The Art of Marketing Your Dance Studio Digitally

On International Dance Day, take advantage of this comprehensive and successful guide and take your dance studio brand to the next level.

Cheap, simple, and effective are three words that aren’t always associated with digital marketing. But that is exactly what the digital tools described here will provide for your dance company. Two of them are new, and one is an update. So, be an early adopter to gain an advantage over your competitors.

Use these simple and effective tools to gain an advantage over your competitors. It’s time to unwind!!

Unleash the Storytelling Power

Stories are much easier to create than videos and much more entertaining than blog posts. They’re tappable and swipeable, and they get a lot of attention. However, they are buried in your social media feeds, where the algorithmic gods decide who sees them. What if you could own your stories and post or share them whenever and wherever you wanted?

You can do just that with Google Web Stories, which are simple to create. If you have a WordPress site, simply install the plug-in and begin creating. If not, a publishing tool such as Newsroom AI or MakeStories can be used.

Google Web Stories must have a minimum of five pages. Each story must be completed (no teasers). A page can include images, videos, animations, and text, as well as links to additional information or product pages. When you make one, you’re creating a webpage in story format, which you can use anywhere. It can be used as a standalone page on your website, or it can be embedded in a landing page (or a partner’s website) or on your blog page.

This type of story has a significant advantage: it will appear in Google search results as a webpage. It may even appear at the top of Google’s mobile search in the dedicated story section. Alternatively, you could be featured on Google Discovery (with 800 million users a month). Consider how effective that is! When customers search, your story may appear far ahead of your competitors in the results. You can even broaden its reach by embedding it on other websites.

Assume you write a story about a dance school’s uniform, complete with photos or videos of the required styles. It would be simple to create and beneficial to parents. It would be a great addition to your website and could also provide useful information on the website of a dance business partner. What dance studio or dance store hasn’t grown tired of explaining school uniforms?

A Google story can be used to provide a simple explanation of the elements that go into the school uniform. All a partner has to do is embed your story on their website, which boosts your search ranking. Furthermore, because each link leads to your website, it will increase your sales and exposure.

A story about a school uniform is just one example of a story to tell. Only your imagination limits the possibilities.

Pro Suggestions

• First, think visually, then work out the text.
• Outline what will be in each panel to make things easier.
• Before you begin, gather all of your materials (copies, videos, and photos).
• This is the most time-consuming step; the actual creation takes little time.
• Keep the original images without the text overlay; make the overlay in the app.
• Do it now, before everyone else jumps on board and it becomes more difficult to get your story seen.

With Instagram guides, you can get lazy

Instagram Guides is another excellent tool for staying ahead of the competition. These are simply thoughtful compilations of other posts compiled into a guide. You’re creating new content from existing content and leveraging it to gain a lot of exposure with minimal effort. Guides can be shared. Instagram will increase the visibility of the guide because it is new.

There are three types of guides: places, products, and posts:

• Places: Assume you want to create a place guide of the top five places in your town to shoot dance photos. Simply search for “guides” on Instagram (it’ll be listed under the “+” sign on your account), select a location, add captions, and you’re done. Just remember to share it with all of your dance partners.
• Products: You can create a themed list of products, including those from related companies. A “best gifts for dance teachers” guide, for example, could include your products, flowers from the florist down the street, and delicious chocolates from that adorable store in your neighborhood. Share the guide with the featured stores so that they can share it with their followers.
• Posts: Create a guide by compiling posts (yours or those you’ve saved). It is beneficial to organize your guide around a theme to tell a story. It could be something like “top ten fashion leotards” or “best dance photos.” You could also create a guide based on a brand’s posts.

Pro Suggestions

• “Top Tips” guides can be extremely useful. How about a guide on how to care for pointe shoes, for example? Or for practicing for a dance competition.
• Step-by-step instructions can be very appealing to dance students a different type of story.
• Where possible, use saved posts from other pages in your guide. Including other people’s posts (with their permission) will increase the likelihood that your guide will be shared.
• Use guides to gain more exposure while doing less work. It is acceptable to be “lazy” and repurpose content.

Increased visibility through the most effective marketing tools

You are already aware that Google Business Profile posts are one of your most powerful marketing tools. Posts assist in getting your listing to appear in the top three results on Google search. A snippet from your post may even appear in the search results.

The disadvantage of Google posts has been that they only appear for a week, which means that your post will only be seen by a few hundred people. Granted, these were a few hundred potential new customers who were ready to buy but were probably unaware of your store’s existence but only a few hundred won’t make much difference in the larger advantages of Google business profile posts.

Google is now keeping your posts up for much longer. As a result, they are more visible, reaching thousands of potential customers rather than just a few hundred.

So, if you’re already posting on your Google profile, don’t stop. If you aren’t, then stop posting on social media and redirect your efforts to where they will be more effective.

Pro Suggestions

• Keep in mind that your Google Business Profile posts are mostly seen by people you don’t know. These aren’t posts to your followers on social media. Introduce your company and explain what makes it unique. Maintain a conversational tone, as if you were speaking to a stranger who walked into your studio or store.
• Only use original images. Avoid using stock photos because Google can tell if the image has been used elsewhere. If you have to use a stock or bad photo, blur it and add some text over it.
• Consider overlaying text on all of your images, for that matter to increase their effectiveness. Just make sure the image isn’t entirely text, or it won’t be displayed.
• Go to Google’s Cloud Vision API page to see what it sees in your image. Simply drag your image into the box and check the “safe search” tab to see how Google rates it.
• Make certain that your posts are not blocked. Google has difficulty distinguishing between light-colored clothing and skin and will block your post because it believes it contains “adult content.” So don’t post a picture of yourself in a lilac bodysuit. Instead, go with red.

Digital marketing can be difficult, but these three simple tools can help. We hope you will give them a shot. And with the time you’ve saved, do something nice for yourself. For any assistance Dimension, VIZ is always there to help you out.