Groups range from traditional undergraduate students to international postgraduate students and everything in between but you need to spend time making the message relevant to each group. How will the issue affect them and what can they do to get involved?
Ben Kinross, Student Liaison Officer at Basingstoke College of Technology describes how they changed their clothes and language to suit the audience “All things to all men”: Wear a suit to meetings with people who wear suits and a hoody to meetings with people who wear hoodies. Again this is more about communication than message, the exec and I met with all sorts of different types of people and wearing appropriate clothing and speaking appropriate language meant that there was less of a barrier between us and them. We needed to be prepared for all our meetings, smart dress and papers for people who communicate like that.”
Darryl Light, Finance and Commercial Officer at Cardiff University Students’ Union provides this as one of his top tips for new officers and campaigners “Facebook / Twitter can be really good tools if used correctly, also an all student email. Make sure it’s targeted though, and not just a general blasé email.”
Next lesson learned: Create visual elements