Let’s Get Social: Starting And Maintaining Social Media Accounts For Your Orchestra

Davis presents the benefits of using social media to keep stakeholders aware of your music program, create/promote a brand, and to frame learning progress as a story. Many students are spending a lot of time on social media. This is an opportunity for educators to share information and highlight student progress within an often visited space.

Davis’ first consideration is obtaining permission from your school district/administration to create an online presence. The next area to consider is guardian consent and photo release of each student. Once all approvals are obtained from your school and students’ families, consider the platform and the type of content that suits your/students’ learning objectives. Davis includes a list of 25 activities that feature various learning aspects. See page 29 of Davis’ article for the bank of ideas. Davis suggests using your school/organization logo as the brand icon on the social media platforms. Once an online presence has been established, making connections with other organizations on social media can be a great benefit for students to see the work of other musicians. Commenting on other organization’s work, receiving comments from other organizations, and creating a dialogue on the learning process brings multiple perspectives and adds value to the learning experience.

There is a large student-centered learning opportunity here! Davis recommends that if you feel the process of starting a social media presence is overwhelming, ask for your students’ help. Today’s teens are not only tech savvy, but they crave ownership. Educators should follow through on our message of student empowerment with this opportunity. Have students generate new ideas to present content online. Students are often knowledgeable about the latest online communication trends.

Although this issue’s examination of Davis’ work does not give steps to utilizing social media, this summary was an overview of how social media can enhance a music program. In addition to Davis’ approach to popularizing one’s program on the internet, I also believe you can build a social environment within an intranet. Taking Davis’ suggestion of sharing written, audio, and visual content with the world, you can start on an even smaller scale in a more controlled environment. For educators who must limit the online/public exposure of students (such as myself), we can look towards an intranet environment to bring awareness to our programs. Similar to Brofenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory where a child develops complex systems of relationships with their environment on multiple levels, an intranet could be a system where students share learning progress at different levels. These levels could be among (a) class, (b) music discipline - strings program, (c) K-12 music department, (d) grade level, (e) school building, and (f) school district. Schools with access to learning management platforms such as Google Classroom, Schoology, Canvas, Blackboard, etc. can be safe spaces where educators promote content sharing and dialogue. Broadcasting your program’s progress to teachers and students within the same building and even the entire school district is a way to bring awareness to your music program to the school community.