Schedule For Integrating Facebook And Twitter

Many businesses and schools are afraid of social media use. While they are often times open to the idea of social media use, they are fearful about moving too quickly and making mistakes along the way.

To combat this problem I’ve come up with a schedule, which you can use, to slowly ease yourself into social media use. You’ll soon realize that social media is not only a good idea, but something that will help to greatly improve your small business or school over time.

The following is an example of the schedule of events you might take when attempting to introduce Facebook and Twitter to both your clients or school administrators and the community at large.

• Immediately set up an official Facebook Page for your business or school.

• Assign someone who is well aware of the business or school happenings to be in charge of posting to the Facebook account 1-3 times per week.

• Run the Facebook Page for 2 weeks without telling anyone about it. During this time you will train the assigned worker on how to post, what to post, when to post, etc.

• After two weeks you will add links to the Facebook Page on your official website and send out an official press release to the local media.

• You will then run the Facebook Page for 3 months, after which time you will assess whether or not to continue social media communication/promotion with the use of Twitter.

If after the 3-month trial of Facebook you determine that you are indeed headed in the right direction and your community is appreciating the information you are sending out on Facebook, you will continue your social media campaign with the launch of an official Twitter account for your school or business.

• You will create and customize a Twitter account for your business or school.

• You will once again train and supervise a responsible school worker on how to post, what to post, and when to post to Twitter.

• You will run the Twitter account for 2 weeks without telling anyone about it.

• After two weeks you will link from the official website to the Twitter account and send out a press release about your continued use of social media as a communication platform.

• You will continue to supervise the responsible person as you post to both Twitter and Facebook on a regular basis (Twitter at least once a day. Facebook at least 1-3 times per week.)

• Once again, you will run the Twitter account for approximately 3 months, after which time you will assess what can be done to improve your overall social media/Internet presence.

If you can take steps such as these to slowly introduce your clients, school officials and community members to social media use, then I don’t see how you could fail.

Click here to open the Facebook Module Task Sheet.

This is the end of Module 1! Take a minute to click here to ask a question or leave any comments you may think are helpful!

Click here to Continue to Module 2. What Kind Of Content Should You Post?

Creating Social Proof & Increasing Your Follower Count

The last time I checked, the more students a school had, the more money they made. And money (correct me if I’m wrong) is a good thing. We all need it in order to keep doing our jobs… and we all need it in order to survive.

So, if you understand that more money can come as the result of having more students in your school, the question then becomes, “How do you attract more students?”

Based on my experiences, the best way to do this is through the creation of social proof.

Social proof is something one creates in order to prove to others that what he or she says or does is worth paying attention to. In short, it’s a way of building yourself up so that you can sway the actions of a large group of people.

The principle behind social proof is that since most people make the assumption that the people surrounding them possess more knowledge about a particular situation than they do, they will deem the behavior of others as more appropriate or better informed… and therefore, follow in the footsteps of those around them.

Social proof gets people talking about grand brands. Social proof convinces people to buy a particular product. And social proof sways students to attend one school and not another.

The more social proof your school has, the greater your chances of attracting new students.

In order to attract more students and make more money, however, you need to create an ever-increasing amount of social proof around your school.

Need more money? Get more students.

Need more students? Create social proof.

If you can create enough social proof, you’ll have students begging to attend your school. With enough social proof you’ll have parents clamoring to register their children. And with enough social proof your community will thrive because of the appeal your institution is creating.

Social proof is powerful.

If you understand this, you’re on the right track! But the question then becomes, “How do you create social proof within your community?”

One way to do it is through the use of SOCIAL MEDIA.

What you may not realize about social media sites like Facebook and Twitter is that not only are these tools an excellent way of communicating with the parents, teachers and students in your community… but sites such as these are also one of the best (and fastest) ways of building social proof.

To build social proof with social media, you need to do three things.

1) Increase your follower counts. The more people you have following you on Twitter, subscribing to your RSS feeds, or becoming a fan of yours on Facebook, the more important your school will seem.

2) Get your school’s message to spread online. The more your school’s content is Re-Tweeted, emailed back and forth, voted on, Digged, or StumbledUpon, the more “popular” your school becomes.

3) Have people talking about your school in the real world. When the story you spread about your school is so great that it has people talking about your institution outside of the World Wide Web, then you know you’ve succeeded in generating positive social proof.

The formula looks like this:

• Need more money? Get more students.
• Need more students? Create social proof.
• Need social proof? Harness the power of social media.

Social proof is created by continually proving that your school is an amazing place; that you’re constantly pushing the boundaries; and that your school is doing something special – something others will want to be a part of.

In the video below I walk you through the process of increasing your follower count and improving your school’s online social proof. (Warning: This is a long, but important video. It is nearly 30 minutes in length.)

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Templates For Writing A Great Social Media Headline

When it comes to social media, headlines are important. Very important! And with sites like Facebook and Twitter (where the messages you send to your community are both short and sweet) headlines become ever more vital.

The customers, parents, teachers, and students in your community don’t have a lot of time to spare these days, so they take extra precautions when deciding what they spend their time reading and absorbing. That’s why having a headline that grabs their attention is so incredibly important.

