Ding! A notification pops up on your phone from Gmail. You take a look at the app and… yes! You received an email from a teacher with great new content for your social media pages. You click on the email and see the following message:

Subject: Science Experiment
Today, March 15th, 4th graders in my class did a science experiment involving baking soda, vinegar and food coloring. We had so much fun and can’t wait to talk more about chemical reactions tomorrow. Attached you will see pictures from the experiment.
Thank you,
Mrs. Brown

The photos are even clear and really showcase the students’ faces- awesome content right?! Hold on just a second. Before you copy and paste this email directly into a Facebook post, let’s make sure that it matches the voice you’ve created for your school, and is as engaging as possible. How to go about doing that? We’ve got you covered with five things to focus on to “scrub up” any potential post.

Edit out unnecessary dates
Unless the dates are really pertinent for the information you are sharing, like an upcoming event or something that just happened and you posted ASAP, there’s no need to share dates all the time. While it’s lovely that teachers include them in emails sometimes, they aren’t going to make your post pop; if anything, they might distract from its central message. So hit the delete button and get rid of “Today, March 15th.”

Use the right voice
In a previous blog about grammar, the importance of using the right grammatical voice and subject was stressed. Other than when you are directly quoting someone, you are posting in the name of the whole district, and not just Mrs. Brown or her class. Make sure to change “we” to “they” or “my class” to “Mrs. Brown’s 4th graders.”

Add a hashtag (or more!)
One thing that is so important when polishing any post is to include your district’s “brand”: your hashtag, that is! Play around with where you place it in the post; it’s easy to stick it at the end of everything, but that isn’t so creative. Let’s say that this district’s hashtag is #FallRiverPirates. You can use this as an adjective to describe the experiment by using an apostrophe: “#FallRiverPirates’ science experiment” or swap “4th graders” for “4th grade #FallRiverPirates.” The options are endless, so think outside the box and use your school’s hashtag in lots of different ways. You can even pop in an extra one tailored to the post itself; in this case, #ChemicalReactionTime might be a good option!

Get creative with word choice
If you have never used Thesaurus.com for inspiration for your posts, it’s time to bookmark this page in your browser! If you are looking to go the extra mile in jazzing up a post, add creative adjectives and bold verbs to spice up the language. Here, “did” could become “executed” and “talk” could become “examine in further detail.”

Vary language- but be consistent!
The final step includes putting all of these pieces together into one cohesive post. Check out our blog on the Top Ten Ways to Start a Post to start out on the right foot, and then mix up sentence types and structures, and especially words for “students” “teachers” and “class” to take your post from an 8/10 to a 10/10!

So now that we have covered these five steps, it’s time for the big reveal… Here is the new, polished post!

#FallRiverPirates science enthusiasts “bubbled up” with excitement after witnessing a chemical reaction firsthand! Mrs. Brown’s fourth-grade researchers executed a riveting experiment with just a few common household items: vinegar, baking soda, and food coloring. They cannot wait for more #ChemicalReactionTime.

Voila! After ticking all five boxes, you are set with an engaging post to tell your school’s story.

A guest post from Hannah Feller, our youngest account manager! She is currently completing the BA program in English Literature and Linguistics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. She is thrilled to be able to apply the theory she works with at university to social media for schools.