The arrival of social media, smart phones and growing connectivity to the internet changed all the rules for many marketers who were used to traditional methods of attracting business. Suddenly you didn’t need a huge marketing budget to make an impact and connect with prospective customers; you could make a pretty solid niche impact with patience and a grassroots, organic way of thinking.

It’s simply not enough to advertise to your prospective customers, many block those messages out and instead search through online recommendations and use Google searches to find what they’re looking for. For this reason, we created the Socrato blog. Though the core of our business is to help tutors prepare their students for standardized tests through our custom learning analytics, we also want to provide value to tutors beyond our products.

This blog has been our sounding board to discuss not only our special point of view of what is happening in the tutoring industry, but also a place where we could share our marketing expertise with the tutoring population and help them grow their business online. So far we’ve amassed quite a bit of content on this blog around the subject and I thought it would be helpful to put it all in one place as the ultimate marketing guide for tutors.

Enjoy!

Facebook Marketing for Tutors

5 Common Mistakes Tutors Make on Facebook and How to Fix Them

How to Add Color to Your Tutoring Brand Using Facebook [3 Examples]

3 Reasons Tutors Need a Facebook Page Today

FourSquare Marketing for Tutors

How Tutoring Companies Can Use FourSquare Specials to Attract Students

How to Build Your Local Tutoring Presence Using FourSquare

SEO and Local Marketing

5 Free Local Tools to Kick Start Your Tutoring Presence Online

4 Offsite Marketing Opportunities Every Tutor Should Embrace

How Tutors Can Use Long Tail Keywords to Get Found by Local Searchers

Marketing Strategy

Is Digital Darwinism Making Your Tutoring Business Obsolete?

Why Tutors Should Heed Google Experts Social Media Advice

How Tutors Can Build a Likeable Online Reputation

Blogging for Tutors

Transform Your Tutoring Blog from a Wall Flower into a Socialite

How to Build a Blog Your Tutoring Audience Loves

5 Simple WordPress Blog Tools Every Tutor Should Add Today

How Tutors Can Get More Leads from Existing Blog Content

Video Marketing for Tutors

Why Every Tutor is Ready to Start Publishing Video Tonight

6 Things Tutors Can Learn from Merriam-Webster’s Online Video Campaign

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SAT vs ACT: Choosing the Right Test [NEW EBOOK]

Download this free 20-Page Ebook for Tutors Now!

Our free 20-page ebook is a step-by-step guide on how to select the right test for your student. Learn everything you need to know about using the PLAN and PSAT to improve student scores, how to leverage learning analytics to select one test over the other, and other tips on how to take the guesswork out of selecting the ACT vs the SAT.

After doing a little research online I was able to discover 10 gorgeous infographics on education that do more than simply show information, they relay it in a really potent and amazing way.

Edit: If you liked this post, you might also like our 22 Mind-Blowing Infographics on Education, too!

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1.  Education 2.0 – Social Networking & Education

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2.  The ABCs of the SAT Infographic

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3.  Education’s Effect on Income

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4. Top 5 Reasons a Student Selects a College

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5.  Technology Enhances Learning

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6.    How Apple is Revolutionizing Education

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7.   Lessons in Education: Shocking Education Statistics

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8.   The Non-Tuition Costs of College Education

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9.  US Education vs The World: Education Spending

Credit: MAT@USC: Master’s of Arts in Teaching Online

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10.  Staggering – 10 Shocking U.S. Education Statistics

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featured image by pfaff

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SAT vs ACT: Choosing the Right Test [NEW EBOOK]

Download this free 20-Page Ebook for Tutors Now!

Our free 20-page ebook is a step-by-step guide on how to select the right test for your student. Learn everything you need to know about using the PLAN and PSAT to improve student scores, how to leverage learning analytics to select one test over the other, and other tips on how to take the guesswork out of selecting the ACT vs the SAT.

