Creating videos for your school marketing does not need to be complicated or expensive. No need to hire Spielberg or rent out a £100,000 camera to capture your #SchoolStories.

Instead, make use of the tools that are readily available - you likely have a decent camera and full editing suite sitting in your pocket or handbag right now.

Being mobile

A large part of what we deliver to schools is this idea of capturing #SchoolStories as they happen. How? By using mobile devices (i.e. smart phones and tablets).

It gives the user the easiest method of recording a quick video - or montage of pictures, or audio bite or whatever it may be - without having to lug around additional equipment. It allows for spontaneity and mobility. 

Recording a video

Every modern smart phone will have a native camera app that allows for video recording. There are, of course, hundreds of other apps that can be downloaded / purchased, but try using the native one first to get a feel for it.

Do you feel that there are too many accounts for us to manage online? That with social media in particular, the expectation to have a presence on everything is too time consuming and exhausting?

Looking at social media, the average adult has 7 personal accounts, while the average teen user has even more! On top of that, most of us have accounts for work, email, shopping, messaging, keeping up with the news and much more.

Since the services we use are generally run by different companies, there often isn't a natural way to link them together. As a result, it is necessary to treat your experiences with different services as entirely separate entities. Wouldn’t be nice then, if there was a way to better coordinate at least some of your personal or professional online life?

Look no further than IFTTT (“IF This Then That”).

IFTTT (www.ifttt.com) is an automation web app that lets you link up different things you’re doing on the internet. Over 400 services currently work with IFTTT, including Facebook; Twitter; YouTube; Google Drive and Instagram. As well as the big companies, there are also loads of services that cater towards particular niches, like internet-enabled lighting, cars and blinds.

How does it work?

Fortunately, it’s pretty simple.

With just a handful of clicks, you can tell IFTTT that if one thing happens on Service A, then it should make something else happen on Service B.

For example, if you add a new profile picture on to Facebook, then your Twitter profile picture should change to the same photo. Or if it’s going to rain today, a notification should automatically appear on your phone at 7.30am, telling you to take your umbrella with you.

How to use it

To give IFTTT a go, you’ll need to make an account. Then, you can either browse other people’s creations or even make your own by:

• going to My Applets
• choosing New Applet
• picking a this and a that

You’ll notice that rather a lot of applets have been made so far. Many are particularly well-suited to marketers and teachers.

Here are four of our favourite IFTTT applets to get you started:

[1] Hear about top content relevant to you from social media

Whether you’re involved in marketing, teaching or something else entirely, it makes sense to keep up to date with ideas and suggestions from others in the sector. You may already have some preferred channels that you like to check for inspiration, but if not, it’s worth having a look at what’s out there by searching for something like “Twitter accounts to follow for education technology” or “best subreddits for digital marketing”.

To simplify this process into an automated service, let IFTTT bring the updates to you in the form of a regular email or a designated Google sheet.

• Send an email digest from a Twitter search or hashtag - we recommend taking advantage of Twitter’s advanced search tools by choosing a search like “#teamenglish min_faves:5” or “VR min_retweets:5” so that you can be notified of content that other people have found worthwhile.

• Get an email update with the top posts from your favourite Reddit subreddit - Reddit has a large number of marketing and teaching communities, and can be a really good resource if used well.

• Save tweets featuring specific content to a Google sheet - as with the email digest applet, think carefully about your search terms for the best results. If you don’t think specifically enough, you can quickly end up with a monster of a spreadsheet!

[2] Share your social media posts across different platforms

Keeping track of what you’ve posted where can be a bit of a hassle - given that in a lot of cases the services you use are run by different companies and don’t link together very well.

IFTTT allows you to synchronise your posts across different platforms, while keeping records of what you’ve posted for future reference.

This area is probably the main draw of IFTTT, and arguably what it was built for in the first place. If both services you’re interested in are on IFTTT then you shouldn’t have any trouble finding an applet that does what you want. We’ve selected some of our favourites:

• Post your tweets to Facebook when you use a specific hashtag

• Automatically share your new YouTube videos to a Facebook page and Twitter

• Post your tweets to LinkedIn when you include the hashtag #in

• Upload Instagram photos tagged with a specific hashtag of your choice to Facebook

• Automatically pin your Instagram photos when you add #pin in the caption

• Use the tag “buffer” on an item in Pocket to send it to your Buffer queue

• Archive all of your tweets to a Google sheet

• Archive every time you’re mentioned in a tweet to a Google sheet

[3] Share interesting content from others to your social media channels

It isn’t always easy to come up with content to populate your social media channels, especially if you’re just starting out or there’s relatively little going on. To keep your followers interested and engaged, it can be a smart idea to share interesting content by others.

There’s a good chance you already do something like this, but IFTTT can make it a lot easier! Take the leap with IFTTT and save so much time not having to scroll through feeds, looking for something great to share.

