Most schools are already present on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter. These are the platforms that tend to see the most engagement for districts. But should LinkedIn be part of your strategy? Why is LinkedIn a great option for many schools?
Today’s blog covers why you might consider LinkedIn for your district, the best practices for doing so, and some further resources to help you succeed. Let’s dig in!
Why Use LinkedIn for Schools?
Let’s just get this out of the way…LinkedIn is no longer just for recruiters and job seekers. This may have been true 10 years ago, but LinkedIn has come a very long way since it used to function just as an online resume!
LinkedIn is arguably the most professional – and least controversial – social media platform. Because most people link their profiles to their employers, there is an implicit understanding that what is posted on LinkedIn is viewable by bosses, colleagues, and future employers. That’s one check in the LinkedIn “pro” column – less negativity and spam!
That’s why LinkedIn is typically the platform where working professionals feel the most comfortable, especially if they’re not comfortable with Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or other platforms. They visit LinkedIn for professional development and to engage in thoughtful conversations.
You’ll also find that LinkedIn demographics tend to skew male. Why is this significant?
Well, you probably aren’t reaching many dads or male teaching candidates in your district by using Facebook and Instagram. They’re definitely there – but women make up the majority of engaged users on those two platforms. So if you want to do a better job of connecting with the male members of your community, LinkedIn is an excellent place to find them.
LinkedIn can also play a major role in your recruitment and retention efforts. This is huge!! Even though LinkedIn is no longer just for finding jobs, it’s still a platform built on that premise. LinkedIn’s “jobs” function is the most robust of any social media platform, with built-in features for posting jobs, accepting applications, screening candidates, and more.
One final reason to use LinkedIn for your school is to connect with your alumni. Just like people link to their employers on their LinkedIn profiles, they can also link to their alma maters. You can encourage graduates to stay connected with your school by leveraging LinkedIn to connect, support, and celebrate your alumni.
Best Practices for LinkedIn School Pages
Setting up a LinkedIn page for your school is very easy. Log into your personal LinkedIn profile, click “Work” in the upper right-hand corner, and then click “Create Company Page.”
Follow the prompts to set up the page. Coordinate your branding (page name, tagline, about, etc.) to match your website and other social media channels. Use your school logo as the profile image.
Make sure your cover image is 1128 px by 191 px. This is a long, narrow design – so use your space wisely! If you’re planning to use this page primarily for recruiting, you could highlight the benefits of working at your district through attractive imagery and copy.
We recommend having your button link to your website or Careers page, but you can customize this button to be “Contact Us”, “Learn More,” “Register,” “Sign up”, or “Visit Website.” Again, just consider your primary purpose of having this page.
Add additional administrators such as your HR team or other communication professionals who will help manage this page. This is similar to Facebook – you’re just assigning admin rights.
Finally, send an internal email to your staff and ask them to “link” their personal LinkedIn profiles to your school page. It’s very simple! Here’s how:
- Step 1: Click the “edit” button in the “experience” section of your profile.
- Step 2: Add or edit your job experience at the school.
- Step 3: Type in the school page name and make sure the right one pops up.
- Step 4: Click “save.”
You can do a short video, in-person tutorial, or screen grab sequence so your staff knows exactly how to find YOUR school.
Now, you’re ready to post on your new school LinkedIn page!
It’s easier to show up in the LinkedIn feed, compared to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, because fewer people are actually posting on LinkedIn. Your goal should be posting 1-2 times per week, but never more than five times per week.
Please note: If you’d like to schedule your posts in advance, LinkedIn doesn’t offer in-app scheduling, so you’ll have to use a third-party tool such as Hootsuite or Agorapulse.
Here are some post ideas to add into your LinkedIn content calendar:
- Staff accomplishments – Show how great it is to work within your district by celebrating staff milestones such as promotions, degrees, awards, and more. You can also tag people’s profiles on LinkedIn, in a company page post, further giving them this kudos!
- Classroom moments – Give people a peek into your classrooms by sharing all the wonderful stories happening within your schools. This has the added bonus of showing potential teacher recruits what it’s like to teach in your district.
- Business partnerships – Does your school work with local businesses for sponsorships, partnerships, or donations? Highlight these partnerships and tag the businesses who support you! They just might share your posts.
- Media mentions – LinkedIn doesn’t penalize outside links, so feel free to share posts to news articles that show your district in a positive light.
- Job openings – Naturally! You can post specific jobs or do a general round-up post of all the jobs available. Sharing just one job per post will most likely get the best traction, but you can experiment to see what works best for your school.
- PDFs and PowerPoints – LinkedIn allows you to post PDFs and PowerPoints that show up as attractive, downloadable slides in the feed. Use this to your advantage by posting things like job brochures, sponsorship packets, event flyers, and more.
- Blog articles – LinkedIn’s publishing feature allows you to post blogs as standalone, long-form posts that show up as “articles.” Once you publish several, you can turn this into a newsletter that can earn subscribers.
- Alumni spotlights – Build goodwill and connection among your alumni by spotlighting their accomplishments. Again, use LinkedIn’s ability to “tag” individuals to your advantage.
- Referendum/Bond information – When you need to draw attention to a ballot question, make sure LinkedIn is part of your strategy. Reaching that male audience in your community could be critical to your desired outcome!
- Events – Just like Facebook, you can create events to promote school events on LinkedIn. Consider being selective and only posting major events!
Pro Tip: You can “notify employees” of a new LinkedIn post. All district employees who have linked your page to their profiles will receive this notification. This is a great way to encourage employees to like, comment, and share your posts.
Use LinkedIn for Personal Development, Too!
LinkedIn is an excellent place to build up the influence and credibility of you as an educational leader as well as the personal brands of your district leadership team. While many administrators are hesitant to maintain professional Facebook or Instagram profiles, they’re probably open to doing so on LinkedIn.
School communicators, teachers, and staff members at every level can use LinkedIn for professional growth. Some people might balk at this idea, saying, “Won’t this encourage our employees to shop around for jobs?” but if they were going to leave anyway, LinkedIn probably wouldn’t push them over the edge.
Approach this positively! LinkedIn is a wonderful tool for networking and learning, and there are more pros than cons to having your district personnel participate.
Further LinkedIn Learning Resources
Looking for some real-world examples of schools that are doing great on LinkedIn? Check out this blog for 5 Ways to Use LinkedIn in Your School District.
Social Media Examiner also provides great resources for building a LinkedIn page strategy, which you can find right here: LinkedIn Company Page Strategy: Leveraging Employees.
We can’t wait to see how you represent your school on LinkedIn! Connect with me today, and be sure to share your new page URL so I can celebrate alongside you.
