Social Media Guide
Using social media — and using it well — is becoming more and more critical to successful communication plans for school districts. Students “live” online in social media. Parents are a fast-growing group of social media and rely on it to stay on top of the news that’s coming out of your schools.
Be prepared, and have a guide help you on your way to implementing a complete social media strategy in your school district.
This WSPRA publication provides:
- Step-by-step instructions to get you started on
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Youtube
- Google+
- LinkedIn
- Pinterest
- More!
- Tips on sharing content on social media sites
- A list of resources on social media guidelines/policy
- Lists of links to valuable social media tools
- Glossary of commonly used terms
Has your school district developed a social media communication strategy? Perhaps you have intertwined it with your overall communications plan. But if not, here are a few easy steps you need to think about. Get the guide and let it help you apply these great tips.
- Know your audience. Who do you want to engage in the conversation and who is already having a conversation about you?
- Define your goals. Perhaps it is as simple as wanting to share good stories about your school district or as complicated as changing public opinion about an upcoming referendum.
- Choose your metrics. Will you determine your success by number of followers, by the quality of the engagement, or a mixture of both.
- Be present where your audiences are. You may need to be on various platforms to reach the different audiences with which you wish to communicate.
- Listen to what your audience is saying. Are there complaints that could be easily remedied (e.g., a lack of signage), or suggestions that could be acted upon (e.g., parents would like better communication on a certain topic).
- Respond to their concerns. With the recent incident in Marinette, you may find that your parents are concerned about how your school district would handle a similar situation. If that’s the case, what information can you share to relieve their anxiety.
- Provide content that they value. Besides dates for upcoming events, sports scores, etc., what kind of information does your community value about your schools? Perhaps continued updates on a building project or how monies are being used from a recent referendum. Your community may also find it valuable to be provided information regarding school closures or lockdowns.
- Measure the results. There are many different tools to measure the influence and reach of your social media efforts. Watch for a future post which will delve into this topic in more depth.
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