S1 E39 Who is Your Internal Audience and How Do You Leverage Their Network?

Welcome to School Leader Soundbites, a podcast dedicated to empowering K-12 leaders with the latest insights and strategies in marketing and communications! Today, we are discussing Who is Your Internal Audience and How Do You Leverage Their Network?

◾Who your internal audience really is

-Includes teachers, employees, custodians, administrators etc

-They are your largest, most significant asset and the best tool you could use to network out into your community.

◾How do they know what you value

-How are you measuring if what you are doing is working?

-Do you use that language in your social media and internal communication?

◾Provide a roadmap

-Gives your internal audience what they need to say and where to find resources

-Your internal audience needs to become your biggest ambassadors to the district and can do this when you give them the tools to do it

-Provide a place with templates for forms about things like inclement weather, early dismissal, safety drills, etc

◾Celebrate the wins

-Make sure you are recognizing all of the great work being done in the district

-When employees feel seen and valued, they are more likely to be great ambassadors for the district

If you need any assistance with this, head to veronicavsopher.com. If you want more info, please contact me or drop questions in the comments and be sure to share this episode with your colleagues! If you have any questions or suggestions for future topics, I'm here to listen. Thanks for tuning in to School Leader Soundbites.

Find me at: https://www.veronicavsopher.com/

Social: @VeronicaVSopher

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*School Leader Soundbites* is your essential podcast for navigating the complex world of K-12 leadership with confidence and clarity. Hosted by Veronica V. Sopher, a 25-year veteran in school public relations, this podcast delivers actionable insights and innovative strategies to elevate your school's marketing and communications efforts. Veronica V. Sopher is the strategic designer behind several award-winning marketing campaigns and has crafted winning bond and tax rate communications plans. With extensive experience in crisis management—including handling weapons and deaths on campus, natural disasters, and polarized political landscapes—Veronica is an expert passionate about public education as the great equalizer. Join Veronica as she shares her expertise and offers practical tips that will optimize your leadership and support your district's goals. Whether you're looking to enhance community engagement, improve transparency, or turn feedback into actionable results, *School Leader Soundbites* provides the tools and knowledge you need to succeed. Veronica is also available for consulting and public speaking, specializing in leadership development and executive coaching. Tune in and transform your leadership journey with insights that make a real difference. 

Episode Transcript

Veronica Sopher (00:07):
Hello, hello and welcome to School Leader
Soundbites. I'm your host,Veronica Sopher and I have the
honor of coming to you everyweek, dropping new episodes of
our podcast where we talk aboutschool communications, public
relations, marketing andadvertising. So if you are
looking for some content on howto improve your school
district's visibility strategy,you have found the right place.

(00:27):
I come to you every week withmore than 20 years of experience
in school communications, and Ilove talking about all the
things that you need to know toimprove your school district's
presence in your community. Solet's go ahead and get this
episode started. But before wedo, don't forget to hit
subscribe. We don't want you tomiss any episodes of school
leader sound bites, and ifyou're watching on YouTube or
Facebook, drop us some comments.

(00:50):
All right, let's talk about whoour internal audience really is.
Now, most of you are saying,well, it's the obvious, right?
It's our staff. Yes, itabsolutely is your staff. It
does include your teachers, youremployees, your custodians, your
administrators, and the truthis, they are your largest and
most significant asset and thebest tool you can use to network

(01:15):
out in your community, becauseoftentimes they live within your
community, which is reallyimportant. So let's really take
a look at our internal audience,how they process and what it is
they are looking for. So let'srecap just a little bit. If we
think about the master your marksystem and the things that I've
talked to you about, it's reallyabout connecting with people,

(01:35):
especially internally, makingsure you've taken care of what
you need to take care of insideyour organization before you go
out and project it on theoutside of your organization,
you have to look inward as muchas you can. You have to use
these internal stakeholders togage how you're doing, to gage
sentiments, to better understandwhat people's concerns are, how

