Early years marketing – Building trust with parents on social media

It’s vital to build trust with the parents in your early years setting. As early years educators, we know that this helps with a child’s learning, development and wellbeing, bridging the gap between home and your setting. From an early years marketing perspective, a good relationship with parents means they’re more likely to recommend your setting to others.

Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools you have as a nursery manager and you can use social media to create these connections.

Be consistent with posting

You don’t need to post every day on social media, but you do need to be consistent so your followers know when to expect an update from you.

These posts should also come in various formats – you want to show off lots of different aspects of your setting in your early years marketing.

Giving families a glimpse behind the scenes in your nursery helps to create connections by making them feel more involved. Some easy ideas include:

• photos and videos of children engaging with activities
• before and after shots of a messy play activity
• meals and snacks you’ve had that week.

Provide educational content

Social media marketing isn’t just for attracting new customers. A key part of any marketing strategy should cover retention.

Aim to keep the current families in your setting actively engaged by showing them that you understand what they are going through.

Listen to parents during pick-ups and handovers. What common issues are you noticing? Use this to create educational content to support families outside of your setting.

This shows parents that you’re listening to their needs and positions you and your team as trusted professionals. It also cements the trust and loyalty you’ve built. Some ideas for this include:

• information on supporting potty training
• tips on supporting children in transitioning to school
• ideas to support children when they begin weaning

Share testimonials and success stories

Make sure to share testimonials and success stories as part of your regular posting schedule. This keeps current families on board and shows off your setting to new families.

If they can see or hear words of recommendation from other parents, your early years setting will go up in their estimations. It creates more of a personal connection.

Some interesting ways to do this include:

• highlighting when a child has reached a milestone in their development and discussing how your nursery supported this
• asking parents to record a 20-second clip of why they love your early years setting
• sharing success stories of your staff in their own careers

Show off your staff

Early years practitioners are at the heart of any setting. Prospective families want to know more about who is going to be looking after their little ones. After all, they might be spending a lot of time with them.

Your staff are one of your greatest opportunities to form connections with current and future parents. Some posts ideas include:

• ‘meet the team’ posts that highlight your staff’s personalities and explain their professional achievements
• posts celebrating the achievements of your staff or showcasing things they have done within the setting

Katie Graham-Whitehouse is owner of Early Years Marketing with Katie, where you can find support on how to use social media marketing to support your business goals, whether that’s nursery recruitment, generating enquiries or establishing yourself as an education leader.