Where Social Media for Schools Stands Tall and Falls Short

Does social media marketing for schools actually work? The answer is yes and no.

By Eileen Beard Last Updated: Feb 2025

These days, everyone’s on social media. So why wouldn’t your school or district follow suit? You don’t want to risk seeming out-of-touch or behind the times, especially in such a competitive school choice landscape. Right? But running multiple accounts takes a lot of time and energy, time you might not have, especially if you’re a small communications team. And what if social media isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?

A couple of years ago, SchoolCEO published a social media for schools report . In it, we analyzed two states known for having a wide array of school choice programs: California and Michigan. Each state's Department of Education shares detailed records on how districts are gaining or losing students to school choice programs. We looked to see which districts had an account on Facebook, Instagram and X. We expected to find that schools that were on social media would be attracting more students than those that weren’t. As it turned out, there was no statistically significant connection.

In sifting through hundreds of school profiles, we also noticed that many schools only posted a few times a year. So we calculated the number of posts per district then compared those numbers with the district's gains and students. The result was the same—no significant correlation.

These findings made us ask ourselves—does social media marketing for schools actually work? The answer is yes and no. Social media does have its advantages, but it might be less advantageous than we previously thought. So let’s talk about where social media stands tall, and where it falls short in your school communications plan.

Where Social Media for Schools Stands Tall

The typical internet user spends about two and half hours on social media per day . When you play to its strengths, social media can be a great tool for attracting a new audience and engaging with your community.

It can help you build a brand.

There’s no doubt that social media can help you build your brand, because it has the potential to reach people outside of your school community. Social media relies on content sharing, meaning it has the unique potential to change public perception by broadcasting positive stories to people who may not have a direct tie to your district. Posting photos of pep rallies, talent shows and athletic events is a great way to generate positive associations with your district’s name. Then, your brand advocates—parents, teachers, and even students—can share your stories with their networks, amplifying your message.

That means social media for schools does have a place in enrollment marketing and recruitment. Pictures and videos can give new audiences an idea of what it’s like to actually walk through your halls. For example, a day in the life of a satisfied teacher lets job seekers feel what it might be like to work there. A group of smiling kids lets parents imagine their children there, happy and cared for. That ability to show what your school or district is like is a unique advantage of visual storytelling, which social media is primed for.

It can help you build community.

Social media platforms are interactive. Posts aren’t presentations, they’re an invitation to engage with likes, comments and shares. Plus, you can use tools like hashtags to bring people together on these platforms. By giving a special event like school prom its own hashtag, people can share excitement leading up to the event or post pictures and stories after they’ve attended. You can rally your stakeholders behind a common cause or embed a poll in one of your posts to elicit instant feedback from your followers.

Platforms that are popular with kids, like Instagram or TikTok, also let you connect with your students in a fun, informal space. And those interactions can cement their connection to your schools and strengthen their sense of school pride.

It can inspire you to create amazing content.

Social media demands really engaging content and excellent visuals to stand out. Remember the water bucket challenge that was so popular on social media 10 years ago? It was a really fun and engaging way to raise money for ALS. Schools, too, can get creative with fundraising and other campaigns.

Good school social media content is creative expression at its finest, but you can also get creative with email, text messages, your website and any other communication channels you use. Use social media to generate ideas. How can a short form post on X inspire you to write a snappier text message? Can a charismatic video performance carry over to parent voicemails? Can you post funny videos celebrating student achievement at the top of your website’s live feed where you know parents will see it?

Read Social Media Tips and Trends for Schools

Where Social Media for Schools Falls Short

The thing is, social media marketing for schools is different than it is for the private sector. New businesses are starting at zero. They use social media profiles to create brand awareness, draw people to their website and capture their contact info—which they use to remind you over and over again how great their stuff is and why you should buy it.

Schools, on the other hand, already have phone numbers, email addresses and physical addresses for every family in the district. And while your school’s social media can help you pull in a new audience, it doesn’t mean you should neglect the one you have. After all, you can’t have a strong brand if your customers aren’t happy. Word gets out. In fact, word of mouth is still the most effective marketing tool—today and always. Which leads us to where social media falls short.

It breeds negativity.

The flipside of building a community online is the negativity social media often facilitates. Your school district’s social media might draw a lot of attention, which could invite trolls and conflict into your online spaces.That’s because of something called the online disinhibition effect. Essentially, being online lowers people's inhibitions. This can lead to people either behaving worse or opening up more than they normally would in face to face conversations.

And if your socials become spammed with irrelevant comments and counterproductive dialogue from community members or outsiders looking in, you may lose control over your district’s narrative. This, in turn, could compromise your district’s reputation.

Read Crisis in the Comments: Handling negative social media in a positive way

Parents prefer to get their information elsewhere.

