Creating positive school culture starts at the top! To illustrate this story, I didn’t have to look very far to find a great example.

His smile can light up a room.

His enthusiasm is contagious.

His passion for social media can inspire even the most skeptical administrators.

Who am I talking about? The one and only Mr. Tim Schigur. Tim is the District Administrator at Milton School District. You can follow him on Twitter: @SuperinTIMdent. He even hosts “Tim Talks” on the school’s YouTube channel. Can’t you already tell what a dynamic leader he is?

Milton, located in southern Wisconsin, is rocking his school’s social media in a big way. Tim recently took the time to share their story. With enrollment around 3,400 students, Tim uses social media to stay connected with those students along with parents and the community.

When did Milton start using social media?
We began experimenting with social media in 2012 and became more consistently invested in its use in 2014. As Superintendent, I tweet, and the district had a Facebook page, however, its responsibility was shared among a few already very busy people. When we hired a communications person, we added a district Twitter, Youtube, and Instagram accounts and integrated them right into a new website design we completed in 2015.

Who handles the social media platforms?
Our Communications Supervisor, Jerry Schuetz manages all the district level social media platforms. In recent years, we’ve seen quite the uptick in the use of social media by our staff and our students. We use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Jerry’s background in law enforcement makes him a unique fit for our school district in terms of both the proactive marketing of the district and in-crisis communications management. Jerry coordinates our crisis communications plan and works with our student services director and me, as well as our building principals, to make sure that the plan is using best practices. He helps coordinate our interagency safe schools team, and the training of staff to make sure we are best prepared for responding to critical incidents. It is a collaborative effort among many positions that he coordinates, and his background as a previous Chief of Police serves our district well.

How have you encouraged your staff to use social media?
One of the things that I think works well for us is we encourage staff to share their successes with others using social media. We don’t have restrictive policies, and we model the way. While we ask staff to be professional, we provide the autonomy and the freedom to celebrate and share all the great things that students are doing in the classroom, in their co-curricular experiences and in the community. We have a great story to tell, but we must remember to tell it. Social media affords us an effective and easy way to do so.

What are some “out of the box” things you have tried to promote your social media channels?
Each year our school district has a theme designed to keep students and staff having fun while engaged in their learning throughout the year. That theme also guides our public messaging of great things being done by students and staff our use of social media. This year’s theme is talent. On social media, we hashtag #SDMTalent, and that theme often goes with the photos of students learning or celebrating an achievement. It is a great way to get our staff involved and to stay consistent in both our marketing and messaging and social media makes it easy for all.

I also have a unique “uniform” each day I come to school. I wear crazy socks – bacon and eggs, Tetris and more. Sometimes I’ll tweet out that the first student to share a photo of my socks on Twitter will earn some Milton Redhawks swag. They love finding me and snapping a photo. It’s fun, it gets them involved, and it further promotes the relationships we are building inside of our schools between staff and students.

What has been the impact for your school district?
There has been a lot of positive impact for us in being more diligent in our use of social media. Our school board president is a great advocate, as he shares or retweets a lot of what we put out there. Since 2014, we’ve seen a 514% increase in our followers on district social media platforms, as more than 5,550 people follow our Facebook (3,580), Twitter (890) and Instagram (1,144) accounts. By being on social media, we go to where our people are.

Social media literally affords us the opportunity to take people inside our classrooms, and share all the great things that are going on. Grandparents from across the country get to “like” a photo of their grandchild smiling in a classroom working on an art project. Internally, we celebrate our students and staff and their success with more photos, and in the external environment, we are sharing with all stakeholders the amazing things our students and staff are doing each and everyday. Social media is one of the most effective and efficient ways for us to share our stories with the world.

The student connection opportunities are also worth noting. I was recently in a first grade classroom and I snapped a photo. One of the little girls said, “You are going to put that picture on Instagram, right?” The sense of pride in sharing their activities with the community is huge. Many of us remember getting our photo in the newspaper as being a big deal. Social media allows us to give that feeling to so many more students.

What is your best advice for schools that are using social media?
Have fun with it. While there is no doubt it is a little extra work, students and staff can really make their day more exciting when they know that the great work they are doing is being celebrated throughout their school, the district and the community. People like being recognized and appreciated for the work they are doing, and in addition to marketing and promotion, social media also tells folks “what you are doing is important for kids, and we want to share that with others.” We get to work with kids every day and watch them learn and grow as human beings.

There is no better job in the world. Sharing the fun we have every day teaching kids can and should be celebrated with the world, and social media is the perfect place to do it.