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LinkedIn Ads for Summer Camps

Posted on August 7, 2013
in Social Tools
by Nick Middleton
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LinkedIn ads recruiting camp counselors always spike a couple of months before camp starts. Recruitment agencies run most of these ads, but camps have the opportunity to run their own ads to recruit the best counselors. Here are a few things to think about when running LinkedIn ads for counselor recruitment: 1. Targeting is key: Most students use LinkedIn specifically to find jobs. Make sure you layer on the best targeting possible to maximize results. For example, if you are a camp in...

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What should summer camps blog about?

Posted on August 5, 2013
in Social Strategies
by Nick Middleton
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When camp is in session blogging every day comes more naturally than it does the rest of the year. But when camp is over it is extremely important to continue blogging regularly. Regularly meaning at least 1-3 times a week when camp is not in session. It can be hard to come up with interesting and inspiring topics, but here is a quick list of ideas: 1. Repurpose blogs from during the summer to remind everyone of the amazing time they...

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Social Media Roundup for Summer Camps- August 1st

Posted on August 2, 2013
in Social Media Roundup
by Nick Middleton
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Here are some interesting articles on social media and summer camps from this past week! CNN: Facebook enables embedded posts- This will allow you to embed Facebook posts directly on your webpage. This will be very cool for summer camps where parents and children share their favorite camp memories on your Facebook page. You can now have those embedded on your webpage. Mashable: 50 digital media resources you may have missed- There are a lot of interesting resources and articles about social...

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Setting a Camper Growth Goal

Posted on August 1, 2013
in Social Strategies
by Nick Middleton
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Before starting any social media program, it is important to build out your marketing objectives and understand the main goal your camp is trying to reach. Most camps I work with are looking to grow their number of campers, but have never set an actual goal around what that looks like. I often encourage my camps to build a chart to map out exactly what 25%, 50% and 75% growth looks like. For small camps it can be a very...

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Facebook insights for your Facebook page

Posted on July 23, 2013
in Social Tools
by Nick Middleton
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Almost every summer camp has a Facebook page and it is extremely important to take advantage of the insights that Facebook provides you to grow and optimize your page. I am going to quickly walk you through my page's insights so you can see what metrics are important to track. On the main page of Facebook insights there are three panels available: page likes, post reach and engagement. The most important of these three to take a deeper look at is post...

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How often should you update parents during camp and where?

Posted on July 19, 2013
in Social Strategies
by Nick Middleton
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During camp it is absolutely imperative for camps to keep their parents and community updated, but it can certainly become a daunting task when you have to update your internal camp software (campminder, bunk1, etc.), Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and the list goes on. I've posted before about how to best create content during camp, but I wanted to share a few additional tips on how much you should be updating your social entities. 1. Update twice a day, collect content...

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Promoting your camp’s crowd funding efforts

Posted on July 17, 2013
in Social Tools
by Nick Middleton
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A couple of days ago I wrote about how camps can use crowd funding platforms to raise money. Today I am going to go over a couple of ways that camps should promote these crowd funding efforts. 1. Social media platforms: This seems obvious, but you should heavily promote your project on your own social media platforms. Use photos of camp activities and messaging that clearly describes why you are asking for money and allows your community to connect with your cause. 2....

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Resources on social media and summer camps

Posted on July 16, 2013
in Social Tools
by Nick Middleton
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I've been reading a lot lately about social media and about summer camps in an effort to always be up to date on various ideas. I wanted to quickly share some books and blogs I've been reading for your enjoyment. Books: How Children Succeed by Paul Tough: This book was recommended to me by one of my camp partners as a great way to learn more about child development at summer camp. It goes in depth on developing non-cognitive skills. So far a...

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