Twitter for schools: strategy, management, measurement

There are a number of schools on Twitter. Many tweet board of education meetings or link press releases they just posted on the district’s website. For some, they rarely update the account after they set it up because they find it is repetitive and scarcely followed. Twitter is one of the most powerful social media platforms out there, though it isn’t for every district. What I have discovered is that more and more high school students are using it, the media is all over it, teachers are using it, and community influencers (politicians, chambers, business owners) are using it. So, while Twitter may not yield as large of a following for your school district as Facebook, it may be the key to reaching influencers.

Strategy suggestions:

1. Don’t just recycle Facebook or website content, bring personality to your Twitter account by having a team of staff members tweet and share photos using Instagram or TwitPic. I suggest building administrative teams using Twitter to open up communication and bringing transparency and awareness to the day-to-day activities of your staff and students.
2. Create niche Twitter accounts. Instead of just one district Twitter account, perhaps you have a charismatic superintendent who can represent the district on Twitter or maybe you have principals who can tweet regularly. It isn’t about being on Twitter as a district, but rather making it so an audience of influencers wants to follow your presence.

Management suggestions:

1. Time is always the biggest excuse for why Twitter cannot be used successfully in a school, but there are ways to schedule tweets to compliment live tweeting from district representatives that makes it manageable. Check out Hootsuite, SocialOomph, Tweetdeck, Buffer or SocialBro to schedule your tweets ahead of time.

Measurement suggestions:

1. No one working in school PR wants to waste his or her time on a tactic that yields little results. With tools like SocialBro, analyzing who is being reached and what is being discussed on Twitter is manageable. Obviously, if 75 percent of your Twitter followers are spammers or from Belgium, you may want to re-think investing time on this social community.
2. Use hashtags. By promoting various hashtags for your district (ex. #JFKTigers or #FDRProm12 or #TigerHoops) you are encouraging your followers to tag conversations. These conversations can then be easily moderated or monitored using tools like TweetChat or by doing a simple Twitter Search. Sometimes listening is just as important as tweeting.

Responding to Web Postings

Attention has been given in this space previously to the importance of monitoring social media channels as part of an environmental scanning regimen. More and more, what is being said about schools and school districts is happening through social sites and not mainstream media. By using tools such as Google Alerts, TweetDeck and HootSuite, it is much easier to be aware of mentions and remarks being made in the blogosphere.

But what to do next? Does every mention warrant a response? Now that you know what people are saying about your organization, what should you do about it?

One of the best policies (which also became a process) is that which was developed by the United States Air Force.  Realizing that the men and women of the Air Force would be confronted on a daily basis by rumors, speculation and misinformation as published and posted by all manner of people, the Air Force developed a logic flow process. This process, viewable as a flow chart, methodically guides users through every step needed to determine what actions, if any, should be taken to address a web posting.

This same approach can be modified for use in your district and will help provide a systematic response that is consistent and efficient.

NSPRA Seminar Will Include Plenty of Social School PR

So you’ve been enjoying this blog and picking up great tips from our NSPRA members who are social media experts, but you need a little more – some in-person guidance.

Once again, NSPRA has the solution.

This summer’s NSPRA Seminar in Chicago will have several great sessions on social media. There are offerings designed to either get you up and running with these new tools or take your understanding to the next level if you are already comfortable with the basics.

