#Catriona Pollard
Embracing social media is a marathon, not a sprint: seven tips to get your business started
While many small businesses have taken their time to embrace social media platforms, it’s now obvious that the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. Social media allows you to build a sense of community around your own brand. The key is not to see it as a promotional tool but as a relationship building opportunity. Social […]
Four secrets to better Twitter engagement
Improving engagement on Twitter is important for any business because it creates a valuable relationship between you and your followers. Here are the four secrets to making it happen.
Promoting your social media sites, without using social media
Do you want to promote your social media sites and gain new followers? Then you need to tell more people about your social media pages and make it easy for them to find you, and this means promoting your presence outside of the social media sphere.
Looking to get some press? Build a media list
You’ve written a media release announcing an exciting piece of news from your business and you’re now ready to send it. Securing coverage is vital to the success of the project, so you want to make sure you distribute the announcement to the right journalists. So how do you do that?
What you need to know before joining social media
Before you dive into social media there are a few things to consider. There are hundreds of social media platforms; however many have different audiences and different ways they interact with their users.
Using events to build your business profile: Four ways
We all know that industry events are a great way to build your brand. But with so many ways you can incorporate events into your PR and marketing strategy, it’s a good idea to get a little creative in the way you approach them.
How to use evergreen stories to drum up publicity
There are many events occurring each and every year the media will always publish stories about, such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day. These are called evergreen stories and are a great opportunity to get some publicity for your small business, if you’re savvy enough to take advantage of them.
A step-by-step guide to getting started on Twitter
Twitter has taken the social media world by storm and if you haven’t considered it as an opportunity to build business yet, you may be missing out. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started.
Eleven reasons your business should start pinning on Pinterest
Have you heard the saying a picture paints a thousand words? Well your business can do just that on Pinterest.
Facebook fan page versus groups: choosing the right option for business
With Facebook becoming an essential part of any marketing plan it can be confusing to know which applications will most suit your business and best promote your product or service to the right audience.
Online influencers: Your most powerful advocates
Engage with the right online influencers and your business could begin seeing the success you’ve been dreaming of. These influencers need to be treated the same as any other valued, client or friend, so here’s some advice for how to approach them.
Five ways to turn your business into a PR machine
Don’t you hate it when you open a magazine and one of your competitors is featured and you just know that they’ll get customers from the publicity? You wonder why they were featured, and you weren’t. The answer? A public relations program.
Google+ Business Pages: What are the advantages?
We’ve heard quite a bit from the experts about social media fatigue, but the advantages a Google+ Business Page offers may be enough for a business to push through their reluctance and create yet another fantastic way to engage, converse and bond with their target market.
Why should you get involved with forums?
The question should be, why aren’t you involved with forums already? Forums are a highly valuable business tool for communicating with target markets and driving people to a website.
Why you need one social media person in your business
Though it might seem easier for a few employees to share the responsibility of looking after your business social media presence, there are some very good reasons to have a single dedicated social media expert. Here’s why…
How to be ethical on social media
Real-world ethics should be part of the social media experience, but unfortunately many individuals and businesses aren’t transferring these values into the digital world. Catriona Pollard looks at creating a code of ethics for your social media activity.
Engaging your customers on Twitter
Still not engaging with current and prospective customers on Twitter? Here’s how Catriona Pollard suggests you get started. “To get people to want to follow your business’ Twitter account it needs to present a personality…”
Biggest PR blunders of 2011 revealed, Qantas features heavily
Qantas has been listed three times in the annual PR Disasters Awards, after a spate of embarrassing PR glitches hit the airline in 2011. Are there any lessons SMBs can learn from Qantas’ mistakes?
Minding your p’s and q’s online
Catriona Pollard blogs about minding your manners online. “Just like keeping your elbows off the dinner table and letting pregnant women sit down on the bus, the online world has its own etiquette…”
What social media platforms are right for you?
Catriona Pollard blogs about choosing the right social media platform to deliver results for your business. “In order to achieve certain goals you may have to adopt several forms of social media platforms. If you take the time to choose the right ones for you, and devote enough time to them, you will find that in the end the benefits and outcomes are worth it.”
Deciding whether PR is right for your business
Catriona Pollard blogs about deciding whether or not public relations is right for your business. “Although many businesses are now implementing public relations specialists to help provide two-way communication between stakeholders, public relations is often misunderstood…”
Networking for women – what’s the point?
Catriona Pollard blogs about the benefits of women’s networking groups. “Business networking is the single most effective way to not only meet new contacts that share your vision and mission but it is also an excellent method for meeting people that can assist in new business development.”
Is social media outsourcing a good idea?
Catriona Pollard looks at whether you should outsource your next social media campaign. “Using experts means you’ll be keeping up to date with the latest in social media…”
Your business will struggle without a listening post
Catriona Pollard blogs about using social media as a listening post for your business. “A common error organisations make is assuming social media is where people go to share photos of their breakfast…”