It is great to see a campaign I was involved in from the start get launched.
Back in August of 2015, I started pulling people together to plan out what K12 was going to do for National Bully Prevention month, which takes place in October. The prior year, the company had collected signatures from people who were against bullying through an online form. That campaign collected a couple thousands signatures, and was considered a success.
However, there was a feeling that something more dynamic could be done this time around.
As the person leading this effort, I really wanted to do something that engaged with millennials, parents, teachers and others. A social media campaign that was both easy for people to get involved in as well as engaging, and would help bring attention to the importance of bully prevention. There were lots of ideas in our strategy sessions, and indeed, pulling everyone together has lead to one of the most unified and creative social media campaigns in K12’s history (in my opinion, obviously).
Why Bully Prevention?
As Elizabeth Street of Learning Liftoff points out in her article, Prevent Bullying: Unite for What’s Right #ZeroBullying, “28 percent of U.S. students have experienced bullying,” and a “majority of kids—70.6 percent—say they have witnessed bullying in their schools.”
Organizations such as StopBullying.com, PACER and more, as well as the U.S. federal government, all have worked hard over the last few years to get a national message out that bullying in our schools negatively impacts a significant number of children, and that there are important ways we can all participate to reduce this behavior.
To K12’s credit, the company and its dozens of virtual academies across the US, have been a place where bullied students could get their public school education in an environment that was safe, and allowed them to recover from past traumas. Indeed, if you continue to read Learning Liftoff over the month of October, you will see great stories from teachers and students who have triumphed over bullying and forged a path to a better future.
How Can You Participate?
Participation in this campaign is simple. Here are the instructions:
1- Take a photo, make a short video (10 to 12 seconds), or draw a picture showing that you stand for zero bullying.
Feel free to get creative with your zero bullying photos. Create a zero in any way you want—you can use food, build it with LEGO blocks, hold something in the shape of a zero, or anything else that works for you. Or simply write your suggestions on how schools and communities can prevent bullying.
2- Hashtag your photo, drawing, video, or suggestion with #ZeroBullying and then post on your social media account (Twitter, Instagram, Vine, etc) or on K12’s Facebook page . Be sure to use the hashtag #ZeroBullying.
When you and thousands of others do this, your contribution will get captured into a feed and shared with everyone. In fact, K12 is using Tint’s social hub solution to capture all the approved submissions. Tint is a great tool that other nationally recognized brands use to build similar social hubs.
Take a moment and join the effort to #ZeroBullying. Unite for what’s right!
Once you do, you can view your post, as well as the creative ideas from others, at: http://www.learningliftoff.com/zero-bullying.
Congratulations to everyone on the K12 Social Media, Creative and Content teams for executing a very powerful social media campaign.
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