How to Market a School on Social Media

Using social media to market your school is about more than just posting open house dates. It’s an opportunity to build a vibrant digital community, give prospective families a genuine look inside your culture, and showcase what makes your students and faculty special every single day. This guide will walk you through a practical framework for developing a social media strategy that builds your brand, engages your community, and drives real results like enrollment and retention.

Start with a Clear Strategy (Not Just Random Posts)

Before you post anything, you need a simple plan. Jumping in without clear goals is like starting a school year without a curriculum - you'll be busy, but you won't make meaningful progress. Your strategy doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs to answer a few questions.

What Are You Trying to Accomplish?

Every school's needs are different. Pick one or two primary goals to focus your efforts. This will define the kind of content you create.

• Drive Admissions: Attract and nurture prospective students and parents. Your content will focus on campus tours, application deadlines, testimonials, and "why we're different" stories.
• Boost Community Engagement: Strengthen the bond with current students and families. Content will revolve around student life, event coverage, school spirit, and highlighting parent-teacher organizations.
• Build Brand Awareness and Reputation: Position your school as a leader in education. Here, you'll share faculty achievements, alumni success stories, and thought leadership pieces.

Which Platforms are Right for Your Audience?

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need to be everywhere. Focus your energy on the platforms where your target audience actually spends their time. Managing two platforms well is far better than managing five poorly.

• Facebook & Instagram: This is home base for parents and alumni. It's perfect for community-building, event promotion, visual storytelling through photos and video, and sharing important school-wide announcements. Instagram Reels offer a huge opportunity to reach new families through short, engaging video clips.
• TikTok & Instagram Reels: This is a powerful combination for reaching prospective students, especially for middle schools, high schools, and colleges. The content here should be student-centric, fun, and authentic, focusing on trends, "day in the life" videos, and behind-the-scenes moments.
• LinkedIn: Essential for building your school's professional reputation. Use it to connect with faculty, highlight staff expertise, celebrate alumni career milestones, and share academic achievements.
• YouTube: The perfect home for longer-form video content. Think virtual campus tours, full-length recordings of school plays or concerts, detailed program overviews, and student/parent testimonial interviews.

Content That Connects: What to Post

"What should we post?" is the number one question schools face. To avoid staring at a blank screen, build your content calendar around a few core "pillars." These are themes you return to regularly, creating consistency and giving your audience something to look forward to.

Pillar 1: Go Behind the Scenes of Student Life

Parents and prospective students want to see the real, unpolished side of your school. This is your chance to show the vibrancy of your community beyond brochures and campus photos.

• "Day in the Life" Takeovers: Let a student "take over" your Instagram Stories for a day to show their classes, extracurricular activities, and lunch with friends. This is authentic, highly engaging content that provides a genuine peek into your culture.
• Spotlight Clubs and Teams: Don't just post the final score. Show the robotics club testing their creation, the debate team practicing, or the drama club building sets for the school play.
• Go Live from Events: Stream parts of a pep rally, a concert, or a science fair. It makes your community feel included, even if they can't be there in person.

Pillar 2: Humanize Your School with Faculty Spotlights

Your teachers and staff are your school's greatest asset. Highlighting them builds trust and shows the caring community you've built.

• "Teacher Tuesday": A simple and effective series. Post a photo of a faculty member each week with a short Q&A. Ask fun questions like "What's your favorite book to teach?" or "What's one thing your students would be surprised to learn about you?"
• Showcase Expertise: Did a teacher present at a conference or get published? Share that! It positions your staff as experts and shows your commitment to professional development.

Pillar 3: Celebrate Achievements (Big and Small)

Your social media feed should be your community's digital trophy case. Recognizing success creates a positive and supportive environment.

• Academic Honors: Honor roll announcements, scholarship winners, and academic competition results are perfect for Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Athletic Victories: Post-game photos, short video clips of great plays, and "athlete of the week" features generate huge engagement.
• Creative Arts Showcase: Share photos of student artwork, clips from the band concert, or highlights from the theater production.

Pro Tip: Whenever you feature students, tag their parents and families if you're connected. They'll be proud and will almost always share the post, expanding your reach organically.

Pillar 4: Answer the Big Questions Visually

Use social media, especially video, to answer the questions parents and students ask most often. This not only provides value but also saves your admissions team time.

• Campus Sneak Peeks: Create a short Reel or TikTok highlighting the new science lab, the library, or the amazing athletic facilities. Walk the viewer through the space and explain what makes it special.
• Parent & Student Testimonials: A polished five-minute video is great for your website, but a simple 30-second vertical video of a parent explaining why they chose your school feels more authentic for social media. Capture these during school events!
• Deadline Reminders: Turn boring application deadlines into fun, visual reminders with countdown graphics or a quick video from the head of admissions.

Engage Your Community: It’s Called *Social* Media for a Reason

Once you're creating quality content, the next step is building a conversation around it. This is how you turn a passive audience into an active, invested community.

Respond to Every Conversation

Make it a policy to reply to every legitimate comment and direct message. When a parent says, "Looks like so much fun!" a simple "It was a fantastic day!" makes them feel seen and heard. Responding quickly and personably is one of the most powerful things you can do to build brand loyalty.

Actively Encourage User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-generated content is the gold standard for authentic marketing. When your community promotes you, it's far more powerful than when you promote yourself.

• Create a School Hashtag: Promote a simple, unique hashtag (e.g., #VikingsPride2024, #EastsideElementaryLife) and encourage students, parents, and faculty to use it when they post photos from school events.
• Run Photo Contests: Hold contests for the "best school spirit photo" during homecoming week or the "best project photo" from the science fair.
• Always Ask for Permission to Repost: When you see great content using your hashtag or geo-tag, send the person a friendly DM asking if you can share their post on your school's official account, always giving them credit.

Plan and Measure for Sustainable Growth

A consistent social media presence requires planning. Trying to come up with ideas on the fly is a recipe for burnout.

Use a Content Calendar

A simple content calendar is your best friend. It doesn't have to be a complex tool, a shared spreadsheet or visual planner is enough to get started. Plan your content at least two weeks out, mapping your key posts to your school's event schedule. This gives you time to gather photos, write captions, and get approvals, removing the daily stress of "what do I post today?"

Track What Works

Check your platform analytics a few minutes a week. You don't need to track every single metric, but keep an eye on these basics:

• Engagement Rate: Which types of posts get the most likes, comments, and shares? Are videos of sporting events getting more conversation than graphics about deadlines? Do more of what resonates.
• Reach/Impressions: How many people are seeing your content? This tells you if you're growing your audience.
• Clicks to Website: For admissions-focused posts, how many people are actually clicking the link in your bio to learn more or apply?

By keeping a simple pulse on your metrics, you can refine your strategy over time, investing your effort in the content that truly moves the needle for your school.

Final Thoughts

Marketing your school on social media is a long game built on authentic storytelling and consistent community engagement. By focusing on a clear strategy, creating content that highlights your people, and making a habit of planning ahead, you can turn your social profiles into a powerful engine for building your brand and connecting with your community.

Juggling the planning, scheduling, and commenting across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and more can feel overwhelming for a small school team. We built Postbase specifically to solve this problem for brands who are heavily focused on today's visual, video-first world. Planning your content visually on one calendar, scheduling it across all platforms at once, and managing all your comments and DMs in one inbox helps you get your time back. It gives you a single place to manage your community, so you can focus on creating great content instead of just trying to keep up. Check out Postbase when you're ready for a simpler, more modern way to manage it all.