It’s that time of year. We are all headed back to school soon. While the excitement is high, it is time to fully engage your students, teachers, parents, and community with your social media channels.

To make the execution of these strategies a bit easier, I suggest you reach out to some high school organizations for help. Students in the National Honor Society or other service-oriented groups need community hours anyway. What a fun way to get involved!

Most of these ideas are designed for registration or open house type of events. A time when parents and students are visiting the school together. If you don’t have this type of night at your school (or it has already happened), then shoot for the first day of school!

1. Sidewalk Chalk – Mark up that pavement with your school hashtag. Create fun works of art inviting people to your social media channels. Add in your school colors. Go crazy and people will notice!
2. Window Markers – Who says the only time for window paint is homecoming week? You can tastefully welcome people to your school by decorating your entry doors with your Twitter handle and hashtag.
3. Social Media Welcome Table – Don’t just promote the pages, have students help parents and students ensure they are following the school channels on their devices. Asking for parents to follow your school is one thing, but helping them install the apps or find the right page takes it to a whole new level! Taking action now will eliminate the need to add more items to their “to do” list.
4. School SWAG – Bracelets, t-shirts, bumper stickers, pens, notepads—make sure it all has your school hashtag! You can give away some of it, but don’t be afraid to put it up for sale as well.



5. Assembly Announcement – If you have larger assemblies to welcome and review information with students and parents, always mention your social media channels. Invite them to get out their phones right away and start following. It may help to include something like, “You’ll find great photos of tonight’s event on our Facebook page, so make sure you are following us.” When they know they can immediately expect to see content, and potentially photos of themselves, they will tune in.
6. Coloring Contest – Students of all ages could stop by a set of tables with markers and crayons to complete a coloring sheet promoting your school hashtag. They could explain why they love your school or share their biggest goal for the school year. Keep all of the submissions and hang them on the wall. Then you can take photos of each picture and share the images throughout the rest of the year.
7. Yard Signs – Show off the support for the school by selling yard signs. You could sell them for $10. This could turn into photo contests later. Check out this amazing photo from Howard-Suamico School District in Wisconsin!



8. Raffle Drawing – Simple giveaways can be used by doing a free raffle. Put up a table near the main entrance. Announce that the winners will be shared on your social media channels later that night or the next day. You can bet parents and students will be tuning in!
9. Photo Booth – If you have a large backdrop with your school hashtag on it, use it to create a photo booth! You can add fun props and get a student volunteer to help run the station. Let everyone know the photos will be shared on the school’s social media channels.



10. Geofilter Design for Snapchat – Maybe your school isn’t using Snapchat yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create a custom geofilter for your school district. You need to design, submit and then wait up to a few weeks for approval from the popular teen app. You may not have enough time for the first day of school, but that shouldn’t stop you!
11. First Day Campaign – Promote a specialized hashtag for your first day of school. I’ll be explaining it in more detail with my blog next week, but the idea is to get everyone tweeting photos of their first day of school. This will help capture the excitement that you can then share on your school’s social media channels. Your assignment now is to find a unique hashtag, like #214FirstDay (for District 214), and then get the word out!

Don’t feel like you have to use every one of these suggestions. Pick one or two and focus on getting those right. Once you’ve tried them, share your successes!