Social Media Marketing Experience at Melbourne BioInnovation Student Initiative

From March 2022 to November 2022, I volunteered at Melbourne BioInnovation Student Initiative (MBSI) — a student organisation based in Melbourne that aims to bring people who are interested in both medical technology and biological technology together regardless of their background — as their Publications and Promotions Coordinator.

This meant that I was in charge of the organisation's social media accounts, — LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter — their monthly newsletter which was managed using MailChimp, and creating the graphics for both using Canva.

One of the biggest events that I had to promote for the organisation was their annual Vinuri De Silva BioDesign competition, which was a 10-week program that would introduce participants to medtech innovation through a series of workshops — guiding them from the discovery of unmet clinical needs to the development of an innovative solution and a business case.

Other than the initial promotion of the event to encourage interested participants to sign up, I was posting every week during that 10-week period to promote each workshop and seminar that they were hosting, before finally capping it off with their pitch night — where the teams would pitch their ideas and compete for prize money.

To make it easier for myself, I developed a template for each social media — namely square post format for Instagram & Twitter and wider posts for Facebook — so that I could reuse them each week. I did try my best to change the graphics subtly so that it wouldn't look completely the same each time and make people think I was spamming.

I also kept to a colour scheme specifically designed for the competition as the BioDesign competition was named after Vinuri De Silva and the colours were said to be her favourite.

I learnt how to use Meta Business Suite in order to track what was the most optimal time to post and how to schedule posts to go up at those times, MailChimp to write email campaigns which was fun and allowed me to flex my writing skills, and how to copywrite for social media posts making sure that my tone was fun yet professional as my target audience was fellow university students.

I also honed my leadership skills and communication skills here as I had to coordinate things with my fellow Publications team member and ensure that we were on the right track by having regular meetings. Furthermore, I was always liaising with people from other departments through Slack to help them promote events and recruitment calls for their departments or projects.

The one thing I wish I had done more of during my time at MBSI was taking photos and videos at events to show the people behind the organisation and make things feel more personal.

Overall, I had a great time at MBSI and learnt so much during my time there and I hope I can use my skills in social media marketing, copywriting and/or graphic design in a future role!