The Measurability of Our Communication Tools

Social Media

For almost 800,000 people in Kansas City, Mo., last November, it was an easy decision to take the day off to attend the downtown parade celebrating the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series.

But the decision was not as easy for the superintendents of school districts across the region, who had to decide whether to cancel school for the day. In the end, almost every district called off classes, leaving superintendents to wonder whether it was the right call.

Measuring that decision was easier for the leadership of the Park Hill School District. Superintendent Jeanette Cowherd was able to use the data compiled from the school district’s social media channels to gauge the public’s reaction.

Park Hill’s Facebook post announcing the cancellation reached 68,631 people, with 2,412 likes, 673 comments and 566 shares. The tweet reached 41,585 people and engaged 2,756 people, including 367 retweets.

While it was clear from all this data that not everyone agreed with the decision to cancel, an overwhelming majority of the community felt it was the right thing to do.

What Resonates

Unlike the anecdotal feedback coming from e-mail responses and telephone calls, the input from our social media channels was much more measurable. This is one of the benefits of social media as a tool for school districts’ communication. We can see what people like, what they click on, what they respond to and what messages resonate for them.

In Park Hill, a district with 11,100 students, using Facebook insights, Twitter analytics, survey data and focus group feedback, we not only tracked responses to one day’s decision to call a “Royal blue snow day,” we developed an overall picture of what our key audiences want to hear from us. Three categories stood out.

• Things that affect their lives.

If it answers the question, “What does this have to do with me?” it is great content. This is why the school board approving the school year calendar is such big news. It is also why people care more about photos and videos from their own schools. In my district, we make sure to cover every school each month.

This is why our posts about canceling school for the Royals’ World Series parade and celebration blew up so much. Like a snow day, this affects everyone.

• Success stories.

When the school district succeeds, it validates for people that they live and work in a successful school community. District awards, teacher awards and student awards all get great engagement and not just from the people who know the award winners.

For example, our Facebook photo album of our district’s annual awards banquet reached 25,065 people, with 2,374 total interactions with our content.

• Visual storytelling.

Thanks in part to people’s love for strong imagery and in part to social media algorithms that push photos and videos, visual elements have the most impact. To fully take advantage of this, we tag people in the photos and we make sure to use the native video players. On Facebook, using the platform’s auto-playing videos get lots more eyeballs on our content than links to videos somewhere else.

Content Gains

These lessons from our social media data not only help us improve the value of our social content, they help us improve across all our communication channels.

In our print and electronic newsletters, our websites and our cable TV broadcasts, we increased engagement by applying these concepts. If you read our print newsletter, you will notice a focus on content that affects everyone, that highlights our success stories and that tells the story through photographs.

This is why, in Park Hill, the value of social media’s measurability extends well beyond Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.