This document provides guidance for a week 5 discussion on developing a communication guide for using social media to brand a community program or initiative. Students are instructed to review their local school district's social media guidelines and examine how area businesses and community groups use social media. They are then asked to create a communication guide document that establishes guidelines for appropriate social media use to support their program or initiative. The document should be informed by research on current social media uses and branding strategies. Students will also engage in peer review and revision of their communication guides.

1. Week 5 Discussion 1 Communications Guide
Review the required resources identified for this week on the
use of communication and social media guides. Locate and read
the posted communication and social media guidelines for your
local school system (usually found on the district web site and
may be called Internet Policies, or Acceptable Use Guides).
Does your school system utilize social media such as supporting
an official Facebook page, Twitter account, or an email/text
messaging system?
Write a short narrative on what you see as the most common
uses of social media in your community and include the
following:
· What efforts do you see by area businesses and community
groups to ‘brand’ themselves using social media?
· Does this fit with Pew Research you did in Week One?
· Do you feel that the development of a social media presence
would help or hinder your initiative or efforts to strengthen and
‘brand’ programs in your community? Why?
Develop a communication guide document that supports you and
your community’s position on social media. Be sure to consider
the recommendations for designing with flexibility. Also, be
sure to support your guidelines with outside sources and include
references written in APA format. Attach or link your document
to your initial post.
Guided Response: Critically respond to at least two peers,
asking for clarification where needed and making suggestions
for improvement in their document. Be sure to review your
peers’ responses to your initial posting and guidelines. Ask for
clarification and follow up with suggestions. After reviewing
your peers suggestions and comments, make any necessary
changes. Your final draft of the document will be submitted as
part of your final project.

2. Instructor Guidance
Week 5
Welcome to Week 5 of our class. This week we turn our
attention to a couple of new topics. One of the important topics
for our initiatives in the community is branding. This means
that we have to consider how we market ourselves or make
others of aware of what we’re trying to do. We’ll talk some
about social media and how it can be used to help brand our
program. Another big topic for the week is to analyze ways that
programs are evaluated. It is important to know if a program is
successful, and if so, to what extent. Using an established
method of evaluation allows us to compare our program to
others that already exist. Also this week, we continue the work
on creating our programs for our school or community.
In the first discussion for this week, you will discuss building a
communication guide to help brand your program. If you look at
the posted requirements for the discussion, you’ll see that you
have to take a look at existing community groups and businesses
to see how they are using social media. Perhaps your school or
business or current place of employment uses Facebook or
Twitter or some other way of communicating to its constituents
quickly. If you find that communities in your program are not
using social do you think they should in order to help strengthen
their program? You will create a communication guide
document that supports your community’s position on social
media and how (if) it should be used. If you are not a regular
user of social media, you probably at least can recognize
symbols of social media brands themselves. Check out the
picture below just to see some of the social media you may want
to consider for this project. Also, check out the picture of the
social media iceberg. This gives you a hint of how much work
has to go into planning or branding by social media before
anything is published.

3. The assignment this week is an important piece of the creation
of your initiative. You are going to identify and describe how
you will evaluate the success of your program. You will identify
how you determine success, how you will celebrate success, and
how you will sustain your initiative’s success. Please be sure to
review specifically the resources listed from the Search
Institute. The resources listed by Berkas and Hong is also
valuable for this assignment. Another powerful Ted Talk on this
topic may be seen at: Building Brand - The Power of Social
Media: Daryl D'Souza at TEDxRyersonU (Links to an external
site.). This is a more recent example and discussion of branding
by social media. You will find it helpful.
Reference
D’Souza, D. (2013, April 10). Building Brand - The Power of
Social Media: Daryl D'Souza at TEDxRyersonU (Links to an
external site.)[Video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAwjeu4Y5h4.
Required Resources
Read from your text, Assets in action: A handbook for making
communities better places to grow up:
Review Chapter 7 – Over the Long Haul: Sustaining Your
Initiative
Tip Sheet #14
Tip Sheet #15
Berkas, T.H. & Hong, K.L. (2000). First steps in evaluation:
Basic tools for asset-building initiatives (Links to an external
site.). Retrieved from
http://www.academia.edu/830272/FIRST_STEPS_IN_EVALUA
TION
This is an overview of established methods for program
evaluation.
Ferriter, B. (2011). Communicating and connecting with social
media (Links to an external site.). Retrieved from

4. http://issuu.com/mm905/docs/ccwsm_look-inside/6
A teacher and strong advocate for the use of social media to
promote his school, teachers, and students, discusses the current
successful use of social media by community members and
advocates for its use in education.
Ferriter, B. (2010). Social media in education resources
posted (Links to an external site.). Retrieved from
http://www.teachingquality.org/content/social-media-education-
resources-posted
A professional author, speaker, and educator provides resources
for using social media in education to support all stakeholders.
Ferriter, B., Sheninger, E., & Ramsden, J. (2010). Social media
in schools (Links to an external site.). Retrieved from
http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/w/page/28489273/Social%
20Media%20in%20Schools
This wiki includes a collection of resources for Social Media in
Schools.
Grey, B. (2010). Plan to communicate (Links to an external
site.). The Edge of Tomorrow. Retrieved from
http://bengrey.com/blog/2010/12/plan-to-communicate/
This blog discusses the District 123 Communications Plan and
reflections.
Search Institute. (n.d.). What's working? Tools for evaluating
your mentoring program (Links to an external site.). Retrieved
from
http://www.searchinstitutepress.org/free_downloads/Whats_Wor
king_Eval_Toolkit.pdf
This free download is an overview of established methods for
program evaluation. Note: To obtain this free e-product, you
will need to enter basic personal information in order to move
forward with the download.
Sheringer, E. (2011). The questions I ask (Links to an external
site.). A Principal’s Reflections. Retrieved from
http://esheninger.blogspot.com/2011/11/questions-i-ask.html
A principal, author, and strong advocate for the use of social
media to promote his school, teachers, and students asks

5. questions of those who may hesitate to embrace social media.