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5 Twitter Seats available for Media Future

April 20th, 2012 Posted in Media, Media Future, Mediacontact.ie News, Online, Social Media, Social Network, Twitter, Uncategorized No Comments

Happy Friday Everyone!

Today, We are giving away 5 Twitter seats to the Media Future Conference on May 14th and 15th. www.mediafuture.ie

A Twitter seat will give you the exact same privileges as a standard conference ticket but it will save you €170 in the process.

What’s the catch you might ask? Really there is none, all we want you to do in return is to simply Tweet about your experience while you are there using the hashtag #mfc12

To be in with a chance of winning all you need to do is call Cathal on 01-4732050 by 5pm today Fri 20th April:

A Twitter seat will cost just €125 for the two day Conference, that’s a €170 discount.

There are only 5 places available at this rate so this offer will be operated on a first come first served basis.

Today only,@mediafutureconf is giving away 5 Twitter Seats to #mfc12 – check out http://bit.ly/JcIot0

About Media Future
The Media Future conference will bring together the world’s leading media people, innovations and technologies.

The last 5 years have seen more change and upheaval in the media than at any point in history. Everywhere you look the traditional ways of printing, broadcasting, publishing, and communicating are exploding and being challenged by new technologies.

Media Future will chart the extraordinary transformation of the media and identify the key trends, technologies and topics that will shape the future.

Speakers include some of the top people from organisations such as The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera, The Harvard Business Review and The Washington Post as well as some of the worlds top innovators in the digital media sector.
Over 2 days there will be 30 speakers, and four great workshops.

Media Future 2012 is sponsored by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, IADT, RTE, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, Marks and Spencer, Diageo, XM Solutions, AvTek, and Aer TV.

Our Media Sponsor is RTE Digital.

Instagram bought by Facebook

April 12th, 2012 Posted in Apps, Facebook, Social Media, Social Network No Comments

Instagram really is the little app that could. In 2009 co-founder Kevin Systrom, a management science and engineering student at Stanford began developing a way of enhancing mobile phone photos and sharing them on the Internet.

That application went through various monikers before emerging as Instragram, and less than three years later it has been bought for $1 billion by the monolith of social media, Facebook.

It has been around for just 18 months and has a mere 11 staff members. In the early days there was only Systrom, Mike Kriegler (the other founder) and two others who had sole responsibility for literally everything.

This included keeping the system from crashing when the amount of users rapidly soared to 30 million over the course of a year. And what’s most astonishing of all is the fact that they’ve never made a cent in profits.

So apart from the record-breaking aspect Instagram’s story is also interesting in another way. It shows both how lucrative and how fast-paced the social media industry has become. This often comes at a price for the users, however. Especially where Facebook is concerned, dedicated followers will more than likely have to part with personal information and have it handed over to marketing companies.

Zuckerburg has promised that for the forseeable future Instagram will remain independent. But considering he offered Systrom a job way back in 2004 to help develop Facebook’s photo sharing features, he’s obviously not going to keep it that way in the long run. We’ll have to wait and see what the story of our photographs will be in future.

Source: This is Money

Conquer the Facebook

April 10th, 2012 Posted in Online, Social Media, Social Network, Technology, Uncategorized No Comments

Heres a link ( http://goo.gl/iYd0y0) to a great Infographic that gives brilliant tips on how to create a successful facebook status.

Check it out for yourself, but the main points are;

1. Ask Questions

2. Post ‘Fill-In-The-Blanks’ style updates

3. Post Photos

4. Talk About The News

5. Ask For Lives

6. Target Different Fans

7. Talk About Facebook

8. Celebrate Today

It helps too, that it has an Age of Empires, Conquerors theme running through it that shows how Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc or Julius Caesar might have used Facebook!

