Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1497353
Building Your Social Media Toolbox By Elizabeth Barcelos The Power of Useful Information W H E N E V E R I T E L L someone about my job as a social media manager, I'm often asked things like, "How do you think of what to post?" or "Where do you get your ideas come from?" Over the years, I've built what I like to call my content toolbox: a collection of communications tools that work for every social media platform. They change all the time, but what sticks with people and makes them pause instead of scrolling onward is consistent and translates across platforms. This issue, we'll walk through how you can add useful information to your content toolbox. When you're responsible for putting out a lot of social media content on a regular basis, it can feel overwhelming. It's easy to panic and think, "I have to come up with something new every day?" Well, let me ease your anxiety a bit. Oftentimes, the most effective thing you can do is take information that already exists and break it down into social media-sized pieces. Wisdom Wednesday: Empowering Members to Know Their Contract Think about your contract with your district. If you posted it directly to your social media platforms and asked col- leagues to read it so that they 're informed of their rights, chances are you wouldn't get very many clicks. Instead, think of each article as a social media-sized chunk of information. Folks are far more likely to read something short and sweet and you get the added bonus of weeks' worth of content ready to schedule out and post on a regular basis. I've seen several chapters do this on their social media, but I want to give a particular shoutout to the Wisdom Wednesday feature from the Chula Vista Educators Face- book and Instagram pages. A consistent series like this checks off several boxes. Because it keeps the same look over time, followers know that this is their weekly reminder of what's in the contract. On the creator side, instead of having to design new graph- ics all the time, you have a template that is easy to reuse. 44 cta.org Teaching & Learning