• There will be a pre-seminar session from Cody Cunningham and Terry Morawski called “Mobile Apps Strategy in School Communications.”
• Another pre-seminar session from Dana VanDen Heuvel will focus on “Social Media Strategy for School Districts.”
• VanDen Heuvel will also offer a session during the seminar called “What Every School District Needs to Know About Social Media.”
• One of the contributers to this blog, Evelyn McCormack, will present “Connecting Your Social Media.”
• Joseph Donzelli and Robert Dodig, Esq. will present “How to Use Social Media Properly.”
• Terri McHugh, APR will present “I Know How to Tweet, But Not What to Say – Social Media Content.”
• Shelly Hickman and Kathleen Kennedy, APR will present “Don’t Suppress Your APPetite: Tell Your Story to Everyone, Everywhere, Anytime!”
• Another of our blog contributers, Shane Haggerty, along with Erika Daggett, will present “Stepping Into Social Media: A School District Case Study.”
• McHugh will present another session with John Rork called “Blog Is Not a Bad Word – Design a User-Friendly Website.”
• Meg Carnes, APR and Kitty Porterfield will present “Ten Things Your Superintendent Needs to Know About Social Media.”
• Elise Shelton and Andrew Pitt will present “Making Web-Based Video an Essential Tool in School Communications.”
• John Moss will present “Using Video Productions and Smart-Phone APPs to Tell Your Story.”
• A.J. Huff wil present “Student Blogging for School Pride and High School Credit.”
• Jennifer Woodley will present “You Have a Friend Request.”
• And Annette Eyman and Kala Morrissey will offer an action lab on “Using Social Media to Improve Your Communication.”

Of course, there are dozens of offerings from national experts on all kinds of issues, so no matter your school PR question, you will find answers at this seminar.

Three tools to turn graduation slide shows into fun videos with ease

We know students and their families will enjoy seeing their pictures, but what about the pictures of everyone else? Many aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins fall asleep during the graduation slide show.

There are tools available to help us save time, money and brain capacity. Using resources (free or not) can be a life saver.

1. Animoto. Animoto is one of our all-time favorite resources. It turns our photos, video clips and music into stunning video masterpieces to share with everyone. Uploading pictures to Animoto is as simple as uploading them to Facebook. In fact, you can even import them from your Facebook account. Add text (student names, quotes, stories, fun snippets from the year, etc) in between photos. The biggest key to adding life is uploading video to your video. Choose from hundreds of tunes available or upload your own. Sharing your video is very easy via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube or email. You can even download your video to a DVD. HD upgrades are available for all plans and are included in the pro plan. Plans range from free to $20.75 per month or $249 billed annually. View example put together for advanced medical graduation two years ago.

2. Prezi. ”Make your presentations zoom” with Prezi. Think of Prezi as a big white drawing board. You can place images, link to YouTube videos, add text and create graphics on this board. You can make the images really large so another image can be “hidden” within or keep them standard. The more creative and outside the box you get, the better. Prezi gives you the ability to collaborate in real time, so it’s easy to share the responsibility of creating the video with staff members and teachers. Adding a storyline uses frames and a path to create the “cinematic journey.” Prezi is free to education professionals with educational emails, or you can pay $59 per year for the pro account. Prezi can be presented online or downloaded to a desktop for presenting. View Social Media presentation example from December 2011.

3. Photodex. This is very similar to Animoto. It’s a simple and creative way to organize and share photos. Photodex helps you create unique slideshows that transform digital memories into something special. View example put together in less than 5 minutes.

I’m sure there are many more available. Do you know of any you can share with us?

Five ways Facebook can boost teacher morale

Layoffs, budget cuts, large class sizes and the news media’s war on education means morale is plummeting for school employees. How can PR professionals change the conversation, and demonstrate the many ways teachers continue to go the extra mile?

Facebook is a tool you can use to publicly celebrate, reward and appreciate teachers and staff across the school district. Here’s how:

1) Tell a story: Give parents, students and staff a glimpse of some of the magic moments happening in your classrooms. Shine a light on an amazing turnaround story about how a teacher helped a single student or a group of challenged kids succeed. Describe the innovative projects teachers use to engage students in learning.

2) Post award nomination links: Give parents, students and educators the chance to nominate teachers and staff for awards, and watch the number of employees who win recognition build. From radio station and bookstore contests to professional associations, a win for any staff member makes them all stand proud. In addition to that, you’ll draw Facebook tributes from current and past students of the honored teacher.

3) Showcase moonlighters: Do you have staff members with hidden talents? The campus monitor who wrote a mystery novel? The history teacher who climbed K2? The counselor who’s a professional photographer? The dragon boat team from the payroll department? Post photos of them in action, and tell the back story even their co-workers don’t know.

