After you've begun using Twitter for your school you might be struggling with what you should tweet. I had the same dilemma after we created the Twitter account for my school so I developed the 75/25/1 Twitter content rule.
Let me give you a little background – everything that I've read about tweeting as an individual says that in order to be effective on Twitter you should follow these guidelines:
- Tweet around a specific focus
- Share content that will be valuable to your followers
- Retweet other people – the old adage “it's better to give than receive” works well on Twitter
- Connect with people with your similar focus
- Don't be self-promotional all the time
Let me use my own Twitter account, @SchneiderB, as an example:
- I tweet about social media, technology, branding, and inbound marketing for schools
- I attempt to share Twitter content that I read on the web about the topics in my specific focus
- I try to retweet others often in order to make connections but also because I follow people who also tweet about my specific focus and they share interesting content
- I try to connect with other people on Twitter every day
- I try to only self-promote 25% of the time and share information not about me 75% of the time
Twitter Content For Your School
Believing what I do about tweeting for yourself – I decided that when it was time to tweet for my school I would change the rules a little bit. Let me compare a school to the guidelines I mentioned above:
- A school is it's own specific focus but I also include the local/greater community
- I try to share content that the many different constituencies would find valuable coming from the official school Twitter account
- I try to retweet other people as often as it's appropriate
- I try to connect with other people, organizations, and community members as often as possible on Twitter
- When it comes to self-promotion this is where I think a school's Twitter account can turn the personal guidelines on their head. I believe this because people follow a school account already having a pretty good sense that they will receive information specific to the school. As a result, I try to follow the 75/25/1 rule when tweeting for my school. I tweet about school specific information 75% of the time, non-school specific information 25% of the time, and I try to connect with at least 1 person a day using the school's Twitter account.
Examples of Twitter Content For Your School
Here are a few examples of the types of Twitter content you can tweet for your school following the 75/25/1 rule.
75 Percent of Your Twitter Content Should Not Be Related to Your School
- Blog posts
- Recent news
- Sports scores
- Picture of the day
- Student of the day
- Video of the day
- Homeroom of the month
- Lunch menu
- Calendar events
25 Percent of Your Twitter Content Should Not Be Related to Your School
- Education articles
- Local news
- Local weather
- Local events
- Education quotes
- Professional development items
1 Connection a Day
I typically look for a way to interact with a person on Twitter, using the school Twitter account, by responding to a tweet, retweeting someone and adding a comment, or asking a question.
We've been happy with the results of our school's Twitter account as a part of our inbound marketing efforts and by following the 75/25/1 rule. I'm sure you will achieve similar results.
Originally published February 9, 2012, 4:00 AM, updated February 8, 2022.
