Social media release: a learning experience

For my online PR and social media course I was given the opportunity to work with a team and produce a real social media release for a large organization in Toronto. I decided that I wanted to work on a social media release for the Pan Am Games.

I worked with Chloe, Robyn and Heather on a social media release for the Pan Am Games. I was interested in working on this project because have read a lot about the Pan Am Games. I was also interested in this project because the Pan Am Games will have a large impact on Toronto, and I feel this piece will be a valuable piece in my portfolio.

                Our work first began on this assignment by emailing our contact to set up a meeting to discuss their wants and needs for the social media release. Our meeting with our contact took place Monday, Feb. 27, 2012 at her office. During the course of our meeting our contact explained what she wanted from the social media release, as well as the importance of diversity to the TO2015 games.  The group and I learned a lot. She informed us of the history of the games and how the emphasis on diversity will be a feature of the TO2015 games. While our meeting was very informative, I left feeling like I hadn’t prepared enough. We were asked lots of specific questions regarding our knowledge of diversity in the Pan Am Games, and I felt we didn’t know enough before the meeting.

                After our meeting we realized we would have to take this assignment very seriously. Throughout several group meetings we wrote the basis for our social media release. As a group we divided up aspects of the social media strategy, and edited it together collectively. Our contact mentioned during our meeting that she would like a roster of tweets for the TO2015 Twitter account. As part of the work we split up, I studied the Pan Am Games Twitter account  and evaluated the tweets which were currently being used. After that I wrote a roster of ten tweets which would be used on a regular basis. I also gave recommendations for other possible uses for their Twitter account, such as motivational tweets and re-tweeting major athletes who may be participating in the TO2015 games.

Overall I enjoyed this assignment because it provided an opportunity to work with a real client and create a social media release which could potentially be used by the Pan Am Games.