Alahliya Private School Social Media Audit Report-2023
By Nur Masarwa* February 13, 2023
““Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world””
Generally, social media is used to maintain relationships or seek information about anything. However, brands and businesses have also joined social media to communicate with their audience with the objective of providing a better customer service and gain popularity (Nahai, 2012).
About the School:
Alahlya School is a private school in a city called Qalanswa in Israel. The school was established in 2017 by a private foundation and serves from 7th to 12th grade. Unlike public schools, students come from different cities nearby and pay enrollment fees annually (school’s source of revenue). In addition, students need to pass an exam in order to be accepted.
The school has 450 students in total from different cities. In addition, the classrooms are divided by gender- classrooms for males only and others for females. This approach is derived from not only religious point of view but also educational one.
School’s Vision:
The school strives for students’ academical excellence along with lifelong learning. In addition, it appreciates students’ endeavors, originality, and creativity as a way of boosting their leadership and life skills. The school bridges between generations to learn and motivate each other.
Target Audience:
Alahliya school targets the excellent and talented students in the city where the school is located and in the nearby ones. Furthermore, it targets donors to enhance the school in terms of services and rooms. For example, in 2021, the school received donations to open prayer rooms and have ping bong tables for the students to play.
School’s Media Platforms:
The school has 2 media platforms: Facebook and Instagram. These platforms are handled by two teachers voluntarily.
Started on February 20th, 2019
1655 followers
333 posts
419 stories
72 reels
Started on December 11th, 2017
3200 likes
3400 followers
Platform Review: Facebook vs. Instagram
Customer Services: according to the interview that was conducted with the two teachers who handle the social media platforms, they often get private messages from parents who are interested in registering their kids and from school’s students who would like to publish their work. Users receive a response in a formal way during work hours. According to Nahai (2012), responding to messages through friendly and personal one-to-one interaction increases loyalty. Such feeling may cause the students and parents have a sense of belonging especially when they see that their requests are met and questions are answered .
Audience: in terms of gender, both platforms are visited the most by females. On Instagram, 69.9% of the viewers are females and 73.4% on Facebook. This may tell that females use social media more than males. This fact proves the point of Stumpf et al. (2020) stating that women use social media more than men and the results of their research were skewed towards them. This type of information can help the school with their content writing, picture’s design and edit. According to Nahai (2012), females are tend to be more tender and socially active with open profiles that are filled with larger number of friends than males.
Followers
Audience Based on Age
Content Review: Facebook vs. Instagram
Language and Audience Age: the age of viewers dictates mostly the type of content that is being posted. Instagram posts use informal and spoken language that matches with the audience viewers’ age. Most of the viewers- 36.5%- on this platform are between the ages of 18-24. On contrast, Facebook content uses more formal language because it is visited by 35-44 years old viewers of 35.8%. This can tell that Facebook is more mature than Instagram.
Keywords and Content Reach: keywords are important to get the content popular and reach a wider audience (Nahai, 2012). Facebook uses more keywords allowing higher content reach of 24100 in comparison with Instagram of 3477. In terms of trigger words, Instagram posts contain trigger words like questions and personality-based words such as “Have you checked this?”, “Believe it or not”. This method grabs readers’ attention making users anticipate what is coming next. Because most users have notifications feature on by default, having such trigger words may increase award seeking behavior (Nahai, 2012).
Videos and Pictures: both platforms post mainly pictures and videos of students’ work and academical achievements. This approach tends to increase the emotional and informational content creating a sense of connection to the community (Nahai, 2012). The most common video post on Instagram is a video about the school’s students having a football competition during the World Cup and the most common post on Facebook was about a reading competition.
Content Engagement: the content interaction and engagement on both platforms vary since they do not share the same amount of followers. On Instagram, there are 650 interactions out of 1655 followers, while Facebook has 3700 interactions out of 3400 followers and 3400 likes. The possible reason why Instagram received low interactions is having winter break at the time of data collection. Also, Instagram is relatively a new platform that was created in 2019 in comparison with Facebook that was created in 2017. In addition, Instagram posts are about the things that are happening at the moment of publishing and on the spot rather than documenting activities in a form of article like Facebook that may take weeks to be posted.
Post Engagement and Content Reach
Summary and Recommendations
Alahliya School has good social platforms that are relevant to the targeted audience. However, there is a room for improvements in terms of graphic design and content. These platforms should take into consideration the following points:
Interactivity: both platforms should have call of actions to interact and share as well as leave a reason for the viewers to get back and seek for the page again. This can be done through interactive posts like competitions and live streams. In addition, the posts should contain links to social media profiles and links to other contents.
Posting Times: platforms should post more often to keep the page alive and viewers anticipated rather than posting on random occasions. If the platforms do not do so, the viewers will lose interest. Facebook postings should be relevant to the current occasions rather than postponing them after the events are over.
Contact Information: the platforms should include their mission in the bio and the school’s phone number for calls. Viewers should have variety of ways to contact the school other than private messages. This can increase the trust and transparency between the viewers and the school.
Handlers should take their time to understand the type of posts that has more engagement percentages and use that to their advantage. Facebook and Instagram target different audience’s age, as a result, this strategy can help the school to be more popular in the educational field along with building trust with both students and parents equally.
-
-
Stumpf, S., Peters, A., Bardzell, S., Burnett, M., Busse, D., Cauchard, J., & Churchill, E. (2020). Gender-inclusive HCI research and design: A conceptual review. Foundations and Trends® in Human–Computer Interaction, 13(1), 1-69.
Nahai, N. (2012). Webs of Influence: the psychology of online persuasion. Pearson UK.