Going social: exploring different communication channels

28 February 2020

 

“It’s good to talk” as the 1980s BT advert used to tell us, and today there are so many new ways to get the message across. We live in a digital, high-engagement society, with mobile devices and social media allowing us to reach and respond to millions of people instantly, and yet effective communication can still be difficult to accomplish. Channels such as twitter, Instagram and facebook offer opportunities to communicate the work of LOCs to a wider audience and encourage engagement, but taking the first steps can be daunting. We talked to some LOCs who have taken the plunge into social media to get their top tips for success…

Bryony Allen joined Hampshire LOC last year and has been leading its social media activity for the past six months. She decided to take on the challenges after completing the LOC induction course, saying: “I found the course really helpful and it emphasised the importance of taking an active role. Then we had a new Chair appointed and some new members, so the time seemed right to focus on social media communications.”

Before starting activity, Bryony met with Sean, the LOC chair, to decide on strategy, as she explains: “We discussed our goals and objectives for using social media and what the tone and feel should be. That meant things like deciding to always use a collective voice – “we” – and that we wouldn’t use emojis! We also discussed accountability for monitoring the channels and engaging with replies, so it was clear where responsibility lay.”

They decided which platforms to use – facebook and twitter – how frequently to post and what topics to cover. “We decided not to retweet messages from manufacturers, to avoid any appearance of favouritism or endorsement. We also decided that job posts were a tricky area. I put all our discussions into a spidergram so we could see all the issues and how they relate to each other.”

Going live

Helen Haslett, Optical Lead and Chair of Dorset LOC, agrees that establishing the right tone and guidelines for social media content upfront is important. “When you’re running LOC accounts you need to stay neutral and respond to messages on behalf of the LOC, rather than personally.” Dorset LOC runs a closed facebook group which currently has just over 100 members. Helen explains, “we decided to have a closed group rather than a public one so we can discuss industry issues without needing to consider a non-specialist public audience.”

Helen recently broadcast her first facebook live, giving an update for the group on LOC activities. This is part of the LOCs efforts to engage with a wider and more diverse audience, as she explains: “We have our AGM coming up and we’re keen to get more people interested in standing for positions. By using social media as part of our communications we hope to reach more people – and potentially a younger audience too.”

Helen’s first experience of facebook live was slightly daunting, but she has had positive feedback. “I advertised that I was doing it about two weeks before, and for the broadcast itself I had an audience of five, which I was quite pleased with. Several more people have watched the recorded footage since and left comments saying that it is a great way to communicate.”

Helen plans to do more facebook live broadcasts in future “now I’ve got the first one out of the way and had good feedback I’ll keep going.”

Jumping on trends

Cheshire LOC has opted to try out Instagram. Sandie McBennett explains their aims: “We want to engage with the profession in Cheshire, to be sure we try to reach every cohort through the media they use. Some will use digital media, some social media and we need to try to reach out to everyone however the prefer to receive communications.”

Cheshire LOC’s Instagram account recently jumped on the #dryjanuary trend, publishing several posts about what practitioners in the area were doing. “Some practitioners created displays in practice, so we shared pictures of those along with the hashtag.” This was successful in creating engagement as the month progressed.

Bryony has found some posts get more engagement than others: “Anything we post around charity activity gets good pick up,” she says. After encouragement from Helen Haslett as the Optical Lead, they have also been engaging with the CCG. “Our CCG announced their new website and tagged eyecare provision, so I responded to congratulate them. I also let Sean know, so he contacted them to suggest we set up reciprocal web and social links. It was a nice way to get in touch and build that relationship.”

Time commitment

There’s no doubt that running social media accounts takes time. Bryony is running Hampshire LOC’s twitter and facebook for six months and then hopes to encourage another committee member to take it on for a period, an approach she hopes will sustain momentum. She has also made use of scheduled posts on facebook, so she can draft multiple posts at once and then schedule them for posting throughout the week.

In terms of content, Bryony asks LOC members to keep an eye out for suitable stories and share with her for publication. Her advice is to get others involved. “Don’t reinvent the wheel and make it a team effort so the burden is not all on one person.”

It’s good to talk, like, share and take part…

Successful social media means getting involved by liking, sharing and contributing to support other voices from the community.

Here at LOCSU we’ve been focusing on providing regular, useful communications through our twitter and facebook pages, and sharing content from LOC accounts to boost the social profile of all the sector’s activities. Following feedback from our communications survey last year, we have also now launched a LinkedIn page which we’d like to invite the whole community to like, share and contribute to. We look forward to seeing you there!

Overall, getting into social media is a combination of having a plan, but being prepared to be bold.

In summary:

• Plan before you start: set goals and objectives for using social channels
• Decide on: tone, post frequency and any policies around content
• Be prepared to: dedicate time to keeping channels updated and use scheduling tools (Buffer and Hootsuite have free versions).
• Share the burden: consider handing over channels to different curators from time to time
• Keep an eye out for relevant trends to jump on and ask colleagues to do the same
• Engage with your audience: like comment and share to build your profile

Thank you to all the LOCs who shared their tips and experience for this story.