The Back-to-School Season Is Big Business. Are You Taking Advantage? | Social Joey

You are probably already hearing the back-to-school buzz and seeing various signs businesses are putting up about specials and deals for the season. While you might be thinking, That’s cool, what you really should be thinking is, Why is my business not jumping on that train?

Well, our social media gurus at Social Joey are here to say, You need to be on that train! Which is why we are here to help you build one amazing back-to-school social media campaign for your business, especially since back-to-school season is the second largest shopping event of the year! You don’t need to miss it.

Make Your Social Media Campaign a Success

Anything worth doing is worth doing right, right? Right!

Read on as we offer some perspective on how to make your back-to-school efforts a tremendous success.

The Early Bird Catches the Back-to-School Shoppers

The saying goes, “the early bird catches the worm.” But in this case, the business that’s quick to the draw when starting up a back-to-school social media campaign catches the shoppers. Therefore, you want to make sure you get started early.

Obviously, when your business starts a back-to-school campaign will vary depending on when school is back in session for your area. Take a look at the academic calendars for local school districts and colleges in your city and region—and plan accordingly.

You want to aim to start building brand awareness early in the summer months! During this time, your social media content should be one that builds not only brand awareness, but also promotes any special deals you are working on for your back-to-school campaign! You don’t have to give all the details, especially if you’re still working on them, but even teasing that you’ll have special deals will keep your audience interested.

Parents vs. Kids

Although you probably already are gearing your back-to-school social media campaign toward parents, you do not want to leave out the kids. Why not? Well, parents might have the final say, but it is the kids who play influencer during the back-to-school season.

Therefore, you want to make sure you are targeting the kids in your social media campaign as much as you are the parents. How do you do that? Consider what social media platforms you are using.

While parents are often on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, kids are on other platforms. For instance, while kids might have a Facebook page, they are more influenced by what they see on SnapChat and Instagram. So, it might be worth it to at least temporarily expand your efforts onto other platforms to reach them.

Although knowledge about your product is important for parents, kids are going to want to receive information in other ways. Therefore, you are going to want to put on your thinking caps and get to designing the perfect SnapChat filter or Instagram story in order to get in front of your younger audience.

Video marketing, especially, is an important feature to use in order to reach a younger audience. In today’s social media world, kids are engaging more with movies and video over any other content. Therefore, you need to make sure you give the kids what they want in order to be successful with marketing.

Ads can also be used to build brand awareness among the younger generation, as they seem to grab the attention of this demographic better than just straight post copy.

#BacktoSchool

As we have previously discussed, hashtags play a vital role when it comes to brand awareness on Twitter. If you create the perfect hashtag that really takes off, you can really build your brand during this season to reach your audience and attain buyers.

You can create unique and individualized hashtags specific to your business, but it’s also important to use tags that are specific to your industry, current happenings and other relevant topics. This helps ensure that your tweets will gain organic traffic beyond those who follow you on Twitter.

Sharing Is Caring

Just like we are taught at an early age the importance of sharing, the same is true for sharing on social media. As a result, you might want to consider including a program within your back-to-school social media strategy that gives people who share your content a chance at amazing discounts on your products.

Here are some ways you can create a successful strategy when it comes to this aspect of your back-to-school program:

For starters, you can encourage your target audience to come and take pictures at the front of your store or even with special photo props or signs in your store. Then, once they have posted and tagged your business, they can receive a special deal or discount.

In addition, you could also encourage people visiting your business to “check in” at your place of business. Then, when you verify they checked in on social media for family and friends to see, you can provide them with a discount on their purchase.

It’s a win-win when it comes to utilizing this type of strategy within your social media campaign. Customers are not only rewarded for sharing, but your brand is getting out their to a wider audience.

Plus, it creates that FOMO that we discussed in a recent blog. That’s a win-win!

Knowledge is power! Are you ready to start taking advantage of the back-to-school season? Contact our team of social media gurus at Social Joey to learn how we can help power your campaign!