Social Media and Campaigns

Social media is an ever increasing field that many organizations are turning to and recodnizing its importance in the field of communications. My professor had us create this blog as an assignment to encourage us to get involved in this new medium early.

I can not say I was thrilled with this assignment. I spewnt many hours thinking about how I should be blogging but not actually doing it. I did not feel that I had anything to add to the conversation at this stage in my life. Therefore I dreaded writing my posts, feeling that I was a useless contributor to the world of social media.

When putting together our campaign we used a blog as one of our main tactics. Our research found that a majority of area residents use the internet to get their news. We hoped to link our blog to some of the news posts to get more citizens engaged in the conversation.

During the client presentation we found out that our client was also working with a nation public relations agency. They had also suggested a blog for this foundation.

Apparently the field is jumping on board the world of social media, leaving me and my fears behind. While my blog has not been the most enlightening work ever produced and has not gained much attention or started many conversations, it was an enterence to a growing medium.

The client presentation!

Finally we have the book together and are ready to present it to our client. The foundation we are working for is more conservative so we decked ourselves out in suits and a classic powerpoint and presentation style.

Nerves were high when the met in the lab. The four presenters were pacing with their notes and last minute preparation. However the presenters are all great speakers so while the rest of us were nervous for them we could feel secure in their abilities.

Our contact at the foundation could not make it to the presentation, so she sent a colleague in her place. We were extra concerned because we had not met this member of the client team. However, when she walked in the room wearing jeans we calmed down some. She was professional but not overly intimidating.

The presentation team had their information memorized, so it went smoothly, lasting for about 20 minutes before it was opened to questions.

The client only had a few questions so I hope that was a good sign, meaning that she understood most of the campaign. Overall I think we were all very proud of the effort and just hope that showed in the presentation.

Gantt Chart

With all the tactics out and being finalized, the team split into three groups for the final projects, a budget team, a Gantt chart team and the presentation team. I joined the Gantt chart team.

A Gantt chart lists all the tactics on one side and has the length of the campaign divided into sections on the top. X's are added into the column of the dates that tactic is to be performed.

With three of us on the team this seemed like an easy task. We got together within two days of the assignment and set up the template. Then all that had to be done was get a finalized tactic list and add the X's.

However, with a team of 11 this is not the easiest task. Members of the team kept changing there title or the team would decide to change that tactic to another that we could perform. So we had to wait until the end to get that finalized list. Once we had that the rest of the process was easy. We just added the X's and printed it out.

I have to say it looks really great when printed and is an easy way to show the entire outline of the campaign and when everything should be done.

First edits

My professor is amazing. We gave her the tactics on a Friday and she had them proofed and back to us by Monday. Each team member took their tactics and edited them.

Most of the tactics were okay but we had a few to change. For the intern packet I needed to make the duties within the four heading more concrete. In the first draft those duties were left open in hopes that the interns might write more press releases and public service announcement throughout the actually campaign. However my professor wanted us to do them all.

This required the team to write several more things, which the team leader assigned throughout the group.

I then went in and changed all the create and distribute to just distribute a certain release, pitch or story. This made the outline more hard line. It gives the future interns a better idea of exactly what they will be doing.

The releases, stories and public service announcements that were added were to be done hopefully that night, but the leader gave everyone until Wednesday if they could not do them that day. Crunch time is in full force.

An intern's job?

My main tactic for this campaign was to formulate a plan for interns. A major point of the campaign was that the organization would need extra help to have the time to perform the campaign. We suggested they set up a group of 5 interns.

Theses interns would have the time and ability to send out the information we suggested and perform all other tactics.

We wanted to give the interns information about the company and an outline of what tasks they would be expected to perform. For the company we put together an applications they could use when searching for interns.

The outline was the hardest to pinned down. I wanted to give them the best picture of what they would be expected to do but also leave some leeway for the company to add or subtract duties, without throwing the entire outline off. I decided on four areas for the interns to concentrate, developing relations, executing special events, generating publicity for the foundation and its mission and maintain a blog.

These four areas were broad enough to allow the foundation to change but still gave the interns some idea of the job, which would basically be to handle the Athens area.

Within each section more specific tasks were mentioned, such as distributing a certain press release.

After suggestions from the professor I spoke with a career director for the University of Georgia's mass communications school about internships. His contact information was included in the book.

Tactics divison

With the tactics finalized, we turned to actually preparing the tactics. For our campaign book we must prepare everything we plan.

The book with have press releases, public service announcements, event action plans, fliers and various other materials for the campaign. Our team leader posted assignments for everyone to do.

I was given the intern packet.

The rest of the tactics were divided out so must team members had 2 or so press releases or similar writings. The task was to get theses first tactics in with about a week to do them. Our professor set the deadline so she could proof them before they went into the book, another positive for campaigns as a class.

This sets up the last section of the book.

Tactics time!

Now that we have goals and objectives lined up, we have to decide how to accomplish them. For this we broke into small groups again. This time I was in a group with 2 others.

We decided to meet at a restaurant to iron these out. We wanted a relaxed atmosphere so we could just throw ideas out there and get talking. For every good idea we had several that needed work or could in no way be done. The atmosphere created a open environment for us to try every idea to find the best ones.

It also made for a great meal. The waitress came at least five times asking us if we were ready to order because we kept talking about the project instead of reading the menu. Once we finally ordered and the food arrived the conservation only stopped for a very short period before we were back at it again.

The team has really gotten into this project, but this is the best part. Brainstorming tactics allows you to be creative. We came up with a mascot, cool ways to cut out mailings and other random ideas that probably won't get used, but are a lot of fun talking about.

At the end of the meal we had a good list together to take back to the entire team. Our next meeting will be with everyone to finalize the tactics that we can actually use and will best promote our mission and accomplish the goals.