Facebook School Page

With approximately 1 in every 13 people over the world now on Facebook, there is no question it has been a social revolution. But with over 70% of US web users on the social networking platform, are you taking advantage of this engaged audience? Let’s look at how you can quickly and easily create a Facebook school page and bring your community online.

 

What Can A Facebook Page Do For Your School?

There are many reasons why a Facebook school page is a better way to engage with your school community:

  • Share and get feedback on school news
  • Run polls to to understand school community needs
  • Schedule school events
  • Share school photos and videos
  • Let the school community drive conversations

For more ideas on how Facebook can be used in the classroom check out our article “Top 10 Tips For Using Facebook In The Classroom“. Mashable also has a great article on “How Schools Can Use Facebook to Build an Online Community“.

 

How To Set Up Your Facebook School Page

1. Log in or create account

When creating a page for your school, you will automatically be the administrator for this site. So, as an administrator, you can administrate under your current Facebook account, or create a new one (perhaps using a school email address). The choice is yours, but I find it easier to use my single personal account rather than switch between logins.

Creating a page with your existing personal Facebook account:

Ensure you are logged in to Facebook and visit: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Creating a page with a new Facebook account:

Ensure you are logged out of your personal account and visit: https://www.facebook.com/

You will then see the standard Facebook log in screen where under “Sign Up” there is an option to create a page:

Create a page

 

2. Select page type

The first decision you need to make is what type of page you want to set up. As we are making a Facebook school page, this is a pretty straight forward decision. Select the box labeled “Company, organisation or institution” and choose the drop-down “School/University”. Enter your school name and click “Get Started” to continue.

Create Page

 

3. Set a profile image

Much like a personal profile page, a school page needs a profile picture. Most schools use the school logo or a photo of the school itself, but this is completely up to you. Make sure the picture you use is of high quality. Nothing looks worse than a low resolution logo or a dull, lifeless photo.

Click “Continue”.

 

4. Getting fans

Hopefully your Facebook school page will naturally grow its fan-base over time, but it helps to give it a little push start. Facebook gives you a few options to invite friends/contacts to become fans of your school page:

  • Invite friends – This lets you invite your current Facebook friends to ‘Like’ your new page. A very good way to get early fans, particularly if you are friends with those in your school community.
  • Import contacts – Another good way to build your early fan-base, this lets you import contacts from email lists. This works great if you have school database of contact email addresses, and permission to use them.
  • Share on my wall – This will post a link to your Facebook wall, advertising your new page. It will appear in friends news feeds and as friends ‘Like’ the page, it will hopefully spread virally through your network
  • Like this page – By checking this tick box, you are becoming the first person to ‘Like’ your page. In truth, if you don’t ‘Like’ your page, it is unlikely other will too. Leave this one checked.

 

5. Basic info

There are two basic pieces of information requested here:

  • Website – Most schools place a link to their school site or blog here.
  • About – With a 255 character limit, this is a good place to put your school motto, values or overview.

Click ” Continue”, and hey presto! Your Facebook school page is created.

 

6. A few handy hints

On your new Facebook school page you will see an “Edit page” button in the top right of the profile:

Edit page

Click “Edit page” to go to admin options. There are many options in administering your page and with a little time you will easily become familiar with all of them. Until then, some of the more important administration tasks to get right are:

  • Manage permissions – This tab will help you set who can view and edit what on your page. Check the section on “Posting Ability” carefully to make sure it is set as you need.
  • Basic information – Make sure to fill this tab out as thoroughly as possible. One of the first things users do when visiting a new page is check the information tab. The more details there are about your school, the more legitimate your page will feel.
  • Manage admins – You may want to administer the page with another, or a group of others. In this tab you can add and remove administrators as you please. 
  • Insights – Insights are not essential but very interesting to help you see who is accessing and interacting with your page.

