Following the successful launch of its iPhone app in 2010, King’s Christian College (Gold Coast Australia) has recently revamped its Facebook page so it can become a better communications tool for both current and prospective families.

Visitors to the school’s Facebook page are greeted by a new Welcome tab.  From here, visitors can navigate to their area of interest…  For current parents, that may be the wall, where regular posts give updates of the daily life at the school. Prospective parents may wish to explore the series of short videos that build a picture of life at the school through the eyes of students, or they may wish to find information about enrolments.  This is available via a single click from the welcome page.

For current parents, the Facebook page provides very current updates of school activities.  Videos taken on camps or excursions are posted on the same day.  Sports news and other topical posts can be made where and when they happen.  In a world where instant news is the expectation, the King’s Christian College Facebook page and iPhone app keep parents one click away from the very latest school news.

What do you think of the King’s Christian College Facebook page?

Is your organization using a Facebook page to communicate?  If so, how?

1. Learn as much as you can about the most recent changes
2. Understand how they affect your organization and then
3. Adjust your Facebook strategy to make the most of them

The New Newsfeed

The changes individual users notice immediately are the changes to the newsfeed.

Gone is the “Top News” with the option to switch to “Most Recent.” Now there are Top Stories and Recent Stories. The Top Stories are things Facebook thinks you might be interested in based on your interaction in the past. The Recent Stories are in chronological order, but they don’t include everything from all your friends. Facebook filters Recent Stories and only gives you what it thinks you’ll want to see.

Introducing the Ticker

For those who want to see all their “friends’” status updates, Facebook has introduced the Ticker, which is a real-time list of everything your friends are doing. It includes everything in Recent Stories plus notices of when your friends add friends, like pages, comment on stories, play Farmville, and more.

In other words, the Ticker is what old Facebook used to be.

It also looks suspiciously like Twitter.

New Lists = Google+ Circles

The other big change individual users will notice is that Facebook has improved their lists functionality. It functions a lot like circles in Google+. Once a user creates a list, they can not only click to view just the updates from the people on that list, but they can now also publish content that only people on that list can see.

So, you can now create a “family” list and share pictures so only people on that list can see them. Or you can create a “work” list and post links to industry-related news that only your co-workers would be interested instead of bothering everyone with it. You can share content with multiple lists, make it public, or even hide from specific individuals.

Other Changes

There are a bunch of other new things that are available now like watching TV & movies with your friends, listening to music and seeing what your friends are listening too, and others big changes that are coming soon like the Timeline and Facebook Gestures. But those won’t have much have much impact on churches and non-profits now, and that’s where I want to go next.

Likes Less Important, Engagement Critical

With the changes to individual users newsfeeds, Facebook takes another step towards playing god in what content Facebook users see.

All content is not created equal. No longer can you expect everyone who “likes” your organization’s Facebook page to see everything you post to Facebook. Status updates, photos, videos and links that get “likes” and “comments” have become even more prominent and thus more likely to be seen, while those that do not have become even less prominent and less likely to be seen.

This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for churches, non-profits and businesses. It’s more important than ever that organizations engage people with their content. Those that do will find their content being seen by more people.

Furthermore, every time someone likes or comments on your content, that action shows up in all their friends Tickers. So, engaging content gets double prominence.

If you manage your organization’s Facebook page, every time you post to Facebook you have to ask yourself more than, “What do I want people to know?” You have to ask yourself, “What do I want people to do?” And “How can post this in a way that will invoke a response?”

Relationship Building More Important

If you use Facebook personally, you understand that you engage more with the people you have the best relationships with – your immediate family and close friends. The same is true with organizations. The better your organization builds relationships with its “fans” the more they will “like” and comment on your content. That means doing things like

• listening and responding to wall posts and comments
• posting polls and asking for feedback
• featuring members or customers
• posting photos and video of your “fans” interacting with your organization offline

Discussion

1. Which recent changes to Facebook do you think will have the biggest impact on churches and non-profits? Why?
2. Do you think engagement and relationships on Facebook are more important than ever now?
3. What are you doing to strengthen relationships and engage more in Facebook?

Well, that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Your employees are probably just a small percentage of the people who know and love what your organization is doing.

• Churches – every member and regular attender should be spreading the word about your church.
• Schools – every parent and student could be talking about your school.
• Non-profits – every volunteer and donor could be sharing the great things your org is doing with their friends.
• Businesses – every customer or client has a story to tell about you.

Creating a “We” Culture

Just like with employees, if you want your members, parents, students, volunteers, and customers to become a part of your marketing team, you must create a culture where they are motivated to do that. In fact, the culture is even more critical here, because while employees may be motivated to some extent by self-interest (to keep their job or make a good impression on supervisors), your customers, members and volunteers must be inspired by something beyond self interest.

