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Navigating relationships when no one knows what your job is
- 1. Navigating Relationships When No One Knows What Your Job Is Megan Weales (@meganweales) Digital Community Coordinator Ontario Tech University @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB
- 2. Expectation vs. Reality: Our Jobs EXPECTATION Tech support ◦ when your keyboard switches to French ◦ when your screen turns upside down ◦ when you can’t get the projector set up Tweets all day (@meganweales) Takes pictures Scrolls Instagram (@meganweales) REALITY Website management ◦ Student Life website ◦ Digital Community Social media management Social listening Assessment Content creation Student development ◦ Training and supervision (5 employees, 20 volunteers) Photographer, videographer, director, producer, editor, graphic designer @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB
- 3. “Other duties as assigned” @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB BUILD TRUST PROVE VALUE
- 4. Strategies to build trust and prove value Showcase your work @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB Document everything
- 5. 1. Ask questions @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB Ask questions > Meet people where they’re at > Document everything > Showcase your work
- 6. Ask questions: Why? @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB • “What are your goals?” • Suggest relevant alternatives • Work to understand where they are coming from • “Is there a reason we do it this way?” • “Can you help me understand?”
- 7. Ask questions: Listen and Empathize @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB • Listen to their answers • There is usually a reason things are done a certain way • Self-reflect • What prevents them from working with you? Are there any barriers in place?
- 8. 2. Meet them where they’re at @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB Ask questions > Meet people where they’re at > Document everything > Showcase your work
- 9. Meeting them where they’re at: Communication Plans For people who are invested but not experienced. Define Key Goals and Messages Set Measurement Determine Audience Timeline @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB
- 10. @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB From no plan… to annual communications goals and strategy Student Life Our our services
- 11. Meeting them where they’re at: Project Pitches and Recommendations For people with limited or no investment (time) but need support. @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB • Use their resources to develop some ideas • Use your expertise to make recommendations
- 12. From off-brand media kit… @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB to content that informs and engages
- 13. 3. Document everything @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB Ask questions > Meet people where they’re at > Document everything > Showcase your work
- 14. Document everything: Create Policies @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB • Policies are valuable even if you’re the only person doing your job • Policies can start off as general • “Case-by-case” can still follow a template outlined in a policy • Policies help put worried staff members at ease • Crucial when creating something new (because new = scary)
- 15. From case-by-case… @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB to a templated process Listen Acknowledge Solve Reflect The LASR Approach to Responding to Comments
- 16. Document everything: Reports @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB • Pull from whatever service you may already be using (Google Analytics, Hootsuite) OR create your own • Save data that you want now • Include data that you might want later • Create something sharable
- 17. From no data… @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB to a monthly report straight to your inbox
- 18. literally no one: me: I made a report @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB
- 19. 4. Showcase your work @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB Ask questions > Meet people where they’re at > Document everything > Showcase your work
- 20. Showcase your work: Make it part of your routine @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB • Keep colleagues informed • Add updates, reports, and/or successes to a regular newsletter • Include reports in agendas of team meetings
- 21. Showcase your work: Build your personal brand • Increasing your presence helps people understand who you are and what you do • Share your work • On social (does your institution have a hashtag for this?) • Create a portfolio • Share your wins with people who will understand and be excited by them • (#PSEWEB) @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB (but you’re not)
- 22. Summing it up Showcase your work @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB Document everything
- 23. @meganweales Your work is valuable. You are valuable. @meganweales | @otstudentlife #PSEWEB
Editor's Notes
- Contact: megan.weales@uoit.ca
- BUILDING TRUST because social media is still new. And new is scary, and new is not easy (cue the “we’ve always done it this way”)… and when I challenge a way of thinking – which I pride myself in doing often – it can lead people to think that I’m trying to take control away. For example, my first summer as a student I took on the big project of centralizing all 10+ of our departments social media into one social media – the social media that I still manage as part of my job today. I began to discover the deeply rooted control issues that existed in our little department. What was missing from this centralization process was the trust building FIRST, not later. Now trust building is rooted in all of the work that I do. …and so is. PROVING VALUE because anyone can “do” social media, right? Just let a student do it. Heck, I was a student that did it. But I was a student working towards a career. I’m not saying that I’m a special case, but I am saying that an inconsistent strategy that drops off as soon as a student contract is over *isn’t* a successful strategy. What is successful, however, is having a full time staff member AND a team of students working on social. Yet still, I work to prove value to educate my colleagues who are not familiar with social, and those who are seemingly experts because they are amongst the small group who has an Instagram account. So how do I navigate building trust and proving value in my work?
