Tag Archive: Social media

A New Year’s Resolution for My School PR Colleagues

Author: January 1, 2015 3 Comments


“Make a phone call or email a colleague and you help one person. Post on an online discussion board or on social media and you help hundreds of colleagues.”

A major pet peeve of mine is the thought that many of us in school communications are reinventing the wheel in our efforts. That’s why I love social media so much. It allows us to collaborate without the geography, cost and time constraints of in-person conferences. (Not that I dislike in-person conferences. I’m lucky to have been to many NSPRA seminars in my short career.) Plus, social media leaves a digital, written trail for others to keep learning long after the conversation has “ended.”

This year I personally suggest the following resolution for all of us in school communications: let’s stop reinventing the wheel so much and learn from and share our knowledge with one another on a national scale. The summer NSPRA seminar and local chapter conferences are perfect opportunities for this, and we’re all very good at those. But let’s up our participation in the digital world. Don’t let the school PR community lose out on the opportunities in between in-person conferences.

How you can contribute to and take advantage of the online school PR community:

1. Subscribe to and comment on the following school PR blogs via email or RSS:

2. Participate in the school PR community on Twitter

3. Ask and answer questions on NSPRA’s LinkedIn discussion board

The discussions are getting more and more frequent. Chime in on the NSPRA LinkedIn group (for NSPRA members only).

4. Participate in School PR conversations on Facebook

Follow the NSPRA Facebook page and pages for local NSPRA chapters.

5. …and anything else I’ve missed

I am partially embarrassed to say I’m not active on Google+, but I know that some school communicators are, including Tom Jackson and Kristin Magette, who hosted a School Communicators’ Chat on Google Hangouts.

What other opportunities am I missing in the list above? What other venues should there be for NSPRA members and school communicators to share their knowledge on an online, many-to-many basis? I welcome your thoughts.

Let’s work to truly build up the online school PR community in 2015.

Social Media

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Target Potential New Twitter Followers With This Trick

Author: December 12, 2014 0 Comments

Do any of your schools run their own separate, but official Twitter accounts? What about PTAs and student groups? It’s likely that the people who are interested in the schools and therefore follow those accounts would also be interested in information from the district level. But perhaps they don’t know your account exists.

Read the rest of my post, which is published on the NSPRA Social School Public Relations blog.

Social Media

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5 Tips for “Designing” Perfect Social Media Posts

Author: October 8, 2014 0 Comments

I’m a graphic designer, and the main goal of that job is designing information in a way that it is most easily understood, attracts attention and makes audience members do something. In the case of social media, the “design” of your content includes the words you use, number of words, punctuation, emojis, images, links and layout on a viewer’s screen.

Have you ever considered that the “design” of your social media posts affects whether or not they will be seen, understood and acted upon?

Read the rest of my post, which is published on the NSPRA Social School Public Relations blog.

Graphic Design, Social Media

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Facebook Page basics for beginners and non-communication staff

Author: September 9, 2014 0 Comments

Recently a rural Virginia school district school board clerk reached out to other school board clerks about setting up a Facebook Page for their district, a goal that the superintendent had in mind. My district’s board clerk asked if I could answer her questions, which I did, because I love helping out with web tools and social media.

Because it was a lot of good information, I thought I’d share it with others who are new to Facebook Pages.

Do you have a facebook page for the division?

Yes. See https://www.facebook.com/acpsk12

If so, who is responsible for the upkeep (pictures, news, etc.)

In many school districts you’ll find that the communications department handles all social media, including Facebook. In general, it should be handled by anyone who is skilled in customer service and communication. (NOT the technology department!) As the Public Relations Specialist, I oversee the Alexandria City Public Schools Facebook page, and collaborate with my director and department administrative assistant to contribute to our Twitter account.

Are comments welcomed, and how does one filter inappropriate comments?

Comments cannot be turned off, so there is no choice but for them to be “welcomed.” Being that it is “social” media, it is expected that it is a two-way dialogue, not just one-way broadcasting of division information. Also be aware that the number of comments you receive affects the likelihood of your posts being seen. Comments are seen as “engagement”, and on Facebook, higher engagement equals more promotion of your posts in your followers’ news feeds.

Also be aware that although you cannot turn off people from commenting on your posts, you CAN turn off the setting that allows people to post directly to your page’s timeline. In the Facebook Settings area this is called “Posting Ability”.

PostingAbility PostVisibility

In Facebook Settings you can also have any comments with profanity automatically hidden from public view. In the “Page Moderation” setting you can type in a list of specific words and/or set the profanity filter to “Strong”, “Medium” or “Off”. This works wonders!

PageModeration

Beyond profanity, I personally do not delete any comment unless it goes against our guidelines (threatening, privacy violation). We’ve posted our guidelines in the “About Us: Description” area of our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/acpsk12/info

Please give any positives or negatives that you have experienced.

Positive:

When people see the amazing photos from the classroom and events, and share and tag and comment on them.

The fact that the info about the division is coming to them, in a format they already view every day. (They aren’t going to your website just to browse.)

Negative:

Dealing with complaints (especially regarding school closures). However, it is no different from dealing with complaints on another medium (ie telephone).

Is there anything you would have done differently or suggestions on how to proceed?

Social media is an ongoing project, not something that you do and then finish. So there’s always opportunity to do things differently as you go along. A few thoughts:

  • Be patient. You will not get a lot of followers immediately. Keep publishing content, despite the fact that for the first year or two you may not get a ton of followers or interaction.
  • Follow and “Like” other local pages, ie the police, city/town govm’t, education organizations, and DEFINITELY PTAs. Share their content and you will make allies who will share your content, too.
  • Post at least once every day or two, but no more than three times a day. Unlike Twitter, if you bombard your followers’ Facebook news feeds too much, they will stop following you or hide your content from their news feed.
  • Any person who manages a Facebook page for their business or organization should also be a user of Facebook in their personal life. Otherwise you won’t understand it from a user’s perspective.
  • Don’t use your personal Facebook account as the admin for the Facebook page. Instead, create a new account that you use solely for that purpose. Otherwise, you may accidentally post something to the Facebook page that you meant to post on your personal account. Keep them entirely separate.
  • Make sure you promote your Facebook page with all other contact info on other publications (email signature, email and print newsletters, fliers, website, event programs).
  • Learn how to use the post scheduling feature. When you have a chunk of time once a month, schedule a bunch of posts about upcoming events, info on the website, or parent tips.
  • As much as possible, post photos along with your links and text posts. These get the most interaction.
  • Be prepared for Facebook to change things around at least once a year. Don’t be discouraged, it’s just how it works.
  • You’ll get your biggest jump in followers during emergency closures, but only if people know you have a Facebook page. Make sure your emergency notification info promotes the page.

This is already a lot of information for someone entirely new to Facebook Pages. However, I always encourage people to learn by doing, not just by reading.

Are there any newbie tips you would add to the list?

Social Media

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