IN CASE YOU DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW THIS LITTLE TITBIT OF TRIVIA….
ON JULY 20, 1969, AS COMMANDER OF THE APOLLO 11 LUNAR MODULE, NEIL ARMSTRONG WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO SET FOOT ON THE MOON.
HIS FIRST WORDS AFTER STEPPING ON THE MOON, “THAT’S ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND,” WERE TELEVISED TO EARTH AND HEARD BY MILLIONS.*
BUT JUST BEFORE HE RE-ENTERED THE LANDER, HE MADE THE ENIGMATIC REMARK - “GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY.”
MANY PEOPLE AT NASA THOUGHT IT WAS A CASUAL REMARK CONCERNING SOME RIVAL SOVIET COSMONAUT. HOWEVER, UPON CHECKING, THERE WAS NO GORSKY IN EITHER THE RUSSIAN OR AMERICAN SPACE PROGRAMS .
OVER THE YEARS, MANY PEOPLE QUESTIONED ARMSTRONG AS TOWHAT THE - ‘GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY’ STATEMENT MEANT, BUT ARMSTRONG ALWAYS JUST SMILED.
ON JULY 5, 1995, IN TAMPA BAY , FLORIDA , WHILE ANSWERING QUESTIONS FOLLOWING A SPEECH, A REPORTER BROUGHT UP THE 26-YEAR-OLD QUESTION ABOUT Mr GORSKY TO ARMSTRONG.
THIS TIME HE FINALLY RESPONDED BECAUSE MR. GORSKY HAD DIED, SO NEIL ARMSTRONG FELT HE COULD NOW ANSWER THE QUESTION.
HERE IS THE ANSWER TO “WHO WAS MR GORSKY”:
IN 1938, WHEN HE WAS A KID IN A SMALL MID-WESTERNTOWN , HE WAS PLAYING BASEBALL WITH A FRIEND IN THE BACKYARD. HIS FRIEND HIT THE BALL, WHICH LANDED IN HIS NEIGHBOR’S YARD BY THEIR BEDROOM WINDOW.
HIS NEIGHBORS WERE MR. AND MRS. GORSKY. AS HE LEANED DOWN TO PICK UP THE BALL, YOUNG ARMSTRONG HEARD MRS. GORSKY SHOUTING AT MR. GORSKY,
“SEX! YOU WANT SEX?! YOU’LL GET SEX WHEN THE KID NEXT DOOR WALKS ON THE MOON!”
It broke the place up.
NEIL ARMSTRONG’S FAMILY CONFIRMED THIS IS A TRUE STORY.
Recent Posts
Last week we spoke in detail about why a Head should be blogging. This week we are going to take a look at a few examples of Heads that tweet.
Why a Head should be on Twitter
Most likely, your school will already be on Twitter - 73% of independent schools are. However, in some cases the school’s Twitter account is branded as the Head. We believe the Head and school’s account should be separate, as they serve different marketing purposes.
The Head can be tweeting from the school’s account but should not be using it as a personal account. We have found that school’s with a tweeting Head tend to have a high social authority. You can see example of this in the comparisons below.
An example of a Head branding their Twitter account as the school is Cokethorpe School - @HMCokethorpe. The school Twitter account is also the Head’s. This can cause confusion as the handle suggests it is the Headmaster but the name is branded as the school. We would suggest changing the name to the Head’s real name. The description should still contain ‘Headmaster of Cokethorpe School…’ as this will give clear indication to the user and also aid discovery.
5 things your Head could tweet
- Opinions - Head’s tend to be very opinionated. These should be shared to encourage discussion and thought motivation. Opinions on developments in the education sector are particularly interesting and help spur debates.
- Stories - Every school has a story. We advocate the sharing of stories within schools because that is what makes you different.
- Works - The Head can be sharing the work of pupils. Parents enjoy seeing their child’s work being showcased and it serves as great content.
- Updates - Content and news from the school should be retweeted and shared by the Head.
- Education - It may sound obvious, but this is a strong marketing opportunity. Heads tend to be associated with their favoured subjects and could be tweeting educational content.
You can see from these 5 examples that the Head should not just tweet about the school. There should be a certain level of personal tweets involved too.
Introduction to Social Authority
Social authority measures your school’s influential activity, primarily through the number of retweets. Its a 1 to 100 point scale based on a user’s influential content. It highlights the schools that are incredibly effective in engaging their followers. If you want to learn more, please check out our blog post about Social Authority.
Comparison of some top Heads
You can see how these schools that also have their Head tweeting - have a good social authority too.
