The document discusses how schools and districts can use social media. It begins by asking attendees about their personal and organizational social media use. It then defines social media and lists the big three platforms as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. The document outlines reasons for schools to use social media, such as communicating with students and families and influencing their brand. It provides tips for getting started with social media, including creating guidelines and policies, planning goals and content, and promoting the accounts. It also offers examples of measuring engagement through likes, shares, and comments. Overall, the document serves as a guide for how K-12 schools can effectively utilize social media platforms.

1. CASBO 2012
Ronna Johnston
Director of Web Communications
University of Northern Colorado

2. Today’s Topics
 What is Social Media?
 Why should schools and districts use social media?
 How can social media be used?
 How do you measure results?

3. How Many of You Personally Use…
 Use Facebook?
 Use Twitter?
 Use YouTube?
 Have a LinkedIn page?

4. How Many of Your Schools or
Districts Have a…
 Facebook Page?
 Twitter Account?
 Any Other Public Tool?
 Specialty Tool?

5. What Is Your Role?

6. What Is Social Media?
 Online communities created by users, including
businesses, to share ideas, personal messages and
other content such as photo and video.

7. Oh. My.

8. Big Three
 Facebook
 YouTube
 Twitter

9. It Is Another Tool
Newsletters Email Presentations
Web Social Media

10. Repurposing Content
Web Email
Content
Newsletters Social Media

11. Why Use Social Media?
 Want to be where your users are
 If Facebook was a country, would be third most
populated
 Facebook – 900 million people worldwide
163 million in the US.
http://www.checkfacebook.com/
 Twitter – 500 million users

12. Forbes Magazine
August 23, 2012
http://www.forbes.com/sites/do
rieclark/2012/08/23/why-
public-school-leaders-must-
embrace-social-media-now

13. Branding
 Overlooked aspect
 Consistent image, tone and message
 You want to influence your school’s image
 We used to be able to control image
 Social media has drastically changed our control

14. Public Relations
 Closely related to branding
 Media may pick up tweets
 You can point back to positive media stories

15. Communications
 This is the main reason
 Quiz
A. Newsletters
B. Emails
C. Texts
D. Website
E. Social Media

16. Foundations for Success
Policy
Planning
Persistence

17. Who Is Involved?
 Yes, it’s a resource issue
 Can have multiple Facebook administrators
 Must share Twitter account logon and password
 Can a parent committee help?
 Can a student help?
 Ask for posts to be sent to the administrator
 Need a structure, can’t be an afterthought

18. Get Started
 Social Media Policy or Guidelines
 http://www.unco.edu/websupport/social/social_medi
a_guidelines.html
 http://www.facebook.com/communitystandards
 http://support.twitter.com/articles/18311-the-twitter-
rules#

19. Planning a Page
 Who is our audience?
 Parents
 Students
 Community members
 Lawmakers
 School Board members
 Prospective employees
 School employees

20. What Are Our Goals?
 Overall goal: Increasing engagement, awareness and
understanding
 Specific strategies
 Creating buzz about events
 Help people keep up with deadlines
 Announcing awards and highlights
 Fundraising
 Providing safety information
 Connecting people
 Getting feedback and ideas
 Answering questions

21. How Will We Keep Content Fresh?
 Set up a schedule for posts and tweets
 Don’t spam followers/fans
 Blue Fuego: three times per week acceptable

22. How Will We Keep Audiences Engaged?
 Conversational tone
 Call to action posts and tweets
 Questions
 Photos
 Polls
Ask them what they want

23. Specific Ideas
 Sporting events
 School closures
 New teachers
 Educational news and relevant articles
 Facilities changes
 Fundraisers
 Student highlights
 Crisis communications

24. Your Ideas
How can you contribute to
content?

25. Examples
 http://www.facebook.com/GreeleyEvansSchools
 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thompson-School-
District/146384645373800?ref=ts
 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bethke-Elementary-
School/141914602496111
 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Katy-
ISD/113148448705253

26. More Advice About Content
 Court your champions
 Don’t try to be everything and everywhere
 Pay attention to the page and account
 Don’t panic about negative comments
 Have a set of internal guidelines about negative comments

27. Specific to Twitter
 Retweet other tweets
 Watch for mentions about your school
 Search for your school using the #
 Use it in breaking news situations
 Learn the language @, RT, #,shoutout

28. Promote
 Add links to
 Website
 Newsletter
 Emails
 Ask your teachers and parents to help you by posting
to their pages
 Like other pages
 Announce it at events and meetings
 Partner with community entities like the Chamber

29. How To Measure
 Hot topic
 Not a retail site
 # likes or followers
 # retweets
 Comments
 Tone
 Facebook Insights

30. Facebook Insights UNC

31. Resources
 Listening
 http://www.socialmention.com/
 http://technorati.com/
 http://www.google.com/alerts
 Management
 http://hootsuite.com/
 https://www.postling.com/
 http://sproutsocial.com/

32. General Information
 http://mashable.com/
 http://www.seomoz.org
 http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/
 http://dagamawebstudio.com/
 http://www.getfreshpr.com/2011/04/how-school-
districts-can-use-social-media-to-build-community/
 http://www.slideshare.net/vandda/what-every-
school-districts-needs-to-know-about-social-media

33. Questions