From silence to engagement
How the 3S system rebuilt American International School of Bucharest’s voice, and the system to sustain it.
Strategy
Social Media
Workflow
An international school full of real stories, going unheard online.
In the autumn of 2023, AISB had everything that an international school needs to be seen: educational excellence, a courageous and compassionate community of learners, and real human stories. Yet very little of it was reaching anyone. The feed had gone quiet.
Working externally under a new Admissions and Communications Director, I used the 3S system to work out why the school was having trouble increasing its digital community, rebuild its voice, and put a system in place to hold that voice steady through whatever came next. Over the following two years, that system took AISB to #1 in engagement on LinkedIn among Bucharest’s international schools. When the school later brought the role in-house, I trained the person who took over.
Working externally under a new Admissions and Communications Director, I used the 3S system to work out why the school was having trouble increasing its digital community, rebuild its voice, and put a system in place to hold that voice steady through whatever came next. Over the following two years, that system took AISB to #1 in engagement on LinkedIn among Bucharest’s international schools. When the school later brought the role in-house, I trained the person who took over.
CONTEXT
AISB is known for a creative, courageous, and compassionate community of learners. Online, none of that was visible. Its social presence had become a sleepy corner of the internet, a feed that worked like a bulletin board.The raw material was there. A new mission, shaped by students together with Yellow Car — Think Fearlessly. Act with Kindness. Shape Tomorrow. — hadn’t fully taken hold yet, but the underlying message already had. Behind the scenes, human stories weren’t being shared, and a wonderful community waited for its moment in the limelight. There was no clear social strategy and no tone of voice to tell them in. Prospective parents weren’t getting clear signals of value, and the sense of belonging that current families felt every day wasn’t reaching anyone outside the school.
The challenge
The stated brief was simple: keep the school visible in a niche digital landscape where enrolment decisions are made slowly and quietly.
The real challenge sat underneath it. There was no system to be visible with. Workflows, a communications strategy, and a tone of voice all had to be built from the ground up, with minimal resources, while operating externally under brand-new leadership. Ownership had to be clear and friction-free from the start.
The real challenge sat underneath it. There was no system to be visible with. Workflows, a communications strategy, and a tone of voice all had to be built from the ground up, with minimal resources, while operating externally under brand-new leadership. Ownership had to be clear and friction-free from the start.
THE INSIGHT
This looked like a social-media problem. It wasn't.
AISB had genuine substance already — the excellence, the stories, the belonging were all real. What it lacked was a way to turn any of it into something people outside the school could feel. A school whose whole identity was community and belonging was communicating like a notice board. The shift that mattered was from “post more” to “give the substance a voice,” and everything else was built on it.
How the 3S system rebuilt it
01
Substance
Find the insight
Deep listening surfaced the truth the feed was hiding: a school rich in stories, communicating like a bulletin board. Real substance, with no story to carry it. The mission the students had already written became the reference point the voice would work from.
02
Strategy
Build the blueprint
Communication moved from reactive to intentional. Posts stopped being reactions to events and became a structured editorial rhythm — one that matched the school’s weekly pulse and was planned around what AISB actually stood for. Content was built to send clearer signals of value to prospective parents and to reflect the belonging current families already felt. Information started to carry identity.
03
Story
Shape and write
The school found its voice: a cohesive, compassionate digital identity that read as AISB and no one else — the language that reflected its beating heart. Teachers, students, and the wider community began taking part in making content, so the feed moved from scattered voices toward one recognisable community.
→
The system
Built to outlast
The voice held because the system under it did. GDPR-compliant procedures, a 24–48-hour turnaround for time-sensitive posts, shared templates, clear workflows, and AI-aided processes kept the whole thing sustainable and scalable. The real test came at handover: when AISB moved the role in-house at the start of the 2025–26 year, I trained the incoming hire, and the voice, cadence, and community presence carried on without me — while giving the new hire room to express her own individuality. That was always the point: clarity the team could run without the strategist in the room.
THE RESULTS
From barely seen to #1 in engagement on LinkedIn among Bucharest's international schools.
LinkedIn
+31.9%
Engagement rate
+90%
Engagement rate vs competitors
+238%
Reactions
+204%
Organic impressions
+184%
Clicks
+431%
Posts published
Instagram
+88.6%
Profile visits
+32.1%
Interactions
+71%
Posts
Results from the 2024–25 school year compared to 2023–24, achieved on the system built and run by
Creative Monologue before the role transitioned to AISB’s internal team.
Creative Monologue before the role transitioned to AISB’s internal team.
What the school walked away with
Using the 3S system, I turned a temporary communications patch into an approach built to foster purpose, agency, and belonging.
I
A comms strategy blueprint
The positioning, tone of voice, and editorial pillars AISB had been missing, set down as a strategy the team could actually use.
II
A content system the team could run
Workflows, templates, a 24–48-hour turnaround for time-sensitive posts, and GDPR-compliant processes that survived the handover.
III
The voice AISB was missing
Copy and content that turned a bulletin board into a recognisable community, and kept sounding right after I left.
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