The Basics

Facebook and Instagram, while very different platforms, are both owned by Facebook and so their advertising and marketing techniques are rather similar. Twitter, however, is a whole different ball game.

Following Facebook as second-in-line for the most used social media platform, Twitter has over 20,000,000 users in the UK alone. With the ability to see real-time updates on virtually any topic at any time, Twitter is a powerful tool in the world of social networking.

If you haven’t got a Twitter profile for your Early Years setting already, make sure you choose an appropriate username when you sign up. This is more difficult than Facebook or Instagram, as Twitter restricts you to only 15 characters, so it may take some time.

Remember: If you are planning to promote your setting over multiple platforms, it’s important to make sure your branding is consistent throughout. Using the same logo and username for every platform ensures your brand appears legitimate and people can find you easily. Inconsistencies over platforms will confuse people.

Websites like Canva are free to use and can help resize your logo and branding images for each social media site. They can even help with sizing for feed posts and Instagram Stories.

The Benefits

By using hashtags you can reach people well-past your followers and their connections. As well as tagging the subject matter you’re talking about (e.g., #earlyyears, #earlyyearseducation, #developmentmatters, etc.), interacting with trending hashtags such as #friyay and #motivationmonday will get your tweets seen by more people. The more people like and retweet your posts, the further your reach!

The Advertising

To start, you need to pick your campaign type – either Launch (to drive awareness and attract new customers) or Connect (to connect brands to events and trending topics). We’d recommend Launch. Next, you select the objective of your campaign. Options include building followers, engagements (likes/retweets) and driving people to your website.

You also have the option to create different sub-campaigns (or ad groups) to target different audiences. For example, if you were promoting an single event for both new and currently-attending families, you may need slightly different wording and images, but all done as part of the same ad campaign.

Twitter’s targeting parameters include:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Language
• Whether the user is accessing Twitter via mobile/PC

Once finished, you can set your ad to run immediately or schedule it for a later time.

The Budget

Like Facebook, you can set both daily and overall spend limits for your advertising campaign.

For more information and guidance, take a look at Twitter’s Advertising Guide.

Twitter is much more immediate than Facebook and Instagram. Depending on how many other people your followers are following, don’t expect your posts to be available to see all day. Rather, use it in a much more reactive way, or schedule things like Q&As where parents/guardians can interact with you on a more conversational level. Additionally, don’t be afraid to retweet the topics or posts that matter to you and your Early Years setting. Sometimes other people say what we’re thinking much more eloquently than we could – harness this and retweet, to spread the word to your followers and to interact more with the wider childcare community.