Is your yearbook program considering starting a social media account for the first time? You absolutely should! Student run social media accounts create a great opportunity for students to learn professional skills while marketing your yearbook.
But if that idea is overwhelming, you’re not alone. Use this beginner’s guide to setting up a profile and building your content. Before you know it, social media will shape your students into stronger communicators and journalists.
Think of social media as an extension of what your yearbook staff already does. Your students document school life, tell stories and build excitement for your publication. Social media simply gives them another outlet to share those stories while connecting with students, parents and the school community throughout the year.
Even one to two posts per week can help you sell your yearbook and reach your school community.
Choose the Right Platform
Most yearbook programs should start their social media journey on Instagram. Students, parents and school organizations already use it, and it allows you to share photos, videos, stories and messages from a single platform. You can connect an Instagram account to a Facebook account and automatically repost content there. This will help you reach parents and community members, your audience who is usually the actual purchaser of the yearbook for their student.
As your program grows, consider adding:
- TikTok if you have students interested in creating video content.
- Facebook if you have separate content to share specifically with parents or community members.
- X for quick sales reminders, school updates and live sports updates.
- Snapchat in schools where students and other student organizations actively use it.
- LinkedIn in unique situations where your program wants to highlight journalism, leadership or career and technical education achievements.
Don’t start everywhere at once. Choose one and build from there as you develop your social media strategy.
Set Up Your Profile
Many student’s first impression of your program’s brand comes from your social media. Make it easy to find and navigate to build credibility with your audience.
Account Management
Students should run your social media as much as possible, but as the adviser, you should keep the account itself under your email. For security purposes, you need to keep the account password and know which students have access at all times. You’ll remain the account manager because every year senior staffers graduate and new ones come in to run the account. You don’t want to lose access to the account if you can’t contact a former student.
Choose a predictable username
Keep it simple and easy to search for, even if students don’t know the exact handle of the top of their heads.
If your school name is Legacy East High school and book name is The Lion, consider these handles:
- @lehs_yearbook
- @LegacyEastYearbook
- @theLion_yearbook
- @lehs_LionYBK
Avoid random characters, the current year and any uncommon or unknown names or abbreviations.
Select a Profile Picture
Choose either your yearbook program logo or your current yearbook theme logo. If you choose your theme logo, plan to update your profile picture each new year to match the current year’s theme. This acts as a sneak peak into your theme and branding that your audience can look forward to each year.
The Bio Basics
Your audience can find everything they need here in a quick glance. Include in your bio:
- School’s full name (not just initials)
- City and state
- “Yearbook” or “Yearbook Program”
- Link to yearbookforever.com
Example bio:
Legacy East High School
Legacy Springs, CA
Official Yearbook Account
Order your book today at yearbookforever.com
Including the link to purchase books and ads will make your account an effective sales strategy. At the end of each marketing post you can add a line about reserving your yearbook at the “link in our bio.”
If your program has additional sites you would like to link to, like your other social media accounts, a survey form or if you sell your extra photos as a fundraiser throughout the year, consider setting up a linktr.ee to cleanly manage all the hyperlinks into one.
Who Will Run the Account?
Students, of course!
Appoint a marketing manager or a social media manager to your editor team. The best yearbook social media accounts don’t just happen. Find a student excited about marketing and you trust to handle your program’s brand.
This editor will handle all social media content, from gathering information, to design creation, to posting. They will think of clever ways to market your yearbook, both on social media and in person. They will track yearbook sales and help with goal setting.
Depending on your staff’s size and how you plan to utilize the social media accounts, this position could be one student’s full-time assignment, a junior editor looking to take on additional responsibilities, a small team of business minded staffers or some schools even hand the social media to the photography staff.
Self-motivated students who enjoy organization and communication make the most successful social media managers.
For additional ideas on developing this position, review Walsworth’s marketing manager resources: Train Your Marketing Manager.
