As COVID-19 makes its way across the US, educational institutions are reviewing their communication and response plans. Oftentimes these plans can be outdated or need to be tailored to handle individual cases.  Coronavirus is one such case. 

While we're helping our clients communicate in a proactive and informative manner online, we thought it would be important to share this information with others who are reviewing or implementing their plans. 

Here are four steps for communicating information on the coronavirus to parents, teachers, and students: 

Initial Email

If you have not yet done so, disseminate a "just in case" email to parents, teachers, and students to assure them that the administration is monitoring the situation. Messages should be tailored to each audience and explain the proactive measures your institution is taking to prevent and mitigate exposure to the virus as well as how you will be communicating updates going forward. 

Email Updates

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The goal of all higher education institutions is to attract students. College and universities, like any other type of business, are brands, and the best way to connect with students is to meet them where they are at - on social media watching countless videos. 

Prior to my panel at the Social Media Strategies Summit for Higher Education in New York, Facebook’s Charlie Shin stated that the social media giant predicts that in 2020 almost 74% of the platform’s content will be video. 

How can colleges and universities capture the attention of these students when so many videos are being pushed at them daily?  Charlie shared four Facebook video rules everyone should be following: 

1- Keep Videos Short

The average attention span is about 6 seconds, and with teens, that number drops even lower. Keep your videos less than 15 seconds long. You can communicate a lot of information quickly using video. Try to keep your higher education Facebook...