Quora

There are a lot of question and answer sites out there, but Quora is one of better ones. Using this service, tutors have the power to impart their knowledge on to potential prospects and position themselves and a thought leader. The goal on Quora isn’t to sell your products or services with marketing language, it’s using your expertise to attract new business. Using Quora, you should feel free to share your tutoring know-how and link to your own content only when relevant. Remember, just like how you wouldn’t like someone talking about themselves non-stop at a party, you should also use the same caution when giving advice!

FourSquare

Are you currently using FourSquare specials to engage with prospects for your tutoring company? Then maybe now is the time! We’ve shared several ways already to use FourSquare to build your tutoring presence locally. Check out the links below:

How to Build Your Local Tutoring Presence Using FourSquare

Yahoo Answers

Yahoo Answers might be a little juvenile at times, but many of the answers do have a lot of powerful SEO mojo that makes using the service worthwhile for tutors. Much like Quora, Yahoo Answers is separated into topics which you can peruse. Search for a question that you think you can give an excellent answer to and respond (don’t’ forget to add a signature on the bottom which tells people who you are and what you do, plus a link back to your blog or website.

Free e-Book: 5 Tips to Improve Your Reporting for Standardized Test Reporting

Download this eBook from Socrato to learn how to optimize and improve your reports to help students improve their scores on standardize tests such as the SAT, ACT, LSAT or others.
Download the eBook >>

Last Friday, I launched the new version of the round-up thus moving away from featuring general education blogs and articles and shining the light on tutors and education consultants who blog.

As always, if you have a recommendation of at tutoring blog I should be following, leave me a note in the comments!

1.   Mental Training Tips from an Olympian

by Elizabeth King, Tutors for Test Prep

Elizabeth King is one amazing woman. Not only is she the president of Elizabeth King Coaching, a boutique online SAT and ACT prep company, but she also takes the time to interview Olympic Gold Medalists, too?

In a series of captivating interviews, Elizabeth interviews Olympic Gold Medalist Skier Barbara Ann Cochran to get her perspective on mental training tips. Though the interview is from 2009 I can still glean a lot of wisdom from the takeaways.

2.    Success in tutoring math

by Matthew J., WyzAnt.com

When he opened his first tutoring review, Matt was stunned to find that after only 2 tutoring sessions he was already getting rave reviews as an “excellent tutor.”

Though pleasantly surprised, he wanted to share some of his theories about why he was such a natural success at tutoring in his blog, and it’s a good thing he did. Matt has some fantastic level-headed insights into how tutors can assess student needs, connect with that student and how to maintain a professionalism with the student.

3.    Getting the Most out of Your Day

by eTutor.com

We may not know which of the three educators behind eTutor is responsible for this blog post, but either way, we do know their schedule. Using the book “Getting Things Don” by David Allen, this educator uses daily and weekly checklists to accomplish her goals. He discusses how he sets up his day with a schedule of goals and how students can set a schedule to help them accomplish tasks with efficiency.

4.   Tutoring tips for the first day

by Kelly, KellyTeaches.com

If you’re tutoring younger children, Kelly of KellyTeaches.com has some great tips on how you can start your first day of tutoring off on the right foot. Her method is to keep things simple and connect with the child based on his interests. She also suggests ice-breaker games that won’t frustrate the child and writing activities that involve movement so that your pupil doesn’t notice the length of the session as acutely.

4.    SAT Critical Reading is About Critical Reading

by Anthony Green, NewYorksBestSATTutor.com

How does one teach a student not to just read the content, but to apply meaning to what they’re reading? That’s a tough question that faces many tutors just starting out with working with students to improve their SAT scores.

While the SAT Critical reading session is difficult for many tutors to teach, Anthony Green believes that students who practice critical reading regularly are the most likely to perform well on the SAT. Believing that schools teach students to read for memory and regurgitate what they’ve learned, he challenges students to read non-SAT material on a regular basis which challenges them to think critically and ask important questions about the text.

