Setting up a school Facebook page to communicate with parents

Schools utilise a range of traditional and technical platforms to communicate with parents and students including websites, newsletters, mobile apps and SMS messaging.

One option that is often overlooked by schools is creating a school Facebook page.  Facebook is by far the most popular social network platform and the majority of parents are familiar with it in some capacity.

School Facebook pages can be created for free by a member of staff in well under an hour, and used as a platform to broadcast information to parents which they can access on mobile devices and computers.  

Just remember that nearly all of your parents are sitting up at some point of the day with Facebook on their phone.  Whether it's the school car park, office or home.

You can tailor the level of interaction parents have with the page, from a completely one directional conversation being lead by the school, through to varying levels of interaction and feedback by parents.  As the creator of the page you also have the right to remove and moderate content.

Getting the setup process right is essential as you would not want to create a platform that could breed negativity about the school from parents and external sources.

I have put together this video which walks you through the set up process and highlight the areas of most concern to schools.  I hope you find it useful.