Has your Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) decided that you finally want to get on social media and maybe start your very own Facebook page, but you’re not quite sure where to get started?
Keep reading to learn five different things that you need to do in order to get your PTO or PTA’s Facebook page up and running.
Making sure that you have all of the right settings will ensure you have things in order so that you can reach the widest audience possible.
This will allow families and community members to stay up to date with the goings on for your PTO and lend their support when possible.
Having a presence on social media is a must to reach this audience.
Let’s get started!
Choose a Name
The very first thing that you need to do is choose a name for your Facebook page.
Now, this sounds really elementary!
“Of course I need to choose a name, Christina,” but, this is step so, so, so important.
You can’t just choose any name.
You want the page’s name to be easily found by people.
I definitely recommend using your full PTO name and maybe working in the school name somehow if it’s not already in your PTO’s name.
This will make it easier for parents and community members to find your PTO’s Facebook page.
Before you make a final decision, do a quick search on Facebook to see what else pops up.
Are there things that are very similar that might be confusing for people, and they might not understand which one is your PTO and which one is another organization?
For example, I’ve made up a fake PTO (Bluestone PTO) that I use a lot of times in describing different PTO situations.
I just made that up that group, but I think there might actually be one that exists somewhere.
I didn’t check on Facebook or anywhere else before I started using Bluestone PTO as my example.
But be sure to not follow my example here.
Go ahead and do yourself a favor and just give a quick search in the Facebook search bar and see what comes up so that you’re not surprised.
And also that you’re not regretting your naming choice after the fact.
The page name is easier to change it at the beginning when nobody has yet started looking for your page and you’ve not announced it.
Choose Page Administrators and Editors
The second thing you want to do when establishing the Facebook page is to identify volunteers in your group who will have administrative and content posting privileges.
You never want to have just one person with access to the PTO’s Facebook account.
First, over the years I’ve gotten several emails from very distraught PTO volunteers saying the new PTO President has locked everybody out of the account.
In one case, the President was restricting access to the group’s page during the middle of a school year, which really impacted fundraising and family events and more.
It actually was a pretty big deal for the PTO not to be able to post on social media to reach the school families at this time.
I believe there was a spat between the President who had the sole administrative control and then everybody else on the PTO.
I don’t have all of the details on how things worked out in the end, but what a mess to deal with!
And an avoidable one to boot!
You can really address that fact by first having multiple administrators on the account.
It’s also something you want to note in your group’s bylaws or standing rules.
so that if somebody decides to stop playing nicely, you can point the previous agreement out to them and stop the issue in it’s tracks.
A different group with just one volunteer with account access found itself dealing with an entirely different but just as unfortunate situation.
The only person with account access to the well established PTO Facebook page passed away before sharing access with anyone else in the group!
Here’s there was no recourse remaining members could take other than starting another page from scratch using a different name.
Administrators of the Facebook account will have top-level control over the account, and they can add or delete other administrators.
That’s why you want to have multiple people with administrative access.
And make sure these volunteers are trustworthy.
Some volunteers to consider for this position: definitely the PTO President, perhaps the Secretary (they can be post information about upcoming meetings and or posting meeting minutes), the Fundraising Chair, the Family Events Chair and of course the Communications Chair.
When you broaden who has account access, you’re going to be enabling more people to post, which means that it doesn’t fall all on one person.
More people with account access is generally better.
Once you all kind of have an agreement about what’s going to be posted, I have found that it really isn’t too big of a deal that everyone is not posting in the same tone or voice.
The audience isn’t really paying that close of attention, so that it’s really fine and that it benefits you to have more people on the account.
Profile Picture
The third thing you want to get lined up to create your PTO’s Facebook page is an image for the page profile.
This will usually be the PTO’s logo and not the school logo.
Using the school’s logo for your Pro’s Facebook page may inject some confusion unnecessarily.
Establishing a Facebook page for your PTO is creating a separate identity from the school.
Although your PTO is affiliated with the school and your existence depends on the existence of the school because the PTO would not exist but for the school, that doesn’t mean you are the school.
You really are a separate organization, a separate entity.
Public-facing, on the—in the social media world—it’s really helpful if you’re a separate entity.
It will be less confusing, and it will be easier for you to distinguish between the two groups or the two organizations really so that you have more control over your image, your voice, your content.
Bottom line: Create logo for your PTO and use it for your profile picture.
Don’t just slap up the school logo on there because it’s easier.
Page Content
Now, let’s talk about what to post on your PTO’s new Facebook page.
Start collecting all the pictures from different events, meetings, showing volunteer and parents coming together.
The photos don’t all necessarily need to be posed.
Candid pictures are great to throw into the mix.
Faces are optional too- a volunteer can take a picture at the back of the room during a PTO meeting.
Think of photos that will connect your Facebook audience to your PTO and help the audience stay in the loop.
Consider introducing the leaders.
Introduce all who have either been elected or appointed in a leadership position.
Post 10 pictures of the new leaders with a short description and introduction in a single post.
Add the details in the caption for each volunteer so that the post itself isn’t super long and it is readable by people.
This is a nice way to acknowledge your leaders and give them a little time in the spotlight.
We know that we work way too hard and get very little recognition for all that we do as PTO leaders and volunteers.
Posting Schedule
Now, how often should you be posting on your PTO Facebook page?
Here’s the thing: Facebook really wants you to be paying to get your message out there.
Understand that your distribution is going to be relatively low.
You’re not always going to be reaching everybody who’s following your PTO Facebook page, unless you pay for ads to promote the post.
And I really don’t think that’s a good use of your PTO’s money.
instead, make a Facebook post and then share it with your network in the school.
Ask other officers to do the same and also share to their Facebook community.
Don’t spend a lot of time posting on Facebook either.
The point of having the Facebook page is to better communicate with families and community members. And another point is to just exist to be found by those looking for your group.
The value comes from being present, and if you are posting once a week, great.
If you are posting twice a month, great, as long as it’s on somewhat of a kind of a regular basis like that.
Daily posting? Not necessary because you’re going to get lost in the flood of everything else that’s going on in people’s Facebook newsfeeds.
Concentrate on what matters most and don’t worry about posting all the time.
Watch this!
Over to You!
And now you know the basics of setting up your PTO’s Facebook page.
Follow the steps and you’ll have a nice start on carving out your PTO’s own little corner on social media and be better positioned to communicate with your entire school community!
This topic was requested by a YouTube audience member, so if you have a similar burning question, don’t hesitate to contact me.
