Craig Verley

When was the last time you really reviewed posts on each of your district’s social media accounts, going back a certain amount of time? It is a good idea to do that every now and then. You should be looking at more than just the metrics of your social accounts because even if you have great numbers, are the posts reflective of your district values and voice?

It can be easy to get caught up in chasing trends. But do those trends actually reflect your district and voice? Are they taking over more and more of your time and social media focus and redirecting it away from key messages and district values?

Are a majority of your posts starting to look and sound the same? Do they lack personality or heart? What is the main or first image when you are posting more than one image? If you are leading with an image that is a staged group picture of your administration/board, etc., you could be sending your audience a bad message that they are more important than the students pictured after them. As much as possible, your posts should lead with images that show action, engagement, emotion, etc. If those happen to show board members or administration actively engaged with students, etc., that is a bonus for you and them.

The coming weeks are going to get rather busy as we race into the holidays. This is just a friendly reminder to make sure you are not going through the motions of posting things just to get it off your plate. Our social media posts are strong reflections of our districts and our district values. They are worth our time and effort to make sure they are not just the same boring old verbiage that can be easy to fall back on. Have some fun with it as much as you can, but don’t lose sight of your district’s voice and values in the rush to get it done. Reviewing a couple of weeks or more of posts on each social media account should give you a good idea of where you stand on that. Metrics are important. But they are not everything, especially if what is being posted does not reflect what you want about your district.