Having individuals and a huge public sector to account for can make it difficult to keep track of what is going on within the educational sector.
This is why it is important for schools and educational authorities to consider tracking and monitoring what is being done and said about their brand. When dealing with big groups, you can’t necessarily control what they choose to say, but you
can monitor it to make sure that you stay on top of all the mentions and tags.
Let’s find out why it’s important for you to have monitoring for your educational brand:
1. It helps you to keep track of current happenings
Social events, open days, sporting events and governmental changes in the education systems are just a few examples of things that need to be communicated, planned ahead of time and implemented correctly.
With media monitoring in your corner, you can rest assured that
every mention surrounding your targeted keywords are being monitored. But how does this help you?
Well, a media monitoring service will gather all the mentions of your educational institute and its stakeholders and allows you to keep track of any current happenings surrounding your brand. This will give you insight into how your brand is seen by the outside world.
Additionally, this will also alert you of any of your school’s achievements, for example. Tracking accolades can help your institution scout talent so that you can further heighten your prestige!
You can also use monitoring to see how people are perceiving certain in-house events or awards and if it has reached the
right audience. If the monitored data depicts otherwise, you can adjust your strategy accordingly!
2. Monitoring helps to streamline communication
Having a large school with many students and a lot of staff can make it difficult to keep track of all the conversations taking place. But by monitoring these conversations, not only will your brand stay up to date with what is being said but will also
benefit from them.
Your brand also needs to encourage positive perceptions, as the way your stakeholders perceive you might have an effect on your long-term goals.
And, above all, your brand needs to streamline important news and updates within your institution to maintain communication throughout the entity. By monitoring what people are saying in the media, you have the ability to view
who your audience is and
how they perceive your brand messaging. This gives you insights into areas of success and other factors that you might need to work on internally.
You can also use monitoring to keep track of what
other institutions are doing or saying. For example, other schools may have a regular fundraiser for a local charity, which is a personal touch and can help to get good sentiment from their surrounding communities. Monitoring allows you to take note of what others in your industry are doing well, to learn from it and implement it internally in your own structure.
3. It aids you in your crisis management
Wherever the public or people are involved, most PR pros will tell you that you need to have a good system in place to handle
any situation that might come your way.
As an institution, you will find that subjects such as bullying or other controversies will end up on your plate every once in a while. This is why it is important to keep track of
any bad publicity or incidents that might have happened that could involve your brand and that are trending in the media.
Monitoring allows you to communicate appropriately within your establishment and take the right steps for any reactions required. Monitoring allows you to have more time to get ahead of the press and streamline your communication to your staff, scholars and parents.
It is
always important to get ahead of the problem and face it in a
sincere and
reliable way because you are in the public eye.
You cannot control bad situations; but as a credible institution, it is vital to always be aware of these matters. This will help you to:
- communicate appropriately regarding sensitive topics or incidents to the public and to the internal school community
- structure an effective plan of action to address these types of situations, and
- educate the public by acting upon this situation and resolving it in a sustainable manner so that this problem will not arise again.
Keep in mind that your tactics and structure can only function with the right monitoring of keywords, platforms and analysis. Be proactive and know your industry and your brand!
All in all, get your institute secured and join the monitoring realm to know
exactly what is going on in your educational community, as well as the opinion of the public. Keep up with trends and have the highest standard to create a credible and leading education institution.
There are other sectors where monitoring is also essential. Want to find out which industries those are? Then be sure to read up on these Five industries that cannot go without media monitoring
*Image courtesy of Canva