Do you think your Head is, or would be good, on Twitter? Would you like to know their #SocialScore? Tweet us @intSchools and we can use them next time on our blog.
Social media has required schools to reach a new level of transparency. Blogging, specifically, has allowed schools to publish authentic content and forge a strong connection with their community. It has also given schools an opportunity to develop a voice that is hard to replicate on any other platform. Previously, a school would have to rely on journalists or word of mouth to portray the school’s story. This was always a risk on the school, as you would have to trust a 3rd party to represent you in the way you want. Now, you can help define your school’s story.
Heads are the leaders and visionaries of schools. They set the vision, mission and strategy for the school, which is central to their role. Nobody knows the school as well as the head and nobody has the same reach and authority either. This puts the head in a powerful position when it comes to the voice and marketing of the school. To sucessfully market and brand your school, it is essential that the head is involved - after all, people are much more interested in what the head has to say than the marketing person. It is the same with almost every organisation.
Some of the most successful businesses in modern times have all had a clear and focal leader that has communicated well with their audience. Think Apple’s Steve Jobs, Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates etc.
Let’s use Sir Richard Branson as a wonderful example of social engagement. If you search “Richard Branson” into Google, the first thing that appears is his blog. What happens when you type your head’s name into Google?
Who has more followers - Virgin or Sir Richard Branson? Virgin has a 75,000 followers, Branson has 3,177,069 followers, and counting. When you go onto the homepage of Virgin, 3 things stand out:
- News
- Companies
- Richard’s Blog
One of the biggest companies in the world are heavily promoting content that their CEO is creating for people. One of the busiest people in the world is frequently creating content for people to consume. Please do take a look at Richard’s Blog and think about the blog posts he is creating and why.
Community
Most school websites have a section or page referring to ‘Community’. Every school has a community but, on a website, it often feels false. This is because you are telling people about your school’s community in a sales pitch - you are trying to persuade your prospects. A head’s blog can change this because you can showcase your school’s community in a real, authentic way.
A community can be developed through blogging. Write an engaging blog post and people will share, comment and discuss. Discussion and commentary will bring people together and personalities will shine through. Responding to comments and questions breeds organic engagement.
Culture & Value
What does it really feel like to go to your school? Is your school a fun, vibrant one? Do you have traditional values, coupled with a modern approach? There are a lot of buzz words that schools throw around when discussing their culture and values. Your school’s head should be the voice of this and there is no better way to do this than through a blog. The head will share the core values, which will resonate with the school’s audience when communicated correctly.
Leadership, Opinions & Personality
Leaders of organisations can use blogs to inspire and lead people. Heads can do the same through their blogs. They are an effective way to informally communicate with people to inspire action. Blogs can be a good way to command influence, vision and authority. Blogs also allow people to gain an exiting insight into the school as well as the thoughts from the head.
Heads can use blogs to establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry. Many will be put off by the fear of controversy, but opinions should be communicated to receive a reaction. Conversations happen because of opinions and that’s exactly what you want from a blog.
Every head has a personality and this should be showcased in a blog. Prospects will reflect on the head’s personality and will want to see authentic, personal and real content.
Is blogging right for your Head?
It completely depends on the head themselves. If the head wants to blog then begin to think strategically about it. If the head does not want to blog then that’s fine. A head that is not interested, have the time, nor the desire just won’t make a blog work. Blogging requires passion and commitment, and it’s not for everyone.
The worst thing you can do is persuade your head to blog when they’re not a right fit. This will lead to disengaging, uninspiring and non-authentic blog posts.
Blogging Heads
Some heads are already blogging and we have a list of them below. Take a look at their blogs and consume their content. Think about what would work for your school.
Carry on this discussions using #HeadsBlog on Twitter!
Blog: Kevin Fear | School Twitter: Nottingham High School
Blog: Jo MacKenzie | School Twitter: Bedford Girls’ School
Blog: Jonathan Lancashire | School Twitter: Dean Close School
Blog: Martin Reader | School Twitter: Wellington School
Blog: Dr G A Silverlock | School Twitter: King’s School Junior School
Blog: Chris Edwards | School Twitter: Bromgroves School
Blog: Lucy Pearson | School Twitter: Cheadle Hulme School
You may have heard us talk a lot recently about social influence and authority. Here, at Interactive Schools, we have been busy analysing every UK independent school’s social media activity and authority. This is to give schools clear, actionable data. It is also a clever bit of fun! We will be releasing this data out to schools in next the coming weeks.
