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