How to Maximise Instagram Strategy For Your School

According to a recent statistic released by Semrush, Instagram is the 7th most visited website in the world based on total website traffic.

With 2.9 billion total visits per month, it is the fourth most used social platform behind Facebook, Whatsapp and YouTube. So whether you are trying to reach out to parents or students, Instagram should not be neglected from any school’s digital marketing strategy. 

An ever-evolving platform with countless algorithm updates to recall, the once simple social media outlet has become a little more complex in recent years. These changes have meant that Instagram has transformed from a straight-forward place to share your favourite photos with friends into an unmissable marketing and advertising opportunity. In order to deliver an effective Instagram strategy for your school, you need to know how to make the most out of the platform to boost your engagement. We have put together our top tips for maximising your school’s Instagram strategy to get the most out of the platform and achieve your digital marketing goals.

Stay consistent with your school branding

Ensuring your messaging and visual presence is consistent across all platforms creates a seamless, professional experience. Establishing the messaging you want to deliver to your audience will mean consistency throughout all mediums of marketing, from your print marketing to your digital presence. There should be no confusion with what your school is saying to its audience and the messaging will continue to be delivered across all platforms. 

Having consistent visual branding is also key. Establishing brand guidelines very early on in the development of your marketing strategy will ensure consistency throughout. Deciding on fonts, brand colours and logos will mean all imagery will have similarities and be overall more put together and professional. If you require any help or guidance in this area, the team at Cleverbox can help you to develop brand guidelines for your school. 

These brand guidelines can then feed into the content created for Instagram. Ensuring your feed has a consistent look and feel will create a clear, distinct brand image across Instagram, and connect viewers to the rest of your online presence.

Upload video content

Video content has exploded across Instagram in recent years. According to Instagram, 91% users said they watch videos on the platform on a weekly basis. There are four different types of videos used on Instagram, and they are useful for different purposes:

• Instagram Stories – Instagram stories are shorter videos that disappear after 24 hours. These can be great for capturing off-the-cuff, day-to-day events around the school that you may not want posted on your main feed but want to share with your audience. According to Instagram, as of 2021, stories are the platform’s most popular feature that users engage with the most. When using Instagram for schools you won’t want to slack on this to ensure your followers are kept up to date with the latest news and content. 
• Instagram Feed Videos – Similar to posting an image, an Instagram Feed video can be up to 60 minutes in length and will remain on your feed. Like an image, an Instagram Feed Video can include a filter, location, caption, tagged users and hashtags and we recommend utilising these properties to get your video seen by as many people as possible.
• Instagram Lives – An Instagram Live allows you to stream a video directly to your audience in real time. Imagine a Zoom meeting for everyone who follows you and chooses to tune in. These videos can then be shared to your feed. In this post-Covid world, we know events can sometimes be missed by friends and family. So when using Instagram for schools, why not stream your next sports day or performance on an Instagram Live for people who are not able to make it in person. 
• Instagram Reels – Instagram Reels are the newest addition to the platform, and were inspired by Tik Tok. These videos are 15-30 seconds in length and allow you to be more creative, incorporating timed text, AR filters, green screen mode, etc… When using Instagram for schools, creating Instagram reels can produce more engaging content that might entice your younger audience. 

Use effective hashtagging

When using Instagram for schools, should you even care about hashtags? Well, here are 5 reasons why you should be making the most out of hashtags on Instagram:

1. Increase exposure and discovery 
2. Encourages your audience to interact
3. Helps you analyse your competitors on Instagram
4. Allows you to do research to inspire future content 
5. Links digital and real life campaigns

Instagram have recently announced that they are testing ways to make hashtags more valuable to its users. They are changing the way top posts are ranked on hashtag pages by pushing more timely content to create top, trending hashtags. Here are some of Cleverbox’s top tips to help you make the most out of your hashtagging when using Instagram for schools:

• Use an optimal number of hashtags. The best number is difficult to say, but it is recommended to use 3-5 hashtags within a caption. If you were to use further hashtags, try to avoid using any more than 30.
• Using too many hashtags in a caption can use up a lot of space and make it look messy. Keep your caption minimal and if you want to use more hashtags, put them in a comment below the post. 
• Do some research and find the best hashtags for you. The best way to do this is look at other school’s Instagram pages and note which hashtags they are using. It is also a good idea to brainstorm some hashtags that will be most relevant to your school and then type them into the search bar on Instagram to see how much it is getting used. 
• Follow hashtags, this way any posts that use that hashtag appear on your main feed. This is a good way of keeping up to date with what your competitors are doing and current trends. 
• Encourage use of branded hashtags. This could be as simple as using your school’s name as a hashtag, but it gets your school’s name used in a fun, creative way.
• Save a list of hashtags you like to use on all your social media posts to make it as easy as copying and pasting when posting.
• Don’t forget to add hashtags to your Instagram stories. They may only last 24 hours, but it will mean your stories will show up to anyone following that hashtag, even if they aren’t following you.

Track your analytics

When set-up as a business account, Instagram offers detailed analytics on all organic and paid marketing campaigns. From tracking the amount of page views to engagements, analysing these statistics can demonstrate what is and isn’t working in your school’s Instagram strategy. This will allow you to continually improve your campaign, increase conversions and in turn lead to more applications and enrollments. 

As we said in the introduction, Instagram is constantly changing and keeping on top of all its updates and algorithm changes is nearly impossible. However, these top tips are key when using Instagram for schools and increasing overall engagement. If you would like any help developing brand guidelines for your school, or for more information on how we can work with you to help maximise your Instagram strategy for your school, get in touch today.