It is safe to say that schools have adopted Twitter - 73% of independent schools are on Twitter in some capacity - but there is still some way to go in terms of real engagement. How influential is your school? How engaging is your school? How influential are your followers?
What is social authority?
Social authority measures your school’s influential activity, primarily through the number of retweets. Its a 1 to 100 point scale based on a user’s influential content. It highlights the schools that are incredibly effective in engaging their followers. Some schools struggle to create content that resonates with people and this table will help to establish needed improvements.
The great thing about authority is that it is not directly a matter of how many followers you have, rather the content you create and how your audience reacts to it. Followers is a reaction of good content, not the cause.
Why does it matter?
Is your school’s content resonating with your community? This is something that is difficult to measure. It is easy to see the basic metrics such as tweets, followers, retweets, mentions, favourites etc. but these cannot be solely used for measuring social activity.
How you can use social authority.
So, all this stuff is great but actions…give me actions! There are a high number of ways that social authority can be used by schools. The simplest actionable insight you can get from social authority is an overview of how well is your content performing. The higher your social authority, the more shareable your content.
It also gives a deep insight into the affinity people have with your content - if they are willing to share this content with their followers, then they are strong advocates for your brand. If you have a low score then ask these questions:
- Are your tweets grabbing people’s attention?
- Are your tweets actionable?
- Are you engaging your audience?
- Is your school easily discoverable?
- Do your tweets have a high visibility?
- Is there a strong affinity towards your school?
How influential are your followers? Having influential people following your tweets increases the likelihood of your message spreading through trusted and authoritative sources.
Your school should follow schools with a high social authority and take a look at how they interact with their followers. This will allow you to analyse their content and tweet strategies to help you make informed decisions about your own.
Who has a high social authority, and what can you learn from them?
Bablake School #1
Bablake School (@BablakeSchool) are currently number 1 overall on the Alternative School League Table. Why? Because they are engaging with their audience through replies, retweets and mentions. This gives their followers a feeling of community, which increases the likelihood of reciprocal communication.
Not only do Bablake School engage with people, but they tweet interesting content - which include links to their website and external sites! They do this on a regular basis, which constantly keeps their followers aware of Bablake.
Their language of choice is playful, fun and very social friendly. This makes people feel at ease and much more likely to advocate their message. Remember: retweets are key!
How does your school increase its social score?
The score is a great measurement of how people take to your content - this can either be your brand message/philosophy or interesting, engaging content.
Justin Bieber (@JustinBieber) has a high authority because young people have a very high sentiment for him - they are huge brand advocates and will defend him not matter what. This is very crucial to social marketing. You, as a marketer, want to create a brand that people have a positive feeling towards. So much so, that they will advocate and share your message.
BBC News (@BBCNews) have a high authority because they are a trusted and instant source of news. People trust what they are saying and because they are often one of the first to tweet about news and updates, people will retweet and converse.
Funny Tweets (@autocorrect) have a high social authority because, as you would expect, they share funny tweets! People find their content comical and want to share it their friends and following to increase their social capital. Just like in real life, if you hear a joke that makes you laugh the you will want to share it with your peers. We are innately social, we like to share.
These are three very different examples of Twitter accounts, but they all share something similar - they engage their audience through remarkable content.
My school has a low social authority, what am I doing wrong!?
In general, schools have a low social authority. There are a number of reasons for this and we will go through a few of them. Lets take Brighton College (@BrightonCollege) as an example.
They have a social authority of 1 but have 925 followers. They have an audience willing to listen to them and ready to consume their brand message but they have not tweeted since 2010! This quiet downtime has led to their authority dropping. If you are not tweeting regularly, it will be difficult to receive a high social authority.
Social authority is not about the number of followers you have, but how you engage the audience you do have. You could have the most followers in the world but if you are not engaging them, you will not be an influencer.
Begin to tweet regularly, then after a month check your social score again. Keep experimenting with different content and different styles - find out what resonates with your followers.
So, to wrap up.
We are previewing the table right now at the BSA Annual Conference for Heads (follow along using #BSAConf2013). Our MD Simon Noakes (@SimonNoakes) showcased parts of the tables during his talk on social media. We have had a great reception so far and it is great to see schools actively discussing their social score.
If you want to know your social score then tweet us with @intSchools #socialscore.
Social is now mobile. More than half of social media access on Twitter and Facebook is through mobile devices. And some social channels are exclusively mobile, think Instagram, Foursquare, Path etc.
