Every teacher knows it; good school-parent communications make a world of difference when it comes to pupil outcomes, fundraising, and even teacher wellbeing.
Fortunately, most parents are interested in their children’s education and are therefore highly inclined to engage positively with proactive communications from their school.
With internet and social media usage so prevalent, connecting with parents online is the best place to start turning parents into allies rather than adversaries.
In this article, we explain why communicating with parents online is so effective.
Parents are Online and Easy to Find
According to Ofcom, the average UK adult spends, on average, 3 hours and 15 minutes a day using the internet, and around 70% of UK adults have a social media account.
This means that a large majority of our school’s parent community is spending a significant amount of their leisure time browsing social media.
With the range of social media sites being limited, the majority of time being spent on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, there’s no better place to reach your school’s most important audience.
Get Involved in the Conversation
More than any other kind of media, the internet, and particularly social media platforms, are designed to encourage back-and-forth interactions.
With the number of parents already using social media, conversations about the school will still be happening on social media, whether you like it or not.
It’s hugely beneficial to establish an active presence on social media so that you can have a positive influence on the discussion.
Instant Engagement
Your school’s website is not only where all the practical information is located, but also it’s a shop window and catalogue of what your school has to offer. Therefore, if you want to get parents onboard, you want them on your website.
The benefit of connecting online is that with every communication, your audience is only one click away from your website.
The evidence shows that connecting online is the way forward for school communications and marketing. But how should your school go about this? At Eduprise, we specialise in building and managing social media platforms for schools. In addition, we also use paid social media marketing to bring your school’s offer to the largest possible audience of potential school place applicants.
If your school isn’t taking advantage of the massive internet usage of parents, get in contact with us today.