On the 13th of February 2018, I attended the “Get Social” Conference in the Helix. The seven amazing speakers who spoke at the conference opened my eyes to the world of social media and I am so thankful to them for giving up their valuable time. I for one, and this may apply to you too, believe that I know everything about social media, as in this day and age, it consumes most of our daily life, but I wrong. I learned about the legal side to media, how media can be used for the good and the unexpected response you get when you put something out to such a large audience.
What I learned from the lecture on Social Media
In week two of semester two we learned about the different aspects of social media. Social Media is an online means of communication, conveyance, collaboration and cultivation among interconnected people, communities and organizations (Tuten and Solomon, 2015).
From the lecture on social media I learned that, there are four types or zones of social media. The first zone is Social Communities which are channels of social media focusing on relationships and the common activities people participate in with others who share the same interest or identification. Social Publishing is another zone of social media. Social publishing platforms consist of blogs and microblogs, where long and short-form written content can be shared with other users.
Another zone of social media is social entertainment which encompasses channels and vehicles that offer opportunities for play and enjoyment for example social games and virtual worlds. Social Commence is the final zone of social media. Social Commerce is the use of social media to assist in the online buying and selling of products and services for example Groupon.
Additional Research
From my research of Social Media, I learned the due to social media’s convenient and easy-to-use tools for posting content, social media also simplify and facilitate news sharing—both for media organizations and individuals (Kümpel, Karnowski and Keyling, 2015). A journal article that I read showed that, the ability to use social media increases the chance of a person been employed. The article shows that “social media use is positively related to employability skills”(He et al, 2017)
The graph below generated by The Statistics Portal (The Statistics Portal, 2018) shows how much the popularity of social media has grown in the last seven years and how much it is predicted to grow by in the next few years. In 2020, it is estimated that there will be around 2.9 billion social media users around the globe, up from 2.28 billion in 2016.
Paul Berney
Paul is founder of mCordis, which is an independent marketing education and advisory services company. He is also the creator of a marketing approach known a “The Connected Marketer”. He has over 25 years of experience in the marketing and sales business. This is Paul’s third year attending the “Get Social” Conference.
mCordis
Since founding in 2013, mCordis has worked with over 150 brands and companies to help them understand how to make technology work in marketing (mCordis,2018). They have provided marketing strategies for high profile brands such as Adidas, Pfizer and Pepsi.
mCordis advises executive marketers on the rapidly changing industry of marketing and how to place connected marketing at the heart of their marketing efforts (LinkedIn, 2018). They also provide private education programmes and courses on a variety of marketing subjects. If you wish to avail of the educational programmes provided by mCordis, full details are available on their website http://www.mcordis.com/
The Connected Marketer Approach
The Connected Marketer approach is a marketing approach whereby, marketers must learn to consciously manage the four human dimensions of the brand and product experience, the digital, physical, sensorial and emotional (LinkedIn, 2018). In this video (https://vimeo.com/178577263 ), Paul explains the mCordis approach. I would advise you to watch this video if you wish to get an insight into the Connected Marketer Approach. http://www.mcordis.com/tcmintro
During the conference, Paul talked about how social media marketing and mobile marketing need to be included in the traditional marketing mix. Paul explained that connected individuals engage in connected marketing more than traditional marketing. By 2020, there will be around seven connected devices per individual (Future Learn, 2017). In Alibaba’s Single Day, they sold $25.3 billion in a single day and 90% of those sales were made on mobile, this showed me the large impact mobile and mobile marketing has on just one company.
Paul talking at the conference.
Paul’s previous work
Paul previously worked as Business Development Director at BIONIC Marketing Technology. BIONIC provide a Digital Advertising Technology service and solutions to clients such as Facebook and Twitter. At BIONIC, Paul lead up the Business Development team. Paul also spent more than a year working with eType, a company which provide highly innovative media based online products to the Irish Advertiser market (LinkedIn, 2018).
Other
In the interview with The Guardian, Paul explained how he believes that brands ineffectively use data and analytics in marketing. Many brands believe that data and analytics will help create a better marketing campaign but, in this article, Paul points out that he believes creativity is still the most essential component of marketing (The Guardian, 2015).