Start Posting
Don’t overcomplicate your content. Keep this easy by creating templates and scheduling posts in advance.
Basic Posting Plan – Start here. Just two posts a week.
Market Your Yearbook
- Post about yearbook and ad sales at least once a week
- Remind your audience about upcoming deadlines or price increases, yearbook donations and yearbook distribution information
- Use Walsworth pre-made Canva templates for holidays and seasonal selling.
Weekly Photo Recap
- Do a photo of the week assignment where each photographer must submit the best photo they took that week. Build this assignment as an interactive contest or for a photography grade.
- Create a themed photo story about an event that happened that week, i.e. football game, spirit week, academic competition. Include a basic caption about what happened at the event.
Behind the Scenes
- Post to your story about workdays, deadline celebrations and spoilers of your theme or spreads.
Leveling Up – Expand your journalistic presence and range.
School’s Information Hub
- Create a templated weekly calendar you fill out with school and sporting events
- Broadcast live updates about school closures or during sporting events.
Mod Storytelling
- Think like a journalist. Turn an event into modular coverage by including quotes, photos and design elements.
Try Video
- Short form videos help your content get seen by more people. Use trends to market your book, event coverage, create a mini mic series or even start a podcast.
Need help visualizing what this posting schedule might look like? Challenge your team to use the Walsworth Social Media Calendar for inspiration and a daily posting schedule.
Promote your Accounts
Great content only matters if people can see it. Get the word out there that you have an awesome social media program.
Add your handle everywhere.
Include it on posters around the school, in your email signature and in parent communications. Including a QR code helps people quickly see your page.
Follow School Organizations
The majority of your followers consist of students and staff at your school. Start by showing your affiliation with the school community. Follow:
- The school
- Student council
- PTA or PTSA
- Athletics
- Clubs and organizations
Many will follow you back, which will help build your credibility.
Follow Journalism Organizations
Connecting with the broader yearbook community will help your program find inspiration and involvement. Follow:
- @walsworthyearbooks
- @nationalstudentpress
- @journalismeducation
- @quill_and_scroll
- State and regional student media associations
- Other schools’ yearbook accounts
Stay in the loop with all things yearbook and student media.
Don’t follow:
- Students: Students do not need a follow back, this is not a personal account. Maintain your professional image by not playing favorites.
- Gag accounts: Many schools have student run accounts that post memes or gossip about the school. These accounts use the school’s name and branding without an approved affiliation to the school. Do not diminish your organization’s credibility by engaging with these accounts.
Tag Relevant People
Tagging increases your reach. For example, if the Spirit Club hosts an assembly and you post photos from the event, tag their account. You can also credit the students who created the content or took the photos by tagging them.
On most platforms you can tag people by typing the @ symbol followed by the account username. Tags and collaborating on posts brings more viewers back to your page.
Guerilla Marketing
Want a simple activity your staff can do to market both your yearbook and your social media program? Every student loves stickers. Use your yearbook theme logo or your yearbook program’s logo and design simple stickers. On the backing of the stickers or in the margins by the logo, include your social media username.
Hand out the stickers at back to school events, yearbook sales tables, etc. When students put the stickers on their water bottles or laptops, they become a walking advertisement for the yearbook.
Navigating Cell Phone and Social Media Bans
Does your school enforce a phone or social media ban? Whether the restriction comes from school policy or state legislation, these rules have become increasingly common. So how can yearbook classes continue creating social media content when access gets limited?
Start by reviewing your school’s policy carefully. Pay attention to the exact wording and the reasoning behind the rules. Administrators do not intend to eliminate valuable learning opportunities. They create phone restrictions to support student safety and learning, not to target yearbook programs specifically. When you understand both the rules and the rationale behind them, you can identify opportunities to work within the policy while still meeting your program’s goals.
Use School-issued Computers
Many social media tasks do not require students to access social media platforms or their phones directly. Programs such as Adobe Express, Canva and other content-planning tools allow user to design posts without opening Instagram.
