It’s the beginning of the school year and many children may have just left your nursery to start their first year of primary school. It’s important at this point to not forget about the parents of the children who have left the nursery. Staying in touch with them and maintaining that relationship is important for future business; they may already have younger children they are planning to send to nursery or might have more children in the future and when they do, you want them to immediately think of you for their childcare needs. Also, if they have friends who are looking for childcare then you’ll want them to recommend your services to them.

Social media is a great way of staying in touch with parents without too much hard work. Use your nursery’s Twitter account or Facebook page to post updates about the latest news from your nursery, post statuses about what activities the children are taking part in, post fun, colourful pictures that will attract the attention of parents. If you have a lot of pictures of your nursery, toys that the children play with, activities that they take part in, etc, then Pinterest is the perfect network for you as it is primarily a place to post visual content. If you can build up a bank of eye-catching images then your Pinterest profile will look great and will really show off the fun and creative side of your nursery.

The key to properly maintaining this relationship with the parents is interaction. Don’t simply post things and do nothing else. Encourage your friends/followers to respond to your updates; if their children have moved up to primary school then ask them how they are getting on, ask parents of current children what their child enjoys the most during their day at the nursery. Don’t forget that whenever you can encourage parents to post testimonials on social media. There are so many things you can do!

Get creative and try and make your social profile stand out from the crowd to make your nursery do the same. Most importantly, if someone comments on a post or picture, or if someone messages you, be sure to respond. Active discussion is what attracts people to social media pages.

This will also help you to attract the attention of new parents. If a parent is searching the internet for a nursery they can find out much more about you and the personality of your nursery if you have an active presence on social networks, so interesting posts and pictures and lively discussions is more likely to persuade parents that your nursery will be a fun place to send their child.

To find out more about how you can use Pinterest to promote your nursery online, click here.

By Madeleine Helme

Madeleine is a marketing manager and creative writer.  She loves to write blogs!