The excitement and emotion at the hallmark of graduation season is upon us! Capturing the momentum and using it to highlight the student body’s accomplishments is a prime way to showcase the strength of your school district, and what distinguishes you from the rest. Check out our eight tips to create your best school graduation marketing campaign yet!
- Create Countdowns and Teasers– Who doesn’t love a good countdown? The momentum of a countdown elevates the excitement for not only the graduates, but the family, staff, and community members cheering them on. To enhance your countdown, profile a graduate every day on social media with a photo of the student holding a sign with the remaining number of days until graduation.
- “Post Graduation” Website Section – Showcasing the positive outcome of an education at your school is a great way to bring your school’s mission to life. Use stories, infographics and college acceptances to highlight the bright futures of your student graduates. Develop a section on your website to showcase the results with stories and statistics.
- “Through the Eyes of a Graduate” on Instagram- Have several graduates take photos and videos of themselves and their peers on the big day. This could include content not only from graduation, but other milestone days that your school may have to celebrate graduates, like senior clap out. This puts a fun twist on graduation content, demonstrating the excitement of the student body.
- Highlight User-Generated Content- Encourage students, parents, and staff to get involved in the graduation narrative by sharing photos and videos highlighting graduation, tagging the appropriate school handles. You can boost participation with social media challenges and contests, custom hashtags, and promotion from prominent school leaders like your principal and superintendent.
- Share Personal Stories- Highlight a diverse array of student success stories and achievements to make the content meaningful. Every student has a story to tell about their experience in your school. By sending your students a short survey, you can capture what they loved about your school, the impact of a favorite teacher, and their plans for the future. These responses can be amplified on your website and distributed on social media.
- Use Relevant Hashtags-Incorporate relevant graduation-related hashtags to boost visibility and reach a broader audience.
- Infographic– Stats from your graduating class can be impressive. You could develop an infographic that showcases key stats from your graduating class. For seniors, these stats could include college acceptances, financial aid/scholarships awarded, service hours completed, as well as other fun numbers such as total class hours, number of sports practices, homework assignments and more.
- Incorporate High-Quality Video- Videos are a powerful way to share stories of students. The end of the year provides many opportunities to film, from special assemblies, to ceremonies, trips, projects and speeches. Interviewing graduates on video captures the stories from their viewpoint, providing a great opportunity to promote.
Now that you are equipped with ways to promote one of the most exciting times for your district, time to put on your graduation thinking cap and get to work! Need more ideas? Reach out to us for a custom curated plan to fit the specific needs of your district.