Since the last time I ran one of these it was a sell-out, and I had great feedback from those who attended, I've decided to run another. This time the workshop will be held in London at Imperial College. The workshop is perfect for anyone in any way engaged with developing a strategic approach to using social and digital media within their university. The content will be tailored to higher education audiences and environments.
Full information and the booking page can be found at socialmediaforuniversities.eventbrite.com/
I look forward to seeing some of you folk there!
Sunday, 23 January 2011
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Does navel-gazing and number crunching really tell us anything about university use of social media?
Last week I was alerted to two separate 'research' reports on university use of social media. As this is the area that I spend most of my life working in and advising on, both of course grabbed my attention. Great, methinks, some good studies to really show us how universities are performing in the use of social media. The studies I refer to are as follows:
Both of these reports have two things in common: they focus on numbers of followers/fans and they benchmark universities against each other. As the title of my blog post suggests, I refer to this as 'number crunching' and 'navel gazing' respectively. And so, having read both of them, I found myself feeling a tinge of disappointment and wanting something more. I'll explain why in a moment, but let's first reflect on what's good and useful about studies such as this.
What is number crunching and navel-gazing useful for?
Let's face it, we have very little information to work with when it comes to assessing performance of brands using social media. Many universities are using it widely now, but evidence of return on investment (ROI) or impact is in early days and often based on anecdotal evidence or 'gut feeling' that it is, somehow, working for us. So, if we are to convince senior managers that this is something that we should invest time and resource on (and, of course, I argue that we should), then we need something to show them and tell them to back this up. Figures mean something to senior managers, and benchmarking ourselves against other universities is a way of showing our managers that either 'we need to do something to catch up', or 'aren't we doing a great job?' We can show steady improvements and examine 'spikes' (number of retweets, numbers of new Facebook fans, etc.) to see what is working well, what is popular, and what has flopped. So, let's first accept that I do see some value in this exercise. Indeed, I've just delivered a social and digital media strategy for a Russell Group university in which I too did this very same benchmarking exercise against their key UK competitors (LinkedIn Group members, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, YouTube channel video upload views, web traffic statistics, etc.) But, importantly, this exercise didn't stop there but instead (taking a considerable amount of time) offered a detailed analysis of use of those sites and platforms and content created for them. So, it's useful because it helps us to put some kind of shape and meaning to social media use by universities while we work out how to really properly evaluate this. And so, that brings me on to the shortcomings of such reports...
What do the numbers really tell us?
When I look at a university's twitter account (I look at many on a daily basis), the first metric I look at is the follower:following ratio. If the account follows a low number of people relative to the number of followers that it has, this screams out one thing to me: 'we want you to listen to what we have to say, but we don't really want to listen to anyone back'. This is against the spirit of Twitter, and social media as a whole (the clue is in the title: social), and about the only thing that I really take away from the numbers. Numbers of fans and followers are therefore somewhat meaningless, for the following reasons:
The simple point here though, is that from a marketing and communications point of view, if our objective is simply to increase the number of our fans or followers on our social media sites, then we are failing as professionals. Harsh words, I know, but effective marketing and communications must result in some kind of return on investment for an organisation: quantity/quality of applicants, increased research income, improved results in the student satisfaction survey, more donations from alumni, the long-term survival of your organisation in an ever-increasingly competitive marketplace... This is about using social media as a call to action in some way shape or form. When I run workshops with universities to think about this, I challenge them to set tangible objectives (SMART) and be clear about what they want individuals to think, feel and do as a consequence of engaging with them through social media (or any other marketing and communications exercise, or learning experience for that matter).
Why we need to raise our eyes away from the navel...
We do a great deal, and rightly so, of benchmarking ourselves against other universities in the HE sector. This is good. Any organisation offering a product or service should constantly watch their competitors and monitor against them. However, when it comes to understanding our audiences, then there is also a lot to be said (particularly in terms of social media use) for looking outside of the sector and comparing and contrasting with other organisations who are competing for the attention of the same target audiences as us. There is so much information out there nowadays and social media makes this increasingly more personalised and niche. Every individual can tailor the information they choose to receive according to their interests. And your university is not the only thing interesting them at any moment in time. Think about prospective students. Sure, they are probably thinking about university quite a bit and spending a fair bit of their time looking at university information. But that is not the only thing competiting for their attention. They might be sitting exams, completing coursework, spending time on hobbies or sports, hanging out with friends, shopping, spending time with family, listening to music, learning to drive... just think how many other brands are out there potentially trying also to get them to follow them on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook and thus work their way into their news feed. As such, yes, we must benchmark against each other, but we must also look much wider and learn from non-HE organisations too that are trying to attract (or are attracting) our target audiences. Until we benchmark against organisations really using social media well, then we're in danger of just looking at other mediocre use of it and comparing ourselves to that (rather than to the best)... not that I'm saying that all universities are mediocre, some are very good!
