For Administrators

Why is social media critical to any boarding school's marketing program? The simple answer is that you must expose your fine school to as many potential new clients as possible. You know what your school offers and are very proud of it. Unfortunately, families with boarding school-age children living a few hours away downstate or in another part of the country will never even hear about your school unless you make sure it is obvious. Not just visible. Very visible.

While the following video is entitled 13 Proven Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs, Brian's information is relevant to administrators of boarding schools. After all, your boarding school is a business. Even if you have non-profit status, your school is still a business.

Thirty or forty years ago all a boarding school had to do to get the word out about its programs and desirability was to procure a listing in a boarding school directory and correspond with a group of educational consultants you knew could send potential clients your way. The boarding school directories are now all online. This site is a good example of the sort of online resources that 21st-century parents have. And those educational consultants? Well, bless them. They operate at warp speed with text and Skype communications.

So, what more does a boarding school need to get the word out? Social media. Well-organized and beautifully

A day school is not an easy enterprise to run because, for one thing, it is dependent on the local economy and demographics. The closing of a major employer or the departure of young families from the area can challenge the existence of even the best-run private day school. In addition to those local conditions, a boarding or residential school is subject to national and global economic trends. Many American boarding schools have 10-20% of their students drawn from outside the United States. An economic downturn or civil strife can choke off the number of applicants coming from abroad. A weak national economy here at home can make it more difficult for parents to afford a boarding school education for their children.

With these considerations in mind, let's look at five challenges facing American boarding schools and some common-sense solutions to those challenges.

1. The natural parental resistance to sending children off to a residential school.

It is hard enough for most American parents to send their children away to college, much less to boarding school. The idea of sending a fifteen-year-old away to a residential high school meets with serious resistance from most parents. There are many reasons for this reluctance, but the primary ones are the high cost of boarding school and the feeling that the local public high school or private schools can do just as good a job of preparing their children for college. There's also a nagging concern that perhaps their son or

Summer is often an ideal time for administrators in a private school to take stock of what worked and what didn't work in the year just finished. It makes sense for the marketing team to step back and spend a few hours reviewing their campaigns. Because marketing sometimes feels more like an art than a science, it is even more important to examine the tools which your school is using. This is what prompted me to ask what your marketing team is doing this summer.

In particular, the ideas and suggestions which I offer here are aimed at the small to medium-sized schools which have limited marketing resources. My long years of observing and writing about private schools have taught me that these small to medium-sized schools are hidden gems. Their messages deserve to be heard and seen. Hopefully using social media effectively will make that a reality.

Boarding schools offer unique marketing challenges.

Whether yours is a small or large school, you have to get your message out. Getting your school's message out is made tougher by the mere fact that yours is a residential school. There aren't many boarding schools in the United States anyway and they tend to be misunderstood by most people especially the media. Ask about boarding school outside your circle of friends and acquaintances. The answers you will get are precisely the challenges that you as the marketing professional must overcome. "Those schools are just for rich kids." "That's where you

By now, two decades into the 21st century, it is obvious even to the most jaded, cynical people out there that we must rethink how we live and function on this planet, which we call Earth. We are discovering that Earth's resources are finite. We are finally realizing that we must conserve energy. We are rethinking the cost of goods and services regarding their carbon footprint. Sustainability is no longer a theory. It is a concept that is being put into daily practice.

That's why it is very encouraging to see so many private schools making progress towards developing sustainable schools. For schools, sustainability involves the wise use of energy and foodstuffs, the prudent management of a school's fiscal resources, and more. The National Association of Independent Schools published an excellent white paper, Sustainability: Creating 21st Century Sustainable Schools. Let's look at the five areas of sustainability that this document puts forth. The NAIS calls these 'dimensions,' which is an apt description. 'Area' implies a confined space. 'Dimension' speaks to the challenge's vastness and the solution's scope.

Financial Sustainability

Financial sustainability is all about drawing a line and setting responsible limits. It doesn't matter whether you have $100,000 in the bank or $900 million in your savings account. Schools need to use all the expertise and tools available to them to control expenses and maximize the use of every dollar of income. This is no easy task, but one that can be accomplished with creativity and thoughtfulness. This