Here's a few ready-made applets for specific areas, and applets that you can further personalise to best suit you:

• Share NASA’s image of the day to Facebook and Twitter

• Tweet Wikipedia’s word of the day every day - the default language is English, but others are available. If you would like to choose another, all you need to do is find the right two-letter “ISO 639-1” code (“en” for English, “fr” for French, “es” for Spanish, “de” for German etc.) and add it to the app in the labelled box. This could be a really nice idea for MFL departments.

• Send tweets from a particular search to your Buffer queue - this one is really easy to adapt. We suggest you pick a Twitter account you trust and choose your search terms carefully (so you can capture the tweets that are most relevant to you). For example, try “@MathsIdeas what OR how” to get tweets from the Twitter account called Maths Puzzles (@MathsIdeas) which are phrased as questions, or “#DigitalMarketing min_faves:60” to only tweet those posts that have been significant interest to other users (i.e. liked a minimum of 60 times).

[4] Note things down as you go along

You don’t always have pen and paper to hand, and your collection of notes stored on your phone are becoming a mess. It happens to the best of us! But sometimes, having a designated system for keeping track of all your notes relating to a particular topic can be really useful.

• If you have a good idea at a bad time, add it to a note and email yourself a weekly list - after all, they don’t often come at a good time! IFTTT lets you choose when you want your email to arrive, so that you can peruse your ideas from the week at your leisure.

• Create a bibliography of articles archived from pocket in Evernote - when you’re doing research for a project or campaign, it can be hard to keep track of the extensive trail of websites you visit along the way. One way to tackle this issue is to use Pocket, a service that allows you to easily save pages for later, alongside Evernote to make a bibliography. IFTTT will automate this for you; leaving you free to browse to your heart's content while simultaneously creating a list of what you're looking at.

The Future?

The possibilities are simply endless.

With smart glasses, you will be able to set up IFTTT to actively translate text as you are reading it! With Internet-enabled lights, you'll have lights react to you coming / leaving home, or going to bed. In fact, this last idea is already possible via IFTTT today, if you happen to have a set of Philips Hue lights. You can even get your lighting to do something exciting when the International Space Station flies overhead - (SCHOOL SCIENCE DEPARTMENTS - TAKE NOTE!)

If you think of an applet that you would find useful, the likelihood is it has already been created (or at least something very similar you can adapt). If not, it's time to flex a few creative muscles and give it a go. 

Tell us in the comments below how IFTTT could save you time. If you’ve had a go at making any applets, we’d love to hear about it.

You’ll remember we previously wrote a blog post about what a Digital Storyteller (DS) is and why your school should hire one. Many of you got in touch to ask what the person who could fulfil this role looks like; to understand what their skills, qualities and background might be.

Well you asked, so we answered! Behold...the Digital Storyteller.

 

JOB SPECIFICATION

Digital Storyteller

 

Department: Marketing and Communications

Reporting to: Marketing Manager

Level/Grade: Dependent on experience

Type of Position: Online Marketing/Communications

Hours per Week: Dependent on school

Weekends/Evening: Dependent on school

Salary: Dependent on experience

 

Job Summary:

Talented individual required to promote school brand and identity to our community of parents, pupils, prospectives and wider audiences. Should have exceptional understanding of social media, to build relationships and deliver the school's unique tone of voice across multiple channels. Ability to spot and produce quality content, to marry to relevant social media channels, is highly desirable.

Top candidates will be influencers; bringing staff, pupils and current parents on-board to achieve marketing objectives. Workload will be high and varied, so you must be able to multitask across various projects.

Role Responsibilities:

• Ensure content shared on digital channels is optimised to achieve marketing objectives

• Generate ideas for content and marketing campaigns

• Write and produce quality content, taking into account conventions and limitations of social media platforms

• Manage and respond to negative feedback on social media

• Liaise with external individuals - in person and online (not students, parents or teachers)

• Use content creation and editing software (such as iMovie and Adobe Photoshop/InDesign) to create quality content

• Use school CMS to create pages and publish content

• Liaise with Graphic Design department to produce marketing collateral

• Collect and collate feedback into actionable points

• Track analytics to measure effectiveness and efficiency of digital marketing campaigns

Personal Specification

Qualifications and Experience:

• An understanding of conventions and purposes of specific marketing processes and methods

• An understanding of the conventions and ‘best practice’ of specific social media platforms

• Broad understanding of social and digital media

• Experience of using scheduling tools (including HootSuite, TweetDeck, Buffer and SproutSocial)

• Intimate knowledge and understanding of SEO and Analytics 

• Experience of using Content Management Systems (CMS)

• Video production/editing

• Desire to continually evolve personal understanding of marketing and social media trends

• Ability to write basic HTML

• Should have portfolio relevant activities

Capabilities and Aptitudes:

• Digital media / social media savvy

• Social media user

• Creative

• Versatile, flexible and dynamic attitude

• Someone who is able to remain abreast of key marketing and social media trends

• Someone who loves telling stories in a multitude of ways (NOT just pen and paper)

• Personable and outgoing

• Strong interpersonal skills

• Uses initiative, works autonomously

• Can collaborate well with others

• Influencer

• Organised and able to juggle varied workload

 

The kind of person you are looking to hire will depend more on you as a school and your expectations of the role than it will any other factor. There are questions to answer and variables to consider. By taking the time to answer these questions, you are half way to emplying your school’s ideal Digital Storyteller.  

