How Brand Identity Can Inspire Your School’s Storytelling

Social media demands that marketers and storytellers be good stewards of our customers time. Prospective families and students do not have time to read your viewbook while sitting in a waiting room or riding on the train, so it is our job to communicate our brand and value proposition in a clear and concise way, sometimes without using words at all.

On my first day of work, the Head of School met with all of the new faculty and laid out what made our school different from all of the others and encouraged us to live out those values in all we did. For me, that meant ensuring that every social media post, every news story, every photograph hits at least one — preferably two or three — of our key differentiators and tells potential families exactly what we want them to hear.

Let’s take a look at a couple examples from our Instagram page.

This is a picture from an alumni event we hold every year that welcomes former members of the girls’ ice hockey program to come practice with the current team. This picture hits three pieces of our brand identity: Relationships, Excellence, and Quality of Experience.

• The girls have held onto friendships since graduation and look forward to seeing the current team, the coach, and each other at this event so they can reignite those relationships.
• The practice jerseys worn by some of the girls speak to the excellence of the program. Boston College, Colgate University, Trinity College, Connecticut College, Bates College are welcome on any school’s college list and they are all present here in this picture of a small sampling of alumni.
• Had they all not had a great experience, it is unlikely they would return for this event. “Quality of Experience” is a hard part of our brand to communicate, but happy alumni coming back to campus is one way to get that point across.

This picture is a collage of pictures of students taking advantage of a “freight farm” unit that is a part of the 7th Grade’s sustainability curriculum and the Summer Science Internship program. This post hits on the other two parts of our brand identity: Character and Innovation

Learning about how to grow sustainable crops and supporting a business that is working to end food deserts by promoting urban farming shows a dedication to both the environment and to remaining on the cutting edge of technology. (We recently harvested our first campus-grown lettuce, which was exciting!)

When a school is full of faculty, staff, and students who live and breathe the mission of the school, tying an authentic story to the brand identity is essentially the same action. Let your brand inspire your storytelling and you will find the customers who are looking for you.