Why content matters on your social channels

According to Seth Godin, “Content marketing is the only marketing that’s left.” Why? Well, times have changed and audiences are fragmented. That means that for schools it is less important to send out traditional press releases, rely on the news media to report stories on the district, pay for expensive advertising, and on and on.

Here are some facts about the way your audiences are consuming information:

• According to eMarketer.com, mobile and internet consumption continues to rise among consumers, while traditional media usage continues to fall, especially with print media.
• According to eMarketer.com, the top two reasons social users follow brands on social media is because they want to keep up with the latest content and share that content with family and friends.

Content matters, then, because people want to see relevant, interesting, local and specific information directly from your district. In effect, you are now your own publisher of content. The model should look like this: owned media (original content you create as the most important), earned media (local news media coverage), paid media (advertising). By owning your media, you become a good storyteller rather than a good story (and by “good,” I mean sensationalized or controversial most of the time in the media). Also, your content never expires the way paid advertising does.

Since owning your own media is so important, and creating original, engaging content matters, here are some thoughts to keep in mind as you begin to shape your own stories:

• Your content strategy is just as important as the content you create or curate. What are your goals? What are your platforms? How will you distribute original content? How will people know about it? Part of the process is planning ahead and re-educating your constituents about how the district is going to be communicating.
• To own your own media and to make a content strategy effective, you must communicate internally and train administrators and staff. Try to invest in mini-campaigns on Facebook (feature a different school or program in your district weekly or monthly on your page) and use the power of hashtags on Twitter to aggregate conversations. Also, involve the voices of your students and your staff in your content.
• Always be in a storytelling mindset. Showcase your school’s culture. Introduce your school’s characters. Educate your community. Keep your audience’s attention.

Create social content with the help of apps

One of the best ways to create unique content for your social media platforms in a fast, professional way is to take advantage of all of the apps out there that allow you to be creative without actually being a creative.

Recently I have been taking advantage of several apps on a daily basis to create visually appealing content for many of my clients for their Facebook pages. Here are the ones that I am using the most:

• Over | Over is a great mobile app that allows you to add typography over photos. By using Facebook Insights, measurements have shown people respond most to photos on many of the pages I manage. By writing copy over photos, this is a new way to spread key messages in a visual way that people respond to. The app is easy to use and offers the ability to adjust fonts, colors, tints and more. Right now, it is only available on the iPhone and is free. If you want more fonts, it is a $.99 upgrade.
• PicFrame | According to their own description, “PicFrame helps you combine multiple photos into amazing looking frames and share them with your friends and family via Facebook, Email, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr.” Again, it is easy to use and is available on iPhone and Droid operating systems. This is a free app.
• Collage Creator Lite | I downloaded this on my MacBook Pro and use it frequently to create Facebook cover photos with typography messages. It easily allows you to enter the required dimensions to meet this need. I have also used it to create photo collages for various content pieces. There is a paid version that allows you to do even more.

These are just several of an abundance of apps that are out there that can save you time and provide fresh ways to create content! Which ones are you using?

Five important metrics for your district’s Facebook page

With any good social media strategy comes a way to measure its success. What do you consider the success of your school district’s Facebook page? Simply having a presence on Facebook is not the point of the platform. Much like any other PR or marketing effort, your Facebook page should show solid growth and engagement. With Facebook Insights, the analytics system tied to every Facebook page, measuring your page’s progress has never been easier.

Here are five important metrics to track on your district’s Facebook page:

1. Demographics. The overall number of “likes” or fans on your page is easy to track, but look inside that number. Is your page dominated by a female presence? What age groups tend to follow your page? These numbers are important when planning content.

2. Geographics. Where are your fans from? Of course, your page is going to be “liked” by some people not affiliated with your school district, but if most of your fans are from Australia or India, for example, your page is likely not hitting its geographic target.

3. Reach. Facebook measures anyone who has seen content associated with your page. This means that your page has a reach many times bigger than just those people listed as fans. You can discover how many unique people have seen content from your page (and many times you will be surprised at this large number).

4. Talking About Your Page. Facebook tracks people who have created a “story” about your page. A “story” includes liking your page, posting to your wall, commenting or liking a post, sharing a post, answering a question, etc. This is how your page continues to grow and become known. You want people to talk about your page!

5. Content. If you are simply recycling content from your website, please stop and develop a strategic content plan for your Facebook page. This becomes easier to do when you know what content appeals to your audience. You can find this out by measuring your content. What are the most popular types of posts? Probably photos and videos. Facebook Insights allows you to see individual posts and how they perform. Use this data each month to set what kind of content you are pushing out.

By taking the time to utilize Insights within Facebook, you can start to show your leadership team results from investing in social media.

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.

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?

The Chardon Tragedy and Social Media’s Role in Times of Crisis

This week in Ohio (as well as across the nation) we were shocked to see the tragic events develop before our eyes at Chardon Local Schools, a relatively small school district near Cleveland. For those of us who work in education, the thought of students being in harm’s way is gut wrenching, so this tragedy has truly caused all of us to stop and reflect.

