Social’s a fast, dynamic and exciting place to work. But we know it’s not always easy. 

In a world where the public relies on social more every day, the stresses can build. 

As inbounds mount and expectations rise, working in comms and digital marketing can pull you in all sorts of directions. And dealing with the public often brings a rollercoaster of emotions, too. 

Are you feeling… 

• Overwhelmed by your growing to-do list? 
• Undervalued by bosses or colleagues? 
• Affected by negative comments aimed at your organisation? 
• Like you can’t switch off? 

Yes? You’re not alone. 

A lot of social pros feel the same. 

That’s why we got together with our friends at Comms Creatives to find out exactly how people working in social media are doing.  

The Big Social Media Professional Survey 

The survey first ran during 2020 when we were all in the grip of the pandemic. Not surprisingly, it was tough out there.  

But although lockdown restrictions have eased and almost disappeared, the strain on social media pros in 2022 hasn’t gone anywhere. 

In fact, 54% of you reported you’re experiencing high levels of stress for long periods of time. 

If this is you, we’re here to tell you you’re not the only one. Working in social’s not always the picnic some people think.  

Although it can be fun, social isn’t frivolous. Social media’s business critical, and that can make it a high-pressure place to be. 

What’s causing strain in social? 

When social pros responded to the survey, they put key themes in the spotlight: 

• Feeling undervalued in their roles 
• Finding it difficult to saying ‘no’ when their dairy’s full 
• A growing workload 

Sound familiar? These are major challenges in a career in social. But they’re not insurmountable. 

And that’s why we’ve got resources to help you. 

We teamed up with Helen Reynolds of Comms Creatives for a webinar on how you can flourish despite the pressures of being a social media pro. If you missed it, there’s a replay available now. 

But if you want to see the full picture including detailed survey results, we’ve created a bumper guide that delves into everything.  

The secret to success in social 

Our new guide ‘The Big Social Media Professional Survey’ shares top tips to help you build a strategy that’ll support your busy life in social. You’ll be able to get insights into the survey stats and discover just what’s bugging your colleagues and peers.  

You’ll see how others are feeling, and get guidance on how to handle obstacles at work.  

Ready to turn things around and thrive in your career? 

In social, we’re all in it together. And at SoCrowd our aim’s to help raise everyone up. So we can all get back to loving what we do, and doing it well.  

Sounds good, right? 

It’s time to get empowered. Download the guide now to get all the advice you need. We’ve got your back. 

Starting the year as we mean to go on, BECG Group has been shortlisted in four categories at this year’s PRWeek UK Corporate, City & Public Affairs Awards.  These prestigious awards showcase and celebrate the best campaigns, projects, agencies, in-house teams and individuals across corporate communications, financial PR and public affairs. They are the only Awards focused entirely on these three disciplines – recognising their increased prominence and collaboration in the modern communications landscape.

Following BECG Group being ranked by PRWeek as number one in Public Affairs since 2021, we have been shortlisted for ‘Best Agency for Public Affairs’ – further underlining our reputation as a trusted advisor to our clients, helping to protect reputations through communications which create understanding, acceptance and support.

Highlighting the growing importance of digital channels as an integral part of public affairs campaigns, our already award-winning social media campaign ‘What If?’ with National Grid has been shortlisted for ‘Best use of social media and/or influencers in a campaign’. The ‘What If?’ campaign sought to raise awareness of the need for new energy infrastructure in East Anglia and to mobilise green energy advocates in support of their projects. 

Our crisis communications expertise was put to the test when working with a top-five national housebuilder on an undeveloped site containing chemical contamination which has been shortlisted for ‘Best Crisis Comms’. Meanwhile, our ‘Service with Respect’ campaign with The Institute of Customer Service (ICS), which protected customer service workers during and beyond Covid-19 has been shortlisted for ‘Best pro-active lobbying campaign on an issue or case’. The campaign drove change to protect frontline workers and raised the issue in mainstream media and Westminster, to change societal mindsets that abuse of customer-facing workers was unacceptable.

