For a while now we’ve had our district website and some school websites attached to Facebook and Twitter. Any post to the website automatically goes out to Facebook and Twitter. We also have a separate SMS system that was built years ago that we use to communicate emergent issues in the district when needed but it needs some work.
Our website is well used but it is certainly not the first place people go in their day on their mobile device. Quite often it is Facebook or Twitter or some tool that draws in feeds from those like Flipboard.
Using plugins with our website we make a single post which then gets sent to Facebook and Twitter automatically. Very simple when it is in place. The image above shows that the post had a reach of over 3000 people in a very short period of time (bus cancellations). We’ve found our posts that are related to safety of kids (school speed zone notices) or closures/cancellations are Shared very quickly through Facebook. The website is homebase and the plugins and social media are amplifiers for the messages on the website.
We also have a group of people that Retweet our @sd60 Tweets and include local and regional media. That’s been fairly effective but we need to have a look as it doesn’t always get seen by the person at the mic at the time they or we need it to. We’ll look more at our process on that.
Communication often comes up as an area of complaint. “How come I didn’t know?” is often a question that comes up when there is a serious issue. Good Procedures or Communication Policies definitely will help with that, but tools that link your website to social media can get an important message out to many people very quickly.
Most importantly, you still need to post to your website to get the action going!