325k Followers and growing
It’s sometimes hard to comprehend how many people enjoy seeing what we do here in the school via social media. Sometimes over a million people see and interact with our posts and videos on Instagram which is pretty mind blowing but also pretty exciting. It’s also testament to what we do. Testament to the quality of the workmanship and design of all the pieces produced by our students and also the team working on our Waters and Acland commissioned pieces. What’s more and probably this is the key to the success of in particular our Instagram feed people seem most interested in the journeys being under taken by our students. The stories of people changing direction in life. Finding a passion and pouring their heart and soul into learning new skills. It’s this that we try and communicate and this that shines through on our feed. The joy of cutting that first dovetail joint. The creative development. The ups and downs, highs and lows of seeing an idea through from that first concept to that final piece. These are the stories we want to tell so why not join in!
Marketing potential
Whilst social media should and is seen by us as a bit of fun and as a great way of interacting with a world wide community of furniture makers and designers it’s also a powerful marketing tool. Now as we say to our students it’s no silver bullet. It’s just not that simple, and nothing in sales and marketing ever is that simple. What it is however is an essential part of the marketing mix. Now back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s when I was practising as a marketing professional the marketing mix focussed on print advertising and exhibitions and websites. Social media had started to be talked about but it wasn’t taken seriously. Well all that’s changed and I’m sure if I was a fly on the wall at marketing school these days engagement with social media and growing a social media profile would be high up the agenda for a start up business. If not top of the list. And it’s because of this that we take it seriously both as a business tool but also for our students. Our students have a great opportunity to grow their social media presence whilst they are within the school. It’s not hard and neither is it a distraction. If they want too, and of course it’s not for everyone all they need do is document their journey through the school via images and videos posted on Instagram or other social media platforms. We help with the rest by re posting these images to our 325k and growing followers. It really helps and a number of students have gained thousands of followers during their time in the school and tens of thousands of followers if they continue to take it seriously moving forward.
And why is it worthwhile? Well it’s important and useful for a number of reasons. It plugs our students into a massive online community of furniture makers and designers. It grows an on line presence which feeds traffic to websites. It can generate sales. It’s also a great way to stay connected to what we do here at the school as we continue to interact with and support our students online presence moving forward. All our students become part of the Waters and Acland family and this is such a great way of keeping in touch. As all good families should!
