School PR and social media ...

This past week, I had the opportunity to present "Social Media Overview for School PR Professionals" at the TSPRA San Antonio Regional meeting. We had a great turnout for the lunch and meeting which was hosted by Jorge Topete at the Southside ISD Administrative Building.

Going into the presentation I was starting to get nervous. Although I have enjoyed using blogs and networking sites on a personal basis for a while, I am certainly not an expert. Over the past few months I have started examining and implementing ways for my school district (Bandera ISD) to incorporate social media into our marketing plans. At this point in time, we are utilizing a few tools and although it is too early to really examine their success, our followers slowly grow.

Getting back to being nervous ... when I was asked to present, I was happy to do so. I had an overview presentation on social media that I did for our Leadership Academy a few weeks back and began to edit and filter it to match the audience of PR professionals. The more I thought about it, the more nervous I got. I was going to present to people representing much larger districts and with much more school pr experience than I had. I also knew that in the audience would probably be some real tech die-hards who couldn't be snowed by anything I said.

As I developed the presentation and did my research, I was happy to see that we were using a few more social media tools than many of the other districts in the San Antonio. That raised my confidence level a little bit! As the participants and I interacted during the presentation, I realized that I was able to use more social media tools than most was because of the cooperation I received from my Technology Director and of course the support of my Superintendent.

Many of the districts I presented to had brick walls built by their tech folks and some apprehension and fear by their school leaders ... and there lies the secret to using social media in public schools.

We have to tear down the brick walls and realize that this is just one more way to market, one more way to communicate. The world is changing and interaction with our "customers" is vital. It is scary to relinquish the reins of power, but the days of one-way communication is over. Our parents and community members demand a voice, and social media is a great way to do it. If we don't provide them with an opportunity to share through district maintained blogs and tumblelogs, they will take it upon themselves to share without us.

The presentation can be viewed at domitrovichDOTcom or SlideShare.