Let’s Get Social: Tips and Techniques for Using Social Media to Promote Your School

What was the speaker’s main message?

Leveraging social media to promote your school is a critical skill for every leader. To succeed, leaders should prioritize social media platforms their school stakeholders use most frequently, post at the best times of the day and week—hint, don’t post on the weekends—and use images and videos to enhance messages.

What was the speaker’s best quote?

“Just because you get invited to the argument doesn’t mean you need to attend. Logical questions deserve a logical response; questions aimed at arguing don’t need responses.”

What were the top ideas from the session?

1. Make it a habit: I’m going to take the next two weeks to accomplish a goal, like posting every day.
2. Don’t post on Saturdays and Sundays: There isn’t much engagement on the weekends.
3. Use opt-out over opt-in policies: Opt-out policies are easier to manage than having families opt in to approve photos of their children to be shared on social.
4. Saying it once is never enough: The rule of seven means, in advertising, that customers need to see something seven times before they buy it. It’s OK to post your events and news several times to get more engagement.
5. Check your spelling and grammar and ask yourself, “How might others perceive this post?” before every post.
6. Use good photos; keep posts short, to about 140 characters; don’t post too many pictures; include only one link; and don’t ask for likes and shares.
7. Build the Culture with Staff: Get others to send pictures and the 5 W’s—who, what, when, where, why.

What is one strategy to implement immediately?

Reporters set out to report the news, and sometimes the news isn’t the greatest representation of the good things happening in your school. It’s up to school leaders to share with them the successes your school sees on a daily basis. Build a relationship with local reporters, regularly sending them story ideas and little snippets about what’s happening at your school because they will sometimes share that news with the greater community.

What are resources you will check out?

Facebook Business Suite enables you to keep your personal Facebook page and your school Facebook page separate.

What are some relevant or surprising stats you learned?

• 2.85 billion people on Facebook, 1 billion people on Instagram, and 192 million people on X. Social media is the No. 1 way to reach people.
• According to Sprout Social, the best times to post on social media are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The worst days to post are Sundays.

Notes by Krysia Gabenski, editorial director, at NAESP.