For me, upon hearing the news first on Twitter, I instantly thought of my good friend and Ohio School Public Relations Association colleague Ellen Ondrey, who serves as Chardon’s community coordinator. Ellen has served on our board of OHSPRA for years and is currently our treasurer. Hearing her voice on the live news broadcast, her clarity, focus, transparency and genuine care for her district reminded me, and likely all of us who do this for a living, of why we have committed to helping school’s communicate and be prepared in times of need.

In Ohio, our network of school communicators did what we do best: communicate and offer our assistance to our friends and colleagues at Chardon Local Schools. And of course, social media played a prominent part in that. OHSPRA took to its Twitter account and Facebook page to offer support and resources. We knew there would be ripple effects across the state and nation, and we wanted to ensure that we offered support on the issues of crisis planning and communication.

We also saw how social media played a role in the word spreading about the shooting, from students inside the school using cell phones and tweeting while the crisis was happening to how thousands used sites like Facebook and Twitter to offer condolences and support. Social media continue to shift how we communicate, both good and bad, but the questions to ask are whether your school district is using it effectively and in times of need and are you prepared for how to leverage it best?

I wanted this blog post to be an open discussion on your thoughts on crisis communications and the role of social media in these moments of crisis. I look forward to hearing your comments and ideas. Consider this a starting point to crowd-source some best practices or ideas on leveraging social media in times of crisis.

We continue to offer our sympathies to Chardon Local Schools, the community and especially the families.

Five ways your school district can use Pinterest

By now you have heard someone mention Pinterest. Usually it is followed by the words, “I’m addicted.” Pinterest shot to stardom in 2011, and so far it is an invite-only social network that allows users to “pin” their interests, dreams, likes, favorites, inspirations and more onto boards based on the categories of their choosing. Basically, Pinterest is social bookmarking, but visually appealing.

The image-based platform is one of the top ten most-visited social networks over the past year and interest continues to grow, especially among women, a key demographic. While it may not seem like Pinterest would be worthy of considering as a potential communications or marketing tool for schools, there are many ways a school district could use the site. And, based on its growing popularity, especially amongst moms, why wouldn’t you at least consider it and stay one step ahead of the social media game.

As always, corporations are already taking advantage of the site’s popularity, using it for various showcases, contests and more. Schools can also use this platform easily and effectively. Here are five ways to use Pinterest:

Digital News Clippings
Instead of clipping articles from your local newspaper, take advantage of the article being online and pin it. Pin the links to your television news stories or any other online media for that matter. You can also pin JPEG files as well. Create a visual, easy to look at digital clipping room on your Pinterest page to keep track of your media coverage.

Resource Room
Be helpful to your parents, students and other constituents by pinning resourceful articles and blogs that you find online. Perhaps you choose to focus on articles and resources about colleges, financial aid, career trends and the job market.

Employee Showcase
You can post pictures of your staff members and write brief bios on each. However, why not touch on what makes them stand out? Feature unique, pre-teaching career experiences or hobbies they have that are interesting. Maybe they played college sports or excel at playing an instrument. Why not humanize your staff members by telling brief stories about them and pinning it here in the “faculty lounge” section of your Pinterest page?

Education Advocacy
Now more than ever, those who work in education need to curate content and advocate for education at every turn. Create an advocacy board on your Pinterest and pin articles that support or inform about new legislation, school funding, testing, curriculum or more.

Student Success Showcase
Much like featuring your employees, featuring your students is important as well. Make this unique and differentiated from other areas of communications, though. We all know athletes and smart kids get a lot of attention, but here you could create a student success showcase of those that are doing remarkable community service projects, those who are remarkable employees at their after-school jobs or students who are earning industry credentials, college credit, scholarship money or more while in high school.

The possibilities with Pinterest are endless! Explore this hot, new social media tool and take advantage of its growing popularity. What ideas do you have for using Pinterest in schools?

Five Steps to Move your District into Social Media

By now your school district falls into one of the following categories when it comes to social media:

1. All in
2. Dipping toes into the water
3. Wavering and stuck
4. The door is closed

Congratulations if you are all-in, and my sympathies if the door is closed. Your district has made a decision to either engage your constituents with social media or to stick with traditional methods. However, if your district falls into the second or third categories, here are five steps you can take to methodically and practically implement some form of social media into your existing communications plan:

1. Develop a social media strategy and plan. Figure out what you want to accomplish by doing surveys and focus groups, and then plan how you are going to meet your constituents’ needs and interests with social media.

2. Develop your social media policies or guidelines. Either your board is going to want to develop stand-alone social media policies or you can complement existing, board-approved technology policies with guidelines that don’t require board approval.

3. Train and educate your staff and students. Depending on what you will do, your staff and students need to have clear expectations about why you are using social media and how they can help.

4. Develop a content plan. Just as you would develop an editorial calendar for a newsletter, develop a content plan for videos, photos or other content that will keep your social presence current and engaging. Also, determine who will manage your social media.

5. Launch it and measure it. Don’t just start a Facebook page or Twitter account and expect people to flock to it. You have to launch it effectively, so think through your internal and external roll-out. The nice thing about social media is you can measure them all the time to prove their effectiveness or lack thereof.