The scariest phrase I’ve heard recently? “Are you OK if we video this for YouTube?”

“Are you OK if we video this for YouTube?”

This was exactly what I heard at the start of my talk over at The Juice Academy.

I was asked by the lovely Anna and Charley whether I’d be happy to sit in front of a group of budding social media superstars and give them the wealth of my experience as Wilko's Social Media Co-Ordinator. My pleasure!

With the addition of Dom Burch, who heads up Asda’s social media, this looked set to be a unique experience for all present.

Now, I’m not one to shy away from an audience, but these guys are a tough crowd – they know their Twitter from their Tumblr with their eyes closed.

I started with an overview of how we got where we are today, considering that social media didn’t even exist when we started our careers, before discussing what attributes make a good Social Media Bod – namely a sense of humour, unshockability (for those not-infrequent comments) and impeccable persuasion skills, since you’ll undoubtedly have to touch base with every area of the business with this position!

I shared a timeline overview of our Wilko Halloween campaign (my favourite) and was able to show just how much thought, planning and preparation goes into a large-scale social media campaign, how many departments you need to involve and also how organised you need to be to ensure it all goes as planned.

The final Q&A session saw both Dom and myself sharing the most interesting comments received (censored) and how we would handle them. This was a great note to end the session on and I hope the students found the session as worthwhile as I certainly did.

Rachel Hardwick, Social Media Co-Ordinator at Wilko