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Research prompts initiative to streamline social media activity.
The CIOB is carrying out wide-ranging changes to its social media policy and presence. The move follows a call from delegates at the Members’ Forum in Edinburgh last year for the institute to review its presence in social media to improve engagement and empower more members to get involved.
The CIOB tasked a brand strategy and communications agency to undertake a full, impartial analysis of CIOB social media. The research entailed a deep dive into all the data captured over the years, telephone interviews with many members and colleagues, and compared the CIOB experience against other professional bodies’ social channels and general best practice.
Kate Macbeth, associate director, marketing and digital, said: “The challenge for most organisations is in striking the right balance in our channels between generating content and managing what goes on so that we create a valuable experience for users.
“We know we can’t be in every social media channel all the time. Our review has sought to show us where we would be most effective to spend our time and effort, and where members and other professionals expect to find us.
She added: “An issue for us has been in the sheer size of the CIOB landscape. We currently have around 50 official CIOB social media channels and almost another 50 non-official channels set up by well-meaning members. Because it is a crowded space it makes it unclear for new potential followers to know which account to engage with.
“There is simply too much choice, and with such a broad landscape it becomes difficult to manage effectively with the time we all have. Not only that but there are varying levels of quality of content which has a negative effect and potentially damaging to our brand.”
The CIOB is now investigating how it will deliver on the recommendations. Its plan will include the creation of a LinkedIn presence for local hubs and migrating from, then removing, local CIOB Twitter and Facebook accounts over the next few months.
“It removes the need for members to create ‘CIOB groups’ in LinkedIn and instead empowers them to use their own profiles to get involved in the conversations we create,” said Macbeth.
Read Kate Macbeth’s blog with the full details of this new initiative at www.ciob.org/blog/changes-ciob-social-media.
