PTAs and Social Media

PTAs and Social Media

Evelyn McCormackWestchester-East Putnam PTA

August 2013

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

What We’ll Cover…

• The Power of Social Media• Your Tools: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

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

1.1.15 billion active users; 50% log on daily2.901 million monthly active users3.3.2 billion likes/comments per day4.50 million FB fan/business pages, including thousands of school districts5.300 million photos uploaded each day6.125 billion friendships

Why 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 multiple sources of district “news.”

4. It’s a two-way conversation.

Photo credit: The Telegraph

School Districts

Joplin, MO5,000 followers

White Plains, NY2,100 followers

Dobbs Ferry Schools401 likes

PTO Today15,000+ likes

Use Your Photos Page!

Use Your Events Page!

Sign-up for enewsletters from your PTA is strictly voluntary, but can eventually cut down on the costs of paper newsletters.

Benchmark Emails

Miami-DadePTA 305 WorkshopFor PTA Leaders. Posted on Facebook and Marketed via email using Constant Contact.

Mailing List App on FacebookConstant Contact

Use multimedia (photos and video) as much as possible. It works.

Create photo albums for your PTA based on events.

Library of photo albums – California State PTA Page

Library of California State PTA Videos

What to Post on Your Facebook Page:1. Help out the District by publicizing meetings, pulling news from district website.

2. Provide advice and assistance from third-party sources. Make sure they’re trusted, reliable sources.

3. “Curate” information of interest to parents.

Crisis communications. What happens if the power goes out again?

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 (a major negative)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ohspta/271400966311385

• 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

Great Facebook Resources

Facebook in Education

Fundraising on Facebook

Razoo.com

Third-Party Fundraising Opportunities

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 • Provides you with contacts, who will often Retweet your

news• 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.

• More than 25 million people in the U.S. use Pinterest

• 28.1% of Pinterest users have an annual household income of at least $100,000

• The third most popular social network in the U.S. in terms of traffic

• 68% of Pinterest users are women• 50% of Pinterest users have children• 1.36 million visitors a day

It’s Fun and Useful!

This is Huntington Seacliff Elementary School’s Pinterest page.

This is part of Huntington’s PTA “bulletin board

This is a “pin” on Orange County Council PTA’s Pinterest page. You can “repin” items to your page, “follow” other bulletin boards, choose certain pins as favorites, or “pin” from anywhere on the web.

Once you’ve created a Pinterest account, you will be prompted to drag the “Pin It” button into your browser toolbar. You simply click on “Pin It” whenever you see something on the web that you would like on your page. Every visual item on Pinterest links to the website from where it originated.

Mobile Apps

• By 2015, 85% of all adults in the U.S. will have a smartphone.

• Mobile apps use “push technology” to push out only the news you want.

• Remember Hurricane Sandy? When the power was out but your mobile phone was working?

• Three companies Districts are looking at in this region right now: ParentLink, School Messenger, K12-Alerts.

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• Step by Step directions for setting up FB pages:

http://nextcommunications.blogspot.com/2010/08/facebook-for-school-districts-set-up.html

• Socialbrite’s social media glossary: http://www.socialbrite.org/sharing-center/glossary/

• National School Public Relations Association blog on social media: http://socialschoolpr.wordpress.com/

Evelyn McCormack914-592-4203 ext. [email protected]