4) Announce appreciation weeks: Take advantage of designated weeks to celebrate classified, certified and administrative staff, as well as school board members, school nurses, volunteers and secretaries. Ask fans for examples of how they are celebrating these events in their school, or ask them to share how one of the week’s honorees was a special help to their child. Remember, you can’t say thank you enough, especially now.

5) Show staff you’re listening: Likely, a good number of your district’s Facebook followers are employees. When you get them engaged in a conversation around a proposed change, show them you’re listening. Answer their questions promptly, and let them know you’ll forward their ideas, concerns and suggestions directly to district leaders. Then take what you learn and use it in your internal information campaign.

Five ways to engage in content marketing for your school

If you didn’t get the memo in this light speed world we are living in, social media is so yesterday. Today, it is all about content marketing. What does that mean? According to the Content Marketing Institute:

Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

So what does that mean for you? Well, it means that by now you should have the social platforms in place to communicate with your audiences with a strategy that engages those audiences with the ultimate goal of being able to mobilize that audience into action. Content marketing must be relevant, must be engaging, and must be valuable to your audience.

Here are five quick and easy ways to do it:

1. Photography. Not just photos of kids receiving awards or posing with oversized checks, but photos of students in the classroom engaged in learning, of teachers showcasing strong lesson plans, of community service, of creativity, of athleticism and on and on. Better yet, give the students and teachers access to cameras and let their images do the visual storytelling for you. Better yet, use the filters of Instagram on your mobile phones!

2. Video. Right now video has never been so relevant and easy to produce. You can create video fast and inexpensively. Keep your videos quick and relevant. Aim for 30 seconds to no more than two minutes.

3. Exclusivity. When creating content for your social media platforms, whether it is Facebook, a blog, or Twitter, make sure that you promote it as exclusive. What better way to make your Facebook page relevant than to post content that can only be seen there?

4. Infographics. Have you seen these yet? If not, check out some on Pinterest. These are the hottest new way to share complicated data or information in a fun, graphic, visual way. They also attract a lot of attention. So next time you are getting ready to create a three-panel brochure to educate your community on a topic, consider creating an infographic that can be shared across multiple social platforms. Here’s some more information.

5. Twitter. Don’t just create a Twitter account for your district where you post links to your website or repeat something you just posted on Facebook. Instead, empower your staff to tweet and showcase what’s happening inside the classrooms on a daily basis. Allow your staff to utilize mobile phones to take pics on Instagram and send them out on your targeted Twitter accounts (elementary, middle school, high school, etc.).

These are just five quick ways to start engaging in content marketing. What are your ideas?

Using Issuu to ‘Animate’ Your Publications

My staff at Southern Westchester BOCES and I discovered Issuu several years ago, and we have been using this tool for the districts we represent to “animate” their publications ever since.

issuu (Photo credit: ThemaTisch)

The reason? School district websites are already cluttered with PDF documents, forcing our readers to download documents to their computer hard drives and often to print them out. Why force readers to take those extra steps?

For most newsletters, annual reports, calendars and even Powerpoint presentations, we now provide our readers with two choices: to read the “animated” Issuu version of a document, or to download a PDF.

If they choose the Issuu version, your viewers will see a document with pages that can be turned as they’re read and tools that allow them to zoom in and out while reading.

Here’s how to use Issuu:

• Create a free account for your district on Issuu.
• When you’ve completed a newsletter or other document and have a PDF version, sign on to Issuu and look for the “upload” button.
• Upload your PDF (it will take a few minutes to load).
• Once you’ve successfully uploaded your document, it will appear on a virtual bookshelf in your Issuu “library.”
• Cllick on the “open” button and your document will open for you.
• Once that document is open, you’ll see a series of icons at the bottom.
• Click on the < > icon, and you will see a long html embed code. Copy that.
• Paste the html code on the district website page where you’d like your publication to appear, and you’re done.

To see Issuu in action, check out the White Plains Public Schools Issuu site. To view how it works on a school website, check out how we used it to display our annual SWBOCES Services Guide.

Related articles

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