Social media has impacted our schools in a major way. For both the good and the bad. Athletic teams from your school have a tendency to draw in even more attention online. To help navigate this sometimes rough sea, we wanted to dive in with some helpful advice. In a previous blog we took time to examine how we can provide guidance to our student athletes. Check here for that full article.
Now it is time to focus on the coaches. They have a tough job already but throw in TikTok videos, snaps and Facebook rants, and you have the opportunity for a storm to brew up. Let’s break down how we can prepare our coaches for success.
Social Media Policy
Social media is a powerful and free tool to use for your school. Of course I believe that it should be used to help promote your athletic programs, but the coaches need some guidelines. The use of social media by your coaches should be largely driven by your staff social media policy. Don’t have one? Check out these examples from Minnetonka Public Schools in Minnesota and Eudora Schools in Kansas.
The most important aspects of these policies are personal responsibility and employee-student relations. First off, let’s talk about personal responsibility. Personal social media accounts are fine, but you must assume that everything you share is going to be seen by all players, parents and the world, even with strict privacy settings in place. You don’t want to make comments that will cause controversy with other teams or sports officials.
Second is employee-student relations. If your school does not allow social media “friending” or “following” via Facebook, Twitter or other channels, then you don’t want to rely on these platforms for direct communication to your athletes. Communicating on social media about your team and the results is different than communicating with your players. If you need to connect to students and can’t use Twitter, Facebook or Snapchat, then you can use apps like Remind.
Promoting Teams
Social media use by your coaches should be encouraged. Whether they have their own accounts or share information on your school pages, they should keep their audience in mind. For sports (and all things school-related), your audience includes:
- Athletes
- Fans
- Students
- Parents
- Future athletes
- Media
- Grandparents
- Other
To really do social media well, keep these things in mind:
- Promote Twitter at games, on the scoreboard, in the program
- Make fans feel like insiders
- Post photos and videos which engage more than words
- Engage and interact
- Thank fans
- Retweet to reporters
- Assign multiple people to manage the account
It should be stressed with your coaches that they should use your customized school hashtag when tweeting out results. This makes it so much easier for your fans to get updates! I highly recommend having a common hashtag, like #CameronComets. You can get more specific by sport and add hashtags, but never lose the primary hashtag.
Dealing with Negativity
Negativity is bound to occur. You don’t want coaches to get heavily involved in a war of words on social media. Here is a helpful guide to responding online.
Conclusion
Your athletic program is an obvious extension of your school. You want the story to be told, but setting the groundwork for your coaches will help you sleep better at night!
