You wouldn’t go on holiday without a plan for how to get there and where to stay. You wouldn’t build a house without an architect drawing up some plans. Yet when it comes to representing your business online, we see countless nurseries diving headfirst in to social media without a plan in sight! Planning ahead is crucial for the success of your strategy. In this blog post I’ll be sharing some pointers for how to plan effectively and make it work for you.

Firstly, be clear on who will be involved in creating content and managing your social media profiles. If it will be more than one of you, consider using Google Docs or Google Sheets for your plans. Google Sheets allows you to create a spreadsheet (similar to Excel) and give multiple people access. Crucially, all changes are saved as you go along so whoever looks at it will always see the most up to date version (unlike with Excel where different people might have different versions saved).

Next, draw up an overview of the planned activities happening in your setting over the month ahead. This can be as simple as what the children will be having for lunch one day through to outings, visits and special activities. Then, think outside of your setting – what else is happening that month that you might want to link in with? This might be events like Father’s Day, the World Cup, Comic Relief or something more local. Hopefully this will start to give you an idea of some of the things you will be able to talk about. You can then use this info to begin planning your social media messages.

Before you start planning things out, it’s worth thinking carefully about your strategy. What are you trying to achieve? What do you want to be known for? How are you going to demonstrate that? Having this kind of strategic overview means that you can plan, every month, to share posts that reinforce ideas about who you are and what your setting offers. Are you focused on child-centred learning? Show that in your posts. Are your meals organic and locally sourced? Demonstrate that by sharing menus each week. Is outdoor play a priority? Make it a priority in your social content too.

Remember, parents and prospective parents will be forming opinions about you all the time. This approach ensures you’re in control of that rather than worrying about something after it’s too late. It also means you have time to reflect – more than one person looking at the planned content means spelling mistakes are less likely and unintended meanings can be spotted in advance.

A few tips to remember:

• Who are you writing for? Think carefully about who your audience is and what they’d like to see.
• Can you share images of your planned activity safely?
• If you saw this post on Facebook, would you click ‘like’ or ‘share’? Be critical!

And finally, don’t forget about the follow up! Make sure you have a plan in place for someone to check your pages daily, follow up any enquiries and respond to any comments. Let me know how you get on!