Sharpen your pencils, bust out the new backpacks, and get ready to head back to class! While there may be a few more weeks before school gets going in your area, it’s not too early to start thinking about your social media plans for the first day of school. Here’s our honor roll of some great back-to-school social media ideas that you can easily put your own spin on to use in your newsroom.
First Day of School Pictures
Parents love to brag about their kids, no matter how old they are! WEHT/WTVW showcased some of their local students on their first day back to school during their noon newscast with SND On Air. It’s simple and quick to put together a playlist from Facebook posts, comments and Tweets. You can also collect Instagram content from business pages to include in your playlists.
Get your anchors and reporters in on the action, too – sharing those old school pictures can be a great way to connect with viewers, like the team did at Good Day Sacramento.
#Hashtags
Whether you’re posting on Instagram or Twitter, hashtags can really help your content thrive, but also help you find it later. Come up with a hashtag, something like #(CallLetters)backtoschool. This way you can promote it in your newscasts as you show off the photos you’ve been receiving with SND On Air.
And don’t forget to monitor popular hashtags for viral content as well. #backtoschool is a big one. Use your Twitter search to open up a column monitoring the hashtag. Use the parameters: #backtoschool -rt filter:images lang:en – This will provide a column of Tweets that use the hashtag, are organic (not retweeted), contain an image and are in English. Of course, if you want other languages included, you can add them in as well.
Lunch Ideas
Instagram and food go hand in hand! So, do some digging and find some great lunchbox ideas. Pinterest can help you out in finding these things. Share some cool ideas on your Instagram account, and get your morning show to talk about it as well! This is a great morning show segment that you could really run with. I mean, how cute is this:
Hot Topics
As Facebook doubles down on meaningful social interactions (MSIs), promoting great conversations in your comments section is key to making sure your content continues to show up to more fans in their News Feed. Asking a simple question in the post text, headlines or comments can fuel the conversation among your fans.
WOWK in Charleston, WV had people debating whether or not year-round school schedules were better than having a summer off.
While most of the sports conversation at this time of year revolves around football, other sports are getting in the mix. NBC DFW (KXAS) got their fans talking with this post about video games trying to make its way into high school sports.
Go Live
ABC27 (WHTM) in Harrisburg, PA brings their station to local schools for a live pep rally! Facebook Live brings the excitement to viewers on social media. Consider using Facebook Live to immerse your fans in the experience.
Share What Makes Your Area Unique
Back to school is a great time to feature students, teachers and families who are doing amazing things in your community. As local journalists, this is a big part of the reason we’re around!You can upload and schedule your content in advance with SND’s simple post scheduler, to make sure your content hits your page right when your audience is ready to watch. And the brand-new SND Scheduled Interactions tool lets you schedule Comments and Shares too!
KLBK showcased a high school football player who happens to be deaf – and uses it to his advantage. It got a great response from their page’s fans! 
Crowdsource Ideas
From back to school tips that keep families going to sharing quick meal ideas, your audience can be a great source of wisdom. 8 News Now (KLAS) used an eye-catching photo to help their viewers share their favorite ideas for getting a little more out of the end of summer break.
Have a Little Fun
Finally, don’t be afraid to get your viewers laughing during what can be a stressful time of year for a lot of parents. Many stations across the country shared this great photo of a mom lounging in her pool while her kids were dressed to head back to class. These can be great posts to your Instagram feed as well!
WRBL managed to find the mom and talk to her on Facebook Live to bring the story back home!
Got a great post you’d like to share with us? Tweet us at @socialnewsdesk and let us know!