- I have a few strategies to do this that I’ll share with you and dive deeper into through this presentation. Ask questions Meet people where they’re at Document everything Showcase your work
- Step one – ask LOTS of questions. Ask questions about projects and their outcomes to understand what is trying to be accomplished. Ask questions about people so that you can better understand working styles. Ask questions and ask them often.
- Ask questions that get you to the CORE of why – “what are your goals?” for this project, campaign, whatever. Too often we have staff members request products without having a goal in mind. Asking what their goals are, AKA WHY they are asking for what they’re asking for helps us understand what they actually need, and if what they really need is different from what they’ve requested, this gives us the basis to suggest a relevant alternative. Truthfully, sometimes I have a hard time understanding where people are coming from when they request specific things from our team. So it’s important for me to ask questions so that I CAN understand. Even if it’s as simple as, “could you explain this to me again?” or “can you help me understand this?”. When it comes to “we’ve always done it this way”, asking “is there a reason we do it this way?” This is especially important if you are newer at an institution or in a department – you don’t know what politics or events happened to justify the means. And in some cases, you’ll find out that they’ve just never thought about it. For example, two different teams in Student Life host orientation programming. My team was meeting with both of these teams at the same time to develop promotional materials that highlight all of our orientation programs in one place. I asked them “is there a reason you don’t share a centralized email inbox for questions?” Well… no there wasn’t a reason. One of the teams had multiple students answering the questions that came in, and the other email inbox was taken care of solely by one staff member who was also in charge of the rest of the orientation planning. By posing this question, we simplified this email process and let our colleague worry about other things for a while. What are some other ways that we can ask “WHY?”
- …and when you ask these questions make sure you’re LISTENING to their answers. We may be the professionals when it comes to communications, but there are department politics and history that your colleagues know more about than you. It’s crucial to not just ask others questions, but to ask yourself questions as well. Reflect on what may prevent teams or departments from working with you and/or your team? Are their barriers in place that make them feel as if it would be easier to do things without you? Do they know about processes in place that could benefit them? These questions were crucial to our team understanding how we can best support our colleagues. Asking these questions made us realize that the reason that we weren’t getting requests from one of our departments was because they thought it would be faster to do it themselves, even if it meant that the end product wasn’t high quality. After we reflect and assess, we meet them where they’re at.
- To meet them where they’re at, you have to understand where they come from – ask questions to do this. Everyone works differently, learns differently, and processes differently. As a communications professional, it’s crucial for me to be flexible when I can be. Being able to meet people where they’re at is especially crucial for underserved groups and departments – like mental health and accessibility who are over capacity with student appointments, and equity and indigenous departments who, at our university, have a few people responsible for everything under the moon in their area – not just serving students, but educating staff and faculty, and doing community outreach, potentially recruitment, and be a representative on every advisory group that pops up. How can we better support these folks? Accommodate them. Depending on their level of communications expertise and investment, this may look a little bit different. I’ll share a few examples of how my team has met others where they’re at.
- Communications plans work well for us, especially with people who are invested in their marketing/communications plans but perhaps not experienced. We set up a meeting, typically with an entire team, to do the following: Define key goals and messaging. Typically, we’ve done these communications plans for an entire year. The department will set out an overarching goal for the year and some key messaging that they want to emphasize. 2. Then we define how to measure success. This includes identifying the current climate on campus surrounding the topic. What awareness is there on campus about this topic? If it’s low, maybe we dip our toes in and start small. 3. Who are our audience members? For us, usually it’s students in general. But are there different types of students we could be trying to communicate with? Does our messaging change depending on the type of audience we’re speaking to? 4. And timeline. We like to roughly map out the year. What are important events and dates around this topic? What needs to be done communications-wise each month to meet that overarching goal that we set?
