SchoolAdmin

I recently wrote about how use technology to make a personal connection with today’s parents in my post, “The 3 Keys to Staying Connected with Younger Parents.”  Aside from having a well-defined and consistent “personal” communication plan for parents, you must also use technology to include them – and even better – entice them to collaborate in your online community. Yup, I’m talking social media here and I know that with Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, Twitter, Blogger, MySpace and more, it can get pretty overwhelming.

In chatting with the communication folks at some Independent Schools across the country, I’ve learned a few best practices:

1. Pick three social media outlets – you don’t have to use them all – and create a “mash-up” page on your website.

2. Use them efficiently. You don’t have to recreate the wheel for each social media outlet. Instead use RSS feeds, so whenever you post news on your website, it will automatically be pushed to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. This is an easy way to get your news out there to a pretty broad audience, especially since newspapers no longer cover private schools.

3. Use them effectively. Saint Andrew’s School in Florida told me that they post local job opportunities on their Linkedin group as a resource for their alumni. They know the chances of their Alumni logging into the Alum portal on their website is slim to none, so they’re reaching them in other places with information that is uniquely useful.

I’m curious, how are you using Social Media at your school?

Posted by: Elyn Roberts

Tags: admissions, admissions tips, facebook, socialmedia, twitter

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 1st, 2011 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Tips & Strategies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.