Using Social Media to Build Community Support for School Initiatives

Is Your School District Social Media Savvy?

Social Media Today

Internet = information hub where people increasingly spend their time learning, socializing, and entertaining

Stats

684 million visitors to Wikipedia last year

100 million videos viewed on YouTube per day

175 million Facebook users; fastest growing demographic is 30 years and older

11% of online Americans; median age of Twitter user is 31

Social Media Today

Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008

50% of Internet users in U.S. read blogs

12% of Internet users in U.S. have a blog

900,000 blog posts/24 hours

It’s Safe to Say…

School stakeholders are already communicating online through various Web 2.0 tools

Your district and its faculty and staff are being mentioned in online conversations

Why Should Your District Pay Attention to Social Media?

Changing media landscape

Print publications are disappearing and news staff shrinking

Movement to online publications; increased e-mail newsletters and RSS feeds

95% of top U.S. newspapers have reporter blogs

Economic Downturn

Need community support now more than ever as budgets shrink

Why Should Your District Pay Attention to Social Media?

Engage your audiences where they live, work, play

Businesses, government official and political leaders, 30 yrs.+ affluent adults using social media

Credibility and trust

Social media allows for more authentic, two-way communications; opportunity to be open and transparent

Building Community Support

Establish communications/PR goals for your district and initiative

Define target audiences, determine the communication channels to reach each audience and with which messages/news

Devise plan that includes tactics/activities to accomplish goals, timeline, and measures of success

Social media strategy and tools should be a part of the overall communications mix

Social Media Plan in Action

Listen and learn

Participate

Engage

Step 1: Listen and Learn

Listen to online conversations to learn about your audiences

Monitor what is being said about your district and staff to:

Learn about the community’s view of the district, its leaders and more to reinforce positive messages and correct misperceptions

Inform decisions about policies and programs

Monitor Online Conversations

Search for important district terms

District name

Key personnel such as superintendent and principals

Initiative name

Hot topics or trends

Tools You Can Use to Monitor

Google Alerts www.google.com/alerts

Technorati www.technorati.com

Filtrbox www.filtrbox.com

Bloglines

Blinkx www.blinkx.com

Twitter Search www.search.twitter.com

Measure Online Conversations

Quantify conversations; record

Number of mentions

Positive, neutral, negative tone

Type of medium (blog, microblog, online news site)

Audience reach (e.g., no. of blog visitors/subscribers)

Track results over time

Analyze

Step 2: Participate

Read others’ blogs and post thoughtful, respectful comments

Share district photos, videos, and events on sites such as TeacherTube, YouTube, Flickr, and Zevents

Join online social networks such as Classroom 2.0, PBS Teachers Connect (client)

Provide a dynamic online newsroom with multimedia

Multimedia News Release

Online newsrooms are increasingly used by the media as well as the public

Incorporate keywords in news announcements to boost search engine visibility ( Google Keyword Tool )

News releases should contain more than just text

Audio

Video

Links to supporting info such as documents, presentations, research, and reports

Downloadable photos and graphics

Sample: http://www.cblohm.com/news/PBSTCH/PBST_090122/

Step 3: Engage

Establish ways to lead online discussions about your district and initiative and key education topics

Involve community members, parents and others by asking for their feedback, advice and ideas

Examples

Build an online social network (e.g., Ning, EdWeb) or create an organizational profile on popular services like Facebook

Share news and updates on Twitter

Carefully plan and start a district blog

Author(s)

Frequency

Topic(s) covered

Intended audience(s)

Rules of Engagement

Conduct yourself online as you would in real-life social situations with your peers, employer, etc.

Once you post something, it lives online forever - even if you delete it

Online conversations should have “human,” authentic voice; avoid sounding like a robot

Post regularly and respond in a timely manner

Moderate - take down inappropriate comments on blog, network, etc. and guide discussion to stay on-topic

Tools You Can Use to Create Content and Engage Audiences

Blogs

www.Wordpress.com

www.Blogger.com

www.Typepad.com

Microblogs

www.twitter.com

www.plurk.com

Online social networks

www.ning.com

www.edweb.net

www.facebook.com

www.myspace.com

Tools You Can Use Cont’d

Video Sharing/Streaming Sites

www.youtube.com

www.teachertube.com

www.schooltube.com

www.ustream.com

Social bookmarking sites

www.delicious.com

www.digg.com

www.diigo.com

Events

www.eventful.com

www.zevents.com

Tools You Can Use Cont’d

Wikis and online collaboration tools

www.wikispaces.com

www.pbwiki.com

http://docs.google.com

Virtual Worlds

www.secondlife.com

Districts Using Social Media

Podcasts/Videocasts - Williamson County Schools, Nashville, Tenn. http://www.wcs.edu/podcasting/

Twitter - Broward County Public Schools, Broward County, Fla. http://twitter.com/browardschools

Started March 2 and already has 223 followers

Plainfield Public Schools blog

Weld County District 6, Greeley, Colo .

Special panel brings together all stakeholders to address ways to improve schools

Online videos on TeacherTube

Special Web page and blog devoted to initiative

Saline Area Schools

Several blogs

District Ning (148 members so far)

Monthly poll on Web site (e.g., How do you feel about the amount homework your child has weekly?)

Dynamic Web site with audio and video; regular updates; options to e-mail, print news

Social Media Wheel

Be Social Media Savvy

Learn and understand the uses of social media tools

Find out what tools your audiences use and what are they communicating online

Develop a social media strategy that aligns with district goals

Get started!

For More Information

C. Blohm & Associates www.cblohm.com

Charlene Blohm, President

Phone: 608-839-9800

E-mail: [email_address]

Twitter: @CharleneBlohm

LinkedIn: cblohm

Using Social Media to Build Community Support for School Initiatives

5 comments

Notes on slide 1

7 Favorites & 2 Groups