.

But what should schools do with this data? It deserves to be used for marketing and admissions, so how best can we achieve this? We found an interesting article around personalised marketing, and identified key takeaways which form an interesting topic for school marketers to explore.

Sometimes dubbed ‘the Year of the Podcast’, 2018 offered interesting insight into the content habits of social media audiences.

In the UK, podcast listeners have boomed in the last five years. In fact, 5.9 million UK adults (11%) aged 15+ are noted as weekly podcast listeners; almost doubling from 3.2 million (7%) back in 2013. While most age groups are represented, the most notable demographic to adopt podcasts are 15-24 years olds.

Across the pond, US audiences are also consuming podcasts at an increased rate. Last year, 12 million people listened to a podcast for the first time and over a quarter of all Americans (84.5 million) listen to podcasts on a monthly basis. To put that in context, that is more people than the combined populations of Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal!

"WeChat is a way of Life" - Allen Zhang, founder of WeChat

WhatsApp and its instant messaging, Facebook’s feed and archiving, Twitter’s constant up-to-date feed, Instagram’s photo sharing and YouTube’s ability to create and share videos. Guaranteed that you will have some, if not all of these apps. WeChat has these and so much more and unlike many other apps/websites it is not blocked in China. If you live in the West you may not know of this app, but soon you may install ‘The App for Everything’.

The great firewall of China is real, many websites are blocked, one in particular you may have heard of and rely on heavily… Google, this means no Google Maps, no Gmail, no Google Docs, no Play Store, the list goes on... WeChat takes elements of our favourite apps and brings them together in one app with their own store, maps, social feed, banking, voice messaging, online dating, and so much more.

Created in 2011, ‘Wēixìn’ (almost pronounced like ‘we she-en’) was created as a multi-purpose, social media, and mobile payment app. With WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. all being blocked behind the Great Firewall of China, the only way to stay in touch with the western world (without the use of a VPN) is to use this app… and ask family and friends to download it as well. Beyond having to download and create an account for another app, this will work just the same as WhatsApp, with a few bonuses where they could learn a thing or two. WeChat is becoming harder to put into a nutshell.

Let’s start with a laugh and the app built upon the emoji that is found on every phone and allowed limitless possibilities with the use of ‘stickers’ where you can download premade animations or you can be creative and make custom stickers, it’s easy:

1. Find an image or GIF and save it to your phone or desktop.

2. Open the WeChat app, select ‘account’ and then the ‘sticker gallery’.

3. Select ‘custom sticker’ and add anything you like.

4. Picture this: You get asked if you’re dressed and ready to go to a wedding. In two taps (no more than what you would do for an emoji), you could send one or both of these as a reply…

Think about it, how many times do you pick up your phone and mindlessly check Instagram? How many times do you check your timeline, only to quickly respond to a message and then refresh your feed again for the 800th time that day. Is it any wonder when there are so many accounts to follow? - all claiming to help you achieve your dream body, the ‘perfect’ job, the ‘perfect’ filtered life. We can get lost in a sea of ‘likes’ and comments for validation.  

#DoItForTheGram

Picture this, you’re scrolling down your timeline on Instagram and you are bombarded by images and posts by social media influencers – their message is one that seems simple enough: be yourself, love your body, embrace your flaws. Most of the time these images that are highly edited and perfectly poised often depict an unrealistic standard of beauty. Interestingly, free apps that can manipulate your body or face seem to be one of the most popular editing apps to download.

The younger generation base a lot of their thoughts, feelings, and emotions on what they see online, and can we blame them? This is where the younger generation spend most of their time. This is where they can see inside a celebrity or influencers life, where more often than not the way you look warrants sponsorship deals, free products, and the idea of a lavish, easily attainable life.

Mental health week spiked up a debate as to whether social media is detrimental to teens. A lot of Instagram influencers would proceed to post pictures of their lavish lifestyles with an inspirational caption. In turn, a lot of them were criticised for not actually taking the aspect of mental health seriously and were actually adding to the increasing problem.

Nowadays, there is an obsession with posting the ‘Perfect Selfie’ and our society is inundated with images that are meant to sell us a product, brand, or lifestyle. Is it any wonder that when we look at our own lives and they do not quite fit into the backdrop of an ‘Instagram’ filter, we see our own accomplishments fall short? Does my edited image or heavily filtered photo make me more of a marketing tool? We are so spoilt with everything being so easily accessible and on demand all of the time that we can sometimes forget to connect with reality and appreciate what it takes to be ‘alive’, in a world consumed by virtual reality and refreshed timelines.

