Birdville Independent School District
With over 24,300 students across 33 campuses, Birdville ISD (BISD) is the 5th largest school district in Northeast Texas. Nationally recognized for their Fine Arts and Career and Technology Programs, BISD relies on automated, branded newsletters from Meltwater to share accomplishments and news with principals and board members.
Meltwater Enables BISD to
Track district-wide coverage and stay on top of legislative news affecting schools in the state
Communicate internally through a daily, branded newsletter
Report in detail on earned media and highlight PR successes
Challenge
New School Year, New Challenge
"Our vision is for the communications team to be the trusted resource for reliable, relevant, and timely information," says BISD Communication Officer, Mark Thomas. Just last fall, BISD struggled to grasp the depth of the district?s media coverage, and needed a "smarter" way to understand how their message was being perceived beyond the scope of local media.
Manually searching for coverage oftentimes meant key articles were missed, and hours were spent sifting through and organizing mentions by school, event, or community topic. While BISD had a strong media presence, they needed a way to capitalize on positive coverage and share successes with internal stakeholders.
Solution
The Meltwater Newsletter: An Easy A
With a few clicks, the BISD team can now create and distribute a personalized, branded newsletter to their principals and board members. The newsletter is powered by Meltwater daily alerts and based on pre-selected keywords that surface insights on state legislation and district-wide coverage. Most critical coverage is seasonal in nature, so having the flexibility to fine-tune and change keywords at no cost has proved invaluable.
Beyond the daily newsletter, the BISD team provides their board with monthly reporting on each campus?s total mentions, reach, and sentiment in the media. Being able to easily highlight the success of PR efforts to the board keeps everyone aligned and "in the know."
Summary
Meltwater Helps BISD
Track critical coverage and ensure their message is perceived correctly in the media
"In this busy world of communication, it's rewarding to see your message well perceived. Now, I'm seeing real-time alerts from outlets I was unaware of, talking not only about BISD and our community, but even legislative news that's critical for every school district to stay on top of."
Send a branded, daily newsletter to district principals and board members
My internal stakeholders get this great-looking, professional newsletter that makes them say, "Wow, this is impressive, keep this coming!" They see us as a trusted resource for delivering timely news, that?s such a positive thing for our department.
Reliable monitoring frees up time to focus on other priority a better service for their members
"The Meltwater platform is reliable, relevant, and timely. We're able to make sure each of our campuses are automatically tracked, which has saved us a tremendous amount of personnel time. And that has helped us increase productivity with staff freed up to complete other important activities."
— Mark Thomas, Communications Officer