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featured photo by krischall

Free e-Book: 5 Tips to Improve Your Reporting for Standardized Test Reporting
Download this eBook from Socrato to learn how to optimize and improve your reports to help students improve their scores on standardize tests such as the SAT, ACT, LSAT or others.
Download the eBook >>

On March 9th, 2011, FourSquare unveiled a whole new line of specials for businesses looking entice repeat customers and attract new business.

Of course, FourSquare already offers a free Merchant platform that allows businesses to claim their listings on FourSquare. Using the merchant platform, businesses could add a simple deal which offered a discount for the mayor or a general discount to patrons checking in on FourSquare, but now the deals go beyond just the simple. Businesses can get really granular on the time, place and conditions under which specials might be applied.

Using new specials tool, businesses can add a special campaign easily and totally for free. The types of specials currently offered are Flash specials, Friend specials, Swarm specials, Newbie Specials, Checkin, Frequency and Loyalty Specials, and Mayor Specials.

If you’re a tutoring company or tutoring center, or maybe even a tutor who works frequently in an educational center or one library, or is affiliated with a certain school, you can take advantage of the specials that FourSquare is now offering using the guide below.

Claim Your Business Location on FourSquare

The first step in taking advantage of the new FourSquare specials is to claim your business on FourSquare using the FourSquare Merchant Platform. If you are the owner of a tutoring company with a physical location, this should be easy enough, but if you’re a tutor who works at a tutoring center or at school, you may need to speak with a director about the opportunity and work with them to claim the business.

Start a Campaign for Your Compelling Offer

The next step is, after going through the process of claiming your venue, is to determine what kind of specials you’d like to offer and how you can make them compelling enough to attract new business.

If you are a tutor who is affiliated with a school library, you may want to talk to the school about offering a discount on tutoring services or, if the school pays you to work with students, then talk to the school about ways you can entice more students to take advantage of your services.

Here are some ideas on how to use the various specials FourSquare offers:

• Offer a Flash back-to-school special applicable to any student who checks in to your tutoring center during orientation week at their school or the first week of their senior year.
• If you work as a tutor at a writing center, create a custom special which stipulates that whenever a student checks in 3 times during the 3 week period before final papers are due, they’ll get a gift certificate for a stress reducing massage.
• Offer a Count special which rewards students who attend a special seminar on SAT preparation with at least 2 friends a $5 giftcard to the itunes store.
• Create a Frequency special which rewards your students for on attending their 5th SAT class with a $25 giftcard to Amazon.

What compelling offers do you think you could create using FourSquare for your tutoring business?

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6 Digital Trends to Watch In Education
A detailed review of the latest internet trends such as social media, video, game based-learning impacting education and how educators, teachers and tutors can embrace those changes with the rise of the digital- native.

Download the eGuide >>

On Fridays I normally run a column called “5 Education Articles to End Your Week” where I hand pick articles on education throughout the blogosphere. However, I’m beginning to wonder if they are as helpful as I’d like them to be for our readers. So, I’ve decided to hand pick blog posts from real tutors across the web.

My goal with this change is to focus less on talking about what’s going on in education, but really dig deep into what tutors are thinking about, talking about, and sharing with other tutors. Let me know if you like the change in the comments!

Snowy Day and Kids Still Learn to Read

by Joanne Kaminski, SkypingReadingTutor

Though the concept is still very new, Joanne Kaminski embraces using Skype to teach students how to read. She explains that as a snowstorm hit her Southeastern WI, she could rest easy because no student had to travel in a blizzard just to learn how to read.

However, some people have trouble understanding the value of using online tools to connect with students rather than tutoring them in person. To those worries, Joanne has plenty to say and so I hope you’ll read them!

How Handwriting Helps Us Learn (Or, Why I Use Handwriting Instead of Typing)

by Rebecca Zook, Zook Tutoring

It seems that we are all a long ways off from the days of the fine penmanship Jane Austen might have experienced in her time, but Rebecca Zook of Zook Tutoring believes that revisiting our classic roots of (gasp!) writing things down actually helps us in remembering what we’ve learned.

