Easily Convert PDFs to JPG for Social Media With Zamzar

If you need to convert a flyer created in Word or a PDF to a JPG to post on social media, I recommend Zamzar.com. I have been using it for years, and have never signed up or paid a dime. It's fast and very reliable.

I will often get flyers sent to me that people want posted on our social media sites, but they are not my documents and not in an acceptable image format to be able to post to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Zamzar to the rescue.

Zamzar Tip: Sometimes when you are trying to convert a Word document to a JPG or PNG, you may first need to convert it to a PDF, and then take that PDF and convert it to a JPG. So, if you don't see your ideal format for conversion try a PDF or another format first, then convert from there.

Below is a step-by-step video screencast I created to show you exactly how Zamzar.com works.

The Two Best Twitter Campaigns for Schools

Does it get any cuter than this! 

Think about this... What two days of school have the most energy, excitement and camera-ready smiles? The first day, and the last day/graduation. One more question. What two days have the most cameras snapping and social media postings? That's right, the first day and graduation. So, why not capitalize on all of this excitement and energy and share it with your entire community. Create Twitter campaigns for these two exciting days on campus.

At Arcadia Unified School District, where I have the privilege of being the Public Information Officer, we created the social media campaign #ArcadiaFirstDay. It's been amazing to see all of the adorable posts, that we can then Retweet and share with all of our followers, from so many proud parents. It's a positive content creation machine, and your school is mentioned in every post.

Siblings in every class at Arcadia High
This was tweeted by a news producer and was featured on ABC7!

A few things to keep in mind:
1. The hashtag #ArcadiaFirstDay can be used year after year and continue to grow. There is no year on it for that purpose. As the years go by, you will see more and more people using it as it quickly spreads. Don't be disappointed if the first year is not overwhelming, it will grow.

2. Select your hashtag carefully. Before selecting a hashtag, make sure it can be branded and recognized to your school or district, and it's something that is timeless whenever possible. Also, search the hashtag before you use it. You could find some tweets you don't want to be associated with, or there is little distinction from you.

For example, I made the mistake of using #AUSD as a part of our hashtags for Arcadia Unified School District when I first created our account. Why was this a bad idea by me?

Alhambra Unified School District, AUSD
Alameda Unified School District, AUSD
Azusa Unified School District, AUSD
Albany Unified School District, AUSD - to name a few...  There is no distinction.

3. Be sure to tell people about the Twitter campaign in advance. Post about it on social media, and don't be afraid to send an email blast to your parents. They will be excited to learn about it before it happens. There doesn't need to be a school lockdown to email blast your parents, they like getting good news too! Use your own resources.


To bookend our Back to School Twitter campaign, we also use #ArcadiaHigh16 to celebrate a very proud moment for families. Graduation is another great milestone that happens every year in all school districts, and proud parents are posting all over social media about their accomplished children, and your great school. I do use the year for the graduation twitter campaigns, because I find most of the students and parents are naturally using it anyway in their own hashtags. There is a lot of talk in the commencement speeches and in yearbooks about "The Class of ___", so it's just natural for people to want to identify with their own graduating class that many of them spent the past 13 years with. In some cases, don't try and fight it, just ride the wave that was already created. Also add your standard hashtag, like #ArcadiaUnified to continue to grow that one.

Bonus Twitter Campaign:
We started hosting the Arcadia Innovation Summit in 2015, a free conference for teachers and educators to share innovative lessons and best practices. So, the first year we started a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #ArcadiaInnovation. We were thrilled to see how many people tweeted during the conference and even after. We were also amazed how the hashtag turned into a lot of unsolicited positive reviews of the conference.

The second year in 2016, the hashtag started days before the conference with people tweeting how they were looking forward to going or how they were presenters. It created a great buzz before the conference even started. Then, during it, the tweets came fast and furious! We had so many tweets that we did more than 1.1 million impressions on Twitter in just a three day period!