- Brian Kelly (UKOLN) reported on institutional use of Twitter amongst Russell Group universities. The study compared number of followers of institutional twitter accounts, number of people they follow, number of tweets and average number of tweets per month.
- Dutch site ScienceGuide reported on research into Facebook and Twitter use/performance for nearly 2000 universities in Europe.
Both of these reports have two things in common: they focus on numbers of followers/fans and they benchmark universities against each other. As the title of my blog post suggests, I refer to this as 'number crunching' and 'navel gazing' respectively. And so, having read both of them, I found myself feeling a tinge of disappointment and wanting something more. I'll explain why in a moment, but let's first reflect on what's good and useful about studies such as this.
What is number crunching and navel-gazing useful for?
Let's face it, we have very little information to work with when it comes to assessing performance of brands using social media. Many universities are using it widely now, but evidence of return on investment (ROI) or impact is in early days and often based on anecdotal evidence or 'gut feeling' that it is, somehow, working for us. So, if we are to convince senior managers that this is something that we should invest time and resource on (and, of course, I argue that we should), then we need something to show them and tell them to back this up. Figures mean something to senior managers, and benchmarking ourselves against other universities is a way of showing our managers that either 'we need to do something to catch up', or 'aren't we doing a great job?' We can show steady improvements and examine 'spikes' (number of retweets, numbers of new Facebook fans, etc.) to see what is working well, what is popular, and what has flopped. So, let's first accept that I do see some value in this exercise. Indeed, I've just delivered a social and digital media strategy for a Russell Group university in which I too did this very same benchmarking exercise against their key UK competitors (LinkedIn Group members, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, YouTube channel video upload views, web traffic statistics, etc.) But, importantly, this exercise didn't stop there but instead (taking a considerable amount of time) offered a detailed analysis of use of those sites and platforms and content created for them. So, it's useful because it helps us to put some kind of shape and meaning to social media use by universities while we work out how to really properly evaluate this. And so, that brings me on to the shortcomings of such reports...
What do the numbers really tell us?
When I look at a university's twitter account (I look at many on a daily basis), the first metric I look at is the follower:following ratio. If the account follows a low number of people relative to the number of followers that it has, this screams out one thing to me: 'we want you to listen to what we have to say, but we don't really want to listen to anyone back'. This is against the spirit of Twitter, and social media as a whole (the clue is in the title: social), and about the only thing that I really take away from the numbers. Numbers of fans and followers are therefore somewhat meaningless, for the following reasons:
- Numbers will vary greatly according to how long the pages or accounts have been set up for. An account that has only existed for two weeks, is highly unlikely to have the number of followers of an account that has been active for two years.
- The size of the organisation and existing community is likely to impact on the number of followers/fans. Therefore comparing The University of Manchester with the University of Buckingham is a meaningless exercise. This is particularly the case, for example, for Facebook pages designed for communicating with current students (a more useful metric would to see the per cent of the existing community that are engaging with them in these spaces).
- Different organisations use the spaces differently and we can therefore be comparing apples with pears. While one Twitter account might primarily be used to support student recruitment and answer questions from prospective students, another might be used to push out news feeds to journalists.
- Numbers alone tell us nothing about actual levels of interest or engagement. It does not take account of the individuals who may have clicked the Facebook 'Like' button once, but never visited the page ever again.
The simple point here though, is that from a marketing and communications point of view, if our objective is simply to increase the number of our fans or followers on our social media sites, then we are failing as professionals. Harsh words, I know, but effective marketing and communications must result in some kind of return on investment for an organisation: quantity/quality of applicants, increased research income, improved results in the student satisfaction survey, more donations from alumni, the long-term survival of your organisation in an ever-increasingly competitive marketplace... This is about using social media as a call to action in some way shape or form. When I run workshops with universities to think about this, I challenge them to set tangible objectives (SMART) and be clear about what they want individuals to think, feel and do as a consequence of engaging with them through social media (or any other marketing and communications exercise, or learning experience for that matter).
