Comm/Marketing – Page 5

Jewish Day School Social Media Academy 2012-13

July 10, 2012April 11, 2018 by

The Jewish Day School Social Media Academy is an intensive program designed to help Jewish Day Schools advance their strategic use of social media in areas such as communication, marketing, community building, alumni relations and development.

The full Academy runs throughout the 2012-13 academic year, and includes live events, online training via webinar, and private coaching and consulting for each school. We've selected a cohort of 20 schools to matriculate through an intensive training, coaching and project-based curriculum during the 2012-13 academic year.

The 10 part webinar series is open to all representatives from Jewish Day Schools, at no cost, thanks to support from The AVI CHAI Foundation. Please use the form below to sign up. We'll send you notifications and login information for each upcoming webinar in the series. All are recorded and archived so you can return to them at a future date if you're unable to attend live. Each school is welcome to bring multiple representatives to the webinars. Our schedule (past webinars include links to replay the recording):

October 25, 2-3pm eastern: Foundations of Social Media
November 6th, 2-3pm eastern: Maturing Your Facebook Use
November 20th, 2-3pm eastern: Social Media Policies and Guidelines
December 11th, 2-3pm eastern: Social Media Metrics
December 19th, 1-2pm eastern: Content Generation and Curation
January 8th, 2-3pm eastern: Social Fundraising
January 22, 1-2pm eastern: Using Photos and Video Effectively
March 5th, 2-3pm eastern: Brandraising Through Social Media
March 20, 2-3pm eastern: Integrating Website, Email and Social Media
April 17, 1-2pm eastern: Evaluating Shiny Objects

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Please see the full press release for this program, including a listing of the 20 schools chosen for the Academy, below. Thanks to the AVI CHAI Foundation for funding the 2012-13 Jewish Day School Social Media Academy.

JewDub.org: If You Build It.

July 5, 2012March 5, 2018 by

Lisa Colton Leave a comment

I am generally not a huge fan of sports movies, but I will admit to being a total sucker for “Field of Dreams.” Something about the plot’s magical realism gets me every time. Time-traveling baseball players! James Earl Jones chuckling as he disappears into the cornfield! A chance to play catch with the younger incarnation of one’s father! If I happen across this movie while flipping channels, I am hooked until the last frame, happily dazed by the glowing headlights of the cars lined up to watch a game at the titular diamond.

The film’s tag line, “If you build it, they will come,” is the mantra that Kevin Costner’s character hears and repeats to himself. As the movie unfolds, he gradually comes to understand that constructing the baseball field will be enough to get fans out to watch a game. If he provides the physical space for the game to happen—and makes room in his heart to believe in this seemingly crazy scheme—then the crowds will show up. The movie’s conclusion vindicates the protagonist’s leap of faith and shows how taking a risk on an out-of-the-box idea can change your life.

But how often does life imitate art?

Building a new blog for the Stroum Jewish Studies Program this past year has been, in some ways, a test of the “If you build it…” philosophy. We have put time, energy, and resources into constructing an attractive site that will serve multiple constituencies. JewDub.org, in its ideal form, is an online space for University of Washington students, faculty, and community members to share conversations, research, and ideas. This project has required taking a leap of faith similar to the one taken by Costner’s character: we began building it based on a vision for innovative academic engagement, but weren’t at all sure whether the “crowd”—the various demographic groups we hoped to engage—would know how or why to show up.

As it has turned out, they ARE coming to JewDub.org, but in different ways than we had anticipated. Readers are interested in our content, but they are not yet participating in the lively discussions that we hoped our diverse blogs posts, videos, tweets, etc. would trigger; the comment spaces provided on the site remain painfully empty. In the baseball parlance of “Field of Dreams,” the fans are showing up to watch the game, but they haven’t crossed the line into the infield and become players as well.

As our team takes the summer to reflect on our progress and strategize for next year, we have a few key questions in mind. How can we create a culture wherein our readers are both consumers and producers of content on JewDub.org? How can we frame our rich material more effectively in order to stimulate discussion among our readers? What kinds of campus and community partnerships could create a more invested intergenerational audience?

For now we continue to build the site, excited about the possibilities ahead of us and knowing that with more work, outreach, and maybe a little movie magic, JewDub.org can become the dynamic online space that we envision.

Hannah Pressman is JewDub.org’s Content Manager and an Affiliate Faculty Member of the University of Washington’s Stroum Jewish Studies Program. Follow her on Twitter @jew_dub.

