Creating a strong brand for your school is essential for building community trust, attracting new families, and showcasing the unique qualities that set your school apart. One of the most powerful ways to achieve this is by empowering student storytellers. At Lewis Central Community Schools, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, they’ve done just that. We sat down with Josh Allen, Technology Integration Specialist, to learn how their social media intern program has not only enhanced their online presence but also given students the chance to create high quality social media content for the district.
Q: How has Class Intercom helped Lewis Central empower students to create social content?
A: It really allows us to give kids the opportunity to make something professionally. They are creating their own content for themselves, but we are letting them create something in a professional way so that way when they go out in a professional setting they have this experience writing in a professional setting for a large audience. Through our internship program at the high school, we’ve been able to develop an opportunity for students to become a social media intern for the district. We started it last year and found it to be incredibly beneficial to find a student who could dedicate his/her time during the school day to help create meaningful content on behalf of the district on social media. If we didn’t have that internship program in place it would have been much more difficult to provide this opportunity for our students.
The student intern team at Lewis Central Community School District, takes a selfie with their teacher, Josh Allen.
Q: What problem has Class Intercom helped you solve?
A: For us, the big problem was the amount of content. I had met with the board, and just let them know what’s going on with technology integration. There’s nothing in my job that says I have to do social media. It simply came from the fact that no one was doing it, and it could bring such a value to our school, and I just have such a passion for it. I’m just like the kids. When I see that hundreds of people liked or saw our photo I get excited too because our name is getting out there, and the more we can get our name out their the more people recognize us. Now we can find kids who can help generate content without me trying to be everywhere at one time.
Q: When did you realize you needed a product like Class Intercom?
A: I remember the first conversations surrounding if we were going to get Class Intercom, and I was kind of like “Eh, I don’t even know what I’m gonna do with it.” I didn’t even know what I needed. I hadn’t thought about kids creating content. There are lots of ways to do this too. We could have a whole bunch of documents going through google classroom and google docs, but the workflow management piece that Class Intercom offers is huge.
Q: Three ways Class Intercom has improved your school’s social media?
A: We can give the kids the opportunity to create content in a professional setting, we’ve been able to grow our school’s brand and we’ve been able to create a workflow that actually works.
Interested in learning more about how Class Intercom can help you school or district develop a brand that engages and informs your community? Visit the link below to connect with our team.
