The explosion of social media has undoubtedly garnered major interest from numerous businesses and, in turn, massively increased customer engagement and loyalty. With billions of social media users across all platforms, modern social media plays a crucial role in any marketing campaign, whether it aims to increase brand awareness, drive sales, or gain website traffic. Recent demand for driving instructors emphasises the importance of social media advertising for your driving school.
Over the past few years, the number of Approved Driving Instructors (ADIs) in the UK has dropped, with almost 40,000 registered driving instructors as of 2020. This increases the demand for driving lessons, making marketing for independent driving schools and instructors all the more important. Executing an effective social media strategy could dramatically increase the reputation of your driving school and help you promote to new students.
Why does my driving school need to be on social media?
In 2025, a strong social presence isn’t just optional – it’s essential. If you’re still relying solely on a website and word-of-mouth to market your driving school, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful marketing tools available today: social media. Many people won’t blindly trust websites claiming to offer driving lessons, they will perform in-depth research into which driving school or independent instructor to go with, usually heavily influenced by social media.
The more information you have available online, and the better presented it is, the more likely you are to build trust with potential clients. An active and well-managed social media presence signals that your driving school is professional, legitimate, and engaged. The more quality content and interaction you offer online, the more likely that prospective students, and their parents, will feel confident enough to choose your driving school.
Driving schools primarily market towards young people looking to start driving, for which there are a range of social media platforms available to include in your social media marketing plan. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Facebook are where your target market (young people learning to drive) spend hours of their time daily. If your driving school isn’t meeting them there, your competitors will.
Facebook for Driving Schools
Despite the rise of TikTok and Instagram among younger audiences, Facebook remains a powerful tool for driving schools aiming to build trust, attract new students, and maintain a strong local presence. As of 2025, Facebook still commands over 3.7 billion monthly active users (MAUs), making it one of the most widely used platforms globally with a strong cross generational reach that includes both students and their parents.
For driving schools on social media, Facebook is a more visual social media pathway whereby you can target potential clientele through posts containing images, links, and videos. Creating a Facebook page for your driving school will help develop brand awareness, while gaining likes, comments and shares on your posts can highly publicise your school. Facebook even allows you to use the platform as a booking tool, meaning page visitors can easily become customers within just a few clicks.
Take care to write relevant posts about your driving school and the driving industry as part of a consistent posting schedule. Consistency and relevancy are two of the most important aspects of a social media marketing plan. Be sure to link your website to your Facebook page and list your contact number for maximum exposure.
Posting to driving lesson-related Facebook groups, and even creating a group on Facebook yourself, are great opportunities for exposure and building a social media community. People in the market for driving lessons for themselves or their children are likely to use social media as part of their research; this often includes joining relevant Facebook groups to find recommendations from other driving students.
Facebook also has extremely powerful advertising capabilities, with highly accurate targeting options across the massive user base. If you’ve got the budget to get stuck into Facebook Advertising, you’ll be able to run highly targeted and relevant ads to users interested in all things related to driving lessons.
Source: Red Driving School
X (Formerly Twitter) for Driving Schools
In 2025, X (formerly Twitter) continues to thrive as a real-time platform for building visibility, sharing expertise, and engaging with your local driving community. With its fast-paced, conversational nature, X offers driving schools a unique opportunity to establish authority, join relevant conversations, and provide timely updates that resonate with both learners and parents. Your X username for your driving school must be relevant, snappy and memorable. All posts should be welcoming in tone, well-written, and related to the driving and automobile industry. Leave irrelevant personal posts ( such as what you had for lunch) to your personal account, opting instead to show your human side through personal yet relevant posts.
Good community management will get you a long way in X’s fast-paced environment, helping you build brand status within the world of X. Make sure to update your X regularly to preserve the interest of your followers. Spamming the feed is a definite no-no but posting regular updates at a consistent level is key for many social media platforms, and X is no different.
