Why Twitter? A guide for school principals

My SouthernCEO colleague Simon Crook has just published a guide for school principals (and all staff for that matter) about why they should engage with Twitter.

Check it out below. And follow Simon if you aren't already: @SimonCrook

http://prezi.com/ldwxkgq-s2_9/why-twitter-a-guide-for-school-principals/

Why Twitter? A Guide for School Principals on Prezi

Chef Luke Mangan teaches Burwood students a trick or two

Hospitality students at Southern Cross Catholic Vocational College (SCCVC) seared, sautéed, and stirred their way through a one-hour master class with chef Luke Mangan.

With the help of three lucky students, Luke demonstrated a few of his favourite dishes to the aspiring chefs in SCCVC’s commercial kitchen.

“The facilities here are amazing - if only I had these resources when I was starting out,” commented Luke when he arrived at the Burwood campus. Before joking, “I’ll try not to burn it down!”

Prior to starting, Luke introduced himself to the gathered students and passed on a simple message. “Whether you want to be a chef or excel in any other profession give it 150% every time. Get into it for the passion and love of it, not for the money. Being a chef is very much glamourised at the moment, but there’s not a lot of money when you are first starting out.”

First up on the menu were seared scallops with a polenta and blue cheese sauce matched with rocket, shitake mushrooms, and a drizzle of truffle oil. Year 12 student Lorenzo Nostasi, who works as a casual staff member at Merivale’s Uccello and The Beresford restaurants, whipped up the polenta and blue cheese sauce and ensured the scallops were perfectly seared.

Classmate Paul McRae helped prepare and serve a medium-rare sirloin steak with a zucchini, basil, pine nut, and currant accompaniment. To finish on a sweet note, Desmond Scaturro helped Luke prepare a liquorice parfait for dessert.

Year 12 student Paul McRae said, “it is great Luke came to our school to show us some of his recipes. I learnt a few new skills and will remember to turn my steaks only a couple of times each.”

Jonathon Mascorella, SCCVC’s Hospitality head teacher said, “the students were really looking forward to meeting Luke and learning from him. The session was a great experience and they also got to taste some great food.”

Celebrating the 2010 NSW Quality Teaching Award recipients

Recently, local and Catholic media have given great coverage to teachers in Catholic Education Office Sydney secondary schools who were recently awarded Quality Teaching Awards.

- Click on the images below to enlarge -

Search Engines: Google, YouTube, Twitter?

At the recent Digital PR and Coporate Communication Conference I attended, I was surprised to learn that Twitter was the third largest search engine after Google and YouTube (yes forget Yahoo, YouTube comes in at number 2!).

This means a couple of things for those in the education sector:

Firstly, a good Google ranking is obviously important, as is getting to the first page. I've noticed that our schools fare quite well in this regards as a search of a school name and suburb usually brings up the school in first or second spot on Google (usually after the local Parish for Catholic schools).

More importantly, with YouTube being the second largest search engine, those out there wanting to learn more about a particular school will probably also be doing so via YouTube. If school's don't yet have video on YouTube linked back to their website they may well be missing out. Rich, fast-loading, multimedia content is king and this is no exception for the education sector. Video content that schools should be thinking about uploading include online school tours, introductions from the Principal, student eLearning projects and special events. Busy parents who can't make their child's special event would definitely appreciate the opportunity to watch their child's feats through video (of course making sure all privacy concerns are addressed).

Now for Twitter. According to Fleishman Hillard's @ScottRhodie (his Twitter handle), Australians are leaders in social media and are commentators AND creators with a high involvement in Facebook, Twitter, blogging etc. I've set-up @CEO_IW on Twitter to announce school achievements and increasingly many schools are also using it share and build social networks, however Twitter's function as a search engine creates many more opportunities for school's to analyse their 'brand'.

Searching on Twitter will bring up real time comments about a particular issue. I analyse comments on Catholic education to see what is being said and this can be done for individual schools. As an example, a member of the public may use Twitter to search for Holy Cross College Ryde. Hopefully the school's official Twitter account @hccryde will come up, but other tweets with the same content will also be seen. Hopefully such tweets are saying nice things. Regardless of a tweet being positiev or negative, it presents an opportunity for the school to directly connect with the tweeter and engage them.

Plenty to think (and search) about.

Key Learnings - Digital PR and Corporate Communication

Yesterday I attended Frocomm's Digital PR and Corporate Communication conference. It was a great day that focused on social media and how a number of organisations and PR Agencies are getting the most out of these new and emerging technologies. I was probably the odd one out at the conference, with the room filled with corporate in-house and agency PRs, however there were a couple of attendees from government and NFP organisations as well.

Key Learnings--->

I'm using this is blog entry as a summary sheet of what I picked up from the conference. I've included a few key points from each speaker. In subsequent blog entries I'll attempt to link alot of the content to possible uses in the education sector.

From Nick Baker's pres. (Executive General Manager, Tourism Australia)

70% of people trust recomendations from unkown users - 90% of poeple trust recommendations when they come from someone they know.

Tourism Australia is not just relying on big print media. They shifted from power of advocacy of one person 'Paul Hogan' to power of many eg recent "My Australia" campaign. Through this they are building atmosphere and anticipation surrouding teh 'adventure' aspect of travel to Australia.

