Edutainment is marketing that is both entertaining and educational.
Really when you think about it, what is the best marketing you see? It’s where you are captivated. It’s where you feel like you’re not being sold to. It’s where you’re learning stuff and you’re enjoying the learning process. That is edutainment.
It’s like Sesame Street. It looks like it’s just all a fun game with a big yellow bird but really they’re learning their ABCs, they’re learning about concepts, they’re learning about friendship. It’s learning disguised as play, and this is what we want to apply the same principal to your marketing.
One of the best tools to help you create edutainment within your marketing is Facebook.
It’s so fantastic and so easy to use it this way. Let me give you an example a client did the other day. She did a behind the scenes video of an early childhood class that they were doing which had an under the sea theme.
She took them through her studio, she just filmed it on her camera phone, super easy, and showed them picking up the little balls and moving around the fish. It was so engaging.
She talked about what they’re going to learn and how they’re going to feel and what they’re going to do in the classroom. It’s a real immersive experience you’re getting.
You’re going to see really what it’s like to be in the classroom. It’s vibrant and colorful. You’re learning about what the experience is going to be before you even get a chance. As a new parent you’re thinking, “Wow, that looks fantastic.”
We’re Not Selling At All.
All we’re doing is sharing and educating them on what they’re going to experience in a really fun, accessible way.
One of the easiest ways to create edutaining materials to promote your studio is with video. It’s so powerful. You put it on Facebook and everyone gets a little sneak peek into what it’s really like.
Let me give you the contrast. Let’s say you’re wanting to say that you’ve got a big performance coming up or a concert of a recital or something like that. You could film a video explaining, “Hi. We have a concert on the 29th of November and we’d love for you to come. It’s theme is going to be sunshine and lollipops. Get your tickets below.” You could do that, one way, but let’s get creative here. Let’s put a bit of sparkle, a bit of edutainment glitter in here, shall we?
What I saw one studio do was that they did a 5 day countdown where they had students film with a camera phone and they were doing a very James Bond style of “What’s going on? What’s coming? What’s coming? Have you heard? What’s the news?” Really fun!
They were hiding and they put some music to it. The whole thing was in 5 days they were going to reveal the theme of this particular concert. Everyone on Facebook was like, “What’s it going to be?” It’s so engaging! I guess at the core when we think about edutainment it’s how can we communicate messages about our studio in a way that’s completely engaging.
It Captures Our Attention. People Want To Be Entertained.
They don’t want to be marketed to, they don’t want to be taught. They want to be entertained. Let’s bring a bit of drama. Let’s bring a bit of fun, a bit of light, a bit of pizzazz to what you’re sharing.
How Could We Bring More Creativity And More Sparkle To How We’re Promoting Your Studio?
One of the easiest things now is that they don’t have to be professionally filmed videos. You can literally film them on your phone and there are excellent editing apps where you can cut together and add music from your phone and then export it and upload it straight to Facebook.
I really like the iMovie editing app. I think it’s fantastic. There’s even ones where you can upload straight to YouTube. There’s a whole variety of free editing apps that you can edit video, upload the video, and you’re good to go.
The other thing is Facebook Live. You can literally do a bit of a live stream. It’ll go out to all of your followers. After one class finished, you could go up to a parent and say, “Hi, Julie! What did you think of today’s class?” and get to share what she felt, or go to one of your students.
Imagine being backstage at a competition and share a sneak peek about what’s going on backstage. All of those things are really fun to give people a way to connect with what you’re doing.
Social Media Is The Best Way To Engage And Edutain And Entertain On A Very Easy Daily Basis Without Any Cost Whatsoever.
