Bua Marketing was asked to get join the digital team for this campaign long before we could talk about it; over the past few months we have attended some lively discussions about how Sligo’s low profile is a major part of its charm and a competitive advantage on the national tourism front.  

This summer Sligo Tourism is taking advantage of that unique advantage by getting people to tag their social media updates with #SligoWhoKnew.

Cleverly they have put key influencers at the heart of their campaign; so if you haven’t yet tuned into Annie West‘s entertaining tweets (her recent 100,000th tweet made national news!) now is the time to do so.

All of the social media updates from the campaign can be viewed on the Sligo Tourism website at http://whoknew.sligotourism.ie/

Luckily, Facebook have just introduced hashtags.  While it is currently only feeding Page posts for the moment, it’s still a very handy tool for viewing related page posts.  So you can now see the Facebook page posts tagged #SligoWhoKnew at https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/sligowhoknew

Image Caption:  A windy Rosses Point beach on June 15th

• Google Apps for email, docs and most other stuff:  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it’s hard to beat Google’s suite of business apps.  We use Irish company Blacknight for our web hosting and did use their hosted email (though using IMAP to push it down to our Mac Mail email client).  We found that Blacknight’s email service wasn’t always as reliable as we needed so we migrated to Google Apps and now our mail is gmail based.  Pretty easy to do even for a non tech head.  Of course we still continue to use Blacknight for our web hosting and their customer service is great.

• File storage:  We were big Dropbox users for cloud file storage but their team pricing is super expensive for an SME so in the move to Google Apps we just bulked up our Google Drive storage a bit and found the move not as scary as we thought.  We still use Dropbox on some client projects and its still a prettier, easier service than Google Drive but we just couldn’t justify the cost of $795 per year.

• Asana for project management:  Asana is a really great project management tool created by some ex Googlers so you can log-in with your Google account.  Once you make the move from having lists everywhere and just put everything in Asana, it’s super easy to work with teams and keep lots of silly email trails from your inbox.  We’ve been using it for about ten months now and it means nothing falls between the cracks.

• Freshbooks for time-tracking and invoicing:  for any service based business, tracking client hours is so boring but necessary.  We’ve been using Freshbooks for three years now and it is just BRILLIANT.  Super easy to set-up, great reporting, easy client invoicing where they can log-in at any stage to check their account balance.  What’s the best part?  When we invoice a client, we can check if they have viewed the invoice.  If they haven’t viewed it after a month you can be sure you won’t be paid!

• Evernote for remembering everything.  For a long time we’ve hovered between Delicious, notes, reminders, emailing links to ourselves and lots of other cumbersome ways of tracking things we want to look at again, remember or just document.  We were using Evernote sporadically for a while and didn’t see a benefit.  The trick is to use it all the time for everything.  Then brilliantly it syncs between your devices so I can record and find everything no matter where we are.

So they’re our top 5.  We use some other stuff too that we’ll tell you about sometime.  What do you use?

Image Credit:  Toolbox by Gordonrr under Creative Commons on Flickr here.

This is the third year of the awards, which are organised by Damien Mulley, who also organises the Web Awards and lots of great conferences like Measurement.ie

We’re also chuffed to be helping judge some of the categories this year (obviously not the ones our clients are in).  In the space of the few years since these awards kicked off, the social media game has changed hugely.  Measurability has changed from just having likes on a Facebook page to being able to tangibly related the metrics back to business objectives (not that we ever looked at it any other way).

There are lots of awards on the Irish scene that businesses can and should consider themselves for as it’s a really great way to raise your profile and also force yourself to stand back and ask what have you achieved with all those hours with your nose stuck in Hootsuite.

Hope to see you in the Clyde Court Hotel on May 30th!

PS we’re also delighted that the ridiculously hilarious Sligostats Twitter account is also a finalist.  For any Sligonians looking for some clever and sharp insights to all that makes this county tick, check it out.  You don’t even have to be on Twitter to have a nose.  The only question that remains is who is behind it?  Answers on a postcard….

