The Yearbook World of Scott Geesey

from Jostens Yearbooks of central/northern Pennsylvania

ARCHIVE - SEPTEMBER 29, 2019
 

THE IMPORTANCE OF REPLAYIT: Now Our Storytelling is More Than Just on Paper

Hello! Feeling more like Autumn? I enjoy wearing sweats and jackets and now I'm digging them out of the closet. Below 40 degrees this week?

Don't forget - NEXT WEEK is National Yearbook Week! Check the archive below for my home page story from last week. And for my Jostens advisers, once again Jostens is running some special promotions for those who buy a copy of YOUR book starting October 4 for two weeks, a chance to win some cool prizes when they buy directly through Jostens either online or by phone. Keep your eyes open for messages on details.

Speaking of messages, many Jostens advisers should be receiving our awesome new Grow Your Know weekly emails filled with great ideas, tips and inspiration. Hope you enjoy them and put them to good use!

A reminder for Social Media users - Jostens has terrific resources on FOUR different social media outlets: Facebook, Twittter, Pinterest and Instagram. For Jostens schools, use the easy links on your Yearbook Avenue log-in page at www.yearbookavenue.com - the links are right at the bottom of the page. Check them out, all of them if you wish, for tons of great ideas for your yearbooking effort this year, frequently refreshed with new information.

And if you haven't already - watch the September edition of The Yearbooking Report with the widget in the lower right column, or go to YouTube and search for "yearbooking report." We have some great tips on staff organization, a sneak peek at next year's new Layout Pro page creation tool, and WATCH TO THE END for this month's trivia question and a chance to WIN.

Want even more ideas and inspiration? Listen to the Yearbooking Report podcast, right through the widget in the right column.

It's the 21st century - let's tell our stories in every way possible, print and digital...

I like to repeat the mantra - "the world has changed and we need to change with it." Not the world IS changing, the world HAS CHANGED. What do I mean?

Look around your school, especially right before or after school or maybe during lunchtime - virtually every student now carries a smartphone. What do they do with them? They probably check at least one social media outlet for the latest information. Maybe they check their email but texting is probably more popular. If they're an outdoor athlete maybe they check the weather forecast for that day's game, or they check the scores of their favorite teams. If they go to a BYOD school they probably use their device to search the web for information for various classes.

The world has now truly gone mobile. Recently Apple made their big announcements about their latest devices and it got HUGE coverage, probably followed by a flood of orders for these new devices. More and more people get their daily information not from a newspaper or even radio or TV, or even from their computer - instead they get it from their mobile device.

So how can you and your yearbook staff use the power and growing reach of mobile in your yearbooking effort? Jostens has the tools you can use RIGHT NOW, and we're just getting started.

Maybe one key is the word "yearbooking," which simply means storytelling in as many ways as you can. Personally I don't use the word "yearbook" anymore because that's only about a book, and while the book isn't going anywhere (despite what some say, your yearbook is still a one of a kind collector's item designed to last a lifetime) it's obvious that we need to reach our audience where they live now - on their mobile devices.

And that means using your Jostens ReplayIt website and app, your yearbook's digital companion. I think this is really an exciting time for yearbooking students because now we have the opportunity to do our storytelling literally every single day, anytime we want, about AS MANY PEOPLE as we want.

It's not about just making pages anymore - it's truly about storytelling because while a yearbook is finite with a limit on space and coverage, adding ReplayIt with no limits can make our storytelling about as infinite as possible. Imagine - telling some story about every single person in school, especially those students who often get lost in the background. Think they would be thrilled to be noticed and remembered? You bet!

And another great thing about making ReplayIt part of your group's storytelling is that it's a multimedia enterprise - you can now tell stories with pictures, words, even videos and infographics. Multimedia is a buzzword in education these days and here's a fantastic way to utilize new technology to tell your stories. Videos add sound and movement to your stories. Infographics make boring statistics come to life through interesting art and images.

Plus ReplayIt is a great tool to get images from your audience - let them share in the fun. For all of those events, games and moments thay your yearbook staff can't attend, use ReplayIt to get images from those who were there. Worried about pictures? Remember that our terrific moderation team examines EVERY SINGLE image as they come in, 24/7, to make sure they are appropriate. The bad/questionable ones get stopped; the good ones move through immediately.

Another feature? Every summer Jostens archives everything showing in your ReplayIt app and saves it into your annual digital Time Capsule. Now your folks can use the ReplayIt app to not only see the here and now but also to look back to prior years. We just started year eight of ReplayIt - think about all those images, videos and memories at your fingertips.

And did I mention - ReplayIt is absolutely FREE. Yes, no fees, no charges. You can really expand your staff's storytelling and not spend one extra dime on it. C'mon, I HAVE to have your attention now!!

Again - "the world has changed and we need to change with it." Jostens is always forward-thinking and we realize the world has changed. Most of the same old ideas no longer apply - and it's time to really use technology to tell stories every single day, about every single person, to really galvanize your entire school audience.