Rebecca shares some data she’s found which describes the relationship between finger and hand movements and working memory. Despite the fact that Rebecca tutors students online, she still encourages students to write it out by hand, like they would on homework or tests.

Math is the art of stating the obvious

by Juan Carlos Castaneda, Math Tutor in San Diego

“In my math tutoring, the most relevant factor is not the math itself but how the student is feeling about the math,” says Juan Carlos Castenda, Math Tutor in San Diego.

To demonstrate to other tutors how he works through a student’s feelings about a problem he first shares a conversation that he exchanged with a 6th grade student. Then, he gives some bold takeaways on what he think caused the student’s difficulty in understanding the problem. It’s a fascinating read and I hope that you all will enjoy it.

Submit your College Essay as a YouTube Video?

by Brenda L., Test Prep Success

If your student wanted to turn in a YouTube video as their graduation essay, how would you feel about it? Would you encourage them to pursue that path or urge them to stick with a more traditional method?

Well, unless those students have their sights set on one of four schools accepting video applications, then perhaps creating a video isn’t for them. However, as Brenda notes this change in policy marks a change in the way that schools perceive new media.

Tips For Online Tutoring

by Admin, Tutoring Hand

Are you a tutor who is looking to transition into teaching online? Well, you may want to read the advice that Tutoring Hand has for you.

To help you stay on track, meet your goals and get the most out of your experience as an online tutor, Tutoring Hand recommends creating online boundaries with students, using formality and professionalism when communicating online, and to make a schedule and stick with it.

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6 Digital Trends to Watch In Education

A detailed review of the latest internet trends such as social media, video, game based-learning impacting education and how educators, teachers and tutors can embrace those changes with the rise of the digital- native.
Download the eGuide >>

photos by lower columbia college, solar images, zlady Luana Vasques Martins, familymwr

Tutors considering starting a blog or tutoring companies who are already blogging may wonder how to use blogging to accomplish your goals. The goal isn’t to create a blog that will become one of the top 100 on the internet (though that would be nice, it’s unlikely); the goal is to create a blog which your prospects and customers will find valuable, entertaining, or informative.

Here are few ways to compel your audience with your tutoring blog:

1.     Know Why You Want to Blog

According to Chris Garrett, co-author of best-selling book Problogger and popular blog ChrisG.com, businesses just getting into blogging need to take some time to think about why they want to blog and what they want to get out of it.

Blogging does have the power to simplify your marketing and help you gain more followerson Twitter, but unless you know why you desire those outcomes, you surely won’t get the most out of blogging.

2.    Create Believable Personas

To get the most out of your content strategy, consider for whom you are creating the content. Tutors should sit down and create believable personas of their readership. Consider who will be reading the blog and what they may be like. You can get as granular as you like during this exercise, but the important thing is that you’re writing for a person and not a subject. For example, if you’re a tutoring company that does test prep primarily, write content that will attract parents looking to help their child perform better on specific tests. Put yourself inside their head and ask what questions they always have then create a piece of content around those needs and questions.

3.   Separate Yourself from the Noise

Ben Kessler, Online Education Editor at Media Bistro, recommends employing a blog strategy that focuses on using though-leadership and maximizing blogging time. The other bloggers on Media Bistro recommend that new bloggers separate themselves from the noise by being the authority on one particular topic and targeting their audience with gusto. The video below has some other tips on how to separate yourself and your blog from the noise online:

4.   Don’t Be Afraid to Do What Works for Others

If you’re just getting started with blogging, don’t be afraid to try content structures that work. Lists, for example, often do really well on blogs. They’re straight forward, organized, and are manually aggregated by the writer. As we said before, you want to separate yourself from the noise, but you also want to format your content appropriately. Chris Garrett also recommends story-telling since it engages readers and requires the writer of the piece to entertain or captivate. Just like how someone might lose interest in a story you’re telling is too long without captivating cliff hangers and dramatic pauses, so should your blog post have a nice flow. If you’re telling a story about a challenge you faced in tutoring, consider adding mini headlines to frame your work and bold the points of your list so they grab the eye and allow the reader to scan an article before reading.

