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5. Proposed communication strategy for the organisation BEST

5.1. Goals, objectives and actions

Goal 1 - The number of students using our services is increased via social media

Objective 1 - Increase the number of social media posts, which are currently averaging 3 posts a week, to an average of 1 post per day in the next 6 months and maintain the post frequency

Objective 2 – Ensure that each brand is the focus of at least 1 post every 2 weeks with a deadline of one month after the start of the implementation of the strategy

Objective 3 - Achieve a positive trend of the number of applications to our services in the next year and achieve a 10% increase in the following year

Related actions

In order to fulfil the set goal, the social media team will not only have to work with the Text Editors team in the creation of a sufficient number of posts, they would also need to devise a strategic approach to the creation and posting of said content. This can be achieved with weekly online meetings if needed between both groups, where a discussion for the following two weeks would take place. The topic would be about the scheduling of the content and the re-posting of important messages in order to maximise their reach. Along with discussing and creating the actual posts, a portion of the time would be used for research on the current trends in social media, in order to make sure no opportunities to abuse them are missed. Along with the trends, a close eye needs to be kept on the activities of competitors with a larger social media presence, i.e. AEGEE, for the purpose of gaining knowledge on what working methods of theirs are successful and allow them to achieve such high numbers.

In order to ensure every brand is represented by at least one post, a table will be used in order to streamline the process of post creation. By using such a simple form of post sorting, it is ensured the need to represent the brands is fulfilled that each week and no post is forgotten. The use of Google spreadsheets allows the commenting functionality,

36 which enables the social media team members to provide quick feedback on the created posts and ensure high-quality content.

This regular posting would be enforced on all of BEST’s social media channels, with the style of posts being adapted to the specific platform since there are major differences between posting on Facebook and Twitter. Another important opportunity that will be exploited is the function of creating advertising and boosting specific posts, available to us on Facebook and LinkedIn, to boost high-value posts in order to reach the most people and ensure their visibility. Frequent usage of paid promotion would result in a substantial amount of data available about the students that use BEST’s services and the effectiveness of the methods used. This knowledge will be evaluated and its conclusions implemented semiannually. The types of content that could be created are customer testimonial posts/articles, general interest articles about BEST courses and how they work, articles containing image galleries with short explanations of each picture, articles about efficient travelling, reminders to apply to BEST’s services, testimonials from industry experts and students etc. Communication with the different local groups and project teams will be required in order to obtain the large amounts of material needed for such a substantial amount of posts, hence a system must be put in place that dictates who among the social media team members contacts which relevant entity inside BEST, along with storing the collected materials in a database.

Using the popular live feed option that some channels provide to provide a closer look at how the events transpire is another possible approach. The growing popularity of streaming live videos from events, the simplicity of setting them up and some already successful attempts to stream BEST events are strong arguments in favour of it.

37 Goal 2 - Relations with relevant media are established

Objective 1 - Establish relations with at least 3 media companies in the next year that would cover at least the EBEC and BEST Career Day events/services, the deadline for at least one being four months after the implementation of the strategy

Objective 2 - Establish at least one long-term partnership with a media company Objective 3 - Establish a presence in the blogosphere with at least 20 positive articles written about BEST within the next year

Objective 4 – Achieve that 5% of our total applications are coming from media sources at the end of the year

Related actions

In regards to this goal, the media relations team will be the key actor in the process of fulfilling it. The first action would be the creation of a “media kit” which would contain a press release document, a booklet detailing the various important aspects of BEST, an example article and social media post. The same concept would be used both for the different media and the opinion leaders, with slight adjustments for the opinion leaders, due to the need of a more personalised and education-oriented approach with deans of faculty. The team would create a template email for the first contact and immediately start sending it to relevant parties. Material created for this very purpose, albeit for only some brands (EBEC, BCD) already exist and would, therefore, be used as templates for the creation of a set of general purpose press releases and other previously mentioned documents for all the services. The contact information would be gathered in a spreadsheet database for easy storage and use, while the information itself would be gathered via tracking older event partners and contacting local BEST groups that already engaged in media relations locally through BEST’s internal mailing lists. For the purpose of breaking into the blogosphere and contacting new companies, monthly tasks would be open to all BESTies wishing to help out in the accumulation of relevant blogs and media companies into this spreadsheet. Each person from the media relations team would be responsible for his/her own set of companies that were successfully turned into partners,

38 maintaining the created link with said media company or blogger through regular communication, inquiries about the correctness of the work done so far and discussions on improvement. Approaching new companies would be preceded by extensive research about the would-be partner company, their style and previous work in order to pick an appropriate method of approach and avoid making a negative first impression.

Due to the fact that BEST has a corporate relations department operating inside it for a much longer time with similar working methods, during the first stage of the work it would be beneficial to have meetings with its members about the problems they already encountered and what solutions they have produced. Once all the essential documents are written and the information is gathered, the operational work of sending the emails, engaging in phone calls, scheduling meetings and maintaining relationships would begin.

Goal 3 - Relations with opinion leaders are established

Objective 1 - Establish relations with at least 20 of deans of faculty, at universities where the local groups reside, in the following year

Objective 2 - Generate at least 2 supporting articles per successfully partnered dean in the span of one year

Objective 3 – Organise at least 5 events explicitly because of the help of a supporting dean of faculty

Objective 4 – Investigate other potential opinion leaders

As previously mentioned in Goal 2, the approach towards opinion leaders is the same as towards relevant media. There are, however, some notable differences. The communication with the opinion leaders will be of a more informal and regular nature, through scheduled bi-monthly online meetings and discussions about cooperation on events and projects. Local BEST members would be an invaluable link in contacting these people, with a possibility of training for said members so they can maintain their relationship between BEST. This has the added bonus of getting BEST members that are

39 not involved in the public relations department directly interested in its work, effectively doubling as recruitment.

The creation of supporting articles would be facilitated by the media team, who can create templates, guidelines or general help in their writing process and subsequently pass them on to the social media team to be posted on all relevant social media channels, the public web page and BEST’s partners as a sort of formal recognition of the importance and seriousness of the work. The deans would be contacted at the beginning of each academic year in regards to the organisation of events like EBEC and BCD, in order to help in avoiding the common issue of not being able to find hosts for such events and lacking support from faculties.

The possibility of cooperating with other potential opinion leaders in the ranks of former students, entrepreneurs and leaders in the different fields of technology would also be investigated, as there is little previous work done in this regard. Firstly, a brainstorming inside the public relations department would pinpoint the opinion leaders that would be most beneficial in making BEST more known in the world of technology. Once a list of relevant groups of people is made, the same method of contact would be used once more, with an approach that would be modified case-by-case – depending on whether it’s a tech mogul or a tech-focused Youtuber with a large following, the messages and code of conduct would be tailored to each of them and later reused should a similar type of opinion leader be contacted.

In order to provide a temporal overview of the strategy, a graphical representation via Gantt chart has been created. One of the most common ways of representing activities in relation to time used in project management, a Gantt chart uses bars to present the start date, duration and end date of different activities. (Gantt.com, 2017)

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Table 5.1. Gantt chart of the proposed strategy

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