In my decade (!) of helping K12 schools tell their stories on social media, I’ve truly seen it all. I’ve witnessed the best – and worst – of what schools can do online, and I am not too proud to admit that I’ve made plenty of mistakes myself!

It’s all part of the journey; we’re all learning!

So whether you’re brand-new to managing social media at a school or if you’ve been at this for a while and just want some reassurance that you’re doing the right things, today’s blog is for you. My intention with this blog isn’t to call you out; it’s to gently remind you of best practices so you can do your very best for your school district, day in and day out!

Mistake #1: No Student or Staff Photos on Your Facebook Cover

Platforms like Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube provide a great opportunity to showcase your school using the cover image. This is NOT a place to just drop a picture of your school building (so boring!) or only use the logo. These are both crimes against your social media efforts!

Instead, take some time to create a custom graphic that highlights photos of people within your school. Canva makes this super easy, with tons of free templates!

But even when using a program like Canva, make sure you triple-check the size of the cover images. Dimension recommendations have changed over the years, so check a recent reliable source (like this one) before creating your graphics. You must also check both desktop and mobile views, once you’ve uploaded your graphic because the profile photo can cover part of your design or the design can get cut off – even when you’re using the recommended dimensions! For your Facebook cover, we recommend 2000 X 1125 pixels (or a 1.77 ratio). You’ll need to leave some “white” space at the top and bottom. 

Lastly, please make sure you update your cover regularly. At #SocialSchool4EDU, we provide full social media management to nearly 100 school districts. Every three months, we grab fresh photos to keep current with the time of year and give a chance for different programs, students, and staff to be featured. 

Mistake #2: Using Social Media as a Bulletin Board

Scan your last 10 social media posts. Do you see mostly celebration or information? 

“Celebration posts” are content like students working on a classroom project, a photo of the wrestling meet, or featuring a staff member for their dedication to your school.

“Information posts” are flyers of upcoming events, links to school board meeting minutes, and a reminder for parents to sign up for a parent-teacher conference appointment.  

I’m not saying you can never share informational-type posts, but they should make up 20% or less of the content that you share. 8/10 of your posts should be celebratory! 

I know what you’re thinking… you have a lot of information to get out to your families and community! But remember that not everyone in your target audience will see every social media post that you create, because of the social media algorithms. Using other means of direct communication is important, so check out this handy PDF guide to help decide which tools are best for each message: 

Those celebratory posts are better for engagement, anyway. Your community wants to see what is actually happening!

Mistake #3: Not Posting Daily

I strongly believe that every school in the country has at least one thing, every day that school is in session, that deserves to be shared on social media. The bare minimum should be once a day during the work week, but you can post more than that, too! Social media features are one of the easiest ways to fill in your social media content calendar. 

But I still see some schools that are not posting often enough. If you’re not telling your story, someone else is, and it is probably not the story you want to be told. Your school competes for students like never before. Thousands of dollars are at stake, so make posting on social media a priority!

Are you having trouble getting enough photos and videos to share? You’re only one person!! You need to develop a system to get your entire staff to submit content. 

My book walks you through how to create this system, step-by-step, and you can also check out the blog below for a good primer for building a system so you can celebrate your students and staff every single school day!

Mistake #4: Trying to Manage Too Many Channels

This mistake shows up in two different ways:

1. You are spreading yourself too thinly. You have a presence on just about every social media channel out there and struggle to keep up with daily posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok… the list goes on.
2. You have multiple accounts on one channel (like Facebook) while in a small school district of less than 2,500 students. 

This one should be Captain Obvious! You don’t have 25 hours in your workday. 

If you are overwhelmed with social media, you might be trying to take on too many platforms for too many of your school buildings. Some schools still only use Facebook, and that’s OK if it’s all you can handle. I’d like you to add one more (I’ll get to that later), but please… keep it simple! 

If you’re curious about how many platforms other social media managers are handling, check out my 2023 social media survey results:

Mistake #5: Disproportionately Featuring Sports

I get it; sports posts garner a lot of engagement, but your school is missing out if your channels are one-note. While it’s impossible to get a perfectly equal representation of every program and classroom you have, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try! 

Reach out to your staff and student body. Make a list of clubs, organizations, teams, and special interest groups that exist within your district. Do your best to reach out to the leaders of those groups to get stories from them!

We have seen tremendous reach for things like sewing, robotics team, reading in interesting places, and artwork. This photo of Ayden and his stained glass masterpiece reached over 1 million people!!

Mistake #6: Sharing Graphics with Lots of Text

I’m old. Well, not really that old. I’m 45, and I have used the settings on my phone to increase the text size on my screen. 

But you know what isn’t adjusted with that setting? Images! And most of your social media followers are using their phones to view their feeds. That means that if you have a lot of text on your graphics, it can be very challenging to read.

Find examples of common graphic design mistakes (and how to fix them) in this free guide:

Mistake #7: Skipping Emojis in Your Posts

Engagement is the name of the game, and using emojis can increase engagement on your social media posts by 25-57%! 

While it may not come naturally to you, start getting comfortable with sprinkling emojis into your social media captions. They add a dash of personality and fun to what you’re writing and also help your posts stand out in a crowded social media feed. 

This blog will inspire you with some fun ways to use emojis:

Mistake #8: Allowing Bots to Spam Your Comments

Ugh, isn’t this annoying!? I remember when these bots first started bombarding our school pages with scam links. It set off alarm bells to school social media managers everywhere!

The good news is that there is an EASY solution to this problem. 

The bad news is that I still see that some schools haven’t taken action to protect their followers from seeing these comments. 

All you have to do is use moderation assist in your professional dashboard on Meta. You can configure your settings to automatically hide comments with links. You can then go back and review the comments to see if the link was real or not. 

Here’s a video that shows you exactly how to take these steps:

Mistake #9: Avoiding Instagram

According to our recent survey results, 96% of schools are using Facebook, and the second most popular social media channel is Instagram, with 80% of schools having an active presence! 

Your school needs an Instagram page. No discussion! 

Instagram provides a great space to connect with students, young parents, and beyond. And with Meta Business Suite, posting to both Facebook and Instagram is very easy. There are times when you should vary your content, but there isn’t a problem if you share the same photos or stories on both platforms. And it’s easier than ever to get into Stories and Reels – just dive in, the water’s fine!!

Click here to view ALL my Instagram-related blogs, podcasts, and PDF resources.

Mistake #10: Worrying About Being Perfect

“Posted is better than perfect and unpublished.” – Ren Luebbering 

Too many stories are never shared because you lack the perfect photo or the precisely timed video edit. You are robbing hundreds or thousands of your followers from seeing what is happening at your school! 

I know that you take pride in your job and in the work you produce. I admire you for the efforts you’ve invested to craft the perfect communications strategy, and I know you are pulled in many different directions every single day. 

But don’t let analysis paralysis stymie your social media efforts. A great photo and celebratory caption will go a long way, I promise! And my team and I at #SocialSchool4EDU are here to help you every step of the way. 

Guilty of Any Mistakes?

It’s hard to be perfect – so share below what number you need to work on! And if you feel like you’re doing an outstanding job, share a link to your social pages. I’m always looking for pages to watch and learn from!