2017 Texas Charter Schools Conference – Brand Awareness in the Age of Social Media

Reflections and Lessons Learned from our Marketing Manager

While I have attended a large mix of charter school conference in the past, this year’s Texas Charter Schools Conference was especially significant and memorable to me. I could go on and on listing all the things I enjoyed about this conference, but my positive experience is mainly due to the fact that I was given the opportunity to present social media best practices to over 50 charter school leaders. During my breakout session, Top 5 Social Media Tactics Every Charter School Should Implement, I was able to share my expertise in various forms of marketing, which includes community, direct, and digital outreach before focusing specifically on social media and best practices for using it to support student recruitment and to create better-family school interactions.

As parents today have an increased number of school options to choose from, more and more charter schools are turning to modern day marketing to stand out in a crowded market, increase their brand awareness, and reach an extended number of families that would otherwise be difficult to do with traditional marketing tactics. Knowing that social media is still new to many schools, I found it important to share 5 important tactics that I’ve learned based off of my experience in managing both organic and paid social media campaigns.

It is my hope that school leaders walked away with an understanding of how to create a social media strategy or optimize their current one. As I was presenting, I was very enthused to see the high level of interest coming from attendees. It great to see attendees jotting down notes, taking pictures of my slides, and asking questions because it showed me that they understand the importance of social media for their school and that they are motivated to helping their charter school grow. If you were unable to attend my session or are interested in getting a recap, you can view a recording of the video, as well as download the presentation.

 

 This high level of interest in marketing and communications was also visibly seen in the large amount of breakout sessions available in this strand. I was lucky enough to attend a few of the other sessions, and man were the rooms packed! However, there was one other session, Build a Strong Charter School Brand, that particularly stood out to me because it spoke about the importance of having a strong and informative school website. Whenever I have gone to conferences in the past, presentations always talk about the importance of digital marketing, but never touch on the importance of a school website as a marketing channel and the role it plays in the number of applicants school receive. I’m not sure why that is, seeing as how the first place families learn about a school is through their website. This session spoke about how a school’s website is an extension of the school, staff, and students. A school’s website is the first place families turn to in order to locate details regarding school achievements, important deadlines, upcoming events, etc. As I continue my work in education and working with charter schools nationwide, this knowledge is useful in helping schools manage their outreach and recruitment efforts.

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Meet SchoolMint’s Marketing Manager, Jessica Lam

Jessica Lam is the Marketing Manager at SchoolMint, leading digital marketing and demand generation efforts, which include email marketing, PPC, SEO, and social media marketing. Prior to SchoolMint, Jessica was the Social Media Manager at a technology start-up and focused on building and executing strategic social media strategies to generate brand awareness. Jessica holds a B.A. in Communication from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

 

INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT OUR EXPERIENCE INTERACTING WITH CHARTER SCHOOL LEADERS? Read our blog, 2017 National Charter Schools Conference Recap, to meet the rest of the conference team and hear about our takeaways from networking at our booth and attending an eclectic mix of keynotes and breakout sessions, with topics ranging from policy, leadership, governance, and operations.