You’ve created a social media account for your language school, you post regularly, you spend lots of time creating posts BUT you aren’t getting the engagement you expect. Followers don’t comment, you struggle to get new followers and you don’t know what else to do to boost engagement. Does this sound familiar? Are you looking for ways to increase your language school’s social media engagement? So, you’re in the right place!

First things, first!

You may be wondering: What’s exactly social media engagement? It’s interaction!. It is about the likes, comments, shares, shoutouts, etc (it depends on the platform) that followers give to your social media activity. It’s also about how YOU interact with other accounts. Social media networks are about being social, in other words, they are about meaningful interaction and engagement. If you increase and maintain your social media engagement it will help you build a healthy social media presence but not only.

Why does engagement matter for my language school’s social media?

As you probably know having a good engagement rate is key because the more engagement you have the happier the algorithm will be. Therefore, you will have more organic visibility to your posts, i.e more people will see your posts without you having to sponsor them. Increasing engagement on your school’s social media will result in more visibility, more followers in target but above all more meaningful connections and a better chance to get enquiries for courses.

What to do to increase social media engagement then?

First of all, a good start to get more engagement on your school’s social media is to have a tailored content strategy in place aligned with your objectives. Assuming you have one (if not check how to get started here ), then you also need:

• To be on the right social media platform ( find help here)
• To be social! It’s about making connections
• To take up some healthy social media habits.

Ready to see how to boost your language school’s engagement? Here we go!

1.            Reply to comments on your posts.

This is your first commandment! It is really sad to see followers that stop the scroll, engage with your content and there’s no reply. It is also counterproductive for your school’s social media. Do reply to ALL comments on your posts, stories and DMs and do so possibly including a question to continue the conversation.

2.            Share content that is relevant to whom you want to engage.

This implies analyzing the profile of the prospective students you want to attract and identifying needs, dreams and pain points. Then your content should aim to help those prospective students.

3.            Tailor posts to the social media network.

Each social media platform has its own style, user type and expectations (click here to learn more). Therefore, avoid using exactly the same post across platforms. Instead, tailor them to the right channel. Otherwise, the post risks being off-putting rather than attractive. Here you have a concise guide to networks.

4.            Don’t post and ghost!.

Going onto your platform, posting and leaving is an indicator to the algorithm that you are not being social. The chances are that your post won’t be shown to your followers. So to prevent these from happening, make sure you engage before you post and after your post with other followers. Don’t leave the network right after posting but stay and be social!

5.            Comment on your followers’ posts, stories and Reels.

To improve engagement on your school’s social media it’s crucial that you make time to engage with other accounts. Make sure you engage with at least ten accounts every day in one way or another.  It’s not a waste of time, it’s an investment of time!

6.            Use pertinent hashtags.

Picking relevant hashtags is more important than what it may seem. Hashtags will help you be more discoverable.

7.            Comment on posts under your targeted hashtags.

You can discover potential students by following the hashtags they are using. Then, invest time in commenting posts under those hashtags to make yourself noticed.

Now let me take you to the next level:

8.            Make the most out of stories stickers if you use Instagram or Facebook.

One idea is to do an “Ask me anything” post in your stories for a specific point (your courses, materials, your career, your home country and so on). This is a friendly way to encourage engagement.

9.            Follow-up your “Ask me anything”.

Don’t miss this opportunity and answer the questions live in stories. If you are not ready for the camera, then reply with text stickers.

10.          Share content from other accounts.

Please share only if you think it will resonate with your followers. Make sure you repost, tag and give credit to the message too.  Curated content can make your school look like you’re actually listening and that you care about your community. It’s important to add your own views on what you are sharing and invite people to comment too.

11.          Do shout-outs. 

Appreciation post stories work really well if you need to boost engagement and they also may drive visibility if reposted. For instance: “Thanks to teacher Sarah for …”.Also, do shout-outs for local shops and services. It could be something like “Best coffee in the neighbourhood!”. Also, you may want to show appreciation for your student’s achievements through a story or post and tag them. For example: “Huge congrats to Sonia for passing her C1 exam”

12.          Have regular polls or posts with “this or that”.

For example: “Better to learn  American English or British English?” “Better to take First or IELTS to go into Uni?” “Which is more effective: Face-to-face or online learning?”. The aim is to spark an opinionated conversation thread for more interaction.

13. ALWAYS nudge your followers to comment.

To trigger engagement add a question at the end of your post. For example, if you do a carousel with tips to improve listening, ask in the caption: Which one are you going to give it a go? Remember, asking questions is asking followers to engage with you. To be effective use open-ended questions. Also asking for opinions is a good way to get your community into a conversation.

14.          Be human. Be humorous!

Showing the face behind the school makes it look more human. If you also include funny posts then you’re encouraging engagement far more than with idioms and grammar tips. Include jokes and funny anecdotes.

15.          Analyze your posts.

Facebook and Instagram have organic insights so you can check which type of posts have got the biggest engagement. Analyse them to find out what makes them so successful. Is it the message, the question, the content? Once you have identified the success factor try doing similar posts and observe how they perform.

Conclusion

These are only some simple, yet effective, strategies to help you increase engagement on your language school’s social media. If you are a busy ELT teacher managing your school’s social networks I think you will find these engagement boosters easy to implement. Also, they will save you time thinking and looking for inspiration.

These ideas can be easily planned or organized between lessons. As you know, once you boost your engagement you will enjoy more organic visibility, bigger reach and this, in turn, is likely to generate enquiries for your language courses. Good luck!

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. I write this blog to help teachers like you and having your feedback, either positive or constructive, is encouraging! Thanks for reading 🙂