2011 Irish Social Media Awards - Winners Case Studies

Supported by Bord Gáis Energy Celebrating the best of social media Winners Case Studies

ContentSIntroduction & Foreword 2 Best Customer Care using Social MediaBest Twitter Account eircom 3 Vodafone 24Best Facebook Page for a Business Spin 1038 8 Best Business Twitter Account Blacknight Solutions 27Social Media Effectiveness AwardMorning Ireland 12 Best Integrated Facebook Campaign Maltesers 29Best Facebook Page Meteor Mobile 15 Best Use of Social Media for a Sponsorship Campaign Bank of Ireland, Leinster Rugby 32Most Innovative Use of Social Mediathe Rumour Room 18 Acknowledgements 35Best Online PR Campaign WeddingDates.ie 21 2011 Winners 36

2 Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies Introduction The first year of the Social Media Awards saw a fantastic number of quality entries, and we wanted to share submissions from just some of the winners in the various categories. It took us much longer than expected to get these together; but we decided to match the quality entries by putting a quality document together to show off these case studies. We’d like to thank the sponsors, the judges and those who came along on our first outing for their support. A very special thanks goes to everyone that works to promote social media in their organisations, and who sometimes have to turn around a whole organisation that might not see the value in social media to start with. Damien Mulley @damienmulley Social Media Awards Organiser Foreword It is evident from this year’s entries, shortlisted entries and winners that there is a top tier of Irish companies who have moved beyond ‘social media marketing’ and have become truly social organisations. this permeates across everything they do - from how they communicate internally and externally, to how they service and market to their customers. Content, king and all as it is, should no longer be the sole driver of strategy. Pushing content out across social media without any communications strategy is all well and good, but outside of it being a relatively cheap channel to ship content, it drives little value. It is now clear that you must pay equal, if not more, attention to the non-content driven challenges and opportunities that come with running a social media program. We’re looking forward to the 2012 Social Media Awards, and we are delighted to be in a position to support these great awards for the second year running. We are especially looking forward to seeing a few new names being in the running for Ireland’s most auspicious social media honours. Eoin Ó Súilleabháin @eoinos Digital & Social Media Manager * Stats quoted are as per awards submissions, screenshots are more recent.

Best Twitter Account eircom 3 Best Twitter Account S Support, CM OvERvIEW @eircom Eircom is Ireland’s largest telecommunications company controlling over 60% 2,155 followers of the fixed line telephony market and 47.5% of the country’s 1.66m broadband subscriptions. Its subsidiaries Meteor and eMobile are both significant playersw Case Study: in the mobile communications market. Gina Bowes is the group’s head of social Gina Bowes media and is responsible for the social media presence for all three companies. Head of Social Media Eircom Group the purpose of the @eircom twitter account is to be first and foremost a customer service channel. We want to be able to listen and respond promptly and personally to our customers and allow them to help us to understand their needs.w our twitter presence forms a part of the overall social media strategy within the organisation. one of the very first steps to approaching our twitter set-up was to be very clear in our overall social and business objectives, understand where our customers were and what they wanted from us in this space, Gina Bowes Head of Social Media, Eircom Group Like many other businesses with an online presence, eircom allow their customers to help themselves in the first instance by providing a ‘self-help’ section on their website with tutorials for customers, a visible frequently asked questions section, and an online customer service forum.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

4 Best Twitter Account eircom their social media team also run a twitter account, We are flexible in relation a Facebook account and they maintain an official presence on Boards.ie. they are also in the process to on-going changes to the of uploading support tutorials to Youtube. opening hours given Twitter is How Social Media Works at Eircom ‘always on’. Our customers and Led by Gina, the social media customer care team their demand will ultimately consists of four full-time agents; tony, Mark, Ant & Steve, who listen, monitor, respond and engage in decide our opening hours. social conversations across all platforms on a daily basis. the team manages all of the social channels with the exception of Facebook & Youtube, although any CRM queries on these channels are flagged up and responded to by one of the four agents. the team monitor social media and are open for queries from 9am to 8pm Monday to Friday, opening hours which were amended based on feedback and demand. the team were even open to respond to queries on twitter over Christmas 2010 to offer customers their services during off-peak hours and help parents/kids with the wireless set up of some of Santa’s presents. We are flexible in relation to on-going changes to the opening hours given that twitter is ‘always on’. our customers and their demand will ultimately decide our opening hours. each morning they log on to all of the customer care systems and social channels and check for mentions of the brand and other key search words. Customers with general queries which can be managed by the team are categorised as ‘queries’, while those needing additional technical assessment are categorised as ‘escalations’. the interactions with customers across all platforms are captured on an internal system manually, and reported. Agents are set up with access to the same systems as call centre agents and even have some additional tech support systems based on the frequently asked questions they receive. the social media customer care team have a number of key performance indicators to measure their impact and ensure a consistent level of service to all customers who interact with the brand across all media. Agents must adhere to a response time of 20-30 minutes for each direct customer query received within their opening hours. the team also have a second-level support team at their disposal which is made up of subject matter experts across the company. If a social media agent cannot resolve the customer query at first point of contact, the team escalate the query via email to the tech support team. We have set time frames for resolution once a query cannot be resolved at first point of contact and requires further investigation. the social media team inform the customer of the time frame and log the interaction as an ‘escalation’ on the system. this escalation is then tracked Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

