Thank you to everyone who attended my presentation at the Small Boarding Schools Association Conference. Feel free to download the presentation!

1. Effective Public Relations in Schools: No Longer a Luxury – A Necessity. Tracey Quinn – Venta Preparatory School. Ottawa, Canada

3. Know your stakeholders

4. Define Limits/ Delicate Balance

5. “Perception is Reality” – Marshal McLuhan

7. Define parents role within the school community.

9. Private schools as an educational institution and a business.

10. Parent confidence is vital.

12. Embrace partnerships.

18. Step 4: Evaluate the Program.MeasureableResults: “How did we do?”

20. Determine what you want to do.

21. Take information in.

22. Establish your goal. Sample Goal: Create a feeling of responsibility, making both boarding and day parents feel that their school involvement plays a vital role in their child’s success at the school as well as the success of the school.

23. PR Research PR research is a mix between qualitative and quantitative efforts. (SWOT Analysis) Find out what your stakeholders are saying. Take your own polls. Get feedback from teachers. Surveys Seek out non-users Content Analysis/Communication Audit

24. 7. Benchmark. Focus Groups. Interviews. Track parent questions. With initial research in hand the planning stage can begin.

26. Establish Communication Tactics in relation to your goal.

27. Tie your plan’s objectives to its activities.

29. Choosing Tactics What is a tactic? Tactics are the PR activities used to deliver your messages and channel feedback to you. They can be one-way or two-way communication. In this phase, create a list of tactics you will use.

31. Each tactic should have supporting details with deadlines.

33. It’s time to join the conversation.

35. For example, blogs, Facebook, Twitter.

37. Video Benefits of Video. It’s Visual. It’s Sticky. It’s Emotional It’s On-Demand It’s Versatile.

38. Use YouTube!

39. This tool helps you determine whether your videos are achieving the intended PR goal. Who is watching and for how long? Are the right people the video designed to encourage attendance to your event?

40. Gain Insight using YouTube Insight

42. Twitter

43. A few things to remember... If you are not listening, you can’t hear. Make an informed decision to respond to negative comments or not. Respond publicly.

44. Facebook

45. How do you use Facebook to achieve your PR goals? Post news/videos. Create invitations. Don’t clutter the page. Synchronize Facebook page with Twitter, school blog, YouTube, website.

46. Monitor how your stakeholders use your Facebook page.

48. Blogs Blogs are very quickly replacing traditional media as a reliable news source for many people. Capture “real-estate” Sign up with “Google Alerts” http://alerts.google.com Free and helps you monitor what is being said about your school.

49. SKYPE Communicate “face-to-face” Important for boarding parents Use Skype to gather qualitative data

50. School Calendar Categorize. Synchronize

58. RSS Feeds Really Simple Syndication Allows your stakeholders to link to news/updates from your school. A lot of RSS feed generators are free. For example, IceRocket. http://rss.icerocket.com

61. If your program is well-conceptualized this step will be easy.

63. 3 Stages to Evaluating a PR Program Preparation Evaluation Implementation Evaluation Impact Evaluation. No evaluation is complete without addressing criteria at each level.

64. Google Web Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics This is a free service that will give you rich insight into your website traffic and PR plan effectiveness. For example:

69. Social Media Measurement Matrix Although social media is often free, your time and efforts are not. The following Social Media Measurement Matrix helps facilitate side-by-side comparisons of your social media accounts as well as momentum over time.

72. The cost

73. Giving lip service

74. Forgetting the audience

76. School PR is less about transmitting information and more about listening and responding to the expectations and concerns of its’ stakeholders.

77. Public relations reflects reality.

79. On-LineResources Affect Strategies. www.affectstrategies.com Mashable – The Social Media Guide. http://mashable.com/ Dialogue On-Line: For Canada’s Independent Educators. http://www.dialogueonline.ca/ National Schools Public Relations Association. http://www.nspra.org/ Centre for Marketing Schools. http://www.marketingschools.net/ Education World. http://www.educationworld.com/