How to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in your department

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SchoolCEO Magazine fosters a community for K-12 leaders to share their best and most innovative ideas.

Today’s newsletter is guest-written by Florida-based school communications professional Greg Turchetta .

One of my favorite exercises to do as a K-12 Chief Communications Officer was a SWOT analysis of our district and school marketing plans.?

A SWOT analysis is a technique used to identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats for your department or even a specific project. A SWOT analysis is a powerful tool for helping you identify competitive opportunities for improvement. It helps you improve your team and keep ahead of market trends.

The truth is I can actually do a SWOT Analysis for all K-12 school communications programs right now. Let's see what you think!?

STRENGTHS

Every school district has a limitless supply of amazing stories to tell that support and prove their value to their community. From student success to program accolades, from teacher profiles to amazing efforts of support staff, there is a fantastic positive story everywhere you look on a school campus. Kids should be celebrated. Parents love to see their kids shine!?

WEAKNESSES

There's one really big one. We don't have 100 people working for our communications department. How many times have you had a community member come up to you and say, "I had no idea that was happening in elementary/middle/high school!"? That's a shame and that's on us. The public perception of a school is largely based on personal experience with classes or teachers in the past. Those memories could be 20, 30, or 40 years old. We have to tell more positive stories so that our collective lift offsets or lessens the inevitable hit that comes from negative memories or stories.

OPPORTUNITIES

The largest opportunity we have as school leaders is to empower our district professionals. SchoolCEO Research has found that teachers and staff members alike are ready and willing to act as brand ambassadors for their schools—they just need a little training and direction. The same goes for your building leaders, who are among the most trusted members of any community. When the responsibility for telling your schools’ story is left up to just one person or even one department, things can fall through the cracks. Instead, invite your entire team to be part of the effort. Your district can have content creators all over the place capturing stories you didn't even know existed!?

THREATS

We all know we have to do more to change the narrative around public schools. The vocal minority, who are often critical of public schools no matter what actions they take, is winning in too many towns. Misinformation and even disinformation thrive in the face of complacency or otherwise insufficient communications. The best way to counter untrue narratives is to push through the fear and let those closest to the classroom tell their own success stories.

The conclusion of this SWOT analysis of K-12 marketing plans is that we have to use every voice possible to tell the district's story. If nothing changes then nothing changes. Or worse, funding, student enrollment, and teacher recruitment decisions are influenced more by your critics than your own voice.?

— Greg?

One question for you

1. What strategies do you use to educate teachers and staff on your district's branding and communication priorities?

Email us at [email protected] or book a time on our calendar and let us know.

Two resources to help

1. How does effective communications shape your schools? What are the best practices to keep your community informed and to allow them to know that you’re listening to their concerns? We’ll explore exactly how to engage with effective communications in Episode 3 from SchoolCEO Podcast’s The Complete Guide to School Marketing series.

2. You can start to change how you approach your school community today if you’re willing to shift your thinking around what marketing is and how it can work for you. That’s good news, because the biggest roadblocks for many school leaders are the mental barriers that hold back creativity and exploration. We’ll walk you through it in Reframing Your Marketing Mindset.

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Three ideas to ponder

1. “More likely than not, a good number of your staff members are willing to act as school brand ambassadors; they just may not know how useful their participation on social media could be. Your job is twofold: to show your teachers how much you need their voices and to help them build the skills they need to engage online” — Want brand ambassadors? Try school social media training.

2. “There are always things throughout the school year that we can depend on happening; that’s the 70% that we can control. We need to proactively prepare for that 70%—because when the 30% we can’t control hits, it is time-consuming” — Hawthorn District 73 Superintendent Dr. Peter Hannigan in Working Together

3. “It’s easy to get people’s attention; what counts is getting their interest.” — Civil Rights Activist A. Philip Randolph