As a leader in the field of early childhood education, social media often scared me to death. I did trainings for my staff and cautioned them not to befriend parents on facebook. Because of this, I personally never friended a parent or anyone I worked with. It was a line I had drawn in the sandbox of social media.
In fact, I was so concerned about my social profile and maintaining that air of professionalism that I rarely posted anything even with the few friends I had. I looked at Facebook and would scroll the feed and that was about it.
What I have learned this past eighteen months of owning a business and having to self promote has made me appreciate the benefits of social media for small businesses. Even for child care providers, teachers and parents. Therefore, I am now a huge promoter of social media for providers.
I am still cautious of what I post and what my privacy settings. It is important to me to be careful of what my social media footprint looks like. Now, I have opened my mind to the digital age and became willing to see how beneficial it is to have a social media presence to let people know who you are and what you can do for them.
Here are the 5 Reasons Child Care Providers should use social media
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To grow your business. Having a facebook page for your business offers you an opportunity to tell people about yourself and what type of care you provide. Studies have shown that when new parents begin to look for child care the first thing they do is look online. Let them check you out.
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To stay in business. We all know young children grow up and start school. Families move away. The turnover for children in your business takes on many forms and we know an open spot means money lost. Therefore, having a following on social media you can get the word out fast that you have an opening.
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To connect with others in the field. Being a childcare provider can be very isolating. If you own a licensed family child care business, do informal care for friends and family or even own a small center, often most of your time is spent with children and the need to connect with others doing the same type of work can be very beneficial and therapeutic. Take advantage of it!
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To take advantage of free resources. We all know that even though child care is expensive for families, providers make very limited money. That means you need to be frugal with your expenses. There are many, many groups and pages where you can sign up to get alerts on everything from free field trips and resources for the kiddos in your care to free training for yourself to keep current on early education trends.
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To connect with parents. Finally, social media is great way to connect with the parents of the children you care for. Parents love looking at photos of the activities their children are doing throughout the day. Because t
hey want to know their kids are happy and busy doing fun things. By creating a closed facebook group that only parents have access to you can create a safe, online place for them to go to see what their kiddos are up to each day! You can also ask them to give you a review on your business page to attract new parents.
These are just a few of the reasons I encourage clients to be on social media. Facebook is a favorite since over a billion people are on it! But there are ways to connect using other social media channels as well. If you would like more information or would like help setting up and monitoring your accounts contact me here. I am happy to help you out!
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