Keeping Things Clean on Social

Social media platforms are an integral part of life these days – more than 4.5 million kiwis had a Facebook page as of April this year, that’s 86% of the population.

Our core target audiences represent the most active age groups on the platform. Over at Facebook’s sibling platform, Instagram, there are 2.5 million New Zealand users, and again, our demographic makes up the bulk of them. 

With so much of our personal lives being lived on social media, it can be tricky sometimes to hold the balance between our personal and professional online presence, and sometimes the two can inadvertently collide. 

We’re always keen to hear if you see or hear anything, online or off, that might promote misinformation about Kidsfirst or our kindergartens, be potentially harmful to whānau, tamariki or staff, or impact the organisation’s reputation. 

Very often there’s nothing we can or want to do, but it’s always good to have awareness. At other times, there are ways to correct misinformation or unfair statements, for example in Google reviews. 

We also all need to be careful to keep the same sort of separation between our personal and professional lives online, as we would offline.

Remember, if you engage with families, prospective families or anybody else online, and are identified as a Kidsfirst employee, you are at risk of being seen to be representing the organisation. Closed or private groups are never really closed – nobody can ever be certain who is lurking and with what intent, and posts and comments are easily screen captured and shared.

 If you’re at all unsure about what is and isn’t OK, please check our social media policy, and ask Jenny Pitama if you need any clarification.