Clear and timely communication is vital to a booster club’s success. We must effectively distribute information so students will be on time, prepared and ready for practices and events. We must also keep parents aware of their responsibilities so they’ll meet due dates for fundraisers and show up when help is needed. On a broader scale, we need to let extended families know what’s going on in the organization.

Parents of teenagers are in one of the busiest seasons of life. Today’s parents receive more messages and information than any prior generation. Booster clubs are literally in competition with other media outlets and organizations for a parent’s attention. So what can you do to ensure your message is heard?

Expand your reach with Twitter.

Twitter enables users to send and read “tweets” – text messages limited to 140 characters. One of Twitter’s major benefits is that it is mobile. You can reach your parents wherever they are at almost any time of day. Twitter is easy to set up, and it is even easier for your parents to follow you. Best of all, if they retweet your messages, you will reach a much broader audience including their followers.

Here are six ideas for tweets:

1. Practice and rehearsal call times. One of the best ways for parents to support a student program is to have their children at practice on time. You really can’t over communicate call times.
2. Scores and contest updates. Parents will inevitably encounter scheduling conflicts and may not be able to attend every event. Likewise, extended family members living out of town want to stay connected as well. Keep them in the loop by tweeting scores and updates from events as they occur.
3. Travel updates from the road. This may be Twitter’s greatest benefit for a booster club. When you’ve been on the road with your student group, the last thing you want to do is hang around the school waiting for that last parent to pick up his child. On your trip home, let you parents know when you expect to arrive. A parking lot full of parents is the best welcoming committee you could ask for!
4. Announcements and reminders. Do you have critical deadlines for your fundraisers? Do you have a last minute change? Or, do you simply want to send one more reminder to make sure everyone’s on the same page? Twitter gives you the platform to disseminate this information in real time.
5. Links to newsletters and other important documents. Twitter gives you an additional media outlet to distribute your newsletter. It also allows you to send links to important documents for fundraising, event registration, and other forms.
6. Photos and short videos from practices and events. Keep your parents engaged by sending photos and videos from practices and events. This will be a big hit, both with your parents, and also with extended families.

When you’re planning your booster club’s communication strategy, be sure to integrate Twitter. It’s a powerful, free and easy to use tool that will help you expand your reach!

To learn how to establish an overall communication strategy for your booster club, check out my book, The Booster Leader: 35 Leadership Essentials for a Thriving Booster Organization. You’ll find six chapters dedicated to communications, and much more. The Booster Leader is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.

Question: What will you communicate through Twitter? You can leave a comment by clicking here.