If your studio isn’t already on social media, the road ahead can seem like an uphill journey not worth taking. Although it will take a bit of effort to get your studio up on social media, we promise it’s worth it. Social media is not only where nearly all of your dancers are, it’s also where parents are spending a lot of their time. So if you aren’t on social media, you’re missing out on connecting with your current customers! If you follow these few steps below, you’ll find that the uphill battle isn’t all that difficult, and it’s definitely worth the view from the top!
Decide Where You Want to Be
The first step toward getting your studio on social media is to decide exactly which social media platforms you’d like to be on. Just because there are people on every social media platform doesn’t mean you need to be on them all! It’s better to be on just a few social media platforms and post engaging content than to be on every social media platform posting repeat content. Similar to everyday life, you never want to spread yourself too thin when using social media. Stick to the places where you’ll get the most meaningful engagement and do really well there! For the dance industry, we recommend sticking to Instagram and Facebook.
Know Where Your Audience Is
While we believe that both Instagram and Facebook are important platforms to be on, they each have a different audience. Instagram is where you’ll find most of your dancers, and Facebook is where a lot of the parents will be. You’ll want to cater the content you post with your audiences in mind. Updates meant for parents should be posted mainly on Facebook, and posts directed toward dancers should be posted on Instagram.
Create a Facebook Page
Instagram allows you to create a separate account for your business. Facebook, on the other hand, requires that you create a page connected to your own personal Facebook. We will have an upcoming post on how to create and manage a Facebook page (so be on the look out!), but for now, all you need to do is create a page from your personal account! This will allow you to manage your page just by being logged into your own Facebook account. You can post photos, videos, text posts, and even share links directly to your page. This means it’s a great way to communicate with parents and dancers!
Claim Your Name!
Once you decide which platforms you want to be on, it’s time to claim your name! You’ll find that since there are so many people on social media, a lot of names are already taken. We recommend just trying different variations of names until you’re happy with it. Try to keep it relatively consistent across platforms so you can make it easier for your audience to find you!
Find Fabulous Content
We have an upcoming tip on finding content to post for your studio, however, we jut want to give a brief overview of what you should look for. You should post a variety of pictures including pictures of your dancers, behind the scenes photos, quotes, graphics promoting upcoming events, etc. You’ll want to tailor your content based on your audience. So instead of posting the exact same content on Instagram as you do on Facebook, post content that will catch the eye of your dancers on Instagram while tailoring your Facebook content to your teachers and parents. Don’t forget that you can also post videos on both Instagram and on Facebook! For short clips, post to Instagram. For longer, high-quality videos, upload to Facebook (unlike Instagram, Facebook doesn’t compress the clip and the quality stays high!)
Follow People You Care About
The next step is to find people you care about to follow on social media so that your feed is filled with things that may inspire you! For Instagram, we recommend following your dancers, parents, teachers, inspiring dance accounts, any choreographers you look up to, and any competitions you enjoy attending (hint hint: @goshowstopper)! On Facebook, your page cannot “friend request” anyone. Instead, your followers will have to come to you! You can recommend your page to those you’re friends with on your account or try to spread the word in other ways! You’ll want to start putting a link to your social media pages on your website, as well as putting social media logos on your studio materials!