I have linked mCordis’ YouTube channel below. It contains content where Paul and other members of the mCordis team explain different dimensions of Marketing which I found interesting and it contributed to my knowledge understand of marketing and social media.
Link to mCordis’ Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPKzR7bHz-LD2x-b9Pp-2DA
Paul is Founder of mCordis.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulberney/
Brian Higgins
Since 2015, Brian Higgins has been serving as CEO of Pieta House. Pieta House provides a free, therapeutic service to people who are in suicidal distress and those who engage in self-harm as well as to people who are bereaved by suicide (LinkedIn, 2018).
Pieta House and Darkness into Light
Pieta House has 240 psychotherapists in its 15 therapy centres across the country, supporting 5,500 people, while it has responded to a further 11,500 calls to its national 24-hour suicide helpline. At Pieta House, their objective is to essentially become redundant, for there to a world where there is no need for their service. http://www.pieta.ie/
Brian Higgins was awarded the title Marketer of the Year at an event in Dublin today hosted by trade publication marketing.ie and sponsored by recruitment company Alternatives Group (Get Social,2018). An advertising campaign in partnership with Electric Ireland asked people to “wake up to the issue of suicide”, (The Irish Times, 2017). In an interview with the Irish Times, Brian addressed that “There’s much work still to be done but by keeping open the lines of conversation and discussion, collectively we can look to a future where the scourge of suicide affects less and less people and families”, (The Irish Times, 2017).
This video(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REB0d0HHzcY ) shows Brian talking about the amazing Darkness into Light Campaign; how it is organised and the changes that had to be made once the campaign became popular. I would encourage you to watch the video as it shows how Brian wanted to change the dynamic of the campaign. He wanted to educate people about suicide and prevent it from occurring rather than the campaign been a sponsored walk. Social Media has a fantastic platform for informing people about the campaign. I found out about the Darkness into Light walk in 2014 from pictures on social media and I have been taking part in it ever since, and I think you should too,why wouldn’t you?
To help Darkness into Light reach an international level, Pieta House established links with Irish Organisations that are known worldwide. They linked with the GAA and the rose of Tralee and used their social media sites to help reach a worldwide audience. At the conference, Brian informed us that #DIL2017, trended in Vietnam, where a city in Vietnam held a sponsored walk. The growth if Darkness into Light shows the great effect the social media has.
Since Darkness into Light developed and integrated social media into their campaign, people taking part has increased by 150% to 180,000 people. The walking event has grown from 70 venues in two countries, to 145 venues in 12 countries on 4 continents, which has led to an increase of 150% in income. But most importantly and what I find most heart-warming and amazing is that they have counselled 33,000 people in Pieta House and they have contributed to a 20% drop in suicide rates across Ireland (Alternatives, 2017)
#DIL 2018 is taking place on the 12th May at 4.15AM. I would really recommend taking part. You can register for #DIL2018 here (once the website becomes live): http://dil.pieta.ie/comingsoon.html
Donate to Pieta House Today!
Brian’s Previous work
Before joining Pieta House, Brian previously worked with a national UK charity for over a year, where he was the Director of Services for Missing People. The charity’s aim is to bring missing children and adults back together with their families (LinkedIn, 2018). Brian informed us the a campaign similar to Darkness into Light takes place, known as “The Big Tweet”. This is where the charity live tweet cases of missing children. In 2015, 6 missing children were found. Prior to that, he spent a number of years as a member of the senior management group of Depaul Ireland in service development and management. His roles at Depaul included developing and maintaining relationships with high profile supports of the charity and the with statutory and private partners (LinkedIn, 2018). Since 2011, Brian has been serving as a non-executive Director of the charity of Start 360, which provides support services for young people and adult offenders in Northern Ireland.
Brian talking about his Darkness into Light Campaign.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-j-higgins-2351382/
Ian Campbell
Ian is the Head of Digital for Havas Media, one of Ireland’s largest media agencies. Ian has worked on over 100 client accounts across all industry including Microsoft, AXA, Tesco, Hyundai and our very own DCU (LinkedIn, 2018).