SchoolCEO recently conducted a survey entitled What Parents Want to discover parents’ communication preferences. Our survey included over 1,400 responses from parents of children aged 4 to 18 enrolled in public or charter schools. We found families prefer your school website over any other communication channel. Social media was one of the least preferred communication channels; less than 2% of parents chose it as their channel of choice. If—as our research indicates—parents don’t actually care about connecting with schools on social media, perhaps comms teams shouldn’t spend quite so much time managing it.

You don’t control who sees your content.

Even though social media platforms have a range of advantages and rewards, they’re still third-party communications tools. Facebook, Instagram and X will always have the last say over what content can or cannot be shared on their platforms, who sees what information and which stories or posts take priority. All of these variables are beyond your control. When you post something on social media, there is no guarantee your intended audience will see it.

Plus, you have to fight for your audiences’ attention on social media platforms. It’s being pulled in a dozen different directions the moment they click on the app. Friends and influencers vie for their views, and they are receiving ads from private companies or maybe even other school districts. In other words, even if someone sees your post on Instagram, that doesn’t mean they’ll absorb it.

It’s time-consuming to keep up.

In February 2024, our team partnered with the National Public School Relations Association to research the work of school communicators—including how they spend their time. In that study, we found that while school communicators ranked social media management as the second-most time consuming task on their plate, they did not view it as particularly important to being effective in their roles.

What’s more, today’s consumers have been primed to expect a very timely response. According to Hubspot, 39% of social media users expect a response within 60 minutes. It would require near-constant monitoring for a school or district to meet that expectation. That’s nearly impossible for a one-person communications team to do.

With all that being said, should your district wholly abandon social media? Probably not. For people who don’t have children in your schools, social media may be the only window into your school district’s impactful work, and it can be another means of building community.

Read Where social media falls short…and how your website can help.

So, how do you build a social media marketing strategy for your schools?

Determine who—Which social media platforms make the most sense for your audience? If you operate multiple platforms, tailor your message to the audience each one serves. If you’re trying to create brand awareness to attract new students or staff, pay attention to metrics. Track your reach to determine the number of people who see each post.
If you’re trying to engage your students, consider that younger people tend to be more active on Instagram and TikTok, and those platforms might be better suited for content that is on the sillier side. Facebook tends to be more popular with parents and older adults. This is a great place to reach out to adults inside and outside of your immediate school community. Of course, these are general trends and they might not apply to you. Survey your community’s communication preferences to get the most out of your efforts. You can use this article to get you started.
Determine why—What types of messages are you trying to convey through your school’s social media strategy? You already know the advantages of using social media to connect with families and staff, share inspiring content and build your brand identity. However, it’s not a good tool for teacher recruitment. Our own research shows teachers rarely learn about a job opening from a social media post. By the time a prospective hire is following you on social media, they have probably already connected with you in some other way—on your website or a job search platform like Indeed. Use pictures and videos of your school to reinforce what a great place it is to work, but don’t expect to generate applications there.
As our survey What Parents Want indicates, social media is also not how parents prefer to find out important information about your schools. When parents are looking for your inclement weather policy, parking permits or bus schedules, they visit your website.
Determine how—Who is responsible for creating and posting content? How frequently do you want to post? Consistency is really helpful for getting your content seen. If you are a one-person communications team or your department is over-extended, consider how you might involve people outside of your office. In our What Parents Want survey, we asked our participants, “Who from your school district do you most trust to communicate valuable information?” More than half of parents—58%—chose teachers, followed by principals. This is such an excellent case for empowering individual schools to tell their stories online, and it can free up time for pros at the district level to focus on other issues.
Last but not least, encourage your brand ambassadors—those parents and teachers who sing your praises every chance they get—to share your content with their personal networks and fight your battles for you online. You don’t have time to respond to or correct every negative comment online, and those messages might be more meaningful coming from people who do not represent you in an official capacity.

No matter if and how you decide to use social media for your schools, the good news is that you already have access to your biggest audience. While private businesses use social media to direct customers to their websites, where they hope to capture their email addresses or phone numbers, you already have contact info for your families. You can call or text. You can email. You don’t need a middleman to get your message across. So why elevate Twitter, Facebook or X when you can elevate your own branded website?

Here’s our point: You don’t have to view social media as a primary channel for communication with families. Instead, shift some of the time and attention you’re spending on social media toward the channels families actually prefer, like your website, app, text messages and emails.

How do you be present on social media without adding extra time to your workload? With Apptegy, you don’t have to log into individual social media accounts to post. You can craft your message once and distribute it to Instagram, X and Facebook all with one click.

Meet with one of our reps and learn how you can keep your social media channels, newsletter, website and app updated all from one place.