Source: @mehrdadf http://goo.gl/iYd0y

How to Get Results from Social Media – Best Practices from Harvard Business Review

March 26th, 2012 Posted in Conferences, Course/Training, Media, Media Future, Media Tips, Mediacontact.ie News, Social Media, Social Network, Social Platforms No Comments

Published since 1922, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) is arguably the most influential business publication in the globe.

Its worldwide English-language circulation is 250,000, and there are 11 licensed editions of the magazine.

In the last 18 months the HBR has embarked on an impressive digital strategy to completely transform how it communicates with its audience.

In that time it has seen a 25 per cent growth in online subscriptions generating 7 million monthly page views. The HBR has also grown an impressive 650,000-plus Twitter followers and more than 340,000 Facebook fans, who it already polls about decisions such as which cover image to use.

This workshop will be hosted by the publisher of the Harvard Business Review, Josh Macht, and will give a unique insight into how you can learn from their digital experience.

We live in an age when everyone is tweeting, sharing, posting and talking about your content. This session will help you answer the question “What is it really worth?” and how can you plan it to be a success in your organization.

During this workshop, Josh will show you how to think strategically about social media and how to get you and your organisation focused on what truly matters when it comes to driving meaningful business growth through the web.

Highlights

* Cutting edge thinking and ideas from the Harvard Business Review
* Examples from HBR.org, which has grown its social media by more than 200 percent
*  Methods for turning your audience into an army of marketers for you Framework for thinking strategically about your top social media priorities
*  Understanding how to adapt your social media strategy given rapid innovation
*  Ideas for tapping into your entire organisation for new product offerings
Speaker Profile
Joshua Macht is the Group publisher for the newly formed Harvard Business Review Group. In this role Macht oversees the commercial activities for Harvard Business Review’s magazine, website (HBR.org), and books. He also drives new product development across all three platforms, as well as emerging technologies, under the flagship Harvard Business Review brand. In his previous role as executive director of Harvard Business Digital, he led the dramatic growth of the company’s web efforts, including entirely new areas of the site focused on emerging leaders.

How to customise your social updates

March 6th, 2012 Posted in Media Tips, Online, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Network, Social Platforms No Comments

You’ve set up a Twitter and Facebook account for your brand. You’ve attracted a reasonable amount of followers and are regularly posting content to both. Happy days, right? Wrong. These days nearly all regular social media users are on both Facebook and Twitter (at the very least). So, beware of boring your much sought-after followers by posting the same thing on both channels. See below for some useful tips on how to differentiate ….

Length. One obvious difference to note is the 140 character restriction on Twitter. Research has shown that tweets between 120 and 130 characters have the highest click through rates (remember to leave room for links). Astonishingly, on Facebook the limit is even less; posts under 80 characters receive 27% more engagement. So remember, less is more.

Photos. Viewing photos on Facebook is easy and is often the first thing people will do when looking at your profile, so really there’s little restriction – just make sure your pictures are interesting for your audience. On Twitter, however, users must click a link to see your photo and will not be pleased if the snap that took ages to load wasn’t worth the wait. Make sure they’re exciting, relevant and self-explanatory.

Personal Engagement. The pace of Twitter is much faster than Facebook, so it’s important to reply to people in a timely manner. It’s more much conversational too – your ratio of personal responses to organic tweets should be 50:50. Facebook is more useful for open-ended questions and redirection.

Frequency. To maintain activity on Twitter you’ll need to tweet several times a day, but not excessively (i.e keep it to every hour or two rather than every 15 minutes). Make sure all your tweets are relevant, however, and not just tweeting for the sake of it. With Facebook, post around 3 – 5 times per day so you stay in user’s news feeds but aren’t crowding them.

Language. With Twitter, it’s not entirely necessary to write complete sentences (although it’s better if you can). Once the message is clear it’s okay to use symbols or abbreviations to meet the character limit. While the opposite is true for Facebook, it’s not a place for excessive posts either. Use links to redirect to blogs or other places where longer posts are acceptable.

