Marketing and PR Training
This week has been very interesting for me. On Wednesday and Thursday, I took part in a couple of training sessions to help with my work, including a two hour webinar, focused on WeChat and other Chinese social media platforms. This was mostly to help with interacting with international students, as well as getting to know platforms that I might be working with in the future. Next week and the week after will have additional sessions which I hope to attend. I also attended an online training workshop run by Bruntwood Works, an organisation that we have partnered with before, for marketing and PR training. This was great for developing the strategy I have already done for our social media presence.
After having my booklet draft reviewed, I am going to expand on the history of gin-making in Birmingham and the West Midlands area. Wei has asked some interesting questions in response to my work. We thought about adding some information about how the large distilleries like Langley’s have gotten into gin making and how they have changed through the years. I am at about the halfway point for the draft and I am hoping to get most of the first draft completed in the next week or two. I am then hoping to revise the draft and collaborate with Wei and Chen to fit the content to a book template.
Following Wei’s meeting with me last Wednesday, I am planning to contact the gin clubs to see whether they are happy with us including them in the booklet and whether they would like copies to display in their venue. We are hoping to collaborate with the clubs included in the book to build relationships with more local businesses. I am also going to use the Facebook page to communicate with University of Birmingham alumni - hopefully, this will be a more effective way of using the page, as our current best way of reaching ‘customers’ is Instagram and Facebook tends to fall by the wayside.
Finally, I am planning how we might make a series of vlogs celebrating gin bars in Birmingham. Wei is keen on this idea and I think it’ll be a great way of supporting bars as they reopen after struggling through the summer. When I get back to Birmingham, I will hopefully be able to help film these at the relevant venues.