The Undisputed Power of PR

Whether we like it or not, the power of PR is a huge one for schools. I have been contemplating a move of ad dollars over to PR for several years now (this even with me being an ad girl!) and it is clear to me it's time to pull the trigger.

Social media combined with strategic media/public relations efforts - established on an foundation of awareness (which is where advertising comes in) - is going to be the way to go for my school, in this marketplace, going forward. The power of being able to post other-sourced links/share articles and news clips on our website and through our social media channels is great, and the potential for sharing out by our loyal parents, alumni, students and staff is even greater. The virility of such an approach is invaluable.

Recently Blake was featured in a first-ever "power/leadership" issue of a local glossy magazine (MN Monthly; "Built to Lead"). We did not pitch them the story, they came to us for - they said - a variety of reasons (not the least is that we have a new female head of school and the current state governor is an alum), but I worked with the writer/editor extensively to help connect him to interviewees who I knew would be the most powerful voices: our students. I also sent him a list of alumni who exemplified leadership in a number of areas (non-profits as well as for-profits) to help illustrate the power of what we do at Blake in terms of fostering leadership. What started out as an article that had potential to be somewhat rote about a local private school, turned into a fabulous and far-reaching brand piece that was authentic and powerfully relevant, no pun intended.

While we don't have metrics quit yet on the impact of the article, specifically on our recruitment/enrollment efforts, I am fairly confident we will see an uptick in inquiries, visits to our website and potentially applications due to the article - it raises us that much higher on the awareness field. It adds a credibility we could never give ourselves. It also ended up being valuable for us online through social media: alumni re-tweeted our tweet; we interacted with the Twitter account of the magazine and both alumni, parents AND staff (voluntarily!) shared the article on Facebook. We had a similar article run back in 2010 in the 'other' major metro magazine (Mpls St Paul Magazine) and I am convinced it was one of the reasons we saw - for the first time since the recession began - a nice uptick in applications that year.

Now I know that, of course, one must also accepted the potential for negative PR; where a story goes sideways and the quotes are less than ideal. Blake has certainly had its share of both (don't get me started). But the adage of "no PR is bad PR" might have some truth in it, uncomfortable as it may seen. One of the most recent examples for Blake was having a huge article published right before Thanksgiving last year in the major newspaper locally, about the salaries of heads of private schools, ours in particular. It was a uncomfortably piece with large dollars bandied about (with the incorrect context no less), however, it actually offered a platform for conversations with community members about why we are worth it. Not talking about the money does not help an independent school. I loved what our institutional advancement director said when I was sharing some of the angst emerging around the piece - and I paraphrase, "if people can't understand the value coming out of our school, e.g. our students and graduates, is driven by the quality of the work and leadership going in, they aren't going to understand private education today."

Net net, while I know sometimes PR efforts feel too intangible, and that they can sometimes take forever to take off (if at all), take it from someone who is living it: we could not have paid for the value of what we got out of any of the articles. The talk factor alone - partially generated because we had not authored it I suspect (although of course some people are persuaded we bribed someone!) - has had a huge and beneficial effect on our brand and our outreach efforts.

What stories could you pitch in your market that you think local media would bite? What examples do you have of PR that has had a positive impact on your work?

Addendum:  Posted this Monday morning, and found this blog item by Joan Stewart Monday afternoon about online publicity and why/how it is good! Like minds....

Go Rogue to Find Inspiration

I am not a huge shout-out person but am going to offer a big one today, using it also as an example of communication/marketing resources and as an affirmation that good ideas can be found in all sorts of places. You don't have to find all your inspiration in education, nor do you have to follow only those organizations the same size, scale or scope as your institution. You just want to find like-minded people and organizations that are working the same as you to build community. And when they know your marketplace as well as you it's a huge bonus.

Our local source of inspiration is called the Minnesota Council of Non-Profits, the largest state association of non-profits in the country. I don't pretend to know how a similar organization might operate in the larger markets, but I can tell you this one runs lean and mean, and they really pay attention to their clients: state agencies and non-profits. We have become huge fans - and consistent attendees - at their Tech & Communications conferences, as well as their monthly brown bag lunches, when we can make it. (They hosted a recent brown bag lunch around the topic of social media and the crowd overflowed the conference room and the questions and ideas were strategic, funny and useful.)

Blake is fairly large as it relates to size of resources (compared to many, but not all, of the other non-profits in the association) so we actually are able to offer back a fair amount of tips and tricks and success rates based on our work. But we whenever we gather with the MCN crowd, we always get back more than we give, in terms of ideas and innovation. It's been quite remarkable.

If you have a similar organization in your market, I highly recommend you check them out. It may be a bust but you won't know until you visit. Just because they are not all in education doesn't mean they don't have something to offer.

What other non-educational organizations do you follow and or get good ideas from?

Worthy to Follow

For those of you just starting out on the social media and/or blogging journey, I highly recommend following Ragan Communications and their blogs and Twitter feed, and subscribing to their e-newsletters. My colleague Tracy (@lifeatblake) has been following them for awhile now and they dish up relevant and helpful content all the time. Super helpful.

For example, how can this blog not be of assistance for the neophyte blogger: 7 Ways top Whip Up Blog Posts - Fast!  The article was originally posted by Joan Stewart @ PublicityHound (who we also like to follow).

Who do you follow that you find the most helpful to your work?

All or .... All, (As it relates to Audiences)

This is somewhat stating the obvious, but I thought I would post this reminder regardless for my fellow PK-12 school communicators:  Our reality, as it relates to audiences, is that we must consider how to communicate across all generations. We don't get off easy and allowed to focus on a single set of demographics. For us it's not "all or nothing" but "all and all." (This was especially brought home to me the other week at CASE-NAIS 2013, via the tremendous keynote speaker Jane Buckingham from Trendera.)