This ideal can be detrimental to our teens that seem to live their lives on a social platform often doing things or posting content purely for ‘likes’ and doing it #ForTheGram’. There seems to be a conflicting message across most influencers, ‘be confident, love yourself, but that’s only okay if you fit into the mould and the standards of what society deems beautiful.’ If we can manipulate our images so easily, do we lose touch with reality? And constantly chase impossible and unrealistic #Goals.

It must be difficult and confusing for our future generation to receive such mixed signals and it’s hardly surprising that the youth of today set such high standards for themselves and anxiety and depression in teens has increased drastically, ‘Anxiety disorders are the most common of all mental illnesses and affect 25 percent of all teens and 30 percent of all teen girls.’ Even teenagers that don’t necessarily want to engage in social media can feel the pressure of having to keep up with the latest social trends in order to fit into conversation with their peers.

It isn’t all doom and gloom though, there are a lot of positive messages that can come from social media and we can see the sense and the shift occurring. Influencers such as Chessie King, who set up an Instagram campaign about cyber bullying and internet trolling, edited an image of herself but edited it using comments her trolls had left her on her page. She did so to highlight the detrimental effect that cyberbullying can have on people, especially teenagers, and shared the ‘beauty ideal’ with her followers:

Who’s online?

Smartphone ownership has become more common than ever in teen life, with 95% of teens now reporting that they own a smartphone or have access to one. This easy access to the internet, of course, leads to a much higher involvement in online activities. In fact, 45% of teens now say they are online on a near-constant basis!

Back in 2012, on the other hand, only 66% of 16-24 year olds owned a smartphone. At this time, back in 2012, the number of active Facebook users surpassed one billion, making it the first social network ever to do so! Whilst you may remember those days of Facebook being the most popular social media platform around, with teens glued to the site almost every waking moment - those days are now over! Facebook has now lost many teenagers from both the UK and the US, as mobile social networks like Instagram and Snapchat have really begun to take over. Now that such a high number of these young people are in possession of smartphones, it’s no wonder that they are turning to social networks like these, which were designed specifically for mobile devices, as opposed to Facebook, which was predominantly a desktop site.

But it’s not only teens whose smartphone ownership has increased dramatically since that time. The majority of parents with children currently in school are also smartphone-users, with 95% of 25-34 year olds and 91% of 35-54 year olds also now owning smartphones, compared to only 60% and 42%, back in 2012.

So, what are teens & parents using today?

It’s clear that social networks are now at a stage of maturity where they are appealing to almost all age groups, in different ways. However, Instagram and Snapchat are obvious exceptions to this and are mostly more popular with younger age groups. Whilst Facebook is still technically the most popular social network in terms of active users, the younger generation is certainly beginning to move away from this and more toward more mobile apps.

In terms of how we are sharing social media, the line between social networking and messaging apps is constantly blurring, with teens just a click away from sharing their thoughts with not only their followers/friends on various sites, but also directly to their friends via direct messages. Thanks to our desire to often message privately like this, many existing social networks have adapted and expanded to accommodate for this, adding private messaging functions to enable a faster and more direct approach to sharing content.

Facebook

Facebook still stands as the most populated social network. This is no surprise, as they are constantly updating and expanding to try to include more and more functions and features. The site allows users to share photos, videos and other content, to sell items on their ‘marketplace,’ and also to privately message other users. Having recently added ‘stories’ too, following the success of this feature on Snapchat and Instagram, it’s clear that the network is making every attempt to keep up and remain relevant and active in youngsters, who have mostly moved over to being active on other social networks at this point.

However, as it currently stands, Facebook is significantly more favoured by a slightly older audience of 23-37 year olds, with an estimated 80% of respondents within the age bracket using the platform regularly, so parents in this age group are extremely likely to be active on the network. However, it has been predicted that various fake news and data breach issues currently circulating the channel may prompt many users to turn away. 2018’s algorithm changes even prompted Facebook to state that they expect users to spend less time on the site as a result.

Twitter

It has been reported that 81% of millennials check Twitter at least once per day. The site allows for direct messaging alongside its primary use (sharing Tweets and media), but also is likely popular due to the novelty of being able to mention anyone’s Twitter handle in a Tweet. This means that a user can interact with their favourite celebrities who - elsewhere - would usually be unreachable. For younger users, this can be exciting and can allow them to feel closer to their favourite musicians, sports stars and other celebrities, giving the illusion of some kind of connection, when they are retweeted or liked by one of these stars.