Module 3 Intro by Tara

This is my first blog, and I hope I published it correctly....

I am the Internal Communications Manager for Civeo - a global workforce accommodation specialist. This is a new role within the organisation, and at this time there are three on the team - me, myself and I. Together 'we' lead the planning, development and implementation of company-wide employee communications initiatives. This includes the analysis of new and/or improved methods of communicating with staff, which is where the enrolment into Effective Social Media Communication comes into play.

With an audience of more than 3,500 geographically dispersed, culturally distinctive and technologically diverse employees, communications can be a challenge. Approximately 75% of my workforce is "non-wired" or "remote", meaning that their job is not at a desk or even in an office. These employees typically work in manufacturing, transportation or housekeeping roles often in very geographically remote areas. Nor do they have a company-issued computers or mobile devices. Did I mention the communication challenges? :-)

I currently manage my company's social media recruiting platforms (Facebook careers page and LinkedIn) as well as contribute to the corporate social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook corporate page, etc.). These platforms are primarily used for communicating and engaging with potential staff (candidates/recruits) and not for connecting with current employees.

Our organisation is going through a large amount of change at the moment. Having recently spun-off from our parent company to create separate stand-alone, and publicly traded, company has left the organisation with a plethora of communications needs. Both inside as well as outside the company.

I graduated from the UofA with a B.Com in Marketing back in 2003 and have worked in the field of Marketing since. While I have dabbled in the SM arena since 2007, I find that there is still so much more to learn and discover. Pursuing a Social Media Communications citation is a beneficial, and necessary, path to this discovery.

I am hoping to be able to use the teachings from this course to enhance the development of my current communications plans and to be able to develop my company's first-ever social media strategy. In addition I am excited to begin exploring the idea of using social media to communicate and engage employees that have, thus far, been "unreachable" by traditional communications tools.

Thanks for taking the time to read my introduction. Looking forward to meeting all of you on Thursday.

This is a copy from my original blogpost: here