This post is part of our special summer series highlighting stories shared by our 2011-12 Social Media Boot Camp for Educators Cohort. The SMBC for Educators is made possible through a generous grant from the Covenant Foundation.

5 Ways to Get Your Website Ready for Membership Season

June 5, 2012 by

Lisa Colton Leave a comment

When I was a kid, I would listen to my mom talk on the phone with prospective members. She would answer all of their questions about our synagogue treating everyone kindly and taking the time to get to know them. The countless hours she spent at the kitchen table were well worth the time and effort because families felt a personal connection to our community.

Although times have changed, creating that personal connection with prospective members is still very important today. But, how do we do this in the digital age? Gone are the days when someone picks up the phone and asks for a membership packet and a tour. Today, it is your synagogue website needs to make an important first impression and provide a window into your community. As the summer approaches and families begin to shul shop and register their kids for religious school, here are some sure-fire ways to get your website ready for membership season.

Home Page – View your website from the perspective of a new member. How easy is it for you to find the membership section of your website? Can you tell what time this week’s Shabbat service starts? Is there a link to religious school information? Did you advertise your upcoming open house in a prominent place? Get the entire congregation involved by asking current members to invite a friend to check out their synagogue.

Membership Page – What is the overall message and tone of your membership page? Is it "for more information, contact so and so at this number…" If so, consider a more warm and welcoming approach in which you explain the benefits of joining the synagogue. Provide testimonials of members who have recently joined or who have been in the community for a long time. Ask your rabbi to write a welcome letter – or better yet – produce a video of him in his office extending a warm welcome to prospective members.

Photos – Prospective members want to see people like themselves reflected on your home page and throughout your website. If you are looking to attract young families, post pictures of other young families in your congregation during holiday celebrations, family education programs or mitzvah projects. Are you marketing your synagogue to the baby boomer generation and senior population? Put up pictures of trips, clubs and get-togethers that your older members are participating in.

Forms & Links – When you download your financial aid or membership forms, does it still say 2011 at the top? Are all of the deadlines current? Prospective members who see out-of-date forms on your website will wonder if they are the right forms to fill out. Upon seeing expired dates and the wrong forms, they may delay sending in their information and the check to your office and opt to call you instead – when they get around to it.

Clean Up – Take down old event information and put up new programs. Instead, add summer and fall events to your on-line calendar. What open houses or summer events are you planning? What is coming up in the fall? How do families get their High Holiday tickets?

When you update your website with accurate information, engaging photos, and upcoming events, you are providing a window into your community. Creating a good first impression on-line will inspire prospective members to pick up the phone or stop by and seriously consider becoming a new member in your congregation.

Elisa Heisman is a Program Director at Congregation Beth Or in Maple Glen, PA. She is also the immediate past president of Program Directors for Reform Judaism and the founder of Shul Solutions – a full service consulting company helping congregations with membership initiatives, program development and creating effective communications.

Push Yourself from Broadcast to Social

May 31, 2012 by

Lisa Colton Leave a comment

I coach many organizations on the social media, helping them to mature their practice and hopefully use these valuable tools to help achieve articulated goals. What I notice — and notice a lot — is that moving from a broadcast mindset to a social one is hard. Really hard. I might spend a full hour brainstorming social content with a team from a congregation, and then notice their next 5 posts on Facebook are still about programs and posting links to articles they think folks should be reading.

Instead of talking with members of their community, they’re talking at them: read this, check out that.

While these types of posts are OK here and there, we need to figure out a different mode which will shift us from AT to WITH. In some cases it’s a very minor adjustment — phrasing your post as a question rather than a statement, for example. But this ongoing trend points to a deeper cultural issue: That organizaitons (and the institutional voice) are the center of a hub and spokes model. That the members of a "community" are puppy dogs sitting at the feet of institutions, begging for more information, more programs.

In fact, in most cases the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

Leaders with whom I work are thoughtful, delightful, smart people. I’m not assigning blame here, but I am going to be the aggressive coach that will holler and holler to push you beyond your comfort zone, out of your status quo routine, and into a new place where you will strengthen your social muscles and start to see and feel and experience and contribute to the world in a new way.