Why we need to raise our eyes away from the navel...
We do a great deal, and rightly so, of benchmarking ourselves against other universities in the HE sector. This is good. Any organisation offering a product or service should constantly watch their competitors and monitor against them. However, when it comes to understanding our audiences, then there is also a lot to be said (particularly in terms of social media use) for looking outside of the sector and comparing and contrasting with other organisations who are competing for the attention of the same target audiences as us. There is so much information out there nowadays and social media makes this increasingly more personalised and niche. Every individual can tailor the information they choose to receive according to their interests. And your university is not the only thing interesting them at any moment in time. Think about prospective students. Sure, they are probably thinking about university quite a bit and spending a fair bit of their time looking at university information. But that is not the only thing competiting for their attention. They might be sitting exams, completing coursework, spending time on hobbies or sports, hanging out with friends, shopping, spending time with family, listening to music, learning to drive... just think how many other brands are out there potentially trying also to get them to follow them on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook and thus work their way into their news feed. As such, yes, we must benchmark against each other, but we must also look much wider and learn from non-HE organisations too that are trying to attract (or are attracting) our target audiences. Until we benchmark against organisations really using social media well, then we're in danger of just looking at other mediocre use of it and comparing ourselves to that (rather than to the best)... not that I'm saying that all universities are mediocre, some are very good!
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Podcast on social media in education recorded with QAA
This feels marginally like massaging my own ego, so I hope you'll forgive me for sharing this. Derfel Owen from the Quality Assurance Agency interviewed me recently for a couple of podcasts on the use of social media in universities. Here's the first podcast. I hope you find it useful (it's about 10 minutes long). Derfel really knows what he's talking about so this was a rather nice conversation to be had!
Monday, 10 January 2011
How can Quora be used by education marketing and communications folk?
The irony of this blog post is that it's probably a question best asked on Quora itself - the social Q&A site that has very much been the buzz word of social media circles, and seems to have seen incredible growth in the past couple of weeks (read various articles about it on mashable, here). "I have to blog about this," I tell myself for the past week. But I strongly resisted the urge, not wanting to be seen to be jumping on the bandwagon of all of the rest of the buzz out there about it, and not sure I could add anything unique or special to the conversation. But, I can resist no more. So, with some use of the site under my belt, I thought I would reflect for a moment on how marketing and communications professionals in the education sector might use Quora (some of what I'll say here translates to other sectors too, of course).
In a nutshell, though, here is a summary of what Quora is. Essentially it is a site for people to ask questions and provide answers. Like Twitter, you 'follow' other users, but you also follow topics (questions are 'tagged' so that they can be easily categorised and searched, and so that people can follow just the questions that interest them). On first signing up you can connect to Facebook and Twitter to start following your existing contacts, so you can see what they are all up to. You can then ask questions of the entire community (not just your followers) and answer questions on topics that you feel confident answering (for each topic you follow, you can specify your knowledge and experience in that particular field/topic).
So, here are my thoughts about the use of this in university marketing and communications:
Listening to chat about your school, college or university
Do a search on Quora for your organisation's brand name. It will probably (possibly) already be there as a topic. I've already done a fair bit of searching for college and university brand names as topics and many are there. Find it and follow it. This means that every time someone asks a question that is then 'tagged' with your brand name (the topic) you will be able to see that. This is a great way to see the types of questions that people are asking and, more interestingly, the answers that others are giving. This will become part of your overall social media monitoring that you should already be doing for your organisation to understand your online reputation (if you're not, give us a shout and we can help you with this).
Helping prospective students
There are already prospective students asking questions about which universities to go to. For example, a brief glance at the 'Universities in the UK' topic reveals one question asking 'Where's a good university to study computer science in the UK?' Responding on behalf of your organisation in a 'me, me, me' (wave arm frantically in the air) type approach isn't going to do you any favors, but if you really are great at computer science and have the stats to back it up, then say so (or get an alum to say so for you). Another question in the topic asks 'Which universities in Europe have a Ph.D programme in music technology?' If you have one, then say so - you might recruit a new PhD student in return for your 30 seconds of effort.
