Voting & Non-Voting Member Portal

With Regard to Promoting Alumni Events on Players Social Media

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January 21st 2020:

We received the attached anonymous email yesterday:

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Anonymous Email Message: 

I've noticed a lot of social media cross-posting on behalf of members/alumni of QPT where Players promotes other groups/performances/bands/etc. through social media. How is it determined what Players posts on social media relating to this? So many of it's members and alumni are involved in different endeavours that could all benefit from the extra promotion, yet I only see a select few consistently (if at all) promoted.

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Preliminary Response from the Players Board of Directors:

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Thank you for your question and directing our attention to this matter. We do not have a formal social media policy regarding when and how we promote other events (whether they be events that an alumni is involved with or otherwise), but over the next few days and weeks we will discuss this as a Board and will consider putting a policy together. Our marketing and communications committee will be taking the lead in this regard.

We are fortunate to have a very active and creative community and when we can balance promoting our own events and messaging with also supporting our community, we would hope to do so. 

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February 20th 2020:

Final Response from the Players Board of Directors

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The Board met last night and discussed the anonymous email above. We reviewed the email, the proposed new guidelines, and the results of a detailed examination of all of our social media posts and emails over the past 13 months.

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For context, we feel it is important to share the results of that examination: 

Between January 1, 2019 and January 31, 2020 there were a total of 1,268 posts by Players to our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Feed and Instagram Stories, and emails to alumni. Each of these 1,268 posts/emails was reviewed for content and placed into the below categories:

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95.8% (1,215) were for official Players purposes

2.6% (33) were to promote our charities

0.9% (12) were notes of congratulations on shows / marriages

0.6% (8) were mourning deaths of celebrities / remembrance day

0.4% (5) were cross-promotions with outside groups who promoted us in return

0.4% (5) were for direct promotion of outside groups

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Note: We did not examine situations where Players social accounts "liked" a third party post as that does not appear to be the focus of the email.

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Note: A small number of posts were placed in more than one category due to overlapping content.

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Of the 5 instances of direct promotion over the last 13 months, 1 was in an email to alumni promoting 2 charitable events run by alumni, and the other 4 took the form of Instagram Stories in which a show that an alumni was participating in was promoted for a 24 hour period before automatically disappearing from our story.

Players did not, during the past 13 months, promote outside alumni events via our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram feed. 

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Considering the facts above, the Board provides the following direct responses to the three components of the anonymous email:

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I've noticed a lot of social media cross-posting on behalf of members/alumni of QPT where Players promotes other groups/performances/bands/etc. through social media.

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Contrary to the statement above, the Board is of the opinion that our social media has not engaged in a significant amount of promotion of non-Players events. We have engaged in some, to be sure, but 5 out of 1,215 posts amounts to less than half of one percent of all posts. Furthermore, the Board finds no fault or error in those 5 posts, and stands behind all of our posts.

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How is it determined what Players posts on social media relating to this?

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Previously there was no set of guidelines.

The vast majority of posts have been focused on promoting our events and building our brand. In the rare cases where we did post about outside events, we did so guided by what made sense to us in the moment and the company's overall principles.

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In response to this email, we have now produced a set of guidelines which are attached below and will inform what we post going forward.

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So many of it's members and alumni are involved in different endeavours that could all benefit from the extra promotion, yet I only see a select few consistently (if at all) promoted.

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We, of course, love all of our alumni and are inspired by their continued involvement in the arts. We also recognize that these alumni could benefit from extra promotion from our channels.

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That being said, Players does not wish to become a platform for the promotion of outside events; our focus should be on our own events and our own priorities. So, if anything, you might notice a reduction in the amount of promotion we provide to outside events as a result of the questions posted and comments made within this anonymous email.

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As well, the above sentence could be seen to imply that there has been some favouritism in terms of which alumni have received promotional help from us. The Board categorically denies any such favouritism took place. Players has over 200 alumni and we cannot be expected to be aware of and promote everything that they are participating in - nor have we ever indicated that we would do so. 

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In conclusion, we wish to thank the anonymous respondent for raising this issue and sparking this discussion. We take all comments, concerns and questions of our members very seriously. We are pleased that this portal has given you a forum within which to express yourself, and we hope that we have provided a fulsome response to your email.

We also commit to publicly revisit this issue at our next AGM should other members like to provide their thoughts on the issue and/or our response.

Please find attached guidelines for future social media posts as approved by the Board:

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