February 12th, 2010
Advergaming
Advergaming is the use of video games to advertise a product or service or to promote a viewpoint.
First seen in the early years of the last decade, advergaming is becoming increasing popular with companies and organisations of all sizes. Games are often the most visited aspect of large brand websites (e.g. Campbell’s Soup – http://www.mysoup.com/games.aspx) and have become an increasing important part of media planning.
For examples, see:
www.pepsi.com
http://kids.discovery.com/games/games.html
http://www.chevroncars.com/
http://pressokentertainment.com/ games on mobiles
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Posted in FL1, General, Marketing, Technology | No Comments »
February 10th, 2010
We’ve been talking at seminars throughout the county and in London for some time about Social Media and have seen first-hand how it has benefitted our business.
By Social Media, I refer to the likes of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging to name a few.
But here’s a slightly different use for it.
Over the past 12 months we’ve ran three recruitment campaigns each for different roles.
We’ve traditionally used Recruitment Agencies, but as a small business, the cost of using a good agency has often been crippling when added to the time taken to induct and train along with lack of productivity whilst your new staff member learns the ropes.
We took the decision to practice what we preach and give Social Media a try.
So, here’s what happened…
We wrote up a job specification as usual, and wrote a blog post advertising the position.
We then used twitter, facebook and Linked In, to announce the position.
Finally we used facebook to advertise. Using facebook we were able to target based on interest and location, so for example (anyone interested in web development, mysql and php within 40 miles of St Albans).
We ran each campaign for approximately 4 weeks.
On average we received 20-30 CVs, half of which were suitable. On average we interviewed between 8 and 10 candidates, and on two occasions hired one person and on one occasion hired two candidates.
To summarise:
We spent the same amount of time filtering CVs, interviewing and inducting. Two hours in total was spent setting up the social media and advertising, and the total cost of advertising was on average £17.00.
A good recruitment agency is worth every penny, however, if you fancy rolling your sleeves up and doing it yourself Social Media is certainly worth considering.
Posted in Careers, FL1, General | No Comments »
February 9th, 2010
It sounds obvious, but so often we speak to people who assume they’re going to build the biggest website possible, they’re going to rank number 1 in Google the next day and it’s going to magically transform their business. The reality is often a different thing unless this question is thought through and applied carefully.
Some reasons you may want to consider are:
• To generate sales leads
• To boost my business’ credibility
• To allow people to find my business online
• To sell my products and service to generate additional revenue
• To provide an up to date information source for existing contacts and customers
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Posted in FL1, General | 9 Comments »
February 9th, 2010
As a Director of a small business for five years I don’t consider myself an expert in business, however as someone with a technical background and a relative newcomer over the past few years, like many businesses I’ve found many challenges.
Here are a few ideas and things that I have done that have certainly helped me with my business and will hopefully help you too.
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