Guidelines for Posting Like A Role Model in Social Media

More and more district and school staff are catching on to the advice of Superintendents like, Joe Sanfelippo who encourage staff to take every opportunity to say good things about their school. 

Never give up the opportunity to say something great about our school. #spsleads pic.twitter.com/kpURivieS7

— Joe Sanfelippo (@Joe_Sanfelippo) July 25, 2017

Sanfelippo's not alone. Supt Daniel Frazier has put together a list of more than 1500 Tweeting supts. When the person in charge takes seriously the power of telling our own stories staff start to follow suit. 

However, they also need guidance. When educators share and celebrate successes, they serve as role models. It's important to provide some direction on what to keep in mind when posting to social media.
  

Guidance On Posting Like A Role Model

Some advice on how to post responsibly and in ways that garner engagement. 

Remember the Golden Rule 

• Praise and celebrate publicly, advise or criticize privately 

Help others be better

• Ask yourself this: After people read our posts, are they better than when they started to read? If so, post freely. If not reconsider. More on this at this post from Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis 

Be consistent 

• Remember to convey your brand / image 

Tag 

• Tag people (with permission) 
• Places 

Hashtag 

• Know the right hashtags 
• Limit hashtags to one or two for more engagement
• Tweets with more than two hashtags have less engagement 

Use Images 

• Posts with images draw more attention
• They are twice as likely to have engagement
• Use original images

Include Links

• Tweets with links receive a higher retweet rate 
• Let's people know where they can learn more

Post Accessibly 

• Use alt text for images 
• Use plain language 
• Use camel case for hashtags First letter of each word in caps i.e. #EdTech

Your Turn

What do you think? Can you keep this guidance in mind when posting? Is there anything you'd do differently? Anything missing?