Michael Purcell, Head of Marketing at Southern Regional College was recently awarded the Social Media Campaign of the Year award – sponsored by Toyota Manufacturing UK – at the Diversity and Inclusion Heroes Awards hosted in November.
During the summer of 2019, Southern Regional College (SRC) ran a social media campaign to promote women working in the STEM and construction sectors. The college had struggled to obtain applications from females for these predominantly male dominated apprenticeship areas, so they recognised that a more targeted approach was necessary for their 2019 summer recruitment drive.
The social media campaign aimed to reach and engage women, with the goal of increasing applications for civil engineering and surveying apprenticeships at the college by 20 per cent.
For the campaign, the SRC marketing team decided to highlight the stories of two local female apprentices currently working within the civil engineering and surveying sectors. These apprentices were delighted to be involved by sharing their stories and encouraging others.
The campaign was created using imagery and messages that would resonate with young women. Quotes were gathered from both of the apprentices that aimed to inspire, motivate, and encourage potential female apprentices to submit an application form, for example, “Choosing a Surveying Apprenticeship at SRC was the best career move I have made.” The quotes ran alongside photos of each female apprentice at work. The quotes and images were chosen to instil a ‘you can do it too’ message, which resonated very strongly with SRC’s key audience.
The posts, which ran on Facebook and Twitter, were geographically and demographically targeted to reach females between the ages of 16–25, all living within the college’s catchment area which covered counties Down and Armagh.
The campaign was highly successful, generating a 66 per cent increase in applications to the surveying apprenticeship and an increase of 150 per cent in applications for the civil engineering apprenticeship, with applications by females increasing by 11 per cent.
Congratulations to Southern Regional College for their award!
