Do you know your stories from your highlights? Your showcases from your boomerangs? I hope you’ve brought your lightsaber because this 5-step guide will take you from a #SocialPadawan to a #DigitalJedi on Instagram!
You were tempted by The Dark Side in stage 4 but it was clear to see that there was still good in you. Now grab on to your lightsaber for the final stage of your #DigitalJedi Instagram training! This one is sure to test even the best of you.
Do you know your stories from your highlights? Your showcases from your boomerangs? I hope you’ve brought your lightsaber because this 5-step guide will take you from a #SocialPadawan to a #DigitalJedi on Instagram!
You’ve passed stage 3 of your training. Now #DigitalKnight you’ve been tempted by The Dark Side but there is still good in you! Come forth and complete stage 4 of your training to become a #SocialSith
Do you know your stories from your highlights? Your showcases from your boomerangs? I hope you’ve brought your lightsaber because this 5-step guide will take you from a #SocialPadawan to a #DigitalJedi on Instagram!
You’ve passed stage 2 of your training. Now #SocialDroid come forth and take the next step to stage 3 and become a #DigitalKnight.
Do you know your stories from your highlights? Your showcases from your boomerangs? I hope you’ve brought your lightsaber because this 5-step guide will take you from a #SocialPadawan to a #DigitalJedi on Instagram!
You’ve passed stage 1 of your training. Now #SocialPadawan come forth and take the next step to stage 2 and become a #SocialDroid.
Within this blog post, we hope to show you a candid view into how we, two 16 and 17 year old teenage girls, living in the South East of England, view social media and how it is used by us and our friends.
The majority of teenagers in our modern world today use social media and it plays a huge role in their daily lives. On the other hand, the way in which they use social media greatly differs to the way in which most adults utilise social media, in both the sites that they choose to go on and the way in which they use them.
Most teens use social media as a means of communicating with friends, whether that be through sending a Snapchat using the bee filter, so their voice seems to have jumped 3 octaves higher, or by posting a ‘candid’ photo on Instagram which only took 20 tries to get. For this reason, teenagers generally prefer different forms of social media to adults, as they try to communicate using the social media platforms, which are fun, quick and easy to use. This therefore explains Snapchat's increasing popularity amongst teens because it is instantaneous and amusing to mess around with, whilst Facebook is being used less and less by teens as they can get more visual, safer experiences elsewhere, without their mum commenting on every single photo that they are tagged in.
There are many preconceptions linked with how teenagers use social media channels, from the expectation that teenagers are deprived and send inappropriate photos to each other over Snapchat or that they harass adults on Facebook for expressing what teens believe are ‘outdated’ opinions. Even within the social group of teenagers there are stereotypes attached with how we use social media. For example, when going through Facebook or Instagram, every 15-18 year old is dreading the inevitable encounter with a ‘Twelvie’, that one friend everyone has who is twelve and thinks they are the coolest person in the world. They regularly post pictures of themselves with the caption ‘I didn’t choose the thug life, the thug life chose me’. The pictures tend to consist of poses which cause scorn and second hand embarrassment from the older teenagers, mainly because they remember a time when they thought that was a cool thing to do.
Likewise, even within the older branch of teens, we dread running into that one friend who has very strong opinions and is not afraid of saying them, whether that be through a post on Instagram with a caption a mile long or 100+ seconds on a Snapchat story ranting about some injustice they encountered that they just had to mention. This became particularly prevalent in the lead up to and the aftermath of the EU Referendum…#Brexit. Certainly in our school common room, you couldn’t go five minutes before someone closed their apps and locked their phones in disgust, professing that ‘Suddenly everyone’s a politician’.
Happy #BackToSchool time everyone!!! Yes, it's the new academic year and you might just be wondering what social media breakthroughs have crept up on you over the summer holidays.
Here is our handy summary of the social media you should be on RIGHT NOW, or at least getting very excited for! So...where shall we begin?
Yes, statistics. We all love them - don't lie. These numbers and facts help us to see the reality of how entities such as social media effects us. More importantly they offer guidance in where your school should be driving its social media marketing strategy.