5.  Be Consistent

No one wants to follow a blog that doesn’t update consistently. By not writing regularly in your blog, you’re asking for your audience to forget you. Blogging is like a gym membership, it doesn’t work unless you go regularly and work hard. Also, imagine how it looks if a prospect takes a peek at your blog only to discover that you haven’t created anything new in months or weeks. They may wonder if you can be trusted to work hard on helping their son or daughter achieve their goals, if you have trouble setting your own and accomplishing them. If writing every more than once a week proves to be a challenge for you, try to write once a week or bi-weekly. You may find that once you get over the initial adjustment period, you can’t stop yourself from coming by your blog and leaving a new post.

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featured photo by eraseandrepeat

Free e-Book: 5 Tips to Improve Your Reporting for Standardized Test Reporting
Download this eBook from Socrato to learn how to optimize and improve your reports to help students improve their scores on standardize tests such as the SAT, ACT, LSAT or others.
Download the eBook >>

While some of your past blog posts might be timely and hard to adapt to the present, many others may be evergreen content which you can repurpose, revive and remake to attract more leads to your business.

Here are a few steps on how to breathe new life into your existing blog content:

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1.    Perform a Content Audit  - Try to discover what evergreen content is available to you, selecting your best content to share and update. Read through several articles excluding posts that are too news-oriented or time-sensitive.

2.     Update Your Selected Content - If the post includes references that are old, out of date or makes references to particular points in time that would out-date the article, update the references make it more timely and current. Also check all links and make sure they are still functional and update your call-to-action to a more recent one.

3.   Promote the Content through Social Media Channels  - An experiment performed by Pamela Seipe of HubSpot demonstrates that sharing past blog content can result in double the traffic to your blog. As long as you were attentive to making sure that your blog posts are truly evergreen and not out-dated by old references or broken links and information, people will appreciate your efforts.

4.   Feature Updated Articles in a “Best Of” Blog Article - One of the easiest ways to get more eyes on your blog content is to compile them in a quick blog post. Consider pulling together articles on a specific topic or links to a few of your most popular blog articles. Share this blog post as a “new” blog post on Facebook and Twitter.

5.   Create Topic-Based Pages Which Highlight Past Content  - After you have updated your blog posts you should try to find some way of compiling them into individual topic-based pages. HubSpot does this by organizing content into Marketing Hub pages. Each page features various marketing related topics with links out to content, webinars, ebooks and other materials that would be helpful to their prospects and customers. If you’re a tutor, you could create pages which focus on the various aspects of tutoring you employ, education technology and other topics such as test preparation for individual tests such as the SAT or ACT.

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featured photo by Loca Luna

Free e-Book: 5 Tips to Improve Your Reporting for Standardized Test Reporting
Download this eBook from Socrato to learn how to optimize and improve your reports to help students improve their scores on standardize tests such as the SAT, ACT, LSAT or others.
Download the eBook >>

I’ve also put together some great blog articles about Social Media and Facebook for you so perhaps you’ll have Facebook on the brain, too.

1.   Teacher Blog Controversy in Pennsylvania Points to Need for Social Media Guidelines

by Wesley Fryer, Moving at the Speed of Creativity

An active discussion about the need for social media guidelines erupted recently after a Pennsylvania teacher was caught blogging about classroom life in a personal blog. Now, Wesley Fryer, blogger at Moving at the Speed of Creativity, shares his insights on the case and shares some ideas on how Natalie could have used her blog more effectively. He also shares some insights into what schools are doing to encourage creatively-stimulating but, responsible social media usage.

2.   Faculty choose not to “friend” students on Facebook: Higher Education

by Karen Farkas, Clevland.com

Have you ever had a student you’re working with try to “friend” you on Facebook? How did you respond? Do you have an action plan for what would happen if a student attempted to find you on Facebook?