Source: HubSpot

Irish language answer to Facebook

March 6th, 2012 Posted in Ireland, Social Media, Social Network No Comments

Abair Leat, the first social network entirely dedicated to the Irish language launched last week with the aim of normalising the use of Irish in casual settings.

With integrated translation and spelling, the site makes it easy to use Irish whether you’re fluent or can’t say much more than the classic ‘an bhfuil cead agam dul go dti an leithreas?’.

Users are asked to post and comment using at least 70% Irish, only using English words for non-standard spelling or when there is no Irish equivalent. Version 2 of the network is already in the planning stage and is due to launch this summer. New features will include an integrated thesaurus and speech synthesisier.

A smartphone app is also set to launch by the start of the next school year, by which time the site’s founders hope to be heading towards 50,000 members.

Give it a go here. http://abairleat.kontain.com/

Source: Silicon Republic

3 Great Stories On Media HQ This Week

March 2nd, 2012 Posted in Case Study, Marketing, Media, Social Media, Social Network No Comments

Festival Headline Acts To Be Announced On Rory’s Birthday

The acclaimed Rory Gallagher International Tribute Festival celebrates the life and music of one of Ireland’s finest artists. In its 11th year and held in Ballyshannon, the birthplace of the man himself, the Tribute Festival is always a hot ticket and the line-up eagerly awaited by locals and fans.

This release has capitalised on the timing of what would be Rory’s 64th birthday as an ideal time to announce the 5 headline acts at the festival.

MediaBox, headed by apprentice finalist Joanne Sweeney-Burke, have shown their knowledge of social media by expertly anticipating the birthday tweets for Rory.  Their announcement then cleverly piggy-backs on the trend to create a buzz over their event amongst their primary public, Rory Gallagher fans. Read the story at

Read the Story at http://bit.ly/wf7UCY or see more from Media Box at @JSmediabox

Phone App Translates ‘Cork English’ into English!!

A fine example of well-executed social news, on Tuesday, this story from Foróige, Ireland’s leading youth organization, took like off like wildfire!

The release involves 16 year olds Austin Keane and Liam Hogan from Leap Foróige Club, County Cork who have developed an iPhone app that translates Cork English into mainstream English.

An incredible story, this is first hand evidence that a story that is new and relevant will do the work for you and promote itself.

Not only did this story receive over 1000 view in less then 24 hours but it also featured on the Rick O’ Shea show (2fm) and FYI (TV3) as well as having a feature article on popular Irish website Joe.ie

Read the Story at http://bit.ly/zCqOOn or see more at @Foroige

ISPCC welcomes Seanad motion to combat child abuse online

This week the ISPCC outlined their support of the motion by the Independent Group of Senators which calls to prevent the abuse and exploitation of children over the internet.

The ISPCC are no strangers to Social Media and have used Media HQ to its maximum potential by deciding when and where to break their own story and in their own words, by-passing traditional media.

Although this story may not be as light hearted or as ‘catchy’ as our two other featured stories. It is a newsworthy release that is relevant to both parents and Internet users.

It also uses some of the fundamental principles in great social news writing including a Twitter friendly headline, simple language and short paragraphs as well as appropriate use of lists to keep the readers attention.

Read the Story at http://t.co/YP6NgGze or see more from ISPCC at @ISPCCChildline

5 Top Tips for sharing your company’s news on Social Media

February 29th, 2012 Posted in Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Media, MediaHQ, Mediacontact.ie News, Social Media, Social Network, Social Platforms No Comments

The social news revolution is presenting a very exciting opportunity for
organisations about how they influence what customers read about them on
social media sites.

We now consume a large proportion of our daily news on social channels.
According to Mashable an astonishing 75% of all
news in the USA is consumed through social channels
(http://mashable.com/2010/03/01/social-networks-source-news)

We started Mediahq.com in September 2011 to help businesses to
simultaneously share their stories with traditional journalists via emails,
and on social channels.

It has quadrupled our web traffic is just 4 months with hundreds of stories
receiving thousands of new eye balls through Twitter and Facebook.