Here are 5 key elements to creating that culture:

1) Expand the “we.” If your primary goal is the success or growth of your organization, you are doomed. That mindset views customers, volunteers, and members as a means to an end. If you want them to talk about you, you need to start by envisioning them as joining with you in a movement that is bigger than your organization. Why does your org exist? To save souls? To end poverty? To cure cancer? To prepare students for adult live? To be a partner with like-minded organizations in providing?

To make this a part of your culture, it has to start at the top and permeate the way your organization thinks about everything. There can no longer be an “us” and a “them.” Whenever you talk, think and dream, it must be about “we,” and “we” must include your customers, volunteers, parents, and members.

2) Communicate the “we.” We live in a society dominated transactional relationships. Our default thought process is “You give me this and in return I’ll give you that.” If you want to change the culture, you have to constantly tell your customers why you’re doing what you’re doing. You’ve got to talk to your volunteers with words like “we” and “us.” You’ve got to remind parents, “We’re all in this together.”

3) Empower the “we.” As you help members, parents, students, customers and volunteers view themselves as part of a bigger movement, you’ve got to create the tools that will empower them to be a part of the “we.”

• Blog and use social media in ways that make it easy to share what you’re doing with others online.
• Create Facebook Events that make it easy to invite friends.
• Facilitate dialog, feedback, and suggestions so everyone can speak into what your organization is doing.
• Make your paid staff available.
• Facilitate meet-ups and relationships among customers, members, parents, and volunteers. A lot of this can be done online through social networks.

4) Encourage the “we.” Call people to action – specific action. “Bring a friend.” “Share this video.” “Rate this service.” “Like us on Facebook”

5) Celebrate the “we.” Find examples of members, parents, customers, or volunteers who are spreading the world. Tell their stories. Show specifically how their actions helped further the movement. Recognize those who are making a difference, and it will inspire everyone in the tribe to make a difference.

How does your organization think about its customers, members, parents, students and volunteers? Are they a part of “them” or a part of “we?” What do you think is necessary to create a “we” culture?

10) How to triple your marketing team overnight for $0 <– Leadership in Communications

Paradise Leadership Christian Academy

Paradise Leadership University is an academy in Jacksonville, AR that partners with universities, churches and seminary institutions to develop well-round youth that will excel as 21st century leaders.

They currently have only a summer program, but plan to start a year-round program in 2014.

They hired OurChurch.Com to create a Custom Header for their NE1 Website. You can visit their site at http://www.paradisechristianleadershipacademy.org/.

College of Christian Studies at Anderson University

The College of Christian Studies is a department of Anderson University, located in Anderson, SC. They offer programs that emphasize practical ministry training for a new generation of Kingdom leaders. Anderson University is an accredited university affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

While being a part of the college, they decided to create a separate website than the website that Anderson University already had. They were looking for a professional look, but with a “grunge” twist to be more appealing to their target audience: High School Seniors.

Their site not only includes a custom design, but many other features such as a custom forms feature, Twitter widget, and more.

You can visit their website at http://www.auministry.com.

Sure, notes and newsletters are sent home, but often they are hard to find when you need them. King’s Christian College (Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia) has developed an iPhone app that tells parents the information they need to know, when they need to know it.

Version 1 of the app contains a calendar, plus notices that contain the details needed for upcoming events. The beauty of the system is that the information is live, so if a venue or time is changed, the app updates instantly and so the latest data is always in parents’ pockets. No doubt the functionality will grow as parents start to rely on the app and suggest extensions to what it can do.

So far, the response from parents has been very enthusiastic. It is an example of technology solving a problem in a way that is simple and intuitive to use.

The developer is currently developing a similar app for the King’s Christian Centre Church and has had interest from a number of other schools.

Jayne Lauer, Director of Admissions for Lutheran High School South in St. Louis, MO sent us this nice video earlier this week.  (We edited it and added the images).  Have a look.  (And, pardon the audio)

I think a lot of schools are in the same situation LHSS was in before we redesigned their site.  They’ve got a site that looks and functions okay, but few people can update it so it’s not being updated with all the information it should as quickly as could. And it’s not ranking well in search engines, so people in the community looking for a school are not giving their school the consideration it deserves.

Kudos to Lutheran High South for recognizing that they could do better and taking advantage of that opportunity.

With only a few hours left in September it’s a nice way to finish off Back to School Month.

Sarah Kessler published a fantastic post on Mashable yesterday that addresses the fears and cites real-world examples of how social media has had a tremendously positive effect for some schools and students.

A year after seventh grade teacher Elizabeth Delmatoff started a pilot social media program in her Portland, Oregon classroom, 20% of students school-wide were completing extra assignments for no credit, grades had gone up more than 50%, and chronic absenteeism was reduced by more than a third.

Another example…

Matt Hardy, a 3rd and 4th grade teacher in Minnesota, describes the “giddy” response he gets from students when he introduces blogs. He started using blogs in his classroom in 2007 as a way to motivate students to write.

