Twitter is the most misunderstood and underutilized platform of all the social media tools we have available to us. Everyone wonders what they could possibly do with Twitter that could benefit their childcare company. You can only use 280 characters or less, so there’s not much room for a long informative post…and who’s going to see it anyway?
Currently Twitter has over 300 million users and that number is growing stronger every day. It is very low cost marketing, so using this tool becomes profitable quickly. This tool is great for keeping parents engaged with your childcare centers by providing pertinent updates on your center. Ask you parents to follow your center on Twitter. They will be more connected to you, and your parents may re-tweet your information to other prospective parents.
Over 75% of people now use a smartphone to manage their daily lives. And even though you can use Twitter on your desktop, laptop, tablet, and other devices, it is an excellent mobile platform. You simply download the app to your smartphone, and you become more nimble in business practices.
Here are a four ways you can utilize Twitter in your childcare company:
1. Set up a private and a public account. The public account will be used for marketing. The private account will be used for protected messaging. Protected messaging would include communicating with parents, sending updates concerning your childcare to parents, etc.
2. It is estimated that Twitter is the #3 or #4 search engine. So take advantage of this technology to see what your competition is doing on Twitter. You can do local searches using hashtags. For example, #childcare[nameofyourcityortown] to search childcare centers in your area or #childcare[centername] to search for a specific childcare center. This will give you ideas on what you could be doing.
3. It’s important that you create a sense of community around your childcare company. Twitter can help you with this task. If you are providing updates, relevant educational content, and other useful information about your childcare company through an easy to access platform such as Twitter, you will likely see more involvement and engagement from your parents which could insure they stay with your childcare company and recommend you to others.
4. Parent’s sometimes post their desire for a good childcare center and may reach out to their followers on Facebook or Twitter to get references or referrals from other parents who are using a specific childcare center in their area. Remember, the key to marketing is to be in the consciousness of your prospective clients / parents when they are ready to act. If you are active online and using tools like Twitter to stay engaged with your audience, then you are more likely to reap the rewards for your hard work.
Make sure you connect with us on Twitter and we would like to hear how are you using Twitter in your childcare.
Best to you….Brad Barnett, President BFS®
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