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The slow and long road back to the office ..

July 13, 2021

“Oh…you want me to deliver the session in person, in Dublin?“

This was a simple enquiry to facilitate a social media strategy session to a group from an organisation and then provide some specific bespoke training on one of the social media platforms.

We were having the usual conversation except the only sticking point was that they wanted a full day session with their group and I was trying to discourage this.

I find that if you stay at training too long then people get tired and what they learn in the morning they end up forgetting in the afternoon. It’s best if they get a chance to slowly digest, process and try it out for themselves.

I normally suggest half day sessions, when everyone stays fresh and then allowing a week in between so that everyone can practice and then come back to progress further.

“It must be on the one day because we have the hotel booked” she said.

It was only then that the penny dropped and I understood why she wanted it on the same day.

This threw me as I hadn’t been faced with this in a long time and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it.

Ok, lets do it ..

As it turned out there was a mix up with the hotel booking on their end and the training was cancelled (after all that !!) and while I was disappointed a big part of me was delighted!

I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect and disruption of it.

Travelling and delivering training sessions in person was part and parcel of the last 10 years (pre Covid), but the truth of it is that I have been doing this from the comfort of my little home office (converted bedroom) for the last 16 months and it works really well.

It’s convenient for me and participants, I’ve tweaked my delivery for online and it works really well, it’s cost effective and it also means they get a fresh “Greg” who isn’t after driving for a few hours and all that goes with it.

The big conversation that I was having with myself was “how inconvenient and pointless” that travelling/in person/ hotel experience would be compared to the very convenient way that I have replaced it with, and with no negative impact on the learning experience.

However, I do love the face to face in person training and as a social creature I love the energy you get back from a “live” group and the special learning dynamic that can happen. This will always have it’s place but only when necessary.

I know my simple example of this in person training session will be replicated very soon with so many of those things we have all been doing in the course of our work while working from home.

People have had to take on board new work habits which are now deeply embedded and there are parts about these that are very convenient as well as being cost and life effective and they won’t want to give them up too easily.

We can all talk about hybrid but this could be a very slow and long road back to the office and we need to be really careful to preserve what is working because it is possible to get the job done and ….

Win Happy!

Greg

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:Cork, Digital Marketing, Dublin, Fuzion Communications, Greg Canty, PR, Social Media Strategy, social media training
Posted in Caring, Change Management, Family, Management, Motivation, Personal development, Social Media, Training | Leave a Comment »

Darnella Frazier and George Floyd

May 25, 2021

Something huge happened on the 25th May, 2020 when Derek Chauvin and his “diligent colleagues” murdered George Floyd by crushing his ability to breathe, which resulted in his unnecessary death.

Unfortunately and very sadly this incident had happened many times before with black people in the United States where there still is a colossal problem with racism, which was clearly made worse by the hateful divisive rhetoric of Donald Trump who gave extra oxygen to this raw hatred, in some way justifying and even encouraging these actions by the perpetrators.

While the incident was unbearable to watch and quite inconceivable to a world audience, what made it “huge” isn’t that it happened, it is that we were able to see what happened with our own eyes.

While these policemen are all now equipped with body cameras (for transparency reasons and protection) it clearly makes no difference to their actions as their superiors are ignoring the evidence, but thankfully they can’t ignore what “we” record and what we are able to publish.

The George Floyd case is very similar to the equally shocking Ronald Greene “lynching” by police in Louisiana two years ago, where police footage has only now come to light (it was leaked) to show he was murdered and not involved in a one person car accident as reported.

In the case of George Floyd, 17 year old Darnella Frazier took out her mobile phone and was inspired to record the shocking incident that she was witnessing with her own eyes and she posted it on Facebook for us all to see.

Poor Darnella broke down in court because of the guilt of not being able to do more, but in truth what she did created a huge moment in time, one that will hopefully change our world for the better.

While I have many issues with where social media is going between the “selfie” perfect world scenario on one side and the vitriol on the other, with a smartphone and a public platform you too have the ability to change the world.

A regular 17 year old going about her business with her 9 year old cousin did that on the 25th May.

Greg

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:Darnella Frazier, Fuzion Communications, George Floyd, Greg Canty
Posted in Bullying, Censorship, Facebook, Racism, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

Time for a (LinkedIn) Group Hug?

