2013-01-29-and-the-socialstandouts-award-goes-to.md

id	title	date	author	layout	guid	permalink	image	categories	tags
40341	And the #SocialStandouts Award Goes To…	2013-01-29 22:11:30 -0600	ankurthakkar	post	http://digital.cityofchicago.org/?p=40341	/index.php/and-the-socialstandouts-award-goes-to/	https://digital.cityofchicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cpsb2s1.png	Feature	Chicago Public Schools CPS Social Media

Crain’s Chicago Business asked its readers to nominate Chicago companies and organizations that are doing the best job of using social media to communicate with customers, promote services, and broaden their social outreach. The Twitter nominee is Chicago Public Schools (CPS), nominated for the way it used Twitter to connect with parents and school communities.

CPS is being recognized for an initiative they took on last March, when they needed to find candidates to fill Local School Council positions. Initially they found too few applicants–2,060 people running for more than 6,000 spots. CPS engaged their Twitter community and noticed that a number of people were discussing how difficult it was to even find which schools still had open spots on their councils. It was suggested that a map could help.

Three days later—

CPS Digital Director Alex Soble teamed up with Open City Apps to create the searchable map that showed which areas still needed candidates. After extending the application deadline, listening to and engaging parents, teachers, and school communities through social media, CPS ended up with 6695 interested applicants.

Learn more and vote for your favorites at Crain’s.