Facebook is the most popular social network among parents, making it an important channel for school communications. But what should you be sharing on Facebook to maximise parental engagement?

If there’s one thing we’ve learned working with academies across the UK, it’s just how different each school’s approach to social media platforms can be.

In our experience, most schools use their social media profiles to broadcast simple updates, announcements, and reminders. Parents tend to check social media more frequently than they check your school’s website, making channels like Facebook a sensible place for these kinds of announcements — but there’s a catch. Notifications like these present little to no opportunity for parents to meaningfully interact with your school.

The power of social media lies not in its ability to present static notifications to audiences, but rather in its ability to engage them in genuine, two-way communication. Schools who preoccupy themselves with one-way broadcasts are missing a crucial opportunity to encourage parents to take a deeper interest in school activities and rally behind important school initiatives, from fundraising projects to volunteering programmes.

Facebook offers a number of unique features designed to encourage users to engage with content. Below are just a few ways your school could use these features to increase parental engagement and accomplish its strategic objectives.

1. Increase Event Attendance using Facebook’s Events Calendar

Parents access Facebook several times a day on average, making them far more likely to notice and engage with school events listed using Facebook’s events calendar than a calendar hosted elsewhere.

If your school has a Facebook page, consider using Facebook’s events calendar feature to notify parents of upcoming school events. Using the events calendar, you can provide parents with a description of the event and a schedule of planned activities. You can even increase the reach of your events by allowing attendees to invite their friends — or make an invite-only event for activities that aren’t open to the public.

Facebook’s events calendar also automatically reminds parents of upcoming events, reducing the administrative burden of following up with confirmed attendees.

2. Facilitate Discussion by Running Polls

It is often useful to gauge parents’ opinions on a given subject, but it can be difficult to find the time to produce and distribute lengthy surveys, and even harder to receive the volume of responses needed to effectively inform strategic decision-making.

Facebook polls are quick to create and easy for parents to answer, making them an ideal way to collect feedback rapidly, or take a quick ‘temperature check’ when your school needs to understand more about parents’ stance on a particular topic. Polls are also a great way to learn what topics parents are interested in hearing about, so consider using them to make your content more relevant and engaging.

3. Enable Tagging and Check-ins to Bring Your School and its Community Closer Together

Schools are often the hub of their community. Despite this, their communications can feel isolated from the energy of daily life in their local area. In reality, schools are constantly interacting with the community, from suppliers and partners to volunteers, groups conducting enrichment activities, and community members making use of school facilities for clubs and events. Encouraging visitors to tag the school on Facebook and ‘check in’ is a great way to show parents that your school is an exciting and dynamic place to learn.

Get a Helping Hand

Many schools understand the benefits of social media but don’t have the time or capacity to commit seriously to its use. If that sounds like your school, why not speak to the team at Eduprise?