Reaching students online can feel a bit mind boggling, but here are some helpful tips and resources for you to check out as term starts and you try to reach students online.
Go to where your students are
Do your students spend most of their time on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat? Do a bit of research and find out where they spend their time and be an active presence on that platform. Theres no point putting hours of work into Twitter if none of them are active on there! Of course, your students will all be different - but ask them and find out where they like to be in the digital world. That way you can save precious time and post content on platforms that they are more likely to see.
Have a plan
Often social media can be quite overwhelming because we feel like we have to post every 5 minutes. Spend a couple of hours at the beginning of the term mapping out what you have in store for students for the coming term. What events have you got running? Any whole church activities happening? Any prayer or Bible themes you’d like to cover as a student community? A certain charity or campaign you’d like the students to get on board with? Map out your term and plan what you’re going to post online, and when. Working your way back like that often takes the pressure off.
Use your students
If you don’t feel that you’re brilliant at social media, experiment with giving a student the login details and letting them upload content. You could do this regularly or have a week focus on different students to create a ‘week in the life of’ campaign. Have a think about any students you know who you think would be brilliant at this and give it a go.
Facebook Live
Facebook live is your friend. I know it might seem a bit scary to upload something that is actually happening right now for all your friends to see, but Facebook live is a brilliant and free tool for you to use. Whether its streaming a talk from a Sunday service, sharing a students testimony or promoting an event coming up, Facebook live is easy to use and it can drive up to 10 times more traffic and engagement to your post.
Facebook scheduler
The Facebook scheduler is an awesome feature for you guys that manage Facebook pages. Unfortunately its only available to use on Facebook pages, but is a brilliant way of keeping on top of posting and makes uploading regularly a little easier and means you can schedule a few weeks in advance is your on holiday!
Tweetdeck
Tweetdeck is a brilliant tool for anyone who uses Twitter. Open it up in your browser, and you can see newsfeeds, interactions, messages and more from numerous Twitter account at once. It's a great way to keep on top of your tweets and reply online and it also has a brilliant scheduling tool which means you can schedule your tweets for the whole of the term!
Hootsuite academy
The Hootsuite Academy is full of ‘how tos’ and case studies for how businesses use social media and digital marketing. Some of their content is free, some you have to pay for, but its a brilliant way of getting decent training on the fly. If you’re interested in finding out more about building social media campaigns, I advise checking it out.
Canva
Ever wanted to create one of those beautiful-skyline-with-text-over-it images? Now you can! Canva is a brilliant little app for creating simple graphics and images to share on social media. Whether its advertising an event or sharing a bible verse, Canva is a one-stop-shop for creating these images. You can get a nifty free account, or pay a little bit per-month to get hold of a more advanced version.
Unsplash
Everyone and their nans are using Unsplash these days, and I don’t blame them! On Unsplash, you can download up to 10 top quality photos per day for free, which have been uploaded by photographers from all over the world. There are tonnes of photos on here, and the best thing is you can use them anywhere, for anything, without crediting the photographer!
