It was late in 2008 when I started thinking about how Idealogy could start ‘practicing what we preach’ in the field of social media. How could we kick-start our ECRM programme, engage on the growing number of social platforms and garner some interest from within the company? Not an easy task back then.
My first thought was “I’m not doing this one alone!”
Looking around the building there were certain people with just the right skills to help. So I asked them to join me.
Our new team consisted of Simon Dover and Anna Ecuyer who would predominantly focus on content. Paul Skinner would be key from a technical aspect and myself for my all-round social knowledge. We gathered together and decided we’d be called the Social Media Group or SMG for short. And so we began.
The SMG meet regularly and we invite other members of staff as guests to keep the content varied and interesting and make sure everyone feels involved. We all write content, tweet, share stories and experiences, all of which combine to form our outbound social activity and strategy. We also added a new member, Dan Ferrett in 2012, to take full advantage of his Facebook skills.
It all sounds rather straightforward doesn’t it! Well, as you know, this forms part of our commercial offering and we are lucky to have some very skilled people who are masters of this ‘dark art’. A bit like the Magic Circle - we can’t share all of our key processes with you I’m afraid. We’d have to kill you!
So here’s a potted history of our social activity to date:
2008:
Created LinkedIn business pages.
January 2009:
Opened up Flickr to showcase our ideas and completed projects.
February 2009:
Opened up our ‘official’ YouTube account and added films, commercials and animations we had created.
March 2009:
Started our blog writing programme to share our thoughts, innovations and general day-to-day with anyone who wanted to get to know us a little better.
Signed the business up to Facebook – Come on! We had to see what it was all about from a commercial perspective.
Joined Twitter, just about the best way to quickly share those great daily thoughts and finds.
December 2009:
Re-ignited the ECRM programme in a more direct and focused way.
February 2011:
Engaged some additional (external) people to keep the content fresh and interesting.
September 2011:
We published blog number 100!
November 2011:
Joined the ever-growing crowd on Pinterest - we are very visual after all! Plus, it’s a great quick reference resource and an easy way to waste a tea break!
October 2012:
Re-ignited the Facebook activity with our in-house pro Dan.
January 2013:
Refreshed our activity strategy and planning for the New Year.
September 2013:
We’ll publish our 250th blog.
So, you can see that the team has certainly had a big effect on Idealogy’s own social activity, and this in turn has driven our client offering. Without the core SMG and its contributors/contributions we wouldn’t be where we are today business wise, strategy wise or client wise on the social media front.
Long may it continue and well done to the SMG team, to everyone involved and to everyone we will ‘rope-in’ in the future!
All images found on Google. No offense or copyright infringement intended. Images can be removed if requested by originator.
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