Very interesting to see when people are most active on Facebook.  Definitely makes us realise how important it is to schedule your Facebook posts for when your audience are most active.  See how to schedule your Facebook posts here.

Other interesting stats from the demographic show Irish people are tweeting 1 million tweets per day.  We heard from Sinead McSweeney, Communication Manager for Twitter EMEA at another event in Dublin this week and she told us that it took 3 years, 2 months and 1 day to reach the the first billionth Tweet. There are now 1 billion new tweets every three days.

We’re total Twitter addicts and see huge benefits for every industry in using Twitter to engage with audiences and manage their online PR.  Though Twitter seems to be the channel that raises the most ‘I don’t get it’ responses.  So we’re thinking we should pass on some more Twitter case studies and tips.  Interested?  Watch this space.

You can view the infographic full sized at this link: http://bit.ly/8020SMinfographic

We are looking for a talented, digitally-savvy graduate for a Marketing Internship. The successful candidate will gain experience across a number of projects, accounts and pitches.

This role will involve communicating and liaising with our clients, working on partnerships and projects designed to develop and deliver on our client’s objectives.

We have lots of plans in the pipeline, this intern will have hands-on experience in a variety of areas including online marketing, social media management, email marketing, client care and communication and event management.

Who are we looking for?

• A real digital and social media marketing fanatic looking to gain industry experience with one of Ireland’s top digital marketing specialists.
• Dynamic, motivated individual with a strong work ethic
• Ambitious, creative thinker who is flexible, willing to learn, and able to multi-task
• Excellent writing and editing skills
• Familiarity with Digital and Social Media Marketing concepts.
• A strong knowledge of Digital Marketing Metrics and Analysis is a plus.
• Background/Education in Business or Journalism / Communications an advantage but not essential

What’s in it for you?

• Excellent training and hands-on experience in all elements of Digital Marketing Channels and Client Relationship Management
• Good grounding in client relationship management
• Be part of a fast-growing, fast-moving digital start-up
• Potential to develop a paid position – the right person will create his or her own opportunities!

The Nitty-Gritty – what’s involved?

• 3-6 Month Internship
• Ideal candidate to start May
• Based in either Bua Marketing office in Sligo or working virtually with monthly meetings

How to apply?

If you believe you have the drive to succeed in marketing’s fastest growing sector with an exciting and highly-acclaimed agency, please reply with your CV, including your LinkedIn profile link and any other social media channels you manage, to hello@buamarketing.ie

Application Deadline is Fri, 03 May 2013

I’m on day two of work experience with Bua Marketing, and I’m finding it really interesting.  I’m learning lots about the world of online marketing, including how social media sites play a key role in the development and marketing of businesses.

Through social media sites you can notify customers of any news or promotions, ask for opinions or ask them to answer a survey.  However one of the best features is that you can let your customers do some work for you, for example, when they like or become friends with you, a notification pops up, when they like or comment on objects linked to your businesses page, a notification will appear.  All this is keeping the name of your business fresh in their head, and hopefully making you money.

Frequently posting about your product or even about topical news will create a buzz around your page, which will mean more people take a look.  For some businesses, you may not have the time to update your businesses social media site, the good news for you is now there are companies who will edit and manage them for you.

LinkedIn Groups are a really effective way of raising your profile on LinkedIn, whether you’re looking for a new job, trying to reach new customers and markets or just looking for some peer networking.

We asked the question on Twitter recently, which are the most popular Irish LinkedIn Groups.  We couldn’t find the answer and so we’ve taken a stab at it ourselves.  This isn’t an exact science, we searched for LinkedIn Groups with ‘Ireland’ or ‘Irish’ in the title, so if there are any groups missing, please do let us know!

With lots of Facebook pages to manage, we often find ourselves a bit shtumped for regular content ideas so we keep this list printed out on our wall to look at when this happens.

