The IHBC’s East Midlands (EM) Branch has launched a Social Media Plan, setting out how it will engage with social media to achieve the goals of the Branch as well as of IHBC nationally.
Chris McKinney, IHBC East Midlands Branch volunteer Communications Officer, writes: ‘The East Midlands Branch has traditionally used more established communication tools, such as our website, emails and letters, to reach our region’s members and to let them know what is going on in the East Midlands. However, we’ve found over the last few years that there’s a growing community of our members that have social media accounts, particularly on Twitter, and so we began to think about how we could help deliver our Branch’s key objectives through social media.’
‘This thinking got a big boost when we started getting into the detail of planning the IHBC’s 2019 Annual School, which is being hosted in Nottingham. We’ve got a lot of exciting talks and tours planned along the theme of ‘Heritage, Risk & Resilience: confronting conservation calamities’, so using Twitter to both promote these and to engage with our members and like-minded organisations as we develop the programme seemed an obvious decision for the Branch to take.’
Carla Pianese, Branch & Events Support Officer said: ‘We were very impressed with the fact that a Social Media plan was done, not least as the Branch six months ago said it didn’t want to do social media.’
‘They now have produced a social media plan which links to the IHBC’s corporate guidance and all those involved understand what it required and what to do, in line with the principle of our Social Media Guidance.’
‘It’s simple, brilliant and shows the commitment of our volunteers and the willingness in learning extra promotional skills in social media that are extremely useful to raise visibility on Branch activities especially on the forthcoming Annual School in Nottingham in July 2019’.
The Plan outlines the following social media goals for the Branch:
- To promote the 2019 IHBC Annual School in Nottingham;
- To promote the activities of the IHBC East Midlands Branch, in particular its CPD events and Branch Committee meetings;
- To support the Branch’s members and build partnerships with like-minded organisations, particularly where these are based in the East Midlands.
Following approval by the Branch Committee, the draft Social Media Plan was sent to the National Office for the initial feedback and will follow a formal approval from the Trustees in 2019.
See what the EM Branch is doing and our plans for the 2019 Annual School, check out Twitter @IHBCEastMids, #IHBCEastMids and #IHBCNottingham2019.
DOWNLOAD the EM Branch Social Media Plan
