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I was in London on Wednesday and got up early to attend a breakfast briefing on social media – “Social Media – How to use Social Networking to connect with your customers”. The first thing that struck me was that of the five companies that presented, three were Irish and one was Irish based. Are we developing a leadership in this area?
There was a lot of statistics thrown around at the event, but they were the type we all love to quote. For example:
If you’re a regular reader of Enterprise Ireland’s BestConnected, Americas, or Education blogs (or indeed the various EI Twitter and Facebook pages) you’ll know that we at Enterprise Ireland are active users of social media. While our aim is clear (to increase Exports and Export led jobs), there are many differences that I’ve found between blogging in a previous life (promoting a small business via Social Media) and blogging in a larger corporate environment.
Which is why I’m glad that Chris Horn, who has no small experience in both areas, has posted a very good summary of his views on Corporate Social Networking; “A Social Networking Policy”. The full article (link above) gives a lot of background and weight to his opinion, which he summarizes as;
Gossip, inadvertent leaks, speculation and deliberate mistruths are a part of human social engagement ….. Social media tools have not created the problem: they have just broadened the opportunity for discourse… : the bigger picture is trusting your people to give considered professional communication, and to separate their professional work from the private social activities.
What’s your experience of using or tuning into Corporate Social Media? What are the best examples? What is the right balance between staying ‘strictly on message’ and letting individual expertise come through? Answers in the comments below, or ping me via LinkedIn.
Good news on the online marketing front in Ireland, with two new courses in this space announced in the past week. Dublin City University and the Digital Marketing Institute have both announced post-graduate courses in Digital Marketing, targeting marketing professional who are facing the challenges of operating in the always-on, hyper-connected world of communications.
Both courses offer advice and tips on the practical aspects of Digital Marketing, such as search engine optimisation and marketing, marketing for mobile devices and the social media channels, while also highlighting the importance of defining an encompassing marketing strategy for the digital space, to allow Irish companies make the most of the opportunities presented. If utilised correctly, online channels can deliver a sustained marketing and sales presence in a cost-effective manner for Irish companies looking to export their goods and services overseas.
For more information on these courses, please see the links below.
Update
Just saw that the Irish Internet Association (IIA) have also launched a Diploma in Digital Marketing in conjunction with Irish Times Training. The IIA are currently seeking candidates for this FETAC accredited course, register online here.
Just following up on my previous blogs from Bizcamp 2010 and the Panel Discussion . The event which was held last Saturday, 29th May was a huge success. Great venue – Guinness Storehouse with over 250 attendees. 40 presentations were given on the day which varied from an excellent presentation from Des Traynor of Contrast – ‘Product Strategy for the Business of Web Applications’ to Una Coleman of Event Elephant’s presentation on ‘International Marketing’. To see a full list of all the presentations given on the day just go to the Bizcamp website (pdf) -
You can find one of the presentations on Slideshare which was given by Ed Fidgeon-Kavanagh just to give you a flavour of the quality of presentations given on the day here.
To follow on from my post of 18th May, the Bizcamp Team is delighted to introduce the list of speakers for the panel discussion titled “You’re never too young to start a business” which will be discussed at Bizcamp The panel discussion will take place at 2pm on the 29th May (The Guinness Storehouse) and will prove to be an interesting session.
Details as follows:
Moderator: Gavin O’Flaherty – Mason, Hayes + Curran
Helen Treacy, P.G.Dip. B.D., CEO & Founder of Cognitive Science Partners.
Helen Treacy is the founder and CEO of Cognitive Science Partners. CSP was formed in November 2009 to bring science to life. CSP has engaged with a leading psychology researcher and president of the European ABA Association to develop an evidence based, online teaching application for children and adults with autism. Since incorporation, CSP have secured first round investment and are currently working with their DA in Enterprise Ireland HPSU to maximise funding opportunities. C.S.P. currently employs 5 full-time and one part-time employee and are busy recruiting two more full-time developers to ensure our September 1st product launch. Cognitive Science Partners’ mission is to launch three evidence based products successfully in the market in five years with an estimated turnover of 10 million by 2015.
John Matthew Holt, (29) CEO Waratek Ltd.
