ptas and social media

PTAs and Social Media

Evelyn McCormackWestchester-East Putnam PTA

August 2012

This slideshow can be found at: www.slideshare.net/evelynmccormack

What We’ll Cover…

• The Power of Social Media• Your Tools: Facebook & Twitter

Where Are Parents Getting Their School Information?

• According to Ipsos North America’s December 2010 poll:

• 57 percent go to Facebook/Twitter

• 26 percent go to District website

Facebook

1.900 million active users; 50% log on daily2.100,000 users age 64+3.310,000 users between 45–63 4.300,000+ businesses now have FB fan pages, including hundreds of school districts5.250 million have FB on mobile devices6.Avg user is connected to 80 community pages.

How to Use Facebook

1. Use to drive traffic back to website.

2. Post photos, videos, news, announcements.

3. Cross-post with school district.Provide parents with two sources of district “news.”

4. Posts on FB should be brief and informal. Make it a conversation.

Photo credit: The Telegraph

Public Education Officials

Oklahoma State Superintendent

School Superintendents of Alabama

School Districts

Joplin, MO5,000 followers

Queensbury, NY948 followers

Teachers

Disclaimer: the page is “for tutoring and extra help. …not a social page nor a way to try and friend me on FB.”

Libertyville, IL

Group Pages or Fan Pages?

Group Pages• Can be set up by

any individual & similar to clubs in the real world

• You 'join' Groups• Admins can send

messages to up to 5,000 Group members.

• Only open Groups are searchable publicly

• Groups can’t have a personalized URL

• Fan pages of a company, person, product, non-profit, organization

• Fans 'like' pages• Admins can send

unlimited messages, called ‘Updates’ that appear on members’ Facebook walls

• Can host applications that permit you to show more content & interact with users.

• Can personalize FB web address eg: www.facebook.com/swboces

Fan/Business Pages

34 million fans

Fan Page How-To

facebook.com/pages/create.php

Dress It Up

Background, Mission Statement, etc. on your “About” page

Disclaimers and Use Policies

Facebook Insights

Number of page impressions

Mailing List App on FacebookConstant Contact

Great Facebook Resources

Facebook in Education

Fundraising on Facebook

Razoo.com

Third-Party Fundraising Opportunities

Facebook Questions & Polls

Yes Prep in Houston, Tex., asked what their mascot should be.

Facebook Guide to Best Practices in Education

Twitter

• Microblogging platform in 140 characters or less• Launched 2006• 106 million registered users; 65 million

tweets per day• 750 tweets per second• It’s all about immediacy/useful in crises• Slower growth among parents than FB

Why Use Twitter?• Drive traffic to your website/blog • Provide you with many professional contacts• Gives you information quickly about what is going on

in the PTA/Education world • Teaches you new ideas, concepts, and skills• Alerts you to hot topics (great news source)• Allows you to share causes you support, content you

want others to know about, news that people should care about.

• “Facebook-to-Twitter” allows you to connect both sites.

School Districts

Park Hill, MO

Duval County Schools, FL

PTAs/PTOs

Twerminology

Twitter Help Center can assist you with terminology like #hashtags, @symbols, and how Twitter works in general.

Great Resources

• PTA Great Idea Bank: http://www.ptagreatideabank.org/forum/topics/should-we-have-a-pta-facebook

• Facebook in Education: https://www.facebook.com/education

• Facebook Family Safety Center: https://www.facebook.com/safety

• Socialbrite: http://www.socialbrite.org/pta/• Facebook Page for Non-Profits:

https://www.facebook.com/nonprofits

Evelyn McCormack914-592-4203 ext. 3412evelyn.mccormack@gmail.comwww.schoolcommunications20.com