Collaborating with influencers is an excellent way to increase visibility and attract new students to your language school. With the right approach, you can gain not only recognition but also the trust of your target group.
In this article, you will learn how to utilise influencer marketing in your language school and how to step-by-step build a fruitful collaboration with influencers.
What will you find in this article?
- What is influence marketing?
- How does influencer marketing work in practice?
- Why should language schools collaborate with influencers?
- How to promote a language school with local Influencers?
- How to find the right influencer for your school?
- How to collaborate with an influencer?
- Case studies: examples of influencers in the education industry
- Summary – influence marketing in a language school
What is influence marketing?
Influence marketing is a promotional strategy that involves collaborating with individuals who have influence over their community on social media.
Thanks to their authority, trust, and audience engagement, influencers can effectively promote products and services, increasing their visibility and building positive brand associations.
Influence marketing in a language school
For language schools, influencer marketing is the perfect tool for:
- Promoting language courses within the local community.
- Building the image of a modern, engaging educational institution.
- Creating educational content that attracts the attention of potential students.
How does influencer marketing work in practice?
The core of this strategy lies in leveraging the trust that influencers have amongst their audience. Their recommendations are seen as more authentic and credible in the eyes of followers compared to traditional advertising methods.
Key elements of influencer marketing
- Authenticity: influencers are perceived as more trustworthy than traditional advertisers. Recommendations made by them are received as sincere and genuine.
- Relationship with the audience: influencers have established strong bonds with their followers, which enhances the effectiveness of their recommendations.
- Target audience fit: by carefully selecting creators, you can reach a specific group of people interested in the offer, such as residents of a particular city or those interested in learning languages.
Read more about how to gain student loyalty in a language school!
Why should language schools collaborate with influencers?
Collaborating with influencers allows language schools to reach individuals who are active in the local community and have the trust of their audience.
This form of promotion not only increases visibility but also builds a positive image of the school.
Benefits of influencer marketing for a language school
- Building authority: influencers can help in creating the image of the school as a modern and trustworthy educational institution.
- Reaching new students: local creators effectively help in reaching individuals in your city or region.
- Audience trust: recommendations from people who have relationships with their community are often more effective than traditional advertising.
How to promote a language school with local influencers?
Influence marketing is not just about global campaigns and collaborations with celebrities. In a local context, it can be equally effective, and often more authentic.
For a language school, partnering with local creators who have a genuine influence on the community in your area is an excellent way to build recognition and attract new students.
How to find the right influencer for your school?
1. Look for local community leaders
Focus on individuals who are known and respected in your area – these could be local entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, or activists. Their relationships with their audience are more personal, which translates into higher engagement and trust in the recommended services.
2. Use social media for research
Check local hashtags, such as #YourCity or #LearnEnglish, to find active individuals. It’s also worthwhile to browse thematic groups on Facebook or follow local events.
3. Choose creators that align with your school’s values
Pay attention to the content the influencer creates:
- Is it in line with your school’s mission?
- Does their audience align with your target group?
It is crucial for the collaboration to be consistent with your brand’s image.
How to collaborate with an influencer?
- Building relationships
- Follow the influencer’s profile and start engaging with their content (commenting, liking).
- Write a message highlighting what you value in their work.
- Invite the influencer to free classes
- Suggest a visit to your language school for a trial lesson or during an organised event.
It’s important not to immediately expect free advertising – first, allow the influencer to get acquainted with your offer.
- Avoid pressure and mistakes
- Do not impose cooperation requirements straight away.
- Build natural relationships, giving the influencer space for authentic reactions and impressions.
- Offer fair compensation
- Consider a barter collaboration, such as offering free language lessons in exchange for social media posts.
- In the case of paid cooperation, set rates appropriate to the influencer’s reach and community engagement.
- Analyse data and gather feedback
- Check how many new students enrolled due to the collaboration or ask them where they found out about your school.
- Ask the influencer about their feelings regarding the collaboration.
- Assess whether social media engagement increased after the influencer’s content publication.
Case studies: examples of influencers in the education industry
1. Lariirezende – #IELS Malta
Larissa Rezende gained enormous popularity by running a blog and a YT channel. A smiling female student with curly hair regularly reviews there the cosmetics she uses. Apparently it would be hard to find here any element shared with promotion of language teaching.
Wrong! Lari’s profile has 167 thousand followers and those are mainly young people. And young people are one of the target groups among customers of language schools.
No wonder that one of the biggest language schools on Malta decided to rely on cooperation with the blogger.
At @lariirezende Instagram account one can find a full coverage of the stay on Malta in the IELS language school. Each of the posts shared at the profile with tags: #iels and #ielsmalta generated approximately 2 thousand likes, while a record post was liked by more than 6.5 thousand people.
The school took perfectly advantage of the fact that the message is not one of multiple ads running unnoticeably at websites, and instead it reaches the end recipients directly.
2. Tribetyler – #lingoda
Tyler Shelton is a travelling, independent artist specialising in social media, designing of ads, photographs and cinematography. At his YT channel one can watch a video titled „Getting Robbed In Paris”.
In the video Tyler tells how he managed to avoid a theft of credit card data during his stay in Paris. There would be nothing surprising in this if it were not for the fact that the video promotes an online language school named Lingoda. He states that owing to courses and language learning he managed to survive the entire situation without any problems. The video generated more than 9 thousand views and was perceived very positively by channel’s subscribers.
Tyler Shelton is not the only influencer promoting courses of Lingoda. After entering #lingoda at instagram, more posts from bloggers appear, encouraging people to take advantage of the courses.
Those bloggers include among others: @bellabucchiotti (183 thousand followers) and @red_autumn (70.7 thousand followers). Owing to them, the school effectively expands the reach of its promotional campaigns.
3. Dulceida – #EF Rocks
She has just exceeded a mind-blowing number of 2.5 million followers at Instagram and generated 228 thousand likes at FB.
Aida Domenech, better known as Dulceida, is one of the most influential people at Instagram. Dulceida is a fashion blogger, who has developed the most in recent years, becoming an exemplary model of how to create own brand via social media.
Not only top fashion brands, such as Dior or Tous, cooperate with her. In 2016 the following post: ROCKS # AUSTRALIA, appeared at her blog.
In her post, Aida Domenech describes a month spent with EF at an English language course in Australia. The post also included a specially generated competition link, which the blogger signs with her pseudonym. After registration and completion of a form, one could win a two-week English language course for two people in any place in the world.
Information about the competition can be also found at the blogger’s Instagram account.
The post generated enormous interest and the non-trivial number of 202522 likes and endless number of comments.
Every month the blog is visited by thousands of users – this number shall be multiplied by dozens of friends at Facebook, who saw the likes, and accidental visitors. Those numbers speak for themselves.
Summary – influence marketing in a language school
Influence marketing is an effective promotional tool for language schools that wish to reach new students and build trust within the local community.
The key to success is the appropriate selection of influencers, the building of authentic relationships, and the clear establishment of collaboration rules. Apply the described steps to effectively promote your language school with the help of influencers!
Want to level up your marketing? Read our guide to omnichannel marketing in language schools.