Social Media: Best Practices for Schools

I recently had the opportunity to present at the California Advancement Partnership for Schools Conference held in San Diego. Our presentation, entitled “From Foe to Friend: How to Make Social Media Your Communications Sidekick”, was focused on how schools can best use social networks to reach their target audiences, including but not limited to: students, alumni, prospective families, donors, volunteers, media, faculty and teachers. Of the many aspects of social media we discussed, one aspect was best practices for schools. Below is a short list of some of the best practices discussed at the presentation.

Network: reach out directly to other users in your target market(s)

Engage: maintain communication with current community and generate new prospects. Build relationships, ask questions and offer advice.

Inform: post links and share news and activities to position your school as the thought-leader and industry resource.

Create a social media “schedule”: —Map out a schedule of planned postings to eliminate redundancy and overlap across networks, stay consistent and accountable, and communicate all key messages

Start with people you already know: Add links to social networks in staff’s email signature lines, add links and icons to Website homepage, include links and icons in your school publications, and distribute a press release about your new social media strategy

What else would you add to this list of best practices?