April 2, 2020

From my experience most LinkedIn users are not using the very useful ‘Groups‘ facility on the platform.

For your industry or your business community there is more than likely a group set up with like minded individuals who have already joined.

These could provide you with the opportunity to interact with like minded people, discuss topical issues, solve problems, demonstrate your expertise, get information or these could easily help you to identify useful connections for your business or organisation.

If you do a search right now…Dublin Chamber, Cork Chamber. UCD Alumni, Marketing professionals, Hospitality professionals in Ireland – you are likely to find a group that matches your search.

Groups will have a filter process for members depending on how they have been created – you will need to request to join or be invited to join by an existing member and an administrator somewhere will decide whether to let you in or not.

If it is a group for a membership organisation it is very likely that they will not grant you access unless you are a member.

When you create a group you have a number of options including:

Name and description
Industry types (up to 3)
Stated rules for the group (how members should use and behave within the group)
Whether the group is visible or not: you could for example make it a “closed” group for your organisation so it won’t appear on searches
If you allow existing members to invite others to join
Approval setting for posts within the group.

New Feature: Messaging

The functionality is always changing so how you can use them is always changing. For example LinkedIn have just now given members within groups the ability to send a message to other members, without being connected to them (and without having the paid version of the platform).

These messages will come into you just like a normal message on LinkedIn.

So…look for a group today that could work for you and your business, click that ‘Join’ button and off you go!

Or…maybe you could be the one to create that group?

What are you waiting for?!!

Greg

Greg Canty heads up the Digital Marketing team at Fuzion Communications and as part of our suite of digital services we offer social media training and social media consultancy, both face to face and online

Tags:Digital Marketing, Fuzion Communications, Greg Canty, LinkedIn Groups, social media training
Posted in Communications, LinkedIn, Personal development, Personal Marketing, Social Media, Staff training, Teamwork | Leave a Comment »

Why there should be Election Posters!

January 28, 2020

Where I live we are really lucky to have a talented, determined and really successful Tidy Towns organisation which means we get to enjoy a beautiful, well maintained place that people take huge pride in.

As part of the keep our town tidy the Tidy Towns folk seem to have made an agreement with the political hierarchy that it would be a poster free zone for the General Elections.

You can totally buy into this arrangement in particular when you see other locations that are totally destroyed with a proliferation of posters, inevitably dominated by those candidates and political parties with the biggest budgets!

While many agree with the arrangement in our town, which without a doubt does help to keep the place tidy, I think it’s wrong.

I believe the election candidates should be entitled to allow the electorate to familiarise themselves with them and more importantly it hands a huge advantage to established, well known candidates who people are already familiar with and the very opposite to any less well known new faces.

Maybe a sensible quota of posters that each candidate is allowed in each location, relative to the size of that area is a better way to go with a strict regime about removing them post election.

Clearly posters aren’t the only way a candidate has to communicate to us, and they do have the options of literature through the letter box, social media, and the very best way of all to connect is by knocking on the door and chatting face to face.

While there is a tight election window, do we really want to hand anyone an unfair advantage, in particular to those who have been around the block already?

Greg

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:Cork, Dublin, Fuzion Communications, General Elections, Greg Canty, Marketing, No posters, PR, Social Media, Tidy Towns
Posted in Branding, Communications, General Elections, Irish Politics, Marketing, Personal Marketing, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

What’s your #Hashtag?

October 24, 2019

I really enjoyed the social media strategy session that I facilitated with a client group yesterday, who have quite a complicated proposition that isn’t the easiest to explain.

A really simple, but never the less a huge question that I always ask at these sessions helped to provide the group with a moment of clarity:

What hashtag can you use in your social media posts that captures the essence of what you do and who you are?

After a quick brainstorm and a run through all of their Key Messages we managed to produce a list of suggestions and then after further discussion we narrowed this down to just one.

Next time they are asked “What they do” they can start with their hashtag!

Well…

What’s yours?

When you know what it is, start to use it so frequently to the extent that the word or phrase becomes so synonymous with your brand that when someone sees or hears it they think of you immediately.

A hashtag is a powerful device, a powerful part of your branding and a simple mechanism for delivering a big message if you decide to use it.