This is both good news and bad news.

Good in that (seriously!) it takes the guess work out of our planning. There is no big debate about which audience segment to target with what media. Bottom line: we have to consider communications across the board and from the teenager to the traditionalist, whether we want to or not. They are our potential students, our current parents, students and staff, our prospective families and employees, and of course our alumni (assuming yours is an institution that's been around for at least a couple decades).

Bad in that it it makes it that much harder to prioritize messages and channels. In theory this is where an institutional strategic plan is critical - establishing focal points around which to allocate resources and which create a timetable that should assist in communicating what, when, who and why. With that said, I confess I have rarely seen a school's strategic plan that includes a specific marketing track and as such, often we have to extrapolate. But you take what you can get, yes?!

In theory the work to force a prioritization should be that much easier (with or without a strategic plan) with a solid focus internally on who is most important to us at this time and why. (Not that we want to minimalize any of our 'peeps.') However getting to the focal points for our work using internal priorities, can sometimes be a challenge - partially, I believe, because even our staff base cuts across all generations. Your Gen Yer's and your Traditionalists like and respect each other hugely, but they consume different media in different ways and often never the twain do meet. You have administrators and faculty who perhaps are not big consumers of social media. Or direct mail. Or who don't have a smartphone. While they are willing to believe me when I share the statics about the number of young adults on Facebook, or using Instagram or the importance of tablet growth - it is a removed belief.

Regardless of size of our school or market of alumni base, if we are serious about building and strengthening relationships with our contituents we are going to have to be smart and savvy about print and social media; about broadcast media and apps; about desktops and mobile devices and tablets....And there is more lurking around the corner we know!

What do you do to keep same as you contemplate your many options? Or, what's your favorite tip for establishing priorities?

Humor: More Powerful Than Ever

I just read a blog post on EdSocial about a school's top three Facebook posts and it made my heart sing as (a) Blake has had some similar posts with even more likes/interaction/sharing (and we aren't an east coast school!), and (b) it completely reinforces what we have seen via Blake's Facebook page in terms of the type of content that attracts attention and encourages sharing.

Just the other week, my colleague Tracy (@LifeatBlake) posted a comic on our Facebook page about why science teachers shouldn't be allowed to monitor recess. It ended up with a virality rate of almost 82 percent and had about 700 reach, 645 engaged and 572 taking about it! It also ended up printed out and taped to the door of one of our faculty lounges (by someone other than us) which we consider to be the 'ultimate' in approval. It really reinforces the importance of offering your audience something worthy of sharing, and of the value of humor.

This might be a little tricky for schools but we all know that we educators DO have a sense of humor (and can appreciate the riduculous). So don't be afraid to be authentic and funny - it can appeal to both your current as well as prospective audiences.

Idea Implosion

I am at the CASE-NAIS 2013 conference and I have to say, my head is about to explode with ideas but I am also feeling great that so much of what we try to do at Blake is right on.

Have I been successful across the board? Oh heavens no. But being here at a conference all about education (Pk-12 as well as higher ed) and to see the various strategic and innovative ways fellow communicators are leveraging social media, and that there is affirmation across the board from "top level" - it feels really, really good.

A couple top-of-mind thoughts as I prep for the next session:

- A perfect keynote kick-off: Communicating across generations. Great job (and funny too!) by Jane Buckingham of Trendera. A super way to ground the sessions and work to come.

- Crowd-sourcing session: How cool! The reality: many schools and their students and alumni are already doing it. A potentially powerful and effective way to create some communication critical mass. Hats off to presenters Travis Warren from Whipplehill and new head of school Peter Saliba of Tilton School.

- A fantastic session Monday morning was given by Dr. Tom Hayes from Simpson Scarborough. So many truths about the challenges of marketing at a school! Some examples: the outdated thinking that a new brochure (or webpage, or newsletter) will fix any marketing problem. (Not!) Or that school personnel often consider marketing is tacky at best, fraudulent at worse. Or - and this one makes me weep- research is too expensive (vs. an investment). Right on Tom!

- Just came from a tremendously helpful and inspiring LinkedIn session about harnessing the power of that social media platform. A no-brainer for any of us charged with helping connect our graduates, and helping them succeed! Can't wait to bring Evertrue to Blake. Great job Brent Grinna.

What sessions did other find helpful? What are the truths you deal with every day??

Dabble vs. Drowning

I love social media, truly I do. I love it's immediacy, visual impact, dynamic everything.

However, seriously, when enough too much or too much enough? This as I finally get into and try to organize my Hootsuite account (I know, I know...it's been on my to do list for...at least 2 years now). I was so excited to finally have time to bring my subscription to YouTube, my Facebook, Twitter and Flickr feeds all into one place. I can't WAIT to have my blog feeds (those I follow) also show up in one place and one place only. Once again, I like social media so the thought of all things feeding into that one place makes my heart sing.

But here is the deal: for the last couple years I have had both a professional and personal profile, both on Google. And then our school officially converted to Google this fall, using it as our official communications and sharing platform (thank you @DBoxer). So I actually have 3 Google profiles: pre-move, post-move and personal. I am hopelessly confused/frustrated with trying to feed everything into Hootsuite....

Which brings to mind the question (as one of the reasons I am GO TO MAKE HOOTSUITE work for me, this as I add feeds to my life):  When does a communications director jump on board with social media?? How do you dabble in new media (which you just have to do before you can recommend it to your organization or effectively use it in your marketing plans) and not go crazy?? I am dying to learn more about Pinterest as well as Instagram (not sure they are right for Blake but I would like to be sure) - and just don't know where I will find the time, sanity....

Stay tuned. For those of my fellow communication directors out there - let the journey begin and let me know how you juggle the many balls of marketing and communications today!