(01:56):
they might be feeling aboutthings, and that they're on
board, that they understand whatthe mission and the vision is,
that they believe in it. It'snot just something they can
recite, but it's something thatmakes an emotional connection to
them, which is going to bereally important. So when you
start thinking about yourstrategic plan, or you start
thinking about an initiative orsome project that you're

(02:18):
launching, you likely go to yourinternal audience first to gage
feedback right, to garner whatthey might be thinking, to see
where their concerns might be,to ask questions like, What am I
missing? What are we notthinking about? What do you
think our parents are going tosay?
Nine times out of 10, the peopledoing the work are the people
who know exactly what the painpoints are, and can tell you

(02:41):
what pitfalls might exist in theconversation. So it's really
important to leverage thoseassets. So yes, it's your
teachers, it's your employees,it's everyone that is a vendor
for your district. It's evenyour board. It's your
volunteers, people who arepartners with the district and
who represent the district onthe greater community level,

(03:02):
especially when they're workingwith students, it can also be
your boosters, that's anothergroup, your PTO and your PTA,
making sure that they know whatyour mission and vision is and
what those values are, so thatthey can have some buy in. They
know what the taglines are, butmore importantly, they know what
the taglines mean, and that'swhy you want to market

(03:24):
internally as much as you can.
So let's think about this. Howdo you know what they value?
What are you measuring? How arethey telling you whether or not
it's working or not? Do youactually use that type of
language in all of yourcollateral material? Are you
using it on your social media?
Are you using it in boardpresentations? Is the tagline on

(03:45):
the bottom of your slide deckthat you're using during board
meetings or during communitymeetings. These are all the
types of questions that you needto be asking when you assess
whether or not your internalcommunication program is
working.
Now you don't need an entiremarketing plan or internal
communication guide if you arejust getting started, but you

(04:06):
have, but if you do have some ofthose baseline assets ready to
go, leverage them, revisit themand make sure they're being
updated. If you don't have them,at the very least, you need a
roadmap, a roadmap that earnstrust with this community and
that gives them insight. Itbasically provides a blueprint
for the things you want them tosay, how you want them to feel

(04:29):
and how you want them to connectother people. You need to make
sure that these assets arereadily available. So if you
have a shared drive or anintranet system, make sure that
people know where to go for yourbranding guide, where to
download logos. One of the worstthings you can do is tell people
that they can or cannot usethese type of images and logos,

(04:49):
and then don't give them accessto those logos. So make sure
that you have those templatesreadily available, readily
marked, that every time youbring in a group together, maybe
our principals- their monthlymeetings, or even our campus
paraprofessional staff,secretarial staff that are
working anytime they cometogether. We go over some of
those templates. We go overthose expectations of how to

(05:11):
treat each other internally, howto provide feedback and how to
stay on brand your internalaudience needs to become your
biggest ambassadors andadvocates for the district, and
it's easy to do when you givethem the tools to do it. It's
not so easy to do when you don'tgive them access to those kinds
of things.
And I know everybody isconcerned about giving people

(05:35):
access to logos, because they'regoing to get stretched or the
colors are going to be changed.
And yes, that could happen, butthe really easy solution is to
make it available in a lot ofdifferent formats that are
aligned to your brand guide. Somaking sure that there's a just
a dual color, if you've only gottwo colors in your logo, that
the approved colors are alreadyestablished, that you give

(05:57):
people what the color codes are,so that if they want to have any
merchandise or swag created,that it's as close as it can get
to that exact color, becausecolor match is important that
you've got a white version ofthat logo to be printed on dark
colors. Vice versa. You need theinverse. If you need just a
black version of that logo, soit can be put on lighter colors

(06:19):
or maybe on a white background.
So think about all the differentways that your logo and your
brand is currently being used.
Do a little mini audit andcreate a little handbook, and it
can really just be a page ortwo. It doesn't have to be super
robust.
We all know that we are strongerwhen we've got a team supporting
us. And if you're a newsuperintendent without a

(06:40):
communications team or someonededicated to the communications
function of a district. Thenreach out and see how my team
and I can help you. We can serveas thought partners. We can
provide you a la carte servicessuch as graphic support,
copywriting, speech, writing,all those things are going to
help you communicate moreefficiently and effectively with
your community. If you want tolearn more, click the link below

