Blog Archives
A New Year, New Challenges, New Opportunities
With 2011 now behind us, we have had time to reflect on what Bridge has achieved in the last 12 months and what we are looking forward to achieving in 2012.
The past year has seen some major changes in our company with the development of new products and services, and the addition of new team members to support our growth. We have also developed our partnerships with clients and now represent customers across a wide range of industry sectors.
This has given us a very firm foundation for 2012, and we are very excited about the coming year, especially being a Coventry based agency with all that is about to happen surrounding the 2012 Olympics and Euro 2012.
New ways of working in PR were very much to the forefront throughout the whole of 2011. Social media gained in popularity with the majority of our clients and we spent a great deal of time providing training support around this and other marketing communications topics. The new raft of digital technologies certainly helped us to raise the profile of our clients, a number of whom enjoyed national media exposure. This was underpinned by having really great stories to tell. Content is the lifeblood of marketing communications campaigns, and every one of our clients had interesting and topical stories in 2011.
In the summer months, we launched one of our own campaigns based around, Bridgit, a rather engaging red-eyed tree frog, who became the centre-piece for a social media workshop titled “Making the LEAP”. Bridgit very quickly took on a life of her own after a successful campaign to name her, and we then set about creating her identity as our social media mascot. You will see a lot more of Bridgit in 2012, so watch out for her.
As we headed towards Autumn, we increased our team again and welcomed our new account executive, Natalie Hunt. With a breadth of experience across journalism and broadcast media, Natalie is a great addition to our team, and very quickly established herself with a number of our clients as well as building relationships with editors and journalists up and down the country.
Looking Ahead
It’s going to be great to be in Coventry
It’s particularly exciting to be in Coventry as we head into 2012. The buzz surrounding the 2012 Olympic Games is now starting to heat up in earnest, and Coventry will be in the thick of everything with some of the major games being hosted in our City. In addition, local Company, Imagineer Productions, has created a magnificent spectacle in “Godiva Awakes” which will shine the spotlight on two of the city’s home grown industries: Lady Godiva and cycling. The bicycle was invented in Coventry so what better propulsion to use to take the enormous Godiva puppet on her journey from Coventry to London. Another Coventry coup is the Olympic torch. This is yet another Coventry creation that will focus attention on the region, and especially when the Olympic torch relay wends its way through the Midlands on its way to the Olympic Stadium. In among these major events is an anniversary that also has strong Coventry connections: the centenary of the maiden voyage and sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912. Bridge client, Titanic Heritage Trust, is hosting a series of events throughout 2012 commemorating this event (hyperlink).
New ways to boost your business
As we have mentioned in a previous blog ‘Boost your Business with “Video PR”’, videos are 53 times more likely to generate a first page ranking than traditional SEO techniques, which means more visitors to your website, more calls generated, and ultimately more sales. Just a short video about your products and/or services that you offer could increase the calls generated to 18%.
Working with our partner, Whirlwind Productions, we are keen to make you aware of the benefits of Video PR and how this can move your company forward, whether it be a short, sharp video release, or a larger budget corporate video. We will be bring you more information on how you can boost your business through video PR through our own training and workshops, e-shots, and blogs.
Social Media will continue to grow and develop
Building on the great successes of 2011, we will be helping more businesses to make the most of social media. No more can businesses say “Why should we be using social media?”, and finding reasons not to engage with their online audiences. Instead, we are now hearing “Why would we not use social media, it has so much to offer?” We predict that the social media revolution will continue to grow, and for some of our clients it will be a case of their social media activity maturing as they reap the rewards of early engagement after spending time building their following and creating and curating great content for their stories.
Last year was a great year for us and we enjoyed every minute of it. We are very excited by the prospect of continuing to work with our clients, partners and suppliers.
If you haven’t already signed up for our e-newsletters, then please take the time to do so now, and we will keep you up to date on the latest in PR and marketing and how you can use the lifeblood of your business (your stories) to really get noticed in 2012.
A Happy New Year.
Harness the power of social networking with LinkedIn
There are now over 120 million professionals all over the world using LinkedIn to help grow their business by harnessing the power of online social networking.
Originally, LinkedIn was created as a recruitment resource, but has evolved as a major player in business networking and helps businesses in a number of ways…
- Generating leads
- Finding suppliers
- Finding new employees / headhunting
- Gathering market intelligence
- Finding answers to questions
- Staying on track with industry trends
- Raising awareness of your business, products, services and much more…
LinkedIn gives the ability to broaden your networks and connect with people you might never have had the opportunity to link with previously. Since the Internet really took off in the 90s, people have been able to maintain contact with each other far more easily, and it was only a matter of time before people began to make business contacts with the same principle.
Everyone at Bridge has been using LinkedIn for some time now and between us we have acquired a lot of knowledge and expertise about how to get the most from it.
Here are our top tips…
Create a company profile that grabs attention Using the company profile facility means that you have another marketing channel where you can showcase your business and its products and services. Everyone who connects with you will be able to see what your company offers. The beauty of business social networking is that it taps into one of the key marketing principles that “people buy from people they know and trust.”
Make your profile 100% complete LinkedIn monitors how complete your profile is on a percentage scale based on work history, education, skills, connections, and recommendations. You should aim to be 100% complete as this optimises all of the functions available. The aim is to raise the profile of your expertise in your particular industry sector.
Constantly leverage your contacts LinkedIn is very much based around the maxim of ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, and the connections you make are integral to your business development. There is a ‘degree’ gauge built into the site, where you will be shown how many degrees apart you are from any one contact. For example 1st degree means you know them personally whereas 2nd degree is you know someone who knows them and 3rd degree means they’re a friend of a friend… and so on. This is built on the old adage that everyone is connected by six degrees of separation.
Join relevant groups Another important part of LinkedIn is the ‘group’ section. Arguably one of the most powerful aspects of the networking site, groups allow you to engage with like-minded people in discussions relevant to your aims as a business and your sector as a whole. It can also be a mine of information about your industry, and will help you to keep up with the latest trends. It is a good idea to create your own group as this helps to drive traffic to your site and encourages more people to connect with you as the ‘community leader’.
Become a ‘LinkedIn expert’ Exploit the facility of offering expert advice on LinkedIn as this can help build your profile as an expert in your field, and adds an element of reality to the profile, giving connections reassurance about your business. Regularly check the ‘Questions’ section for subjects relating to your field, and when the person who posted the questions brands you as the best answer you gain a badge on your profile. The more badges you gain then the higher your level of expertise.
Get valuable recommendations These add a level of credibility to your profile or company. The more recommendations you have on your profile, the more people are likely to trust it. However, it is important to gain ‘valuable’ recommendations such as clients and customers who have been involved with your company or have used your services of products.
If you would like to become completely ‘social media savvy’ in order to boost your business, then Bridge PR & Media Services are running a series of Social Media Workshops which will teach you the principles of social media marketing, how to use the tools and platforms, and how to measure your success.
Make the LEAP into Social Media – 27th September 2011
Measuring Success – 04 October 2011
Making a Blogging Influence – 11 October 2011
LinkedIn for Business Success – 18 October 2011
Twitter for Business Success – 01 November 2011
Facebook for Business Success – 08 November 2011
For further inquiries all you need to do it contact Bridge on 024 76 520025 or email info@bridgepr.co.uk
Make the LEAP – Social Media Communications for Business Success
Time is running out to book onto our social media masterclasses.
If you feel that your company has something to shout about but don’t know where to start, or would like to take it that step further then email Bridgit@bridgepr.co.uk for a booking form!
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