Helping a charity to use social media...

Recently I went to help the staff at the Helen’s Trust charity as they’ve just started using social media. Based in Bakewell, Derbyshire, they wanted to connect with a new audience in north Derbyshire and south Yorkshire. The charity helps incurably ill people stay in their own home by providing tailored support for people and their families with a range of services and help. Firstly we talked about using an appropriate tone on social media, based on their existing style from their website. We also discussed language, in particular using the word...

Training the content producers at Viadeo...

The Viadeo team have a go at re-writing some existing blog post titles, then coming up with tweets to promote them We’re fresh from our latest Sweet Retweets training session – given to the team at Viadeo who write blog posts for their website. Viadeo is a social network for professionals with over 35 million members worldwide. They blog in four languages (English, French, Spanish and Italian) and sponsor many events in the social media arena. To help them write better blog titles, tweets and Facebook posts we gave them a tailored half-day workshop. The...

Case study: The Paul Smith Optimistic so...

A couple of months ago I worked on an incredible social media campaign for Paul Smith. Partnering with youth marketing agency Latimer Digital we created a Facebook page which attracted almost 5,000 Likes in six weeks, ran a competition with over 1,000 entries and culminated in a celebrity party at a cool London venue with 50 of the winners. Here’s how we did it. Fashion house Paul Smith was launching a new fragrance called Optimistic and wanted to appeal to the 18-30 demographic using social media. Facebook was perfect: Incentive > connect with the brand >...

Want to know how to write for social med...

Want to write great web copy? Want your content to be shared, liked and retweeted? I’m running an event as part of Social Media Week London with my colleague Sue Keogh from Sookio. We’ve worked together at Yahoo!, Aol and the DCSF and between us we’ve worked for the BBC, ITV and Bauer Media (formerly Emap). We’ll be running a workshop aimed at  brand managers, journalists and bloggers with practical advice on: writing enticing blog titles crafting headlines that people will want to share getting your tweets retweeted social media dos and...

Watch out for time bandits! How your sma...

As a small business owner, I find Twitter very useful for networking. A lot of my target clients are on there so it’s a good way to break the ice and start a conversation. I’ve helped set up social media channels for a Bauer Media brand and a few smaller companies, including an estate agent and wedding dress designer. The difference between communicating as a smaller company and a large one is a blog for another day; what I’m interested in exploring today is how a small-to-medium size business can use social media channels to best effect. A ‘social...

Live blog with Matt Eltringham from the ...

Matt Eltringham is here at Sheffield University to talk to the Web MAs about how the BBC use social media. He starts by telling the group about his role at the BBC. Only half the UGC hub was up and running on July 7th 2005. They received 10-15,000 emails from all over London telling the BBC what was happening. They didn’t have the capacity to deal with all the information, but looking back they had credible information about every single bomb that morning. Users spend on average: 1 minute/day on the BBC 11 minutes/day on Facebook Social media strategy social...

Using social media to add context to you...

Creating great content is now a given. Nobody rates ‘just OK’ stuff any more. Who wants to be known as someone who yells “CHECK THIS OUT!!!1!” at a cat freaking out at a plate of cake? It’s so 1997. Great content provokes a reaction. The most-shared videos are: Funny Shocking Sexy Spectacular Random Illuminating Uplifting Celebrity-orientated Topical Controversial Think how you felt when you saw the OMG Cat – if you laughed out loud or even ROFLOLd then you know what I’m talking about. Users are already telling you what they...

‘Social’ networking – ...

I hold my hands up – I’m on Facebook – who isn’t? I also use Linkedin to look for contacts and to see who I could work with. So far, so normal. What I don’t understand is why whoever responsible came up with the label “social networking”. Since when has networking been a solitary activity? A quick definition of networking: “An extended group of people with similar interests or concerns who interact and remain in informal contact for mutual assistance or support.” Even if you don’t like the people you’re...