Greg

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:Digital Marketing, Fuzion Communications, Graphic Design, Greg Canty, Marketing, PR, Social Media Strategy
Posted in Branding, Communications, Marketing, Social Media, Training | 2 Comments »

Integrating your Digital Marketing with Traditional Media

September 3, 2019

A big shift has happened with media in the last 10 years.

I remember 10 years ago when the wheels well and truly fell off the economy, we had a thing called social media, which effectively had become a “free” (except for your time and effort of course) way to promote you and your business.

At Fuzion we were quick out of the traps offering people training on the various social media platforms and when it came to our own clients we were doing our very best to get them up and running and fully embracing this new and exciting medium.

I remember at that time when we devised marketing plans for prospects, complete with a range of different tactics to achieve their objectives, we would always have social media as one of the first tactics to discuss. After all it was free, it was new and it provided another great way to reach their target audiences but in a special and unique way demonstrating the personality of the organisation and those working there.

We discovered very quickly that we shouldn’t have social media as one of the first tactics because with many people we presented to you could visibly see the “shutters coming down” and we would lose their attention.

Quite simply they didn’t want to hear about this ‘new fangled’ thing called social media.

As usual there were a few who broke from the pack and made it work really well for them and bit by bit the word spread that social media could be great for business.

We find ourselves 10 years down the road and with many people, the whole thing with social media has flipped.

In many cases now, prospects call and their request is for Digital Marketing and they don’t want to hear anything about other forms of, let us call it ‘Traditional Marketing’ … the way it used be in the old days!!

So, where are we and where should we be on this Digital to Traditional spectrum?

While digital is great and on the face of it, very measurable, the truth is the social media platforms are overloaded with low quality content, the algorithms have squeezed the life out of “organic” (non paid for posts) and to reach your audiences you must invest in advertising, which is increasing in cost all the time.

The resulting problem that we face is that your social media post, that you have had to resort to putting budget behind now appears as a “sponsored” or “promoted” post and has effectively just become an advert of sorts.

However, social media is very powerful as it allows you demonstrate your personality in a way that other media can’t, it allows you to interact with other users and when you are advertising, it does allow you to target very precisely, depending on the type of audience you need to reach and the social media platform that you are using.

When we talk about Traditional media I am talking about PR, print and outdoor advertising, direct marketing, events, sponsorship and I even include email marketing in this boat.

All of these methods for reaching your audience can be really effective and depending on your objective they can be powerful ways of generating brand awareness or generating leads.

And we have PR sitting in the middle of all of this activity, that art and craft of getting your organisation covered positively in the media, which can be in print or online – at this stage it really doesn’t matter which, as long as you are able to reach your target audience. PR kicks in as well, where the objective might be to try to keep an organisation out of the media or to navigate it through a time where there might be a situation, which could potentially damage their reputation and business.

Trying to cope with all of this can be very difficult, so it’s very important to know your audience and figure out how you can reach them – rarely is this a silver bullet situation with one audience and one perfect method of reaching them.

For example attracting the attention of talent could be just as important to the organisation as selling goods and services to customers.

All paid for media (advertising) comes from the organisation and our savvy consumers know this and as a result may not believe the “sales pitch”.

The sales pitch becomes much more believable when there is some form of 3rd Party verification, which could be an article by a journalist or a review by a customer.

In effect, PR can be the valuable trigger in the middle that increases the return from both advertising and other forms of promotional activity, social media and other online activity, because the customer is more convinced because of this third party verification that we referred to.

So … what’s the magic formula for success?

It’s knowing your audience, figuring out how to target them, choosing that mix of Digital and Traditional tactics to reach them effectively and then carefully monitoring the results to figure out what worked and what didn’t.

While digital marketing can provide great analytics and stats, be careful that you don’t avoid traditional activity just because it’s not as easy to measure.

As a full service agency it is our role to create fully integrated campaigns with that special mix that we believe will deliver optimum results for our clients.

By carefully planning, coordinating, weaving and executing all of these elements together, we believe clients will get an exponential return on their investment. So can you !

If we can help you let us know!

The very best of luck!….

Greg

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:Cork, Digital Marketing, Dublin, Fuzion Communications, Graphic Design, Greg Canty, Marketing, PR
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Communications, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Reputation, Social Media | 4 Comments »

Soft messages and the downward spiral of Social Media

January 27, 2019

It’s a funny, sad old time.

