How Corvallis School District Chooses CivicPlus® for Social Media Archiving and Compliance
Keys to Project:
Near real-time capturing ability for multiple social media networks
School District:
Corvallis School District, ORPopulation:
6,379 StudentsProducts:
Challenge:
The District need an automated tool to capture content from its 22 social media accounts to support its compliance with Oregon Public Record Law.
Solution:
The CivicPlus Social Media Archiving software (formerly ArchiveSocial)
Result:
The District now maintains a secure archive and leverages the the software's Risk Management and Analytics Suite (RMA) to maximize the control and visibility of its social media footprint.
Social media has evolved into a vital communication tool for school districts around the United States. With the ability to connect and engage with parents, teachers, students, and community members instantly, the Corvallis, Oregon School District leans heavily on its ever-growing social media presence to disseminate information in a timely manner. To remain compliant with Oregon Public Record Law and amplify its messaging, the District relies on CivicPlus® Social Media Archiving software (formerly ArchiveSocial) to archive its social media accounts.
Preserving History, Compliance, and Community
The Corvallis School District operates 22 social media accounts across Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn, representing the District, individual schools, and their administration, from superintendents to teachers. With so many users handling social media accounts, CivicPlus Social Media Archiving software’s near real-time capturing ability, paired with posts maintaining their original form in a secure archive, allows the District to maintain control of its presence.
“(The Corvallis School District) has ArchiveSocial to protect our students, our families, and our staff,” explained Kelly Locey, communications coordinator for the Corvallis School District. “That way, we can comply with public records requests because things happen on social media. We have access to all of our accounts, but we don’t manage the day-to-day on all of them, so it also provides some security of being able to see history or to know what conversations have happened.”
Actively Communicating and Reducing Risk with Social Media Monitoring and Alerting
In addition to its secure archive, the School District also leverages Social Media Archiving’s Risk Management and Analytics Suite (RMA) to maximize the control and visibility of its social media footprint. With many different accounts to monitor, the Custom Alerts feature has proven invaluable while District employees multi-task throughout the day.
“The keywords feature allows us to respond to questions and concerns promptly while working on our other job responsibilities,” said Megan Mahoney, Communications Specialist at Corvallis School District. “(The alerts are) important to our work as school communicators because we can remain proactive and engaged with our community without needing to constantly monitor each account. The keywords feature makes social media fit into our workflow, not the other way around.”
Corvallis School District Stays Ahead of Social Media & Compliance
The frequency at which someone receives alerts is customizable, ranging from immediate, daily, weekly, or in-app-only notifications. The RMA Suite also includes analytics reports that measure community sentiment. This feature has allowed the District to better understand its impact on key focuses, like building positivity through the school buildings. And with these keyword alerts and sentiment trends, reacting to their community is easier than ever.
The keywords feature makes social media fit into our workflow, not the other way around.
Megan Mahoney,
Communications Specialist Corvallis School District
“Being alerted to the negative pieces is really timely and important, but we also like to know what’s going on and what the community’s perception is of our staff and our buildings,” said Locey. “The positive engagement is really great, and it helps us make sure that that good work doesn’t go unnoticed.”
Capturing Website Records
But maintaining a fully compliant digital presence isn’t just archiving your social media accounts but also your websites, which is why it’s essential to have an archiving solution that can also capture your website pages. For Corvallis School District, Social Media Archiving’s Web Snapshots solution constantly monitors and captures its website pages and stores the records and metadata in its archive. Now, the district’s entire digital footprint is in one secure location.
“Having (these archives) at our fingertips is great because if we don’t have it archived (with Web Snapshots), it takes much more staff time to access it,” said Locey. “So it’s great to be able to have something at our fingertips that helps us be able to quickly grab that information as we need it.”
Keeping Up with the Students
Centralized control and management is key when it comes to digital communications, as things are constantly evolving and changing. For the Corvallis District, as their social media presence continues to grow, so have the calls from Corvallis students to produce TikTok content on a school-sanctioned account. A significant hold-up was the lack of archiving solutions for the platform; until now. CivicPlus recently introduced TikTok Archiving so school districts like Corvallis can dance their way through the halls.
“Our students are interested in TikTok, and I really don’t like to pull our students back from something really engaging and interesting and powerful,” said Locey. “But we just have to be able to maintain that ability to archive (to remain compliant with public records laws).”
Regardless of the specific platforms that your schools are on, social media will continue to be an essential communication tool for them. And as more school districts expand their strategies to include a greater focus on social media, their risk and responsibilities will also increase. Luckily, with ArchiveSocial, school districts like Corvallis can easily manage a responsible social media presence without the constant need to monitor their accounts.
“I would recommend [CivicPlus] to other school districts simply because of the reassurance that it provides,” said Mahoney. “For communications teams that are a one-person shop or do not have a dedicated social media administrator, ArchiveSocial acts as that dedicated set of eyes. Furthermore, in an ongoing emergency or crisis that hits your social media account, [CivicPlus Social Media Archiving software] can help filter the urgent questions and concerns and provide a pulse of the community’s response.”
I would recommend [CivicPlus] to other school districts simply because of the reassurance that it provides. For communications teams that are a one-person shop or do not have a dedicated social media administrator, [the software] acts as that dedicated set of eyes.
Megan Mahoney
Communications Specialist Corvallis School District
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