How do you control a message on social media?

I was never really aware that non-for-profit organisations had competitors in the industry. However after the Marketing Manager Julia who would rather be referred to as “Jools” from now on, informed me that there was a range of competitors for Workpower. My task was basically to search all the competitors of Workpower on social media and through their websites. However, since Facebook was blocked from the Workpower server, I used the work Ipad to search the competitors.

Jools told me that that Workpower was wanting to venture out and use social media, yet was still apprehensive on how to make sure that the right messages were sent out by the medium and that they also received appropriate messages from friends on the page. I guess a problem that was associated with PR and Social Media, is that you can’t control what is said on an uncontrolled medium.

The question that I asked myself is, if there wasn’t a way of controlling the message sent across on Facebook or Twitter, what was the best way in trying to receive positive or the right messages? Workpower currently does not have a Facebook or Twitter page, however this is a conflict it will face in its transition. Hopefully with my internal communications survey, I’ll be able to get some opinions upon Facebook/Twitter support from various staff in the company.

My role was to conduct an Internal Communications Audit survey and interview every single person in each division of the company. The company approximately employ 180 staff in all the divisions around the metropolitan area and the placement required me travel to each division in a 2 week period.  This was seen as quite a challenging task for a person that had a bad sense of direction and who usually relied on public transport to get to most places.

 However I managed to venture out the first division EMS Planting estate in Naranda, with only getting lost once for 45 minutes. There I nervously conducted my first interview with the manager Brett, about his satisfaction of the internal communication in the company.  Surprisingly it wasn’t as hard or scary as initially thought it would be. The 5 other interviewees had very similar responses, which was that they’d like communication to be clear, relevant and specific to their division.

My next journey was to Malaga, a place considerably far from my very south of the river location and I prayed that my sense of direction would improve overnight.

Till my next on the road adventure,

Amira