It’s been a year since my dad passed away so I wrote a blog post (as I do) to capture what I’ve been feeling and published it.

I have my blog set up so that when I publish, it automatically pushes the post out to my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

If my posts are business oriented posts they are suited to LinkedIn and Twitter and if they are more personal they are suited to Facebook and Twitter.

The auto publish facility that I have set up with my blog doesn’t differentiate and this personal post was pushed out to all.

You would reasonably expect that this personal post would “perform” best on Facebook (which is really the best platform for family and friends) but the platform where I got the biggest feedback and reaction was on LinkedIn, which makes no sense really!!

I was getting some really heartfelt responses from people who clearly had read the post and were leaving some nice messages and even sharing some of their own experiences.

Why wouldn’t this personal post resonate more on Facebook and Twitter?

There is nothing wrong with my logic – this type of post is most relevant to my Facebook audience, those friends and family who use it primarily to chill out, catch up on news and gossip when the work of the day is done.

The truth is Facebook (and Twitter is also following suit) have gone way too far, the algorithms are manipulating the posts from your friends so much that you end up seeing very few of these in between too many sponsored posts.

At this stage very few of us are seeing the posts by friends and family and those from organisation and business pages that we follow.

So, my conclusion isn’t that the business audience are suddenly more interested in “personal stuff”, it’s that LinkedIn is still just about hanging in there as a place that isn’t totally warped by those algorithms, those set of rules that dictate what we see and don’t see. I wonder about those working in these social media companies and if they believe that what they are actually is a good thing – they are not!!

They are eroding the value that we have in their platforms, bit by bit , which will impact on their market value eventually.

As for LinkedIn, hopefully this platform will try to stay pure.

For anyone in business using these platforms, if you want your posts to be seen you need to advertise – we are in that phase where people think it’s still worthwhile.

It won’t last too long …

Greg

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Social Media Consultancy Services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:Cork, Dublin, Fuzion Communications, Greg Canty, ireland, social media consultancy
Posted in Bereavement, Communications, Facebook, LinkedIn, Personal Branding, Social Media, Twitter | Leave a Comment »

Stories you can only tell with Social Media

March 13, 2018

During the recent extreme weather when the whole country was effectively shut down, we all had plenty of time to check our social media updates to see how each pocket of the country was faring out.

The “stories” came thick and fast like the snowfall, and one story-line in particular that caught my attention came from Irish Rail.

The teams from the state rail service had clearly been told to take out their mobile phones and capture the different work that was being carried out, with these being quickly shared on their various social media channels along with a clever narrative.

These posts complete with the hashtag #OrangeArmy (a very clever way of referring to their team in the field donning their orange reflective jackets) painted their teams as heroes, braving the harshest elements to get the country on their journeys back home or wherever they needed to get to.

As expected there was lots of interaction with the general public who were checking the Irish Rail social media account to get updates about the rail service and were seeing these clever posts.

The media even picked up on this and wrote about the fantastic work that was done by the Irish Rail team at this time – it probably makes a pleasant change!

While this was a clever way of demonstrating the hidden work that most of us never see it was also a brilliant way of involving their team and motivating them: “We appreciate what you do for us, it’s important”

All of this is a brilliant example of how best to use your social media platforms.

These are perfect behind the scenes stories, that while valuable for your “brand” are nearly impossible to share on your website, in an advert or on a newsletter.

Instead of using your social media as another place to repeat your promotional activity, try to use it to tell those other unseen stories and let people get to know you better, your personality, your ethos and your beliefs.

If Irish Rail never shared these “Orange Army” stories we would never know, but they did and now we think they are heroes…

Be clever with your social media, don’t be shy and let people get to know you better.

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications, a full-service agency that offers Social Media Consultancy and Training from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:Cork, Dublin, Fuzion Communications, Greg Canty, ireland, Irish Rail, social media consultancy
Posted in Communications, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

Ok ….my first podcast is finally live!

February 28, 2018

This podcast journey that we have been on started on holidays last year when Brendan, my son suggested that we listen to a podcast called S-Town.

Podcast?…I’ve never really listened to them and after all I prefer either listening to music or talk radio when traveling but why not, let’s give it a try.