Following people that are interested in your school, college or university
By following questions about your brand you can also then identify people who are interested in your organisation - prospective students or staff, for example, parents of prospective students, alumni... by spotting them on Quora through the questions they ask you can then begin to build a connection and a relationship with them (follow them on Twitter, for example, or just on Quora, and start developing that relationship).
Professional development
There is a lot that you learn from other people online. If you are looking to try something new (a new product, service, or campaign idea) then Quora is a great place to crowd source the views and opinions of a large community. This can help with research for work projects but also for your own professional development.
Demonstrate expertise
People on Quora are looking for experts to come along and answer their questions. This could be a place (like LinkedIn Questions) where your academics and other staff could contribute to the community discussions as a means of demonstrating their expertise in given subjects. You never know when a funder or business partner might ask a question that your academics respond to and subsequently a new relationship is born.
Spot PR opportunities
There are many journalists already on Quora. The answer to this question already helps to reveal many journalists on there. Follow them to see the kind of questions that they are asking. They might be looking for experts to talk about a given subject that they are writing about and here you could pick up a great PR opportunity for your organisation.
So, those are my brief initial thoughts. I'm sure you, my dear readers, have many more to add so please feel free to do so in the comments section below - although you're probably already doing so on Quora!
In a nutshell, though, here is a summary of what Quora is. Essentially it is a site for people to ask questions and provide answers. Like Twitter, you 'follow' other users, but you also follow topics (questions are 'tagged' so that they can be easily categorised and searched, and so that people can follow just the questions that interest them). On first signing up you can connect to Facebook and Twitter to start following your existing contacts, so you can see what they are all up to. You can then ask questions of the entire community (not just your followers) and answer questions on topics that you feel confident answering (for each topic you follow, you can specify your knowledge and experience in that particular field/topic).
So, here are my thoughts about the use of this in university marketing and communications:
Listening to chat about your school, college or university
Do a search on Quora for your organisation's brand name. It will probably (possibly) already be there as a topic. I've already done a fair bit of searching for college and university brand names as topics and many are there. Find it and follow it. This means that every time someone asks a question that is then 'tagged' with your brand name (the topic) you will be able to see that. This is a great way to see the types of questions that people are asking and, more interestingly, the answers that others are giving. This will become part of your overall social media monitoring that you should already be doing for your organisation to understand your online reputation (if you're not, give us a shout and we can help you with this).
Helping prospective students
There are already prospective students asking questions about which universities to go to. For example, a brief glance at the 'Universities in the UK' topic reveals one question asking 'Where's a good university to study computer science in the UK?' Responding on behalf of your organisation in a 'me, me, me' (wave arm frantically in the air) type approach isn't going to do you any favors, but if you really are great at computer science and have the stats to back it up, then say so (or get an alum to say so for you). Another question in the topic asks 'Which universities in Europe have a Ph.D programme in music technology?' If you have one, then say so - you might recruit a new PhD student in return for your 30 seconds of effort.
Following people that are interested in your school, college or university
By following questions about your brand you can also then identify people who are interested in your organisation - prospective students or staff, for example, parents of prospective students, alumni... by spotting them on Quora through the questions they ask you can then begin to build a connection and a relationship with them (follow them on Twitter, for example, or just on Quora, and start developing that relationship).
Professional development
There is a lot that you learn from other people online. If you are looking to try something new (a new product, service, or campaign idea) then Quora is a great place to crowd source the views and opinions of a large community. This can help with research for work projects but also for your own professional development.
Demonstrate expertise
People on Quora are looking for experts to come along and answer their questions. This could be a place (like LinkedIn Questions) where your academics and other staff could contribute to the community discussions as a means of demonstrating their expertise in given subjects. You never know when a funder or business partner might ask a question that your academics respond to and subsequently a new relationship is born.
Spot PR opportunities
There are many journalists already on Quora. The answer to this question already helps to reveal many journalists on there. Follow them to see the kind of questions that they are asking. They might be looking for experts to talk about a given subject that they are writing about and here you could pick up a great PR opportunity for your organisation.
So, those are my brief initial thoughts. I'm sure you, my dear readers, have many more to add so please feel free to do so in the comments section below - although you're probably already doing so on Quora!
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
What makes a good social media communicator?
