Your First Week

Setting up your social planner

Quick answer: Connect your school's Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts. Use the social planner to write and schedule posts across all platforms at once. Best for schools that already have a social media practice; not the highest priority for first-week setup.

Why this comes last

Social media is real and important, but it's not directly connected to capturing leads or managing families. Get the family data, communications, and admissions flow working first. Social comes once the rest of the system is humming.

What the social planner does

It lets you write a post once and publish it to multiple social platforms simultaneously. Instead of logging into Facebook to post, then Instagram to post the same thing, then LinkedIn — you write the post once and pick which platforms it goes to.

It also schedules posts in advance. Spend an hour planning your social content for the next two weeks, then let the planner publish automatically.

Connecting your social accounts

1. Open the social planner

1. Click Marketing in the main menu.
2. Click Social Planner.
3. Look for "Connect Account" or similar.

2. Authorize each platform

For each platform you use (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, X/Twitter), click connect and log in to that platform. You'll be asked to grant permissions to post on your behalf.

Make sure you connect the school's official accounts, not personal accounts. For Facebook and Instagram, that means connecting the school's Business Page, not your personal profile.

3. Verify the connection

Once connected, you should see each platform listed with a green status indicator. Disconnect and reconnect if any shows an error.

Creating your first post

1. Click + New Post

2. Write the post

• Write the caption
• Upload an image or video (most school posts work best with at least one photo)
• Add hashtags if relevant to the platform

3. Pick the platforms

Toggle on the platforms you want to post to. The same post will go to all toggled platforms, with platform-specific tweaks if needed (Instagram requires an image; X has a character limit; LinkedIn allows longer text).

4. Schedule or publish

• Publish now — posts immediately
• Schedule — pick a future date and time

Good first posts for a school

• A "we're online!" announcement showing your new family portal or website
• A photo of a recent school event with a short caption
• A "save the date" for an open house or community event
• A spotlight on a teacher, classroom, or student project
• A welcome-back post at the start of the school year

Tips

• Quality over quantity. Three thoughtful posts a week beats daily filler.
• Platform-specific timing. Most schools see better engagement on weekday mornings (parents checking phones on the commute) and early evenings.
• Don't auto-post the same content to every platform without thinking. A long-form LinkedIn update doesn't translate well to Instagram. Edit per platform.
• Use the planner's calendar view. Seeing the next 4 weeks of scheduled posts at once helps you spot gaps and avoid posting fatigue.
• Reply to comments. The planner schedules posts, but engaging with families in the comments still happens manually. Build that into someone's job.

What the social planner is not

• It's not an analytics replacement — each platform has richer analytics natively
• It's not a comment management tool — replies to comments happen on the platform
• It's not a substitute for thoughtful content — bad posts scheduled in advance are still bad posts

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