Social Media Training
Social media moves at an incredibly fast pace and it’s a challenge to keep on top of developments, particularly if you weren’t on board at the start. For some, the mindset, strategies and tools needed to succeed in this new communications environment can be confusing, and training can be a great way of obtaining the confidence and know-how to get involved.
Our director, Wendy McAuliffe, is part of the Econsultancy training faculty, which brings together some of the world’s top digital marketing experts.
Whether you’re keen to develop your first social media campaign, finesse the next project or bring your entire team to the next level, we should be able to help.
Who should attend?
Our training workshops can be tailored for one to 14 people, and you may like to consider inviting anyone from senior management to executive level. While we are experienced at delivering courses for all levels of social media understanding covering basic through to advanced techniques, it helps if trainees within a group are of similar abilities.
- Managing directors, senior VPs, CEOs
- Marketing and PR directors
- Marketing and digital marketing professionals
- PR & communications professionals
What will you learn?
Our courses take a very hands-on approach and are tailored to suit the needs of your business – if you have a specific training challenge, we will work with you to develop a workshop that directly addresses that issue.
Our training courses can include:
- Introduction to social media and how it can integrate with other marketing disciplines
- Social media monitoring and analysis
- Planning an online PR and social media strategy
- Online reputation management and crisis management
- Understanding the importance of search in online PR and social media
- Evaluation and measurement of social media
- Social media tools and techniques, including blogging, Twitter & Facebook
- Best practice in social media
- Using crowdsourcing and building communities
- Creating social objects and content
- Understanding online privacy
Strategy
Your online social reputation is something that you build as you go. Whether you are completely new to social media, or looking for support and fresh ideas on a new campaign, our team of experienced consultants can work with you to develop a social media strategy from the ground up.
We are happy to work independently or integrate ourselves within a wider team.
Our strategic consultancy areas include:
- Mapping and monitoring: researching what is currently being said about you online, understanding where conversations occurring on the social web are connecting with your purchase funnel and identifying the trigger points for important conversations that matter to you
- Identifying authoritative sources – researching your target sites, influencers, stakeholders and their networks
- Selecting your social media channels – Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn. We will help you identify the types of social channels that are likely to provide a beneficial effect and/or provide real insight and engagement
- Multimedia planning and development – help in creating social content that people will want to share including photos, video, podcasts, blogs and microblogs
- Structuring teams and choosing conversationalists – advice and support in implementing your social media plan internally
- Measurement – advice on selecting the most appropriate social media metrics to assess ROI
- Crisis management – creating a protocol for when things might go wrong on the social web, and emergency consultancy for when the unexpected happens
Content/Copywriting
What is truly changing within the social web is media, and marketing and PR have always had to shape themselves around media.
Being able to produce and bring together compelling written content that enables collaboration and encourages your customers and communities to come back for more is the key to reaching people effectively.
The volume and sentiment of consumer-generated content – positive (helpful) references versus negative (damaging) – is driven by the digital experience that you create.
Populate Digital’s staff includes experienced online journalists who have been professionally trained in writing for the social web, and have bags of practical knowledge in producing content that has impact.
Our content services include:
- White papers and e-books: support in planning, researching and writing thought leadership content for the social web
- Blog set-up & management: including development of editorial plan, style guide, advice on tone and training in how to structure blog posts
- Blog writing: our journalist-trained consultants can be commissioned to author well-researched and topical posts for your company or personal blog, on a regular basis, to supplement and enhance your existing offering
- Keywords and writing for search engines: training and support in how to write content that is search engine friendly, including selecting and integrating search terms into social media content
- Journalist services – for subject matter relating to social media, PR and the digital media industry
Media Training
Our media training workshops are delivered by experienced journalists, including BBC reporters, who have an in-depth knowledge of print, online, TV and radio, across both national and trade media.
Who should attend?
Within our media training workshops, there is a big emphasis on practical exercises, and so small groups (one to four people) tend to work best.
- Senior company spokespeople
- Marketing and PR directors
- Thought leaders
- Public speakers
What will you learn?
We like to tailor our media training workshops to your needs – we will always take into account your level of media experience, the subject matter that concerns you, the style of interview that you are likely to face and the media channels that are relevant to you or your organisation.
For our TV interview training, our practical exercises are filmed by an ex-BBC cameraman so that you can truly experience the feeling of being in front of the camera, and afterwards watch yourself on screen.
Our training courses might cover the following subject areas:
- What makes news? – how are print, online, TV and radio different?
- Becoming part of the news agenda – how can you sell a story idea to a journalist, or secure comment on a breaking issue within your sector?
- How can you become a relied-upon spokesperson? – insight and practice in interview tricks of the trade
- Preparing for interview – knowing your subject, rehearsing sound bites, researching your journalist
- Speaking to the media during a crisis – utilising on/off the record, responding to public criticism, getting your side of the story heard, delivering the appropriate tone
- The difference between recorded and live TV interviews
- Interview follow-up and building journalist relationships
Partnerships and Collaboration
Two minds are often better than one.
If you’re a creative agency, digital agency or PR firm looking for short-term or project-based support in online PR or social media, we’d be happy to contract out Populate Digital consultants to work with you as part of your team.
Please give our director, Wendy McAuliffe, a call to discuss your need in detail with her.
