Twitter - yes? no?

[RichCowell]

One of our 'new, keen' governors kept suggesting a Facebook account for the school. After a quick search on FB, I found three other pages, all under the school name, none of them 'official'. I don't like the idea myself, too fraught with difficulties and too demanding for us to administer properly.

I found the same with my school when I was setting it up, I reported them and they were soon closed down :¬)

[Trapper]

Yes we use it, after a long, long, long, LOOOOONNNG battle between me and the old DH and the rest of the SLT.

It's used instead of the classic "newsfeed" on the website. Much quicker to tweet information and then have it appear on a medium with multiple ways to access it (website, Twitter, email notifications, mobile etc.)

All content must be SLT approved before being Tweeted, no replies, technically no re-tweets but if the National Autistic Assoc. sticks something good up I do it anyway!

All followers have to be checked, we've had some folks that the Head disliked (even one was the partner of a staff member, the donkey decided that boozing was a good thing to put on his about status) who've then been removed.

For me it's easier to get information out without having to faff with Joomla, the parents get multiple access routes and we have a social media preference.

After a while they even suggested Facebook, but I nixed that. For a start I can't update it from work, secondly the school could really do without students "friending" us and finally I know we'd have staff who'd friend the school and then we'd see that they spent all weekend boozing, posting stupid photos of themselves and then really open a can of worms!

[witch]

That's not really a valid reason to not use twitter, it would take all of 5 seconds to tweet the user back asking them to resend their request via email to the correct person, or forward the request to the person who deals with it.

Yes it is actually because whilst the actual reply might take 5 seconds, the person replying has to break off from what they are doing and reply and then there may be many things to reply to, so the disruption could be quite large

[witch]

so, @Trapper - what do you do about replies and who is responsible for watching it?

[DrCheese]

Yes it is actually because whilst the actual reply might take 5 seconds, the person replying has to break off from what they are doing and reply and then there may be many things to reply to, so the disruption could be quite large

If a person wanted to make an FOI request and you didn't have a twitter account, they would just get in contact with the school another way instead. You wouldn't disable email because someone is "too busy"

As for @ replies in general, we have around 400 followers (Mostly Students/Parents) and get virtually none. In the unlikely event you get a lot, just direct them to your contact page instead.

[Trapper]

so, @Trapper - what do you do about replies and who is responsible for watching it?

We've only had a couple I just forward them SLT way and ask for guidance. I've never received any guidance so we've just ignored them. The important thing with this is that SLT feel they are in control. As long as you respect that and make sure everything goes through them they seem to jump on board.

[RichCowell]

After a while they even suggested Facebook, but I nixed that. For a start I can't update it from work, secondly the school could really do without students "friending" us and finally I know we'd have staff who'd friend the school and then we'd see that they spent all weekend boozing, posting stupid photos of themselves and then really open a can of worms!

If you create a Facebook Page rather than another private Facebook account then users only have to Like it, and not friend anyone, so it's not the same and very little risk... The only thing you see in the news feed if you "Use Facebook As ...." your page, is the statuses of other pages your school page has liked...

[SteveBentley]

We've only had a couple I just forward them SLT way and ask for guidance. I've never received any guidance so we've just ignored them. The important thing with this is that SLT feel they are in control. As long as you respect that and make sure everything goes through them they seem to jump on board.

But that only works if your SLT are sufficiently familiar with Twitter and the expected conventions of Twitter (eg if I send a reasonable question to an organisation on Twitter I expect to at least be acknowledged, if not responded to). If they don't know how Twitter works they're going to make the wrong decisions.

[DrCheese]

Again, not really. Just direct the tweeter to email or contact the school via other means if your SLT is like this.
Honestly feels like people are making a mountain out of a molehill in this thread. Instead of "Why should we do it?" It's more of a "What excuses can we find not to do it?"

[Marci]

Be wary - been looking into this. If expecting to use Twitter for Teaching & Learning or communicating to students specifically, which could be seen as advocating the use of Twitter by your students, their Terms & Conditions state:

You may use the Services only if you can form a binding contract with Twitter and are not a person barred from receiving services under the laws of the United States or other applicable jurisdiction. You may use the Services only in compliance with these Terms and all applicable local, state, national, and international laws, rules and regulations.

Technically, letter of the law is: Under 18s can enter into contracts but as a minor they are not enforceable against them unless it is deemed that the contract was for "essentials" and if it can be demonstrated that they understood what they were entering into.

Twitter is in no way an "essential" in this scenario. On that basis it should only be used for communicating with staff / parents / governors. Nothing should be tweeted that could be construed as aimed directly at the students.

[InterwebsGuy]

One of our 'new, keen' governors kept suggesting a Facebook account for the school. After a quick search on FB, I found three other pages, all under the school name, none of them 'official'. I don't like the idea myself, too fraught with difficulties and too demanding for us to administer properly.

We have the same issue. Facebook won't close them either (I guess probably rightly so), but there is nothing to stop the admins of one of these unofficial pages posting a wall post saying that the school is closed due to the heating being broken etc, and then just how many people would take that as gospel?

[InterwebsGuy]

I found the same with my school when I was setting it up, I reported them and they were soon closed down :¬)

How did you get them to close them down? I spent some time engaging with them and they refuse to do it.

Also, finding a way to actually speak to or email anyone at Facebook is difficult!

[InterwebsGuy]

For a start I can't update it from work..

You could use something like Twitterfeed that posts to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and a few others. It takes any RSS feed you give it and processes it at set intervals - I never post directly on any of our social feeds.

This obviously works well if you have no Social Networking access at work.

[CAM]

I use Twitter more than any other social network, it is simple to find what you want, post what you want and works on multiple devices ranging from the website to text messaging. (I wonder if a CLI client exists...?)

You can split the userbase into three parts, the cosumers, the producers and the spammers. The producers create the feeds with travel alerts, general news and plugs for their products. The consumers follow each other and producers, exchanging banter and discussion and sharing their experiences. The spammers are the bottom feeders who spread virus-laden links and use word recognition to automatically follow people in the hope they click their profile link to a product/scam.

I suggest you have one person in overall control of the feed and you treat the profile as very important. It will be a new public face to push out links to the school blog, provide closure messages and other non-sensitive news. Remember, as a producer you are not pushing information out to only those interested in the school, you are also pushing information out to the general public including media, prospective parents and local residents and the needs of everyone has to be taken into account when posting material to the feed.

And never ever share the feed's password beyond those who need it. Don't give it to teaching staff, only those responsible for the feed. This prevents you from joining the "Our feed got hacked and someone posted offensive stuff" club that some big names have joined...

[GrumbleDook]

The other good thing with twitter feeds you show on your site is that with the right tweaking of the widget you don't get the replies / RTs containing your twitter ID. I did see one school who hadn't set the widget that way and some people were repeatedly sending obnoxious messages including the school's twitter ID in it.