John Matthew Holt is the Co-Founder and CEO of Waratek Ltd (www.waratek.com) and principal inventor of Waratek’s RAIS technology. He founded Waratek in Sydney, Australia in 2002 to research a radical new design for high-performance computing (HPC) systems, opening a Silicon Valley research and testing office in 2006. Through 2002 to 2007 the company invented and prototyped a radical high- performance computing architecture called Redundant Array of Inexpensive Servers (RAIS), which it tested around the world with leading IT vendors, analysts, and academics. In 2008 Waratek closed a Series A investment round with Mangrove Capital Partners of Luxembourg and in December 2008 re-incorporated Waratek from Australia to Ireland to drive the world-wide commercialization of Waratek’s RAIS technology. Today Waratek Ltd operates with staff and associates in Dublin, London and Sydney, and will be shipping its first RAIS computing systems to early-adopter customers in Q1 2011.
Rob Ryan (26), LadyUmbrella Ltd.
Rob is the co owner and director of LadyUmbrella ladies t-shirts (http://www.ladyumbrella.com) which launched in January 2010. He has been involved in every aspect of the business and is an advocate for social media as a marketing tool. Using social media Rob has been able to get the word out about LadyUmbrella and has resulted in LadyUmbrella being mentioned in national papers both here and abroad. Outside of his work with LadyUmbrella he blogs about social media and is also a member of an international podcasting group which discusses effective use of social media.
Stephen O’Leary (26), O’Leary Analytics
Stephen O’Leary is the 26 year old owner of O’Leary Analytics, an online media and social media monitoring and analysis company. Having gained a degree in Journalism and Media Communications from Griffith College Dublin, Stephen spent a year working with The Irish Examiner in Cork, before returning to Dublin to take up a role with Meltwater News, a Scandinavian Media company. He worked in London and Amsterdam, and returned to Dublin to join Green 17, as a sports agent. In November 2009 he set up O’Leary Analytics, an online media and social media monitoring and analysis company. Using a range of monitoring and analytical tools, they track and report on coverage from over 120,000 online news-producing sources, and over 220 million social media sources – including Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Message Forums.
John O’Dea, Manager of Enterprise Ireland’s Start-up Division
John O’Dea is manager in the Start-up Division of Enterprise Ireland, with responsibility for early stage projects in various industrial sectors. Enterprise Ireland promotes entrepreneurship and provides advisory and financial support to High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) businesses. EI has supported and invested in a wide range of new businesses and believe Ireland has huge further potential to generate significant numbers of new, world class, start-ups. As an engineer with an MBA, John has worked in a wide range of sectors, mainly in early stage companies.
Web 2.0 Ireland is currently carrying out a survey linked to the Apps landscape in Ireland – Take the Survey – Share your thoughts
http://www.web2ireland.org/2010/04/30/app-economy-in-ireland/
My attention was drawn to this great case study recently, it’s a great example of the direct benefits our use of Social Media can bring.
One of our client companies recently launched an innovative new application for the iPhone called Snap2Travel. Using image recognition software, the Snap2Travel application allows users to take a photo of a travel brochure page, and instantly offers photos, videos and availability information directly to your phone (more information here). This service launched recently in partnership with the German travel operator Der Tour, and Manus Rooney in the Düsseldorf office wrote a blog post about the application on the Irish Business Network blog. The blog post was very brief, containing a few sentences about the service, and congratulating the team on getting the product to market.
What makes this case interesting is the effect this blog post had on the company’s search engine results. Generally speaking, Google (by far the world’s most popular web search engine) gives content from blogs more weight than content from regular static websites, as it considers that regularly updated content will have more relevance than a website which changes less frequently. In the case of Snap2Travel, the ‘blog effect’ is immediately clear: the image below is the result of searching for ‘Snap2Travel’ on the Google.de website (grabbed on the 20th April 2010).
The blog post from Manus (highlighted in red) is the second result, while the announcement from Snap2Travel (blue) and Der Tour (green) are 5th and 8th respectively. Given that recent studies have shown that most web users ignore everything past the 3rd search result, this is an extremely positive outcome, and shows how we can effectively use Social Media tools to promote our clients and raise their profile on the Web.
The Enterprise Ireland eBusiness Unit’s use of the Twitter micro-blogging platform got a recent thumbs-up from the good folk at ENN (see “Web Pick”), so I thought I’d provide a bit more detail on what we’ve been up to that might warrant such praise.
The eBusiness Unit host and maintain an online discussion forum / mailing-list dedicated to all things Web-related. The purpose of the forum is to provide a friendly and practical space where participants can feel comfortable asking questions and raising issues that are important to them, regardless of their level of knowledge of eBusiness. The forum has been existence for a number of years, and has quite an active community, discussing (often heatedly!) topics ranging from recommendations for Content Management Systems, to domain registration issues, and that old reliable, Search Engine Optimisation.
