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Is it just me or are consistency and content seem to be enemies? A common question I get is: “I want to be consistent in my social media posts in order to increase enrollment, but most of the time I don’t know what to post on social media, and quite frankly, posting on social media is usually at the bottom of my to-do list. How do I stay consistent AND still do all my teacher responsibilities?” One way to start being more consistent is to use content categories.
Today we’ll be explaining what content categories are, how to use them to plan and give you some examples of possible categories you can use in your social media to support your program and increase enrollment.
In this episode, Khristen discusses:
- What Content Categories Are
- How to Use Content Categories to Plan
- Possible Categories to Use For Your Program
What Content Categories Are
“Content categories? You mean to tell me that there is some sort of strategy behind posting to social media, not just take a picture and post it?” These were my thoughts as I watched a masterclass by Jasmine Star, Instagram Guru, on content creation. She explained that content categories are topics that can be and should be used to guide the content (photos and captions) that we post to social media. Check out this podcast episode where Jasmine Star discusses these categories from a business perspective.
How to Use Content Categories to Plan
The real magic with using categories is in the planning. Jasmine Star suggests have 9-12 categories because that is what someone sees when they click on your profile and pull up your grid. So…this may or may not apply to us because more likely than not, people are going to follow us because they find us through one of our students or they are a parent–not because our grid is beautiful.
Even though that may be the case, we can still use this general principle in planning out our content. Think of the categories like a daily lesson plan. Here’s how each of my classes looked like: start with a bell-ringer, introduce new content, check for understanding, re-teach or address misconceptions, guided practice, more checks for understanding, independent work, and finally, an exit ticket.
I basically followed the same plan with different content each day. This is how you use the categories–plan content and cycle each topic in systematic order. This takes out the guess-work of what you will be posting each day.
Possible Categories to Use For Your Program
In order to get you started, here are some possible content categories that you may be able to use on your social media platforms:
- Behind the Scenes
- Student Spotlight
- Career Spotlight
- Career and Technical Education/Program Facts
- Encouragement (Quotes)
- Featured Course
- My Why (About Me)
- Program Benefits
Use these suggestions or use them as a springboard to help you come up with your own content categories so that you can take the stress and overwhelm out of posting on social media.
Want to get some ideas on how you can use the above “student spotlight” category? Check out episode 14: Spotlight Students on Social Media in 3 Easy Steps.
