MARKETING
Communication and marketing are both complicated and hard professions. Lucky for me, I was not informed of this when I started - not as if it would have stopped me.
Faculty
The Faculty's marketing office consisted of two people: the marketing manager and me. This was for a 3000+ student Faculty on the biggest university in Hungary. But as it turned out, this power-duo could do anything, and the Faculty's communication quality increased rapidly, day by day. I was involved in every possible task at hand, and thus learned very quickly.
Social media marketing techniques, increasing reach and engagement. Content planning, community management, feedback handling, chat automatization, peak time analysis.
Faculty image planning and graphic design for social media, physical banners, t-shirts, merchandise, brochures, magazines.
Coordinating volunteers at photo shoots, video tours, podcasts, live videos, online conferences; and coordinating these events as a whole.
Video and livestream direction, production.
Relevant news scouting, competition research.
Training volunteers to have the knowledge and soft skills to be able to represent the Faculty at public events, schools.
Automatization tasks using web- and programming skills. Gaining experience in Microsoft stack (eg. automating registrations and on-site verification using Forms, Excel, PowerAutomate, PowerApps).
And so much more... I just cant put it into words how exhausting this was. I wasn't sure I wanted to work in marketing ever again, but since then, when a task comes here and there, I come to realize I still like it.
Students' Union
The communication of the Students' Union is vastly different from any kind of company marketing. There is no profit, there is nothing to sell. The "customers" are in need of the information – but they don't trust the source. In Hungary, "HÖK" (SU) became an infamous word after representatives at famous universities spent several more years in office than they should have, and pocketed whole fortunes from public money. These incidents put a stamp on Students' Unions, and people hate you for being a representative, even though these incidents didn't happen at your university, or not even in your county! Well this was the state of our public relations when I became President of the Communications Committee. I was excited, eager, ready for anything, and I had to spend my next year cleaning up the mess of people I have never seen, from cities I've never been to. In this environment I made the choice to be persistent instead of giving up, and after a year of hard work, the difference was very clear. Students at our Faculty started to trust the SU, they started to look for the information provided by us, and our reach skyrocketed, while students became more informed than ever. I am, to this day, proud of what I've been able to do during my 1.5 years as Committee President.
Completely reframing the image of the Students' Union (both in message and in visuals), making it the most trusted source of information on the university.
Managing the committee, tracking tasks, scheduling and leading meetings.
Planning and executing communication strategies, preparing for crisis events.
Managing public affairs, public relations.
Taking part in all the operative tasks, like graphic design, content writing, video editing.
Creating whole issues of publications, being both editor in chief and layout editor.
Communication tasks regarding the Freshmen Camp, creating promotional materials, kickoff starting packages for freshmen with university starting informations, leading the production of the hype-up videos – with practically no budget.
The situation regarding my dormitory was very similar, I did the same as at the Faculty's SU.