Twitter have even come out and suggested that mobile users were more important than desktop users. A big shout, certainly. Instagram was, of course, born on mobile and now look at it! It boasts over a whopping 90 million users and was worth $1 billion when Facebook originally agreed to buy it.
Geolocation is exploding and here’s why:
- Almost every social media channels offers the ability to geotag your location
- Search and social is becoming local
- Mobile usage is huge, and will continue to grow
- Brings offline, online
Demand for geo-taggable content is rapidly growing. This is not only because it helps determine relevancy, but due to its ubiquitous connectivity approach.
Social and mobile are now becoming symmetrical with real life, and location is a key ingredient to this. Schools have so much going on outside the school, and geotagging content will serve a great experience to visitors. Its the next level of detail that people now expect.
Location is in abundance, especially on mobile devices, and if users expect it then your school needs to deliver. It is being integrated with every day and especially search. Foursquare have made a big push with search on their latest version of their apps and Google is constantly growing its local features.
How much of your marketing is focussed on geosocial and location? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
A distinct new breed of social media personalities has been born, according to an extensive new study by conversation experts first direst. Which one are you?
- The Ultras?
- The Dippers?
- The Deniers?
- The Lurkers?
- The Virgins?
- The Peacocks?
- The Ranters?
- The Changelings?
- The Ghosts?
- The Informers?
- The Quizzers?
- The Approval Seekers?
The online reputation of a school is becoming a critical part of the decision process for prospects. If you Google your school’s name, what appears? Often, parents will search your school’s brand name on Google and begin there. Let’s start.
Google Results
The majority of school’s have at least one negative link of the first page of Google. This is often news articles from major sites such as Huffington Post, Guardian, BBC etc.
Why do these types of sites always pop up? It is because negative news is highly likely to receive links and social shares. Not only this but these major sites, who have huge ranking capabilities, post negative news.
Once the negative news is online, how can you remove it? Well, you can’t. It is there until the news site decides to remove it (which is unlikely). The only action that a school can take is to knock the article(s) off the first page of Google.
Social Media
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr etc. can all help you ‘own’ the first page of Google. An example of a company who have taken complete control of their brand is HubSpot. They own the first two websites and the following are all social media sites that they can update, monitor and control. It is worth noting that the second page is also a plethora of social channels - a great insurance.
This army of social channels become great crisis management tools if negative news does occur - either offline or online. Most likely, people will perform a branded search to either discover the news or to find out more about the news and you will be able to quickly respond and manage any negativity.
Building a strong community on these channels will not only give you a great competitive advantage but your community will become advocates of your school.
Do you have negative links on Google? How do you control them? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
Blogging for schools has naturally taken off so far in 2013, and it’s great to see. However, there are still a lot of schools yet to join in. In this post, we’re going to give you an insight into whether or not a blog is actually right for your school and what the benefits of blogging are.
- Does your school have current parents and pupils?
- Does your school have prospective parents and pupils?
- Are they online?
- Do they read online?
If the answer to all these questions is yes, then your school would benefit from a blog. So what benefits does blogging have?
Community
Three of the ways that blogging benefits your community are:
- Attracts new prospects to a great school
- Helps and entertains current community
- Increases their social capital, with valuable and shareable content
Content is a great way to attract prospects. People share good content and this will increase the school’s visibility on social media. Social recommendations are so powerful today.
It is very important to always exceed the expectations of your current community. They are the people who will eventually be asked for their thoughts and opinions. Just like any other business, reviews are so important. More and more people are looking for social proof when looking to make an informed decision. They will search online, they will ask online, they will talk to their social network.
People want to consume good, valuable content that they find interesting. Provide this to your community, give them something to enjoy. More importantly, give them something to talk about.
Social Media
Blogging is social. It can act as a perfect catalyst for discussion, whether it be positive or negative. Remember, social has given us an incredible way of turning negative press into a positive outcome.
Excellent posts lead to discussions on social media. Your school can drive communities to converse about topics of interest and to engage people.
Posts can be adverts for your brand masked as a helpful, interesting piece of content. They help to capture your brand the way you want it to be perceived, and gain exposure for your school.
Great blogs can go viral. Your content, if highly valuable, can explode on the social web and potentially increase your school’s reach to thousands of new eyes.
SEO
Quality content is loved by search engines and can heavily influence your search rankings. Google, in particular, has long been in a battle against spam and low-quality websites. A good blog will help Google in this decision-making process, showing them that your website is different and will offer their users a better experience.