Havas Media
Havas Media are a global marketing and communication group that unites people and brands through significant connections. Havas Ireland was set up in 2015 and they have grown from a company of 8-27 people. They provide may different services such as social media planning and analytics, distributing information to clients’ customers and establishing strategies. The Havas group operates in over 100 countries. In 2016, Havas grew their digital billings by over 150% (Irish Tech News, 2017).
Ian’s time at Havas
Ian started off at Havas as head of Performance, where he spent two years. He was responsible for hiring and leading a team of digital performance specialists (LinkedIn, 2018). He had the job of developing relationships with future clients. In August 2017, Ian was promoted to Head of Digital at Havas Ireland, where he leads a team specialist across search, display, analytics, social and content. Digital Marketing is one of the most key aspects of Ian’s job, which he finds “incredibly exciting” but “stressful”, (Irish Tech News, 2017). Digital Marketing is the personification of business processes in the “seller-buyer” system (Oklander and Oklander, 2017)
Performance is key for Ian.
Ian’s previous work
Ian graduated from DCU with a Masters in e-Commerce. After Ian left college, he joined a small specialized search agency, where he decided on his craft. Ian then spent three years at IPG Media brands, where he was head of search department. He was responsible for recruiting a talented search team with specialized expertise. During his time at IPG, they grew their client base with large companies such as Tesco and Microsoft (LinkedIn, 2018).
Media Marketing
Ian solidifies Paul’s point in my mind about the increase in mobile marketing and how digital is taking over. Social Media grows by 133% year on year. Digital Advertising (51.4%) has become more popular than traditional advertising (48.6%) for the first time.
Other
In an interview with Irish Tech News (Irish Tech News, 2017), Ian talks about the challenges of digital marketing in today’s society. Ian said that “attribution is a daily challenge for every digital marketer. Attribution is science of determining what media are driving purchases (Convertro, 2017). He explained that to deliver, you must understand every aspect of the customer’s journey in order to achieve the most effective digital strategy. At the conference, Ian explained to us, that Google has created a new algorithm of attribution, where they will deem what platform contributes most rather than “the last click” platform.
Ian is Head of Marketing at Havas Ireland.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianjcampbell/
Aideen Burke
Aideen is an Associate at LK Shields Solicitors(https://www.lkshields.ie/ ). Aideen has experience in a wide range of matters, including film and TV development, finance, production and distribution; trade mark registration, protection and exploitation; passing off; copyright protection and exploitation; software development and licensing; e-commerce; music recording, publishing and management arrangements; defamation and various other commercial matters (LinkedIn, 2018). Prior to joining LK Shields in February 2017, Aideen worked as an Associate in the Media, Technology and IP team at Marriott Harrison LLP in London.
The Do’s and Dont’s of Social Media.
Conference
Aideen gave me a fantastic insight into the legal side of social media, information that will always stay in my mind. Important information that all business’ and social media users need to know! Aideen advises companies and marketing teams on IP and commercial issues arising on marketing strategies. Aideen told us the Business’s need to be aware of using user generated content due to the legal issues behind it. Business’ need to get the consent of the copyright owner in order to use user generated content.
Another issue which Aideen addressed in the conference, was Advertising Standards. Advertising Standards are regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority Ireland (ASAI) http://www.asai.ie/. Advertising Standards issues have increased in recent years with the growing popularity of Celebrities, Bloggers and Influencers. Many Celebraities, Bloggers and Influencers are doing paid endorsements to advertise products. The ASAI have declared that it must be clear to the viewer that a marketing endorsement is taking place. Business’ must monitor their endorsement to ensure guidelines are met.
Aideen is an Associate Solicitor at LK Shields.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aideen-burke-345b19105/
Steve Conlon
Steve is a Marketing and Advertising professional advising Irish based companies, how to successfully connect and grow their business globally through LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. He is currently working alongside world-class sales and marketing professionals in the LinkedIn EMEA OSO team, which is one of the fastest growing regional and business lines in LinkedIn for 2016 and 2017.