 

[quote] Interested in helping your school get up to speed with Facebook? Check out our new Introduction To Social Media In Education online training course! [/quote]

 

Image courtesy of Flickr, kudumomo

Author Bio: Nick Grantham

The founder of Fractus Learning, Nick is a pizza-loving Aussie living and working in Dublin, Ireland. With a background in education, engineering and digital product development, Nick launched Fractus to connect people with a shared passion for technology and how it can bring education to life.

13 Comments

  1. I enjoyed the post and thanks for sharing my Mashable article on how schools can leverage Facebook.

    This is a nice tutorial on the nuts and bolts of setting up a Facebook page. But I’d caution a school against jumping right in to using Facebook without the proper forethought on two major fronts.

    First, they absolutely must think about how they are going to adequately protect the privacy of their students. Maybe this means using only first names or initials. Maybe this means blurring out names on student work that they share. Once they’ve had adequate discussions about privacy, they must make sure anyone that will be an admin on the page is clear on the guidelines as well.

    Second, I think it’s crucial that schools figure out the point of getting on Facebook. Just being on Facebook is not the end game. Do they want to promote events? Do they want to share the school community with families and friends? Do they want to have active discussions with members of the school community? Whatever their goal, it’s important to establish this early. If parents come to the page and don’t find it worthwhile, there’s little chance they’ll come back time and time again. If, on the other hand, the page provides clear value from the outset, there’s a great chance they’ll not only Like the page but will also engage with the page on a more regular basis.

    Again, thanks for the post and linking to the Mashable article.

    Reply

    1. David! Great to have you read the article and both of of your points are spot on. Privacy is probably the biggest concern for any school looking to put their community on Facebook. And very true about the reasons for going on Facebook in the first place. Technology for Technology sake :)
      Thanks again, and great work on your Mashable article too, really enjoyed it.

      Reply

      1. Thanks for the reply Nick. And I appreciate your kind words about the Mashable post.

        Already added your site to my RSS feed. Looking forward to more posts in the future.

  2. How do i stop parents from writing on my wall and posting comment on my school facebook? I ticked the option to stop users posting to wall etc and it doesn’t work!

    Reply

    1. Facebook will let you prevent people putting posts and pictures on your wall. This is set up from the ‘Manage Permissions’ tab, but it sounds like you have already done this.

      As far as commenting goes, Facebook does not let you prevent users writing comments (this is something many page owners are unhappy about). Certain companies can apply to be white-listed and prevent comments, but this is not yet an option for schools.

      One work-around that I see discussed online is to set up a group rather than a page, so comments can be disallowed.

      Reply

    1. Hi Chrisesguerra… might need a bit more information to help you with that one. Can you point us to the page?

      Reply

  4. I have been asked by a school to advise on their facebook. They created a personal page purely in the name of the school so that they could then set up a business school page. They are now concerned that the personal page may get closed down because its not an actual person but at the same time they don’t want one person to have ultimate control for obvious reasons. what do you suggest?
    Ive tried contacting fb but they are useless.

    Reply

    1. Hi Dan,

      You are able to have multiple administrators for a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/help/www/187316341316631?rdrhc). Setting this up would allow multiple school members to administer the page (provided they all have their own Facebook personal accounts) and remove the need for the ‘school’ personal page.
      I would then recommend removing the ‘school’ personal account as a page admin and then disabling that account entirely.

      Nick

      Reply

  5. I found this article really helpful. We are looking to set up a page as a parent council to help get the news and updates out to the community. We would not be posting any students pictures or work etc but rather important dates, school events, and other community news. Is there a way to block comments from being posted on this page or would it have to be set up as a group. If so, can we set up a ‘group’ with more than one administrator? Thanks

    Reply

  6. Hello.. I need some help. I have created a PAGE for a school I coordinate. It was easy to invite my friends to ‘Like’ the page but I am finding it very difficult to invite the parents of the children to ‘like’ the page if they are not a ‘friend’. when I type in the name of other schools they come up in the Search section even though I am not ‘friends’ with the manager. I am not sure what has happened to my page. parents can not find the name at all, HELP!!

    Reply
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