Connect with me on twitter at @RyanpForan

Communicate From the Inside Then Out: Build Trust and Relationships Through Communications

The public should never receive information before your own staff. As leaders, you need to remember to communicate internally first, then go out to the public. As my mom used to tell me and my two brothers growing up, "If I'm going to get bad news, I better hear it from you first." That has always stuck with me for some reason, and I'm glad it did. Communicating from the inside out is a good philosophy for both personal and professional communications. Unfortunately for my mom, that didn't stop the bad news from coming, except from her youngest son who was the model citizen of the family :).

When you communicate the news first, you are in control of how that initial message is delivered. If it's left to an outside source such as the media, a neighbor, or social media, you are at the mercy of their message. It's your news, you need to deliver it first.

In the case of positive news, you can get away with informing your public and staff at the same time in some cases, but it's still not a great idea. What if your staff gets bombarded with questions about the new program or exciting initiative and how it will be implemented? They won't have the answers, as they just received the news themselves. It's never a good look when your employees don't have the answers or an inside track to what's happening within the organization. You need to prepare your staff for good news too, not just the bad.

In the case of that dreaded bad news, you always need to start your communications inside and then go out. Your staff should never receive bad news about their own company from a media report or social media first. This is a relationship and trust killer. Your staff doesn't need to agree with the news, they just need to be privy to it before it goes public. You will be trusted and connected much more talking with your staff first and keeping them in the know. I have yet to work with anyone who doesn't appreciate "being kept in the loop." This is how you build strong relationships and trust within your organization. When the public or your staff demands "more transparency", this is often what they are referring to. They just want to know what's going on, especially before the rumor mill starts churning.

When you are communicating internally first, there is still a pecking order to keep in mind. The executive positions should get the information first when possible, and then down the chain. A top level executive should not receive critical news about the organization from someone they supervise. If this happens in your organization, there is a serious chink in your armor, and it needs to be fixed immediately.

In closing, think about your own staff and stakeholders first. They deserve to be in the know. When people talk about "communication is key", this is the type of philosophy and strategy they are referring to. Who doesn't want to feel trusted and be on the inside of their own organization? When your staff is consistently in the know, they will defend your decisions more often, even if they disagree. More importantly, you will build trust and strong relationships through effective communications.    

7 Easy Tricks to Get Way More Twitter Followers

My formula to get more Twitter followers is simple:
Engagement = Notifications = Followers. Notifications are the key, and the more you engage with others on Twitter, the more notifications people will get that are linked directly to your account. Therefore people will be able to know who you are and follow you.

Every time you follow someone, favorite, reply, or retweet, they will get a notification saying you did so. Then they will get a link to your account and can view your profile. If they like what they see, they will follow you. 

Don't be an egghead! 

BUT, when people do see your profile you need a profile picture and your bio filled in with your interests. I will not follow people that have the default egghead profile picture and no information about who they are. Don't be the anonymous creepy guy on Twitter! So, step one is updating your profile picture and writing your bio. Then start following people, favoriting, replying, and retweeting. You will gain followers very fast! 

My bio with a mention & hashtags! 

Any other tips you have? Comment below or tweet me @RyanpForan

Watch My Twitter Tutorial Screencast to see more of the basics!  

6 Tips to Making a Professional Marketing Video With Just Your iPhone

Whether you're short on time, money, or resources, your smartphone is one of the best communication tools you have at your disposal. With a few simple tips and techniques, you can be producing your own dynamic marketing videos at no cost with just your phone. You can easily add music, text, transitions, slow motion, photos, and adjust audio settings to make your video look very professional. Take the first step by utilizing these 6 tips to get you going. The first tip is key. I use an iPhone, but you can use an Android device as well, there are plenty of quality video editing apps.

See the videos I created with just my iPhone below.

1. Use the free iMovie app (there are others video editing apps that are free and good too) to create your videos in. iMovie is very user friendly, is now free on all new iPhones, and already installed on your iPhone. This editing app is the key to adding all the fancy texts, music, slow motion, transitions, and even narrations that will make your video look amazing.

2. Wipe your camera lens before shooting your video! This sounds simple, but many people forget to do this, and that's why you see photos and videos that seem a little blurry or out of focus. I know mom told you not to, but go ahead and wipe it clean on your shirt sleeve.