Harnessing the power of other people's messages about your brand is key. This is also the concept behind the most recent TA campaign.

Bought/Owned/Earned: Nick introduced the concept of Bought, owned and earned media. Bought media includes things like advertising, Owned includes things such as a compnay website, while Earned Media is the most recent form of media through online social media and enables consumers to create and share their experiences.

From Kristen Boschma's pres. (Head of Online Communicaitons and Social Media, telstra) @Kristen_Boschma

Who are your industry's super-influencers?

Emerging media focuses on reaching key influencers immediately and letting the 'cascade effect' take hold until teh message is distributed. This is different to Traditional media (TV, Print) that focuses on reaching a huge number of people immediately.

Honesty and transparency were key to Telstra's HTC Desire compeition and this would also be true for any online competition you were running.

From Greg Savage's pres. (CEO Firebrand Recruitment) @Greg_Savage

You cannot isolate blogging from other media. An integrated approach w other media is required.

Subscribers are much different to other mailing lists. "Please send me stuff I love you," is what a subscriber is telling you.

Make the most of blog mailing lists - Greg nominated MailChimp and Add to Any as great plug-ins.

From Scott Rhodie's pres. (VP Digital Media, Fleishman - Hillard) @ScottRhodie

'You are the publisher, Google is the editor'

Australia's use of social media reaches 90% o population, with social media being used as a shopping tool for both utilities and entertainment.

Australians are commentators AND Creators - we have high involvment in social media.

Social media is not 'free' it requires time, a team and tech. know how.

It is important to listen to social media before taking the plunge. Target influencers, not just consumers and build a presence before you can drive a return (ROI)

Twitter is the 3rd largest search tool after Google and YouTube

From Matthew Gain's pres. (Head of Digital, Edelman) @matthewgain

Edelman likens social media 'spaces' such as twitter, facebook, YouTube to embassies. The spaces are not 'owned' in much the same way a country's embassy in another country is not 'owned' and there are rules to their use provided by the 'host country'.

online community managers either on-staff of througha partnership must be articulate, social, professional, adaptable, enthusiastic, connected and organised.

if value is being provided consistently and authentically, it doesn't matter whether your commuity manager is on staff or is workign through a partnership.

location based social media eg 4Square, must add value or will quickly become redundant/obsolete/boring

Digital PR & Corporate Communication Conference

Next Tuesday I will be attending the Digital PR and Corporate Communications Conference as part of the Sydney Bloggers' Festival 2010. I'm really looking forward to this conference as I think it will further develop my use and appreciation of social media as a public relations and communciation tool within the education sector.

I have a particularly keen interest in Twitter, setting up @CEO_IW last year, and helping two Catholic high schools in my region set-up their accounts @HCCRyde and @DLSAshfield. @CEO_RE, the Religious Education and Evangelisation department of the CEO also set-up a Twitter account, which assists their team distribute key messages.

Obviously blogging will be a key part of the Conference and I'm glad I established EduCommsMedia well before the conference so that I can use it as a case study. The Catholic Education Office Sydney is very keen on using Web 2.0 as a teaching and learning tool for teachers and students, offering the Web 2.0 course for teachers to complete, while promoting #ceoelearn and ilearning days to share best-practice web 2.0 in the classroom. However my work is obviously not primarily focused on teaching and learning in the classoom, instead trying to reach parents, prospective parents, the wider community and also teachers in our school.

The conference will feature speakers from some of Ausralia's leading PR agencies including Fleishman-Hillard, Edelman, Text 100, and Boston Digital, while Tourism Australia and Telstra will also be represented. Some of the content they will deliver will focus on the Challenges and Opportunities of Online Communications, Strategic Approaches to digital communication, and Facebook and Twitter for business.

As an aside, for those who think education isn't a business, the increasing competitiveness for enrolments in schools, and their branding and reputation demonstrates and suggests otherwise. At a very base level, education is about delivering a certain product (the student) and ensuring customers (parents) are happy. Throw in a whole lot of other government, public and private stakeholders and key publics and you have a 'business'.

I will try to tweet from the conference using #SBF2010 however more than happy to share my learnings upon my return.

Newsletters

Newsletters are, of course, one of the most important communication tools a school has with their parent community. These flyers take many forms and are considered gold by many a parent wanting to stay in touch with their school. Most school newsletters inform parents and the community about upcoming events, sports results, canteen rosters and uniform supplies. In many faith-based schools such as those of the Catholic Education Office, there will also be reference to the week's scripture and parish news.

A well-laid out newsletter is a fantastic communication tool when done right. It will usually reach current parents, unless it is found 10 weeks later at the bottom of the school bag squished up against a rotting black banana, and will most defintely reach the hands of prospective parents wanting to find out more about the daily and weekly routines of a school.

Unfortunately, newsletters, by there very nature, don't allow much space for delving deeper into some of the stories a school may wish to promote. Holy Innocents' Primary School Croydon has begun work to address this by publishing a quarterly newsletter which is still only two pages, that delves just that little bit deeper into stories, giving readers more of an insight into the school's programs, pedagogy, and teaching and learning. Queen Street News provides just that little bit more and although printed and distributed through traditional channels, schools with a limited budget may just want to think about solely publishing online and sharing the link through the regular newsletter or via social media.