I created a successful social media online presence and began an extensive website re-design schedule at B&ES to tackle existing issues with the content management system (CMS), to incorporate additional multimedia within the sites.

The change in design and workflow helped to join up the messages from the Association and by creating a social media strategy I was able to include corporate messages into weekly e-newsletters for subscribers, controlled circulation lists and the press and included these messages across social media. I predominately focused on Twitter and Linkedin to generate interest in forthcoming webinars, events and messages from the Association on all matters to do with best practice.

I have continued to attend seminars and workshops on social media best practice over the past few years primarily through the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) to keep abreast of new techniques and trends and to hear the views of well respected and successful campaign managers. Hearing the views of how to best use social media from some of the most successful brands both in the UK and globally has been particularly useful in such as learning how search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media can have a real impact on ROI.

Throughout the rebranding process I maintained the 'business as usual' public relations of the Association with press briefings and releases. I managed freelancers, external bloggers, and commissioned content for the trade and national press which also included ghost writing for the Chief Executive and President. I also launched a highly popular new 'renewables' forum to discuss sustainability best practice

The impact of the social media strategy helped to drive traffic to the B&ES website, and also raised the profile of the Association following the rebranding which could be clearly quantified by the number of re-tweets from the trade press and other related associations. Additionally there was a rise in participation with members and an increase in 'member engagement' through the new Key Issues Linkedin portal allowing members to discuss some of the top issues currently facing the construction and building services industry.

The new online strategy allowed the business to embrace new ways of improving its accountability such as through using webinars, which in turn raised the profile of the Association and improved it's public affairs credentials. The increased interactive relationship between the Association and members resulted in a marked improvement in the quality of the feedback given to Government through 'calls for evidence'.

The primarily goal of the Linkedin group was to create an online forum that would be used to generate interest in upcoming events and webinars and create input for consultation responses to the Department of Energy & Climate Change. Likewise the company's Linkedin group has become increasingly popular and given members (and their employees) a window into the work of the Association and highlighted recent activiity from lobbying to book launches.