There is a great post I read recently titled “3 Reasons Why the School Principal Needs to Tweet.” Honestly, it could say “teacher” in the place of “principal” because the list just makes good sense. Below is the short synopsis of the post, but be sure to click on the link above to read the entire thing. Keep in mind that you can embed your Twitter feed into the sidebar of your blog for parents and students to follow.

1. Students Need Social-Media Role Models.

…. students need a role model that shows them how social media is an incredibly powerful tool. It’s a media channel — for free. It’s the ability to get your message out there. It’s the ability to be the change you want to see in the world, regardless of how much bank you have (yes, I said that).

2. What About the Budget? No Cost Necessary

Forget the budget. Launching a Twitter and Pinterest handle, along with a Facebook page, costs zilch — nada — nothing.

3. What can you do with a Tweet, Pin, and Like?

Here’s the formula:

Step 1: Assign a school leader to write a blog post each week that tells the story of something amazing happening in the school (a.k.a. the good news). This could be a student who ran 95 yards for the touchdown or the school club that put together its first community walk to raise awareness for Lyme disease.

Step 2: Create a Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook page. Include a link to the school’s main blog to direct readers to it. Below are the benefits of each social media platform.

Twitter: Craft 3-5 daily tweets that stay on the positive. You can get really serious and include interesting facts to feed the students’ minds (i.e. Einstein quotes or “on this day…”) Or, you can crack a joke here and there and be human. Or, you can ask students and parents to wear a white ribbon to honor “insert event here”.

Facebook: Use this like a blog if you don’t run a blog on the school’s server (though you should), but disable comments. You don’t need any trolls pretending you’re not awesome. Post pictures of the school leaders and teachers smiling. Students smiling.

Step 3: Keep it up. It takes time to develop the benefits from having an online presence. However, through time, the community and your students will start seeing how to use social media wisely and will have more reason to believe in the school system.

As always, let me know if you’d like my help getting things setup. I’d be more than happy to work with you on it.