Having a social media presence has become as important as having a logo and a website when it comes to promoting a nursery business.Embracing social media offers huge potential for nurseries in raising their profiles and reaching new customers.
Parents are increasingly using the internet to search for childcare services and there is a wealth of information about nurseries online. Parenting website Netmums and online directories including the Good Care Guide and Yell.com let users search for early years settings in their area and rate and review them.
But while these sites have the potential to enhance a nursery's reputation, concerns have been raised over how they are monitored and the damage that any negative comments could cause.
Sarah Steel, owner of the Old Station Nursery group of 12 settings, says, 'The feedback on sites where parents rate and review settings will be mixed, but at least prospective customers will have a chance to see what existing users think. Service providers will have to embrace this type of review and engage where they are able to by posting a reply.'
The National Day Nurseries Association also advises nurseries to stay aware of the reviews they receive on the Good Care Guide and other internet sites. It recommends that nurseries set up alerts through Google or Social Mention, a social network search engine, to notify them whenever their business name is mentioned online.
Start up a page
One of the best ways for nurseries to take advantage of social media is to start their own Twitter account or Facebook page. With 40 million UK users on Facebook and 10 million on Twitter in the UK, these are now important platforms that offer a quick and effective way to market a business.
'A Facebook or Twitter account helps drive people to a nursery website. Social networking sites increase the visibility of a nursery in a search engine's results,' explains Ms Steel.
'It also helps spread the risk of breakdowns. When our website and emails went down recently, we could still communicate with people.'
She believes that while nurseries that don't have a presence on social networking sites are missing a trick, 'providers need to keep on top of their Facebook and Twitter pages to get the most out of them and build a community.'
Ms Steel says that she updates the group's Facebook page every couple of days and encourages managers from each setting to send in photos of the children to use on the site. She has also appointed a social media representative at each nursery, as she found that some of her nurseries with older members of staff who didn't see the importance of such media were sending in fewer photos, and this led to complaints from parents.
Promoting social networking sites to parents and potential customers is vital if nurseries want to make the most of their Facebook and Twitter activity. Many publicise this to parents in their monthly newsletter or information packs.
Reflections Nursery in Worthing, West Sussex, discusses its social networking sites with its forum of 20 parents, which it says has been particularly successful in encouraging people to visit its pages.
Using Twitter and Facebook can help nurseries keep their existing parents informed of news, events and activities. Heather Langridge, owner of York Nurseries in Burnley, set up Facebook and Twitter pages because parents had said that they didn't know what was happening at their child's setting.
She says, 'We found that many of our parents don't read our newsletters or the emails we send out, so we thought we would use all media to communicate with them. We knew that most of the parents are on social networking sites and all of our staff have their own personal Facebook accounts.'
Ms Langridge says that York's Facebook and Twitter pages are kept purely for parent information, with tweets and updates about nursery fees, term dates and funding. She decided at the beginning only to allow comments on nursery posts on Facebook, in order to minimise the need to control and police the page.
According to Kate Peach, director of Peacharno Consulting and a former managing director of a nursery chain, Facebook is a visual tool that gives instant access to a business's existing customers.
She says, 'Nurseries are best placed to shares ideas and thoughts with the community. For example, two parents are in a coffee shop and talking about childcare. One parent gets out her smartphone and accesses her nursery's Facebook page, which shows exactly what children do while they're at the setting.'
Making the best use
Most nurseries that have Twitter and Facebook accounts seem to agree that Facebook is the better medium for engaging with existing parents about light-hearted news, while Twitter is best for professional use.
'Twitter is more for business-to-business marketing,' says Andrew Clifford, managing director of Lancashire-based First Class Childcare Centres. 'We found lots of new contacts and services very quickly on there and one contact opened up links to at least another two or three.'
To spread itself widely and reach as many of its customers as possible, the nursery group has linked all its social networking sites and also has a feed-in from its website, so all nursery news is published across the three platforms.
'It has certainly been a learning curve for us, but as a forward-thinking and pro-active company we feel it has been a natural progression,' says Mr Clifford.
Wanting to reach a broader community, even internationally, was the motivation behind Reflections Nursery's use of Twitter.
Owner Martin Pace explains, 'Facebook, in which we are set up as a friend rather than a company, is more limited in its use. It is more "Johnny did this today", whereas we had a number of audiences we wanted to appeal to.
'I tweet about our professional days and Reggio Emilia study tours. Sometimes I tweet three times a day, sometimes not for a few weeks - only if I have something of interest to say or if I see an appropriate quote.'
He adds, 'We have obviously been doing something right, as we have more than 1,300 followers and only started the page last June.'
Global reach
For Sarah Steel at the Old Station Nursery group, the main advantage of Twitter is being able to communicate with other nursery owners and people in the sector.
'Twitter is a good tool for networking - and a lazy way to stay in touch,' says Ms Steel. She chose to set up an account on the social networking site in her own name, @nurserysarah, rather than the company's name.
She describes her Twitter page, which has more than 1,500 followers, as 'predominantly business with a human-interest angle'. Her tweets include information about events she is attending or hosting, staff changes and open days at the group's settings. Ms Steel has also used Twitter to advertise vacancies at the nurseries.
Kate Peach recommends that all nurseries open a Twitter account, even if they just use it to re-tweet other tweets as it will increase their Google search rating.
She explains, 'Twitter has a bigger potential for reaching a larger audience. The more followers a nursery has, the more their messages will become far-reaching globally. Tweets can reach the entire world in seconds. No other media can do that.'
A LIKING FOR LINKEDIN
Linkedin is fast becoming a tool for individuals and companies to extend their brand recognition by building a network of contacts.
The business social networking site enables practitioners and nursery owners to build relationships with key people in the sector as well as connect with those normally out of their immediate reach.
Nursery owners can also use Linkedin to post jobs and search for suitable candidates, offering an additional recruitment route to conventional channels.
Penny Webb, who runs childminding service Penny's Place in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, says that before joining Linkedin 12 months ago she had only a limited number of contacts. 'Linkedin is a really useful way to link with professionals. It has benefited my setting hugely and really helped to open up my network. People now recognise my name,' she says.
Another element of the business social networking site that Ms Webb finds useful is the Linkedin groups, which help create a dialogue with key people within a sector and provide a valuable way for their members to gain access to resources and information.
'Nursery World's group keeps me up to date with important news and announcements. I can comment on issues that matter to me and link up with other members,' she says.
