Social Media:

In this week’s class the focus topic was social media. We were asked to look through some of the popular teacher influencers on different platforms and really analyze their content. Some of the questions I kept in mind were:

• What kind of content are they posting? ie; Resources for other teacher to learn from? or how pretty their classroom is?
• How much of their content is paid advertisements and/or sponsored by a company?
• What are they posting and archiving on their story highlights?

My partner and I looked at an influencer on Instagram keeping some of these questions in mind.

What kind of content are they posting?

The content we observed was really interesting in the sense that if you weren’t really focusing on it you wouldn’t have picked up on it. This particular teacher seemed to post only one of four things: Crafts that her student made in class, outfits that she wore to school, and her baby. And underlying in all of these posts were affiliate links and advertisements for various companies. There were the occasional classroom management tips and new books she read, but these didn’t get as much attention as the other post she made.

How much of their posts we paid advertisements and/or sponsored by a company?

As mentioned previously, almost all of their post had affiliate links and sponsorships. And with every post they make, they also make an identical post in their “Like to Know It” which has the associate and commissionable links to everything in the post they made. For example, if they were to post a picture of an outfit they wore to school, they would mention in the description of the post something like “if you like anything I’m wearing here, everything that I am wearing is linked in my LTK”. The part that the influencer leaves out in this mention is, when you use the link to purchase the shirt you liked in the post, 10-30% of the sale goes to the influencer.

What are they posting and archiving on their story highlights?

This is where my partner and I saw some of the most shocking elements of this teachers choices. Again, in their stories you could find one of four things: Videos of them recording their lessons, complains of how tired they were, post about how rough their day was going, and posts advertising their new youtube video. My partner and took issue with the lesson recordings because you could always hear her students in the back (never see them thankfully) and weren’t sure on how a parent would feel to know that their child’s voice is posted on their teachers instagram that has 31 thousand followers. In addition to this, how would a parent or admin feel when the see that this teacher constantly posts about how tired they are and about how their students are misbehaving. Immediately no. If I were a parent and I saw these posts I would be so concerned for my child’s education. If all my teacher did was post about how tired they are and how they are counting down until they go home I would lose it. Don’t you want a teacher that is willing to put in the work for your child’s education? A teacher that is excited to be there? These instagram stories did not relfect these at all.

This small dive into a single influencers account taugh me what not to do. There are ways to post teacher content that isn’t solely for monetary value or to complain about your job for everyone to see. Personally I think that this teacher will have a hard time finding a position at another school should they choose leave the one they are in now.