Long-tail keywords are a hugely important facet of every school’s online marketing strategy. Your school will have the few keywords that drive a large number of search visitors. This may only accumulate to 20% of all search traffic and long-tail keywords could make up 80% in total. 1 in 4 searches have never been performed before.
By increasing your visibility on search, you can begin to control your brand. Sometimes, negative or unwanted news links can appear in your branded SERP (search engine results page), and this is very hard to control when the brand has no content to promote.
School blogs are incredibly popular right now and it’s great that we are seeing a huge variety of topics being covered. They are adding personality to schools and every school has something quirky about them that makes them unique. Promote that unique something, whether it be a horror film club, weekly rock music performance, an on-site farm, or anything.
How does your school blog? Do you have any ideas for a blog? Share your thoughts in the comments.
One of the biggest benefits of web analytics is the ability to attribute revenue and goals to a source.
With social media usage exploding, how do we measure the impact it has on our websites? Well, just go to Google Analytics, check out the referrals, then measure behaviour and conversions. Simple, right? Actually, its not that easy. You may look at your referral traffic and notice a lot of traffic from Facebook and Twitter, but this just a small percentage of the true number of social referrals.
Google Analytics is restricted in how much information it can extract - often in referrals from emails, IM clients, some mobile apps and when coming from a secure site to a non-secure site.
There is a lot of social sharing that occurs online. If a person clicks through from the Twitter iPhone app, an email, or through Facebook chat then the source will be set as direct. This isn’t helpful because we cannot attribute the correct value to each of these social channels. We call this lost social traffic ‘dark social’.
What is dark social?
Dark social is the huge number of invisible referrals that websites receive without knowing. Dark social appears in analytics as direct traffic.
Is dark social good or bad?
Dark social in terms of deep sharing is fantastic, you want to increase this level of sharing as it is more likely to be personal. The problem is that because dark social is valuable, you need to be able to measure it. Unfortunately, it is immeasurable.
Because of Google Analytics’ issue of attribution, we cannot determine the exact value of all referral channels.
The problems it causes
Marketers understand the value of social media but it can be hard to persuade SMTs who are not convinced. It can be hard enough getting investment to begin with and dark social doesn’t help. 50% of your online conversions could be from social sharing but your analytics package may only show this as 20%. This will obviously lower your bargaining power when requesting higher budgets or more investment. Its unfortunate because around 30% of website traffic can usually be attributed to dark social.
Is there anything we can do?
Yes, you can gain a reasonable understanding of how much traffic can be attributed to dark social. To do this, you will need to create new 'Advanced Segment’ in your Google Analytics account called 'Dark Social’. This new segment will show all people that have been referred to your website via dark social.
To create the dark social filter:
- Jump onto your Google Analytics account and click onto 'Advanced Segment’.
- Create a 'New Custom Segment’ and call this 'Dark Social Traffic’.
- Follow the screenshot below to create the filter:
Want to discuss dark social further, or just want to learn more about it? Tweet us at @intSchools or just drop us an email. Our social team will be more than happy to talk!
Photos are all the rage in the social world right now. To make the best use of photos in your social activities, you should understand what makes them so popular. We have given 5 quick reasons as to why people share and enjoy photos on social media.
- Photos are simple. Photos are both easy to produce, easy to consume and instantly gratifying. Take a picture, write a short interesting caption, make it look pretty and you’re all done! A picture says a thousand words so let your photos do the talking for you. If they are engaging then visitors will naturally comment and share.
- They tell a story. Popular brands use photos to enhance their story. A voice can be driven by photography and personality can shine through. Brands always try to tell their story through words but photos can be much more real and engaging.
- Pictures are less intrusive. Similar to product placement, pictures that contain your product or brand are much less intrusive than ads. Take a look at Red Bull on Instagram - @redbull. Red Bull regularly post inspirational imagery that you will happily look at. However, the company cleverly integrate their brand and products into the photos without distracting the user or making them feel like they are being advertised to.
- Photos are shareable. Photos are highly shareable and if you post a highly engaging image, then your audience can keep your message flowing through the socialsphere. Once the photo is your network’s network then it becomes a viral entity that acts as a social recommendation for your brand.
- Popular on mobile. Mobile has revolutionised photography. Not only for the creation but also for the consumption. Some of the most popular mobile apps are photography based apps - Instagram, Hipstamatic, Camera+, Pinterest, Flickr etc. Ensure your brand is highly visible on the most popular and fastest growing touchpoint for consumers.
Why do you think photos are so popular on social media? How do you use photography in your social media marketing? Share your thoughts in the comments below.