We we’re at the North East Digital Awards last week and picked up the award for Best Social Media Campaign – Growing your digital footprint. The event, held at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle, was attended by all of the shortlisted agencies and was a great evening with some fantastic digital innovation celebrated. (more…)

mima (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) has partnered with Better to help develop and deliver a social media strategy for the landmark arts venue. Better primarily helped the marketing team at mima understand how social media integrates with their communication strategy and bring it’s audience closer to them on a daily basis before being asked to build and integrate and number of social media tools around their destination website. (more…)

I’ve seen lots of social media maps, some good some not so good.

The problem is they sit there in lofty isolation, a sea of mostly unfamiliar names and quirky identities.  They are a secret cypher known only to social media cool kids it seems. These maps are not connected to the real world (The one in which hard pressed marketing professionals are fighting hard for their budgets and their jobs) in any recognisable way. We’re missing an opportunity here and, if we’re honest, being a little bit condescending to boot. Another thing, social media buzz words are such a crock! Real people don’t talk like that!

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Growing your Digital Footprint

We find ourselves drawing this diagram all the time for clients when we’re talking about social media so we thought we’d reproduce it here and get some feedback.

Conversations tend to go something like, “Why social media?”.

After introducing them to the idea that engaging with audiences, listening and harvesting feedback, gaining insights into audience thinking and breaking down corporate barriers is the most rewarding business change event they’ll ever implement it’s much much simpler to draw it.

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On the back of winning some exciting digital projects, the Better team is growing again. We are looking for a talented and exciting PHP/MySQL web developer to join us.

The web developer role requires demonstration technical ability but more importantly the passion required to forge a career in digital media that by its very nature requires continuous learning. You should have a love for all things web. You will see web projects as being not only design and functionality, but also understand the marketing and communication requirements for the project (including SEO). You should find code and problem solving interesting and have a genuine interest in perusing a career within a vibrant commercial studio and an environment where deadlines change daily.

Software and skills:
Expert knowledge of Object Orientated PHP/MySQL., Javascript and AJAX
Expert knowledge of building sites in CSS/XHTML
Content Management System Models
Hosting and Email Set Up and server support
Search Engine Optimisation
Aware of Accessibility particularly W3C and WAI 
Web 2.0
Design standards and technology

Salary/Package: Negotiable based on experience.

You must be able to join the team to support both existing projects (additional work, problem solving) but also lead on new projects using your technical understanding to help with scoping out technical website specifications. You needs to be able to work comfortably on your own while maintaining close communication with the rest of the team. Having a strong attention to detail is critical.

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