Measuring the Return on Engagement of Community Commitment

May 21, 2012 by

Lisa Colton Leave a comment

Guest post from Debra Askanase, cross posted from CommunityOrganizer2.0

I’ve been talking and thinking a lot about measuring social media engagement with colleagues, nonprofits, and social media activists. Two years ago, those of us participating in social media engagement and strategy were trying to come up with “the” metric to define social media tactical success. We argued and conversed, exchanged thoughts, and thought about why it’s so hard to pin this down. And then social media practice evolved, as did the thinking about measurement. In fact, it’s crystal clear to me now:

Measuring Return on Engagement (ROE) is actually two measures: SMART goal Return on Engagement, and the ROE of Community Commitment

Using these two metrics, an organization can get a pretty good sense of whether or not its online activities and strategies are working, and whether or not it is building a community of committed stakeholders.

SMART Goal ROE

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. If you begin your online engagement by defining SMART goals, you can measure the outcomes. This metric looks at the following:

Are you reaching SMART goals using social media?
How effective is your strategy at meeting SMART goals?
How effective are your tactics?

One organization I’ve worked with launched several online campaigns to generate organizational awareness, but didn’t frame the campaigns with SMART goals. The didn’t know how to determine whether or not their campaigns created more awareness, because they didn’t have a good measurement framework. In addition, the campaign itself wasn’t designed to move people towards a measurable activity, which also would have been resolved if they had had predetermined campaign SMART goals.

The ROE of Community Commitment: Using Engagement Metrics

How committed is the entire community you’ve built, both on each platform, and across platforms? Are you creating a sustainable base of fans and stakeholders?

While status metrics are simply the number of fans, followers, and views of video, the real number is the engagement metric. (I don’t want to dismiss status metrics out of hand, as they can illustrate the opportunity that may exist for engagement.) The engagement metric represents numbers that are in the context of social media conversations, and often reflect the impact of social network conversations. These are the community members that

Proactively talk about your organization and its work
Create something for the organization
Interact with your organization (such as posting to the wall, sending a twitter message to you)
Share your content
Interact with other members of the community

= the number within your online community who care deeply about what you are talking about. When you divide the engagement metric by the total number of fans/followers in a social media channel, that’s the ROE of community commitment.

Your ROE of community commitment is relative. It’s about measuring how engaged your community members are, versus those waiting to be activated. More importantly, it’s a metric to aspire to grow. Most Facebook Pages that I’ve worked with or seen have a “Talking About This” metric (which is Facebook’s community commitment metric) of 1 to 3%. The Twitter community engagement metrics that I’ve tracked are closer to 1%. This isn’t alarming; most people don’t take actions online, and they’d rather lurk, listen, and wait.

If you know and track the ROE of community engagement, the return for the organization is:

Identifying committed fans
Identifying levels of commitment online, and looking at moving them up the ladder of engagement, or into a back channel of leaders for community planning
Understanding whether or not your online community is engaged (see The Case of the 4,000 Twitter Followers Who Don’t Care)
Comparing community commitment between social media channels
Knowing what is, and is not working within your community
Where to invest resources, and how, to build your online community

I’ve put together a spreadsheet template for measuring return on engagement which you may view here. It is divided into three parts: top-level engagement and website stats, community commitment metrics, and specific metrics related to meeting your defined SMART goal(s).

SMART Goal and Community Commitment Metrics Template

Amy Sample Ward also has a great metric tracking template to view, and this template owes a lot to hers.

The most important metric to consider is whether or not you are building a committed and engaged online community. Once you have built that, you can begin to measure whether or not that community is taking actions you’d like them to take.

For a deeper look at Return on Engagement, here is a recent presentation that I gave through Darim Online, and also at the annual meeting of the Nonprofit Consultant’s Network.

Designing Social Media Engagement

View more presentations from Debra Askanase

Debra Askanase is an experienced digital strategist, non-profit executive, and community organizer. Community Organizer 2.0 works with businesses and nonprofits to develop actionable and measurable digital media strategies that meet organizational goals. She blogs at CommunityOrganizer2.0 and tweets at @askdebra

The Medium and the Message, Pt. 1

March 5, 2012 by

Lisa Colton Leave a comment

Any Sex and the City fans out there? Me – guilty as charged. Skip down to the paragraph that begins with in talking to if youd prefer to avoid the fabulousness thats about to ensue…

The following clip does an especially great job of illustrating a point Ive been thinking about a lot lately. (Be forewarned there is some naughty language sprinkled here and there.)

Carrie, the shows witty protagonist, has just been broken up with by a depressingly lovable fellow writer, Berger. But shes not so much upset about the break-up as she is bewildered at the medium through which the break-up message was conveyed: that most ubiquitous of office supplies, the Post-It. Its clear to the stylish gaggle of ladies who lunch that the message and its delivery do not line up.

In talking to both individuals and groups about social media, many colleagues and I tend to stress that its just a tool. At the same time, we all know full well that social media is much more than that.

