6 tips to leverage the power of Facebook in Education Marketing

A typical hue & cry of every parent across the globe

“Entire day you are busy using Facebook, I do not know what do you keep scrolling so much.”

A typical dialogue of every parent across the globe while scolding their child for an inherent addiction to this social media platform. According to a recent survey by Statista, Facebook users across India as of July 2019 spends an average of 35 minutes per day. The male Facebook users during the measured period were majority between 18 to 24 years old and accounted for 73.8 million whereas females accounted for 23.4 million.

 

Fig 1: Important Statistics pertaining to the usage of Facebook by educational institutes

Source: Capture

Now that educational institutes know that your prospects can be found & engaged on Facebook, it is imperative to align their digital marketing strategies to take the utmost advantage of social media.

And if you, as a decision-maker in an education institute wish not to lag behind in today’s competition, here are a few super useful tips that you must not turn a blind eye to:

Target prospects based on their interest

In the words of the great Jack Welch – “If Everyone Is Your Customer, Then No One is Your Customer”. Knowing precisely your target audience can be one of the simple but often misjudged ways to garner interest.

Facebook Ads provide loads of demographic information which can be treasured and utilized significantly by a marketer. As an educational institute, you can segregate all your prospect basis like gender, age, educational background and many more. By doing this, one can categorize typical desirable candidates & can then target only those. This feature of Facebook helps you not only to reach a specific target audience but also to increase efficiency, & save marketing costs.

A recent study by Adstage shows usage of the custom audiences has benefitted the businesses to cater to 3.87 times more conversions.

 

Fig 2: Creating Custom audiences in facebook ads

Promote Facebook Ads on mobile

Almost 96% of the users use Mobile devices to log in to Facebook, the majority of whom are youths exploring different options for their undergraduate or higher studies. So, utilizing mobile-friendly ads should be adopted for better user experience. Also, Facebook provides geofencing technology which helps you to track the location of your prospect, helping the decision-makers to gain deeper insights on what works best for them.

 

Fig 3: A typical graph showing the share of users to the devices used

Source:Statistia

Utilize the power of Lookalike Audiences

Facebook provides a lookalike audience feature which provides a better pathway to reach with prospects who never interacted with you or who are unaware of your institute. A lookalike audience is nothing but the audience with similar interests, activity patterns and most importantly which shows the same demographic profile as your targeted audience. 

No wonder lookalike audience has the highest conversion rate. Once a lookalike member engages with your Facebook ads you can target them and provide information about your institute and courses you offer. So, in a nutshell, Facebook ads for lookalike audiences not only decrease the cost of your marketing budget but also increase the conversion rate.

 

Fig 4: Illustration showing the working of lookalike audience

Leverage videos for effective interaction with prospects

Videos are more attractive and attentive than any other posts on social media and Facebook is no exception to this. Studies have shown that the use of short video clips allows for more efficient processing and memory recall. The visual and auditory nature of videos appeals to a wide audience and allows each user to process information in a way that’s natural to them.

Education marketers can have video content in the form of testimonials from past students, videos related to your developed infrastructure, a virtual campus tour, campus life, and much more. Videos create a more engaging sensory experience than using print materials alone, also, it helps the institute to increase proficiency in digital literacy and communication.

 

Fig 5: Sample Video content

Involve your audience

Let your audience, which can be students & their parents feel that they are important to you. One of the effective ways to do this is by adding questions in your posts. Throwing questions also calls for active engagement. It makes people feel that they are open to their opinions. The higher the engagement, and higher the relevance of your posts, the more people can reach your Facebook page.

 

Fig 6: A typical poll on facebook

Maintain post consistency but do not over-post

When your posts are well-planned in advance, you can prep and organize around the key dates, events, and launches that could influence your content. However be the best source of information, but do not overdo it with too many posts or information. However, do remember to focus on quality over quantity – every post should be of value, not just something is thrown quickly together. Don’t just make a point to post daily if you have no content.

 

So, weren’t these tips useful?

Takeaways?

Due to social media platforms like Facebook, Education Marketing has become relatively focused & takes engagement to the next level. It is highly recommended that the marketing teams align their social strategies in advance to make the most of it

Gain insights

Utilize wisely

Reap Fruits of Success