The better your headline, the better your chances of…

• Driving your readers back to your website.
• Having others in your community spread the word about you and your business/school.
• Attracting new customers/students.

If you need help writing great headlines, then I’ve got a special gift for you today. My friend Chris Garrett recently released a report containing 102 killer headlines for use in social media…. and you can get it now (for free) to use as you please.

Writing headlines is one of the parts about social media many people struggle with. So, to help you with the dreaded “blank screen of doom” here are 102 tried and tested social media headline templates to download.

102 Headline Formats

Just download this document and fill in the blanks to get a killer headline in seconds.

Click here to open the Facebook Module Task Sheet.

Click here to Continue to Module 3. Letting People Know You’re Using Social Media

A Video Introduction Of Twitter Search

Who Should Be Managing Your School’s Twitter Account?

Unlike a Facebook Page or Group, which can be administered by more than one person, a Twitter account is only associated with a single email address… and in theory, is meant to only be used by a single person.

In the case of a school, business or any other type of organization, however, you may wish to give the job of Tweeting to more that one individual.

As I’ve mentioned several times on SocialMediaSchools.com, the new Internet, Web 2.0, social media or whatever you want to call it, is all about transparency. People want to know who they are doing business with. They want to know whom they are talking to. And they want to know that the businesses, schools and organizations that are a part of their lives are not just big faceless corporations.

For this reason, it is important to establish one of the following methods of managing your Twitter account:

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Setting Up Your Twitter Account

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To set up your Twitter account, go to www.twitter.com and click on the “Join Today” button.

Follow the on-screen instructions… and if you need additional help, watch the video above.

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The Difference Between Facebook Profiles, Pages And Groups

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Before you can set up your Facebook account(s), it is important to understand the difference between Facebook Profiles, Pages and Groups.

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Video Walkthrough: How I Manage My Social Media Accounts

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Click here to go to the next Facebook Module.

Send all questions to contact@socialmediaschools.com and we will respond within 24 hours!

How Much Content Should You Post Per Day?

One of the big fears many people have about social media use is that it is going to become a totally encompassing activity that steals time and energy away from other activities that should be getting done. This module is intended to show you that this is not the case.

I know that you are extremely busy and have more important things to do than be constantly updating your social media profiles, so the goal this week is to cut down your social media use to less than 15 minutes per day.

To answer the question, “How much content should you post per day?”… here are my thoughts:

I think you should be posting 1 to 4 messages per day to Twitter and at least 1 post per week to your school’s Facebook page.

Here’s my reasoning behind this:

Twitter is considered a “micro-blogging” service. The messages are short and sweet and they can be as frequent as you please. However, if you post too few messages, you’ll get lost amongst the others that your community members are following. And if you post too many messages, your community will unfollow you because they won’t like seeing your messages taking up their entire Twitter feed.

Based on my experiences… I think 1 to 4 tweets per day is a good number to aim for. If you can’t think of even a single thing to Tweet about on a daily basis, then you aren’t doing enough to make your school or business an amazing place. Use these tips to help you decide what to Tweet about.

As far as Facebook goes, you don’t need to post there quite as often as you do to Twitter. 1-4 posts per week on Facebook is ideal. Again, you don’t want to post too often… and you don’t want to post too occasionally. Let your Facebook fans know that your Facebook page is up to date by posting regularly, but don’t overwhelm them with insignificant nothings they won’t care about. Your Facebook postings should be important school events, information, and news that your community will REALLY care about.

Click here to go to the next Facebook Module.

Send all questions to contact@socialmediaschools.com and we will respond within 24 hours!

Traditional Marketing And Social Media

Because people in your community may be new to social media, one of the best ways to let them know you are using these new social networking technologies is to approach them offline.

Using traditional marketing techniques is a great way to get new people to follow you on the Internet. The following is a list of ways you might wish to spread the word in regards to your organization’s social media use.

In each of these places, simply adding a line that says something like this:

Follow Social Media Schools on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/smschools

Traditional Marketing Techniques You Can Use To Let People Know About Your School’s Social Media Use

• Business cards
• Posters
• Brochures
• Giveaways
• TV
• Pamphlets
• Holiday Cards
• Calendars
• Newspaper Advertisements
• Magazine Advertisements
• School Marquees
• Birthday Cards
• Email Newsletters
• You Email Signature
• T-Shirts
• Chamber Of Commerce Meetings
• School District Meetings
• Billboards
• Door Hangers
• Newspaper Articles
• Newsletters
• Direct Mail

If the person reading your message is on Twitter or Facebook, they will know what to do. If the person isn’t on Twitter or Facebook, they’ll either ignore the message or they will visit the website, find out what Twitter/Facebook is, and then decide for themselves if it is something they want to sign up for.

Again, it’s simply your job just to let your community know that you are using these new communication tools. These traditional marketing techniques, while some of them will cost money, can be a great way to increase your online follower counts.

Click here to go to the next Facebook Module.

Send all questions to contact@socialmediaschools.com and we will respond within 24 hours!