There are lots of similar lists floating about online; these are the ones that seem to work best for us (based on engagement reports via Facebook Insights, Sprout Social etc.)

10 Useful Phrases for Social Media Posts:

1. What do you think? or What are your thoughts? Open-ended questions like these invite users into the conversation.
2. ….. Click Like if you agree!
3. Here’s some valuable information on____________________. The key word here: valuable.
4. You don’t want to miss this!
5. This is a MUST watch/read…
6. Do you find Facebook’s new Timeline design confusing? Here’s a Timeline guide to help you out.
7. Only ____ days left to…
8. GREAT TIP: (insert tip)
9. Fill in the blank: On Paddy’s Day (or Groundhog Day or New Year’s Day, etc. etc.)  I ____________.
10. When is the last time you ….crossed something off your bucket list / talked your way out of a parking fine / performed a random act of kindness?

We’ve come across lots of organisations lately with exactly that problem. Luckily Facebook enables users to merge Business Pages.

Benefits of merging Facebook Pages:

• You have access to your page stats through Insights.
• You can run competitions and other applications by adding tabs
• You can run Facebook Offers
• You can use Facebook promoted posts and advertising

The main reason for merging, however, is that Facebook can can close your page at any time.

Having a personal profile for a business or other non-human entity is prohibited.  If this happens all the effort you invested to build your likes will be wasted.  You will be starting from scratch.

But don’t worry we’ll show you how its done.

How To Merge a Facebook Profile into a Business Page:

• You must first migrate the Profile into its own Page (i.e. create a new Page)
• Then merge the two Pages. (i.e the new page and existing business page) Sounds easy right!

NB: You have to add your our personal profile as an Admin on your existing Facebook business page. Follow the steps here

Then here’s what you need to do:

1. Log in to the personal page you want to merge.
2. Since content from your timeline won’t be carried over when you migrate to a business page you need to download your timeline information. But don’t worry your current friends and subscribers will be converted to Likes.
3. Rename your Profile to the name you used for your business page. This step is important as you will eventually be merging two duplicate pages which will need to have the same name.
   • Go to Account Settings in the personal profile
   • Click on Name and edit

4. Go to our pervious blog post on Migrating a Facebook Personal Account to Facebook Business Page and follow the steps.

To Merge Two Facebook Pages:

Now you need to merge your two Pages.  To merge Pages, they need to have a similar name. If you’re merging Pages with a location, they also need to have the same address listed on the About Page.

1. Go to the Page with the most likes. (Alternatively, if the Page you’d rather keep has fewer likes, you can try going to that Page and see if you can merge the other Page into this one).
2. Go to Edit Page > Update Info.
3. Under Resources, if you have 2 Pages with similar names, there will be a Merge Duplicate Pages link. Click on it, and in the popup window you’ll see a list of Pages that you administer that can be merged. Select the Page you want to merge. Click Merge Page.
4. Post a note to fans telling them that the Pages have merged and work to build up engagement levels. Note: It may take a couple of days for your fan count to be accurate.

So that’s it no more duplication!

A Facebook update that has appeared in different forms in the past and currently doing the rounds on people’s walls reads:

“With the recent changes in FB, people who are not in your contact list can see some of the information you posts to Facebook because one of your friends makes a comment or ‘likes’ your activity.

This post is incorrect. If you have set your Facebook privacy settings to ‘Friends Only’, a friend liking a post by you will not make it visible to others who are not your friends on Facebook.

It will still remain restricted within your friends on the social networking service. Only updates that have been set to ‘friends of friends’ and ‘public’ will be visible to non-friends.   See images below on where to set your Facebook privacy settings.

If you follow the instructions on the post mentioned above and remove youself from the ‘Comments and Likes’ of any given friend, the only thing this will do will limit the content you see from this friend.  If you unsubscribe from a user’s ‘comments and likes’ you’ll not know what they have commented on or have liked.   All well and good, if you find this friend a little boring!

Image Caption:  Image by OpenSourceWay under Creative Commons on Flickr here.