5 and monitored by the social media team until the tech support team update the system and give a technical response. the customer is then contacted via email/phone call or DM – whichever is the customer’s preference.other KPIs include a commitment to resolving customer queries at the first pointof contact, conducting a keyword search refresh every 30 minutes, driving trafficto website content, escalating queries within a specific time frame if necessary andincreasing online interactions and community growth.the social media team capture the reason for contact across all the social platformson their internal customer care tool, and feed this data back into the organisationon a weekly basis. there is also a weekly dashboard with all of the KPIs tracked andmeasured; and while the team used to email customers for feedback, they are nowplanning to launch nPS (net Promoter Score) across all of their social platforms togive a robust measurement of their customers’ satisfaction.the team also make use of free analytical tools to help them listen and monitoronline conversations, such as Google alerts, tweetdeck, Klout, tweetstats, andhashtags.org. they have also used several paid-for social listening tools andservices and are currently working with a third-party vendor to implement a robustsocial platform to allow in depth social listening capability for all social channels,including twitter.eircom provides ongoing training for the team on new twitter trends, competitorSWot analysis and through weekly feedback sessions. they have also set up ‘teachand tweet’ sessions for wider areas of the Group so that everyone can becomefamiliar with twitter, the benefits of twitter for eircom, and to update them on thetwitter team’s progress. there is an internal intranet site set up for employees toaccess the twitter feeds, access the customer comments, and also to educate themon the company’s social media and twitter guidelines.eircom also integrates its social channels into its marketing and content calendars. Given our objective is to extend our reach and engage with our customers, we realise that sharing information about new products works well socially, particularly via twitter — but only when the content is relevant and timely. We continuously look to share interesting content and tweak this on a weekly basis to ensure we are adding value to the community.the social media customer care team receive an internal advanced update onlaunches, messages, and offline/online campaigns weekly. they are also updated onthe quarterly business objectives across Customer Service, Marketing and online;and assess how twitter and other social channels can assist in the delivery of keybusiness objectives in order to maximise the benefits of the company’s socialmedia presence.the team have a weekly content calendar they populate with key social messagesand themes. these are aligned with the marketing calendar and campaigns. Specificmetrics are put in place to measure the success of the activity in the twitter channel.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

6 Best Twitter Account eircom vOlUME • With 2,155 followers currently on twitter, the @eircom social media team deal with approximately 75 queries and escalations per week through around 320 tweets and DMs. • Shortened links for self-help tutorials and FAQs generate an average of 250+ click-thrus to their support forum and website on a weekly basis. the same traffic increases tenfold if the account runs a competition. • there are 5,000 registered users of the customer service forum (eircom connect) making 1,200 visits per week. A further 150 queries are resolved on Boards.ie, also on a weekly basis. • When the team recently clashed a sample list of registered active users on their forums and customers who gave account details on other social sites against the call centre data, they found that 70% of this sample of social customers did not call the call centres post-social interaction. Gina’s Advice for Social Media Newbies Know your own business goals, vision and values. Understand your customers – who they are, where they are and what matters to them. Gina believes that before a business can know what type of persona to create in the realm of social media, they should first get to know their customers. Talk to them, email them and send them a questionnaire – ask as many questions as possible! Use the social media sites to understand the landscape and get a feel for the conversations. Ask the experts, ask people who are working in social media, ask other businesses – it’s a sharing environment and there are lots of clever people out there willing to give you the benefit of their experiences. Decide your content, marketing activity and social channels based on the above and define your social media strategy in collaboration with the key stakeholders of your business and agree social media objectives. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

7 Have someone co-ordinating the multiple areas/activities. There are many stakeholders and it needs to have someone driving the agenda pulling it all together and championing/ listening to your customer at all times. Set up tools to measure the social media objectives (these can be free Facebook analytics/Google alerts/Tweetstats/bit.yl or paid-for social monitoring services). Ensure social media policies/governance/escalation processes/ crisis management procedures are all in place. Make sure you have the right amount of resources in place and make sure they are customer focused and social media savvy. lastly, in the words of Nike – Just Do It! It’s not an exact science, it’s not going to be perfect, you don’t have control over the outcome but you can be prepared as much as possible. Be authentic, be personable, be social! WINNER’S STATEMENT the recognition, at peer and industry level, that our social media presence is having a positive impact was a huge boost for the internal team and for the brand. It can help internally champion the social media message to those less engaged and it re-energises the cross-functional social media teams. Putting the information together for submission made me evaluate and review the operational structure of the social media activity across both eircom and Meteor and really take stock of our processes and achievements to date. It also gave the business an opportunity to reflect on the social objectives set, bench- mark our progress and align our metrics. At times we are so engrossed in our daily routines we forget to look up and around and share our experiences both positive and negative, this can help strengthen the social media community in Ireland.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

8 Best Facebook Page for a Business Spin 1038 Best Facebook Page for a Business gn Non-Campai OvERvIEW facebook.com/ Spin 103.8fm is an independent radio station based in Dublin catering for the spin1038 capital and the surrounding areas with a target listenership of those under 30.w 112,139 fans We place a huge emphasis on interactivity and audience participation from Case Study: song requests to talk show discussions. Jamie Crawford CEO, Spin 1038 traditionally, radio stations use text and phone calls to interact with their audience, and until the birth of Facebook, Spin 1038 was no different. However, Facebook now enables us to engage our audience in a new way, and to a level that was previously not possible.w Jamie Crawford CEO, Spin 1038 Spin 1038’s Facebook page is now used on a number of different levels, primarily, Jamie says, to engage in a conversation with their audience. But, he says, the station is increasingly using the page to generate listener-driven content for shows such as the breakfast show and talk show. each topic on the talk show is communicated to our Facebook fans to allow them to get involved and give us their valued opinion. But our Facebook page isn’t just a forum for interaction; users can also listen to Spin 1038 and watch Spin 1038’s online tV channel Spin tV. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

