Occasionally the school will experience the Difficult Media circumstance.

Sometimes the media may request an interview with or without forewarning.

This usually happens when a story is considered exceptional for their circumstance. This may be when something controversial or of a significant status has occurred and the media wants to run with that story on that day or the next.

Examples of these would include:

• a disaster where the school has had major damage, such as from a major storm or fire

• a staff member or student has been allegedly involved with something illegal
• a former student has done something highly successful, controversial or allegedly illegal
• the government or city council have or will make a decision that impacts significantly on the school, etc.

School's Response

In this case initially you need to advise the media that the school, through the principal, yourself or someone with authority, will speak with them shortly.

You have every right to consider your options before speaking.

It is often best to contact the systemic Communications Manager, if such a role exists. This manager is usually familiar with best practice for such events. The manager will either become directly involved and speak on behalf of the school or offer suggestions on the best approach. The manager may also contact others within or outside the system who may be able to offer advice eg lawyers, building or insurance advisors / consultants, counsellors, etc.

Offering a “No comment” is often fraught with potential misinterpretation or even worse, taking the story according to the information they have which may not be the truth or whole truth. Comment truthfully.

You do not need to give all the details but offer what is needed for the media enquiry allowing for privacy and ethical considerations.When School Marketers experience the Difficult Media Situation comment to the media truthfully.

This may be just a simple, “Thank you for the enquiry. We will get back to you shortly.”

If the school decides to act on the request itself there are a number of approaches which should benefit the school:

• Be available for an interview in person or over the phone.
• Be positive and in control during the interview
• Appearance is important eg appropriate demeanour, dress, stance
• Control the backdrop for television or newspaper photo to get the positive visual message out that you want
• Answer all questions, but turn the answer to what you want to emphasise
• Having 3-4 key points is a good approac

State the obvious, such as:

• no one was hurt, or unfortunately some people were injured
• damage to the property was significant or minimal
• the most important thing is that no-one was hurt, only property damage occurred and that this will be repaired as soon as possible or
• unfortunately some people were hurt and the school is currently doing everything possible for those people eg ambulance was called immediately, there will be ongoing medical assistance, school counsellor involved for those directly affected and others at school, other counsellors are coming from sister schools, etc.
• the school / principal is sorry that this unfortunate event occurred, all procedures have been followed and that everything possible will be done to ensure that this won‟t happen again. If updating procedures is necessary then this will be done immediately.

Follow-up

Be available to keep the media updated as the situation changes or developments are made.

The 'The Difficult Media Circumstance and Appropriate Response' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed), (2011) - the paperback and ebook manual for school communications and marketing personnel - 340 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points - allowing for a considerably large number of quality strategies and examples to be detailed - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com

All School Marketing Plans should now include the very popular blogs.

Blogs - Blogs are becoming a very popular form of interactive, digital communication by internet users and are now necessary for schools and their school marketing plans. Content may be brief or extensive.

Effective Blog Use Explained

Blogs are used to allow interaction between the website’s administrator/s and the website’s visitors.

Schools could benefit considerably through the effective use of Blogs. These are ideal avenues to promote your school and the various messages you wish to place in the public or private domain.

These days so many people wish to be valued through their involvement and feedback - blogs are one highly regarded avenue for them to achieve this.

Blog Posts Explained

The website’s / blog’s administrators write a Blog Post (comment, information, news, challenge, etc.) and publish this to their website’s blog page. Blog Posts may also include photos, videos, audios and other graphic presentations.

The visitor to your website’s blog page would then have the option to comment on your blog post’s content.

Blog Posts may be of any length and literary style depending on the target audience. However, in most cases, brevity is the norm in these days of mass communication overload. Think newspaper article lengths for most blog posts. As a general guide I work on 200-300 words per blog post. 300 words is often quoted for a good SEO.

You need to make sure that the administrator has the option to accept or reject all comments posted in response to the blog post. If the blog post is available to the public, you need to be prepared to receive all sorts of comments, including spam (mainly advertising links). Unsuitable comments would then be deleted.

Two Major Blog Uses for Schools

School Marketers could use blogs in two primary ways:

•   School Website Blog
•   External Blog sites, which you would point (link) back to your school website.

The 'School Marketing Plans Include Blogs' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed), (2011) - the paperback and ebook manual for school communications and marketing personnel - 340 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points - allowing for a considerably large number of quality strategies and examples to be detailed - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com

The school and church marketing e-books available from the ‘SCM: School Church Marketing’ website are available in easy to download and read pdf files.

Pdf files are easily opened on both PC computers and Apple Mac computers. When these are opened in this format, you get to read the e-book in the layout in which it is written. Each page appears as it was designed, with text and images sequenced and positioned as per the original writing.

You have two main options once downloaded from the website. Many people download from the website and then print it off to make a hardcopy so as to read it as an actual book. Others like to leave it as an electronic copy on their computer and read it from their computer screen. While a significant number of people choose to both download it, print it and make a hardcopy, and then have the option to either read it from the computer screen or from the hardcopy newly printed book.

Google Books

Google Books by Bryan Foster has 20% of a number of these books uploaded and available for viewing. Google believes that this is similar to what you might do when looking / flicking through a book available as a hardcopy book in a bookstore or library. The School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3^rd ed), 2010, is yet to be uploaded to Google Books, though.

Amazon.com and other e-book stores

The normal format you get when you download Bryan Foser e-books from Amazon.com or other e-book stores, when these books are available for various e-book reader versions, is often different in appearance from the original. The white space is often deleted and everything just rolls on line by line. The Amazon.com site does also have downloads for PCs and Macs.

ISBN Numbers

Each of these e-books has an official ISBN number. These numbers are necessary for cataloguing the e-books in various libraries around the world. These numbers are needed to sell through most bookstores or e-book stores.

Each of these e-books is held within a variety of libraries: state, governmental and university.

e-Books available as pdfs

The e-books available as pdf files through this website are:

    * School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed), 2010
    * Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed), 2010
    * Church Parish Marketing e-Handbook: Easy to Use Guide to Market Your Church Parish Deanery, 2009
    * School Marketing e-Handbook: Easy to Use Guide to Market Your School (2nd ed), 2009

The school marketing manual e-book is a detailed work amalgamating 20 years of experience marketing in both Catholic education schools, along with the church and the Great Developments Pty Ltd private company by Bryan Foster. It is written in a format allowing thousands of specific marketing points, strategies, step-by-step processes, and examples, to help all those associated with marketing their school. This is a great read for any marketing professional.

The 'Pdf e-Books from School Church Marketing website are Easily Read on PCs and Apple Macs for any School Marketing Plan' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed), (2011) - the paperback and ebook manual for school communications and marketing personnel - 340 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points - allowing for a considerably large number of quality strategies and examples to be detailed - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com