- Doing this helps us take teams from no plans, to annual communications goals and a real strategy to back these goals up. Here’s an example of a communications plan that we’re currently working on in our office. We have our overarching goals at the top: build brand awareness, and break down stigma. How our we communicating that? With our message. Our services are not just for struggling students. Our office is welcoming to all. Students should not feel intimidated by us. And we have three different types of audiences: Students who are unaware of our services Students who think they’re doing too well to get help Students who are too nervous to access services Then below we’ve mapped out some draft ideas for social media content, including the primary goal for each communications piece, and other relevant information required. The piece that I’ve shown you mostly revolved around social media, but we would include posters, handbills, and any other requested materials we can expect around a certain time from this department. But what if the team you’re working with is less invested than this?
- Then we meet them where they’re at by providing them with ideas and recommendations. This works best for groups with limited or no investment that still need support. I use this strategy for teams where representation is crucial. Marketing plans are only on their mind when an important date is coming up. And this is no fault of their own, especially when it comes to student-facing folks who are overloaded with appointments. These groups are often the ones that do not submit requests, or send me off-brand resources and media kits made by community organizations that do not match our brands voice. My options are to: say no and have them not represented at all on social, or post something from this media kit that is off-brand and not engaging. ….OR I can use the resources sent to me, along with my expertise, to make recommendations or pitch them a project.
- In a media kit, I was sent social media graphics that were stock photos with text overtop that was barely legible. All 4 or 5 graphics had the exact same text on them, and I was asked to post them all. None of them were the conversational, authentic tone that our department uses online. The kit ALSO included lots of information resources, printouts, tip sheets that had really great information on them. I emailed my colleague who sent the request in to say “Thank you so much for sending along this resource, my team will schedule some content related to it.” I really believe in authenticity so I’m going to be honest and say this answer was not accepted right away and I received a bit of push back. To which I responded explaining more, “There’s some great tips in the package that I’d love to use. The documents don’t quite match our brand voice and aesthetic on social media. I’m happy to have myself and team take on the work to create something more on-brand using the resources you’ve provided to us.” This was better received, so I took the resources and used Canva to create to create this template, uploaded it to Instagram and added some relevant GIFs. THEN, I opened it up to our students to share their tips, too. This ended up being our highest Instagram engagement yet to date – and it only took me maybe 10 to 15 minutes (if I’m being generous) to create the background/template on Canva. Then, I followed up with my colleague to let them know how we used the information and inform them of the success. I made sure to save this information, which brings me to the third part of my process…
- Document everything. Policies, analytics, assessment. Document it and save it. This is how I say NO to things and have people accept that as an answer. Data talks. Documentation provides value.
- Create policies and written strategies to document a process. Do this even if you are the only person doing your job. I got tired of constantly explaining my processes for social media and our Digital Community, and thought “how do I explain this in professional terms but also in a way that anyone can understand” when I used web/social media language like “social listening”. I finally created a few policies that outline our process for approving and publishing Digital Community content so that I can put staff at ease and stop receiving “what if” questions. Well the funny thing about that is that now that I’ve created policies for the work that I do, no one asks to see the policies I’ve created. But regardless, the existence of a policy can save the day when it IS needed. And even a case-by-case strategy can still follow a template or a process. Because I manage the social media for a department at the university rather than the university as a whole, it’s pretty rare that we get negative comments online, and when we do, they are not average complaints. We are the main source of equity content on campus at an institution in a blue-collar city where equity is newer. Depending on the type of equity content we post, the responses that we MAY get are different, so we do have to assess some case-by-case. But I dug into my customer service roots to find a template solution that I could develop a policy around.
