#016 – Sam Simkins: Marketing for schools

8th February 2018

sam simkins headshot

In this episode Iesha talks to Sam Simkins. Sam is a Business Development Intern at Chiltern Learning Trust, where he maintains the social media accounts for the schools within the Trust, helping them to engage with parents and recruit new teachers. Iesha and Sam discuss why people working in education need to be less sceptical of ‘marketing’ and the importance of schools ‘telling their story’. They discuss some of the practical ways in which social media can be used to engage with parents, build school culture and recruit new staff.

In this episode Iesha and Sam discuss:

  • How a school or MAT can ensure it has a positive online and social media presence
  • How social media can help a school or MAT to tell its story and build a good reputation
  • The advantages of social media over traditional school newsletters
  • How social media can contribute to a sense of community within and around a school
  • How a school’s identity on social media can help to attract new recruits
  • How paid Twitter and Facebook advertising can help schools to target job advertisements more cheaply and effectively than through traditional media
  • Why school business managers and MAT CEOs might shy away from using these new methods
  • How teachers and pupils can both play a role in maintaining a school’s social media account
  • Why people working in education should care about marketing
  • How marketing and parental engagement go hand-in-hand
  • Top tips for how schools can use social media effectively
  • Why individual schools within a MAT need to maintain their own social media identity

Resources/people featured or mentioned

Show notes and links for this episode can be found here.

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Music credits:

‘Oui’ by Simon Mathewson and ‘Jump for joy’ by Scott Holmes both from http://freemusicarchive.org