Key Elements of a story:
- Connect with people beyond those immediately involved
- Something out the ordinary (of course, defining “ordinary” is a bit of a moving target).
- Recent
For a district, look to make stories in the following areas:
- Localize a current trend, event, or holiday
- Tradition and history
- Photo Opportunities
- Meeting state mandates or district goals
- Noteworthy speaker visits
Aside: New Albany is finding short video clips to be more successful with their community. For example, when on the ballet, having your superintendent in the middle of a packed cafeteria explaining that they’re 700 students over capacity.
Traditional Media (Print and Broadcast)
- Uniformed style is helpful.
- If you have something unique to tell, push it in traditional media outlets.
Social Media
- Define your channel’s purpose. Not sure exactly what this means (and deserves future thought). If your social media channels (Twitter & Facebook for example) push out the same thing, get rid of one of your channels(?).
- Listen, engage, and then post
- Facebook – community really likes the pictures. Adding quotes on the images.
- Student Worker is key to this. They need to be identified.
- Need to change policies – opt out for AUP and Photo “Do not photo” lists.