9How Social Media Works at Spin 1038 Within our social network Social media is a vital component of our marketing strategy, so much so that in 2010 we have our own community we developed a new role within the company of staff working on our of Social Media editor page, which we feel reflects this function is cross-departmental and the the nature and ethos of Social Media editor liaises daily with the marketing, programming and sales departments social networking within Spin 1038. He also patrols all of the Facebook activity from our fans ensuring there are no extreme comments, bullying or spam from other brands being posted on our page.However, the Social Media editor is not the only person within Spin 1038 whoupdates their Facebook Page. Spin have designated over 20 administrators for thepage ranging from the marketing department, to presenters, to the Ceo. Within our social network we have our own community of staff working on our page, which we feel reflects the nature and ethos of social networking. each presenter has their own style, plays their own music and therefore it is critical that their identity and personality is reflected on the Facebook page during their shows, where they use it to get people to request songs and get people to read their blogs on our website or participate in on-air competitions,they do not do this without guidelines however. Spin 1038 has developed a strictSocial Media Policy which is issued to all users and monitored closely by the SocialMedia editor, Webmaster and Programming Director. We take care to avoid annoying our users and we do not allow more than one post per hour, unless there is breaking news which we feel our users want to hear about. We also have banned straight marketing messages. every single post on Spin 1038 is designed to encourage participation, feedback and engagement. Should any member of staff post a straight marketing message on the wall, the Social Media editor will remove the post immediately,Weekly fan targets are set by the management team and the page is currentlyexceeding approximately 1,250 new fans per week. Management have a monthlyFacebook strategy meeting with the Social Media editor, marketing departmentand programming department to develop plans to hit these targets each month.the Spin 1038 Facebook page is also promoted on Spin 1038 via 30-second promosand live mentions. Where relevant, all marketing material (ranging from print ads tomerchandise) carries the Spin 1038 Facebook page address.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

10 Best Facebook Page for a Business Spin 1038 Unique Content We also use our Facebook page to inform, entertain and reward our loyal fans. Recently a pair of tickets for Bruno Mars received over 2000 comments in two hours. After two minutes, the post received over 120 comments, that’s one comment per second which demonstrates an extremely active and responsive community. Spin 1038 have also teamed up with Universal Pictures to provide their fans with exclusive content, such as the online premier for the trailer of Bridesmaids. Rewarding their fans with such current content is also beneficial to Universal, which uses the community Spin 1038 has built as a forum for feedback on Universal movies prior to release. Jamie’s Advice to Social Media Newbies Whether through twitter or Facebook (or a combination of both) social media can be an exciting way to engage with your customer and create positive brand awareness. It is important however to get this right as using social media badly can turn people off very quickly. Here are some tips on how Spin 1038 have used Facebook effectively: Keep it simple. Nobody likes to see long-worded updates pop up on their wall, and the eye generally skims over paragraphs. Try to keep an update down to one or two snappy sentences. Get your point across in bite-sized form and the response rate will increase. Respond and listen to your followers. Keep an eye on what people are saying to and about your company. Try to respond to any queries posted on your wall and keep the dialogue open. Do what you do well. Focus on what you would like to achieve with social media and have a clear idea of what your company is ‘about’. We focus on entertainment stories and competitions, our Facebook followers know what to expect from us, and we deliver on that expectation. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

11 Be a friend rather than a faceless brand. Don’t push your brand or product too much — social media users will see through a hard-sell tactic straight away. Update with something that has interested you today or kick-off a discussion as you would with friends. We often post something as simple as ‘what do you prefer, baked beans or mushy peas?’ which starts a chat amongst our followers and brings Spin 1038 into the centre of a fun chat online. This vibe of a casual friend creates a positive feeling toward the brand. Competitions are a great way to reward your followers. Some companies use competitions as a blatant means to increase their followers — ‘get five friends to follow us and you could be in a draw’ etc. We feel it is better to reward the followers we have with great prizes and the good word about the brand will naturally spread.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

12 Social Media Effectiveness Morning Ireland Social @morning_ireland Media Effective- 25,000 followersw ness facebook.com/ morningirelandw 427 fanswwCase Study: OvERvIEWlisa Pereira Morning Ireland is Ireland’s most popular current affairs radio programme withStudio & Web an average daily listenership of 450,000. The show is one of Ireland’s longestProducer running too; having been on air for over 27 years.Morning Ireland Appointed two years ago, Lisa Pereira, Morning Ireland’s studio and web producer, has overseen the development and delivery of the show’s social media and online presence. Lisa has worked closely with RtÉ’s technical and publishing departments to provide content for new platforms such as podcasting the show, allowing listeners to watch the studio via live webcam and interact with the show via social media. the programme also engages listeners through a weekly news quiz. Before going go on air at 7am each day, Lisa publishes the news bulletin on their website (rte.ie/morningireland), then tweets the link and posts it on Facebook. She does the same with the link to the studio webcam. During the course of the programme, Lisa says she tweets as much as possible, although admits; Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

