As featured on the Network News from Service Network….

1. We called our company ‘Better’ to be both a challenge to us (to continually improve) and also to highlight the needs of our clients to have a better brand, marketing strategy, digital and social media presence.

2. We’ve talked to approximately 1500 business leaders in the past two years about the strategic implementation of social media within their businesses. (more…)

“Brilliant at cutting edge brand, design and development. Crap at organising birthday parties!”

Celebrations are a family affair. Everyone buys presents, shares a cake and then hits the pub. Better is celebrating our second birthday (I can’t believe it has been two years already!) in our own unique style. We’ve given presents to the team, provided the cake and when time allows we’ll enjoy a drink or two.

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My latest shout out about what’s buzzing in the Better studio.

Things are hotting up, and I don’t just mean the weather.
What a blur of activity the last couple of months have been.

We’ve attended some great events and recent conferences, and we’ve welcomed new clients on board that we’re really excited about. We’ve also been continually impressed by the commitment that our existing clients show to their customers, which we support them with through their brand and marketing activity.

Investing time and resource in new product development (NPD) was always part of our long term strategy, and this has already started to reward our efforts. Our new digital product (currently in development) is on target for our scheduled release date and we’re already having some exciting conversations with prospective clients in the B2C and B2B sector who want it as part of their brand/marketing tool box. Over the coming months we’ll be getting set for launch and I’ll be in a position to talk to you more about it.

Part of the investment in our digital product has been to recruit a new member of the team who has headed up the development. Ian Chilton, who brings to Better a decade of digital experience, has taken overall responsibility for our digital project management and is a fundamental driving force behind our NPD. Having Ian join our team is indicative of our growth over the last 18 months. He joins Senior Web Developer, Simon Scarfe to create a skilled digital team capable of delivering fantastic results for our clients and positioning Better for further growth. (more…)

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Our monthly shout out about what’s buzzing in the Better studio.

Is it March already? Well January and February didn’t hang around did they! A very belated Happy New Year to you, I hope your year has gotten off to a great start and ahead of you are rewarding months and new experiences.

At Better we’ve just finished our first year end and it’s been a great ride so far.

We’re pleased, and very proud, to announce we’ve been shortlisted for the ‘ICT and Internet Award’ in the North East Business Awards. We got the call last week from the sponsors of the category to give us the good news and we’ve had visits this week from the judging panel and a camera man who called in to film some of the goings on in the studio (some photos are on our Flickr Photostream ). We’re now all excited and looking forward to the Awards Dinner on 25th March at Teesside University. The winning companies from each of the sub-regional heats will go through to the Regional Final of the nebusiness awards which will be held at Hardwick Hall Hotel on Thursday, 29 April 2010.

We can only put this down to a great team working incredibly hard for some great clients, so we will look to develop both areas in the year ahead. To that end we will be adding to the team shortly (More on that soon) and have finalised the brand and business development strategy that will help us capitalise on the momentum that is building up behind the business. We’ll be supporting the core business with some product development which we’re really excited about. Obviously we can’t say much about it right now, but the opportunity is huge and we’ve partnered with some really cool people who will help us make it happen. Watch this space.

Next month I’ve been roped into taking on the swim of my life and have entered Swimathon 2010, the world’s biggest fundraising swim. I’m part of a team called the ‘Twimmers‘ (check out the photo of us with ‘The Hoff’) and the money that we raise will help Marie Curie Cancer Care provide care and support to people with cancer and other terminal illnesses. The network of 2,000 Marie Curie Nurses work through the day and night to provide this care and every £20 I raise will pay for an hour’s nursing care.

If you would like to support me please just click on my personal donation page on the official swimathon website and make a secure online donation using your credit or debit card. It’s really that simple. Thank you for your support.

We also want to put out an early shout out for TyneTwestival, which will be soon upon us (7pm on the 25th march in fact!). Northern Film & Media are the headline sponsors this year and all money raised will go to Concern who are doing unbelievable work tackling poverty across the globe so we’re very proud to be involved in supporting the event. Please follow @tynetwestival for regular updates and news of what they’re planning and of course do join in, be part of it.

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Our monthly shout out about what’s buzzing in the Better studio.

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Shortlisted for The Northern Marketing Awards
We’re delighted to be shortlisted for Best Digital Marketing Campaign alongside four other companies at the up coming Northern Marketing Awards. We know the other companies involved and in all honesty just being pitched alongside them is fantastic. They’re good businesses, with passionate people so we’ll be chuffed regardless of who wins. (Secretly we obviously want it badly! But you knew that didn’t you?)

Our Second trip abroad to pitch!
After a successful first trip, we’re going back to deliver “The Social Media Pitch Part Deux!” This week Paul and I are going back to talk about specifics and hopefully, our first two international clients will follow shortly after.

A shameless shout out for Declan
Dec has launched a new blog, ‘A Social Life’, which will focus on our interest in social brands, design, and businesses who have implemented successfully social strategies. We figure if we find the case studies that show you social brands in action, and contributing to their community, we can all learn from them. We’d like your feedback, both good and bad so please tell us what you think. Take a look at www.asociallife.co.uk. (more…)

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Our monthly shout out about what’s buzzing in the Better studio.

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If We Can You Can Challenge. ‘The Winners’.
Sadly Mark didn’t win (Congrats BTW to Craig Smith, Ian Smith, Esther Dingley, Steven Smith, Ray Liddle, Louise Bell, Rob Earnshaw and Ralph Thompson) but a keenly contested challenge gave us a lot of valuable coverage and goes to show that just taking part in the challenge can help a young business raise it’s profile. A lot of friends, clients and peers took the time to support us so here’s a big shout out to all the good good people who took the time to vote for us. Just being in the company of such dynamic businesses makes us feel we’re doing the right things and people see us as a company worth following. (more…)

Our monthly shout out about what’s buzzing in the Better studio.

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We’d like to say welcome to some nice new clients.
It’s a cliche but we’re people people, their drive and enthusiasm for what we’re going to be doing together is what we’re in this business for.

The Enterprise Team (Redcar & Cleveland, LEGI).
Better is delighted to announce that we’ll be working with The Enterprise Team to build a website that will provide valuable practical resources for enterprise businesses and schools in the Redcar & Cleveland area. We’re feeling the infectious drive within the team to support people with ambition, who want to step off on the path to owning their own business and we will be contributing time to developing marketing and PR resources people will find useful as well as building the system to house them. The Enterprise Team is looking beyond the two years it has remaining, and providing a repository for all their amassed knowledge will ensure people can benefit from it for years to come.

Yarm School
The region’s leading independent school has appointed Better to re-design and re-develop its website. Currently moving into development the new website will provide full content authoring across the Preparatory School, Raventhorpe, Senior School and Sixth Form. Functionality and improved call to actions across the website, as well as a powerful and simple CMS designed for all levels of user will support the administration of content. The project will be complete for the new school term. (more…)