Social media for nurseries and childcare providers: a practical guide

Parents choosing childcare want to know three things: is it safe, will my child be happy, and does it fit our life. Current parents want a glimpse of their child's day. Your public posts can do both, as long as private updates about individual children stay in your parent app or messages.

Many of your best posts need no faces at all: a messy play tray, a vegetable patch, a reading corner, hands making a collage. These show the care and the learning without any risk to a child.

Two to four posts a week is enough. Use setting-owned devices only, collect photos centrally and check permissions before anything is scheduled.

• Monday: this week's theme or activity plan.
• Tuesday: an activity in progress, shown through hands, materials and the finished work.
• Wednesday: the menu, or a cooking or growing activity.
• Thursday: meet the team, with roles and qualifications.
• Friday: a weekly round-up and a reminder for parents, such as a closure date.

England: the EYFS statutory framework for group and school-based providers says safeguarding policies must include how mobile phones, cameras and other electronic devices with imaging and sharing capabilities are used in the setting. Your social media routine should follow that policy, not sit outside it.

UK data protection: the ICO's guidance on photos in schools, which is a useful guide for nurseries too, says people must be told how photos will be used, that the setting needs a lawful basis to publish them, that consent is one basis but not always the right one, and recommends offering an opt-out whatever the basis. The ICO notes this guidance is under review.

The NSPCC's guidance on photographing and filming children says children should be consulted about the use of their image, and that for young people under 16 you should also get parental consent. It advises not supplying children's names with images, choosing images of children in appropriate clothing, capturing activities from a distance rather than in close-up, and removing location data and other metadata before uploading. It warns that images can be misused out of context or modified using AI, and that a vulnerable child could be identified by someone who means them harm.

This is general information, not legal advice. Rules differ by country and change, so check with your regulator, trade body or a lawyer before you post prices, claims or photos of the people you serve.

1. Keep one current list of children who must not appear, and check it before every post, including backgrounds.
2. Use only setting-owned devices, never staff phones, to take and store photos.
3. Do not name children in posts, captions, tags or file names.
4. Avoid nappy changes, bathing, sleep, swimwear and anything a child would not want shared later.
5. Remove location data, and do not post in real time from trips.
6. Never post a child who is looked after, or in a safeguarding plan, without your designated safeguarding lead's agreement.
7. Take a photo down promptly when a parent asks.

Sources: GOV.UK (DfE): EYFS statutory framework for group and school-based providers, from September 2026 (PDF), checked 15 October 2026; ICO: Taking photos in schools, checked 15 October 2026; NSPCC Learning: Photographing and filming children, checked 15 October 2026

Nursery pages get questions about places, fees and individual children. Answer general questions, such as opening hours or funded hours, in public. Move anything about a specific child, an incident or a staff member to a private conversation with the manager.

If you publish fees, show the full price. The CMA's price guidance says the headline price must include unavoidable fees and charges, such as a compulsory meals or consumables charge, and that hiding them until later is illegal drip pricing.

• Publish short house rules for comments and apply them consistently.
• Hide or remove anything that identifies a child, and keep a note of what you removed.
• Never confirm in public whether a particular child attends.
• Ask parents not to share photos from events that show other people's children.

Source: GOV.UK (CMA): Providing clear and accurate information about prices, summary, checked 15 October 2026

Families often start looking months before they need a place. Plan an open day campaign: a save-the-date, a room-by-room tour with no children shown, a day-in-the-life series told through activities and practical details on hours, meals and settling in. Post the open day on your Google Business Profile too.

Childcare recruitment is constant. Show your team's training, progression and the reasons people stay, not just the job advert.

Plan around the nursery year: new starters in September and January, festivals and celebrations, sports days, graduation to school and the summer holidays.

Disclosure: Zolyp, which publishes this guide, makes an AI social media manager. It plans a balanced week across your content pillars, writes the captions and designs the visuals in your brand voice, and schedules them to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business, X, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Threads. You can add your own photos to any post, and you start by approving every post. Zolyp does not see your consent list or safeguarding records, so whoever approves the week should check every image against them. Everything in this guide works just as well done by hand.

• Week 1: publish the month's theme and key dates.
• Week 2: collect activity photos centrally and check permissions.
• Week 3: one team introduction and one learning post.
• Week 4: round-up, review replies and next month's plan.