Facebook, twitter, Instagram, YouTube... etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
"I would have had to of spent the past three years of my tertiary education living under a rock if I were to not know that social media is an increasingly powerful way through which an organisation can communicate with its' publics. It should therefore have been obvious to me that Ellenbrook Christian College would have a very active social media presence, especially considering that one of its' primary stakeholders are youth aged twelve to seventeen."
Upon beginning my internship at ECC I was given administrative access to the college's Facebook page and was given the responsibility of monitoring the pages metrics in terms of likes, new followers, where these followers have come from etc etc. Unsurprisingly, it was not long after I was given administrative access that my phone blew up!
On average I was receiving 40+ notifications per day and I was beginning to notice patterns in terms of where our likes are coming from/not coming from and what days/times of the day are most active. Upon studying these metrics, it then became clear which publics we should be targeting and at what time and on which day(s) would be the most opportune.
For example, the College's Facebook page was extremely useful in promoting and selling tickets for the College's first ever theatre production, Hairspray! After studying the page's metrics, our public relations team would upload posts at times of the day that we knew we'd be receiving the most traffic.
For example, from the page metrics it was obvious that parents (especially mums) were extremely active in the mornings after school drop off when they finally had some time to themselves. For this reason we would upload posts promoting the production/talking about how few tickets were left a little after 9am each morning and voila!!! ECC's first ever musical production was sold out each of the three nights! Admittedly, the student's talent may have had something to do with this but on a serious note, we did see ticket purchases increase after each Facebook post and the success of the production can therefore be somewhat attributed to its' circulation on the College's Facebook page.
For example, from the page metrics it was obvious that parents (especially mums) were extremely active in the mornings after school drop off when they finally had some time to themselves. For this reason we would upload posts promoting the production/talking about how few tickets were left a little after 9am each morning and voila!!! ECC's first ever musical production was sold out each of the three nights! Admittedly, the student's talent may have had something to do with this but on a serious note, we did see ticket purchases increase after each Facebook post and the success of the production can therefore be somewhat attributed to its' circulation on the College's Facebook page.
In wrapping up, I can honestly say that ECC has a very active and effective Facebook page, but I would recommend that the College endeavor to begin an Instagram and/or YouTube account to further build its' social media presence.
Hope you enjoyed the read!
Emily :)
Hope you enjoyed the read!
Emily :)
2 comments:
Hi Emily
It was interesting to read about your experience with Facebook as a PR tool within a school environment. Social Media is such an important part of business these days, yet, despite a focus on personal status updates, it seems that many professionals and business people don’t understand just how important it is to post online material in a relevant and timely manner to capture their target market; for example, when is the best time and day to change a profile picture or post a status or update to attract the most 'likes' and audience engagement.
I work for a small café and, similar to your experience at Ellenbrook Christian College, when I post on Facebook I've found it pays to consider school hours and routines; many parents are 'stay-at-home' or working part-time and they like to engage with other parents by going for coffee or tea after dropping their kids off to school, so they are a good target market for cafes and timing is important to capture that morning trade. Interning at Zadro Agency, I also had the interesting experience of having to take different time zones into consideration as well. One of our clients had a three-prong focus targeting Australia, US and UK and in order to reach all 3 time zones, posts had to be carefully released very early in the morning or late at night. I came to appreciate that a large amount of thought, time and preparation goes into even the smallest things but it all definitely makes an impact!
Bella
Hi Emily,
Really interesting comments on the relevance of social media and the impact that it can have upon a company.
One of my tasks throughout my internship was the completely re-do and re-vamp my client's social media streams.
It was one difficult task, considering it was in a pretty messy state to begin with.
After I took over and began posting and incorporating the correct conventions of social media i.e hash tagging, photo crediting, check-ins and re-posting, we gained over 250 followers in just 2 days!!
The things we looked out for were times of the day that we posted these included peak times:
The work commute 7-9am (in London, everyone takes the tube to work and sits on their phones, perfect posting time)
Mid-morning 11-11:30am (people normally refill coffees or take a toilet break - it happens people)
Lunch break 12-2pm
Home commute 5:30-7pm
Bed Time 11-12:30pm (as it didn't get dark till 10:30, people would eat dinner and go to bed at a much later time)
Best wishes
Emma Ferguson
17100450
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