Report – Tuesday Workshop: Get Social

Posted on: Tuesday 04 July 2017 10:02pm by Kerry Drewery

This session discussed how to make a brand successful on social media – looking at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube – followed by hands-on experience of how to create social media content.

Takeaways

• Think about where your brand fits.
• Make your brand voice authentic.
• Make sure what you post fits with what your audience want and what your themes are.

The session first discussed using social media to reach and grow your audience, and was chaired by Moderator/Producer Nellie McQuinn, from Grass Roots Media.

The panel:

• Rebecca Frankel, Head of Distribution and Partners at Little Dot Studios.
• Anna Lewis, Co-founder of branding and marketing agency, Marsden/Mee.
• Luisa Sanders from Aardman Animations.
• Harriet Shearsmith is the digital influencer behind Toby & Roo.
• Lisa Brazier, Mummy Piggles, Instagram mum, feed based around her kids’ conversations.

Detail

The panel tackled the issue of how difficult it can be to carve a space with a new brand, as well as highlighting the usefulness of the ‘hashtag’. This was discussed in terms of discoverability but also the idea of attaching to something bigger which your brand has similarities with. The importance of high quality content was paramount, with an all-round agreement that quality is better than quantity.

Each of the panel stressed the importance of not merely pushing your product but instead engaging with your audience. Visual posts captivating an audience are far better than pure text alone. A main piece of advice was to look at the social media behaviour of your audience, and stick to a channel that suits you and your brand a key concept to takeaway.

Following the discussion, participants broke into groups to create media campaigns for existing brands. With advice from the experts, they produced Peppa Pig video content, an Instagram account promoting a new Shopkins character, a live hack video for Lego and a Twitter takeover with Elsa from ‘Frozen’.

This was followed by a final Q&A with the panel.