If a daycare owner new to the internet and using it for their center, asks us what kinds of things they can do, one of the things we tell them to do is to post on twitter, and to use it regularly. Twitter if you don’t really get it, is a place where anyone can sign up and get an account. You can post a short message or status of 140 characters (ie 140 letters, numbers, spaces, etc). Anyone can see these, anyone can search for them. They’re a great way to do a number of things for your daycare, from informational, to customer service.
I don’t want to talk about the specifics though or the technical side, like using hashmark tags to improve your tweets, or how to use it for customer service, because the first thing people need to try and do is just post what they’re doing. Regularly. But they don’t really have any ideas of what to tweet. They’re sitting at the computer in the office of the daycare, and don’t know what to put in. Here’s some ideas to help you.

• Don’t try and put in what you are literally doing. “We’re serving Pizza for lunch.” Put in something interesting that caught your eye. “Some children have a pavlovian response to the word Pizza.”
• You should be blogging as well, and when you blog you should post a link to it on twitter, but don’t just post the link. Describe what the blog is about. “Sherry has a new blog post about using natural cleaning products in our daycare.”
• Ask people questions. Especially if you can get some of your parents and friends to follow your twitter feed, it’s a great way to get feedback and opinions. “What do people think about a Zoo fieldtrip?”
• Search for topics that interest you in twitter, and find people who post interesting things about those subjects. You can then rewteet those items to your followers, or you can tweet about what they’re talking about as well. Even if it’s not specifically about your location specifically, it shows that you guys are not just some inhuman marketing machine, which is important. People want to feel comfortable with you, so your tweets need to feel like you’re real.
• Give advice. Do you guys have any tricks you use there for the kids? How to wrangle them, or how to clean certain weird messes, or ideas for art projects? Suggest them.
• It’s important on twitter to show a human side of your daycare. it needs to feel to the parents just like they’re standing there at dropoff talking to you, but instead they get it during the day on their phones while they’re avoiding a meeting. It ties them to you.  Show pictures. Talk about yourselves. It’s social media. Be social.
• Don’t be cocky and constantly toot your own horn. Be modest in your tweets. Humility goes alot further online than bragdocico.
• If you have any partners, say the business that leases the space out to your daycare or a big company across the street, promote them as well. If you promote companies in your area, they might see you and promote you as well to their employees.

Just some basic ideas of what to tweet about. The main thing is to relax. These aren’t novels. they’re short succinct thoughts and ideas and stuff to share. Look at the list above and try and tweet regularly. The more you do, the more it’ll help you.