Best Practices for Social Media Use in Catholic Schools

Social media use at my school has been, I imagine, a similar endeavor to what has taken place at other Catholic schools — decentralized and inconsistent, until recently. To the best of my knowledge, my school has owned and operated social media accounts for each of the major websites more or less since their inception/rise in popularity. When I arrived at my school in 2011, we had a Facebook page and used Twitter, and possibly used other tools but sparingly. Each of these accounts was handled by a different person, or persons, and there was no consistency in terms of content, postings, or narrative. Over the past five years, my school has slowly worked (not always with a defined strategy, but because of well-meaning individuals) to establish our accounts, make our online branding consistent across each of them, put in place an AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) for digital technology in the school, and just generally be better about managing our online presence. Our first Chief Advancement Officer (hired in 2015) oversaw these efforts, as did our first Communications Director (hired in 2017) as well as our two most recent Admissions Directors. Today, guided by our strategic plan, we have consistent, quality social media use, utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Constant Contact.

While my school does have a social media strategy laid out as part of our comprehensive strategic plan, specific visions and actions steps for how to achieve that plan have really only been considered starting with our current Communications Director, who was hired this past fall. She is well-versed in social media use and design, and has worked to not only to filter our social media output by gatekeeping and curating (K. Kelly, 2016), but also to study the impact of that work and analyze her strategies based on data (D. Kelly, 2016). This combination of skill, savvy, and a data-driven intellectual approach has thoroughly elevated our social media presence. As was noted in the paper Social Media Marketing in Education, “creating and managing an effective strategy for building community and engaging with customers takes some time, research, and planning—but it is well worth the effort.” Because of this switch in mindset of being reactive (posting only immediate information or haphazardly sharing content from sporting events) to proactively planning use of our accounts, along with the allocation of resources to fund positions dedicated to advancement and communications, we have been successful in what almost amounts to a rebranding of the school.

In terms of developing a social media strategy and implementing best practices, one colleagues’ link to Creating Your School’s Social Media Plan: A 10 Step Guide stuck out. As I noted on Twitter, the article highlighted the concept of proactive thinking and planning, something that doesn’t happen in schools as much as it should. Also on Twitter, I also noted the best practices of my alma mater Holy Cross. Their social media design and engagement on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is incredibly consistent, and keeps alumni such as myself greatly connected to the school (to the tune of a top 10% giving rate in the nation). Lastly, a thought from the article Successful Catholic School Marketing seemed particularly pertinent to a consideration of best practices in social media marketing. For all of the technological know-how and meticulous planning we can utilize, perhaps the most important component is the personal touch — we are working with real people and students, and our communications need to reflect that.