The following article was contributed by Ryan Lombardozzi, NCEA Social Media Coordinator.
Nancy Caramancio, Abigail Greer and Sarah Yaklic presented on how organizations and schools can utilize social media to spread and proclaim their Catholic faith as tools of collaboration and how to measure the reach and engagement of their efforts.
The stories you share are amplified by social media reach creating for an ideal method of spreading the good news of Catholic education. To help increase this reach, be sure to join local, diocesan, community and global conversations with the use of hashtags.
Make a Plan – What is your mission, vision, goals and school culture?
Involve Your Community – This includes parents, teachers, students, alumni and the surrounding communities impacted by your school or organization.
Post Quality Content – Make sure to always stay on message as well as using quality images and videos with consistent messaging.
Be Creative – Find an capture great moments in the life of your school.
Take advantage of the positive nature of what social media can do, said Sarah Yaklic, Director of Digital Media for the Archdiocese of Washington.
Set Realistic Goals – Sometimes less can be more. It is more important to perform one task well than multiple average.
Empower Others – Connections lead to encounters. Identifying resources within your community is great for creating content and proclaiming the good news. Do encourage students to be active and utilize their gifts and talents to bring to life their school story.
Always Begin and End in Prayer – If we place our outreach in God’s hands, he will bless it..
Top Tips for social media engagement:
- Be a witness – be positive in all of your outreach efforts
- Always cross-promote your platforms and content
- Dedicate time in your schedule for future posts while maximizing free-time and non-screen time.
- Do utilize social tools such as Canva, Asana, Google Drive and mobile devices.
Guiding Questions for Social Media Content
- What makes your school unique?
- What special qualities are a part of your school culture?
- Which social media and web platforms might be best for connecting with your school community?
- With the larger Catholic community?
- What is your school community most interested in hearing about?
- What messaging would your school most likely endorse or share with others?
Teachers in the session responded with;
Our school creates Facebook class pages to create personal engage in the classroom and for the students.
We take advantage of YouTube videos to post school masses to share daily readings and student participation.
Highlighting the community aspect of faith-based activities and affiliation and pushing out what the neighboring schools don’t have are key messages for our school.
