Creating useful guidelines for social media use

Social media is becoming more widely used in schools – even if your district hasn’t fully embraced it. Parents and community are sharing accomplishments, students are communicating with teachers and media are using much of this for content.

If your district is considering, or has even already started using social media tools – Facebook, Twitter and the like – it is important to have appropriate guidelines in place. Guidelines should address a number of items: directions for set-up, content recommendations and rules for use.

In Hutto ISD, our guidelines reflect our transparent communication style and help staff to set up social media. The guidelines are relaxed and informal, and even read in a light-hearted, playful way.

Consider some of these tips when creating social media guidelines:

1. Make it a group effort. Cast a wide net when organizing a team to create guidelines for your district. You should consider including those who use social media and those that don’t as well as educators and external stakeholders. It will give you a good perspective of what your users and followers expect. And be sure your attorneys and school board see the effort.
2. Consider your district’s culture. What do your administrators, board members teachers and students believe concerning social media? What are concerns and praises of social media? Do you communicate formally or informally on expectations? Is your district strict or relaxed in your communication guidelines? These will help shape your guidelines to ensure they are used properly and respectfully.
3. Find resources and use them. We are all aware of the four-step communication process. Use it. Focusing on research and evaluation will help ensure that your district puts guidelines in place that fit your students, staff and community the best.
4. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Share your guidelines. Make them visible and easily accessible to parents, community, students and staff. This will ensure the best use of the tools and save you headaches later down the road.
5. Evolve when necessary. Be sure your guidelines are designed to incorporate change. Your action plan should be a living document that allows for periodic review and adaptation to the quickly evolving landscape of social media. This should be done at least annually, if not more often depending on resources.

Getting the troops on board: Social media monitoring

Social media, specifically Twitter, can be a great information tool during a crisis, in more ways than one. You can keep up with developments, get information out quickly and stay in touch throughout a situation. However, with all that is going on in any given crisis, monitoring the air waves may not be top of mind. That is when having assistance – and not necessarily an assistant – comes in handy.

Recently, the Hutto Police Department was dealing with a situation where a homeowner had barricaded himself in his home. Police had blocked a major thoroughfare in our town, so everyone knew something was amiss. Because we collaborate well with the PD, we were aware and watching for a resolution. None of our campuses were in danger, but it’s always best to be safe. As a precaution, administration had campuses limit activity to indoor only and notified parents that some bus routes may be affected by road closures. Mindful that social media would be buzzing, but tasked with writing, calling and texting parents, I wasn’t at a point to monitor my social media feeds. That is, until a parent emailed me a screen shot of a tweet.

The tweet, sent by a user I’d never seen, mentioned “may be my last tweets” “lockdown” and “serious.” The parent even ran down the previous tweets and let me know this person was subbing in our district that day. The police situation was resolved shortly after I received the email, all was well and our students went home safe. But the tweet bothered me enough to look up the user, check the times and figure out the situation. From it all, I learned some critical lessons:

1. Build your troops. Without the email from this parent, I wouldn’t have caught this tweet. I have built close relationships with many parents (in person and on social media), so it was quickly brought to my attention. Make sure parents know how to inform you and that they feel comfortable doing so. Be sure you have developed the relationships that will allow them to assist you.
2. Make sure your staff is on board. If your staff sees anything on social media, they should inform you as well. A quick email with a link, screen shot or details can help you get a hold of a potential social media disaster. Your staff can be built in assistants.
3. Get out the necessary info. In a crisis, if you aren’t informing your staff members of what is going on, they are going to make assumptions and they may post their assumptions on social media. And don’t forget front office staff, subs and coaches. Give them relevant details they need to know and what they should tell parents who call, tweet and post. Let them assist you.
4. Discuss the best information to share. It is never too early to have a conversation with your staff about the importance of what they tweet, post or share during a situation. Their safety, students’ safety or the sanity of a parent may depend on it. Remind them that vague and misleading information only serves to scare parents and make the situation that much more difficult to handle. Instruct them not to send cryptic tweets like this sub did, because the district has a protocol for when and how to notify parents and you will follow it.
5. After action, after action, after action. As in any situation, be sure you follow up after the event to monitor residual effects that might have arisen. Consider it an after-action debrief.

Social media during a tragedy: How your students give you an advantage

Social media is now. Especially during a crisis. For school districts, that is intensified with hundreds and even thousands of students tweeting away during an event. While the idea of a tragedy trending in a matter of minutes is scary to some, including superintendents and school boards, it is crucial that school PR pros know how to use the tools at hand.

Recently, Hutto ISD dealt with the death of a student by suicide. While the district respected the family’s wishes not to share the details without permission, the student body and community were under no such obligation. Within hours, students created a hashtag memorializing the student and by the following day, it was trending on Twitter in the region. In very short order, users had shared condolences, spread rumors and organized a grassroots vigil in front of the high school after school. Despite the district’s best efforts to redirect students to an off-campus location, Twitter had ensured thousands of students would descend on the front driveway of the campus at 6 p.m. that night.

Rather than stand by, overwhelmed with thousands of tweets going out by the minute, and rather than taking away student’s cell phone privileges during school, Hutto ISD and the high school principal did something creative: they asked the students for help. The Hutto HS principal, the superintendent and I worked out an alternate location, and before lunch, we gathered student body leaders. We explained the difficult reasoning behind not allowing the vigil on campus, offered the alternative and asked the group to share that with their friends via Twitter. Within hours, much of the student body understood the district’s painful decision and willingly moved the gathering to the church – where they had adult supervision and support.

Whether or not your district is on Facebook or has its own Twitter account, social media awareness and management is essential during critical times. Here are five tips that can help ensure you are prepared online and offline.

Update your crisis plan
It is important to understand the pervasive nature of social media tools and include how you will use, monitor and respond to posts of Facebook and Twitter. Be sure it is in your plan. Also, be sure the district has identified who is responsible for posts on behalf of the district.

Monitor, monitor, monitor
Know what is going out. Simple searches related to your issue, including your school name, initials, a student name or the type of problem will usually pull up enough to get you to the bulk of posts.

Know when to turn it off
Even the most transparent district needs to prevent an open forum for comments at times. If you have a Facebook page, don’t be afraid to disable commenting for a short time during a highly sensitive event to protect families or students until facts are at hand.

Ask for help
When it comes to social media, your students are the quickest way to get information out or corrected. Don’t be afraid to pull a responsible, respected group of students and get them to tweet and share information the district needs to get out. It empowers them and helps the district.

Follow up
Be sure you follow up after the event to monitor residual effects that might have arisen. Consider it an after-action debrief.