13 this is subject to how busy we are. We wanted to hear what our Lisa Pereira Studio & Web Producer listeners had to say; we wanted Morning Ireland their views, their feedback, andAfter the programme, Lisa will tweet links to their input into storiesinterviews that were on the programme, andposts them on the show’s Facebook page. Morning Ireland knew that it needed to adapt to the new media landscape. Listeners are no longer passive recipients of news and current affairs, and they no longer listen in the traditional way (at home or in the car, via analogue radio). our aim was to bring the programme to people in whichever way they chose to listen, and at whatever time. We also wanted to hear what they had to say; we wanted their views, their feedback, and their input into stories which we were trying to cover.Impact our campaign has been more effective than we could have imagined. not only have we established a dialogue with our listeners which we never had before (almost 20,000 followers on twitter, hundreds of letters to the Letters to the editor page, several pages of blogs, photo galleries including pictures taken by our listeners, some 80,000 podcasts per month, a news quiz which gets hundreds of respondents every week) but we have also tapped into a vast source of contacts and information which were not available to us before. With the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, we were able, via twitter, to contact people, including Irish people, very quickly. Social media has made it much easier for us to find people around the world who can give us information. nowadays when we Google a person, more often than not, their entry will come up first on Facebook, twitter or LinkedIn.Lisa says it’s difficult to measure the effect of social media on the programme’slistenership figures. the latest JnLR figures have the show at a listenership of450,000, an increase of 23,000 on the previous figure. But Lisa says it’s hard toknow what caused this. It has been crucial, and very instructive, for us to be able to measure precise responses to our programme. We can now count exactly how many times a particular interview was streamed, or how many times our webcam was viewed, or how many podcasts were downloaded. We know, for example, that during last winter’s snow disruption, the number of hits to our website went up dramatically when we published links to theSupported by Bord Gáis Energy

14 Social Media Effectiveness Morning Ireland different transport operators (Bus eireann, Dublin Bus, Luas, Iarnrod eireann etc.). these measurements guide us on what’s important to our listeners, and help us design the ways in which we deliver our information in a way which suits listeners best. lisa’s Advice to Social Media Newbies I’d advise people to get to know how Twitter and Facebook work before using them for your company. Set up a personal account and experiment with how the interaction works. It’s better to make a mistake as an individual than as a company. The other piece of advice I’d give is, don’t put anything online that you wouldn’t be happy to see on the front page of a newspaper. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

Best Facebook Meteor 15 Best Facebook Page OvERvIEW facebook.com/ Meteor is one of Ireland’s main mobile telecommunications providers and is part meteor of the Eircom group. Caitriona O’Connell is a member of the marketing team atw 66,909 fans Meteor and manages the Facebook page on behalf of the company. Case Study: the purpose of Meteor’s Facebook Caitriona O’Connell CAMPAIGN STATS page is to communicate with Marketing Team (May 2011) our customers in a space where Meteor Mobile they are active and engage with • new Likes per month 4,391 them by providing fun, interesting content which is relevant to them. • Monthly uniquew page views 13,628 We aim to bring the Meteor brand • Monthly active users 33,101 to life online and encourage and generate genuine brand advocates. • Monthly Likes & Comments 3,221 Caitriona O’Connell Marketing Team, Meteor Mobile the Meteor Facebook page is managed and run internally by one full-time resource solely focused on the brand’s Facebook page and other social media channels. Caitriona believes managing the Meteor Facebook page internally, especially by someone inherently involved in social media, allows for real time interaction with fans; as well as the ability to be slightly more edgy and much less ‘corporate’.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

16 Best Facebook Meteor Caitriona ensures that comments are quickly At Christmas we gave responded to and says there is regular ‘friendly banter’ between the Meteor Facebook team and their fans. away ‘Xmas pressies’ to our Facebook fans. They could Driving Traffic and Sales choose between a ¤10 Meteor’s Facebook page now forms a part of any voucher off a phone or mobile integrated marketing campaign run by the company. Caitriona liaises with a digital agency to create bespoke broadband. We ran this artwork and media for Facebook competitions and through an application on our games which support the relevant campaigns such as the latest BlackBerry launch. Facebook page We work closely with our product marketing and handset teams to ensure we capture any important Meteor product and service news, and new handset releases, in our schedule. We also try to keep our content relevant. We monitor pop culture trends, Irish news, events, etc. and post updates pertinent to those. to drive awareness of our Facebook page we incorporate links to our page on all online touch points with customers — on our customer forums (forums. meteor.ie), our Goodie Bag website (meteorgoodiebag.ie), e-zines and online store order confirmation emails. We recently launched our ‘Meteor Mighty top Up Deals’ campaign which included PR activity and on street activity. We used our Facebook page to announce to fans the location and times at which the team would be visiting our retail stores and giving away free call credit. this helped to drive foot fall to stores and sign up to our new pre pay offers. At Christmas we gave away ‘Xmas pressies’ to our Facebook fans. they could choose between a ¤10 voucher off a phone or mobile broadband. We ran this through an application on our Facebook page. Fans submitted their name and email address and were then sent a promotional code which they could use in store or online to redeem against the cost of a phone or mobile broadband device. this helped to drive sales in the busy Christmas period, as fans used the vouchers to purchase gifts for friends and family. Caitriona regularly uses Facebook ads to drive ‘Likes’ to the Meteor page as well as create awareness of current marketing campaigns. When launching our page, we found Facebook Ads were a great way of creating awareness of our page. During months where we run Facebook Ads we see a spike in the number of ‘Likes’ we receive. We have seen good results from Facebook Ads with a low CPC in comparison to other online advertising. We don’t focus solely on the number of ‘Likes’ as we don’t feel the actual numbers are as important as an active and engaged fan, but we monitor our active users and aim to keep a high percentage of our fan base. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

17Caitriona also says she occasionally uses the bit.ly service to track clicks on links,mainly those pointing to the Meteor online store. We also use Google Analytics to analyse traffic sources coming to meteor.ie from Facebook. Facebook Insights also tells us a lot about views of our page.Caitriona’s Advice to Social Media Newbies Put the resources behind it – people and budget. If you are going to set up a presence on Facebook or Twitter, it needs to be monitored daily and updated regularly. Prepare for and be willing to accept positive and negative feedback from customers and put the processes in place to resolve any customer queries or complaints quickly. Use social media for research – ask customers what they think, what they like and don’t like, but don’t just do it for the sake of it, be prepared to act on their responses. WINNER’S STATEMENT We gained awareness of our page and of our effort in the social media space through the Social Media Awards. It boosted the morale of staff working in the area and allowed those who attended the awards to meet others in the industry. We also got the chance to see what other brands are up to through the social media awards website and we learned that while we have made good inroads into the social space, there is more that can, and will, be done. A lot done, more to do, as they say!Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