Heres an analogy; lets talk about food. Here in the U.S., eating is primarily done with forks and knives. Those are our tools and we dont think too much about it. But what happens when those tools are traded out for a row of six different forks, or a pair of chopsticks, or a communal piece of flat bread? The cultural implications of the tools with which we eat are suddenly brought to the forefront.

Image credit: Paul Goyette

Change the tool, and (to some extent) you change the culture. Or, similarly, to quote Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message.

To touch briefly back on the aforementioned saga, Carrie later goes on a rant about how a break-up should ideally be handled. She stresses that the message of ending a relationship should be delivered in a way that honors what the two people had together. Essentially, the message and the medium should match.

Im confident everyone reading this post has had moments like this – moments in which weve questioned what is appropriate to share (or find out) via Facebook, or over email, or in a text. The screenshot below illustrates a very mild example.

And its not only due to issues of public vs. private in these spaces, but something deeper. Theres something about posting certain messages on Twitter, for instance, that feels like the digital equivalent of breaking up on a Post-It. But these media are all developing so quickly, becoming so deeply ingrained into our lives and even onto our physical selves, thats its often unclear how to draw these boundaries. Or whether it is a fools errand to try to do so.*

How can an organization keep up and be successful in this environment? Ill give you my thoughts on this in a follow-up post. But now, Id love to hear yours. Have you ever had a Post-It moment? What are your impressions of the relationship between the medium and the message? What are the implications for Jewish organizations in the connected age?

*To further complicate the matter, social media is not some monolithic beast. The term refers to a field, a loose configuration of platforms and spaces that allow for certain kinds of interaction. Each space has developed a culture of its own. There are behavioral and conversational norms that are perfectly acceptable in one space that would seem quite odd in another. For instance, sharing pictures of your breakfast has become fairly acceptable on Facebook; doing so in LinkedIn may not go over so well. (But now Ive gone off about food again…)

The Narrowing Orbit of Search

February 24, 2012 by

Lisa Colton Leave a comment

The New York Times Bits Blog is reporting this morning that Google will be adding social network posts from Google to its search results. Google takes its search algorithm very seriously, and any changes to the way search is analyzed or displayed has the potential to significantly influence the way that we all — really, a significant portion of the world’s population – access, identify and consume information. Today’s shift, which adds posts, photos, profiles and conversations from Google that are public or were shared privately with the person searching, is valuable for users because it brings "your world" (as Google refers to it) into search, aggregating all of the information you might be interested in seeking. It’s valuable to Google as further boosts the centrality of Google relative to other social networks (which for now are not included), and positions your search engine as the singular window into all aspects of your world. If I’m planning a trip to Paris I might find in my search hotels, reviews, discounts, maps, historical info, and now tips from friends who have been there, or even become aware that someone I know will be there at the same time. But more than the search engine as the window into the world, these changes position me as the center of the universe, with information orbiting me. Helpful, perhaps. But what are the implications? But the flip side of all of this is the narrowing of our worlds. Eli Pariser’s The Filter Bubble describes how because of the search algorithm (the ‘filter’), we don’t even know what is being hidden from us. What we’ve done and sought in the past strongly influence what we are exposed to in the future "leaving less room for the unexpected encounters that spark creativity, innovation, and the democratic exchange of ideas". Now that’s not so radically different from the way we lived prior to the internet. If I live in a particular neighborhood or my kids go to a particular school, I’m more likely to be friends with those people and remain in that orbit. But other recent research shows that young people today, while fairly technically savvy, have not been taught skills to evaluate the information they find. "Google’s a trusted web site," says one British student in a BBC segment. She used the first result Google returned and didn’t really think about it any further. While teaching a course at the high school Genesis program at Brandeis University a few years ago, I challenged my students to do a research project with limited access to resources: Only books, internet minus Wikipedia and the top 5 Google search results, or anything. As you can imagine, the results were vastly different. The students who were limited in their online search had a much deeper understanding of the material because they were exposed to many more sources and forced to evaluate and synthesize the information. The bottom line here is the difference between information and knowledge. We often confuse the two. Google’s shifts may change the way we access information, but it is our responsibility to create our own knowledge. And it is the responsibility of educators and parents to recognize that this process of knowledge creation and meaning making is different today than it has been in the past. We must teach these skills, and illustrate to students the implications of Google’s decisions, lazy searching and the conclusions we draw. Happy searching and socializing. And don’t forget to get outside of your own orbit from time to time. More on Google’s recent change: Mashable: Google Merges Search and Google Into Social Media Juggernaut Huffington Post: Google ‘Search Plus Your World’ Brings Google Into Search Results New York Times’ Bits Blog: Google’s Social Move Attracts Critics New York Times’ Bits Blog: Google Adds Posts From Its Social Network to Search Results