The role of the DS centres around the telling of your #SchoolStories, using a wide range of digital media and content that can be published across your school's social platforms. This content can be used to increase brand awareness of your school and aid in humanising your brand to prospective pupils and parents.

The scope of hiring a DS for your school can only really be viewed as a grey process, rather than one that is black or white. There is no "one size fits all" job specification, but by carefully considering what it is you want from your DS you will soon be able to flesh out what qualities, attributes and experiences are important to you and to the person you wish to hire. 

The good news is, it won’t take long to know if you have hired the right person for the job! At @intSchools, we know how rich the lives of your students and your school are; so it goes without saying that the person who is right for the job is the person who will share your amazing and inspiring #SchoolStories to the world.
 

You have likely heard this before, but Facebook is big...really BIG! In terms of users - now over 2 billion - Facebook has the largest population in the world.

An incredible 1.32 billion users (65% of all users) log onto Facebook DAILY - uploading 300 million photos and sharing 4.75 billion pieces of content EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! (source) What does this mean for you and your school?

Simple - you have an opportunity to reach a lot of people; more than the entire populations of + combined in fact! In order to do so though, you need to be ✨STAND OUT✨. You cannot afford to be a (microscopic) needle in a (continent sized) haystack.

12 tips for creating a killer Facebook Page.

[1]: Knowing the difference between a Page and a personal Profile

We see schools make this mistake from time to time. A personal Profile represents a person, a Page represents a business or brand. A school should always have a Page, as it will offer more to both the school in functionality and the follower in information.

[2]: Page Roles - get it right

Another common issue we see schools come up against is publishing as the wrong person. The way Pages work on Facebook requires them to be administered by a user (Profile). This means you should be mindful when posting content to the Page - as you will have the ability to either post as the Page (i.e. the school) or the Profile (i.e. your personal account).

Have you ever noticed the little blue / grey tick next to certain social media accounts (usually celebrities or brands)? They mean that these accounts have been verified; they are the authentic account of that person / entity. 

Most social media channels now have a verification process. For schools, some are easily obtainable and some are more difficult to get - each channel has their own prerequisites for verification.

Facebook and YouTube are two of the simplest, taking no more, generally, than 10 minutes to obtain each one. We highly recommend that every school verifies both Facebook and YouTube, as there are benefits in doing so.

Facebook

The world of print is moving further and further behind us. One core reason boils down to cost - it is cheaper to produce content digitally than it is to print!

For schools, we are seeing traditional publications such as prospectuses enter the amazing world of digital. But what about something like a yearbook? How can you make this more accessible and interactive for your school's community?

With a few simple tricks on Issuu, this is very possible.

Issuu?

But first, what is Issuu?

In short it is a social channel specifically for publications. You can upload PDF's to Issuu, and then flip through them - simulating the reading experience.

NOTE: Issuu is not limited to just PDF's. Most common document files are acceptable, including: DOC, PPT, RTF, WPD, ODT, and more.

For schools, Issuu is a great place to host publications such as prospectus or perhaps a literary collection of pupil stories? The added bonus is, publications on Issuu are very easy to share (it's just a URL link) and very easy to embed on places such as a school website.

Getting started

The yearbook is a time honoured tradition for many schools. In using Issuu, you are able to negate certain costs to both the school and your parents.

In order to upload this to Issuu, the yearbook should be saved as a PDF file. So, whatever software you have used to create your publication (for example Adobe InDesign), be sure to export the end product in PDF format.

TOP TIP: to ensure your PDF looks its very best, it should be optimised for Web. This is a common setting across many of Adobe's design suite.

To upload your PDF:

• click the Upload button - on desktop this is always in the top-right corner
• choose the required file(s) - alternatively, you can drag the file(s) into the upload box
• Issuu will prep your PDF - be patient, if the file is big this may take a few minutes
• choose Title and Description for your file, and fill out any fields as required
• click Publish Now to finish

Congratulations - your yearbook is now live on Issuu!

Making it interactive

Getting the yearbook on Issuu is just the first step. You now have the opportunity to make it a more immersive piece of content. 

The first step to take is to add URL links (called "Publisher Clips") into your yearbook. First and foremost, this is an effective way to help drive traffic to places you want (i.e. your website, or perhaps an alumni page on Facebook or LinkedIn). 

Secondly, this can be an effective way to promote the traits and talents of pupils individually or in groups.

When we Google ourselves or our businesses, the results aren't always what we were expecting. If negative or private, we might wonder how we can get this information out of the public eye. Fortunately, there are steps that can be taken.

To illustrate how these work, think of yourself as being inside a building and the internet being the landscape outside that building. Google is the window; it monitors and offers you a portal to show you what’s going on outside.

Google’s job is simply to report what it sees - it doesn’t want to jeopardise this by being inaccurate. So, if you want Google to change its report, there are two main routes you could take:

[1] Change the landscape

The simplest method is to actively change the landscape outside; or rather change the content on the internet.