From Instagram posts and event announcements to promotional videos and campaign planning, much of what students see from MARUG starts behind the scenes with the PR & Promotion officer. In this role, Elke is responsible for how the association presents itself to the outside world. Through social media, visual content and coordinated campaigns, she ensures that MARUG’s activities reach students and remain recognisable as part of one strong brand. She shared insights into managing the association’s image, coordinating promotion across committees and turning creative ideas into visible campaigns.
Managing MARUG’s Online Presence
One of the main responsibilities within PR & Promotion is managing MARUG’s social media channels. This includes the main MARUG Instagram account, but also supporting the many committee accounts connected to events throughout the year. Each committee has its own platform where events and activities are promoted. Elke works closely with these committees to guide their content and ensure it aligns with MARUG’s overall style and communication strategy. Elke regularly meets with the committees to discuss what they want to post and how they want to promote their events. Besides Instagram, platforms like TikTok are also used to increase visibility and awareness among students.
Creating a Recognisable Brand
Maintaining a consistent visual identity is an important part of the role. After every event, photos are collected, edited and uploaded to MARUG’s website and social media channels. Using tools like Lightroom, Elke ensures that the images follow the same visual style and include MARUG’s branding.
“We want people to immediately recognise that something belongs to MARUG,” she says.
To achieve this, creativity and innovation play an important role. Using specific templates is a practical way to ensure visual consistency. Whether it is an event announcement, a campaign post or a recap of an activity, these elements help create a recognisable identity across all channels.
Planning Content and Campaigns
Promotion within MARUG requires careful planning. Depending on the size of an event, promotion can start weeks or even a month in advance.
This planning ensures that students encounter the event multiple times before it takes place, which increases the visibility and success of MARUG initiatives.
Content is shared across different formats, including posts, stories and announcements. Stories play an important role in keeping followers updated on a daily basis, while posts are used for more central announcements.
Measuring Reach and Projects
Beyond creating content, PR & Promotion also involves monitoring the performance of posts. Engagement, reach, views and other relevant data are tracked to understand how well campaigns perform.
Different advertising strategies are explored to reach a wider audience, and careful budget planning also plays a role. By analysing how posts perform, Elke can determine whether marketing efforts effectively promote MARUG events.
One of the highlights of the year for Elke was working on the promotional videos for the board members. The project required planning, scripting and collaboration with external parties. Elke wrote the scripts and developed the ideas behind the videos. “It was really fun to work on such a large creative and organisational project,” she says.
Working with the Board
PR & Promotion works closely with the rest of the board throughout the year. Coordination with other board members ensures that communication around events, tickets and announcements is published at the right time.
“We often check things together before they go online,” Elke explains. “It helps to have multiple people look at a post to make sure everything is correct.”
This teamwork ensures that MARUG’s communication remains clear, accurate and professional.
Learning to Balance Creativity and Responsibility
For the PR & Promotion officer, creativity and attention to detail are essential. Because the role is highly visible, it also comes with responsibility. Posts represent the association and therefore need to be accurate and visually strong.
Over time, this responsibility helped Elke develop a sharper eye for detail.
“People see everything you post,” she says. “So it needs to be exactly right.”
Since the work is highly visible and open to different opinions, feedback is an important part of the process. Working with different perspectives taught Elke to balance feedback with confidence in her own creative vision — a valuable skill for future projects.
The board year also changed how she looks at marketing in everyday life. Advertisements, posters and campaigns now catch her attention in a different way.
“When I see an advertisement now, I immediately start thinking about how it was made and why certain choices were made,” she explains.
This growing awareness of marketing strategy and visual communication has sparked an interest in exploring the field further in the future.
Making MARUG Visible
PR & Promotion plays a crucial role in ensuring that MARUG remains visible to students throughout the year. From event announcements to creative campaigns, the role shapes how the association communicates with its members.
For Elke, the experience has been both creative and educational. By coordinating promotion across committees, developing new ideas and managing communication, she has helped bring MARUG’s activities to life both online and offline.
Behind every post, story and design lies careful planning, creativity and collaboration, turning strategy into the details that shape MARUG’s communication.