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The blog about blogging

January 24, 2014

I was in the Guinness Storehouse last week at a client event and two people I had never met before came up to me and started chatting to me because of blogs of mine that they read. One of these conversations was on the way into the loo!

One of these posts was about the Jobbridge scheme and the other was about companies undoing the good by overselling.

Yesterday afternoon I came across an incredible blog post via Twitter , which gave me huge insight into the life of a friend of mine.

It struck home to me once again the reach and impact that blogs have and how powerful this activity has been for me and for our business, Fuzion.

I’m dedicated to writing at least one blog post every week, which I publish and circulate across my different social media platforms. Typically I will write it over the weekend on the laptop or first thing in the morning like this one ..

You could be reading this post from an email or direct from my blog site or you may have stumbled across it as a follower of mine or Fuzion on twitter, a friend of mine on Facebook, a fan of the Fuzion business page on Facebook or maybe on LinkedIn, either as a status update or posted as a discussion post on a LinkedIn group.

In any scenario I write my blog post, which gives me the ability to reach a big audience across a variety of platforms.

Hopefully anyone who reads them will find the posts interesting (I vary them between technical marketing orientated posts, some business observations and some very random personal and other posts) and as a result will form some sort of an opinion about me and Fuzion. Hopefully these opinions are good and if the need arises for our range of services we will be in the frame as a possible provider!

Yes, that is a reason that I write them but I also write them because I enjoy writing, connecting and receiving feedback. I get a buzz from them … Sad but true !

My blogs are hosted on the WordPress platform, which is easy to use, is well optimised and it provides me with great stats and insights about how readers came to my site and which posts have been read the most (or least!).

In terms of ideas I use a little notepad on my iPhone where I jot them down when they come to me and when I have time I have a peep at my list …. sometimes I see these notes and I just can’t figure out what I had in mind when I jotted them down!

So …. The big question – why blog at all?

Here are my reasons why you might consider it –

Social Media Noise – it is hard to grab attention online at this stage as it is a very congested place. By generating your own (hopefully quality) content you can stand out.

Expertise – what better way to demonstrate your expertise about your business than writing about it?

Passion – if you are passionate about what you do, your blog is a terrific way to demonstrate this. Passion is hard to hide!

Optimisation – at a very practical level if you write online about your subject matter enough and use the right keywords and follow some simple SEO protocol you will be found much easier by people searching

Writing Skills – blog writing sharpens your writing skills and it also helps to formulate your ideas and thoughts properly around your topics

Idea generation – once you commit to a blog a week/day/month you will be surprised how ideas come to you and how much sharper your mind gets after a while

Testing topics – you can gauge media potential for a topic through a blog post

Rant! – sometimes you might need to take on a topic or issue online and writing a blog and distributing it through your social media platforms can be extremely powerful.

Business – if you do it right with a clear focus and some patience your efforts will result in new business

Personality – your blog is a great way for people to get to know you, understand you, see what motivates and inspires you and possibly wish to do business with you. The platform gives you an opportunity to be less formal on a website for example.

Social Media Raw Material – After a while you will build up a bank of blog posts, which can provide valuable material to feed your hungry social media platforms. Many of your blog posts, depending on the topic are capable of being recycled – great tips and advice will not date.

This prize is there waiting for you (most of your competitors surprisingly won’t grab it) so it is up to you to seize the opportunity and be the one in your sector who is winning by blogging.

It might feel strange at first but like everything practice makes perfect and in no time at all you will be flying ..

Go on …you are just one click away!

Check out Tips about Blogging and Making some Noise

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:Blogging, Cork, Dublin, Fuzion, Greg Canty, ireland, PR
Posted in Blogging, Marketing, Personal development, Personal Marketing, Social Media, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »

Complaints make Great Gifts!

January 20, 2014

“Can I meet you in the morning” was the request.

Oh no.. from the tone I felt a complaint coming – I wondered what was wrong.

This was a really good account and we were just at the early stages of working with this client. The project was quite complex, which involved quite a few members of our team.

There were quite a number of elements to the project including graphic design, web design, social media, event management, internal communications and PR. We pride ourselves on being able to handle all of these in-house, which is a real strength of ours.

