Image copyright: (C) the Oddfellows

For younger people, documenting life experiences, sharing know-how and creating rich content to share on social media seems to be second-nature. This is less so for many older people. But knowledge held by older people is precious capital that must be shared, documented and transferred to other generations. We can’t let it become lost.

The University of Salford’s Search and Social Media Marketing course has challenged my thinking – how can social media play its part in helping us to achieve legacy and in enabling different generations to reciprocally benefit from the sharing of knowledge? And do silversurfers hold the potential to tip social media into a golden age of information exchange? read more

For any business using social media channels, it is important to know what makes your target market tick and to think about how you are going to engage with them.

I have recently completed the Search and Social Media Marketing course at Salford University which has given me more of an insight into digital marketing and some psychology behind the thought process of users on social media.

According to Jonah Berger, there are six STEPPS to creating successful content that is more likely to trigger people to share or engage with your content on social media. read more

Although I’m a content writer I’m also expected to lead Soap Media’s social media marketing campaigns and, naturally, I’m Copywriting for SEO – page rankings are always in mind. Some established Copywriters lament the new generation and complain about where the talent’s gone, but Copywriting with Google’s algorithms in mind is now the way of things, and content is primarily about SEO, keywords, and Call to Action (CTA) buttons.

It’s a complex time, and this is what I’ve learnt after four years of SEO, and following two months of The University of Salford’s Search and Social Media Marketing (SSMM) course… read more

Having spent my teenage years publishing an endless collection of holiday snaps, documenting my every thought and updating those somewhat embarrassing relationship statuses on Facebook, the role of Social Media Executive for an e-cigarette brand did not seem a mean feat.

The Art of Social Media (CC) by mkhmarketing

But oh boy, was I wrong. I soon came to realise that those years of attempting to portray the perfect image of myself on social media carried far fewer obstacles and incredible opportunities than those available to a brand. With the help of social media courses such as Search and Social Media Marketing at the University of Salford, I came to understand the degree to which social media marketing had now become the cornerstone to every company. read more

Fell Promotions has been a well established promotional company in Huddersfield for over 12 years specialising in embroidered clothing, print and promotional goods. However, in the last few years the company has shown significant growth and is now attracting customers from all over the country. Fell’s success came with such momentum, that it was difficult at times for the company to keep up with and so the media element of the company was left slightly neglected.

Aware of the importance of brand image in the promotional industry, Fell embraced the world of social media to attract more clients and to engage with their customers. Since January 2014 Fell have been actively using social media to promote new offers, products and company updates. Sales have risen by an estimated 25% since then. To identify where the extra sales were coming from staff were told to ask new clients where they had heard of us and sure enough the main sources were twitter and Facebook. read more

Formula for Digital Success

 About Me

I joined Search and Social Media Marketing as I wanted to learn how to enhance the online presence for our company. After a truly fascinating 9 weeks I am leaving the course with a great range of  new knowledge and ideas. I also appreciate now more than ever that the task ahead is going to take a great deal of hard work and dedication to get the online presence to where we want to be, which  leads me to my first major question- where exactly is it we want to be??

 1 Strategy

To generate an excellent online presence I first need to complete a review of activities undertaken so far and identify the key areas of interest. Without an online digital strategy I have no way to  review if we are achieving our aims. As a result a key task will be to generate a series of SMART objectives, ensuring that we have clear targets to guide us through the process of digital  improvement. read more

Generating a Social Currency in a Social Media Jungle

Generating social currency is one of the most important investments an organisation can make to their social media strategy. In today’s ‘social media jungle’ it is crucial that every business strives to create value to their brand. With this is mind, just how can you make your company standout from the rest by tempting your followers and consumers to share and talk about your product with others?

The aim of this blog is to investigate best practice in generating a positive social currency for an educational brand, ie a university or training company, often stereotyped as being ‘uncool’, ‘boring’, and ‘sensible’ with todays ‘generation Z’ society, a society which dominates a large proportion of social media… read more

Hmmm… So, which course?  These were my initial thoughts.  Do I do a long distance course or do I stay close to home and come to the building.  By opting for the SSMM (Search and Social Media Marketing) at Media City, I now know, I made the perfect choice.

University of Salford Campus – Media City

It had all the aspects that I was hoping for and none of the ones I feared.  I didn’t want to just do ‘a course on seo and social media’… I wanted the course that would add value to my skillset.

When you leave University and/or Further/Higher Education, the question usually is… “What experience do you have?”… This is usually followed by an answer consisting of erms, buts and opportunity.  In other words, doing your best to prove you are willing to learn. read more

Tapping the Social Media apps on my phone has become more of a habit than a conscious decision. Whether it’s to check out the persistent notifications for a picture I clicked ‘like’ on days ago; or to answer a private group message about a friend’s birthday meal. I no longer need to simply wonder how an old friend is doing, as their profile picture and status updates will tell the story of their relationships, hobbies and interests. Status updates can be akin to a diary extract; often telling us a lot more than we care to know. read more

Where do you turn when your business slows down or reaches a point where it stops growing? Well that is the question I asked myself, working on an organic vineyard in the beautiful south west of France and a in a wine shop in Hale, a few months ago. Well grab a glass of wine, sit back and look no further guys, organic marketing and social media are the answer.

Nowadays, most social businesses don’t use their capacity to their advantage. It’s easy to employ a marketing company, spend a lot of money, and not see any results. A friend of mine has a successful optical instruments online business and decided to outsource his Google ads campaign to a marketing company. After 6 months of paying high management fees he decided to end it and he saw no difference in his sales or website visits. This is why I went out there and studied SEO at the University of Salford as you are never better served then by yourself. read more