18 Most Innovative use of Social Media the Rumour Room Most Innovative use of Social Media OvERvIEW @therumourroom** Through social media, RTE’s The Rumour Room aimed to connect with its young 2,479 followers audience on their level. It offered a live and interactive platform for them to contribute their opinions on issues and topics that related to them while the showw facebook.com/ was both on and off air. The show aired three times a week from October 2010 The-Rumour-Room** until April 2011.w 4,718 fans the team say they always tried to let the teenagers watching feel they were as much Case Study: a part of the show as the presenters; and for them to feel the presenters Sinead, Stephen Byrne Stephen, Katie and Jarlath were their friends. TV Presenter The Rumour Room the objective was always to allow young people to voice their opinionsw and give them control from the comfort of their couch through creating a 360-degree media experience. Viewers knew to have their twitter andw Facebook accounts open either on their lap with a laptop or in the palm of their hand with their phone when they were watching. Stephen Byrne TV Presenter, The Rumour Room Stephen believes that what made the Rumour Room innovative was a constant connection with its audience. A topic was introduced at the top of the show and it would be discussed and concluded by the end. Katie Van Buren, one of the presenters, would let viewers know the results of the polls conducted on twitter through twitpoll.com which were run throughout the show.** Please note: These profiles are no longer active Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

19Stephen was always on his iPad delivering comments,opinions and ideas from the viewers through twitter All throughout the week,and Facebook. morning, day and evening, the It was exciting because viewers would, at times, presenters stayed present change the direction of the entire show, A guest would also be present, allowing the viewers at online discussing various home to have a conversation with them, asking relevant teenage topics so questions and putting them on the spot with information that couldn’t be rehearsed. that the viewers really felt they were just like a friendA key thing for Stephen and the team was the showdidn’t end when the studio lights dimmed. All throughout the week, morning, day and evening, the presenters stayed present online discussing various relevant teenage topics so that the viewers really did feel that they were just like a friend they could text and talk to with the click of a keyboard.even Stephen’s involvement in the show was the product of his own innovation withsocial media. He began his career producing Youtube videos with a webcam inhis bedroom as a teenager, going on to reach 22,000 twitter followers, five millionYoutube views and 77,000 subscribers to his content.Impact the social media presence definitely had an impact on viewing figures, both online and on television. It immediately turned what was a national Irish show into an international one with both the live streams and Rte catch-up attracting daily audiences in the UK, Sweden, the netherlands and the United States.Stephen says 15% of the people who participated in conversation with the presenterson twitter and Facebook during the show were from outside of Ireland. the results were phenomenal, and the response from teenagers watching the show was a real testament to how important social media is in their lives today,on twitter, the show twice reached the top ten Irish trending topics; beating out thegeneral election itself to top spot the week of polling. It even once broke into theworldwide top 10 back in February 2011. the week which saw the highest number ofinteractions had over 3,000 @replies received, with 1,700 of them coming in the spaceof a 30 minutes live show.on Facebook, things were just as impressive; with the show receiving over 13,300 postresponses since January 2011 alone and over 650,000 post views on the page sinceJanuary 2011. the page now stands at just over 4,700 likes. Content produced in theshow also went viral through mediums such as Youtube. the music video Sk8r Gurlreached 46,000 views and Super emo Disco Party 20,000 views.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

20 Most Innovative use of Social Media the Rumour Room Stephen’s Advice to Social Media Newbies First off you need to know your audience and where they are online. What do they use? How can you make social interaction with your brand less of a chore for them to be involved with? You should always try to make your demographic feel like they’ll miss out on something if they don’t investigate what it is you’re doing. What worked for The Rumour Room was the fact that the audience could not only participate in the show from their Twitter feed, but they were interacting directly with the presenters void of any filtering system or prior moderation by a production team. It opened up a conversation through the television set, from their phone or computer straight to the studio iPad. Any brand should definitely look at making the person or group tweeting for them familiar to their audience. Why would I want to just read something a brand says? You have to know that there is a person there and know what it is they know and do. If its multiple people, then create a personality and character that can be maintained by them all. It’s the difference between talking to a friend and talking to a robot. WINNER’S STATEMENT We definitely entered the awards to see how our attempts in social media compared to those across Ireland. We would consider ourselves to be well informed on social media trends and the process it takes to build a well- structured campaign and maintain it. one of the great things about social media is that everyone has a different experience of it. For some people it can create new worlds that bridge different cultures and societies, while for others it just takes the form of a free text message service. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

Best Online PR Campaign WeddingDates.ie 21 Best @weddingdates 1,285 followers Online PR Campaignw facebook.com/ weddingdatesw 1,880 fans youtube.com/ weddingdates 13,392 viewswwSupported by Bord Gáis Energy

