Better Brand Agency

Core Message Specialists

Social Media & Social Marketing

Social Media, Social Media Strategies and Social Networking by Better Brand Agency based in Tees Valley, North East, and North Yorkshire

North East Tyne Twestival returns

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

TyneTwestival will be hosted on the 25th March 2010

On Thursday 25 March 2010, people in hundreds of cities around the world, including Newcastle will come together offline to rally around the important cause of Education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness.  Twestival™ (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good.

All of the local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to projects. Follow @tynetwestival on Twitter or visit http://newcastle.twestival.com for updates.

About Concern Worldwide.

Concern Worldwide was founded in 1968 to meet the needs of people living in extreme poverty, for whom every day is a fight for survival. Concern is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of poverty. Their mission is to help people living in extreme poverty achieve major improvements in their lives – improvements they can sustain without ongoing support. Concern meets the needs of these people in a caring and personalized manner, respecting their human and cultural dignity. They are committed to reaching the most vulnerable, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Concern’s work is informed by a vision for change and their education programs target the poorest people in the poorest countries in the world, with particular emphasis on reaching out-of-school children such as girls, orphans, street children, working children, children affected by conflict, children affected by HIV and AIDS, and children with disabilities. Concern’s education programs currently reach over 700,000 people in 25 countries across the regions of Africa,  Asia, and the Caribbean.  Please follow @concern on Twitter to get a glimpse of their staff tweeting from around the world; including their efforts on the ground in Haiti. (more…)

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A mandate for 2010

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

A recent post by Jeanne C Meister and Karie Willyerd in Harvard Business discussed how few socially connected organisations there are, indicating this will need to be redressed if companies are to be attractive to a future workforce that judges a potential employer by the social media freedom they allow their employees.

The social networking juice that powers a generation across sprawling vibrant communities has its feed forcibly cut off when the majority of company staff walk into work. All the potential of networked company communities, the opportunity for people to collaborate and and share knowledge is left at home and lost to the company. (more…)

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Social Media: Beyond the Hype

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Date: Thursday 29 October
Time: 5.30 – 8pm followed by food, drinks and networking
Venue: Great North Museum: Hancock, NE2 4PT
Cost: FREE to Codeworks Connect members; £20 to non-members

Everyone and anyone is talking up social media right now. Asking you to “join the conversation”, “engage” with your customers rather than shouting at them. And telling you that if you don’t use these tools you’re at a major disadvantage.
But what’s the truth about social media? Can they really help your business? And how, exactly? (more…)

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Charities are making social media work hard for them

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

In tough economic times people and businesses are less able to give as freely as they may have once given, charity unfortunately stays at home!

As with any business in a recession charities need to be where their audience is or they run the risk of being left behind, and it’s clear some smaller charities are struggling to change lanes and adopt social media as a key part of their strategy. Some charities, however, have made the leap and have been reaping the rewards of new social opportunities.

Age Concern with partner Innocent Smooties developed ‘The Big Knit’. Started in 2003 the campaign has raised, to date, over £600k for older people in the colder winter months. The campaign now includes Flickr, YouTube and Blog channels which enable the people who’ve got behind the campaign to be part of the story. Clever widgets such as the ‘Hatometer’, which can be embedded into supporters blogs and websites, shows how many hats have been knitted so far. (more…)

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TyneTees Twestival THIS MONDAY @ 7pm

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Hi all,

Just a reminder that Tyne Tees Twestival will be held this coming Monday.  The team here at Twestival Towers are really excited and have been a bit hectic of late, hence the direct mailing!  Thanks to everyone who has bought a ticket already, and I hope you will encourage others to do the same!

It’s on Monday at 7pm at Hoults Yard within the Boiler House – I just realized that I’ve been calling it the Boiler Room….oops!  The photo comes from PJ White’s Flickr account – worth a look! You’ll find a map on our blog page – thanks Google! :)

If you can not get a ticket before the event, send us a Tweet so we know you are coming along (and will buy more booze/food). You can donate on the door as Better Brand Agency will be manning it along with a big donation box.

So…the all important question – what does your £10 DONATION for each ticket get you?…
(more…)

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TWESTIVAL IS BACK, AND TWICE AS BIG!

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

As most of you have heard, Twestival is back and Better Brand Agency is happy to announce Tyne and Tees Twestivals will be taking place in early September.

Details of headline sponsor and corporate sponsors opportunities will be announced shortly, as will some of the ideas we’ve got to make this year, bigger and better. So keep an eye on the Twitter accounts @TyneTwestival and@TeesTwestival and local media for more news.

Tyne TwestivalTees Twestival

(more…)

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100% pure filtered brand messages!

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

One of the greatest challenges we face as marketers is to build and maintain strong brands.

Thankfully our tool chests are brimming with tools to help us carve out rich seams of knowledge and understanding relating to our audience that feeds our strategic thinking. That’s not all, add to this the torrent of real time feedback being generated across social media spaces about our products and some would say we’ve never had it so good. How could we fail to build strong brands? (more…)

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CIM Event: Facing the future – Is there space for social networks in your business?

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Is social media a flash in the pan?
Is it relevant to your business and should it be at the heart of your marketing strategy?
Or should we get a (second) life and stop the twitter?

As a marketing practitioner, you may feel that you need to be using social media, or simply want to keep abreast of developments in this area. This presentation will explain the explosion of social media; exploring winning case studies, when it goes wrong and outlining implementation strategies you can begin to adopt today.

You will leave inspired and armed with the knowledge to begin applying social media principles to your own business.

(more…)

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Forget the tools, think about the conversation

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Phew, it’s getting crowded in here!…New ways of connecting people are coming hard and fast with a handful of cool APIs a day being launched to connect to big social media networks and mobile devices as well as pure bred micro blogging tools (Twitter, Pownce, Tumblr, Jaiku, My Say, Hictu) and the new rash of ‘Gauge your happiness tools’ (Moodmill, I Rate My Day and Emotionr). In fact tools are being developed to help us manage all our social media tools more efficiently! The buzz is tangible, in fact it’s overpowering.

I was at a social media master class a couple of weeks ago that was hosted by Stowe Boyd, the guy who coined the term ‘Social Tools’. It was a warm up session for attendees to the outstanding Thinking Digital Conference (Book for 2010 now!). As the session went on it was clear the focus in the room, with the exception of JP Rangaswami (Confused of Calcutta) who spoke passionately about people engaging with people, was on the relative merits of tools and new social media platforms being developed.

This left me pondering, ‘Are we too focused on tools?’… (more…)

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Declan Metcalfe, Marketing Director, Better Brand Agency

Posted by: Declan Metcalfe, Marketing Director, Better Brand Agency

Filed in: Marketing Communication, Social Media & Social Marketing, Web and Digital

Tagged: ,

Is this the end of focus groups?

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

I was talking yesterday with an account manager who during a discussion about market research said that social media metrics would never replace the value gained from facial expressions, body language and the tone of voice of people attending a live focus group.

I’ve planned a few focus group sessions in the past when I was part of the team that re-branded Frisp Crisps and I have to say I remember them as being interesting and generating some useful feedback, particularly that the crisps were considered as being quite ‘foody’ and filling, more than a snack. That fed into the decision that new ‘foody’ such as Buttered Jacket Potato & Mature Cheddar would fit with our customers’ perception of the crisp brand.

(more…)

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