Generating social media content that resonates with your school’s varied audiences requires time, energy, and inspiration. If you need extra hands to help create your school’s posts, updates, and graphics, involve those for whom the internet has been a second home: your students!
To get your communication intern program started off on the right foot, Stacy Jagodowski—the Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications at Cheshire Academy and recent School Spotlight recipient—offers a few words of wisdom.
How to Vet Your Interns
Students must apply to become Cheshire Academy communication interns. The process includes talking to students’ advisers and reviewing recommendations. The Marketing Team talks with students and discusses expectations, making appropriate online behavior personal by reminding them that what they do online can be seen by the entire community—including potential colleges.
Once vetted, the newly minted communication interns (around five to ten a year) now generate content primarily for the school’s Instagram account, Twitter page, and—within the last year—official YouTube channel. Featuring primarily student content like this offers a “genuine flavor” to Cheshire Academy’s social media outreach initiatives while keeping the school’s student-centric mission at the forefront.
Monitoring Intern Posts
Students don’t have free reign over whatever they post, however. As representatives of the school, the Marketing Team keeps a close eye on student social media creations.
When students post photos to the school’s Instagram account, for example, they’re asked to “tag” posts with hashtags and their names so that content authorship can be ascertained. Student-written blog posts are submitted as drafts for editing prior to publishing, and the Marketing Team works with student authors to hone their craft.
Stacy and the rest of her team also receive a text message any time a new tweet is published from the school’s Twitter account. This way, there are five responsible adults monitoring any content released under the Cheshire Academy name at any given time.
Dealing With Inappropriate Content
Whenever the Marketing Team realizes an inappropriate post has been released by a student, they are able to react instantly—unpublish a post, delete a photo or tweet, etc.—if the student doesn’t immediately rectify the error.
But instead of revoking the student’s privileges, Stacy says that Cheshire Academy uses these occasions for “teachable moments.” The Marketing Team explains to the student why this was inappropriate, and what should’ve been posted or written instead.
Stacy emphasized during our School Spotlight interview that instances of bad student posts have been rare over the three years that their communication intern program has been in place, and that no “major issues” have arisen.
“Give students responsibility, and they really do take it seriously and rise to the challenge,” she said. “They enjoy being school and brand ambassadors, and take pride in what they produce.”
"Giving Up Control" for Authenticity
At the end of the day, Stacy says that her communication interns don’t always produce the exact content that she, as the Marketing Director, would produce as part of a cohesive campaign. But, she insists, that’s the point of the whole student-producer program:
“Their blog and twitter accounts are designed to be student voices, not polished marketing tools. Their work is real, genuine, and at times slightly flawed. This was an exercise in giving up control, and it has paid off. The students are doing a great job, and the more they do it, the better they become.”
Additional ISM resources:
The Source for Private School News Vol. 14 No. 7 School Spotlight: Cheshire Academy Shares Social Media Secrets
The Source for Admission Directors Vol. 10 No. 1 Communicating Through Social Media
The Source for Business Managers Vol. 9 No. 7 Keeping Parents Informed on Facebook
The Source for Business Managers Vol. 13 No. 6 4 Reasons Why You Should Be On LinkedIn
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 40 No. 10 Marketing Communications and the Student
I&P Vol. 35 No. 3 The Growing Importance of Technology in Parent Communications
