A growing role for communications teams in schools is dealing with issues on social media.
Often, it is a student who has been sent inappropriate images which leads to all sorts of issues – helping the student, getting rid of the images, dealing with the faceless wonders of Snapchat and Facebook, ensuring the school’s reputation is not damaged and, in some cases, involving the authorities.
It’s not an everyday occurrence but it’s growing and trying to stay one step ahead of the trends is a real challenge.
In one case a group of students set up a Snapchat group chat which had the name of the school. Not easy for the school to monitor … all was fine until an infiltrator decided to share images which were simply inappropriate.
Thankfully in this case, maybe due to the work we had done in giving advice on what is right and what is not, it was students who reported the problem.
One of our principal roles is maintaining the school’s reputation. Often the problems are not of the school’s making and largely out of their control but by the time it comes to light, it’s too late.
Perception counts for a lot and a simple association of something bad (dodgy photos) with something good (a school) can be damaging.
That said, social media is all around us.
As a communications tool, it is rapidly becoming the main way of reaching those ‘hard-to-access’ parents.
We have set up private parents’ groups on Facebook which are very successful, as a means of sharing non-public information.
And Facebook pages are gradually becoming more common, albeit slowly.
We were happy to set up a Facebook page for the brilliant St Teresa’s Primary in Bristol. They had been toying with the idea for some time but had concerns people would make adverse comments.
In fact, in our experience, while people will criticise schools on social media, they usually shelter themselves away from the official page and rant on other forums.
The beauty of a Facebook page is the immediacy, the ability to post lots of pictures and the benefits of positive interaction. And, the school actually has a lot of control.
We were able to help St Teresa’s and also show them extra benefits which they will introduce down the line to really grow parental engagement.
If you want help with social media, get in touch at info@localvoicemedia.co.uk
Have a look at St Teresa’s page…https://www.facebook.com/stteresasprimary/
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