Building your brand
Branding is a big subject and it can be overwhelming when you start, ask for help if you need us, we can also consult our own SU comms and creative team if we need some more guidance.
Here are some top tips for getting your brand together:
- Take photos at your events – people respond better to photos of real people at your events, don’t fill your socials with only graphics
- This creates consistency in imagery and representation of your society cross multiple platforms
- Plan your events, social media and email schedule altogether and in advance of the blocks where possible
- Be consistent with your regular events, advertise and promote early on (Provided you’ve had your activity request approved of course).
- Start small, you’re building consistency and a brand, it’s not an overnight haul
- Create brand guidelines for your whole committee which include things like fonts, colours, logo files etc
- If you want to pop into the Activities Office to sit with a coordinator and a few laptops altogether, drop in on any weekday
Social Media
Social media is an excellent tool to keep your members and interested members up to date with live feeds, regular posting and demonstrates to them what they get from getting a membership. It demonstrates your community and supports you to leave a legacy for your society. Using tools such as Hootsuite or Meta scheduling can help you schedule in advance so you don’t have to rush during exams and studies, Book a weekend to plan and schedule your output for a 6 week block to help you save time when you’re actually delivering events.
Top tips:
- Post often and be consistent
- Utilise multiple platforms
- Read through data insights to tailor to your audiences
- Be relevant – People following your society want to hear about you
- Format your output to be relevant to each platform
In person promotion
Hosting promo stalls or putting in promo shifts with your committee is essential to get that word-of-mouth advert out. Students are wanting to see more in person promotion to be able to discuss directly with a committee member rather than through a screen is important.
Hosting a promo stall is easy, you don’t need to do an activity request, but we do need you to submit a space booking request. Let us know where you’d like to host and when and we’ll check if it’s available for you.
Marketing Assets
Marketing assets help your society demonstrate quality and professionalism. Societies with marketing assets are likely to gain more members, they’re demonstrating a consistent brand and it’s a positive method of sharing information.
Marketing assets could be things as simple as rollerbanners, branded tablecloths, signage or could be more complex and specific to your society. The primary purpose of marketing assets is to grow members and build awareness for your society. Marketing assets go hand in hand with brnded merchandise which you can sell for profit but also advertises your society.
Digital Marketing assets such as event poster designs, social media image overlays, logo’s are all tools you can use to demonstrate the consistent brand you have.
When you’re ready to get some assets, let your coordinator know, we can order assets directly for you from most suppliers and can help with quality checking when you need.
Give it a Go events
GIAG’s are an excellent method to convert those who are interested in your society but haven’t quite made up their mind about getting a membership. We suggest hosting a few GIAG’s throughout the academic year.
You can tag your event on the website as a Give it a Go event so students can filter and see which of your events they can try out before getting a membership. There are 6 intakes of new students across the year which are opportunities for you to grow your society.
GIAG’s should be low-key, little commitment required by attendees and be accessible to everyone. Remember new students might not be familiar with the area or buildings, consider setting one meeting place and hosting a walking bus.
To host a GIAG please submit an activity request
Admin tools
All committee members have admin tools access once you’ve completed training and got your membership. On admin tools you can do the following to keep your branding and marketing on point:
- Update the details and logo on your webpage
- Email your committee, members, and interested members (We’ll provide you access to your society email)
- Add news articles
- Add events
There’s more but these are the primary ones you should be using on a regular basis to market your society.
We’ve got a training video on how to use elements of Admin tools in our Video training library