The Yearbook World of Scott Geesey
from Jostens Yearbooks of central/northern Pennsylvania
ARCHIVE - OCTOBER 6, 2019
USING SOCIAL MEDIA: Yearbooking and Storytelling Should Use These Valuable Tools
Hello! First, a big Thanks to all of the schools who attended one of my regional workshop days over the last four weeks, with several more this week. I really enjoyed working with everyone in learning more about storytelling, better photography, better writing, page designing and all the great tools of Yearbook Avenue.
For those who attended the key now is to build on what you learned at the training day, don't let those skills slip. I saw some great work and I hope to see that same work in your yearbook this year.
Hey, here it is, it's National Yearbook Week!! Are you DOING something at school? Staff party? Enter one of the Jostens social media contests? Anything? If somehow you forgot I won't tell anyone but it's not too late, do something THIS week!
Uh oh, many fall sports seasons are concluding here in mid October - do you have enough images of your teams? Do a quick inventory this week, then be sure to get those needed images to remember your teams in your yearbook and on your ReplayIt website/app.
Social media is part of life today - it should be part of yearbooking as well...
For my Jostens advisers we've discussed the idea of storytelling a lot over the last year. My idea of yearbooking is "HOW MANY stories can you tell?" At Jostens we don't just have a yearbook anymore. Now we have your book AND your terrific ReplayIt.com website and app, allowing any staff to literally tell as many stories as they wish, even ALL the stories.
Your book is finite, meaning it has only so many pages of only a certain size. But your ReplayIt site has no ceiling, no lid, so let's get as many images and videos up there as we can this year - tell as many stories as possible.
But there's another powerful tool that any yearbook staff should use to tell and gather those stories - social media. Virtually every student has some kind of presence on one of the growing number of social media sites - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat and others.
I joke that many students - actually many PEOPLE of all kinds - now live their lives online. But it isn't a joke, is it? In less than 10 years social media has become an integral part of the lives of so many people. It allows them to share their highlights and thoughts to a wide audience, or follow the highlights and thoughts of anyone else from friends to celebrities to business contacts to, well, ANYONE.
Imagine all those stories being shared, from so many different people. Our job as yearbookers means we're to keep and post as many memories as we can. With all of those stories and memories being shared on social media, it's a place any yearbook staff should be a part of.
Facebook is probably still the big dog in social media, and of course it's probably the #1 banned website on school computer networks. While some yearbook staffs have their own Facebook page, it may actually not be the best choice for your storytelling work because of those restrictions. Still, it's worth assigning a trusted staffer to be your Facebook coordinator to make use of this well-used resource.
The other social media sites may actually be more valuable to your storytelling effort. Twitter has made gains among younger users and may be a better way to post messages to followers, share the latest information, and tell stories in short bursts. Instagram is very visually based, plenty of pictures there and picture sharing. Same with Pinterest, although the advantage with this source is being able to tell stories in different ways by "pinning" them on the page.
And then there's Snapchat which MANY students cite as their favorite. Challenge your staffers to come up with ways to use Snapchat to further your effort, both in gathering stories and promoting your book.
I know that there are many older advisers who are still a bit intimidated about social media, or just have no interest in getting started. My thought is that these tools are here and are used frequently by students - your yearbook staff shouldn't overlook these valuable media sources. And even if you don't know social media, you know your students DO - let them take the lead in creating and maintaining your social media sites, a chance to teach further responsibility.
For some further guidance and ideas, check out the Social Media video in the Digital Classroom on your Yearbook Avenue website. Enter "videos" in the search bar to see the entire series. Play this one for your staff to gain some great advice.
And there's one more social media source you should definitely use - your ReplayIt.com website and especially your ReplayIt mobile app. Your followers can check out all of your great images, watch your videos on the website, and then share their images with you for those events that your staff couldn't reach.
If you haven't already, please promote for your students to download the free Jostens ReplayIt app, register for your site with your school local passcode (if you have one,) then follow along and offer their own images anytime. If you need further help or suggestions, you know where to find me!