We have created the #StoryScore to focus on what is meaningful on social media. It is our social media reporting tool developed by our wonderful Interactive Schools data team. They have pulled every platform apart, combined with our social media expertise and strategy to create an algorithm to accurately measure your social media presence. Your #StoryScore reflects how well your school is performing on social media in terms of the quality and breadth of your stories and even whether you are living into your School values.

It is a numerical value between 0 and 100 based on our proprietary weighted algorithm.

The #StoryScore measures all major social media platforms with it currently being active for Instagram and X.

The Elements

Hashtag in Bio

This element of the algorithm is as simple as it sounds! Having a hashtag in your social media bio boosts your StoryScore rating by 3%! We would strongly recommend including a branded hashtag! A branded hashtag is a hashtagged phrase that is associated with your school.

Hashtags are threads & themes that help support a relevant school tagline, belief or campaign

This a great way to showcase your School’s identity and increase your brand awareness. We would recommend choosing a School value that live into and showcase in your storytelling already.

For example, if your School’s mission is to inspire and is a regular feature of your storytelling you may choose a branded hashtag which is #YourSchoolInspire.

Engagement Rate

Measuring engagement is an important tool for ensuring success on social media. This makes up 16% of your StoryScore. Your engagement rate is calculated by dividing your average likes per post by your follower count.

The best way to improve your engagement rate is to boost your likes. This is not an easy thing to do but here are some top tips to do so:

Produce engaging and unique content
Utilise all platform features E.g. Polls

These help boost engagement with your followers!

Ask questions!

Getting your community to answer questions is a great way to organically increase engagement on social media

Posting relatable authentic content

By posting authentic and relatable stories you create a deeper relationship with your audience
The deeper the relationship you create, the increased likelihood of engagement increases

You can also boost your engagement rate by doing an audit of your followers. This is reviewing your followers to see if any are bots or completely inactive accounts. If you remove these followers the engagement rate will increase as the ratio of average likes per post to followers will increase.

It is important to only remove accounts that are clearly bots or inactive as some accounts will not interact with your posts but still want to view them!

Hashtag Rate

The Hashtag Rate measures how often hashtags are used in each post and makes up 26% of the total StoryScore. It is extremely easy to boost the score! Just use relevant hashtags for every post. To improve your storytelling on social media, ensure you use branded hashtags so you are able to specifically filter your stories.

Schools should use branded hashtags which can be split into 3 categories: Purpose, People, and Place. These elements will cover all the elements of the story you are telling. Purpose represents your school values that you are living into. People represents who is in the story and Place is where the story is taking place. Examples of these would be #YourSchoolInspire, #YourSchoolGrade5, and #YourSchoolEnglish. By using all three hashtags in a single post, it boosts your hashtag rate as well as curating specific branded content for your audience.

Values Rate

The values rate is the most important element of the #StoryScore making up 35% of the total score. This is calculated by working out how many of your School’s posts are mentioning your own unique values. We want Schools to showcase that they are living into their own unique values and to provide evidence to the world that these values are more than just words on a page.

It is simple to increase the values rate and that's just by talking about your values in your posts. You can even improve other elements of your StoryScore here!

To do this all you need to do is use a purpose (value) branded hashtag. This allows you to potentially increase your StoryScore by 61%!

Story Rate

The Story rate measures the quantity of your School’s posts. This is a simple element of the StoryScore and to increase it all you have to do is post more content!

However, it does take into account other elements. It also uses the size of the School as part of the calculation by using the total number of pupils. The larger the school you are the more you should be posting on social media!

Need more information?

At Interactive Schools, we care about every story, shared by every person, at every school, on any social media platform and we want to make sure your school leads the #StoryScore

To discuss your school’s #StoryScore please reach out to social@interactiveschools.com.

#StoryScore: How Can I Improve My School Rating?