Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Ello … the list goes on. It’s up to you whether you ‘do’ social media in your childhood service, or whether you choose not to. As with any change there are intended and unintended consequences. It’s vital you and your team carefully consider these when making decisions about your social media policy.

Why Child Care Services Would Use Social Media

1. More than two-thirds of Australians now use social media (most of that group at least use Facebook). If that’s where your community already is, you can communicate with them on ‘their turf’ by participating in the platforms and conversations that they’re already part of.
2. Social media isn’t just about being social: it’s also a great way to access resources and to make them available to a community.
3. You can use social media to have conversations with families, your community more broadly and other services. You might:
   • Post children’s work to communicate with families
   • Educate and raise awareness in your community about childhood, mental health, learning, or your service philosophy
   • Promote events.
4. Consider your online content ‘voice’ for your service – to publicise what you’re about as an organisation and what’s happening day-to-day.
5. In the days of cyber-bullying and the need to be cyber-safe, using social media offers an opportunity to educate your community about how to keep children safe and develop critical literacy about information accessed online.

Why Child Care Services Wouldn’t Use Social Media

1. Members of your local community might not have access to social media, leading to some inequity in communication.
2. Literacy levels could create complications or obstacles. This can involve having difficulties with written English language, or how to work computers.
3. Social media may not be trusted as a source of reliable or reputable information.
4. Educators and families may have concerns around confidentiality or privacy. All people have different comfort zones around what information about them is available online.
5. People may be concerned that wrong things might be written about individuals or the service, and that negative or conflict-laden conversations could occur.

How Child Care Services Could Start Using Social Media

• The first step is to consider what platforms would suit your community. Do you know what each of these platforms does?
• Find out what platforms people already use. You could try doing a social media ‘audit’ by asking staff, families and the wider ECEC community what they already access.
• Check your policies and procedures – do they need to be adapted or modified to account for online engagement in social media? If you’re part of a wider education system, they might have a view on how you can go ahead. Think about:
  • Privacy and permissions
  • Who decides content
  • Who posts and moderates
  • House rules for interacting with others on social media.

Participating in social media is an ongoing process, and will need your attention. Be mindful of what’s happening with your social media presence and monitor feedback and analytics closely.

At MAXEMUS | Digital Marketing, we are communication experts and have a deep understanding of the digital landscape in childhood services.

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