Tune Up Your Facebook Page For The High Holiday Season

September 7, 2011 by

Lisa Colton Leave a comment

The High Holidays are just around the corner. How will you use Facebook as an entry point for prospective members seeking to engage in the holiday season, and as a point of connection for current members? How can your Facebook Page be educational, and help your community prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to make the most of these powerful experiences? Darim is pleased to offer a webinar and webinar/consulting combo to help you tune up your Facebook Page for maximum impact this season. REGISTER HERE or use the form below. WEBINAR: Friday, August 12th 1-2pm Eastern In this one-hour webinar, we’ll walk you through how to use Facebook to engage constituents during this important time of year when you have more of their attention, including marketing your page, when to post, what types of updates are most successful, how to develop a content strategy for the holiday season, how to be personal with Facebook, and more. The webinar recording will be available to all who register to replay or revisit at your convenience. CONSULTING PACKAGE: To provide more support and customized attention, we’re offering one-on-one coaching for up to 8 congregations who want to review their current Facebook activities and strategy in more detail with a Darim consultant. Along with this one hour coaching sessions, you’ll receive a self-evaluation form that will help us identify your organization’s Facebook goals and current challenges using Facebook and a written follow up including tips and suggestions to help propel you forward. Price includes the webinar for up to 5 representatives from your congregation. Webinar: Only $20 Webinar coaching and support: $150 (only 8 seats available!) REGISTER FOR EITHER PACKAGE HERE. Or see the form below. A great kick in the tush to get your Facebook house in order for the busy season! What are you waiting for? Sign up for the webinar, or the full package with coaching and customized support! Our Presenter: Debra Askanase is founder of the social media strategy firm communityorganizer20.com. Debra blogs there about social media, nonprofits and community organizing. A frequent conference speaker, Debra can be found chatting away as @askdebra. Debra has worked with nonprofits for 20 years as organizer, program director, executive director and fundraiser. Debra has worked with many Jewish organizations, synagogues, day schools and other organizations in the US, Canada and Israel.

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Linkedin for Nonprofits

September 7, 2011 by

Lisa Colton Leave a comment

Guest post by Debra Askanase, Community Organizer 2.0

I had the privilege of presenting a webinar to the Darim Online community June 1, 2011 about how to use Linkedin for nonprofits. When I was preparing for the webinar, two things struck me: why cause-focused groups may not work well on Linked (more on that below), and how much Linkedin offers. The presentation focuses on five ways to best utilize Linkedin professionally: be goal-oriented, optimize both your personal and company profiles, utilize groups, and use Linkedin Answers.

If I had to offer three tips about using Linkedin effectively, they would be:

Think about why you and your company want to be one Linkedin, and how you use it will follow
Identify a combination of 10 keywords and keyword phrases that best describe you, and 10 others that best describe the organization. Integrate these keywords and keyword phrases into your personal and company profiles
Complete all employee personal Linkedin profiles to 100%, as well as the organizational profile

Start with your Goals

The key to using any social media platform effectively is to use it to meet your goals. Decide first why you (or your organization) would want to use Linkedin (such as finding collaborators, funders, or colleagues). Once you know why you want to use Linkedin, how you will use Linkedin follows. For example, if you want to use Linkedin to connect with foundations then you might:

search for people who work at those foundations
join groups that they have joined and participate
ask for introductions through mutual Linkedin connections
use Linkedin Answers to ask a question about contacting foundations

Identifying your goals will dictate your Linkedin strategy.

Optimize your personal profile

One aspect of optimizing your profile is completing it fully. Be sure to include your photo, a summary of who you are, keywords and interests, and a summary of what youve accomplished in every position. Its also important to have at least five recommendations, since you can search Linkedin by number of recommendations.

Use the advanced search option to understand how you can be found, and include those in your profile. Some of the search parameters are by industry, geographic location, number of recommendations, and position titles.

Optimizing your profile also means placing important phrases and keywords within your profile. Think about 10 to 15 keywords and keyword phrases that describe you professionally. Specifically, place keyword-rich content within the summary, specialties, and interests sections.

