Engage Your Community
Access our marketing campaign toolkit to promote community education in your neighborhood.
Here For You
Campaign Toolkit
The MCEA Here for You Toolkit helps community education departments around the state to be able to tell their stories and promote the work they are doing. The toolkit consists of graphics, messages, and guides with the goal of providing the tools you need to connect with your community. Whether you are looking for ways to strengthen your social media presence, personalize the stories and messages about your programming, or just have some ways to tell your story, this toolkit can help.
Ready to Use
You can download a variety of resources that have been prepared as part of the Here for You Campaign even if you don’t have a team to create or customize tools. If you are looking for more customizable content, check out the templates and guides section.
Templates and Guides
If you are ready to start building a bigger approach to connecting with your community, the following templates and guides will help as you utilize the Here for You campaign to tell your stories and grow your programs. Some of the best practices, templates, and guides provided can help as you create your own customized approach!
How to use this toolkit
Communications and marketing is not always a main focus for community education departments, but it is an essential part of connecting with your community. By using the resources here, community education departments of all sizes can find ways to reach more people in both recruitment for and reporting on the impact of programming.
If you need content to use on social media, websites, promotional materials, or other methods that are ready to use, there are a ton of options available.
If you are willing and able to prepare some of your own content that is custom to your district, there are templates and guides available to help connect you with the Here for You campaign.
Digital Graphic Templates
Social Media Ideas
Story Sharing Ideas
Marketing Best Practices
Beyond the Catalog:
Top 10 Ideas for Marketing Community Education
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Write interesting course descriptions.Instead of just saying “in this course you will learn…” make the descriptions fun and exciting.
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Focus on personal growth and making new friends.In addition to learning new things, community education gives people opportunities to develop new networks and friendships around common interests.
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Make connections with the media.Contact editors for local newspapers, television and radio stations. Find out how they prefer to receive information and let them know you will be providing content for them.
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Utilize your community ed teachers as subject matter experts in traditional and social media.Whether the topic is healthy living, construction or learning the latest software, adults enroll in classes as much for the instructor as the topic.
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Use keywords.For social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, think about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Write program names and headings that will stand out.
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Use photography and video as much as you can on social media.Capture shots of hands-on activities in class, not just people sitting at a desk. Shoot close-up and action shots.
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Share course information with district employees and offer discounts on enrollment in community ed courses to them.They are your best ambassadors.
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Use direct mail catalogs or flyers for each semester’s course offerings.Include course descriptions, dates, times, tuition and how to enroll. Distribute to area zip codes, and place copies in area newsstands, coffee shops, doctors’ offices, etc.
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Promote specific community ed classes on school marquees and in school newsletters.
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Tell instructor and student stories in the media and in your internal communications.There are amazing stories to tell about how life-changing new learning can be, about opportunities to network, expand horizons and the personal growth that comes with community education.
Ideas for Strengthening the Marketing of your Community Education Programs & Offerings
Social Media Best Practices
As part of the overall MCEA strategic marketing plan, a robust social media strategy is needed to share the stories and build a statewide social media audience for community education. It is important that this strategy complements the Here for You marketing campaign, focusing on the key themes of:
IMPACT
Demonstrate the powerful impact that community education programs and people have on children, families and adults every day throughout the state and in local communities
PARTNERSHIP
Demonstrate how community education programs and people partner with K-12 programs and people and other community organizations to meet the needs of children, families and adults
BELONGING
Demonstrate how community education programs and people create opportunities for children, families and adults to belong and stay connected by igniting and fueling people’s passions
As with other tactics in the Here for You toolkit, social media should emphasize the use of powerful graphics and storytelling. Social media posts should move from merely listing community education programs and services to actually sharing and telling impact stories.
The following identifies best practices across all platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) as well as tips for understanding the various platform audiences and how to post engaging content. MCEA members should reference this strategy guide as they market their local community education programs on their own social media channels.
Best Practices Across All Platforms
- Be strategic and create a content calendar to plan and schedule ahead, but be flexible to add posts with any urgent information.
- Show personality. Your district’s brand and voice should be consistent across all of your platforms and communicate your brand values.
