So you’ve been approved to teach with Care2Rock, and you’ve been offering lessons on our site, but you’re having trouble standing out from the crowd. You’ve done everything you can to spruce up your teacher profile, but you’d still like to have more lessons than you’re getting. Here are a few tips and tricks to help you market yourself and increase your student base, so that you can teach all the lessons that you want to. While these methods will all work well individually, the best way to use this guide is to try blending multiple platforms and approaches to showcase yourself and your unique approach to both music education and music in general.

 

With any of these approaches, you’ll want to start by copying the URL (web address) from your C2R teacher profile, so you can direct people back to your unique page.

 

FIRST: Add reviews to your profile

Our teachers who have active customer reviews on their profile recieve significantly more bookings than those who do not. Specifically, our customers are looking at three places:
  • Curated Reviews
  • Star Reviews
  • Commented Reviews

To add each of the following, follow these instructions:

Curated reviews are unique in that they are individually selected by you, and are displayed prominently on the right hand side of your page. To add more curated reviews (up to 2), simply select the quote you want and add it on the relevant page of the Teacher Bio form, where you can update any element of your profile.

Star reviews are added by customers, though it’s perfectly acceptable to ask non-Care2Rock students to provide ratings here as well. Simply have them navigate to your profile through the standard Teacher Search, and click on the rating they would like to give you.

Commented reviews are also added by customers, and can be found at the bottom of your profile. To add a commented review, have current or former students navigate to your profile through the standard Teacher Search as above, scroll to the bottom of your page, and type their review into the provided text box.

 

1. Youtube

 

Regardless of the platform you choose, video is the bread and butter of lessons on Care2Rock and thus becomes a very useful marketing tool for our teachers to use. The easiest ways to do this are recording simple tutorials to showcase your teaching style and get some buy-in from potential students, or record your performances to showcase your musical style. On any video you post, you can post a message saying that you’re offering lessons via the Care2Rock site along with a link to your lesson. Make sure that when using videos, they’re short enough to be easily digestible (2-3 min max),  If you are interested in a Youtube starter kit, we recommend this site.  

 

2. Facebook

 

Facebook is probably the best possible tool for a teacher to find more people to take their lessons. An inherently personal social network with built in support for offering paid services, your personal page, groups and pages, and specifically buy/sell groups and the Facebook Marketplace,  Facebook allows you to reach both wide and focused audiences with precision, and share your services with people around the country and the globe. Remember, pictures perform better than text posts, and videos perform better than either.

Unless you have a dedicated audience on Facebook already, the best place to start is finding appropriate groups to share your lesson profile in. Look for groups focused either on the style of music you like to teach, or a group that you have experience teaching or would like to reach out to. For example, if you teach during the day and have experience working with homeschoolers, you can looks specifically for homeschool education or services groups. Be sure to check the rules of the group, and tailor your posts to be more or less “sales” oriented based on what you find. You may need to make a more descriptive post, and later share your profile link in a private message. Also, don’t forget to luck us on Facebook!

 

3. Instagram

 

Instagram is another great resource for teachers. With access to wide audiences with the hashtag feature, you can drastically increase your audience on single organic posts without having to do as much work as you would on most other platforms. Videos tend to have further reach than images, though quality is the most important thing either way. Here is a great example of how one of our teachers used an Instagram video to advertise their music lessons.

4. Craigslist

 

Craigslist is a perfect way to promote your lessons across the country. Simply post a listing in any city  that you would like to offer lessons in. Under services -> create a lesson ad in the format of your teacher bio on our site. Posts with pictures do far better than those without on Craigslist

 

5. Soundcloud/Bandcamp

 

Another great platform to market yourself is your band’s listing on either Soundcloud or Bandcamp. Simply note that you offer lessons, and your fans will be very excited to take lessons with you!

 

6. LinkedIn

 

LinkedIn is a great place to post your teaching credentials and background.  Also, a good chance to tell your network you are teaching for Care2Rock! When students check your profile, they will know where to take lessons with you and how you are making a difference in the world.

 

Of course, there are many other platforms that you can take advantage of to increase your visibility. Don’t forget that you can also tell potential students about the impact their lessons have on the greater community through Care2Rock.  We are happy to share student stories, etc. for you to pass along your social networks.  Many of your students will want to support your efforts to get music to kids who are in need, so it is a good feature to tell them about. Feel free to suggest more in the comments!