Justin Smith, founder, Chameleon Consultancy, gives his #topfivetips to help elevate your school’s use of, and presence on, Twitter
Read the full article below or on page 16 in our May magazine
Twitter offers schools an incredibly cost-effective way of promoting events, celebrating the amazing things that go on in the classroom, providing useful information and even gathering opinions on all sorts of things that may be of interest to school leaders. Used well, twitter, like all social media platforms, can be a very useful tool in the school marketing toolbox. Here are my top five tips to help you make the most of Twitter.
Be consistent and persistent!
Tweeting once in a blue moon is unlikely to engage anyone, or build your audience, so, plan ahead; schedule what you want to promote and use a ‘social media template’ to make life easy for whoever is responsible for social media in school.
This simple template is a great aide-memoire, reminding you to keep to the character count and cover the essential aspects of a catchy article – who, what, where, when and why. You’ll have 280 characters as a limit so use them wisely! If you’d like a copy of our template you can use for your school just get in touch.
Extend your reach
You may be familiar with the terms ‘handle’ and ‘hashtag’; these are used to bring others into the conversation and ensure your posts find the people you’re looking to reach. Advertise your twitter handle (mine is @jus_chameleon, for example) and, if you’re referring to someone else in your message, make sure you quote their handle too so that they’re brought into the conversation and your coverage is increased. Hashtags (#) are used to bring associated tweets together; including a hashtag gives your Tweet context and allows people to easily follow topics that they’re interested in.
Share special moments and use video
It comes as no surprise that the tweets most likely to be shared, and liked, contain images or video. Our schools are full of memorable human-interest stories and capturing these can create a real buzz. Research from Twitter themselves suggests that tweets containing images or video attract two or three times more views than tweets that rely purely on text only – but don’t forget to obtain the necessary permissions before publishing photos and videos.
Invest time in following and responding
We all appreciate that effective communication works both ways – it’s important to listen and pay attention to others. Make the time to respond promptly to any mentions or direct messages; ignoring them, or taking time to reply, just alienates your followers and closes down a potentially really useful conversation thread. Don’t forget to share and retweet other messages from followers and to ‘like’ their content too! Like any effective network, it takes time to build up a following, so make the effort; invest some time and resources – it could make all the difference.
Another investment worth making is in training and supporting the member of staff responsible for leading on social media, or wider communications, in your school. This is a big responsibility and must be taken seriously. Twitter is just one form of communication used by your school, and it can play a part in underpinning your marketing efforts, but remember that successful marketing includes how you respond to a crisis, how you mitigate and assess risks and how you build a strong reputation that can be resilient to the inevitable crises that comes our way. The way your school responds and communicates during these times can live long in the memory of your stakeholders.
And finally….
My top four tips are there to help you make the most of this great marketing medium but, predictably, there is always a risk with school communications so my fifth tip is to not do something!
If the school social media account is receiving negative messages from a disgruntled parent, your first action must be to politely acknowledge the message and then make efforts to take the conversation offline. Resist the urge to respond in kind and never get into a ‘slagging match’!
It might sound obvious but, in the heat of the moment, things are said and done that cannot be undone; take these conversations offline and deal with them in the appropriate way. Make sure you have policies and procedures in place so there are no ambiguities with how staff should react or respond to a situation – perhaps consider a simple flowchart as an aide-memoire so that staff can see at a glance what they ought to do in a given situation.
If you need help developing a social media presence, or a wider communications strategy for your school, just get in touch.
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