What Does This Have to Do With Me?

I scour my district’s Facebook insights, Twitter retweets, Instagram likes and YouTube views. Some posts blow up, with people responding in droves. Some molder quietly, with nobody seeming to care about them at all.

In order to provide more engaging content, I try to figure out what the most popular posts have in common.

From what I can tell, it comes down to one central theme: the popular posts connect to the audience in a personal way. They answer the question, “What does this have to do with me?”

Here are the top three best ways I’ve found to address this question:

1. News that affects everyone
   Posts about the newly approved calendar or about snow days appeal to everyone because they affect everyone. These are the posts that are so popular they attract you a bunch of new followers. 
2. Awards
   I was initially surprised by how appealing posts about awards were. We get huge responses when the district, a school, a staff member or a student gets a major recognition. This is because these awards give people evidence that they are in a high-quality school district. Our awards make them look good.
3. Pictures of people they know
   It’s becoming common knowledge that people respond to photos on social media sites. But I find that our best responses come when we post photo albums with lots of faces from around the school district. This increases the chances that they know someone in the photos. Photos+personal connection=engagement double whammy!