Many of these platforms also connect to social media accounts and can publish content directly from the third-party app. Students can design and schedule posts in advance while advisers maintain oversight.
Know the Best Times to Post
If students cannot access social media during the school day due to not having access to their phones or signal blockers, schedule posts for before or after school. Publishing content shortly after dismissal helps ensure your posts appear near the top of students’ feeds when they first check their phones. Scheduling content in advance allows your social media strategy to continue without disrupting school policies.
After consistently posting for a while, you can check your “professional dashboard” that appears at the top of your profile page when you are logged in. This page will show you information about how what you post performs. From this information, you can see when your audience engages with your content the most; these may be your best days to post going forward.
Advocate for Student Journalism
If your school plans to implement a social media ban, ask to participate in the conversation. Represent your students and help decision-makers understand how the policy may affect student media programs.
Review the proposed language carefully. Does the policy prohibit social media entirely? Does it limit use during school hours? Does it prevent teachers from requiring social media-related assignments?
Remind administrators that yearbook programs often teach social media marketing, digital communication and media literacy as part of a career and technical education curriculum. These skills prepare students to communicate effectively in college, careers and their communities.
If you need additional support, contact your state or regional student media association. Many organizations can provide sample language, best practices and advocacy resources to share with administrators.
Maintain a professional, respected social media presence to support your case. A successful account demonstrates the value social media provides to your school community and helps illustrate why thoughtful access matters.
Grading
Many advisers find it tough to get a grading system to stick. With so many different methods for spreads and stories, how does social media fit into the plan?
Here is a simple rubric:
| 3 – Strong | 2 – Developing | 1 – Needs Improvement | |
| Meeting Deadlines | Schedules or posts content by the agreed-upon deadline. | Misses the agreed-upon deadline. | |
| Captions and Tags | Writes a complete, engaging caption and includes all relevant tags, mentions and hashtags. | Writes a basic caption and includes some relevant tags. | Provides limited or no caption and omits needed tags. |
| Design and Photo Choice | Selects high-quality photos, videos or graphics that drive the post design and fully align with brand standards. | Visual selection works but could improve in quality, some design inconsistencies. | Chooses visuals that are weak, don’t meet journalistic standards or is unrelated to brand standards. |
| Accuracy and Editing | Verifies all information for accuracy, applies AP style and branding guidelines and completes all requested edits before posting. | Reviews content before posting and corrects most errors, but overlooks 1-2 minor AP style or branding issues. | Publishes content with factual errors, multiple typos or unaddressed edits. |
Good planning sets you and your social media team up for success. Work with your social media manager to write a social media schedule. What posts will come out on what days? Frequency? Branding standards?
Frankly, you shouldn’t post anything that wouldn’t get full points. If you wouldn’t want it published in the yearbook, then don’t post it yet. Your social media content advertises the yearbook itself, so don’t sell your book short by putting out unfinished work on your social media – people will think the yearbook has the same issues.
Remember to check your school’s policies about social media use for graded assignments.
Never grade your social media manager on how their content performs. Social media metrics can vary for reasons students cannot control. One post might receive hundreds of views while another receives far fewer. That doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the work. Focus on goal setting rather than engagement numbers. Students should learn how to create effective marketing content, not feel responsible for factors outside their control.
Why it Matters
Social media gives yearbook staffs the opportunity to tell stories in real time.
Instead of waiting for distribution day, students can celebrate achievements, highlight events and connect with their audience throughout the entire school year. Every post becomes another chance to build community and strengthen your program’s presence on campus.
When students manage a professional account, they practice communication, leadership, marketing, design, photography and journalism in real time. They learn how to represent a brand, engage an audience and make thoughtful decisions about the content they publish.
If you’ve been waiting for the right time to start, this is it. Create the account. Start small. Then let your students do what yearbook staffs do best: tell their school’s story.