I paused as I was writing the title for this blog post over whether to use the word ‘marketer’ instead of communicator. I tend not to like the use of the word marketing when it comes to talking about social media, but to some extent that’s exactly what most companies have as their core objective in some way, shape or form when they come to think about engaging audiences through social media. I’m always more comfortable with the words ‘communication’ and ‘engagement’, so we’ll stick with those but with a nod to marketing as we work our way through this.
I have the luxury of spending all day every day absorbed in social and digital media. This is my job and my passion. But, on a regular basis I come across communications, PR and marketing professionals telling me that they’ve now been given the responsibility for social media for their organisation and they’re just starting to get to grips with it, or they don’t know where to begin. I would go so far as to say that some look like bunnies in headlights, and amazingly I've even had one such person telling me they are thinking of packing in an entire PR career because they're so scared of the pace of change. Often at this point (preferably before) I am drafted in to help, and I’m certainly not complaining as I have a lot of fun and make a reasonable living from providing such support.
So, as directors of marketing, communications and external affairs search for the person in their team to turn into their digital champion, I thought I’d reflect a little on the qualities and minimum requirements that I think it takes for someone to take the lead on this for an organisation.
1. An ability to rethink everything they’ve ever learned
Okay, so this is a gross over-exaggeration, but a willingness to rethink at least some of what they’ve learned is important. Traditional ‘push’ marketing tactics do not work in social media communities, nor do many traditional PR approaches either (press releases do not belong anywhere in social media – even the journalists, for whom they are lovingly written, typically don’t want them there). So, whoever is doing this job needs to be able to immerse themselves into the communities that they are engaging with, get to know them, and get to know how to build connections with them through providing useful, interesting and relevant content, not marketing messages. Then, they need to develop a strategy to ensure that what they're doing is aligned to organisational goals and objectives.
2. The ultimate powers of multitasking
There is a trend here. I’ve noticed that every time I meet up with other social media professionals, we share one thing in common (other than our geeky passion and complete range of Apple products): the ability to multitask and concentrate on more than one thing at once. Social media pros are typically really quite efficient with their time and able to switch quickly from one thing to the next. This is essential when you’re working across different platforms, communities, and projects, switching between them at pace. At a glance this looks like attention deficit or an inability to focus, but please rest assured that we do concentrate, we just do it in different ways and using technology to help us.
3. A widespread knowledge of the organisation
When you take the decision as an organisation to engage with audiences through these spaces, they (your audience) think that they are engaging with the whole organisation, not just the marketing team or the press team. So, when someone posts a question on your facebook page asking about accommodation rates for the next academic year, the person managing that page needs to be able to answer them. Providing the accommodation officer’s email address and asking them to ask their question again, somewhere and somehow else is not good enough. You have come into their space, now you need to play by their rules. As such, the person managing this needs a holistic approach and needs to be well connected in order to answer all questions in a timely and accurate manner.
4. A willingness to work ‘out of hours’
Social media is not Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. I don’t think I need say anymore on this…
5. A strong will and a persuasive nature
Just as there are still people who think the world is flat, so there are people who think social media is a passing fad and a waste of time. The job of the social media professional is to champion appropriate uses of social media, and it will work best when the whole organisation gets it and gets on board. To do this a strong will and the ability to argue what’s in it for them is key.
6. A willingness to give as much as they take
Social media is about giving and providing to a community of users. While we can take a lot from it – meeting new prospects, gaining new knowledge, making a ‘sale’ – we will be best accepted by the community if we are seen to be generous and giving in nature. This means that they have to contribute content themselves and not just be reactive to what others are saying or doing. It’s an act that appears to be altruistic, but will have returns.
7. Headspace
Google famously gives all of its engineers ’20 per cent time’. That is to say, engineers working for Google can spend 20 per cent of their working week on projects that fall outside of their job description. From this ‘headspace’ time they claim some of their best developments have been born. Social and digital media is a fast moving world and successful communications and engagement activities using it require careful thought and creativity. In order to keep apace with development and develop new ideas, social media professionals must have headspace, or their own creative thinking time.
8. The right technology
This is a surprisingly simple piece of the puzzle for the complete social media professional but it’s quite staggering how organisational purchasing policies and IT policies put barriers to this in place. All social media professionals need to be able to install software and applications to help them track, monitor and engage with social media (tweetdeck, for example). And because this job isn’t 24/7, no self-respecting social media professional would (or could) be without their smartphone or iPad. Having the right technology is essential for the task in hand.