Click here for more information about our award-winning services or you can sign up to subscribe to our industry-leading insight here.

‘Tis the season to be jolly, but Christmas is also a time for organisations to spread important messages. And there’s no better place to get the word out than social media.

Let’s take a look at some great campaigns of Christmas 2022.

1. Inflation bites as hard as the cold snap

There’s no escaping the cost of living crisis we’re all experiencing this winter. But even when times are hard, there are positive stories warming our hearts.

The London Borough of Richmond’s running a campaign offering support and advice to combat costs and the cold. The local authority’s helping residents by sharing 25 ways to make it through the festive season.

Their tips include places locals can go to keep warm this winter, and info on where over-65s or families on low incomes can turn to get financial help.

Take a look at all their handy advice here:

https://twitter.com/LBRUT/status/1602260057147772932

2. Getting into the spirit

Festive cheer might seem innocent enough, but Dorset Police used Christmas Jumper Day to run a timely reminder that too much booze can make some people abusive.

When making merry loses its fun, the force advises people to remove themselves from the situation so things can cool off.

https://twitter.com/dorsetpolice/status/1600762168730963968

3. Charity begins with home

Homelessness charity Shelter have relaunched a range of chocolate bars with profits going directly to fight the housing crisis. Buying a ‘Random Acts of Chocolate’ bar will help the charity fund its webchat service, supporting people who are losing their home.

https://www.facebook.com/commerce/products/shelter-rich-milk-chocolate/5485525504876511/?ref=mini_shop_serp&referral_code=mini_shop_profile_plus_shop_tab_cta

4. Spreading good cheer (and Christmas treats)

It’s a wonderful time of year to spread joy with a giveaway. So we’ve had a gorgeous prize up for grabs on social – a festive hamper worth up to £110.

SoCrowd got together with our sister brands BECG, Cavendish and Love That to ask our followers who they think deserves a Christmas treat.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7005581941852774400/?actorCompanyId=958136

We had loads of heart-warming entries – here’s a flavour of who our followers wanted to show their appreciation for:

• Nicola nominated Ed, who she says has done so much for his family this year.

We think they sound like a fab bunch!

There’s a lot of appreciation for the people in our lives. We’ve heard about amazing supportive husbands, grans who put everyone else first, and work mates who’ve gone above and beyond.

Christmas is all about sharing the love, and we’ve seen loads of that – thanks, guys!

Share your favourites

There are loads of brilliant Christmas campaigns out there, from the meaningful to the amusing. So now it’s over to you – tell us what seasonal posts warmed your heart in 2022.

Seen something on social that’s made you smile? Share your favourite Christmas social media campaigns with us @SoCrowd using #Christmas2022.

Merry Christmas, love SoCrowd.

Following the success of our September webinar, ‘Social Media Best Practice for Universities’, we asked trusted social media advisor Luan Wise to share some more top social media marketing tips for education marketers.

Here comes Generation Alpha

For many years, the conversation around targeting future students has been focused on Generation Z (born 1997-2012); the first of Generation Alpha (born 2012-2024) will turn 13 next year – the minimum age for setting up social media accounts. Although social media advertising cannot be targeted at under 18’s, institutions need to recognise a new generation will be starting to use social media in 2023.

Due to the limits of social media targeting, we must not forget the role of parents and carers in education marketing. Published data for ‘favourite social media platforms’ by age and gender shows clear differences in the preferences for different social media platforms by different demographic groups – notably Facebook for older groups, and Instagram for younger groups.

It is also interesting to note that social media users access multiple platforms – on average 7.9 different platforms a month – and the chart below shows how use by Gen Z changes at different times of the day.

Source: https://goknit.com/2022-gen-z-social-media-trends-report/

Top Tip: Social media activity needs to go across multiple platforms, and bear in mind the primary audience on each platform. However, it is better to be active on fewer platforms and use them well, than to try and stretch your resources too far, across too many platforms.