Steve’s Previous work
Steve has a strong track record of achieving high growth in client acquisition/retention for multiple companies, with clients across EMEA, for online and digital marketing solutions (Search, Display, Mobile, Video & Social).
For the Professional Word-its all about LinkedIn!
In his role at LinkedIn, he is the key business relationship manager for their Top 30+ LinkedIn Marketing Solutions clients based in Ireland, including Facebook, Microsoft, IDA, Enterprise Ireland, and Web Summit. Steve’s role includes showing start-ups how to use LinkedIn to market their business.
LinkedIn is a social media site which has grown immensely in the past few years. They grown by 100 million new members year on year, in the past few years. In the picture above, you can see LinkedIn’s current stats. LinkedIn has become essential for companies in today’s media world. Less than three years ago, there was only 2 million companies on LinkedIn, now there are 20 million.
LinkedIn users in Ireland has grown by 400,000 new members since last year, the majority of them been students. This stat has encouraged me to set up my own LinkedIn account. LinkedIn helps professional in the world today to stay connected and informed.
Steve is Account Director at LinkedIn.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveconlon1/
Kathy Scott and Luis Franco
Kathy Scott
Kathy is Founder and Creative director of The Trailblazery. The Trailblazery is a cultural platform dedicated to wicked problem solving. Kathy has worked professionally as a curator, producer, creative strategist, communications director and campaign leader in the cultural arena in Ireland for the last 15 years. Kathy has partnered with Creative Ireland, Fáilte Ireland, UNESCO,Dublin City Council, The Arts Council of Ireland, RTÉ and The Washington Post.
A recent national campaign strategy that took place in 2016, The Trailblazery’s own“Census of the Heart”, a national census of the ‘how we are’, impacting millions of people on the island of Ireland and beyond (http://www.censusoftheheart.com). One of the results from the census which I found amusing, is that people from Longford (which is where I am from) are “fed up and miserable”, which I quite agree with.
Census of the Heart used Survey Money to conduct the survey. Social Media was played a key role in Census of the Heart’s success of over 12,500 users. People who took part in the survey encouraged other people through social media to take part in the survey. Census of the Heart used social media to tell their story. They wanted to add to the national census and get the emotional status of the country.
Kathy and The Trailblazery created Census of the Heart.
https://www.thetrailblazery.com/
Luis and Kathy talking about Census of the Heart
Luis Franco
Luis has been at SurveyMonkey since January 2010. He is the Director of Survey Monkey Europe. He is responsible for SurveyMonkey’s international operations in Dublin. Before joining survey monkey, Luis was at Portugal Telecom, where he spent 7 years in many managerial roles, most recently as General Manager of tradecom.pt and COO of pmelink.pt. Before PT, Luis was a Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting. He has spent much of his career internationally, having worked in the U.S., Germany, Brazil, Spain and the Netherlands (LinkedIn, 2018).
Survey Monkey was essential in Census of the Heart. It was a key tool in the whole process. Census of the Heart used Survey Monkey to conduct the survey. Census of the Heart was a change from the usual marketing and Business surveys that Survey Monkey were use to. Survey Monkey have recently created an app to help people created surveys, which Kathy admitted she wished it existed when she was creating Census of the Heart!
Survey Monkey is a key part of the media world. They collected 2 million responses a day, which is 270 response every second in that day.
I have linked below Survey Monkeys YouTube channel, where Luis and other members of the Survey Monkey staff explain how survey monkey works. Watching the videos helped me to understand how survey monkey works and it showed how it attracts its customers and what it can do for its customers.
Link to YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SurveyMonkey/videos
Luis is responsible for SurveyMonkey’s international operations in Dublin.
James Gallagher
We also had a surprise guest in one of former DCU students. James Gallagher set up a social enterprise known as Give Back, whose aim is to tackle homelessness in Ireland. There are over 18,500 homeless people in Ireland today and it is rapidly growing, A child becomes homeless every 5 minutes in Dublin.
