PR and marketing

Our Director, Catriona Pollard, speaks on PR and social media to a number of groups and seminars. Here is her PowerPoint presentation which shares practical tips on how to build your business profile and your personal brand using social media and PR.

An overview of PR and Social Media

A striking and public expression of International Women's Day, this is an event for everyone.

Ever felt thrilled at the idea of being involved in a flashmob and never known how to get involved? This is your chance to take part in a professional and fabulous flashmob in the name of a great cause ... the very public celebration of International Women's Day.

This is a FREE EVENT and the more women involved the greater the impact. We're working towards global recognition for our effort.

At 2pm on 8 March women from across Sydney will converge on Martin Place (between Castlereagh & Pitt, at the foot of the stairs to MLC Centre) to Strike a Pose for International Women's Day. Having been given the poses weeks in advance we're sure you'll be champing at the bit to play your part. Don't fret ... you certainly we don't need you to be Ginger Rogers to be involved!

How it works 

1. Register here to reserve your place in the line-up
2. Stay up to date and visit our She Business Australia Facebook site to receive updates and all the news. We'll be holding 'chat sessions' regularly so you can post questions and ensure you're fully briefed before the event.
   Our choreographer will be posting the sequence of poses (YouTube clip) on our site and will be available to answer all your questions. There'll be no more than 10 poses to learn and the sequence will be repeated for 5 minutes.

Meeting place 
On hearing of the event, Servcorp offered to lend their support and have given us their MLC boardroom as a meeting place and they're also providing T-shirts FREE for the first 50 registrants.

Date: Thursday 8 March 2012
Time: 1pm at Servcorp (if you can't make 1pm you can meet us at 1.50 in Pitt St Mall)
Venue: Level 57, 19-29 Martin Place, Sydney

Walk to Pitt street mall 
At 1:45 we'll make our way from the MLC Centre to Martin Place and get into position for a 2pm start.
At the completion of our awe-inspiring and fabulous sequence we'll disperse and meet for coffee at VIVO Cafe on George Street Sydney.
Address: Servcorp
Level 57 MLC, 19-29 Martin Place
Sydney, NSW

Date: 08/03/2012
Start Time: 1:00 pm
End Time: 2:15 pm
Price: A $0.00

Register here.

With so many social media platforms available, it can be hard to figure out which platform will deliver the best results for your company. However, there are a few things to consider before choosing a social media platform.

Firstly, you need to devote time to it. Maintaining your presence on a daily basis is a necessity and results can’t be generated without a long term commitment. Think of it like a relationship: without your time and dedication, your social media marriage will be sure to fail.

Secondly, what are your social media goals? More traffic? More sales? Are you attempting a viral marketing campaign? Or do you just want people to associate your brand as an expert in its chosen field? It is always beneficial to identify what goals you want to achieve so you have something to work towards.

Lastly, once you have created your social media pages, dedicate your time to creating quality content, getting involved in online discussions and communicating with your consumers by asking questions and answering theirs in return.

To help you choose the platforms that work for you, here are five of the top social media sites and how they can help your business.

• Facebook:  With more than 400 million users, it’s a great site to use for customer engagement, feedback and brand development for your products and services. However, it does not rank high with search engines, so if you are looking to increase traffic to your webpage Facebook is not the way to go. 
• Twitter: Can be used quite successfully to drive organic traffic to your website as the more followers you have the more people who see your tweets and click on your links. The challenge, however, is creating an interesting and quality tweet in only 140 characters. 
• YouTube: With over 100 million views a day, YouTube is a good way to get opinions and information about your business out into the public in a visual and creative way. However, if it’s only an increase in traffic to your website you want, then YouTube is not ideal.
• LinkedIn: A professional site that allows you to connect directly with potential customers. If you want to position yourself and your brand as an expert and authoritative voice in a specific industry – this is the site for you. Take the time to research and only join groups that are relevant to you and your potential clients.
• Blogging: Blogs are extremely easy to use. If your goals are to drive traffic to your website and position your business as an expert in its field then a blog is the number one place to do so. Using key words and phrases will give you better Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which, in turn, will drive more traffic to your site.

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.

Check out our PR & Social Media Tips TV on YouTube: Short helpful videos about getting PR right!  

Watch all of the videos here.