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Happy Anniversary to me
I don’t know if you or I find it harder to believe but I have already notched up a year of service to the IIA. My very first post on this blog for the IIA was entitled “What a week!” and I have no reservations in expanding that to say “What a year!”
Ten things I have learnt in Year One:
- Ask for feedback and you will get it: people are always happy to share their opinion.
- Don’t presume anything (I’ve known this for too long) especially that people have the latest version of anything particularly browsers.
- Most people are more than happy to help.
- There is a lot of voluntary work in business too.
- A good voicemail message goes a long way. Ring me in the office today and you’ll know what I mean.
- You’re all mad for the networking. When is it anything but social though?
- People say the strangest things on Twitter. (And of course I cannot find anything strange just when I want it. Links welcomed below please 🙂 )
- More than I ever thought possible about Search Engine Optimisation.
- I can stand in heels for up to 12 hours; after that I get crabby.
- An awful lot about RSS which you will hear about anon.
Thanks very much to you for reading and commenting and writing guest posts for the blog, articles for the site, all the work on the working groups, for joining, for renewing, for your recommendations, help and all the fun! It’s been a GREAT year!
Net Visionary Awards 2009
Net Visionary Shortlist Badges at the ready
Only a few more days to go to the announcement of the IIA & Enterprise Ireland Net Visionary Awards Shortlist. It will be announced on Tuesday 14th April and voting will open at the same time. To help you prepare for your moment of glory (and because I’m taking a few days off 🙂 ) I have prepared the following badges to help you let all of your clients and customers know about your success thus far in the Awards. If it reminds people to vote for you that’s an added bonus!
FYI for your convenience the badges are all 120Â x 240 standard sidebar size.
Click to access the full version of each badge and GOOD LUCK!
blogging, irishblogs, social media, Social Media Working Group, Guest Blogger, Web 2.0
Business Blogging in Ireland – Survey Results
At the start of 2009 we undertook a survey among Irish businesses that already have blogs. We asked them a number of questions to try and understand the objectives of their blogging activities, what results they were seeing and how much time and effort they put into managing their blogs.
We will be discussing the results in detail at the Business Blogging breakfast briefing on April 22nd, but in the meantime here are the high-level survey results:
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Irish business bloggers place focus firmly on pleasing the customer – IIA Survey
The Irish Internet Association’s Social Media Working Group recently surveyed key Irish business bloggers about their blogging activity. This survey was undertaken in order to gather information for the IIA Guide to Business Blogging in Ireland developed by the Social Media Working Group. This Guide will be released in electronic format on 22nd April 2009. The Social Media Working Group will hold a breakfast briefing on business blogging in Ireland at 7.45am on April 22nd in the Burlington Hotel to share key insights with business owners, marketing managers and communications professionals about blogging as a business communications tool in Ireland.
The IIA Guide to Business Blogging in Ireland is aimed at professionals who are considering blogging for business or who have given it a go and reached a standstill. It aims to assist the nascent blogger to start seeing the benefits of blogging and to help them develop the best kind of blogging style and approach for their business.
As part of the research for this guide 44 Irish business bloggers responded to a survey about their blogging activities. Key findings include that 39% of business bloggers cite their blog as a source for sales leads. Among other benefits a well maintained blog can improve a company’s ranking in Google thus making it easier for the business to be found. The same blog will also allow a business to show customers that they are experts in their sector which 75% of respondents indicated was one of their objectives for their blog. How a company assesses the return on the investment of their time and expertise in a blog is a question addressed in the guide. 73% of respondents cite “positive feedback from customers” as a key measure of blogging success while just over 50% cited the number of comments as an indicator of success and just under 50% indicated that unique visitors was their preferred measurement of success. Also addressed in the guide is the question about how to integrate blogging activities into other communications and marketing activities and to assign appropriate resources to blogging . 39% of Business bloggers post several times a week and 50% spend up to four hours each week blogging and 32% spend up to eight hours a week blogging. The IIA plan to run this survey on an annual basis in order to collate longitudinal data about this key business communications and marketing practice.
Brendan Hughes, Chair of the IIA Social Media Working Group and Technology Manager with FBD Insurance, commented on the reason he thinks more businesses are reviewing their approach to social media, “Irish businesses today are facing a new challenge as more and more of their customers are going online to check what other customers are saying about them before they proceed to purchase. Ratings websites, discussion boards, social network sites, blogs and Twitter are all helping to put more control in the hands of consumers. In the past, if a customer had a poor experience with a business they would tell a handful of family and friends. Now they are online, posting comments and writing articles that are available to the whole world immediately and permanently. The IIA Guide to Business Blogging in Ireland is the Social Media Working Group’s lifeline for companies who find themselves drowning in the social media sea.”
Fergal O’Byrne, CEO of the IIA, commented ahead of the publication of The IIA Guide to Business Blogging in Ireland, “This guide will prove to be an invaluable reference point for the Irish business blogging community. The work of the Social Media Working Group and all our 6 working groups is absolutely key to the IIA strategy of developing content from within its members’ expertise and creating a larger audience for that expertise.”
The Social Media Working Group, and in particular this guide to blogging, sets out to help Irish businesses understand how they can appropriately interact with their customers online, so they can not only defend their brand reputation but even enhance it.
The Social Media Working Group plans to release four guides in the coming months. The Working Group wrote all guides collaboratively and using the principals of social media, invited input from the Irish business and blogging communities, online and off, using wikis and workshops to collect feedback. The Working Group continues to use this approach for the upcoming guides. The next workshop on the Guide to Podcasting for Business will be held on April 9th in the Digital Hub.