If you’re wondering how other professors, teachers and tutors may be responding to these questions, a survey put to 95 faculty members of four Ohio colleges of pharmacy reveals that fewer than half of respondents had a Facebook profile. Those who did have a profile said they wouldn’t ask current students to be a friend on Facebook and most agreed that adding students as a friend wasn’t a good idea.

3.  Hot on Facebook! Sick of highly paid teachers? Here’s what to do

by Valarie Strauss, The Answer Sheet blog

If you’re a Facebook user, you may have noticed an interesting and captivating meme going around as a Facebook Note. The author of the piece is unknown, but the satirical piece is meant to arouse concern about the unjust demands that society makes on teachers. It also is meant to point out how little teachers are paid vs. the work load their job requires. It’s worth a read and maybe, a repost, too!

4.   The Poor Do Not Use Facebook

by demographic group, 247wallst.com

According to research shared by 247wallst, economically challenged individuals don’t use Facebook as much as educated individuals with steady income. They postulate that this is because lower and middle-class families aren’t investing in the technologies (smart phones, pcs, digital broadband services) which would make the Facebook experience so vital and enjoyable to well-education, wealthier demographics.

5.     Lessons in Social Media for Universities

by Steve Richards, econsultancy.com

“When you think that the notoriously hard-to-reach 16-24 year olds hang out on Facebook more than anywhere else, it seems blindingly obvious that social media would be the place to reach them,” Steve Richards explains in his blog post on econsultancy.com.

However, as Steve goes on to explain that though social learning and online collaboration is growing, privacy, security and control issues are keeping many universities away from the social network. Or if they have a presence, the site is poorly maintained and lacking in real engagement with students.

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featured photo by larimdame

6 Internet Trends to Watch In Education
A detailed review of the latest internet trends such as social media, video, game based-learning impacting education and how educators, teachers and tutors can embrace those changes with the rise of the digital- native.

Download the eGuide >>

Twenty years ago, when there was no Facebook, many people would turn to their neighbors, friends, and television for advice on what to buy and what brands to watch. Brands spent a whole lot on advertising in those days – there was a lot of talking at customers instead of pulling them in. As you’ve probably realized, society quickly got tired of being marketed to – they found new and inventive ways to block out and filter unwanted messages…TIVO, Voicemail, Caller ID. Google and other search engines put the power back in the hands of the consumer to seek out the things they want and to filter out what is not needed. Now there’s a new way to filter messages and discover new things: Facebook.

People Want to Connect with Brands

With Facebook people can connect with the brands in a way that gives them more control. They have the power to opt into the communications they desire and opt out of the ones that they deem unnecessary. They can “Like” as many or as little brands as they desire. They can comment back and talk to their brands. They can even gain access to special perks for being a fan and staying the course.

Before you make your first page, realize that your fans needs should be heart of the Facebook page. They are what fuel the page and give it life. Don’t psyche yourself out if people don’t know you yet, if you work hard…they will.

Supplements Your Other Marketing Efforts

Your Facebook Page is not a newsletter, but you can share news instantaneously with fans. It shouldn’t be treated as your primary website, instead you should post content to your page that will help drive fans back to your website, engage with your brand, and share your brand with others who might not be familiar with it. For example, when a fan “likes” your tutoring company on Facebook, their friends and network will see it. Though you may only have a handful of Facebook fans at first – you also have the opportunity of inspiring curiosity within their network of friends, too.

Forces Brand Personality, Instead of Sales Pitches

If you’re a tutor, you’re in the people business.

A Facebook page is your opportunity to share the personality of your brand, instead of your value proposition or marketing pitch with your fans and supporters. Facebook fans respond to consistent, helpful, entertaining, and valuable interactions. Think of your Facebook Page not as a marketing chore, but your chance to swing by your fans and let them know you’re thinking about them and always trying to give them the knowledge they need to get the most out of your services.

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featured photo by smemon87

Free e-Book: 5 Tips to Improve Your Reporting for Standardized Test Reporting
Download this eBook from Socrato to learn how to optimize and improve your reports to help students improve their scores on standardize tests such as the SAT, ACT, LSAT or others.

Download the eBook >>