All School Marketing Plans should now include the very popular blogs.

Blogs - Blogs are becoming a very popular form of interactive, digital communication by internet users and are now necessary for schools and their school marketing plans. Content may be brief or extensive.

Effective Blog Use Explained

Blogs are used to allow interaction between the website’s administrator/s and the website’s visitors.

Schools could benefit considerably through the effective use of Blogs. These are ideal avenues to promote your school and the various messages you wish to place in the public or private domain.

These days so many people wish to be valued through their involvement and feedback - blogs are one highly regarded avenue for them to achieve this.

Blog Posts Explained

The website’s / blog’s administrators write a Blog Post (comment, information, news, challenge, etc.) and publish this to their website’s blog page. Blog Posts may also include photos, videos, audios and other graphic presentations.

The visitor to your website’s blog page would then have the option to comment on your blog post’s content.

Blog Posts may be of any length and literary style depending on the target audience. However, in most cases, brevity is the norm in these days of mass communication overload. Think newspaper article lengths for most blog posts. As a general guide I work on 200-300 words per blog post. 300 words is often quoted for a good SEO.

You need to make sure that the administrator has the option to accept or reject all comments posted in response to the blog post. If the blog post is available to the public, you need to be prepared to receive all sorts of comments, including spam (mainly advertising links). Unsuitable comments would then be deleted.

Two Major Blog Uses for Schools

School Marketers could use blogs in two primary ways:

•   School Website Blog
•   External Blog sites, which you would point (link) back to your school website.

The 'School Marketing Plans Include Blogs' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed), (2011) - the paperback and ebook manual for school communications and marketing personnel - 340 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points - allowing for a considerably large number of quality strategies and examples to be detailed - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com

The school and church marketing e-books available from the ‘SCM: School Church Marketing’ website are available in easy to download and read pdf files.

Pdf files are easily opened on both PC computers and Apple Mac computers. When these are opened in this format, you get to read the e-book in the layout in which it is written. Each page appears as it was designed, with text and images sequenced and positioned as per the original writing.

You have two main options once downloaded from the website. Many people download from the website and then print it off to make a hardcopy so as to read it as an actual book. Others like to leave it as an electronic copy on their computer and read it from their computer screen. While a significant number of people choose to both download it, print it and make a hardcopy, and then have the option to either read it from the computer screen or from the hardcopy newly printed book.

Google Books

Google Books by Bryan Foster has 20% of a number of these books uploaded and available for viewing. Google believes that this is similar to what you might do when looking / flicking through a book available as a hardcopy book in a bookstore or library. The School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3^rd ed), 2010, is yet to be uploaded to Google Books, though.

Amazon.com and other e-book stores

The normal format you get when you download Bryan Foser e-books from Amazon.com or other e-book stores, when these books are available for various e-book reader versions, is often different in appearance from the original. The white space is often deleted and everything just rolls on line by line. The Amazon.com site does also have downloads for PCs and Macs.

ISBN Numbers

Each of these e-books has an official ISBN number. These numbers are necessary for cataloguing the e-books in various libraries around the world. These numbers are needed to sell through most bookstores or e-book stores.

Each of these e-books is held within a variety of libraries: state, governmental and university.

e-Books available as pdfs

The e-books available as pdf files through this website are:

    * School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed), 2010
    * Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed), 2010
    * Church Parish Marketing e-Handbook: Easy to Use Guide to Market Your Church Parish Deanery, 2009
    * School Marketing e-Handbook: Easy to Use Guide to Market Your School (2nd ed), 2009

The school marketing manual e-book is a detailed work amalgamating 20 years of experience marketing in both Catholic education schools, along with the church and the Great Developments Pty Ltd private company by Bryan Foster. It is written in a format allowing thousands of specific marketing points, strategies, step-by-step processes, and examples, to help all those associated with marketing their school. This is a great read for any marketing professional.

The 'Pdf e-Books from School Church Marketing website are Easily Read on PCs and Apple Macs for any School Marketing Plan' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed), (2011) - the paperback and ebook manual for school communications and marketing personnel - 340 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points - allowing for a considerably large number of quality strategies and examples to be detailed - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com

All School Marketing Managers (SMM) need support no matter their perceived proficiency or experience.

Overview

One of the best forms of support cluster may include each school’s SMM, School Principal, Leadership Team members, selected Staff, Parents and Friends / Citizens Association and School Board.

Another support is a cluster of SMMs, usually within local proximity.

Either support cluster could benefit from inviting input from other specialists be they from other schools, system authorities, school employing authorities or other consultants.

Input on current marketing practices from within that cluster and / or by offering suggestions for improvement would be beneficial.

Support Cluster - School Leadership Team

The School Principal should always be an integral part of any School Marketing Plan (SMP).

The School Principal, along with the school’s Leadership Team, would normally be a wonderful support structure for the SMM.

To have gifted people literally within earshot of one another and able to have ideas bounced off each other, and opinions and ideas shared, would be beneficial.

The School Principal and Leadership Team should have confidence in the SMM and allow this person to develop the SMP without interference. This, however, needs to be done in consultation with the School Principal and maybe also with the other school Leadership Team members.

The SMM would initially need to gain the trust of the School Principal and Leadership Team.

Time, professional development and the experience of successfully completing and implementing a SMP may be integral to gaining this support.

Support Clusters of SMMs

Often SMMs feel that all schools, even those of the same denomination, are rivals.

This is most likely far from the truth.

The 'School Marketing Manager - Support Clusters' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed), (2011) - the paperback and ebook manual for school communications and marketing personnel - 340 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points - allowing for a considerably large number of quality strategies and examples to be detailed - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com