Recruitment is an acute challenge for many UK schools during the current nationwide teaching shortage. Recent stats from ‘The Independent’ show that in 2022, only 71% of the government’s target for new entrants to Initial Teacher Training was met.
While many schools across England are already somewhat prepared for a long-term shortage of math, biology, and chemistry teachers, there is an unprecedented struggle to hire even English teachers.
Private schools need to be resourceful and creative to recruit teaching staff. Traditional hiring methods—job fairs, job boards, job-seeking platforms, and dedicated recruitment agencies—are no longer as effective as they used to be. Yet, many schools haven’t fully tapped into the benefits of social media for recruitment. In this article, we will prove that social media marketing is a great way to look for new teaching talent and help you get started.
Social media has become an integral part of our daily lives. We use it to read the news, connect with friends, entertain ourselves, and share updates. Why not use it for a job search? Here are the main benefits of social media advertising for private schools.
Marketing in social media gives private schools a unique opportunity to precisely target users with a certain educational background, professional experience, and demographic features. As a result, the vacancy is advertised to a relevant and more engaged audience, eventually leading to a higher conversion rate. Candidates hired after a social media Ad campaign will likely stay with your private school longer, saving you time and money on their on/off-boarding.
Private school branding on social media showcases its unique atmosphere, mission statements, and values. Schools with up-to-date profiles enjoy better brand visibility and awareness. Regularly sharing relevant updates can catch the attention of teachers, even those not currently job hunting. When they’re ready to make a move, your school will be top of mind.
As of 2023, the UK is home to 57.10 million social media users, equating to 84.4% of the total population. This gives private schools rich prospects to engage and hire new teachers via social media advertisements. Sharing job openings on social media allows schools to reach professionals nearby and in distant locations, even internationally.
When the recruitment budget is limited, social media advertising is a preferred and more cost-effective method for private schools than traditional ones. These older approaches, like ads in local newspapers or online job boards, are now largely ineffective at building a steady pipeline of candidates. Hiring a dedicated recruitment agency can also be expensive, often costing around 10 to 30% of the candidate’s first-year salary.
Looking to boost your private school’s recruitment efforts through social media? We’ve got five simple steps to help you get started. These tips will help you create effective social media strategies for your private school to attract top teaching talent and build a strong online presence for your school.
The best way to understand whom to target while private school branding on social media is to create the so-called user personas of your prospective candidates. The personas are fictional characters who represent a typical person you'd like to engage with their educational background, professional experience, age, gender, interests, etc. Creating personas and crafting every post with their interests in mind will help you attract optimally relevant applicants.
For example, your private school’s ideal social media target might be a male or female aged 25 to 50, with qualified teacher status, GCSEs at grade 4 (C) or above in English, and at least a bachelor’s degree from a UK institution. Once you’ve identified this specific profile, imagine yourself in the shoes of this “persona” whenever you plan a new post. Ensure the content is relevant, interesting, and engaging to them.
Effective social media strategies for private schools are impossible without an up-to-date social media profile. You will need to ensure posts and updates appear in your profile regularly and consistently. Posting two to three posts a week is a recommended cadence. A content plan, with a calendar for posting, will help you keep the pace and alternate different categories of posts, e.g., news and updates, "Meet Our Staff/Students," photos and short videos of school events, other visual content, etc.
Remember that consistent posting in your social media profile is key to increased brand awareness. With a well-structured content plan, your school’s profile will showcase its culture and atmosphere, clearly communicating its unique value to potential applicants. Each update should follow a consistent style and tone of voice.
Before starting your private school promotion on social media, you should set clear and measurable targets. Simply stating “attract more post views” as your goal isn’t enough—it’s too vague and lacks clarity. Additionally, it won’t effectively help you attract teaching talent.
Instead, set measurable targets that directly impact your recruitment efforts. For example: “increase brand awareness among a specific user group by 15% each month,” “drive 10% more traffic to our website’s vacancy page through social media each month,” or “boost conversion rates from social media posts by 20% each quarter.”
To measure your regular social media updates’ productivity, you should set up a dedicated analytics tool. There are various out-of-the-box tools for automated social media analytics, which vary depending on the social media and the parameters they track. The most popular ones include Google Analytics, Sprout Social, HootSuite, HubSpot, SocialPilot, etc.
In your profile’s analytical data, you’ll analyse reach (user views and engagements), helping you determine the most engaging posts and the best times to share them. Over time, as you manage a social media campaign for your private school, you will discover data-driven patterns in user behaviour, allowing you to create content that resonates more and drives higher conversion rates.
When you have a good sense of what resonates with your target audience and where best to reach it, it is time to plan and execute a social media campaign for your private school. Craft a post that you would like to advertise (this could be an open vacancy, with a specific description of the candidate's requirements) in the designated social media, spice it up with some eye-catching visuals and target the post at the corresponding user cohort.
Once the campaign is launched, check its progress through the analytics tool and adjust the campaign mechanics if needed. Measure the campaign’s conversion rate once it is finished and draw the lessons you learned from it to make future campaigns more fruitful.
Since not everyone has a marketing manager on staff, you may want to opt for professional help with planning and executing social media ad campaigns and managing results. Turn to soccialy (now branded as Gaia) offers turnkey marketing solutions tailored to your needs, ensuring a seamless and effective campaign.
Soccialy (now branded as Gaia)is a social media advertising platform and consultancy specialising in recruitment for the educational sector in the UK. Our teams work hand-in-hand with schools to help hire professional teaching talent faster and cheaper than other methods. With soccialy (now branded as Gaia), you can save up to 30%, with an average candidate acquisition cost of £391 and a vacancy typically filled in 23 days.
Do you want to know more? Book a free intro call with a soccialy (now branded as Gaia) specialist today and harness the benefits of social media marketing-powered recruitment for schools!
FAQs
Social media marketing uses social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. to promote a product or service. A social media profile is an essential part of effective strategies for private schools. It serves as a tool to showcase the school’s unique atmosphere, daily activities, key personnel, alumni, and important updates.
Social media for recruitment depends on the industry and candidates' profiles, but for the educational sector, the most widely used are LinkedIn and Facebook. Other less frequently used media include Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube.
Private schools that use social media as a recruitment channel need to ensure they have a robust social media strategy and keep their profiles up-to-date and interesting for prospective candidates. Those schools that hire a few teachers occasionally may outsource social media advertisement campaigns to professional agencies.
Start with creating user personas of the candidates you'd like to target. Proceed with a content calendar and different categories for your profile posts, then set up analytics for your social media profile and track it regularly.