General principles
Communication
Decide what you are going to communicate, for example as far as the Guild is concerned you might want to consider:
- All Guild events should be advertised and publicised via all communication channels available.
- All Central Council updates should be shared on the Guild communication channels.
- Districts who have their own social media sites should be encouraged to share any information shared via the Guild sites.
- District events and news should be shared via the Guild sites.
- Positive engagement with external stakeholders via appropriate shared, retweeting and commenting using appropriate tags.
Sharing
Who can share? You might have different people responsible for sharing via different channels:
- Newsletter Editor
- Webmaster
- Public Relations Officer
- District Officers
- Guild Officers
When you share things may be time crucial and you may need to consider:
- Scheduling events and news on Facebook and Twitter and make sure that the Webmaster or Newsletter Editor has it in good time.
- Central Council updates shared the same day.
- Updates may need to be limited to no more than one per day to avoid over-posting and the importance of some messages getting lost in the traffic.
- Calendar of planned publicity to avoid over posting.
Language and style
- It should be noted that different language styles may be adopted for different publications, which would depend on the item of news for circulation and any limitations of the media being used (e.g. 280 characters in a tweet). However, the Association should always use a professional tone where possible.
- Any items published on the website, Facebook page and the newsletter should always be signed off using the name and role of the person submitting the article ... e.g. Vicki Chapman.
Public Relations Officer
- The limitations of Twitter and Instagram may preclude this.
- Social media platforms generally adopt a more relaxed style but this should remain within the bounds of portraying the Association in a professional manner.
Quality
- Anything published on behalf of the Guild or tower, whether online or paper, should bear the Guild’s or Tower’s logo, name and where appropriate Registered Charity Number.
- Any new materials produced should be proofread by someone not involved in its production to ensure there are no spelling, grammatical or formatting errors.
- Anything published or produced should portray the professional nature of the Guild or tower and not bring it into disrepute.
- Images that are used should be compliant with Safeguarding, General Data Protection Regulation and Copyright requirements and should be at least 72 DPI for website or 300 DPI for print.
Branding
The outward facing image of the Guild or tower should be instantly recognisable and provide an air of familiarity. Using appropriate branding like a logo or particular text font or document formatting on materials provides assurance that it has come from a trusted source.
Vicki Chapman, CCCBR PRO