Meeting of the Minds 2010

meeting of
the minds

www.OurKidsMedia.com

Top Five Tips
for Social Media for Your School


be helpful


it’s important
because...


you should use
it because...


our website viewers
Twitter – 4500/month
Facebook – 2500/month


1.
1 person, 1 hour/day


2.
start at Facebook


goal=show leadership


leverage your skills


400 000 000


55 minutes


38 year old woman


WOM


newsfeed
• fans (likers?)
• fans’ friends


facebook.com/
username


3.
be on +


#2 engine


google juice


there vs. perfect


here, today


33% 33% 33%


hootsuite.com
• team tweeting
• scheduling
• assignment


4.
monitor what is being
said about you

Google Alerts
• your name
• your company’s name
• your industry: “private school
canada”, “summer camp ontario”
• your closest competitor


RSS


Google Reader


speak in pictures


videos too


Five Quick Hits
to Increase Traffic from Google
and other search engines


#1
Submit Your
Site to
Google Places


How to Set Up Google Places
Google account > Account Settings >
Try something new/more > Business Solutions > Google Places

Or

search for
“google places”


Track The Success
of Your Listing


#2Install
Google
Analytics


Google Analytics: How to
Google account > Account Settings >
Try something new/more > Google Analytics

Insert code into footer of every page

Start collecting information


Understand Traffic


#3 Basics of SEO & Search
Marketing On Page

Tell people what your site and its pages are about

Use your site to tell people as much as you can
about your school


Your website is a publication
Don’t assume that people & search engines
know what it is about


Download Google’s SEO
Starter Guide

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
2008/11/googles-seo-starter-guide.html


#4 Get Optimal Backlinks
to Your Site
Links to your site tell search engines that your site is important
and they can tell about your site.

• Students, parents, staff and anyone else with websites
or blogs
• Directories: local, educational, general (most are free)
• Proper variation in anchor text: Great Lakes Christian High
School is a Christian high school serving the Niagara Region


Use Google Adwords #5

Adwords: How to
Your Google account > Google Adwords
• Set up parameters, including geographical
• Create campaigns & ad groups
• Bid on keywords & create compelling ads
(within the format restrictions)
• Set your max CPC for each keyword & set your
maximum daily budget
• Review regularly, as this is very dynamic


Advantages of Using Adwords:
• Only pay when people
click on your site
• Viewed across the
web wherever Google
ads are displayed,
(including Gmail)
• Complete control
of your budget


Disadvantages & Limitations
of Adwords:
• Amateur errors can be costly
(don’t make typos!)
• People tend to distrust them
• Poor quality clicks
• Click fraud


Adwords, Advertising &
Organic Search
• Adwords, Advertising & Organic Search
• Adwords & other web advertising can be
important to marketing
• Adwords is especially useful if you have no
organic presence at all (e.g. new site or heavily
competitive vertical)
• Organic results have much(!) better click-throughs
and much more trust

Resources: Keyword Tools
Keyword tools collect data from previous user searches
and offer estimates of search volume for specific words
and phrases that are related to each other.

(None of these are perfect but they do offer important
marketing insights)


• Google’s own tool is all you need:
http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool
• Keyword Discovery:
www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
(my 2nd favourite; once/6 months or so)
• Wordtracker:
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
(offers 7 day free trial)



• An appropriate caution:
“Five Reasons Your Keyword Tool May be Lying to You”

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/
blog/five-reasons-your-keyword-tool-may-
be-lying-to-you-and-ours-might-too.html


Resources: More Google Tools
Webmaster tools: www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
• Offers some insights into things that
might be really wrong (e.g. broken links)
• Some like this but it’s too much irrelevance
• Free
• Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends
• Neat, fun and can tell you about
seasonality and other larger trends
• Restricted to very high level terms


Resources: Some Trustworthy
Advanced SEO Information
• Webmaster Central blog:
googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
• Matt Cutts, Google’s spam cop and liaison
with the SEO industry: Mattcutts.com/blog
• Search Engine Land: searchengineland.com/
• Survey of search engine ranking factors:
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors.


MAxIMIzE
your marketing
Free initiatives to stretch your marketing efforts


What’s new and what works?
Social Media Open House
Email Marketing
Radio TV Print
• 67% of online searches are driven by offline channels

• 44% of people in Canada belong to a social networking site and
is on the rise

• Retailers and brands on facebook or with microblogs agree that
they have helped maintain clients and grow bottom line


Amplify your efforts
Amplify your
1. Where can you share
your blog, twitter and
facebook pages? 1
sh
2. Can you automate a
postings/feeds with
tools and widgets? 2
p
to


Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

Pull RSS
feed of
News or
Blog

FriendFeed.com
powerful resource
to streamline online
updates

!


‘Sharing’ and ‘Tweeting’
‘Sharing’ and ‘Tweeting’


Optimize your e-listing
• Provide images that showcase different
elements of your school (web format)

• Add testimonials. Parents search for
“school testimonials”

• Add content about programs you want to
feature. This will help you be found using
the keyword search.

• Keep your ‘Important Dates’ updated and
access your e-listing quarterly to keep
content fresh

!

Free online marketing tips
q Add smaller media outlets to
your Press Release list

q Submit articles to monthly
e-newsletters

q Be the expert. Blog on a
particular topic. Answer
questions.

q WOM : Get students,
coaches, teachers and
parents to blog!


School E-Newsletters
• current families
• prospective families
• alumni
• faculty and staff
How do I build my email list? JUST ASK!


Email marketing
best practices
Sender : Use a personal email address and name
Subject : only 4 to 6 words
Content : exclusive to your subscribers
Format : Plain text, HTML or Template


Our Kids
Canada’s #1 resource
for parents searching for
independent schools
250,000 copies distributed
70,000 monthly online visitors
15,000 e-newsletter subscribers
5,000 daily blog visitors
1,777 Twitter followers
2,000 families attending expos
20% International online traffic
100% target audience
1,000,000 Families
#1 Ranking on Google.ca


Meeting of the Minds 2010

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Meeting of the Minds 2010