22 Best Online PR Campaign WeddingDates.ie OvERvIEWCase Study: WeddingDates.ie is a directory website which helps Irish couples select a venueCiara Crossan for their wedding celebrations. Run by MD, Ciara Crossan, the website won BestManaging Director Online PR Campaign at the Social Media Awards in 2011 for their participation inWeddingDates.ie the World Wife-Carrying Championships in July 2010. As part of the campaign the CAMPAIGN STATS WeddingDates.ie team travelled (1st June 2010 - 31st July 2010) across europe in a camper van and documented the whole journey and the • Website traffic 2,165 Page views event itself over an eight-day period to ‘Wife Carrying’ by filming, editing and uploading daily section of blog videos to their Youtube channel, and by updating Facebook and twitter and • Facebook Likes Increased by 80 interacting with followers at home in • Facebook Page views 3,549 Ireland. the trip involved two full-time staff members and took two weeks’ travel time. Ciara and her team raised ¤5000 in sponsorship from the Carlton Hotel Group who ran a special offer on the back of the campaign, which helped to increase the exposure of the campaign for WeddingDates.ie by teaming up with a related business. the campaign was sponsored by a number of other companies who also highlighted the campaign on their social media channels including Celtic Campervans, Fastnet Line, Maxroam, tom Murphy Menswear, Hairy Baby and Red Fly Marketing. In all, the team created eight videos which can all We became known as a be found on the WeddingDates.ie Youtube channel (youtube.com/weddingdates) or on their dedicated company that embraces quirky, blog (weddingdates.ie/wifecarrying). they also kept fun events and this has enabled people at home up to date with progress by tweeting and updating their Facebook page as well as posting us to relate to our customers, photos from the trip. venues and suppliers the campaign received a large amount of attention back home over its duration. Much of this traffic Ciara puts down to a high volume of mentions and retweets on twitter during the travelling period including mentions by two users with high follower counts: @RickoShea and @CarltonHotels. the campaign was a huge success. the story was picked up by Irish examiner journalist eoin english (@eoinBearla), and we did ten radio interviews (local and national) as a result including 2FM, today FM, newstalk, 4FM, Red FM. We also became known as a company that embraces quirky, fun events and this has enabled us to relate to our customers, venues and suppliers who want Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

23 to reach out to quirky brides and do unusual weddings. We are seen in the industry as an alternative to some of the more traditional wedding sites. Ciara Crossan Managing Director, WeddingDates.ieCiara says the campaign objective was to increase the profile of the business ratherthan acting as a direct sales tool, pointing to the exposure in the national andlocal press. We make sales by signing up hotels to the website. there were no additional sales that were directly attributed to this campaign alone, but the goodwill and positive feeling as a result of the campaign were high.Ciara’s Advice to Social Media Newbies Make it engaging — try to think of things that have not been done before for large scale campaigns. Try things in a small way first to test them and then invest if the response to the test is good.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

24 Customer Care using Social Media Vodafonew Customer linkedin.com/ vodafone-ireland Care using 1,228 connections Social facebook.com/ Media vodafoneirelandw 68,443 fansw @vodafoneireland 13,473 followerswww Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

25OvERvIEWAs one of Ireland’s largest mobile communications companies, it’s not surprising Case Study:vodafone’s Joanne Jenkinson, one of the company’s social media executives, Joanne Jenkinsonbelieves social media has an important role to play in how the company interacts Social Mediawith its customers. Executive Vodafone Ireland the objectives of customer care through social media is to interact with customers on a more in-depth level and provide them with a comprehensive level of service. Using social media as an in depth customer care tool has shown to be extremely useful, greatly enhancing a customer’s ability to easily contact us about any issue they may be having and have it dealt with in a timely manner; while also informing new and existing customers of new offers, promotions and news related to Vodafone services. Joanne Jenkinson Social Media Executive Vodafone IrelandUsing social media as a channel to resolve customer queries about their productsand services is not by any means a new phenomenon, but what makes Vodafone’sapproach so successful? Vodafone currently deals witharound 360 customer queries via their Facebook pagewith another 500 (approximately) via their twitter Using social media as an in-account every month. depth customer care tool hasBoth networks are used to interact with and point shown to be extremely useful,customers to support forums where frequently askedquestions can be browsed and searched by the greatly enhancing a customer’scustomer themselves. However, when issues cannot ability to easily contact useasily be dealt with publicly and require more in depthlevels of customer care, these queries are moved to about any issue they mayeither direct messages, private messages or email. be having once a comment or query is posted on the Facebook wall, twitter feed or Boards.ie forum, the social media team will check the issue and respond to the customer in a timely manner. Sometimes we need to refer customers to email addresses which will allow for each query to be dealt with personally and privately given the often sensitive nature of details. If an issue is more simply responded to, it is sometimes referred to tech support for further assistance, and a comment assisting or answering a query is posted or tweeted.Going forward, Joanne says Vodafone are planning to measure the impact theirsocial media presence has on the volume of calls they receive to their helpdesk. We’re currently in the process of implementing a new CRM system that will allow us to directly link post views on our social media channels and call prevention to the helpdesk so we’ll have hard metrics soon.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

26 Customer Care using Social Media Vodafone Joanne’s Advice to Social Media Newbies So what advice does Joanne have for those starting out on the social media path? Before setting out, a company needs to define clear objectives and decide what they want to achieve through social media — be it to improve customer care, raise brand awareness and loyalty or deliver on sales targets. This will help a company manage expectations and ensure that it is measuring its activity to meet its overall objectives. They shouldn’t look at social media as a broadcasting tool but rather approach each interaction and initiative on a case by case basis. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

Best Business Twitter Account Blacknight 27 Best Business Twitter Account keting Sales & MarOvERvIEWBlacknight is an Irish company specialising in web hosting and co-location and @blacknighthas over 120,000 domains hosted on their servers. Run by MD Michele Neylon, 7148 followersthe company have used Twitter for both sales and marketing and customercare purposes. w Case Study: Michele Neylon We don’t track the number of interactions on a weekly basis as this isn’t a Managing Director useful metric for what we are doing. our twitter account is a core part of our Blacknight Solutions customer service and sales strategy. We use it to assist clients with queries, deal with customer service issues, technical service updates as well as pushing out promotions and special offers and company news. Michele Neylon w Managing Director, Blacknight SolutionsMichele estimates he and his team tweet on average 24 times per day. there’s a mixture of announcements and replies to customer queries.the account is recommended by twitter asone of the ‘must-follow’ accounts for Ireland. Either do social media properly, or don’t do it at allWhen asked about sales conversions from tweets,Michele says measuring such statistics is not anexact science for his team.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