Via social media, and at The Schools & AcademiesShow Birmingham (NEC, Birmingham on  Thursday 17th November), we shared a short survey asking for the top benefits and challenges in education marketing. Luan shared the results and offered some top tips.

Benefits of social media

 You shared with us the following key benefits:

• Students and parents/carers are already on social media
• It’s easy to separate content for different year groups (eg with a Facebook Group)
• Staff can get involved easily
• Social media is good for promoting news and events
• Social media is useful for recruitment
• Good access to analytics

Challenges of social media

While remaining positive about the benefits of social media, we can of course acknowledge that there are challenges. In the webinar Luan addressed some key areas of concern for education marketers:

• Online Safety
• Finding the time
• Building your audience
• Content ideas
• Measuring success

Luan highlighted some ‘quick wins’ by addressing social media account housekeeping. Reviewing profile set-ups to ensure that they have a good header image, and the bio/about description sets clear expectations for the purpose of the account, and times when it is monitored.

To support the challenges of responding to messages, particularly when out-of-hours, Luan suggested using pinned posts and automated responses to include links to information that will help an enquirer find the answer (eg on the website). An important reminder that pinned posts and automated responses can be updated to support key dates eg holidays, exam periods, results days etc.

The session was filled with best practice examples from schools and colleges, demonstrating content ideas such as ‘sharing your why’, parent/carer information, and the use of polls as part of a community engagement tactic.

To view all of Luan’s advice on these challenges, you can watch the webinar again, here.

Key takeaways:

• Check your account set-up regularly to ensure bio text and header graphics are up-to-date
• Stay in control of your time and resources; a social media management tool can help with this
• Make it easy for people to find your accounts; ensure links in your website footer are working, and consider including a ‘social media directory’ on your website
• Follow other actions – within and outside of education – for content ideas

Focus on continuous improvement for your own accounts – keep testing and keep learning

Bringing home three awards to add to our trophy cabinet, we are thrilled to announce wins at the PRCA National Awards and PoliMonitor PRCA Public Affairs Awards. These prestigious awards recognise best practice within the industry and these wins further showcase the outstanding work of our strong teams and expertise within the BECG Group.   

The PoliMonitor PRCA Public Affairs Award crowned BECG Group as Consultancy of the Year which is testament to our unrivalled understanding across the built environment sector. Our breadth of expertise and work covers a wide range of important issues and challenges and with this award, we’re delighted that our high-quality client service delivering insight and influence to clients has been recognised.   

On the same night, BECG was announced winners of Best Social Media Campaign for the ‘What If…’ campaign with National Grid. The campaign was designed to create a broader awareness and understanding of why the onshore electricity network needs to be reinforced, and the opportunities that this could bring. This elevated the discussion around climate change and created an engaging space to explain the important role of electricity infrastructure in achieving net zero. 

Finally, the prestigious PRCA National Awards crowned the work of Cavendish Advocacy’s specialist crisis management team in the Crisis and Issues Management category. When a national housebuilder found high levels of contamination in the soil of one of its undeveloped sites, the team was brought in to lead the communications response to local residents, stakeholders and the media. Their work not only built trust and confidence with residents, it also transformed relationships with the Council.  

Carl Daruvalla, BECG Group’s CEO, said: 

“I’m so proud of the trio of wins that our dedicated and passionate teams have secured across these highly acclaimed industry awards. It’s fantastic that we’ve regained our Public Affairs consultancy of the year title and the recognition of both our specialist crisis management and social media work really showcases the breadth of services we have available under one roof at BECG Group. Our teams deliver outstanding results for our clients across the board, so I’m thrilled that this hard work has been rewarded.” 

Click here for more information about our award-winning services. 

For more information about the PRCA National Awards, click here. 

For more information about the PRCA/PoliMonitor Public Affairs awards, click here.