Quintessentially social …
Fiona OFee October 15th 2015
It’s a year ago this week that I very excitedly took up my post as Office Manager at Tuminds. It all began from my bed in an airport hotel at 1 o’clock in the morning when, unable to sleep because it would soon be time to get up for an early flight, I reached for my iPad and began scrolling through my social media – as you do. As soon as I spotted that Tuminds were looking for an office manager, I sat bolt upright and delved into my Dropbox to retrieve a recent CV, and within 10 minutes I’d penned a covering email introducing myself and why I’d like to be considered for the job, explaining why I was applying at this time of the night, that I was off to the sun for a week, and could they please not start interviewing without me (if I was of interest of course!) The rest is history, and that is how to use social media to find a job!
I arrived at Tuminds thinking I knew a lot about using social media for business; I’d been managing two Facebook business pages, a handful of Twitter accounts and a LinkedIn company page in my last job, and yet, when the bare bones of social media were laid before me at an introductory course run by Business Gateway and delivered by Rene, I realised fairly quickly that there really wasn’t that much meat on mine! I hadn’t thought about the need for a social ‘strategy’, or what that even meant; I hadn’t been ‘listening’ on social, I hadn’t considered what platforms my target audience hung out on, and because I was so busy on many fronts, I didn’t always have time to keep my posts and tweets up to date; in other words, I hadn’t really considered ‘resources and management’ either. It’s a wonder I’d had any engagement at all! Looking back though, I realise that I was pretty good at both curating and producing unique content, but hadn’t necessarily used this to the best advantage. Now I know why it’s imperative to have a strategy in place.
Social media also has a language of its own, and apart from the basic lingo such as likes, followers, hashtags and retweets, I’d not really thought much beyond this until I realised that working in social media would require me to become more ‘socially literate’. It might surprise you to know that there are at least 207 essential definitions that I would urge all ‘socialites’ to become familiar with, and I’m more than happy to share a link to the wonderful Hootsuite people who have put together this Social Media Glossary. If you’re going to walk the walk, then you should be able to talk the talk! (I’m thinking of running a competition in the office to see who knows the most!)
So what’s in store for me in my second year at Tuminds I wonder? I’ve set myself some new goals that include not just becoming more articulate, but also becoming ‘smarter at social’, and looking at how to run campaigns, including the use of paid advertising, and how to assess impact and measure ROI using the various analytics tools. I want to learn more about how businesses and brands can make better use of Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat, and as social media is an industry that’s constantly evolving, I want to be able to keep up with all the latest as it happens.
I’m also the Training and Workshops Co-ordinator here at Tuminds, and look forward to assisting Rene and the team in developing new industry specific training courses to keep pace with this fast evolving landscape. In the last 12 months alone Tuminds has delivered over 100 workshops at both Introductory and Advanced level around Scotland to newly established and existing businesses, across many sectors, and we’ve given countless presentations too. We’ve taken part in three large digital projects, and delivered a series of Social Media Masterclasses. We have provided consultancy and have advised on strategy and policy, and with demand expected to increase, I think it’s fairly safe to say the next twelve months will be equally as busy.
Am I now ‘quintessentially social’ I wonder? I’m certainly well on my way, that’s for sure.
Fiona
