Last Friday I had a meeting with what is now known as the Social Media/Website team. This particular team consists of the technology heads, the ITRTs, the superintendent, and some other folks at the central office. Our goal is to change how Fluvanna County is perceived via social media, and how we connect with the parents and the community. Part of our job is to revamp the school website, and the other part is to build our brand via social media.

It’s no surprise that I believe in being a connected educator, so I was happy to create a short document that detailed why our district should build our brand via Twitter and Facebook, as well as how we could go about doing so. I also included links that showcased the surrounding districts and their use of social media. For me, it was pretty eye opening to see that Fluvanna County was already on the right track- social media accounts exist for all schools on both Twitter and Facebook. They aren’t as active as they could be, and there are some changes that could be made as to what is posted, but they exist and are up to date for the most part.

My ideas for implementing new changes were as follows:

Connect the Twitter and Facebook accounts for each school, as well as the district ones together so that whenever something is posted to Twitter or Facebook, it is automatically posted to the other account.

Move away from one-sided communication by answering questions that can be answered, and avoiding the ones (drama or such) that cannot be.

Multiple trained people to administrate the accounts so that more than one person can do updates.

Train all staff who are keeping the accounts current on the types of things that can be posted, and how to do so. Make sure educators know how to share more than just the announcements found on paper or via phone calls.

Learn how to use hashtags in posts to group similar topics. This includes making a cheat sheet for use.

I am lucky that my new superintendent is very much on board with the power of social media and branding. She wants me to head up my solutions, and work on getting things started. I’m very excited because my previous district was not using social media at all. I have already seen what a difference it makes being in a district that does.

This week I present to all principals why our district needs to build our brand and share our story. It is to be a brief overview, and then next week I am to go over the whole plan again at another meeting because all administration will be in attendance.