The General Optical Council (GOC) wanted to understand how social media should fit with their exciting plans for a new intranet, CRM and more online consultation with the ophthalmic community.
Our ongoing work with regulators means that we have a keen sense of the challenges they face online. This includes managing the balance between promoting standards and promoting their sector.
Working with the senior leadership and communications team, we:
- produced an alpha digital communications strategy, using the GOC priorities as our starting point
- interviewed key staff and ran a workshop to understand what different people needed from social media
- ran a roadmap session, to determine what GOC needed to have tested on social, and by when
- produced a beta digital communications blueprint for them to follow, iterate and improve
Communications activity from regulators is often (understandably) cautious. We were able to convince GOC that
- the same social media channels could be used to consult their audience, as well as provide serious updates on investigations
- it’s always better to start digital projects small and then scale, using simple platforms and tools
An important part of this project was finding ways to get the whole organisation using digital channels, with the small communications team acting as a centre of excellence rather than having to take responsibility for all publishing.