Our team had been briefed well and each of us were working diligently on our own part of the project and liaising directly with the client.

Our relationship had started off in a really positive manner so I was really concerned and confused that something could be wrong.

We met and sure enough our client expressed a concern about how things were going with the project.

The client’s problem was really simple – While we were all quite clear about what we were doing he was overwhelmed by the correspondence and interaction from so many people on so many different aspects of the project. Collectively we were able to handle the huge variety of tasks but this was just way too confusing for him.

To alleviate this problem we arranged that all of our correspondence would come through just one person and we organised it in such a way that we were only dealing with one aspect at a time – while this did not seem like the most efficient way of dealing with things for us it was the best way as it worked for him.

This approach has been working out great and the project has been progressing really well since.

While we all hate complaints they are in fact precious gifts.

A customer instead of staying silent and suffering with a scenario that isn’t working for them has taken a huge step and communicated that something is wrong.

Take the complaint, listen attentively to it, understand it, embrace it and deal with it – complaints are precious gifts that can only make you better.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:Cork, Dublin, Fuzion PR, Graphic Design, Greg Canty, Marketing
Posted in Customer Care | 6 Comments »

Support Beam Advice

January 13, 2014

“I know you don’t like that big beam and you want to remove it but you can’t – It’s a support beam. Take it away and the building falls down“

That’s black and white advice you just wouldn’t ignore and you would have to accept.

When advice like that comes with such a critical consequence you just have to follow it, and in a way it makes it really simple to take on board.

Often we give specific advice to clients, which we believe is critical to the success of their projects or business.

It’s really problematic when the person you are advising just won’t take the advice on board. Because no building is falling down as a consequence sometimes they ignore it because they feel they know better, they have a strong resistance for some reason, someone somewhere told them to do something else, they want to save money or they just have some other reason for digging in and not taking what you say on board. Often a course of action might simply take them out of their comfort zone.

In our case it could be advice around one or more of these elements:

A business name change
Branding refresh
Merchandising and POS
A new website
Optimisation of the website so you will be found on Google searches
Engaging on social media regularly
Dealing pro-actively with a crisis PR situation
PR for successful initiatives or good news
Commissioning professional photos
Creating an event to generate interest
Profiling the individuals as well as the business
Supporting campaigns with advertising
Allocating sufficient budget to campaigns

I found myself chatting to a new client recently and we were reviewing their proposal.

The client was very reluctant about one really important element in the plan, which I felt was critical to the success of the campaign. For me if we didn’t do this element the plan would definitely not work.

After a long conversation and some unsuccessful persuasion I had to change my approach.

“Imagine I am your engineer and this is your house we are talking about. This element that you don’t want to go with is a support beam. If we take it away your house will fall down. Do you get my point?“

The penny drops …

If your client won’t take your “support beam” advice then maybe you should just walk away – you don’t want to watch a house falling down!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:Cork, Dublin, Fuzion PR, Greg Canty, Support Beam
Posted in Advertising, Business Planning, Crisis PR, Customer Care, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Social Media | 1 Comment »

The Hug Test

January 5, 2014

It’s New Year’s Day and that end of the long break/going back to work cloud descends on me as it always does.

I love the Christmas break, possibly even more than the summer break and when it comes to an end it does bother me even though I love what I do – those days of doing nothing, hanging around the house and relaxing are so enjoyable but at some point you have to get back to reality.

When I started to think more about the first day back I started to look forward to seeing our crew again. While the break was great it would be good to see them all again and catch up.

During the course of a year we spend a lot of time together and it’s natural that you get to know everyone quite well and you do form special relationships, even if it is predominantly in a work context.

The more I thought about seeing the crew again I thought about greeting them after not having seen them for the best part of two weeks.

For me the natural greeting for each of them would be a hug – a genuine warm hug, which reflects how I feel about all of them.

I would hate to be heading back to work and to be meeting anyone in our team who I didn’t like, who I didn’t feel any connection with, who I preferred not to spend time with. That would be awful and in the course of my career I have been in that place more than once.

My cloud cleared and I was now actually looking forward to getting back to work.

