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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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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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Google Search Insights for Camps

Posted on July 10, 2013
in Social Tools
by Nick Middleton
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Google offers summer camps some great tools for learning more about what prospective parents are searching for. One tool, Google Trends, allows you to see what search terms are being searched for at certain times of the year. The image below shows last year's trend for searches using the following terms: summer camp texas (red), summer camp maine (blue) and summer camp new york (yellow). Understanding Google Search Insights could help you boost your website's traffic. The trend lines show what...

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Updated – Save time by hiring a social media consultant for your camp

Posted on July 3, 2013
in Social Strategies
by Nick Middleton
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Social media marketing for summer camps is a full-time job! In fact, when I built out the chart below to estimate how many hours per month a camp should spend on social media, I was stunned to see my estimations top out somewhere around 55 hours per month! This is why hiring a consultant to do social media is so important. In general, the services of Social Summer Camp can take the time spent down to around 15 hours per...

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Measuring social media success for summer camps

Posted on July 2, 2013
in Social Strategies
by Nick Middleton
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As part of the Social Summer Camp social media program for summer camps, I work with each camp to put together a short, medium and long-term measurement plan. A solid measurement plan is one of the most important aspects of a great social media program. Many summer camps are using social media, but have not figured out how to measure success. If you are running a social media program and not measuring results, try some of these short-term measurement ideas: Using Google...

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Growing your camp is possible with social media

Posted on July 1, 2013
in Camp Inspiration
by Nick Middleton
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Many camps tell me they aren't interested in social media consulting because they aren't looking to grow their enrollment. While this is a great problem to have, I'm disappointed to hear about camps that aren't interested in growing past their current state. Of course, it is normal for camps to be comfortable with their current size, and it's true that growing a camp past its capacity can be time-intensive and expensive (more staff, more buildings, etc.) But what I want...

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Twitter Advertising for Summer Camps

Posted on June 21, 2013
in Social Tools
by Nick Middleton
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Twitter released its self-serve advertising product to the public in April 2013 in an effort to give more small businesses the opportunity to share their message.   For summer camps Twitter advertising can be a great way to: 1. Make sure your important messages get read - We all know how easy it is to miss a tweet! Camps can promote specific tweets in an effort to make sure that they are reaching their current followers. 2. Target potential parents to drive camp sign-ups...

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