How do Online Tutors Find students
A guide to using tutoring agencies, social media, and your website to attract the right students to work with you
I speak to people about online tutoring. A lot.
And very quickly they see the benefits of working online for both students and parents.
Often tho the next question they ask is: ‘But how will I find students?’
It’s funny but the answer isn’t in putting out flyers – that will attract local students. Or advertising in a local magazine.Or a newspaper.
No, the answer, funnily enough is, yes, you guessed it, online !
Here then are 3 steps you can take to have students desperate to work with you online.
1. Register with a tutoring agency:
Is working with a tutoring agency the only way to get students ?
No! But it’s a great way to get started! It’s a great way for online tutors to reach online students. It’s as simple as that.
If you have no online students and want to get started quickly, there’s no better way than signing up with an agency
It requires registering with the agency and having all the required paperwork in place .
The disadvantage of working with agencies is that they take a share of your fee.
I’ve done the leg work for you and listed the better agencies to work with here – Tutor Hunt, First Tutors, Tutorful.
Star Student, my own tutor directory, will be available shortly which will short circuit this practise – it’ll have all the benefits of a tutoring agency with a one off fee only. I’ll keep you posted.
2. Using Social Media to attract students
If you want to tutor online and you want to find students online – then you need a social media presence.
- Facebook Groups
- Facebook Page
Social Media is where it’s at online in terms of getting your name out and about on the online space and attracting the right people
Start with a Facebook Page posting great useful content as often as you can . Have a look at this blog post here all about setting one up .
and then read about some of the How to Tutor Online teachers who are making a really great job of this already – reaching potential students on Facebook and then working with them.
Jennifer’s Spanish for expats page is here
and Chris’s Maths GCSE page here
What’s the difference between a FB Page and a FB group?
It’s a tricky one and I’ve written a blog post about it here.
In short, the idea is that once people see what you’re up to, you can funnel them into your FB group.
I have a great Facebook Group where potential students for my course can see more of me and what working with me will be like. It’s be great to see you in there.
3. Do I need a website to get students to work with me?
No is the short answer. But ….it sure does help! And it most certainly helps an online tutor to find students.
Look,it’s 2019.
You want to work online? Then a website is your shopfront, the way for potential students to see what working with you would be like .
It’s not something to fear – it’s a great way to reach your students, to show them your expertise in your subject, how well former students have done in exams when working with you and what their experience of working with you has been like. You need one.
I’ve seen the difficulties online tutors have had building their own website and this year one of my goals was to somehow work around that.
I’m delighted to say that the How to Tutor Online Website template has been a great success with lots of tutors now with beautiful looking, hard-working websites.
Laura McSharry’s science online tutor
Coriden Francis’s English Tuition
Of course there are other ways of attracting students – Linkedin, Facebook ads, Instagram, Pinterest as well as old fashioned networking and word of mouth.
Not to be underestimated.
But these 3 ways are a great way to start and will have students beating a path to your door.
I show you all of these things and more in the How to Tutor Online Course