Source: Red Driving School
Instagram for Driving Schools
In today’s visual-first digital world, Instagram remains a key platform for driving schools to connect with a younger, mobile-savvy audience. With over 2 billion monthly active users , many of them in their teens and twenties, Instagram is the perfect channel to build brand awareness, share engaging content, and showcase student success stories.
Instagram thrives on storytelling through visuals. Every post, whether a photo, video, Story, Reel, or Carousel, gives you an opportunity to connect with your audience on a personal level. For driving schools, this could be celebrating student milestones like passed tests and first lessons, highlighting your instructors, cars and local driving routes, sharing helpful tips through short-form videos or educational carousels, and promoting special offers or booking availability via Stories and Reels.
By combining useful content with behind-the-scenes snapshots, you build trust and relatability, which is exactly what learners (and their parents) are looking for.
Source:@kt.franklin and @coachcarteruk
LinkedIn for Driving Schools
While LinkedIn is often overlooked by local service providers, it has become an increasingly valuable platform for driving schools looking to reach decision-makers, especially parents who may be researching driving lessons on their child’s behalf that you can target with posts and ads. With over 1.2 billion monthly active users in 2025, LinkedIn is no longer just for job seekers and corporate networking, it’s a space where professional service providers can build authority, grow referrals, and connect with local communities.
By posting regular updates, actively participating in relevant group discussions, adding a solid contact list, and receiving testimonials/review, you can create new business links as well as reach potential clients.
TikTok for Driving Schools
TikTok remains one of the fastest-growing and most engaging social media platforms, with over 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide in 2025, many of whom are teenagers and young adults which is your primary target audience for driving lessons. Its short-form video format offers driving schools a unique and highly creative way to connect, educate, and entertain potential students.
TikTok’s algorithm is designed to surface content based on interest, not just follower count, meaning even small driving schools can quickly reach a large audience if their content resonates. The platform favours authenticity, creativity, and value-packed videos, making it perfect for sharing things such as behind-the-scenes videos of driving lessons, and any trends or challenges tailored to driving education.
By tapping into TikTok trends and using popular music, effects, and hashtags, your driving school can significantly increase brand awareness among learners who spend hours on the app daily.
Source: Clearblue Driving
Thinking Outside the Box
When thinking about marketing for your driving school it’s essential to think outside the box to increase your brand awareness. You’re in a unique position compared to other business as you know exactly where your target audience is located, their general age range, and what they need from you.
Make sure to utilise offline/traditional marketing methods alongside your social media presence to draw attention from potential students who are out-and-about in your local area. For example, putting up posters around the community can help gain the interest of potential new clients. This also applies to adding your driving school branding to the car you use for driving lessons.
Driving school success often heavily relies on word of mouth and personal recommendations, so be sure to collect lots of testimonials and success stories from your students to help draw in new students.
Thought Leadership
Alongside industry-relevant social media posts, it’s also worth creating a regularly updated blog on your website that showcases your knowledge of the driving industry. Thanks to readily available information at their fingertips, those looking to start driving lessons will be extensively researching which driving schools to use and taking many factors into account. An important factor here is your knowledge and value as an instructor, as driving lessons take a lot of time, effort, and commitment from both the student and you as an instructor.
Communication
The key to successfully implementing a social media strategy that ultimately increases revenue is communication. Communicate with your clients, potential clients, ask questions, answer questions, and list your contact details in an unmissable location. Make it known that you’re readily available to contact and interested in taking on new clients.
Competitions and Giveaways
One great way to increase your follower count, engagement, and brand awareness is to run competitions and giveaways on your social media. This could include promoting a special offer on lessons, discount codes and bundle lessons, or offering 5 free lessons to a giveaway winner. This is a win-win scenario in the long term, as gaining a reputation as a friendly and generous driving school will greatly improve your chances of positive student reviews, word-of-mouth referrals, and being known as a well-liked driving school in the area.
If you’re struggling with managing your social media on top of your busy day-to-day work life and ready to take your social media to the next level, get in touch with us here.