3. Shoot your video with your phone in the horizontal or landscape position, NOT vertical. When you should vertical that's when you get those black bars on the side. Filming horizontal makes your video a perfect fit for YouTube as it fills the screen proportionally.

4. Don't film into the sun or lights. This will make your subjects dark as the camera is automatically adjusting to the bright light. Position yourself so the sun or light source is at your back and shining on your subjects. For example, if you're filming a football game from the sideline and the sun is setting across the field, you are going to get some very dark shots when your camera is angled toward the sun. Instead, film from the other sideline so the sun is at your back and lighting the field for you. The difference is remarkable.

Don't shoot into the sun, notice the image is dark and difficult to see.

5. Audio is very important if you are doing interviews. There are external microphones that you can buy, and I recommend this one via Amazon for only $18.95. So, if you want to use the mic on your camera for an interview it will do a good job, but you must do it correctly. In the videos below I did interviews with just the iPhone mic. First, get to a quiet area and get as close to your interview subject as possible, but you also need to get their entire head in the shot. Then make sure your finger or hand is not covering the mic area.

6. Use a tripod when possible. If you are filming sports or something that is moving and can't use a tripod, keep your elbows tucked against your body to act as stabilizer. Also, when panning move very slow and try to limit how much you pan. Slight movements and shaky video will make people sea sick. This is a skill that takes practice. Less movement and slower is better, and a tripod is always best. *You can get a very good Amazon Basics tripod for about $25 or less, and you just need an adapter to hold your phone. This is a great handheld tripod on Amazon that has multiple uses including a blue tooth remote for under $20.

Any other tips you have? Please comment and share below.

Google Alerts: Monitor Media Mentions, Yourself and Your Brand

Google Alert yourself, and your organization. Google Alerts is by far one of the best tools to help monitor all your media mentions and your online reputation. Like most Google products, it's amazingly efficient, and best of all, it's free. Signup here or at https://www.google.com/alerts  

I recently agreed to "a short ten minute" pitch from a company, in which they tried to sell me their media monitoring service for a mere $32,000 a year. It has a couple of features that will organize and create reports that estimate the value of your media mentions, but I was not buying that their unique search engine was better than Google, and I sure wasn't buying anything for 32k a year.

I have used Google Alerts for years with great success, and highly recommend it. As a Public Information Officer for a large school district, I set Google Alerts for our district, all our schools, and key members of our staff. So, instead of having to search the web for media stories and mentions, Google Alerts will send you an email whenever your search terms are found online. Google does the work for you.

It's very easy to signup, and to set the frequency of the emails. I recommend starting with "as-it-happens" so you are immediately notified. You will get some links sent to you that are not relevant, but they are easy to spot and it only takes a few seconds to look at the email and determine if it's something of interest. 

Make sure to make a Google Alert for yourself too, and all they key members of your organization. This is key to being proactive in your communications instead of the dreaded reactive. As soon as something is posted about you, your staff, or organization, you will be notified. The good news is, that most of the Google Alerts I receive are indeed good news. When the alert is negative, at least you are aware of it and can create a timely response if needed. 

Here's a cheat sheet I created if you need help signing up and a little more info on Google Alerts. 

Twitter Screencast Tutorial: Build Your Own Network

If you're not on Twitter, you should pick up your rotary phone and call for help immediately! Or, just watch my screencast tutorial below which will walk you through all the basics.

Twitter is one of the most powerful tools a communicator and professional in any field can have at their disposal. The networking alone is worth your time to invest. As George Couros (@gcouros on Twitter), author of the Innovator's Mindset, recently said in his keynote address at the Arcadia Innovation Summit, "If you're not using Twitter you're basically becoming illiterate."

Say you work in the computer science field, or you are just a fan of Bill Gates. You can not only be one of his 30 million followers to see what his thoughts are, what articles he is tweeting, but you can see who the 169 people that he is following, and follow them yourself. If they are good enough for the Microsoft Co-founder to follow, it might not be a bad way to begin to build your network.

Hope to see you on Twitter! You can find me at @RyanpForan.