28 Best Business Twitter Account Blacknight It’s hard to track direct increases, but we have promoted twitter-specific promotions that have converted directly into sales. We promote several sites via social media channels and we segment them, for example; our discount codes and promotions are all on domainoffers.me. Looking at our account, we appear to be getting a couple of thousand referrals per month from twitter, but the exact percentage of sales that convert is hard to say, as a coupon code or other offer is only traceable as part of the overall campaign and not a specific source. Michele’s Advice to Social Media Newbies Either do it properly or don’t do it at all. What I mean by that is that social media is all about engagement and relationships. You can’t expect it to be an ‘overnight success’ so you need to be ready and willing to stick with it over a long period of time, as it will eventually (if done correctly) reward you. WINNER’S STATEMENT our social media presence is a team effort and getting recognition for it is an achievement that we as a company are extremely proud of. We are not a marketing company, so entering the awards forced me to focus on what we were actually tracking and has probably made me think more about what we could and should do to track it better in the future. However, having said that, I don’t think that social media, for us at least, is purely a sales channel. It’s an integral part of our customer service and communications and marketing. Seeing so many different organisations at the awards ceremony was fascinating and exciting. When you go to ‘industry’ events, there’s an awful tendency to see the same people time and again, while with the Social Media Awards there was a much wider and more diverse cross-section of people, businesses and organisations. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

Best Integrated Facebook Campaign Mars Ireland 29 Best Integrated Facebook Campaign Ads Page, App &OvERvIEWThis was Mars Ireland’s first foray into social media, and as such the campaign facebook.com/budget was very small. Mars saw the campaign as a pilot for their social media maltesersireland wengagement. Dena and her team went about developing a campaign in which 3,181 fansMaltesers could position itself as the brand which brings a little light-heartednessto nights in. Case Study: Dena Walker our brief was to create a reason for consumers to interact with the brand and Irish International begin to develop a community of Maltesers advocates that we would build an engagement programme around. After Christmas, as the new Year starts, our target audience (women aged w 18–34) are limited in their consumption of confectionery by two things: they’ve just started to diet as part of their new Year’s resolutions, and they’re strapped for cash after the indulgences of the festive season. As a result, they’re staying in at weekends, more than they normally would and it gets a bit boring. Dena Walker Irish InternationalDena and her team went about developing a campaign in which Maltesers couldposition itself as the brand which brings a little light-heartedness to nights in. Consumers within our target understand Maltesers to be the most diet-friendly option when it comes to sneaking in a little chocolate indulgence. From mid-Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

30 Best Integrated Facebook Campaign Mars Ireland January 2010, Mars Ireland ran a price promotion on Our page was to be the all confectionery products within their range (M&Ms, Maltesers, Mars, Galaxy & twix). hub of all campaign activity, with the sole intention of We decided to encourage our consumers to ‘Celebrate the Great Indoors’, because after all, when it’s generating engagement cold outside, there’s not much that’s better than and brand advocacy putting your feet up and enjoying company, craic and chocolate, Given the 9-week duration of the campaign and the target audience that we were seeking to engage with, Facebook was felt to be the best platform for activity. our page was to be the hub of all campaign activity, with the sole intention of generating engagement and brand advocacy, and obviously encouraging sales where possible, Among the tools used to generate engagement was an ‘excuse Generator’ application. the excuse generator was a playful tool that our audience could use to generate an excuse for them to stay in, rather than go out. the application randomised a selection of excuses and allowed the user to publish their wacky excuse to their wall (and thus share within the news feeds of their networks). In addition to this, we also ran a competition where users were able to upload pictures of themselves ‘celebrating the great indoors’ via our application, to enter a weekly prize draw to win a ‘Great Indoors Prize Pack’ featuring sharing pouches, fleece blankets, slipper socks and a DVD box set or a Rock Band starter kit. the day-to-day management of the page involved: moderation of user-generated- content within the application, moderation of posts to the main page wall, selecting weekly winners for the competition, and posting scheduled daily updates about fun indoor activities. All of the engagement initiatives were executed in the hope of sparking conversations and encouraging interaction with the page. Dena and her team created a content plan that detailed the volume of updates from the brand, so they could strike a balance between engaging and overkill. We scheduled posts based around current news and pop culture stories, to ensure that the content of the page was always current, and always light- hearted, in keeping with the Maltesers brand. Campaign objectives were established before we went live, which detailed the number of ‘Likes’ we aimed to achieve as well as the level of interactions and competition uploads that we believed would determine success. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

31engagement levels throughout the 9-week campaign remained relatively consistentaccording to Dena with ‘new page likes’ averaging approximately 50 per day, althoughDena says this was heavily skewed towards the start of the campaign when a low-volume ASU campaign was also running.overall Mars Ireland spent around ¤4,000 on the campaign, most of which was limitedto an ASU budget which comprised of two one-week bursts in Weeks one and threeof the campaign. there was also some low-level PR in addition, with a small group ofinfluential bloggers who were offered ‘Great Indoors Packs’ to give away on their blogs.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

