Social Media for Childminders

Joanna BoweryCosmic Frog Marketing & PRE: joanna@cosmic-frog.comW: www.cosmic-frog.com

T: 07779 991509

Session Summary

• Why do you need social media?

• Which platforms?

• What to post?

• When and how often should you post?

• Safety considerations

Why do you need social media?• Promote your business to new parents

• Keep in touch with existing parents

• Network with other childcare providers

• Generate and share ideas

• Establish yourself as a trusted expert in childcare

• Drive traffic to your website and phone call and email enquiries

What is Facebook?

• Biggest social media platform

• Around half the UK population has a Facebook account - biggest demographic (26%) 25-34 year olds

• Profile? Page? Group?

Why use a Facebook page?• Your public childminding profile

• People can just follow you and receive updates - they don’t have to request to be a ‘friend’ or join your ‘group’

• Ideal for raising awareness and generating interest

• You can have multiple administrators

• Insights give your information about how people are interacting with the page

What to post on your Facebook page?

• Share content about childcare from other sources

• Update followers with information about what you’ve been doing (with photos*)

• Ask questions and generate discussion to improve engagement

• Post news and blog posts

Why use a Facebook group?

• Can be closed or private - you control membership

• Great for developing a sense of community

• Easy way of keeping in touch with parents

• Good for sharing best practice and resources with other childcare providers

What to post in your Facebook group?

• More personal updates including photos

• Let parents know about your plans

• Ask questions / run a poll

• Encourage group members to get to know each other

• Social events

What is Pinterest?

• Pinterest is a digital pinboard or scrap book where you can post and find the things you love.

• More than 2m UK users (July 2013)

• 70% of users are female

• Brilliant for driving traffic to your website

Why use Pinterest?

• Great for linking back to your website or blog

• Shows current and prospective parents what you get up to

• Helps you share best practice

• Non-salesy way of communicating with target demographic

What to post on Pinterest?

• Craft activities

• Seasonal activities

• Learning activities

• Cooking activities / healthy food ideas

• Anything else of interest - nursery decor etc

What is Twitter?

• Micro-blogging platform - 140 characters or less

• 10m UK users (May 2012)

• 2/3 Twitter users are aged 34 and under

• Even male/female split (29%/51%)

• 82% users access content from mobile device

Why use Twitter?

• Let your followers know what you are up to

• Promote your business and drive traffic to your website

• Build a community - especially through using hashtags

• Find out what others are up to - Twitter is a great ‘listening’ tool

• Keep up to date with industry news

What to post on Twitter?

• Share local and childcare news, opinion and best practice (you can use hashtags such as #childminder)

• Rule of around 4 shared posts vs 1 original post

• Promote your services in local awareness hours such as #Devonhour

• Share updates on activities, the weather, what’s for tea... (and add photos)

What is a blog?

• A blog is a frequently updated journal

• Place to share your news, thoughts and ideas

• Ideal post length is 500-700 words

Why blog?

• Fresh content means people will visit your website more frequently.

• Higher search engine ranking - Google likes frequently updated, quality content and ranks it higher

• More content to add to your other social media platforms

• More opportunity to be seen as a trusted expert

What should I blog about?

• News - awards, Ofsted report, fundraising etc

• Your own continued professional development (CPD). What courses or conferences have you been on and what did you learn? Why not blog about your experiences today?

• Latest resources

• Anything of interest to parents

When and how often to post?

• When you have time!

• Quality and consistency better than stops and starts

• Use scheduling tools (Facebook scheduler / Hootsuite etc)

• Don’t try and do everything - pick and choose based on who you are targetting, what you want to say, and what you want to achieve

Promoting your social media presence

• Include links or the logo of your social media on everything you send out (email signature, bills, letters etc)

• Like or follow people or organisations of interest and share and comment on their content

• Encourage people to share your content

Safety

• Make sure you have a social media policy and share it with parents. (If group - ensure parents are made aware that they cannot share photos of other children - just their own)

• Photographs

• Never disclose privileged or confidential information

• Keep your personal accounts separate

Other social networks are available

Any Questions?

Joanna BoweryCosmic Frog 07779 991509www.cosmic-frog.comjoanna@cosmic-frog.com

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