There are challenges facing PR no matter the organisation. In the third sector these can come in different ways.
by Mark Morton
I love that there are no two days the same in my job.
I'm the digital media manager at Epilepsy Action, and I work to make everything we do the best so we can support people with epilepsy, their families and friends and anyone with an interest in the condition.
My role in the digital media team (there's three of us in total) is to work with colleagues to show them how can we achieve our aims online. And then, we work with everyone to make it happen.
Nearly all my colleagues work in the same building as me, so I aim for talking to be the major component of my day. A meeting just a chat that happens so you don't disturb others, especially with our confidential helpline 20 feet from my desk.
I have three systems that tell me what I need to do each day. Outlook tells me what other people would like me to do. Remember The Milk tells me about those recurring tasks I have plus the things I can defer to get them out of my inbox. And we're increasingly using Trello for project planning. Oh… that's five systems if you include Hootsuite (to tell me what's happening on social media) and our
intranet (which I'm responsible for).
The re-active bit of my day tends to revolves around social media. Do I need to work with a colleague to draft a reply to a web comment? If another team wants something on Facebook, how can we make it engaging so the update goes as far as possible? Add to that, I try and do as much reading as possible, and I do my best (and often fail) to avoid the departmental stash of biscuits and cake.
Mark Morton is digital media manager at Epilepsy Action.