OACS News Service
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Principal looks to foster positive OCS has been rebuilding and redefining itself as well as looking for ways to grow, prompting principal and chief operating officer Paul Marcus to immerse himself into learning about word-of-mouth marketing. People will talk about a business and the challenge is to help them tell stories and promote positive word-of-mouth, says Marcus. Last August Marcus created a blog on the school’s website, posting pictures and related text at least twice a week. The challenge was driving traffic to the blog. Marcus started mentioning the blog in the school’s weekly print newsletter, which he says didn’t generate results. He switched to sending out e-newsletters with hyperlinks to the blog entries and traffic to the website increased exponentially. “One of the big things I’ve found is you have to make it easy for people to find out about you and (make it) easy to spread the word about you, too,” says Marcus. Marcus says the blog has been helpful in forcing him to pay attention to what is happening around the school. He keeps a camera in his bag and looks for interesting blog topics. Another benefit has been the ability to quickly capture and share photos and news from an event. “Parents have commented they don’t even have to wait for their kids to come home they know what’s happened and they can see what the event was about and see pictures of their kids in action, they’ve appreciated that,” says Marcus. When he receives inquires he says the No. 1 thing he directs people towards is the blog. Marcus says he hopes to see teachers get more involved in taking pictures and posting onto the blog, as well as open up the e-newsletter for public subscription. Another form of social media Marcus uses is Facebook, a global online social networking website. Facebook users create their own profile page with information about themselves, and add friends who they can send messages to and view one another’s profiles. Marcus’ profile account is called “Principal Marcus” and is not for personal use but to keep in touch with parents and alumni. Blog updates are automatically posted onto Marcus’ Facebook status. When a Facebook friend comments on his page the comment appears in the news feed of the friend’s contacts, therefore reaching into target markets, notes Marcus. He says through Facebook he has been able to answer questions about the school, such as in one case when a parent was engaged in conversation about the school’s kindergarten program and reached out to Marcus via Facebook to help answer questions. Marcus recently gave a presentation about word-of-mouth marketing to North Toronto area principals. His advice to others interested in social media is to start dabbling. “The newer generation are going to be more digitally inclined than the last,” he says, adding there will be more new media to come. For those interested to learn more he suggests reading The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited: Real-life lessons in Word-of-Mouth Marketing by Emanuel Rosen, The Cult of the Customer: Create an Amazing Customer Experience That Turns Satisfied Customers Into Customer Evangelists by Shep Hyken, Brand Nourishment and The Inside Out Brand by Craig Postons. Click here to check out the OCS blog. If you have a question about OCS’ use of social media contact Marcus at principal@orangevillechristianschool.com. If you have feedback on this article please contact jennifer(at)axiomnews.ca, or call the newsroom at 800-294-0051.
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