13 Ways to Tell Your School’s Story through Video

Video is one of the best ways to tell your school’s story.

Gone are the days of the professionally produced 10-15 minute video for private and independent schools. If anything, you need a much shorter video to showcase your school and some additional video vignettes.

If you are planning to produce a short video produced for marketing purposes, you may want to consider the Baylor School example: Baylor Leads. Even though it is a marketing piece, I really like how it captures the brand and overall feel of the school. In their marketing effort, they use both marketing produced videos as well as “in-house” video vignettes to tell the story of Baylor School.

Video should be a key part of your school’s marketing strategy. It is an engagin and appealing way to share your school’s story. We live in a day where the homemade “YouTube” video is what people like best. It has the feeling that it is authentic instead of being produced as a “slick” marketing piece, even though there is a place for this.

Videos should be posted on your school’s website, Facebook page and other social media sites. These videos should also be part of your video channel on YouTube or Vimeo.

While you should try to capture short video footage of events and activities on campus, it is also important to consider some other video vignettes that are more intentional and focused.

The following are six video ideas you should produce now using a key question for your target groups:

1. Ask current parents: “What do you like best about your school?”

2. Ask new parents: “Why did you choose this school for your child?”

3. Ask alumni: “How did your school prepare you for success in college and in life?” If your school ends at 8th grade, then ask: “How did your school prepare you for success in high school?”

4. Ask faculty: “What do you like best about teaching at your school?”

5. Ask students: “What do you like best about your school?”

6. Ask seniors: “What college do you plan to attend next year?”

For each question, you will have a variety of responses that you can edit together into a short and compelling video vignette.

Seven other ideas:

1.  Share your traditions by producing a short video vignette showcasing what you do and telling your story through students, faculty and parents.

2. Provide a short interview with the head of school discussing his or her passion about the mission of the school and vision for the future. You could also do this with the board, principals and faculty.

3. Produce a day in the life video of any of your students by following them around school for a day.

4. Interview college reps visiting your campus to ask them why they want to recruit students from your school.

5. Ask students to describe the school in one word or a short phrase. Edit these words or phrases together in a short video vignette.

6. Produce a series of video vignettes that describe your key brand messages. Whether your key message is about the community environment or college preparation, use video vignettes to tell these stories.

7. Produce a series of short video vignettes to tell the story of every faculty member. Imagine a page on your website where a prospective parent can click on a link to view videos profiling each member of your faculty.

This list barely begins to scratch the surface of the video possibilities. So go ahead and fire up your flip cam or iPhone and shoot some video.

How are you using video in your school’s marketing effort?

Do you have an example you can share with other school marketing leaders?

Processing