Give Back.ie is an online platform which allows people to shop online and raise money for the homeless without having to spend anything extra. It is simply, easy and doesn’t cost anything. An average user generates about €5 per month. All funds raised go to the Peter McVerry Trust. I would really advise you to download give back. It is the easiest way to help without spending any extra money. If you’re going to spend the money you may aswell help out as much as you can.
Download here: https://giveback.ie
Conclusion
I really enjoyed this conference as it opened my eyes to the world of social media, which I thought I knew all about! I hope you enjoyed reading my blog.
My next blog post will be on the Get Digital Conference, which will be held on the 10th of April. If you use to attend our next conference, it is free and you can register at “Get Digital once the website comes online. Make sure you tune back in for my next blog post which will be put live on the 24th of April.
Here is a link to a survey I would like you to fill out:https://surveyhero.com/c/43f8a90f
Thanks for reading,
Michaela.
References
Alternatives (2017) Marketer of the Year 2017 – Brian Higgins, CEO, Pieta House. Available at:https://www.alternatives.ie/blog/2017/11/marketer-of-the-year-2017-brian-higgins-ceo-pieta-house Accessed on 19/02/18.
Convertro (2017) What is Marketing Attribution. Available at: https://www.convertro.com/faq/what-is-marketing-attribution. Accessed on 17/02/18
Future Learn (2018) BUSINESS ANALYTICS: THE DATA EXPLOSION. Available at:https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/data-explosion/0/steps/29736 Accessed on 15/02/18
Get Social (2018) Brian Higgins. Available at:http://getsocial.ic4.ie/cr3ativspeaker/brian_higgins/ Accessed on 15/02/18
He, C., Jibao G., Wei W., Xuesong Z., and Jun S. (2017) “Social Media Use in the Career Development of Graduate Students. The Mediating Role of Internship Effectiveness and the Moderating Role of Zhongyong.” Higher Education 74, no. 6 (December 1, 2017): 1033–51. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0107-8.
Irish Tech News (2017) On The Cutting Edge Of Digital Media With Ian Campbell, Havas Media, Ireland’s Fastest Growing Digital Agency. Available at: https://irishtechnews.ie/on-the-cutting-edge-of-digital-media-with-ian-campbell-havas-media-irelands-fastest-growing-digital-agency/. Accessed on 16/02/18.
Karnowksi, V. , Keyling, T. and Kümpel, A.S. (2015) “News Sharing in Social Media: A Review of Current Research on News Sharing Users, Content, and Networks.” Social Media + Society 1, 2056305115610141. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115610141
Linkedin (2018) Aideen Burke. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aideen-burke-345b19105/ Accessed on 14/02/18.
Linkedin (2018) Brian Higgins. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-j-higgins-2351382/ Accessed on 14/02/18.
Linkedin (2018) Ian Campbell. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianjcampbell/ Accessed on 14/02/18.
Linkedin (2018) Kathy Scott. Available at: Accessed on 14/02/18.
Linkedin (2018) Paul Berney. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulberney/ Accessed on 14/02/18.
Linkedin (2018) Steven Conlon. Available at: Accessed on 14/02/18.
mCordis (2018) About. Available at: http://www.mcordis.com/about-mcordis. Accessed on 09/02/2018.
Oklander, M. and Oklander, T. (2017) SEGMENTATION AND COMMUNICATION IN DIGITAL MARKETING’, Marketing & Management Of Innovations, 3, pp. 69-78, doi: 10.21272/mmi.2017.3-07
The Irish Times (2017) Pieta House chief recognised for ‘Darkness Into Light’ campaign. Available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/pieta-house-chief-recognised-for-darkness-into-light-campaign-1.3294669. Accessed on 17/02/18
The Guardian (2015) mCordis’ Paul Berney: contextual relevance is the USP of mobile. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/mar/13/mcordis-paul-berney-contextual-relevance-mobile. Accessed on 17/02/18.
The Statistics Portal (2018) Number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions). Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/ . Accessed on 09/02/2018.
Tuten, T. and Solomon, M. (2015) Social Media Marketing. 2nd Edn. Los Angeles: Sage.
Michaela Devaney 