(07:02):
and schedule a time to connect.
Now that you've got some of thevisual assets taken care of,
then think about some of thecopy that you want to be using.
For example, if you've got astandard letter about fire

(07:29):
drills that goes out, make surethat you've got those templates
already ready, available for allthose campuses to use, and maybe
the template will start out withsomething along the lines of

(07:56):
safety and security is ournumber one priority, which is
why we ensure that all of ourdrills are done monthly or as
required by law, and we're happyto report that we're in

(08:20):
compliance. Make sure that youare communicating clearly and
accurately to families as muchas possible, and the best way to
do that is to make sure thatthere's templates and there is a

(08:46):
place for anyone who needs thesetemplates to go and download
them. I think inclement weatheris one of the most challenging
And preparedness is the numberone way to do that so making
sure that they have anopportunity to not only provide
things that we deal with in theschool communication space, but
feedback, which we talked about,but to engage with leaders. So

(09:08):
brown bag lunches, focus groups,little town halls with our
employees, those are going to bereally important, going out and
it's also one of the simplestthings we can do, and that is
visiting, making sure that yourleadership team is visible, not
only on the campuses, but inyour operational staff too, with
because there are systems thatcan be put in place. So
your operational staff. So goingto the bus barn, going to the
facilities, warehouse, thosekinds of places, are going to be

(09:29):
templates are going to beimportant make sure during the
really important just to bewalking around, seeing what's
happening, asking thosequestions, getting to know what
people's issues might be, andthen celebrating some of those
summer months you're working ontemplates for inclement weather,
wins, because every departmenthas wins, and that's the last
piece of advice I want to giveyou. When you're thinking about
for a two hour delay, for anearly dismissal, for all those
harnessing your internalaudience and turning them into

(09:50):
ambassadors, you need to makesure you're recognizing the
great work that is being donethroughout your district. Yes,
different things that might behave happening. I know I work
we have wonderful things thathave happened on a campus. It's
so fun and exciting to seelearning happening in the
with a lot of districts on thecoast, and we have to worry
classroom, but it's also fun andexciting to see things happening
on the operational side, maybewith the construction team or

(10:10):
with the facilities team, withour bus drivers and our
about hurricanes, and so we haveto prepare some of those, some
cafeteria workers making surethat our business office gets
recognized. A lot of ourdistricts are winning state
of those communications, aheadof time, just like when I'm
recognition for exceedingexpectations in the business
offices, and so making sure thatthose people are recognized by
name, maybe at a board meetingor in a newsletter going out to
working with districts out onthe west coast, where we might

(10:31):
the community, it really goes along way when the when employees
feel like they've been seen andthey've been heard, but most
experience more earthquakes, wehave to remind people of what
importantly, they've beenvalued, they're more likely to
become your biggest advocates.
So when you get a chance, tapinto your internal audience, get
to know who they are, what theythe protocols are, right. And
we've got districts that havevalue, where they consume their
information, identify what gapsmight exist for them, and then

(10:52):
address those gaps so that youice and snow that they have to
deal with, we know that thatcan demonstrate to them that you
are shifting gears and you arehearing them, and you're
implementing things, they'remight be a hindrance to school
operating normally, so justgoing to make a difference for
the district.
So with that, we'll go ahead andend this episode of School
Leader Soundbites. I hope thisinformation was really helpful.
making sure that all of thoseassets are readily available
Remember, tapping into yourinternal audience is a key

(11:13):
component of the impacteducation process. And of
course, you can learn more aboutmy master your mark program on
again- this is another great wayto build trust with your
my website at Veronicasopher.com if you are looking
for any support in that space,be sure to reach out. You can
find my contact informationthere. And if you are listening
internal audience. They will bemore likely to become
on the podcast, make sure youhit subscribe. We don't want you
to miss any episodes of schoolleaders sound bites. If you're
watching on Facebook or YouTube,drop me some comments and I'd

(11:33):
ambassadors when they feelempowered to tell our stories.
love to connect and we'll seeyou next time you.