- My first part time job was at Cineplex, and if you worked in customer service this approach may sound familiar to you because it is adapted from a Guest Service Recovery Matrix called “L.A.S.T” Listen, Apologize, Solve, and Thank. I adapted it to be more relevant for responding to comments – this is my “LASR” approach. Listen: Read the concern and try to understand where the individual is coming from. Empathy is important here. Acknowledge: When responding, address the user by name, and acknowledge any concerns by repeating them. Acknowledge their emotions if it is clear how they are feeling (angry, upset). If their comment warrants it, thank them for bringing it to our attention. Solve: Provide a possible solution for the commenter to take. Possible solutions include: (1) Connect them with the appropriate support or service. (2) Share relevant information regarding a question they may have. (3) Give them the contact information of someone who can help. (4) If they are commenting about a service that is not ours, tag the account of the service that it is related to (after messaging that department first). Reflect: Share information with relevant university staff and/or faculty. Work together with university communications staff on key messaging and response planning. Reflect on the situation and update practices when applicable. This is the template that I am able to use for those “case-by-case” concerns, and this is just one portion of our process. After we’ve resolved an issue, I will update the policy with a situational example and process when it makes sense and share it with my team. Document everything, your future self will thank you.
- Document everything, including reports. As I’ve said, data talks. Use your data to tell stories. If you want to prove value, this is the best way. Pull from whatever service you may already be using, Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Sprout, whatever. OR create your own. Save the data that you want now, and include data that you might want later. However you choose to save the data, make sure that it is something sharable. With those who may have an understanding of social, but it should also be understandable by those who are less familiar. Those are the folks we are most likely to have to prove value to, anyway.
- I recently fell into a Google analytics hole and started making up for lost time by downloading every report I could get my hands on that I found valuable. Once I was pleased, I set it up to send me an excel sheet with monthly analytics from our Digital Community and the Student Life website and then I patiently waited for the 1st of the next month so I could bask in the glory of the data. Each month, I add this spreadsheet as a tab in a “Yearly” spreadsheet and compare the data from this month to last month and then share the spreadsheet with my team. We just launched our new Student Life website, so I will soon be downloading last years monthly reports to compare to this year.
- …and I think my team might be sick of it because this is me every time I learn something new about the assessment tools we have access to that I’m just now diving into.
- And that’s because I love showcasing my work, and I think you should too. Showcase your work every chance that you get – even if people DON’T ask. You know how in math, you don’t get full marks unless you show your work? (Right, I’m pretty sure, I haven’t done math in a lot of years)? How can you prove value to people without showing your work. So, do it. Often.
- Make it part of your routine. Those reports that I just talked about? Like I said, I send them to my team monthly. If there’s a monthly newsletter you can add some information in regularly, do it. Put it in your calendar at least once a month to send an update to whoever is responsible for staff newsletters. Or, add it as an agenda item to team meetings, whether it’s your immediate team, maybe you have a social media committee at your institution, wherever it makes sense. And I get it, teams of 1 can be isolating. Before my university had a social media committee, and before I had a team of students, I had a hard time sharing data and showcasing my work because I felt as if other people didn’t share my excitement. In that case, work on building your personal brand.
- Increase your presence. Online, on committees. Share the work that you do with more people. Increasing your presence helps people understand who you are and what you do. And educate where you can to get other people excited. Explain what the information means and why it’s good. If you have people who will be excited, share your wins with them. Can’t find that around you? Find it virtually. I’d love to read about your wins on the #PSEWEB hashtag or in the Facebook group. If your university has a hashtag for staff, use that and share your work! Use your social media as a bit of a portfolio. There’s plenty of faculty and staff on Twitter at Ontario Tech, so I make sure to share the projects that I’m most proud of there. Sharing your wins can feel like you’re bragging, but being proud of your work is different. It can take practice to have this feel comfortable, so let’s take the opportunity to practice with the people that support us most. Everyone share a “win” with the person next to you. Introverts, I see you too. Practice sharing your wins – I’ll start.
- To recap, Ask questions. Get to the “why” of the work. Listen to the answer, and empathize. Meet people where they’re at. Be flexible. Create working communications plans. Use your expertise and their resources to pitch projects and make recommendations. Document everything. Create and document your policies and processes. Develop reports and use the data to tell stories. And showcase your work. Regularly. With your close colleagues, and expand your reach beyond. Share with your #PSEWEB fam. Maybe even present at next years conference.