Advice for Catholic Schools on Twitter

#sigh - I think it’s completely AWESOME that some Catholic schools are using Twitter to show what is happening in their Catholic school, but it has become quite boring for me to scroll through my Twitter feed to see really boring tweets. I am here to help! I know somewhat how to do this and have your Catholic school tell its story that is faithful to the mission and vision of the school. And it probably won’t get you fired, but no guarantees on that. 

1. Please do not take action shots and tweet what is happening!  For example, 2nd graders learning about fractions. YES, they are learning about fractions, but: a) they look miserable and/or blurry in the pictures, b) there is no connection to the school’s mission, and c) action shots are difficult to make look good if taken on a phone with little to no photography training, classes, etc. To make this a better tweet, take 2-3 staged pictures of students with their fraction things, but give them the phone and help them take a selfie or two. Or be in the selfie with them! Listen, kindergarteners are even experts on taking selfies. Tie what they are doing back to your school’s mission statement. Then tweet it out like, “Becoming lifelong fraction learners wasn’t easy for these 2nd graders, but with the virtue of perseverance, they were made #equivalent today! #SchoolHashtag #FractionAction #FractionSelfies” This works if the mission of the school is to instill the love for lifelong learning and virtues. 

2. Please use a school hashtag! And don’t make it one that is already being used by another Catholic school with the same name as yours. Have a contest to find one. Get everyone onboard using your school hashtag everywhere. This will become your branding. And capitalization matters! Be consistent with it, otherwise you look inconsistent and unprofessional. Good Catholic school hashtags I have seen include: #StPatProud, #bethegreatergator, #stjoelockport, #qasproud, and #WeAreVizLS. 

3. Please use hashtags well! In addition to your school hashtag, you should also include other CLEVER not-too-long hashtags. If it can be its own sentence, don’t put it in a hashtag! And don’t make your hashtags obvious. If it is already in the tweet, don’t hashtag it. For example, if you are tweeting pictures of kids completing a project, you shouldn’t tweet: #ourkidsareawesome because a) it can be its own sentence, b ) it isn’t clever, and c) if you tweet that for that one tweet, you’re going to have to tweet it for every single tweet because ALL of the kids are awesome. #justsaying

4. Tweet AT LEAST once a day! Anything less makes your Catholic school irrelevant in the eyes of other Catholic schools (and me, really). This can be really easy to do IF you have multiple teachers in your building tweeting about the awesome things happening in their classrooms each week, and as the person in charge of the Catholic school’s Twitter account, there is the magic of the #retweet that can happen, which helps to more accurately tell your Catholic school’s story on the Twitter. 

There is SO MUCH more to say. I think it’s time to write a book. #bucketlist