Social media posting is just like a good G&T…

MARKETING

MARY PERRY Owner ME Marketing and Events

LET’S TALK ABOUT frequency of social media posts. Initially, you need to decide what’s right for you, how often are you wanting to show up? Twice a week? More? Set a realistic goal – consistency is what we are trying to achieve here. And Facebook likes this.

I like to compare frequency to a good gin and tonic. (Trust me!)

The gin: A well-constructed post with a clear objective (relationship building, sales, company focus) accompanied by some attention-grabbing photos or video with all the twiddly bits of tagging pages and checking in at locations.

The tonic: Posting it at the right time. Using the right hashtags to ensure engagement and reach.

Perfect! It’s punchy, it’s grabbed attention and all your work can be enjoyed. But what if you add more? Let’s say you add more tonic and dilute our perfect G&T (criminal!) ing it, eg. before opening guard doors ensure that safety glasses are worn.

When you have a sporadic approach to social media or, more commonly, have too many team members with access, you end up with lots of random posts, no clear message and too much of one objective.

We still need to be reactive and there will always be content that is last min ute, but try to keep the majority strong and punchy. Just like a good gin and tonic, don’t dilute your message!

Chicken and egg?

As they are similar, many safety managers are confused as to which comes first or even if both documents need to be completed. In fact, you cannot write a method statement if you do not know what the hazards are, so it’s essential to do your risk assessment first and then define the safest way of performing a medium to high-risk task from beginning to completion.

How do they complement each other?

A risk assessment simply looks at the hazards that are presented and suggests control measures to try to reduce them. A method statement uses that information and produces a step-bystep instruction on how to undertake the task safely.

A risk assessment identifies and controls the hazards and a method statement is an instruction on how to complete a task safely.