But what makes a good story you might ask? Why is one a must read and
another as dull as ditch water?

Just yesterday the communications team at @Foroige, headed by @Jerome_Hughes
released “Phone APP Translates ‘Cork English’ into English!!” a story that
gained over 1000 views within hours of being published.

Thanks to Jerome’s journalistic instincts and the hard working Social Media
Research Team at Media HQ, the story also featured on the Rick O’ Shea show,
Spin SW, FYI on TV3 as well as a feature article on the popular Irish site
Joe.ie.

Here are five tips we’ve learned to to help you get more views for your
social news stories.

1. Make sure your story is Newsworthy!
No matter how much you format your text or edit your headline, be it
traditional or new media, if your public does not find the content
informative, interesting or useful you will not succeed.

2. Use a Headline that’s attractive and Twitter friendly
To use a long confusing title is shooting yourself in the foot before a
race. No matter how good your story is, you need to draw the reader in using
your title. It needs to be short and catchy enough to fit in a tweet and
needs to contain enough Keywords to be recognized by search engines.

3. Keep your Release short and to the point.
The attention of the average Internet reader is decreasing rapidly and we
must face the fact that most readers will not read a long post. Avoid
including additional info about your company as in a traditional Press
Release. Keep your story specific enough that even a skim-read is enough to
make people want to share it on social Media

4. Try and use humour
The most successful Social Media Releases are light-hearted as the reader
is encouraged to share with his/her friends or family. A serious,
disheartening story may well be read by your closest audience but it is
unlikely they will pass it on through their other networks.

5.Make sure you have a good idea!

Never underestimate the power of creativity. The Foroige story did well because it was something that the public hadn’t seen before and weren’t expecting. People will never share the same old, same old!

Does it spark your pinterest?

February 7th, 2012 Posted in Social Media, Social Network, Social Platforms, Social Tools No Comments

Pinterest is fast becoming the social network of the moment. It will celebrate its second birthday in March and recently hit the 3 million user mark. Founded by designer Evan Sharp, it’s an invite-only platform with the mission to ‘connect everyone in the world through the things they find interesting’.

The site is laid out in the style of a bulletin-board and works in the same way. Sharp and co-founders Paul Sciarra and Ben Silbermann started out with the goal of creating a place where you can go to upload or collect things on the web and organise it the way you want to.

The bulletin-board style (now the visual hallmark of the site) is what makes it different. Instead of the linear feed common to so many other platforms, Pinterest displays things in a grid, making it feel more personal and more like a collection.

Pinterest is great for anyone who is in any way visually inclined, and has really taken off with interior designers, fashionistas, architects and event planners. The appeal is two-fold; on the one hand it’s a great place to go to see things that are interesting to you. On the other hand, it can help with projects in real life – anything from craft projects to weddings and birthday parties, to designing a dream home.

Have a look at Whole Foods, West Elm and the Today Show’s pinboards to see how using Pinterest can bring a more personal feel to your brand.

Source: Mashable

Facebook enters the stock market

February 7th, 2012 Posted in Economy, Facebook, Social Network No Comments

Facebook will finally debut on the stock market this spring after filing an initial public offering (IPO) in a move that will value the social network at anywhere between $75bn and $100bn. It’s one of the biggest US stock market debuts in history.

Potential buyers learned that the company made an incredible $1bn in profit last year from $3.7bn in revenues, 85% of which comes from advertising, while the rest is largely from social gaming. Another interesting fact to emerge from the filing is that there are now 845 million Facebook users, an increase of 39% from this time last year.

Zuckerburg was reportedly reluctant to make the change, fearing that it will damage the company’s culture. He changed his mind when it became clear that the company would have more than 500 shareholders by the end of 2011, meaning that it would have to start publicly reporting financials.

The next step is managing the social network’s change into a mature global business that will balance demands of privacy, while keeping advertisers and subscribers happy.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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