School PR and communications reflection #5 – SCN Encourager

Since Seth Godin’s attorney hasn’t put the kabosh on my series of school PR reflections yet, here’s one more.

At least I don’t think he has.

Sometimes I’m a little slow in getting around to my mail.

(If you know what I mean…)

As we head into good ol’ #5, here are my first four “Godin inspired” school PR and communication reflections from yesterday.

Q5 What is our best content? How do we tell our story?

In my view, the key differentiator between good school communications and great school communications is this:

School districts that have GREAT school PR strategically and consistently set out to CREATE the stories people will tell about them.  At every opportunity (AKA touchpoints), they strive to exceed the expectations of the people they serve.

Some school districts may still find success in a more traditional model of school PR, in which the emphasis is on spotlighting and telling their school stories, not so much creating them.

With communications clutter running amok and getting worse, though, this approach is getting harder to carry out well.

Achieving the intended result depends on repeating good school news often enough, so that people will eventually see the magnitude of what all our schools are doing and jump on the bandwagon.

It’s hard to knock this tactic. It’s well meaning. It shares truth (our schools are doing wonderful things!). And absolutely, messages that get out there and repeated will have a hundred times greater impact than those messages that are never shared at all.

Now, you should know that not everyone agrees with this last point.

Cindy would say that some of the Encouragers I’ve never written are indeed far better than some of the ones I have!

Maybe this should bother me, but it doesn’t.

I just keep reminding myself that she’s not a seasoned and trained school communicator.

We should never go overboard in accepting anecdotal feedback.

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