Uplift Your Digital Presence: Must-Have Strategies for Art Schools in the Age of Internet
Understanding the Digital Landscape
Gone are the days of catalogs, letters, or pamphlets – today’s top schools are found online, with a robust online presence. Just as companies that have gorgeous websites and a strong brand voice to attract top talent, top schools need to build a strong community online. This will boost recruitment, attract top talent, and even, perhaps, donors and more excellent partnerships. These aspects, among many others, are reasons to establish a solid online presence. When choosing from a sea of beautiful campus websites, make yours stand out for those school shopping from states away. A digital online presence matters – from website clarity and navigation to high-quality photos and impactful language to help emphasize your mission statement.
The Importance of Being Visible and Consistent as a School
Name brands such as Nike, Hallmark, or Coca-Cola have strong brand identities. Whether you visit their social media platforms or websites or see their logo walking down the street, everyone knows those companies’ central values and voices. Think the same when it comes to your art school. You want people to see your website, social media page, or brochure and have the same feeling and experience. Center your school as a “brand” that is cohesive, clear, and consistent across all channels. This creates a community around the school, reinforces its values, and spreads awareness – sparking conversations in people to learn more.
It’s wise to work with an agency to develop a crystal clear brand voice and messaging. To create a robust design and imagery for developing a strong brand, which is your art school.
Parsons School of Design, or New School, is an excellent example of a school that has become a brand. Budding fashion and visual designers everywhere see Parsons as the Harvard for creative groups. They have a solid online presence that is consistent, active, and engaged, and the word “Parsons” means something significant. They are a design school, so their design and how they present themselves especially matter.
Improve Your Social Media Game
From recruitment to student engagement and everything in between, social media also gives arts schools space to tell their stories. Approaching them in a more dynamic way that can’t always be done on the website. Behind-the-scenes glimpses of rehearsals, classes, and events give students considering your school a reason to want to participate. Other than that, it’s also a great way to feature faculty.
It’s also essential to understand that social media isn’t just an art canvas; it’s an interactive tool you can leverage to target the right students. Many platforms offer targeting tools to reach students specifically interested in your fields of study. This tactic is far more effective than traditional mass marketing because it finds the right prospects for your school. For example, you can create an ad on Instagram that automatically targets the type of people who will love your content. Google ads work similarly; X, for example, helps you communicate short, punchy messages in real time.
YouTube features longer video content like student performances, design projects, faculty lectures or studio tours, and even alum interviews. These are all great targeting tools to excite students about choosing your school.
Tips for Effective Social Media Management
Setting up social media channels is pretty straightforward. Pick a few you want to be on (and make sure you commit to showing up on each), such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube.
- First, clarify your goals: Are you using social media for student recruitment, informing parents of what’s happening at the schools, and attracting donors and partners? Once you have clarity on your goals, you can create content.
- Create a content calendar: decide how often you want to post content – do you want to post once or twice a week or daily? Come up with a strategy that helps you reach your goals and become consistent (it’s good to have specific themes you touch on depending on various days of the week or events happening throughout the year, especially around enrollment time.
- Create your content: share inspiring news, artist features, or behind-the-scenes footage to give the viewer variety and a better look into your school’s offerings.
- Develop a consistent and robust brand voice(and brand visuals) that represents your mission and goals. Use social media planning tools to help you schedule posts ahead of time, saving time and ensuring you stay on task.
The Art of Attraction: Prioritize Website Design & Meaningful Content
Your art school website isn’t just a digital brochure; it’s the hub – the heart of the school (along with the campus). It’s a way to connect, so it should be visually stunning, and have original, high-quality photos of the students and the school. Keep in mind that the website should be user-friendly and easy to navigate and understand. This digital hub should house important information about your school. This includes clear admissions information, faculty profiles, classes, programs, student showcases, an event calendar, and news updates.
To follow website best practices, prioritize a user-friendly experience with straightforward navigation, an intuitive layout, and fast loading times. Just like a storefront, you want to make the door to the school inviting, easy to navigate, and eye-catching. Ensure your website is ADA-accessible so that even those with disabilities can follow along. Make sure it has a mobile-first design and storytelling through the copy and images. Feel free to use an agency to help you create a stunning and easy-to-navigate website – a significant investment that could attract the right students to your school!
Embrace Visual Storytelling
Images and videos speak a universal language that everyone understands. This will help convey the emotional and impactful benefits of attending your school, your values, and your mission. This gives students a window into your world, where they can taste what attending art school is like. The Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) has a website that features students’ journeys and perspectives and helps demonstrate the impact of the school. Highlight success stories and the journey of going to school there. Embrace diverse voices, create emotional resonance, and take advantage of different formats for displaying visual storytelling. Whether it’s through photos, videos, digital time-lapses, and even user-generated content as well as student testimonials. Create an artistically appealing web front to keep viewers exploring the website longer.
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago created a series of “Changema” videos highlighting alumni using their art to create positive social change.
Don’t Just Show Up Online – Engage
In addition to engaging in your social media platforms, blog, and reviews comment section, you must be a thought leader. You have to become active in relevant online communities, such as online groups and forums. This helps reach art enthusiasts and students who may be interested in your school, positions you as an authoritative voice, and fosters brand awareness. Doing so helps build trust and credibility; engaging in conversations will give you valuable feedback and insights. Moreover, it’s an excellent opportunity to gain collaborators and brand supporters. Engaging online also humanizes your brand voice so people can genuinely get to know you while interacting with you. It’s another opportunity to be consistent with your brand voice, building trust.
Don’t Forget to Measure Success and Implement Strategies
Building a solid online presence as an art school takes time, hard work, and consistency. After all this work, it’s essential to measure your success (see what’s not working to improve and refine your brand voice and visual presence).
Look at Your Website Analytics.
Track the total number of visitors and see how things improve once you implement a visual brand strategy. Track where people are coming from, whether from organic searches, ads, or social media, as this will help you understand how to reach your target audience. Assess page views, bounce rates, and average session duration to see how visitors interact with your website. Most importantly, track the number of inquiries and applications (or even downloads of relevant content) to assess the effectiveness of your digital strategy.
Analyze Social Media And Beyond.
Analyzing social media traffic is built-in and relatively straightforward: track likes, views, and any content that goes viral. Stay on top of social media trends and things that appease the algorithm to show up for more people.
Do this regular audit for all outward-facing digital media: YouTube, website pages, or any public-facing content. Be sure to reply to any negative comments positively, try to fix the situation if possible, and regularly engage with supporters of your school!
This data will help you make minor tweaks in the short term that will make a big-picture difference in the long term. All it takes is determination, discipline, and consistency to make it happen.
Pulling it All Together
Ralph Opacic believes crafting a digital identity takes work, effort, and consistency. It’s important to embrace digital tools, whether you need to hire a team, get the support you need in other capacities, or dive into the digital world yourself. For the modern art education landscape, it’s crucial to take proactive steps to enhance your online presence—it is worth the investment.
To learn more about Ralph Opacic’s arts school consulting services, visit Opacic Consulting Group at opacicconsultinggroup.com.
Dr. Ralph Opacic is an award-winning educator in the arts industry. Having received ample awards during his time as an educator, Dr. Opacic has since retired. This has not stopped Ralph’s passion for the art industry from impacting others in a positive light. Dr. Ralph Opacic continues to grace the arts community in more ways than one, showing his love and care for the industry.
Through Opacic Consulting Group, Ralph seeks to continue his legacy of being a stellar arts educator. Providing mentorship and guidance for individuals to achieve their dream of establishing an art school, Dr. Opacic envisions a bright future for aspiring artists and educators alike.
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