In the digital age, social media has become an essential tool for schools to interact with current students, parents, the wider community and of course your prospective audience. From sharing updates on events and accomplishments, to sharing the gems of everyday school life, social media offers unrivalled opportunities for school communication and marketing. However, amidst the allure of social media triumph, lies a minefield of potential pitfalls that can thwart even the most well-intentioned strategies.
At Interactive Schools, our ethos revolves around crafting unparalleled websites for world-leading schools. Placing users at the forefront of our design process, we specialise in curating immersive experiences that seamlessly blend creative innovation, measurable engagement, and tangible impact. Our mission is to transform school websites into dynamic portals, offering a lens into the vibrant essence of your institution.
We understand that in order to stay at the cutting edge of School Website Design and to continue to provide dynamic and engaging experiences, it is essential to monitor the ever-changing marketing and technological landscape. Whilst we don’t have access to a crystal ball that will show exactly what the future of school website design looks like, with the current rapidly evolving high-tech advancements we are seeing, we are able to anticipate what this could look like.
Audience Demand For Instant Gratification
For schools in the Independent sector, the role of imagery for marketing purposes is not to be underestimated. The uses range from captivating websites to engaging social media posts and these visuals play a crucial role in attracting, informing, and persuading prospective families to choose the right school for their child. But with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the possibilities for enhancing imagery have expanded exponentially. In this blog, we will explore how independent school marketers can leverage AI imagery to tell compelling, personalised, and impactful stories.
Understanding AI Imagery
Many schools new choose to focus their creative efforts on video, as this provides additional dimensions to stories told, including a moment that can be captured, curated and shared with the school’s key stakeholders, in a fraction of the time it takes to produce a video.
Before delving into its applications, let's briefly discuss what AI imagery actually is. AI-powered image processing algorithms can analyse and interpret visual content with exceptional accuracy and speed. These algorithms can perform tasks such as image recognition, object detection, and facial recognition and even generate entirely new images based on learned patterns. By harnessing the power of AI, marketers can unlock a myriad of opportunities to enhance their visual content and deliver tailored experiences to their key stakeholders.
In the dynamic landscape of digital marketing, choosing the right platform for your school’s advertising efforts can be a real conundrum. With a myriad of options available, each tailored to different audiences and objectives, the decision can feel overwhelming. But fear not! In this comprehensive guide, we’ll navigate through the intricacies of advertising on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X and help you choose the right platform for your school’s needs.
In today's digital landscape, storytelling is more than just a task; it's an art form, a science, and lies at the heart of a successful marketing department. Whether schools are aiming to attract new students, engage parents, or build relationships with alumni and donors, mastering the art of digital storytelling is the key for admissions, funding and a school’s overall profile.
Here at Interactive Schools, we understand that life in a school marketing department can be pretty hectic. Trying to ensure all areas of school life are showcased through social media and appealing to all relevant stakeholders is no mean feat. To find out how a school’s story can be authentically and successfully communicated to its school community and beyond, look no further.
Crafting Immersive Experiences
The first place prospective parents will visit when wanting to find out more about a school is its website. At Interactive Schools, we pride ourselves on creating the best websites for the world leading schools. We put users first and craft incredible, immersive experiences that blend creative magic, measurable engagement and tangible impact, to ensure that our websites act as a window into the living heartbeat of its school.
Keeping Content Fresh
It’s vital that marketers are constantly monitoring the content on the school website, ensuring that both images and videos, as well as written content and information, remain relevant and continue to reflect the school’s current offerings and evolving #Purpose. If marketers are struggling with how to word content to ensure that it best reflects the school’s unique identity, they can simply type their content into ChatGPT for inspiration on stylistic word choices and structure. If marketers have an Interactive Schools’ website, they even have the luxury of our embedded ChatGPT Content Helper to keep content fresh and engaging.
Virtual Tours and Engagement
Taking the immersive nature of our websites even further, we even provide 360° Virtual Tours via our SprXVR platform. In combination with our branded Interactive Schools headset, 360° photography and cinematic video, users will have the opportunity to feel physically present at any school, irrespective of where they are in the world, expanding a school’s marketing reach beyond the constraints of distance.
Many people often wonder what is the difference between a ‘Social Media Platform’ and a ‘Social Network’ and how can I incorporate both in my school’s content strategy? In short, a social media platform is a platform intended for creating and sharing content, whereas a social networking platform is intended for communication between individuals and/or groups of people.
Schools’ marketers will be well aware that #Hashtags are the bread and butter of making your stories discoverable for your various audiences and stakeholder groups. For storytellers themselves, these are the tools that allow for stories to be organised; and for your school’s audiences, they help families to filter the stories that they are most interested in.
Using something like #OxfordPrivateSchool may help a school to be more easily available to prospective parents in the local market, while #ProudTeacher’ might help those prospective parents understand the values of a school. But that can’t be the only use of a Hashtag, can it?
Absolutely not! At Interactive Schools, we understand that the value of hashtagging goes beyond increasing the discoverability of social media stories, and actually allows for a system of curation and organisation, both within the social channel and within the architecture of our Websites.
With every school that we work with, we devise a #HashtagStrategy, which centres on the three elements of every school that make them unique: People, Place and Purpose - Who is the story about, What are they doing and Why are they doing that?
#People
In the digital age, online reviews wield immense power, especially for schools striving to maintain. respectable reputation and attract new students. Among the plethora of platforms, Google Reviews stands out as a critical arena where parents, students and even staff share their experiences and opinions.
Responding to these reviews is not just a courtesy; it’s a strategic move that can shape public perception and strengthen your school’s online presence.
So buckle up, as we embark on a journey to master the art of responding to Google Reviews!
First Things First - Keep It Classy!
Whether it’s a glowing testimonial or a constructive critique, every review deserves a thoughtful and respectful response. Think of it as a digital handshake - acknowledge the feedback graciously and express genuine appreciation for the time taken to share thoughts.
Now for the next steps - let’s sprinkle in some charm and personality. Injecting a bit of humour or warmth into your response can humanise your brand and make it more relatable. However, it’s always important to remember to strike the right balance and tailor your tone to match the review’s sentiment.
How Do We Recommend You Target Those Glowing 5-Star Reviews?
Easy. Seize the opportunity to show them with gratitude. An example of this would be: