Part three in the Social Silo Series (check out part one and part two) is designed to help new social media managers and other online communications staff figure out how the heck they’re supposed to become the information nexus of their organization.
Q: HOW (process, tactics) are you getting enough info from all corners of your org (breaking down silos) to feed your social media streams?
A: Liz Hover, Digital Media Manager, National Screen Institute
Employees: 11
Trick: Collaborate, be an infosponge
“We have a fairly small, close-knit office and we talk to one another.
Everyone knows about our online communications stuff because I regularly share information about it and try to educate my colleagues as much as possible.
We have team meetings once a week during which folks give updates on their work—so I’m all ears during the meeting listening for relevant stuff that I can use online.
I think it’s super important to make sure the rest of your team knows about and (to an extent) understands your online spaces so they can facilitate the information flow.
We also ask our alumni to share their success stories with us (which they do regularly) and we post those updates to our website, Twitter and Facebook. I make a point of following NSI alumni on our Twitter account.
Admittedly I’m never going to catch every piece of good news/information but for now things seem to be working well!
I read an insane amount of blogs related to the film, TV and tech industries. Often I use that information to write a new post on our website which in turn feeds our other online spaces.
I also encourage other members of the team to share ideas with me. That was how we came up with the concept of our Facebook clinics: live Q&A sessions between potential students and program managers. Ideas like that usually come out of discussions I have in the office.
I’m very fortunate to share office space with wonderfully creative people. It’s not unusual for me to have an impromptu brainstorm with my colleagues.”
