By Wachira Njenge
More often than not, you will rarely find the following group of service providers in front of scenes – video photographers, sound system, social media handlers and so on.
As I learnt, there are skill sets needed to pull through such an important task. They include excellent English writing and editing skills. This is because most conversations are held in the queen’s lingua. You need to be up to the task ensuring that you avoid grammatical mistakes, your listening antennae needs to be alert to ensure that you listen keenly.
Recently, I had a rare privilege of working behind the scenes with my colleagues as a social media handler. My role was to generate, aggregate and distribute content on various social media platforms in the best way possible.
Also needed is strong organisational skills and a detail-oriented personality. For you to manoeuvre through the social media landscape, you have to be organised. As information goes out, you need to stay afloat and know which content needs to be posted on which platform.
Equally important is the ability to work under pressure. This is the mother of all. Sometimes you will be required to go beyond the call of duty. While your duty remains to post across social media, video/photography skills can come in handy where you are called upon to capture a candid moment and have it posted on line promptly.
It is important to have good communication and interpersonal skills. Like all human interactions, events require that you exercise a level of tolerance. You need to be respectful when interacting with your teammates all this will assist in creating synergy.
All this was geared towards promoting conversations around World Press Freedom Day #WPFD2023 and the 11th edition of Annual Journalism Excellence Awards #AJEA2023 organised by Media Council of Kenya.
Imagine in a scenario where you need that photographer to send you images that you need to compliment that all important tweet, then both of you can’t seem to agree on because of lack of proper interpersonal skills.
The two events brought together close to 600 players from the government, private sector, media, media consumers, civil society, and partners to share data and information, reflect on the issues affecting press freedom, draw lessons, and develop action plans for the sector.
Then, there’s the ability to meet deadlines. Among other skills, the thing about churning out content on social media you need to be timely. To avoid giving stale information, you need to work swiftly, in some cases within the time frame that the event is happening.
It was indeed an honour being part of Media Council of Kenya signature events.
The writer is a social media assistant at the Media Council of Kenya.