Media Parents

The Media Parents Back to Work Scheme 2017 winners – Emma Sayce, Josie Besbrode, Kate Cheeseman and Nicola Kingscote have been making the most of the Edinburgh TV Festival’s opportunities to network both in person and on social media. Here follows a quick blast through their experiences with a bit of twitter knowhow on the side. Emma Sayce used her mat leave to upskill in social media (you can learn at home, online, for free) and now it’s a useful free tool for both TV companies wanting to increase audiences and for all freelancers wanting to make connections.

Scripted Director Kate Cheeseman, SP Nicola Kingscote, PD Josie Besbrode and Edit Producer Emma Sayce skyping Media Parents Director Amy Walker at Edinburgh TV Festival

Because the Edinburgh TV Festival offers such a great opportunity to meet many programme makers in one place, Kate Cheeseman @kmcheeseman began using twitter to network before the festival began – as soon as she knew she had won her Media Parents Back to Work Scheme place courtesy of Channel4′s Spotlight on Directors 2017 initiative.

Announcing her attendance at the TV Festival c/o the Back to Work Scheme Kate tagged in the handles for both @mediaparents and @EdinburghTVFest in order to be seen beyond her own feed. This can be done using individual addresses or hashtags – anything tagged with #channel4 is immediately posted in the feeds in the lifts at Channel 4′s HQ – at the festival #edTVfest is a useful hashtag to find and follow other TV production people. Having seen the tweets by Kate and @EmmaSayce, tagging in her sponsor, we @mediaparents looked up the active people using #edTVfest. (twitter posts are read from the bottom up).

Who should we spot online tweeting about #edTVfest but @tcmbigcheese – Sugar Films’ MD Pat Younge. As Pat has been supportive of Media Parents Back to Work Scheme in the past we sent a closed tweet (using Pat’s handle @tcmbigcheese at the start of the tweet so that only people following Pat and media parents would see the tweet in their feeds) asking Pat to meet the #backtowork team at the festival. Pat replied with another closed tweet that you can see in our feed above, asking us to DM (direct message you can send if you both follow each other on twitter) so that he could share his contact details privately in order to meet the team.

It worked!

PD Josie Besbrode @Besbrode took the opportunity to thank for the meeting Pat by tagging him in a photo with her fellow #backtowork winner Emma Sayce, and also to publicise a tip from Pat. As did SP Nicola Kingscote:

Nicola’s tweet was retweeted by @mediaparents with an extra tip – and you can see above @NicolaKingscot1′s tweet that several people followed @mediaparents after that interaction – harnessing the networks of the TV Festival, Pat, Media Parents and Nicola to gain a wider audience. Knowledge from the sessions shared by the Back to Work team was also helpful for TV people who couldn’t attend the festival – and it’s worth knowing that twitter and all social media is seen and read by a much greater proportion of people than those who interact with it.

You can read the takeout from the sessions tagged in the @mediaparents feed on Twitter, and our Back to Work Team will be blogging their best bits here over the next week. Below Emma Sayce is using photos to give atmosphere and context to her tips and also opening a tweet using a . in front of @versharma’s handle, to increase its potential audience rather than closing it with the handle at the front.

Tweets are read, liked and retweeted and can spark debate.

We did a shout out to ask people to meet the Back to Work Team which really worked – letting people know where you are physically can lead to useful meet ups.

Letting people know that the Back to Work Team were at the TV Festival’s first night party certainly had results.

Emma Sayce met Bella Lambourne, Endemol Shine’s Global Director of HR. Huge thanks here to Bella for sponsoring the Media Parents Back to Work scheme for everyone of it’s five years, it makes a massive difference to talented people on their way back in. Emma used the opportunity to promote Endemol Shine’s support for flexible working. As did the team when they met Sam Lawrence, MD of Monkey. (Who I didn’t realise was a woman until now).

Good job the Festival organisers publicised their own photo booth…

Thanks for responding ladies…

Well done to the whole team on making the most of this opportunity to network and connect. The Back to Work team will soon be posting their own blogs here, followed by creating their individual back to work plans for use at their mentoring sessions. Please follow them on twitter and here to hear more about their journey.

Congratulations to the Back to Work Winners, wishing you all the greatest success on your way back in

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