Will your first day back at work pass the Hug test?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:Cork, Dublin, Fuzion PR, Greg Canty
Posted in Christmas, Holidays, Motivation, Teamwork | Leave a Comment »

Giving away the customer

December 19, 2013

When I ring the customer service number do I really know who I am talking to?

I listen carefully, does the person at the end of the phone seem to know what they are talking about, are they talking like a robot, are my calls being recorded for internal purposes, can the person I’m talking to really do anything for me?

At this stage we actually expect the worst, we expect to go through a series of button pressing, we expect to be in a queue and we expect very little success from the “service” call.

Am I talking to someone in a call centre who is fielding calls for numerous companies or am I actually talking to someone who works for the company I called and who does care that the call is completed with a satisfied customer at the end of the phone.

When the business started was customer service a priority, is good customer service a good thing, is customer service something that can differentiate you from your competitors …is customer service that simple element that can help you increase business and generate great word of mouth?

Before you sign that contract and outsource your customer service, no matter how financially attractive the deal appears is this something you can afford to really hand over to someone else?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:Cork, Dublin, Fuzion PR, Greg Canty, Outsource
Posted in Customer Care | 3 Comments »

Uncle Neilly and the importance of telling stories

December 15, 2013

Recently we were lucky enough to see the fabulous David Gray performing at the Cork Opera House – while I have always loved his music it was the first time seeing him in concert and he didn’t disappoint.

He has an incredible voice, fabulous songs and he delivered a very special performance with the help of a gifted band. He showcased some tracks from his new album, which were really strong.

Before David Gray we had a support act, singer song writer Lisa O’Neill from Cavan who entertained the crowd with her unique style. I hadn’t heard of her before, which seemed to be the case with pretty much most of the audience who had taken their seats early.

It must be difficult entertaining the crowd when your songs aren’t familiar to them and when in truth they are not there to see you at all.

Lisa did something very clever to endear herself to the crowd – she told us stories.

She told us about the honour of being on tour with David Gray and how stunned she was when he asked her to tour the United States with him. While she wanted to grab this opportunity she was apprehensive as an uncle she was very close to, Neilly was suffering badly with cancer.

When her uncle heard this he insisted that she went and gave her €500 to make sure she “always bought a round when it was her turn“.

When she was on tour she kept Uncle Neilly up to date with her experiences and the one thing that fascinated her were fireflies. She had never seen these before and at night on the tour bus she saw many of them who politely decorated the windscreen on a regular basis.

“This song is for Neilly who isn’t with us anymore”. Lisa had our attention and had won us over.

After a really great night and a memorable performance by an artist I really like the thing I remember most is the story about Uncle Neilly.

Whenever you are pitching or selling your wares try to tell a story to bring it to life and most importantly one that makes them remember you.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:Cork, Cork Opera House, David Gray, Dublin, Fuzion PR, Greg Canty, Lisa O'Neill
Posted in Entertainment, Marketing, Music, Sales | 6 Comments »

What do you do?

December 12, 2013

Hi – What do you do Robert?

I was reading a book by Michael Port called Book Yourself Solid and in it he gives some really interesting advice about answering the question:

“What do you do?”

This is probably asked of you a few times week when you meet new people and it might typically arise at a networking event.

Your typical answer is to use your normal industry label “I’m an architect, an accountant, a solicitor, a financial consultant, a life coach, a banker, an insurance broker, a PR consultant, a social media consultant“.

While this is helpful as it does wrap “you” in a nice simple understandable package, Michael Port argues that this is possibly doing you a big disservice.

Once you mention that “label” you are bunching yourself automatically with every other person who might use the same label to describe themselves. For example if the person has had a poor experience in the past with a “wealth advisor” then the minute you mention that you are a “wealth advisor” they mightn’t like you very much and will politely shuffle away from you!

Imagine Robert De Niro answering the question by saying “I am an actor“!

Michael’s simple suggestion is that instead of using the typical label why not describe “what you do” in a much more descriptive way.

Michael’s suggestion struck a chord with me as I know when I am asked the question “what do you do” I certainly don’t want anyone to put me in the same category as any of the people working in our general area – I am totally different and I bring vast business background and a particular skill-set to the table.

So instead I might say: “Working with a great team I use my commercial experience to make businesses and organisations more successful by first making sure their proposition is presented in the best possible way and then getting as many people as possible to hear about them” …. I could even go simpler with “I work with a really talented team to make businesses and organisations better“.

