How to Add Social Media Buttons to an Outlook E-mail Signature

I talked in this blog post about adding social media buttons under your e-mail signature, so I thought I'd write another post to show you how to do that. :) You can click on any of the photos on this page to see an enlarged version.

1. Find social media buttons. {They're also sometimes called "social media icons."} This Pinterest board has several pins with free social media buttons for you to choose from, or you can just run a Google search for free ones.

2. Download the social media buttons to your computer. A lot of times, artists will make several different sizes of buttons and let the customer choose which ones to use. If that happens, the social media buttons will probably download in a zipped file. You can read this post to refresh your memory on how to unzip files.

3. Pick which buttons you're going to use. You can pick the size and which icons you need. For instance, in my work e-mail signature, I used a button for my science lab website ("homepage"), Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Since I don't personally use Facebook in the classroom, I linked to our campus's Facebook page.

The buttons I used

You won't typically find a social media icon for a homepage -- I made that one myself. But some button sets will come with a blank template. From there, I just found a picture of a white house and layered it over the blank template. You may also need to re-size buttons if none are to your liking. You can read this post to refresh your memory on editing pictures in PowerPoint.

4. In the Outlook program on your computer, click "file." 

5. Click "options" near the bottom of the list.

6. When the pop-up below shows, click "mail." 

7. Click "signatures." 

8. Type your signature as you normally would. If you want to add a funky font to your signature, you may want to refer to this post and this post.

Some information blocked for privacy reasons -- I don't actually have big green rectangles in my signature. :)

9. Click the picture frame icon (shown below) and insert a picture from your computer. {You can insert your social media button(s), your signature in a special font, our mascot/logo, or any other picture you want.} Keep doing this until all your pictures are in place.

"insert picture" icon

 10. Add link(s) to your picture(s). Select the picture you want to add the link to, as shown below {this example shows my homepage button selected}:

  
 11. While your picture is still selected, click the link button:

12. Make sure "existing file or web page" is selected, and then type the desired URL in the "address" bar. {Make sure to link directly to your profile on social media. For instance, don't link to the Twitter homepage at www.Twitter.com; rather, link to your profile page like this: www.Twitter.com/YourUsernameHere.} You can continue this process of linking individual pictures as much as you want.

 13.  When you're totally finished, click "OK" twice, as shown below:

 

If you're in CISD, shoot me an e-mail so I can see your new signature. :)
  

How to Increase Parent Followers on Social Media Sites

Let's say you've already set up a classroom Instagram, Twitter, and/or Facebook. Now you need to get the word out to your students and their parents. How do you do that? Here are some suggestions:

• Feature the students. From what I understand, CISD employees are allowed to post student photos on a classroom website, so long as the parent has signed the permission slip. My kids still get excited when they see me taking pictures of them because they know there's a good chance they could wind up on our class Instagram and be "famous!" 
• Let the kids post for you. I did this 2 years ago on Twitter {and need to do it again!}, and the kids were so excited to tweet that they excitedly ran home and told their parents.
• E-mail parents. Be direct and let parents know you just started a classroom social media account and would love for them to follow the updates.
• Put a reminder in your e-mail signature. You can do something as simple as writing "Follow me on Twitter! @MrsKaras," for example. You can link to your profile(s) if you want to get a bit fancier. And if you have multiple sites you'd like to share, you can add social media buttons to your e-mail signature:

This is currently at the bottom of my work e-mail signature

• Put links on your classroom website or blog. Everyone at CISD has an Edline page to customize, and most of us have blogs, too. Link to your social media sites in the sidebar so that they're always visible to visitors. 
• On a similar note: embed a stream of your latest updates on your website. I know you can embed Twitter and Instagram feeds onto a website, but I'm not sure about Facebook since I don't use it for the classroom. On Twitter, go to settings >> widgets >> "create new." You can generate a simple HTML code to put onto your site, which could look something like this:

Tweets by @ckarasedu
           

Instagram is mobile-based but you can view photos from the web now. I used SnapWidget to create my embed codes. You can see examples of my embedded Instagram feeds by visiting individual grade level pages on my classroom website.

The good thing about embedding feeds directly into your website is that visitors don't have to do any extra clicking or navigating to see your updates -- it all appears right there on your main website.

• Interact with others in the community. I think my professional Twitter account pretty much flew under the radar until I started interacting with other CISD accounts. Something as simple as favoriting, re-tweeting, or mentioning another user might help you gain followers.
• Put it in announcements. Simply telling the kids via announcements -- either school-wide or just at the beginning of class -- can do wonders.

Keep in mind that parents can see your updates by visiting your profile even if they don't officially "follow" or "like" it. I'm always surprised to find that I have a lot more readers than my "following" number shows.

Above all, the point of social media isn't to get "likes" or "followers" -- it's about connecting with others. Don't get too caught up in your numbers!

 

Finding the Right Font When You Have Tons Installed

If you caught this post about installing fonts, you might be overwhelmed when trying to decide on the perfect font to use. As a self-professed font snob, I totally understand. I don't necessarily have a lot of time to test all 1,200+ fonts on my computer for each document I create, but I also want to use "the perfect font" for the occasion. 

There's a neat little website called Wordmark that will help you decide on a font more quickly. 

When you go to the website, you see this very simple screen:

Click on the white "wordmark" word in the middle, top of the screen. When you do, the word "wordmark" will disappear, and you'll be able to type whatever you want in that box. After you type, press "enter." 

The screen will automatically load that phrase in all the fonts you have on your device. You can scroll down to see what that phrase would look like in each font on your computer so you can make a quick decision.

When/if you download new fonts and re-visit Wordmark, the new font options will appear on the screen without you having to do anything extra.