“Students aren’t just writing on a piece of paper that gets handed to the teacher and maybe a smiley face or some comments get put on it,” he says. “Blogging was a way to get students into that mode where, ‘Hey, I’m writing this not just for an assignment, not just for a teacher, but my friend will see it and maybe even other people [will] stumble across it.’ So there’s power in that.”

Safe Social Media Tools Are Available — And They’re Free

Safety of children is the biggest concern when it comes to using social media in education, and it should be.  But there are several free tools available that keep kids safe including Kidblog.org, Edmodo and Edublogs.

Social Media Encourages Collaboration Instead of Cliques

Most jobs today involve teamwork and collaboration, but our educational system doesn’t prepare kids for that.  How many times have we heard teachers say “Keep your eyes on your own paper,” and “Stop talking to your neighbor.”

I’m not suggesting that every assignment should be collaborative – we do need to be sure each individual child has a grasp of the fundamentals, but the world has changed significantly over the 20 years since the Internet became public.  Communication and collaboration are as fundamental a part of the 21st century workplace as math and reading.

Social media as a teaching tool has a natural collaborative element. Students critique and comment on each other’s assignments, work in teams to create content, and can easily access each other and the teacher with questions or to start a discussion.

I highly recommend reading the entire article: The Case For Social Media in Schools

Do you think schools should be incorporating blogging and social media into their educational systems?

This is a guest post by Neil Pierson, Storyteller for Covenant Christian School in Sydney, Australia.

Many Christian parents question the value of Christian schools. Discussions of schooling can often become arguments. Covenant Christian School is located on the Northern Beaches of Sydney Australia. The school wanted to help Christian families start discussions about the role of Christian education – but to do it in a non-confrontational way.

They decided video testimonies would help as parents are more likely to trust and listen to other parents than pastors or school staff. In the process they realized the video could have a far wider audience if it didn’t mention their school.

I work part time at the school as a Storyteller. It’s a great community and I was thrilled the school was willing to help other Christian schools rather than just do self promotion.

The final 17 minute DVD has been distributed to the school community and is available for other schools to purchase. A Why Christian Schools website was also created which features all of the content plus an 8 page booklet. The 17 minutes have been broken up into six separate videos. Each one addresses a different common ‘objection’ to Christian schools. These videos can be embedded in other school websites to help them communicate the ‘Why’ behind Christian education.

We realized a 17 minute DVD wasn’t going to change everyone’s opinion or understanding of schools but we hope it will create some discussions.

The website also has a blogsite featuring promotional video for Christian schools from around the world. This is designed to help parents understand there is a wide variety of Christian schools and better prepare them to ask questions.

Covenant Christian School believes it is up to parents to raise their children. The school can assist them but can’t or shouldn’t replace them. The DVD and website project is designed to help remind them of their role and that schools can also help or hinder them in their roles.

Several months ago Lutheran High School South decided to upgrade their website and get search marketing services.  So, they purchased a new custom CMS website and got the Top Schools Search Rankings Service.  Less than two months after the completion of their new website, Lutheran High School South now has over 400 top ten rankings and over 100 #1 rankings!

Being a private school during a down economy is tough.  With people looking for any way to cut back on expenses, cutting the private school tuition is sometimes considered and many schools are struggling.  This makes it very important for private schools to bring in new students.  The staff at Lutheran High School South decided to be proactive in attracting new students with their new website and search marketing.

“OurChurch.Com is working very hard to make sure we have positive reviews from our parents and students that will show up when people search…which is very important because it’s easy to get lost in cyberspace these days” said Jane Lauer, Director of Admissions at Lutheran High School South.

Lutheran High School South is now ranking in the top ten for search terms like “Christian high schools“ and “Lutheran schools” in the local search options of Google, Bing and Yahoo.  They are also ranked in the top ten of the regular search results of Google, Bing and Yahoo for search terms like “high schools in Saint Louis Missouri” and “Lutheran school in Saint Louis”.

The staff, students and parents of Lutheran High School South love their new website and with the new rankings in the search engines and new listings in both local search sites and school directories, thay have gotten hundreds of new visitors to their website.  Listen to Jane Lauer talk about it in this video.

1. Growing Through Search Marketing – A Case Study
2. A Few Quick Tools to Use in Your Classroom
3. How Our School’s New Website Has Helped Us Grow
4. Workshop Notes: Using Google to Achieve Full Enrollment
5. 12 Ways to Use Your School Website to Improve Communication
6. How to Use Private Student Pages for Better Parent-Teach Communication
7. Former Teacher Shares Website Insights
8. A Teacher’s Perspective: How to Use a Website to Communicate with Your Students and Parents
9. How Much Freedom Should Teachers Have with Their Web Pages?
10. 12 Things Every School Website Should Include

Which of these posts did you find most helpful?  Got any other good school/web blog posts you’d like to share?  Post a comment.