Start With A Plan

When using social media to inform and support it is important to start with a plan of action. The first thing to do is to decide how frequently you plan on updating your contact. You can simply pull out a calendar and start scheduling your content. It is important to think about how much time it might take to develop that content. You can spend time drafting content beforehand, so that you have content ready for posting.  

Use a Calendar

One way to begin is to use a calendar and review various awareness months. April is Autism awareness, June is Aphasia awareness and October is the Campaign for Healthier Babies. Using these months can help you to plan topics. If you are trying to educate families regarding the Part C or Part B of IDEA system, then using the APR/SPP (Annual Performance Report/State Performance Plan) calendars.  For instance, a blogpost about the importance of family involvement in the development of the Annual Performance Report, would have more impact if it posted in the late Fall/early winter. 

Frequency

Decide how often you can post.  While you write a blog once a month? If you only have 12 ideas for blog posts, than once a month might be the right schedule.  It is definitely preferable to do one post per month, than to upload 12 posts in 12 days, and follow that with nothing.  You might generate some great buzz in those first 12 days, but your followers will be long gone in three months when they realize you don't have anything else to say.  You can also use other social media sites to generate buzz about your posts and to drive people to your blog or website.

What's your endgame?

Finally, it is always important to keep in mind your endgame.  Why are you writing your blog?  What do you want people to do after they've read your post?  Do you want them to contact you?  Are you hoping that they'll take some sort of action? If so, have you helped them to figure out what to do, when to do it and how to do it? If not, you'll have to go back and revise your plan to include reference to your endgame.