Tag Archives: strategy

No such thing as a free lunch

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Mashable published this article today outlining what has been the topic of conversation for the past few months – the free Facebook lunch is over.

This will be much better for the site as a whole.  In general the quality of content on Facebook could definitely be improved.  It could be more strategic and harder working for brands.  More relevant and “on brand” – less of the generic “Hit Like if you are happy it’s Friday” posts. More valuable and rewarding to the fans and just more considered overall.  In my experience the amount of time a marketing manager will spend making sure that the artwork for a press ad is perfect, or the edit of a TV ad is bang on, is in direct proportion to the amount of money it is costing.

So maybe if Facebook requires an investment, more time will be invested in creating a better page and Facebook will keep going from strength to strength.

Small businesses shouldn’t have to struggle

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This article from Silicon Republic demonstrates the need for social media but reinforces the fact that many small companies struggle to implement it.  It does eat into your staff’s time, but I can show you ways to create an efficient social media strategy that minimises time spent and resources used.  Social media is a fabulous way to keep consumers up to date and aware of your services and products and needn’t be the headache that pushes you away from it.

Ways I can help:

  • Identify essential social media channels
  • Develop a content strategy that pushes out your key messages
  • Determine the most suitable candidates in the organisation to post, monitor and maintain the sites – or do that for you
  • Workshop a conversation calendar that takes the head-scratching away from what to post

social media, small businesses

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/30008-small-businesses-struggle-w#

Corporate Facebook page parody

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This Facebook page is doing the rounds on Twitter… @rickygervais just sent it to @Glinner – two of the biggest tweeters in the UK.facebook, parody, social media, strategy, content strategy

Proving the rather obvious point that brands need interesting and relevant content and not just blatant self-promoting drone and facebook, parody, social media, strategy, content strategy
quick wins all the time.   It’s pretty easy to keep posting up photo caption competitions, photos of sunset beaches and cute cat videos in a bid to get “likes” and “people talking about you”.  This social media whoring will not benefit the brand in any sense – whatever the communication objectives are, and it’s unlikely people will even remember the brand name even if they do engage and like and share and so on.

The very core of my business is establishing communication pillars that will help sustain a brand’s social media (and other) presence long-term.  Certainly branding is an important part of the mix, but as communications with consumers evolve, the key is to find a way to present interesting and valuable content to your target audience that will consistently put your brand in a relevant light.

Take South Africa Uncorked – a project I am working on to promote South African wines in Ireland.  In a nutshell, we establish a very clear target – male foodies who are interested in wine and who would like to broaden their horizons and improve their wine tasting skills.  Our objective is to put South African wines on their consideration list when they are shopping for wine to go with a meal that they are preparing.  The facts are firstly that this target is currently more familiar with wines from other countries, and secondly that South African wine is a robust tipple, best appreciated with food.  And so we map out our content strategy to give this cohort tips about wine, recipes that go well with South African wines, information about the country and its wine heritage.  We’ve loads to write about now, and the aim is that it will resonate with our audience and build a connection that goes above and beyond, at best generic entertainment, at worst spam.

Question is will Facebook take it down or will they have a sense of humour about it?facebook, parody, social media, strategy, content strategy

Do you need help with your social media?

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USING SOCIAL MEDIA is a hygiene factor for companies nowadays – an affordable and effective way to communicate with your brand ambassadors, customers and stakeholders. All these different channels are revolutionising how you can interact with, inform, help and and learn from your customers, an amazing tool for rewarding advocates and placating whingers.

In Ireland alone, we are massive users of social media and it is a missed opportunity for any company not to be present and interacting with their consumers.  Did you know that we are the fourth heaviest users of Facebook in the world (the heaviest in the English speaking world) and Snapchat has the most penetration in Ireland?  You only have to listen to the call to action on radio ads – you are no longer being sent to the website (a static non-interactive forum) but to their Facebook page.

No company is too small to have a presence on social media; whether it’s to help boost your search engine rankings, act as a customer service tool, learn what your customers want, engage a new target audience, or simply to have an online presence. But the thought of entering into this ever-changing, massively expanding world is daunting: Which sites should my business be on? How can I find the time to keep them up to date? What should I say? It is much more manageable than you think.  With my help you can soon be totally immersed in this world, and wondering why you didn’t do this sooner.

So if you are in need of help with setting yourselves up in the most strategically effective, cost and time efficient way on social media, let’s talk.

WHAT I CAN do for your brand is:

  • Analyse your company structure and business objectives and work up an affordable, hard-working communications and social media strategy
  • Recommend the right media for your business (effective channel strategy)
  • Advise what to say on them and when (distinctive communications and content strategy, tone of voice, conversation calendar)
  • Select the right people within your company who will be responsible for maintaining and monitoring the sites and provide them with the training they need to work as efficiently as possible. I can help you with monitoring the sites, interacting with your followers and find appropriate and engaging content for the sites for the first couple of months until you find your feet.
  • OR I can provide content and do all the work for you – handing in a KPI report to an agreed schedule.

I ALSO WORK ON A CONSULTANCY BASIS WITH AGENCIES, so if your agency needs a dig out during busy campaign periods, help with strategic pitch work, or want to have a chat about how best to set up a social media function in-house, please give me a shout.

I CAN PROVIDE TRAINING AND WORKSHOPS if your team needs to be more conversant about social media. I create bespoke sessions that get them familiar with the business tools – how the different channels are operated, how they can be used effectively with best-in-class case studies. Some of the training sessions I’ve done include:

  • Brand strategy – creating a tone of voice, channel and conversation strategies for your social media
  • Online PR – how to manage your brand’s reputation, and what to do in a crisis
  • Personal brand – how to build your own online presence and reputation
  • Facebook and Twitter for Businesses
  • Snapchat – talking to Millenials
  • Getting the most out of LinkedIn
  • Content is King – how to create and manage engaging and strategic content
  • Everything you wanted to know about Social Media but were too shy to ask (an overview!)

BUILDING PERSONAL BRANDS is also something I’ve helped Clients with.  Due to the confidentiality of this area, I haven’t included this in my CLIENTS page.  This can include reputation management, increasing your online presence through social media and getting you an impressive personal KLOUT score or just teaching you the basics in a very informal and flexible way (lunch hour or after work…).