The Social Media Working Group is chaired by Brendan Hughes, eCommerce Manager of FBD Insurance and includes the following representatives of Irish businesses:
- Aisling McMahon, Strata3
- Bartley O’Connor, PriceWaterhouseCoopers
- Bernie Goldbach, Tipperary Institute
- Brendan Hughes, FBD Insurance (Chair)
- Campbell Scott, IGOPeople
- Conor Lynch, EightyTwenty
- Eoin Kennedy, Slattery Communications
- Frederic Herrera, IADT
- Gordon Jenkinson, Jenerate
- John McGuinness, Murray Consultants
- Joy Redmond, Flexitimers
- Keith Shirley, Shercom
- Krishna De, BizGrowthNews
- Matt Mattheson, Thinkhouse PR
- Niall Devine, MyCharity.ie
- Philip McCartney, Bebo
- Roseanne Smith, IIA
Net Visionary Awards 2009, Congress 2009, Meetball
Congress 09: Get there at the best price or maybe even for nothing
I hope you have seen yesterday’s news that the speakers for the plenary sessions at IIA Congress 2009 on May 21st – 22nd in the Crowne Plaza in Santry, Dublin have been announced.
In the morning we have speakers from Facebook, Realex Payments, DotMobi and Google sharing their expert perspective on Better Business Online in a Tough Economy: Money, Marketing, Monitoring & Mobile sponsored by Realex Payments. The afternoon will lead on with breakout sessions organised by the IIA Working Groups and focusing the theme within their particular areas of expertise. Delegates will also be able to book one-to-one web strategy clinics to help them work out some of their gnarlier online business issues. These were really popular last year so we are expanding them this year.
That evening will see the announcement of the 2009 Net Visionary Award winners and if that’s not enough I will be organising our inaugural Meetball* – a demonstration and networking breakfast on May 22nd.
I hope this announcement has piqued your interest and I want to make sure you get there at the best price possible.
Currently we are offering Early Bird tickets for Congress to members and non-members until 17th April (2 more weeks). These tickets are as low as EUR195.00 for members to attend Congress only. This can be combined with a ticket for the Net Visionary awards for as low as EUR325.00 for members purchasing an Early Bird ticket. All the information is available on our Congress subsite.
But I can go one better. Please use this code blong09 to get 20% off the price of your ticket for Congress 2009 in whichever combination suits you. Book here and book now (or at least before 17th April to get the best price going.)
(This is getting cheesy but) Not cheap enough for you? If you would like a free ticket then take a bite of our referral scheme. Contact me, Roseanne, at members@iia.ie for your unique referral code that will give your contacts 20% off. Pimp it out anywhere you like: on your blog, in your email signature, on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, IGOPeople, wherever. If five tickets of any kind are sold using your discount code we’ll give you a free ticket of your choosing.
*Meetball: why is it called Meetball? Ball is the Irish for member 🙂
Membership, Beat the recession
Free money!
IIA Members iQContent have launched iQPrize. They want to help grow a good idea into a great business and they would like to hear from everyone and anyone. They plan to invest EUR10,000 in the idea that impresses them most. Closing date for entries is May 12th and at time of writing they had 16 entries. Not bad odds.
Find out more at iQPrize.ie or watch the video below where Morgan McKeagney, iQContent CEO explains all.
I have some great ideas for the IIA website that EUR10,000 could put a serious dent in; maybe I should have a wee chat with them… 🙂
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Colm Long, Facebook, to give keynote speech at IIA National Congress 2009
The Irish Internet Association is pleased to announce the speakers in the plenary sessions at their annual Congress on May 21st in Dublin.
The IIA National Congress 2009, entitled Better Business Online in a Tough Economy: Money, Marketing, Monitoring & Mobile sponsored by Realex Payments, will take place on May 21st – 22nd 2009 in the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Focusing on this theme, the IIA are delighted to announce the speakers for the plenary session as follows:
- Colm Long, Director of Online Operations, Facebook, will detail how Irish businesses can use Facebook’s platform to connect with new customers and maximize their return on investment in online advertising. This is the largest Internet industry event that Facebook will have spoken at in Ireland to date.
- Colm Lyon, Managing Director of Realex Payments, will address how to leverage eCommerce and ePayments in order to do better, profitable business online.
- Trey Harvin – CEO, dotMobi, will speak about the role mobile plays in leveraging the revenue potential of the web.
- Ronan Harris – Online Sales & Operations Director, Google, will examine the role Analytics and Conversion Tracking plays in getting far better results online.
Fergal O’Byrne, IIA CEO, announcing the final programme of plenary speakers, commented, “These four speakers are a great fit to our chosen theme. They can speak from a wealth of knowledge and experience about their specific sectors. Their products and services level the playing field for business users allowing them to extend their reach beyond Irish shores and monitor and develop their online business.”
A key industry event, the Congress will also include an afternoon of breakout sessionscoordinated by the IIA’s Working Groups.These groups focus on web development, social media, online marketing, legal issues, user experience and physical infrastructure. Delegates will also have the option of attending one to one web strategy clinics on specific topics. These clinics proved very popular last year.
This year the IIA Annual Net Visionary Awards take place on the evening of May 21st allowing delegates to mix a productive day of business with a celebratory evening of pleasure.
The newest feature of this two day event is Meetball, a Demonstration and Networking Breakfast on May 22nd allowing those who cannot make it on May 21st to meet some of the IIA members and find out more about their products and services.