- Have any questions?
- 02 9247 6000
- media@commsroom.co
- Have any questions?
- 02 9247 6000
- media@commsroom.co
Menu
Despite being integral for modern-day communications and engagement work, social media has only been around for less than a decade. This means that despite its importance, many people past a have not entirely figured out how to efficiently and effectively use it towards achieving their goals.
The barrier of entry for social media is low; it’s easy to create an account and start posting. But to gain traction and trust from your audience can take a lot of work. Sometimes, it can even feel like nothing is happening for a while. But if you know how to gather and interpret data, you can easily measure your success and innovate.
Today our Featured Leader is Caroline Lanzon, Assistant Director of Graphic Design for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Caroline talks about her journey from the not-for-profit world to government, and how she discovered the importance of data in social media work.
Before switching over to government work, Caroline learned the ropes of public relations, social media marketing, and graphic design at not-for-profit Communities@Work and then at St. Clare’s College.
Caroline said it was her semi-rural background that drew her in to government work with the then Department of Agriculture, Water, and the Environment. When the Albanese government split the old department into two separate units, Caroline preferred the Agricultural side so she made the new Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) her home.
“I grew up in the Southern Highlands and a lot of my friends had families who were from the agriculture sector,” Caroline said.
When asked about the difference between not-for-profit and government work, Caroline said the main difference really is the resources you can work with, and the approval process that can tend to be more tedious.
“The approval process when it was just me doing the comms was pretty simple. The approvals process in government is a lot more strict. So yeah, you do have to jump through more hoops to be able to get your point across and get things cleared. There is that bit of time,” she said.
It doesn’t help that there are still strict deadlines to be met, making any kind of innovation difficult to execute as you run through your regular tasks. But Caroline has a trick up her sleeve: good data.
Data is innovation’s best friend
Caroline discovered this last year when she was thrust into a position as Assistant Director for Social Media. She noticed that while they were meeting targets, they just weren’t hitting the mark with their audience.
“I did sort of notice that I was getting a bit of push back to do something different, so I thought, well I need to have the backing and some data behind me to drive this. So, I organised for us to do an external audit into our social media channels to see what we were doing well and what we weren’t,” she said.
“So having that data backing was able to be a really good way to push through a new strategy for us which we’ve implemented this year and it’s working quite well for us,” she said.
“We still have a way to go, so it’s still in that infancy stage of getting people on board. But we will be able to back them up with data to say this is working really well,” Caroline said.
Caroline will be one of the speakers at the upcoming Public Sector Comms Week. Catch her and other speakers by securing your ticket today.