“Oh.. how do you do that?” and then you tell them!

What do you do?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:Book Yourself Solid, Cork, Dublin, Fuzion PR, Greg Canty, Michael Port, Robert de Niro
Posted in Marketing, Personal development, Personal Marketing | 17 Comments »

Katy Perry and her Twitter Tips

November 26, 2013

“Getting someone to tweet for you is cheesy and desperate” said Katy Perry as she was interviewed on the Red Carpet at the 2103 American Music Awards.

She was asked to comment about her incredible Twitter following, which is just shy of 48 million people.

While she is clearly not like the rest of us mere mortals in terms of popularity online she does have a terrific handle on what works and what doesn’t.

Her off the cuff interview was simple but there was pure gold in what she said:

“I have a huge responsibility with so many followers”

“No one runs my account for me, I do it myself”

“I don’t get my manager or my publicist to tweet for me, it’s always me”

“People want to see the authentic, genuine you”

“People want to see your personality and it gives them a chance to see that you have fun”

“I never try to sell or promote products but I will share ‘stuff’ that I love”

“It’s always obvious when someone else is tweeting for them – it’s cheesy and desperate”

“It’s best to show people what you love, what you like and things that inspire you”

Katy ..thanks for the simple Twitter masterclass!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin in Ireland offer social media training and consultancy services

Tags:2013 American Music Awards, Cork, Dublin, Fuzion, Greg Canty, Katy Perry, social media consultancy, twitter
Posted in Entertainment, Social Media, Twitter | 2 Comments »

Are things on the up at last?

November 25, 2013

I was really annoyed to hear the coverage that the media gave the latest Ernest & Young downgrading of their Irish Economic Forecast in their Economic Eye Winter 2013 report.

“The latest All Island EY Economic Eye Winter 2013 report has revised its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) forecast for 2013 downwards in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) from 0.8% to -0.2%“.

The comprehensive report covered more than just this but it was the “downgrading” that seemed to grab the headlines.

I gritted my teeth and shouted “shut the hell up” at the radio when I heard their economic experts being interviewed on air explaining their analysis.

Jesus …we near to hear positive news, we need to hear about those businesses that are seeing growth, we near to hear about the successes and we need to start believing that things are really improving.

It’s only with confidence that things will start to improve and I firmly believe that this is happening – at least from what we are witnessing in the marketplace.

Giving airtime to such negativity is only going to hold us back as it has done for the last few years. Is market performance all down to facts or is it down to sentiment?

A nice bounce will happen if we start believing ..

While I have every respect for the experts in Ernest & Young I do believe that we have every reason for optimism based on what I am seeing and hearing:

We are seeing positivity and real intent by our clients
We are seeing competitiveness for staff
We are seeing sectors that were dormant such as retail and fashion back engaging for the first time in years
Hotels are busier than before – often it’s hard to get a booking
The summer for the tourist sector was well up on recent years
Restaurants are busier and the corporate market is back in force wining and dining: “Lately Tuesday’s are like Saturday’s” one restaurateur shared with me
Christmas party bookings are up on last year
The tradesman seem to be busy again
New businesses are opening
Hotels in NAMA control are being purchased by new operators
Solicitors and estate agents are telling me house transactions are happening – not by investors but by genuine buyers
Those houses will need furniture, carpets, lighting, painting and decorating
Banks are finally making progress with difficult situations and progress is being made
Supermarkets are opening new units and fighting a war using a “Support Irish products” agenda
The shops seem to be busier than they have been

Of course these are just my observations and the conversations that I am hearing every day.

I genuinely feel things are on the up and I sincerely hope that this is the case – to broaden this conversation can I ask ..

What are you experiencing?

#Positivity

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:Cork, Dublin, Economic Forecast, Ernest & Young, EY, Fuzion PR, Greg Canty
Posted in Ireland, Irish Economy, Motivation, Positivity, Recession | 6 Comments »

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Greg Canty Fuzion Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Dublin’

Complaints make Great Gifts!

The Hug Test

Giving away the customer

Uncle Neilly and the importance of telling stories

What do you do?

Are things on the up at last?

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