Trolls, tools and transformation: the top talking points of the Social Media Exchange 2019
I’m Gavin — Senior Digital Business Partner and part-time roving reporter, bringing you the latest updates from industry conferences.
Us Digital Dunk folks love a bit of collaboration and learning and so headed down to the Social Media Exchange this week. The event is hosted by Sounddelivery, an award-winning digital media training agency, and was full of inspiring masterclasses and lightning talks about all things digital, charity and beyond.
Our amazing social media team — Prue and Poppy (they only hire people with names starting with ‘P’) — hosted a lunchbites session, answering questions from the audience about how NSPCC manages social media.
So what were the top 3 things they spoke about?
1. How to manage social media in a small organisation?
For smaller charities or organisations, you may be the only digital or communications person — and social media may be just one of many different things on your overfull plate. Someone brought up this issue at the Social Media Exchange — how could they get support from colleagues so that social media was shared more equally?
Even though we are a fairly big organisation, this is something we do at the NSPCC and so Prue and Poppy gave the following tips:
- Brainstorm content ideas together, using techniques like ‘crazy 8’
- Create really strong guidelines for colleagues — for example tone of voice and content best practice
- Avoid content templates — overusing templates can lead to social media output looking samey and it prevents you from testing and learning
- Agree themes for certain campaigns or areas of work so everyone is on the same page with the role of content and channels
2. How to respond to negative or abusive comments?
A sad part of a social media manager’s role is dealing with trolls, backlash and abuse. If someone is expressing a negative opinion of your campaign, that’s one thing. But dealing with things like racism and homophobia is a different thing all together.
When we updated our profile pic with a rainbow flag, to show support of Pride, we were hit with a sadly inevitable wave of negativity from some sections of the internet. However, there was also backlash to the backlash, with some of our followers shutting down the homophobia.
Other tips include:
- Have a page on your website explaining the ‘house rules’ of your social media pages, so you can link and refer to it
- Remember you don’t have to respond to everything
- Before you launch a campaign, write out responses to questions you think might come up so you have them ready
- Don’t be afraid to post something because you think some people might react negatively — just be prepared to deal with it!
- Don’t delete/hide all comments — and remember people are entitled to an opinion!
3. What tools can you use to help you with social media?
What’s better than a tool to help you with social media? A tool that helps you with social media that costs nothing. Poppy and Prue discussed a few that they use, including:
- Shot designer
- Canva
- Adobe lightroom CC
- VSCO
Check out more tips on digital tools we use.
Thank you for Sounddelivery for hosting the Social Media Exchange 2019 and to all the speakers that gave inspiring talks and workshops we could all learn from. Until next time!
