PR Palooza!

In my new role as a high school AP at DC Everest Senior High School, I am tasked with developing and maintaining our presence and brand via various social media channels. This morning, I sent the email below to all staff at the high school. Rather than wait for our beginning-of-the-year staff meetings, I decided to get out the word early. I’m also hoping some of the folks in the building want to help me spread the word about the awesome that takes place every day in our building. Below is the email I sent out to staff.

Hey everyone!

Hopefully you all have received my intro letter and are starting to get to know me.

One of my roles as the new AP is to maintain our Social Media (SM) presence. To that end, we have added an Instagram and Twitter account to our arsenal of SM channels, and students and parents are beginning to find us there. In my time at Clintonville Middle School, we took a toxic, negative culture and turned it around – and in the beginning it was all about telling the positive stories going on in our building. We do not have that culture here at DCESRH, so we get to simply share the awesome you all create for kids every day. Honestly, we just need to share the work you do every day to keep the positives rolling.

As such, please make sure to contact me about activities, etc. that you want to publish to our SM channels. I do not want to create extra work for you, so if you contact me ahead of time, I can come into your classrooms to take photos or video. Heck, we could even ask the Help Desk to take some video and help you edit it down for posting.

If you haven’t yet had a chance, check out our three SM channels:

• https://www.facebook.com/DC-Everest-Senior-High-School-1533150163603717/ (Like our page, please – it helps drive traffic and can expand our reach)- Kids will tell you that parentus lameus hang out on Facebook, along with the curious but wary grandparentus oldus. Don’t let them fool you, though. The kids are coming there, too. Since we dropped the Football preview video on July 28, we have added 60 page “Likes” and drawn a wider audience. I believe we will eclipse the 600 “Like” mark before school even starts. I’d love to feature your club, sport, or activity so those parents and grandparents can see through the school walls. Please, let us help you to tell your story.
• https://www.instagram.com/dceseniorhigh/ – This is where the cool kids hang out (The really cool kids hand out on Snapchat, but we can get there later). Instagram has some great tools, and we are using a service to let us get really granular. Some pics and videos are kid-oriented and belong on Instagram. Some should go to only Facebook. Others should go to all of our channels, and we can do that. The ability to use filters to create stunning effects makes Instagram a popular choice for kids (Plus, the Kardashians live on Instagram – negative for society but a plus for us in attracting kids).
• https://twitter.com/DCESeniorHigh – We will have to see how Twitter goes. The district has had lukewarm success thus far, but we have to give folks a reason to come to Twitter – “If you build it, they will come” – or they won’t come. A number of you already hang out on Twitter, and that is AWESOME. I am there, too: @jeffreyasee We can utilize Twitter in a variety of ways, and I will probably start next week by hashtagging the TLL training next week and calling on some of you to share your learning via a Tweet. I’ll even do the Tweeting and video a few responses to hear what you learn next week and share that learning. I can even point you to some folks you might want to follow on Twitter who make great peeps from whom to learn.

I realize that is a lot of info in one email. If you have suggestions about how we might leverage these channels, I am all ears. I want our school team to tear down the figurative school walls and build even more parent and community support for the excellent work you all do. If you want to learn how to set up your own Twitter account or try something in your classroom, please come see me.

Kids will be here before we know it! Enjoy these last few weeks of summer and I cannot wait to meet all of you in person.