Loyal School District earns ‘A’ on social media report card

By Valorie Brecht The Loyal School District has made an effort to connect with followers online, and has experienced more success in that area than other school districts of a similar size or larger.

The district received a “social media report card” from SocialSchool4Edu, a virtual membership program Loyal is part of that provides resources for school social media managers. The report card covered August through October. In those three months, the district’s Facebook page grew by 80 followers for a total of 3,100 followers and a monthly average reach of 49,533 people. The district’s Instagram account gained six followers, with 871 followers in all and an average monthly reach of 692 people.

The most popular posts from August through October were an Aug. 22 post, “Seniors turn parking spots into vibrant canvasses,” which reached 62,300 people; and a Sept. 17 post, “Reese’s bulletin board shines with belonging,” which reached 13,649.

SocialSchool4Edu also provided a leaderboard of sorts comparing its 53 school district members in Wisconsin. Loyal is ranked 49th in terms of enrollment and has 3,971 total social media followers (Facebook plus Instagram). Of the 15 school districts with the lowest enrollment, Loyal has a greater number of followers than all but two of those school districts.

“A lot of smaller school districts are nowhere near where we’re at. So it’s a very good thing for us,” said District Administrator Chris Lindner, who announced the social media report card results to the school board at their November meeting.

Loyal (enrollment 492) also has more social media followers than districts even two or three times its size, including Viroqua (1,072 enrolled, 3,400 followers), Nekoosa (1,200 enrolled, 3,263 followers) and Mauston (1,460 enrolled, 3,461 followers).

Loyal also has a Facebook monthly reach of 49,533, which is greater than 45 of the 53 school districts SocialSchool4Edu works with.

Lindner praised the staff that had helped make the Loyal School District shine online.

“Kaila (Fitzl) has served as our go-between. Staff have done a great job of getting her photos. I can’t thank our staff enough. I hear a lot from people how great our social media page is. We recently started the staff shout-out and that’s been very popular. People really like that… I’d like to thank Kaila and the staff for celebrating our successes in Loyal.”