Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram – those are presently the most fashionable places to be on the Internet. This is where representatives of almost all sectors advertise today. Both the biggest and the smallest ones. Do you know why social media enjoy such popularity? Do you know those portals? Do you have an idea how to make you school present in social media? Check the reasons why you should start promoting your language school in social media.
- Low entry barrier – forget the myth that social media give you free advertising. It’s not free because to build your presence in Social Media you need to devote a lot of time, and time is valuable. But the truth of the matter is that you can start developing a basic profile at Facebook or Twitter without additional outlays on advertising; you just need to invest your time. This will suffice – for a start
- Social media are scalable – as we have mentioned – you can start actions in Social Media almost for free, while a small but effective campaign at Facebook can be performed just for several hundred złotys a month. It’s true that the biggest brands build extensive applications, organise contests with prizes, prepare animations, with budgets of several hundreds of thousands złotys a month. But remember that each user of social media will have no problem finding for themselves actions on an appropriate scale.
- Social media disseminate information easily – if you buy advertising in traditional media, such as a newspaper or radio, it is hard to achieve the effect of whisper marketing. Recipients of such kind of advertising rarely discuss it or recommend to others. In social media it is very easy to inform your friends that you like something – it suffices to click „like” button to make this fact known to others, or to write a comment. The best posts are shared or retweeted thousands of times.
- Communication is individual in nature – this is not advertising created and orchestrated for weeks; this is about writing entries, posts, or tweets every day. If you like joking, you will publish jokes frequently. If you travel a lot to the country whose language is taught in your school – you can publish photos and brief memories from the trip. In such communication you can say a lot about yourself, about what you do and give a faithful picture of the unique atmosphere of the school. Don’t be afraid of the beginnings. Remember that Internet users are forgiving of mistakes, shortcomings or lapses if your communication is coherent and honest.
- Easily available feedback – traditional media broadcast ads and then expensive research (costing at least ten-to-twenty thousand zlotys) is needed to identify what recipients think about them. In social media the customers will immediately write under your post what they like and what should be improved. So you don’t need expensive research – you will get fast and free answers to the question whether your customers like your promotions.
- Additional customer service channel – you can also use social media as a bulletin board. For example you will inform students that a class in a week time is cancelled or you can handle a complaint. Today it is of secondary importance which communication channel you use – a telephone, e-mail or social media. The effect, that is effective customer service and resolution of customer’s problems, is what matters most.
- Social media influence search engine optimisation (SEO) – if particular subpages of your website or company blog are liked at Facebook, shared at LinkedIn or Wykop, then Google definitely much more frequently displays such website in search results. SEO experts claim that the role of social media in positioning of websites is on a rise.
- Social media have a large auditorium – the figures are impressive: in September 2014 Facebook in Poland had 17 million Internet users, nk.pl (former nasza-klasa) had 5 million users, and Twitter, which is considered a niche service, had 3 million users. Those are really large auditoriums, who spend a lot of time at social networking websites. Remember that your potential customers are also among them. It is worthwhile making yourself visible there.
- Social media are very fast – traditional advertising campaigns take a lot of time to be prepared: such campaigns need to be planned in detail, airtime or advertising space must be purchased, then you need to shoot or record a spot – all of this takes time. Writing a post in social media takes a few minutes. This is how you can respond instantly to a changing situation. Lewis Hamilton of UK became a Formula 1 world champion? Just within five minutes after the end of the race you can offer promotions to the fastest ones – the first three persons who sign up for the English course get discounts. Simple, isn’t it?
- Social media let you reach the target groups very precisely – do you want to create at Facebook a campaign promoting the French language offer? You can display the ads to those people whole liked the profiles of – for example – French Embassy, French artists or movies. Or of rival language school having such offer. Social media enable extreme precision in targeting of ads. Check it for yourself!
Do you already use social media? Which ones? Share the names in a comment.