People often ask me why they or their school district should engage in the use of social media. Often it is asked in a manner that would verify their concerns or desire to not engage. As I have provided answers, five reasons come to mind and none of them have to do with not engaging.
1. Improve Communication
The first and most important reason to integrate social media into the educational world is to improve communication with your stakeholders. Social Media apps and resources have provided educators a plethora of options when communicating with their stakeholders. The vast majority of them are free. Our schools and school districts have many events and activities that can be communicated to the community that make Social Media communication valuable. Yes, we have websites but they require stakeholders to go to them. Social Media sends the information to the person. Thus, improving communication by having that direct connection sent to the stakeholder.
2. Real Time Information
It allows you the ability to communicate real time information within seconds. There are many reasons why we may need to provide real time information to our school community. Social Media provides this opportunity. The ability to get vital information out in a moment’s notice is a powerful reason to engage in the use of Social Media in the educational world.
3. Positive Promotion
Aside from informing the community about events and providing immediate information in times of need there is also the benefit of being able to positively promote your school or district. Educators need to keep the stakeholders informed and let our communities know of the great things happening in the schools. Unfortunately, this information is not the focus of traditional paper press and so Social Media fills this void. We need to recognize success, achievement, effort and participation by our students, teachers and schools.
4. Efficient Messaging
Using Social Media as a communication tool makes you more efficient at getting your message out. Setting a schedule and list of what can and can not be sent out (I’ll discuss developing a Social Media Policy in another post) will focus your messages and make it efficient, which leads to my final point.
5. NOT a Burden
If you focus on the above four items then using Social Media for communication in schools should not be a burden. This is the primary complaint that I hear: it will take away the precious little time available by educators to do other things. In reality, the opposite should occur. Using social media will save time, focus your message and promote your school or district. Once you get a handle on the app and establish a routine you should not see it consuming more time. Rather it should save you time.
Using Social Media in the education world is growing but many are still hesitant because they do not see the value or feel they have the time. What are your thoughts? Are there other benefits? Leave a comment and let me know.
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