What Else Can I Do!?

[childcaremom]

Good luck with your interviews!

I have a photo release for my families, as well, but I am uncomfortable using pictures of kids in ads. I will use pictures of crafts and activities we have done, as well as a few occassional ones of our set up. I think pictures 'sell' the service as much as your description does.

[TwinKristi]

Thank you! I found a generic photo release I will use and I found a few pics I could use on my phone and I'm sure if I go back to my other photo files from before June (when I upgraded my phone) I could find many more. I have some of crafts and outdoor stuff we did and pics at the park where you can't see faces. Hoping I don't need to put much more into this right now, I had another friend inquire for her and her friend, both have infants. So 5 infant inquiries and only 2 spots! Let's hope I get some action here!

[JLH]

I have a big sign in front of my home for people to see. I've also had a lot of success with advertising on Facebook groups and I made a Facebook page with all of our info on it and I regularly post pics on it and update it with the fun things we're doing. I've had the page up for a year and a half and have 65 "likes". I also offer to waive the registration fee if you enroll by XXX date, in my ads, or I'll offer the first week of care free if you enroll by XXX date. I haven't had a lot of luck with craigslist since becoming licensed. Better luck with Facebook. When I lived out in the country I made my own signs out of poster board and mailbox letter decals and wrote daycare openings with my phone number on them. I put them up on telephone poles around town. Had pretty good success with that. Good luck!

[daycare]

I have a big sign in front of my home for people to see. I've also had a lot of success with advertising on Facebook groups and I made a Facebook page with all of our info on it and I regularly post pics on it and update it with the fun things we're doing. I've had the page up for a year and a half and have 65 "likes". I also offer to waive the registration fee if you enroll by XXX date, in my ads, or I'll offer the first week of care free if you enroll by XXX date. I haven't had a lot of luck with craigslist since becoming licensed. Better luck with Facebook. When I lived out in the country I made my own signs out of poster board and mailbox letter decals and wrote daycare openings with my phone number on them. I put them up on telephone poles around town. Had pretty good success with that. Good luck!

can I ask you a question about facebook.

I tired to make one and I could not do it successfully the way that I wanted. I wanted to be able to have one that did not allow for people to leave comments. I was worried that some random person could just drop in and leave a rude comment or post something bad. I tired to google ways to do it, tried everything under the son, but nothing worked and I ended up deleting it.

do people leave comments on your page? Parents?

I have some parents that are pretty caddy (sorry, not trying to name call, but they are) I can see them saying something rude about another child or such. So this was one of the other reasons why.

[Heidi]

I have a webs.com website, too. I've gotten a number of calls from it. Maybe because I am the only daycare in the county that even has a website, though. ::

I also signed up with Yellowpages.com, and have gotten calls from that.

FB...posting pics of the kids doing fun things (with parental permission) and "tagging" the kids with their parent's names. Parents then pass the pictures on to show their friends and Grandma. I don't know that I've gotten any actual calls that way, but it helps build a reputation.

[Heidi]

can I ask you a question about facebook.

I tired to make one and I could not do it successfully the way that I wanted. I wanted to be able to have one that did not allow for people to leave comments. I was worried that some random person could just drop in and leave a rude comment or post something bad. I tired to google ways to do it, tried everything under the son, but nothing worked and I ended up deleting it.

do people leave comments on your page? Parents?

I have some parents that are pretty caddy (sorry, not trying to name call, but they are) I can see them saying something rude about another child or such. So this was one of the other reasons why.

Seriously? That would get a parent removed from my FB friends pretty quick. Not okay, and they would get an earful about it to boot.

[JLH]

I don't think it's an option to not allow comments from people. I have only gotten one rude comment and I deleted it and blocked the unknown person from being able to access the page. I don't allow parents to use names, I don't use names, and I don't tag people for security purposes. I did, however, recently find that I had a 3 out of 5 star rating on there (probably from competition rating me poorly or from the 1 or 2 families that we've let go of for various problems) so I changed the page classification from being a business page to a community page and now the star rating system went away. I'm not that knowledgeable about computers so it really isn't difficult. The hardest part about it is that I have to try to always leave my facebook page up so I can keep a close eye on my notifications to catch any problems that may happen quickly. Good luck!

[Rafael]

Not allowing comments on Facebook page

You can delete the comments;
You can set on the settings under privacy to have the comments(posts on the page) hidden from the page.
Whatever you post, people can comment on it, but you can delete it.

[coolconfidentme]

Have you Googled yourself?
I have my daycare listed with Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc for free. My daycare now comes up on searches for my city after I signed up. Since doing this, it's where I get most of my calls.

[TwinKristi]

I will need to look into that ^^!! I have a Yelp page and just made a Facebook page today.

So now that I have over 40 likes it says I can promote my page? What does this mean?

And an update on the interviews, one call back to say they found someone a little closer to home on one of the young babies, no call back from the other 2. I know one was state funded and she started school on Mon and had an appt on Tues with her worker and would get back to me so there's still hope there. That guy would be a PERFECT fit! Same size as the other boys! The other was a baby girl and I really thought that would work out. Mom said she'd call me the next day but called people off my referrals and never called me back. 2 friends have also inquired about care for their kids but we'll see. <sigh>

[_Dana_]

So now that I have over 40 likes it says I can promote my page? What does this mean? >

On FB, do you see those ads to the right of your timeline? You might occasionally see them in your timeline too. That is what FB means by "promoting" your page.

I remember reading an article a while back that discussed using social media for marketing. Ultimately, it doesn't come down to your page's fans. You are targeting your fans' friends. You want your fans to comment and share the content on your site. When they do, their friends and family see your business. In my opinion, this will do more than any CL or newspaper ad because it establishes a level of trust. I don't think "promoting" the page is necessary if you are able to engage your fans.

[TwinKristi]

Perfect! Thanks! And yes, I'm already seeing people I don't know so it's friends of friends.