Increasing School Yearbook Engagement with Social Media
Social media has undoubtedly changed our lives. Thanks to social media, we are able to connect with friends and family around the world easily. For most of us, social media is a part of our daily routine. 95% of teenagers have a smartphone, according to Pew Research Center. Close to 50% admit to being online almost constantly.
If you’re creating, publishing, promoting and marketing your yearbook, using social media can really elevate your efforts. Understanding how to make social media work can also boost your yearbook sales.
Increasing School Yearbook Engagement with Social Media
Social media engagement is a measurement of how people interact with your post, including likes, comments and shares. Engagement helps spread the word!
It’s clear that social media isn’t going anywhere any time soon, therefore, your yearbook sales strategy should also factor in social media as part of your overall approach. And it’s not just all about the followers (don’t get us wrong, more followers are great!). Engagement is what really makes social media tick. Here are a few ways of increasing school yearbook engagement with social media.
Develop a Community
Your community on social media is an integral part of building engagement. The first step is to determine which social media platforms you are going to create profiles on. To maximize your yearbook exposure, we recommend profiles on:
- Snapchat
Once you’ve set up your social media accounts, encourage your yearbook team members to like and follow the pages. Make sure your team is engaging with the posts on your page. Likes, comments and shares all help to increase exposure.
Visuals
We are visual creatures. And visuals are a great way to boost engagement across your social media platforms. In fact, it’s estimated that Tweets with an image are retweeted 150% more than tweets without an image. Similarly, posts on Facebook with an image drive 2.3 times more engagement than posts without an image.
Stuck on ideas for visuals? Why not try sneak peaks of images from your yearbook. Behind-the-scenes shots can be a fun way of engaging your audience. Plus, it’s a great way to share more of what’s involved in creating your yearbook.
Set Your Goals
It’s important that you have goals to work towards with your social media accounts. Develop the strategy with your yearbook team. Consider how you are planning on leveraging your social media. Are you:
- Using social media as your primary marketing strategy?
- Aiming to increase yearbook sales?
- Looking to grow student participation?
These are just a few goals you may decide to work towards.
Promote Engagement
Increasing engagement on your social media profiles will be an important part of your online yearbook strategy. There are a few things you can do to promote engagement.
- Engage with other pages – These could be schools or student body organizations at your own school. Respond to posts on the page. Remember, genuine responses are best. Avoid making every post a sales pitch.
- Publish posts that encourage responses – Looking for information from the student body? Post a question! Social media posts are also a great way to crowdsource your school for yearbook coverage ideas.
- Run competitions – Competitions are a great way to build excitement on social media. Get creative!
You may also want to consider creating a unique hashtag for your yearbook.
Drive Sales
Social media is a great way of driving yearbook sales and to keep your audience informed of important information, such as photo shoot dates, pre-ordering deadlines, etc.
Need Help? Contact YearbookLife Today!
Looking for more help marketing your yearbook? YearbookLife’s Marketing Assistance Program is a free email marketing service designed to help you market (and sell!) your yearbook. Interested in learning more? Contact us today by clicking here.