When my son recommends anything to us we tend to listen as he has great taste and within the circles he moves, he is on trend and if anything cool and interesting is happening he will be on it.

S-Town from American Life was a fascinating series of podcasts that told a really riveting story. We downloaded the whole series and queued it up on my phone to make a punishing four hour journey a little less painful!

In the blink of an eye we found ourselves in the car park of our destination hotel and even though we were in the car for four hours we sat there and listened to the end of the gripping episode.

Wow, the journey flew because we were engaged with interesting content, which we had curated ourselves.

Roll on eight months, and we are now regular podcast listeners, enjoying a wide range of content on a regular basis and quite intrigued by how this simple format is catching on with people.

Why are podcasts so good?

For me the biggest benefit is that it gives me the ability to listen to something that I have total control over when I am on a journey or exercising (nothing too extreme I promise!).

While I love my music there are times when I’d like to be entertained, informed or educated and I can do all of this with my selection of podcasts as I commute to work, travel or hop on my exercise bike.

I find podcast listening has changed my media routines quite a lot – I still listen to the radio for news and topical items, but now instead of waiting painfully through a boring topic or suffering through a news cycle that repeats frequently I switch to whatever podcast that I have in my queue.

My own listening is quite diverse and it includes things like Legends and Losers, a brilliant marketing show delivered by the engaging Christopher Lochhead, The Stand by Eamon Dunphy where he talks football and covers other issues such as U.S. politics and the Maurice McCabe saga, Pod Save America and the Axe Files, both covering American politics and delivered by ex senior members of the Obama administration, Blindboy (Rubberbandits fame) where he gives you a very strange version of how he views the world, Reply All, an American Show that investigates strange occurrences online, The Anfield Wrap, which discusses all things Liverpool and an assortment of other things including The Woman’s Podcast, which gives me another perspective on life!!

All in all, this mix of content keeps me entertained and informed about things that interest me. As you can see I’ve subscribed to a mix of business, marketing, politics, lifestyle, sports and entertainment and each week I discover some new gem that gets added to my lists (finding enough hours in the week to listen to all of these is the biggest challenge).

I don’t listen to everything, I quickly hit next if a podcast doesn’t hold my interest but just like Netflix, we have another format that allows you to curate your own content, when you are ready to tune in.

While Netflix competes with TV, I reckon podcasts are now competing with live radio and music.

I’m noticing an interesting trend with advertising on podcasts (these are often delivered in person by the podcast host) whereby the same companies keep popping up – ZipRecruiter are big advertisers on many of the American podcasts I listen to. Have they figured out that this is a great way to reach their target audience?

All of this change is leaving us with a big challenge – the more our audience have the ability to ‘curate’ their own content the more it is difficult for us to get through to them.

If you want to stay relevant you need to understand the dynamics about all media then maybe you should consider jumping in?

So…..I’ve done just that and produced the very first Fuzion ‘Win Happy’ podcast (woohoo!!!) which is available on iTunes and other formats.

For this first podcast I interviewed Brendan Foster, a senior partner of Grant Thornton in Dublin on his last day as President of Dublin Chamber. The role is a year long and he has passed on the “chain” to Anne O’Leary of Vodafone.

He is a really nice guy, who I have got to know over the last few years as a fellow Dublin Chamber Council member.

He has witnessed the highs and lows of Celtic Tigers and recessions and is a very proud Dubliner who certainly wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth!

The whole podcast process has been a huge learning experience of buying and testing equipment, practicing interview/chat techniques, learning how to edit audio files, mix music, create intros, design artwork, hosting and putting all of this together into a final product and publishing!!!

My first effort is so far from perfect it’s not funny but at some point you have to stop deliberating and press “publish” and just accept the learning curve for what it is – I will get better !!

I’m really enjoying the whole experience, I’m having incredible conversations with great people and I can see the potential of the format for Fuzion and for our clients.

A huge thanks to Brendan Foster for jumping in and if you do fancy listening then tune in and please, please, just like that band who plays their first gig, excuse the imperfections!!!

Happy listening!!

Click here for a link to the Fuzion Podcast

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:Brendan Foster, Dublin Chamber, Fuzion Communications, Fuzon Win Happy, Graphic Design, Greg Canty, Marketing, Podcasting, PR
Posted in Communications, Creativity, Marketing, Media, Personal development, Publishing, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

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