#CreatingCommunity with Social Media and Communication Tools

Heather Zoll Eppley- Academy Coach,

Academies of Bryan Station High School

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Allison Marcum- Administrative Assistant to the Principals, Academies of Bryan Station High School

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Our Story...

#DefendingStation

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#Teamwork

• Assemble a team and train them
• QTIP attitude, common goal, and knowing team member strengths
• Have a clear communication channel and point person
• The community needs a message to share!

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#Goals

1. Tell your story through impactful photos, posts, videos, and GIFs
2. Build connections with students, families, educators and the community as a whole.
3. Boost engagement, grow followers and drive traffic to both school and district websites.

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Branding and Messaging

• Common message
• Visuals (logos, colors, etc.)
• Messaging resources
• Train everyone!

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Facebook

• Activity/Engagement can go on for hours, sometimes days
• Ongoing conversation
• More about making connections with friends, family members, and others that are important.
• Optimal post time- Noon, early afternoon
• Audiences- parents, community, business members

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Instagram

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• Longer engagement than Twitter, shorter than FB
• Centered around creativity/images
• About visual connections/relationships. Allows people to feel connected through sharing stories and hashtags.
• Optimal post time- 11:00 am-4:00 pm (Thursdays are best day to post to Instagram)
• Audiences- students, some community, parents

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Twitter

• 92% of activity/engagement with Tweets happens within first hour of post
• Centered around real-time conversation
• Less about social relationships, more detached connection. Allows people to follow info important to them.
• Optimal post time- 5:00 pm, early evening
• Audiences- community, business, district/state, parents

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Content Types

• Copywriting
• Photography
• Graphic Design
• Live Posting/Videos
• GIFs
• Videos
• 360 Videos
• Sharing related stories, retweeting
• Cinema-graphs
• Facebook Events
• Use a variety of topics and perspectives; look for relevant issues!
• Don’t be afraid to try new things!

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Posting Timing and Frequency

• Posting rule of thumb- try not to post really early or really late
• Schedule Posting (Hootsuite for Twitter)
• Frequency
• FB- 5 times per week
• Twitter- Unlimited!
• Instagram- 5 times per week

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Tagging and #Hashtagging

• Tag individuals mentioned in post
• Tag businesses/companies- great way to thank and promote them!
• When appropriate, tag Academies of Lexington and FCPS
• Always use #Defendingstation and #Academiesoflex
• Use Academy hashtag when appropriate (#WeAreIT, #ThatMedLife, #ALPS, #teamEMR, #thebeststarthere, #StARTS)
• Use the @ symbol to begin a tag for individual or pages
• Connect to popular hashtags and trends to expand your audience

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Building community and followers

• Interaction with other pages/people
• Like and like some more :)
• Build community through sharing pages of �our partners and other school accounts
• Sharing and Retweeting
• Share and retweet on your personal pages
• Challenge others to do so as well!

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Words matter

• Lean on the messaging matrix
• Grammar matters! Have someone proofread your posts.
• Voice
• Be genuine, professional, and inspirational

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Tips for taking great social media photos

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1. Don’t zoom
2. Pay attention to frame and focus
3. Try camera apps for more control
4. Use natural light
5. Use online editing tools
6. Use a creative but simple background
7. Try adding props
8. Take a variety of shots to choose �from- you can never have enough!
9. Don’t be afraid to stage photos of something that has happened.

Other visual tips:

• Always try to connect a post to a visual of some sort (photo, video, GIF, etc.)
• Don’t forget to use emojis! 😆💚💛✏️👋🏼

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Lessons learned

• Don’t double post.
• Please be sure you know if you are posting from the school account or personal account on each platform.
• No knee jerk reaction posts or answers to questions.
• This is not a political platform.
• Be sure your messaging supports district messaging.
• Reputation Management
• Point person who is the first to respond to negative comments or direct messages. But please assign others on team to help monitor!
• Best practices for responding
• Respond to all questions
• Stay positive and reassuring
• Use private messaging for any further discussion

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Content Calendar- info page

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Content calendar- monthly pages

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#Planning

• Fill in Holidays, special events, activities, etc. for the whole year
• Be sure to spread the love among groups!
• Be flexible- great content comes up all the time!
• Be sure people know who to send pictures or ideas for posts!
• Event Creation-
• Creating event on FB is a great way to increase attendance
• Interest Campaign- people can click “I’m interested” and FB will remind them
• Buy Tickets- people can click “buy tickets” and go straight to the page that sells tickets

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Communication (Outside of social media)

• Infinite Campus Messenger
• Robocalls
• Website
• Remind

Always consider non-English speaking households. Use district and school resources to communicate in other languages.

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Questions?

Contact us at:

Heather Zoll Eppley-- heather.eppley@fayette.kyschools.us

Allison Marcum-- allison.marcum@fayette.kyschools.us

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