I have the luxury of spending all day every day absorbed in social and digital media. This is my job and my passion. But, on a regular basis I come across communications, PR and marketing professionals telling me that they’ve now been given the responsibility for social media for their organisation and they’re just starting to get to grips with it, or they don’t know where to begin. I would go so far as to say that some look like bunnies in headlights, and amazingly I've even had one such person telling me they are thinking of packing in an entire PR career because they're so scared of the pace of change. Often at this point (preferably before) I am drafted in to help, and I’m certainly not complaining as I have a lot of fun and make a reasonable living from providing such support.
So, as directors of marketing, communications and external affairs search for the person in their team to turn into their digital champion, I thought I’d reflect a little on the qualities and minimum requirements that I think it takes for someone to take the lead on this for an organisation.
1. An ability to rethink everything they’ve ever learned
Okay, so this is a gross over-exaggeration, but a willingness to rethink at least some of what they’ve learned is important. Traditional ‘push’ marketing tactics do not work in social media communities, nor do many traditional PR approaches either (press releases do not belong anywhere in social media – even the journalists, for whom they are lovingly written, typically don’t want them there). So, whoever is doing this job needs to be able to immerse themselves into the communities that they are engaging with, get to know them, and get to know how to build connections with them through providing useful, interesting and relevant content, not marketing messages. Then, they need to develop a strategy to ensure that what they're doing is aligned to organisational goals and objectives.
2. The ultimate powers of multitasking
There is a trend here. I’ve noticed that every time I meet up with other social media professionals, we share one thing in common (other than our geeky passion and complete range of Apple products): the ability to multitask and concentrate on more than one thing at once. Social media pros are typically really quite efficient with their time and able to switch quickly from one thing to the next. This is essential when you’re working across different platforms, communities, and projects, switching between them at pace. At a glance this looks like attention deficit or an inability to focus, but please rest assured that we do concentrate, we just do it in different ways and using technology to help us.
3. A widespread knowledge of the organisation
When you take the decision as an organisation to engage with audiences through these spaces, they (your audience) think that they are engaging with the whole organisation, not just the marketing team or the press team. So, when someone posts a question on your facebook page asking about accommodation rates for the next academic year, the person managing that page needs to be able to answer them. Providing the accommodation officer’s email address and asking them to ask their question again, somewhere and somehow else is not good enough. You have come into their space, now you need to play by their rules. As such, the person managing this needs a holistic approach and needs to be well connected in order to answer all questions in a timely and accurate manner.
4. A willingness to work ‘out of hours’
Social media is not Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. I don’t think I need say anymore on this…
5. A strong will and a persuasive nature
Just as there are still people who think the world is flat, so there are people who think social media is a passing fad and a waste of time. The job of the social media professional is to champion appropriate uses of social media, and it will work best when the whole organisation gets it and gets on board. To do this a strong will and the ability to argue what’s in it for them is key.
6. A willingness to give as much as they take
Social media is about giving and providing to a community of users. While we can take a lot from it – meeting new prospects, gaining new knowledge, making a ‘sale’ – we will be best accepted by the community if we are seen to be generous and giving in nature. This means that they have to contribute content themselves and not just be reactive to what others are saying or doing. It’s an act that appears to be altruistic, but will have returns.
7. Headspace
Google famously gives all of its engineers ’20 per cent time’. That is to say, engineers working for Google can spend 20 per cent of their working week on projects that fall outside of their job description. From this ‘headspace’ time they claim some of their best developments have been born. Social and digital media is a fast moving world and successful communications and engagement activities using it require careful thought and creativity. In order to keep apace with development and develop new ideas, social media professionals must have headspace, or their own creative thinking time.
8. The right technology
This is a surprisingly simple piece of the puzzle for the complete social media professional but it’s quite staggering how organisational purchasing policies and IT policies put barriers to this in place. All social media professionals need to be able to install software and applications to help them track, monitor and engage with social media (tweetdeck, for example). And because this job isn’t 24/7, no self-respecting social media professional would (or could) be without their smartphone or iPad. Having the right technology is essential for the task in hand.
Pickle Jar Communications is launching a cost-effective coaching programme for marketing and communications professionals who have been given social media as part of their remit to help them get started, but feel they need a little extra help to begin with this new part of their role. Please email us for further information.
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