Promoting Yearbook with Social Media
Social media is the long-reigning king of the Internet. More than 74% of Internet users are on social media sites posting, sharing and uploading from their phones, tablets and desktop computers 24 hours a day. If you want to connect with your yearbook audience, social media is where you’ll find them. Here’s how.
Plan Ahead
Appoint a social media manager to map out and execute a year-long social media plan. This position should be in charge of posting and monitoring yearbook-related information on all social media sites including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Create a social media policy for your yearbook staff so everyone will understand how to use social media in a responsible and ethical way.
Together with your social media manager, build an editorial calendar. Utilize Facebook and Twitter tools to schedule posts such as deadline reminders and important dates ahead of time.
Map out realistic goals that are measurable to understand what you aim to accomplish through social media.
Build Your Social Community
Chances are, you are already connected with a highly-social community of parents, teachers, students administrators and staff. The key is to tap into this community and build awareness about the yearbook.
Get Started: Create Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts for your yearbook and encourage your yearbook staff or team to “follow” and “like” these pages as well as “share,” “like,” and “retweet” posts.
Use Your Connections: Announce your presence in the school’s newsletter with an ad or an article. If the newsletter is sent via email, request links in the email to your social media pages and ask readers to “click” the links to “like” and “follow” your pages for updates on yearbook activity.
Be Seen Around Campus: Ask students to come up with creative handouts and posters to publicize your social media presence.
Create Engagement
Once the audience is listening, you have to keep them coming back. Provide opportunities for them to interact with the yearbook and one another. Create contests and promotions to engage your audience and build excitement.
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Promote Your Yearbook
Now is the time to reap the benefits of your hard work by promoting your finished product to generate sales. Create teasers with content and images from the yearbook, include information on how to purchase, and offer incentives for those who purchase early.
Plan Your Yearbook
Pinterest allows you to create secret invite-only boards. Allow access to editors and staff members and start pinning and sharing ideas.
After sales have slowed, don’t forget to capitalize on your momentum to get the buzz going early for the following year. Happy yearbooking!