Can An Education Business Benefit From Instagram?

Social media platforms have a significant role to play in the education sector and act as powerful marketing tools for publicising the business. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are some of the most popular social media channels and yet another interesting and powerful tool is Instagram that can bring about drastic transformation among educational institutions.

The key challenge for most educational businesses is to develop the right connection, build contacts and boost their networking ability to build their presence. 

Why use Instagram in business?

Did you know that there are more than a billion Insta accounts that are active every month and over 80% of the users use Insta for following a business? Instagram can be used for sharing and discovering things liked by your followers and cab help businesses to connect with their customers. 

With Instagram, one can instantly use pictures and videos for sharing school-related stories. It is the most popular social media channel among students these days for building their school communities for sharing quick updates as everyone regardless of their age loves viewing pictures. 

Instagram can help in promoting educational services to the customers by enabling you to create posts to building a huge community of followers. For example: If someone is offering custom paper writing service to the customers, then Instagram can be a good way to connect with the right target audience. One can plan the posts, collate high-quality visuals and create engaging captions to promote your services using Instagram.

How can one use Instagram effectively in marketing education?

If one is looking for an effective social media platform for educational marketing, Instagram can be a great option. Most people respond more favourably towards images than text as images can develop an emotional connection easily. Instagram can be a powerful platform as users communicate constantly using images and graphics that tend to be more engaging and leave a positive impression on their minds if used in the right manner. 

• Do solid research on the audience

Instagram can be a great tool to find out what your prospective and current students think about your institution. One can use location tags along with hashtags to track these conversations and use the appropriate themes to promote your educational brand. Based on these findings, you can build your audience personas and communities across Insta.

For example, Undergraduate and Post-Graduate students might be all looking at different information and the challenge is to understand what type of image and copy will have an appeal for the specific target audience. Sometimes, they use custom writing services like Pro-Papers to get help with their researches.

• Use text for greater effectiveness

Every image needs to be accompanied by a text which describes the story related to the image. Use hashtags wherever necessary to make your content more visible to your target audience. It’s possible for users to find related content using hashtags associated with your school/college or even with a specific college program. 

• Share success stories of your students

The success stories of your students can bring more recognition to your institution and some of the best education campaigns are centred around the achievements of their students.

For ex: A recent graduate who achieved early success in his career, innovation made by students or rewards/medals given for school in recognition of its performance made over the years. 

You can highlight these stories through Insta using the visual medium to encourage more prospective students to join your institution. Narrate students’ stories in groups and invite students’ prospects to submit their photos using acceptance offers. 

• Use a variety of content to drive engagement

It’s important to have different types of content to encourage the participation of your followers on Instagram. Run photo contests or tag your friends or even repost a photo to create interest in your audience and gain a greater number of followers. There is no specific way to determine the effectiveness of your Insta posts except based on the likes and comments from your followers. 

You can also include campus shots which might be necessary for international students and can form part of your larger content. Location and campus themed shots tend to get plenty of attention from users as well and may be a key in driving engagement from prospective students. Use an effective call to action along with your content to boost your content promotion efforts. 

• Engage current students and alumni to come together

Instagram encourages users to connect with each other and comment on their images as well as allow others to share their comments. Start a conversation with current students and alumni to gain considerable recognition through your education marketing campaign. 

• Use video to influence your followers

The majority of the website traffic today comes through video consumption and hence it’s imperative to create more engaging content using videos to be used across different platforms.