- Always use images or videos. Social media platforms are visual mediums that support the use of artwork, photos and video, with some platforms even allowing you to broadcast live and interact with viewers in real-time.
- Use subtitles for videos, especially stories – Did you know that 40% of stories are viewed without sound? If you use the automatic captioning function, make sure to fix any errors before posting.
- Use clear calls to action – e.g. “Register here”
- Be scientific and strategic with your posting by measuring what works with your target audience.
- Look at your popular posts and identify the audience. Then replicate and test the results.
- Post regularly and at the right times. Look at the analytics to see when people are online on that platform.
- Think about ways to build your social media audience. Link to your social platforms from your website and other promotional mediums.
- Remember that social media platforms are intended for engagement. They are meant to be two-way communication mediums.
- Create social media guidelines for those who interact with your content and include them in your profile.
- Practice strong customer service skills by following up on people’s messages and comments.
- Do not ignore criticism. Provided they are not inappropriate or in violation of your engagement guidelines, consider responding to messages rather than hiding them; or comment with information on who they can contact for more information. (For help deciding when to respond to comments, see this guide from the U.S. Air Force)
Best Practices by Social Media Platforms
- Practice strong customer service skills by following up on people’s messages and comments.
- Hide comments if they violate your social media policies or guidelines. Err on the side of not hiding comments. Only hide the most egregious comments (i.e., profanity, threats, sensitive information or calling out staff members or students, etc.).
- Set up a profanity filter.
- Take advantage of Facebook videos. Video consumption on Facebook has increased significantly in recent years.
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that video will be the most consumed content on the platform in the near future.
- Facebook Live FB videos are watched three times more than regular videos.
- Keep posts short and specific.
- 40-character posts receive 86% more engagement over others.
- 80-character posts receive 66% more engagement over others.
- Facebook posts asking questions between 100 to 119 characters drive more engagement
- Know your goals and make sure every post works for your goal.
- Be strategic when posting by following one of the following rules:
- 80-20 Rule:
- 80% of your posts should be used to inform, educate and entertain
- 20% of your posts should be used to promote your brand (identity posts)
- Rule of Thirds:
- One-third of your content should share ideas and stories
- One-third should involve personal interactions with your followers
- One-third should promote your organization and brand
- 80-20 Rule:
- Ensure there are call-to-action buttons on your business profile.
- Keep bios short and sweet, use your bio’s link to promote current events or calls to action.
- Use a Linktree or LinkinBio account as the main link in your profile if you regularly use links to registrations.
- Use stories and play with layouts.
- Share content from others, reshare content you’re tagged in.
- Use fun features like polls and questions to interact with your audience.
- Save highlights to the profile.
- Use hashtags, especially branded, and put them in your bio.
- Have a visually consistent feed, but don’t share the same photos.
- Find and re-share user-generated content, as this gives authenticity and a sense of community.
- Consider using emojis.
- Utilize short links when necessary that people can type into a URL themselves, or add a link in the bio for links that will be featured over time.
General audience
- AGE
- 44% of 18–24 year olds use Twitter
- 31% of 25–30 year olds use Twitter
- 26% of 30–49 year olds use Twitter
- EDUCATION
- 13% of those with high school education or less use Twitter
- 24% of those with some college education use Twitter
- 32% of those with more than college education use Twitter
Best practices
- Limit hashtags to 1-2 per Tweet.
- Keep a conversational tone.
- Consider using emojis. Twitter is a great platform to use a few emojis here and there.
- Retweet or quote tweet others who have something to say about your brand.
- Avoid always posting graphics, but lean into regular photos, videos, and GIFs.
- Try using polls.
- Pin Tweets at the top of your profile that you want people to see for a set amount of time.
Tell us how you are using the Here for You campaign.
What else do you need to help tell your community education stories?
Be Inspired:
Read about impactful community education programming stories from your colleagues across Minnesota.
Share Your Story:
Complete our simple form to share powerful community education stories from your own community.
Access Resources:
Whether you’re a new or veteran member, we’re here to support your community education program efforts.