I haven’t done any filming
for a while. There’s all sort of reasons
for that, but one is I have a new job.
It’s a kinda cool job, I work in social media. I want to say where, but one aspect of my job
is that I write a social media policy, and it tells employees not to say where
they work. There’s a reason for that,
some of what people write could break the data protection act, so if they can’t
say it, neither can I. I have to set an
example, right?
I will say it’s a blue light
emergency service, which means it’s one of four and not the AA. They can say it as much as they want, but
they are not the fourth emergency service.
So what does my job
involve? I get to spend about 60% of my
day on facebook and twitter. It sounds
like a dream right? Wrong. There are all sorts of reasons why it’s
wrong. Firstly, it’s work. I’m not chatting to friends, playing dumb
games or doing stupid quizzes, I’m working.
And work shouldn’t be fun, it should be work. I’m keeping an eye on things, making sure I
post stuff at the right time of day, all those things.
Secondly, I’m having to make
sure what I do post is in line with a social media policy I am still writing,
for employees, press officers, CEO’s etc.
It’s a lot of pressure, it has to be right, it has to meet corporate
branding, it has to apply across the board.
It also has to have sections that mean I can monitor what some people
are saying, not to spy on them, as I will be making them an official branch of
what I do, so they will have to meet my standards.
And my standards are kinda
low it seems, I need to create new standards just for the job.
And here is the
problem. Before I started the job, I did
a little bit of social media work and I was out of my depth. I did study it a bit as part of my media
degree and the one thing I know about working in social media is……no one knows
how to use it in the work place.
A lot of people write about
it, call themselves experts in this or that aspect in social media, but really,
all it comes down to is this. Social
Media is a branch of Public Relations and Marketing so all the usual rules
apply, it just happens faster. When you
start a campaign you can see instantly how it works, what’s wrong with it, how
to make it better.
This is the biggest secret
in social media, I read all the blogs (the relevant ones anyway, I’m not trying
to sell anything). Most of them are just
common sense – how to avoid a bad comment
bringing your business into disrepute? Simple, delete the fucker! Should
you correct bad information online? Of course you twat, it’s called public
relations! Can social media bring in more business? If you treat it as
marketing it can!
See, there are no experts in
social media, it really is just PR and Marketing. And that makes me feel like a fraud
sometimes, but what I do is important.
Because of what I do, I have saved one life for sure. I have probably saved a couple more, or at
least stopped some people from getting very seriously injured with a ruined
life and that’s is good.
So if I’m a fraud, are the
lives I’ve saved fake? If I can do that
in 12 weeks of the job, can I be the first to make social media really make a
difference for some people? I hope
so. What I do is important.