32 Best Use of Social Media for a Sponsorship Campaign Bank of Ireland, Leinster Rugby Best Use @bluemagicrugby of Social 686 followers Media for aww Sponsorship Campaign bluemagic.ie 32,634 viewsww OvERvIEWCase Study: Bank of Ireland has sponsored the leinster Rugby club since the 2007/8 seasonDena Walker when they first launched ‘Blue Magic’. According to Dena at Irish International theIrish International term ‘Blue Magic’ stands for the flashes of brilliance that are unique to leinster Rugby, and which set them apart from the opposition. Very quickly the phrase ‘Blue Magic’ became part of the CAMPAIGN STATS Leinster Rugby vernacular, with the team and media adopting it. • Supporter Uploads the adoption of ‘Blue Magic’ by to Website 800+ the Leinster Rugby team and fans • iPhone App Downloads 3,028 was seen as very successful, but it was felt by the bank that they • Blue Magic could do more to leverage their Moment Views 30,000+ Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

33 sponsorship to Leinster fans across the province, rather than just at the matches. We set out to create a site our brief was to develop an online presence that was full of rich, engaging and programme of engagement that would content that would speak to enable Bank of Ireland to develop a community of Leinster fans beyond matches, and ultimately the hearts of Leinster fans increase consideration of the bank from within across the province the community of fans. Dena Walker Irish InternationalBefore developing the website, Dena and her team created some user personas, sothey could fully understand the habits, needs and requirements of various types ofrugby fan. this enabled them to develop content that would really excite and inspirefans to engage with the site.Dena and her team created several areas within the site, including:Blue Magic MomentsAn area in the site where Leinster players reviewed specific Blue Magic Moments, togive fans an insight into how they did what they did and what was going throughtheir heads at the time; thus bringing them closer to the action.Your Blue MagicAn area where fans can upload their own blue magic examples whether as a fan at amatch, or playing rugby within the province of Leinster.The locker RoomA private area within the website dedicated to bank customers. they are given a login code to access the area, where they can enter exclusive competitions and gainaccess to exclusive content. We also created an iPhone application based around the popular top trumps game, called Leinster Legends, which was available for free download from the itunes store.the game saw past and present Leinster players pitted against each other. Gameplayers were able to play against the computer as well as their friends.Dena and her team also created an engagement piece called Wear the Blue Jersey,where site visitors could upload their photo to appear in a video as Leinster’s newestsigning. throughout the site, social media integration was key, with FacebookConnect being used to enable users to share content that they liked and to spreadthe word across their own networks.to date the campaign’s growth has been purely organic, as Bank of Ireland have notyet invested in any above-the-line media, limiting promotion to featuring the URL onSupported by Bord Gáis Energy

34 Best Use of Social Media for a Sponsorship Campaign Bank of Ireland, Leinster Rugby general club sponsorship communications. the website and iPhone app were promoted through a soft launch on Leinster Rugby’s Facebook page, with some voluntary support from key online bloggers. We set out to create a site that was full of rich, engaging content that would speak to the hearts of Leinster fans across the province and compel them to visit the site, becoming part of a community with the sole purpose of celebrating not only Leinster Rugby Club, but also the fans and the wider, rugby playing community across the province. Looking at the engagement statistics, it looks like Dena and her team at Irish International did just that. Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

35AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank Michelle McCormick @shellymcand Ian Power @powerian for compiling these case studies.Supported by Bord Gáis Energy

362011 WinnersFacebook Page for a Business Integrated Facebook Campaign Blog of a BusinessSpin 1038 (Page, App and Ads) Sponsored by Frontline LEDfacebook.com/spin1038 Maltesers Ireland Curious Wines facebook.com/maltesersireland curiouswines.ie/blogFacebook Page fora Non-Profit Organisation Best Business Twitter Account – video/video CampaignDublin Zoo Marketing and Sales (non broadcast)facebook.com/dublinzoo Blacknight Sponsored by Publicis QMP @Blacknight Laughing Kookaburra GoldnomicsFacebook Page for a Business(Owner Managed) Best Twitter AccountMeteor Mobile Support, CRM Online PR Campaignfacebook.com/meteor eircom Sponsored by ESOF 2012, Dublin @eircom City of Science Wedding Dates Social Media Awards 2011 Winners Case Studies

37Use of Social Media Best Use of Social Media For a Integrated Social Media Campaignby State Body/Org Sponsorship Campaign Sponsored by GrabOne.ieSponsored by pTools Bank of Ireland Leinster Blue Magic MeteorDefence Forces Innovative Use of Social Media Agency for use of Social MediaBest Mobile App Sponsored by Arekibo Sponsored by Newsletter.ieoxegen 2010 Rte’s the Rumour Room Irish InternationalCustomer Care using Social Media Social Media Effectiveness – Grand Prix(Integrated) conversions, metrics etc. Sponsored by Bord Gáis EnergySponsored by DoneDeal Sponsored by Kantar Media Meteor MobileVodafone Ireland Morning Ireland, RteSupported by Bord Gáis Energy

SUPPORTED BYBord Gáis energy is proud to support the Social Media Awards.Since our early foray in to the social media arena back in 2009, was part of the Big Switch campaign, we’ve seen a markedincrease in the percentage (now at 59%) of our customer basewho now say they use social networks on a regular basis. Bord wGáis energy is committed to meet, and exceed where possible,the needs of this ever growing group through innovativeand practical use of social media to connect with, serve and wunderstand our customers.w bordgaisenergy.ie facebook.com/BordGaisEnergyw @BordGaisEnergyw socialmediaawards.com The 2012 Irish Social Media Awards will take place in the Mansion House in Dublin on Thursday 17th May. w socialmediaawards.com @socmediaawards (#sockies) facebook.com/SocialMediaAwards w w

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2011 Irish Social Media Awards - Winners Case Studies Document Transcript