Optimize the company profile

If your organization doesnt have a company profile, create one on Linkedin. Identify the 10-15 keywords that best describe your organization, and integrate them into the company profile for the profile to be search-ready. If your organization has a blog or Twitter presence, be sure to add those to the company profile to personalize the company. Also, if you want to highlight specific products or services, do so through the new products and services feature.

Utilize the power of groups

Real connecting happens within groups. Search for groups related to your profession and industry. I also recommend joining groups your professional colleagues belong to as well. If a group is inactive or not valuable, leave. If it is, spend time within the group answering questions and offering help. When you find yourself in an interesting discussion, invite your colleagues to connect with you personally on Linkedin after the discussion has concluded. I tend to see the same group of people commenting on group discussions, which helps me to know them through our participation.

When groups are managed by nonprofits, and the discussion is about the nonprofit or a specific cause, they tend to be inactive. I looked at many public nonprofit-administered groups while researching this presentation, and most were very inactive or not lively. (I cannot comment on private groups, though.) I suspect that cause-specific or nonprofit-specific groups arent very active because Linkedin users want to discuss professional issues, not organizational mission. I also think that mission-based discussion has limited appeal while industry-based discussion has much broader appeal and basis for discussion. Additionally, Linkedin is not best used as a platform for recruiting people to become direct stakeholders; there are other platforms much better suited to cause-focused discussions.

There appears to be two exceptions to the inactive nonprofit-administered groups rule: One is Autism Speaks, which has a very lively Linkedin group, though Im not able to comment on why this is the case. The other exception seems to be professional associations. For example, the alumni group of the Princes Scottish Youth Business Trust (a youth business mentoring program) is a very active group for business class alums to connect with others and possibly do business together.

Linkedin Answers

Linkedin Answers is both a wonderful research tool and means to find new connections. By subscribing the the RSS feed of a certain category of questions (such as Social Entrepreneurship) you can stay up to date on the latest industry discussions, and also answer questions yourself. If your answer is selected as the best answer, you win the best answer designation, which enhances your professional credibility. Also, questions reach the entire Linkedin community, not just your personal connections.

Other Linkedin goodies

I love looking at whats going on in the Linkedin labs. Most recently, Ive enjoyed Linkedin Maps (visualize your own network) and Signal (trending news stories shared by your connections) from the labs. Check back each month for new labs products.

Resources

Joanne Fritz of nonprofit.about.com published a great article with many tips for nonprofit professionals using Linkedin. Fast Company also published an article with five Linkedin tips you didnt know. Read the excellent Net2 Think Tank discussion about using Linkedin for change. Allison Fine interviews Amy Sample Ward and Estrella Rosenberg on how nonprofits can use Linkedin on the December Social Good podcast. Drop in on the informative weekly Linkedin Twitter chat at 8pm every Tuesday, hosted by @LinkedinExpert and @MartineHunter.

If youd like to watch the recorded webinar that I presented with Darim Online, you may view it here.

Getting the Most out of Linkedin for Nonprofits

View more presentations from Debra Askanase

What is your Linkedin tip? What is the most useful thing about using Linkedin that youve found?

AVI CHAI Social Media Academy

April 15, 2011 by

Lisa Colton Leave a comment

We are so excited about Darim’s partnership with the AVI CHAI Foundation on their Social Media Academy! The Academy was created to help Jewish day schools integrate social media into their strategies for home-school communications, student recruitment, alumni outreach, and fundraising.

Ten high schools are taking part in a series of 3 face to face full-day meetings, an offering of over 20 webinars, an ongoing Facebook Group discussion, and coaching sessions to help them develop and implement strategic social-media enhanced communications plans for their schools.

The Academy reflects the work that the Foundation has been doing with social media guru Allison Fine over the past year, and was created in response to a recent survey that the Foundation conducted of around 300 day schools regarding their use of social media.

The Academy met twice in March face to face. Participants learned about a number of foundational social media tools, started creating their plans based on a “POST” planning process (inspired by the book Groundswell — People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology), debriefed what they’ve experimented with and implemented between the two meetings, and shared emerging best practices with each other.

The good people from Big Duck guided the group through determining appropriate metrics for analyzing social media and creating social media policies. Big Duck will also provide individualized coaching sessions to each school team on a regular basis.

Kudos to AVI CHAI for taking such great strides in modeling the learning process that they have undertaken themselves as a learning organization, and extending their active support to other professionals in Jewish education. We can’t wait to share more of what we are learning as well!

Read more about the Allison Fine’s reflections on the Social Media Academy here:

Avi Chai Social Media Academy Begins
Social Media Academy Part II