“Don’t start your day until you have finished it. Plan your day. ”
“Instagram was created because there was no single place dedicated to giving your mobile photos a place to live and to be”
Many schools haven’t branched out past core communication platforms like Facebook and Twitter. And this leaves many of the most popular content channels untouched by school marketers.
People migrate to new networks all the time. And if your school is interested in keeping their attention, then they need to migrate with them.
It’s time to start embracing the future.
Places like Instagram and Pinterest can provide a lot of opportunity for schools to increase engagement among prospective families, pupils, and current parents.
The constant developments in the online world makes it important to embrace new channels as they emerge. This isn't to mean you should just start using them - but certainly to understand them
It’s the only way to keep up with pupils and continue engaging them in an online forum with inspiring stories.
We live in a very visual world, and young people are leading the revolution.
The success of visual-focused social media networks proves the trend. And–if for no other reason–that’s why you should invest resources into visually appealing content.
Short form video has exploded recently. With faster 4G speeds, better cameras, and more storage on smartphones, videos have become popular on social media.
A modern parent expects visual storytelling from their school.
Visuals started to be included in posts to make them stand out. But now, everybody does it. Short video has almost become the new photo. Want to stand out? Try posting short videos.
Here are some of the main channels you can use:
As you can see, there are a lot of places you can distribute your short video. So look at the benefits of uploading video to each channel and use this mini-guide to help inform your decision.
Second largest search engine in the world. Biggest reach when it comes to video.
Short-form video is not native to YouTube - it was designed, and is being used, for longer form.
Share to YouTube if your video is over 1 minute.
Vine is designed for creating 6-second videos on mobile. So it is native for distributing short video.
The restrictive nature of Vine forces you to be creative with your posts. Which has led Vine to be popular with people who want quick entertainment.
Posts can easily be embedded into tweets, and websites to increase your reach.
Instagram has a huge audience of over 300 million people. It is a mobile-first platform, meaning it is designed to capture events through your smartphone.
There is a 15 second limit on videos.
Share artsy and indie photos to engage the Instagram crowd. Don’t put adverts, or text based content up.
Facebook has the largest audience, second only to YouTube. But, it is not a video specific channel.
Facebook autoplays videos in a person’s feed. Though this is great for grabbing attention, it also inflates the number of views a video has had in Facebook Insights.
Facebook videos are for short-medium form video. No real purpose for Facebook videos - other than to be more of a competitor to YouTube.
Sharing videos on Facebook, from YouTube, creates a link post. This pulls through meta data from YouTube, and isn’t as effective or attention-grabbing as native Facebook video. Also means it requires more clicks to play the video.
Videos can be uploaded once they have already been taken. This allows you to capture moments and share them at the end of the day.
If you have time to upload videos to Facebook, then go for it. If not, share it to YouTube.
Twitter is naturally all about short storytelling. The strict limitations on Twitter enables you to share quick micro-content.
It has recently introduced video to tweets, with a 30 second limit.
Twitter owns Vine. The difference? Vine is a creative way to tell your story. Twitter is the real-time way to tell your story.
You can now shoot, edit and share video on Twitter. Capture life’s most moving moments from your perspective. pic.twitter.com/31JoMS50ha
— Twitter (@twitter)
Mobile video is native to Snapchat. It allows you to capture a moment, as it is happening, and share it to your ‘story’. Your story is a collection of photos and videos capture with Snapchat in the past 24 hours.
There is a 10 second limit for each video but you can piece them together in your story.
Snapchat is more like the front of a postcard, where Twitter is the back.
Meerkat is a live broadcasting platform that allows you to stream video through Twitter. It literally went live 6 days ago (that’s how quickly we react for you guys!).
The platform is all about sharing live stories. How can you get more real-time than that?!
Take a look at it and explore it. What do you think?
There are clear pros and cons for distributing short videos on particular channels. You can repurpose videos to work for each channel - but only if they work with the style of each channel.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: If you could only upload your latest video to ONE channel, which would you choose and why? TWEET US: @intSchools
We’re offering a social media day for school marketers to learn more about social media marketing. Come and join us on 28th April 2015 at Whittlebury Hall, Northamptonshire.
Learn about reach, social influence and the importance of your digital brand.