SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE?
Top tips for an excellent social media campaign Earlier this year, the AGR stepped into the ‘Twitterverse’ with the first of our new Social Media workshops. With the help of our expert panel, which featured the likes of Penna; AGR Award winners Ernst and Young; and Metashift founder, Matt Alder, attendees at each session helped us to brainstorm the following top ten tips for an excellent social media campaign...
1. Set clear objectives
Before you begin, be aware of your organisation’s overall social media goals, and set clear objectives upfront about what you are aiming to achieve, and when you want to achieve it by. Draw up a detailed communications plan to keep your campaign on track.
2. Do some research
Research your both your target market and your competitors – which channels do they use and how do they use them? Also try and stay up to date with current social media news and developments. Mashable. com is the best source for this.
3. Ensure that your channels are easy to find!
Provide clear and accessible links to your social media channels from the relevant website. Include working links in your email signatures, and cross reference across all channels.
4. Make your content engaging Initiate conversations and get involved in discussions. Encourage a dialogue with your audience by asking and answering questions, and spice up your content with videos, photos and competitions. If you don’t have the budget for a big prize, try offering knowledge-based prizes instead, such as a day of work-shadowing, or a comprehensive CV assessment.
5. Tailor your content to each channel When it comes to Social Media, one size does not fit all. Avoid posting exactly the same messages on all social media platforms – tailor the message to suit each type of user, and you will more easily exploit the benefit of each channel. (You should however, ensure that campaign messages are consistent throughout!)
6. Put in the hours
The more time you dedicate to social media, the more effective your campaign will be. Try and update content regularly, and respond to as many interactions as possible – there’s a strong argument to say that a social media campaign which doesn’t get updated is actually worse for your brand than having no social media campaign at all.
7. Delegate social media responsibility By sharing responsibility for social media between a diverse range of employees within your business, you not only overcome the problem of limited resources, but you will also potentially appeal to a more diverse audience. Many companies ask their interns and graduates to contribute to social media as part of their objectives, in order to give posts an ‘authentic’ voice.
8. Focus on managing, rather than controlling Employers regularly approach AGR with concerns about the unsolicited nature of social media. Many worry, for instance, that malicious users could post brand- damaging messages on channels. Other companies also have a policy of ‘signing off ’ tweets before they can be published. Unfortunately, this level of control is rather at odds with the ‘spirit’ of social media. Learn to relax your approach, and your campaign will benefit. A social media dashboard such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck will make the task of monitoring social media much less onerous.
9. Don’t expect too much too soon Social media can be a hard nut to crack, and viral campaigns only come along every so often. Don’t
attempt too much initially – draw up a realistic plan with a timeline to grow your presence gradually. Recognise that you need to invest resources to really make it work.
10. Review your social media regularly Collating data on the success of your efforts will help improve your overall efforts, and may also encourage business buy-in and investment. Social media dashboards such as Hootsuite have analytics functions which allow you to assess the cumulative impact of your campaign over time.
The next AGR social media workshop will take place in London on December 13th. For more information, or to book your place, please contact
Rachael@agr.org.uk
£26,500 – IS IT ENOUGH?
Find out whether the average graduate starting salary will rise or fall over the next six months when the AGR’s Winter Survey is published in January.
As always, the survey will include the latest data on: • Graduate vacancies • Graduate salaries • Marketing budgets
In this edition, we will also be featuring a series of questions about the Higher Education Achievement Report, and whether or not employers actually plan to use this classification when recruiting for graduates. The survey is free to AGR members and will be available to download from our website.
GRADUATE RECRUITER 7
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