Category: Social Media Marketing

How to Start a Career in Social Media - Idea Digital

26th April 2023

How to Start a Career in Social Media

Starting a career in social media can seem very daunting. Over the course of the last five years, there has been a huge increase in people applying for social media and content creation related roles. This may make newcomers feel like it is harder than ever to get their foot in the door. We are here to give you some tips and best practices to help you during the beginning of our journey into social media management. 

Throughout this blog post, I will share my best practices when looking to start a career in social media and content creation. The one thing I’d like to state before starting, is, to ….

Online Courses

There are many college/university courses on the market that would set you up well for entering a career in social media management. If you are not in the position to start university or if you wish not to go to university, there are many options online that you can undertake, such as the Digital Marketing Institute

However, I have listed below some other recommendations if an accredited course isn’t a good fit for you.

Never Stop Learning

One thing to remember when looking to start any career in marketing, is that you should never stop learning! You may have the qualification from college, university or an online educator but that doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed a job straight out of graduating. Once you have completed your main qualification, it is a great time to continue learning. There are so many online courses which I will list down below that are free and can add to your CV to show that you continued to educate yourself and continued to learn, continuing to upskill more even after you had received your initial degree.

  1. Google Analytics Academy 
  2. Hubspot Academy
  3. Semrush Academy

These added certificates and licenses will add to your resume and will show the ambition that you have, the self guidance that you have and the determination and willingness you have to learn more.

Get Creative

One of the biggest tips I can give is to get creative, to not do what everyone else is doing. The great thing about marketing is that it’s very creative and although you don’t have to be the most creative person to succeed with a career in marketing. It is the perfect industry to be able to express yourself in different ways and below I will explain one of the best ways that you can get creative to create your own experience and stand out from everyone else when trying to land your first job and start your social media management career!

Self Made Experience

This is the best piece of advice that I could give you, is self-made experience. Let me explain this in a bit more detail! Self-made experience is taking your own initiative to create experience that can add to your CV to show a potential future employer the hard work that you put in and the passion, initiative and willingness you have to learn.

One of the best ways to do this is to start producing content on a Social Media Platform of your choice. In my opinion, the current best platforms to do this on are LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok.

Speaking simply from my own experience, during my last semester of college, I decided it would be a great time to begin working on a piece of self-made experience that would help me when going for my first post-graduate job. I set up an Instagram account that shared fashion advice and college experience, which tapped into an audience that related to where I was at in life, building a community of loyal followers. To a potential employer, this helped show my experience in growing an audience online, growing a presence and maintaining a level or trust with the audience. All skills that are very valuable in your marketing career.

It also shows a future employer that you have taken the time to manage a community outside of working/studying and have shown that ambition that a lot of employers will appreciate and will help you stand out amongst others. I think that is one of the beautiful things about starting a career in social media management compared to other Industries, you get the ability to create your own experience and have it on your CV to show that you are trying and showing your experience through the services that you offer your clients and whether that be sharing social media tips on LinkedIn or whether it’s fashion content on Instagram, building a following, building a community, will definitely stand with you when you go apply for a job in social media/marketing.

These are all the best practices and tips that I would give to anyone who is looking to start their career in social media or in marketing in general. Always make sure to not put too much pressure on yourself, to have fun, enjoy the journey and I’m sure you will find the perfect role for you!

Follow us on social media to stay up to date with the latest social media trends.
Also read our blogs for latest news, opinion and tips for branding and digital marketing strategies that help you grow your business.

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Building a Strong Brand Identity

27th March 2023

Building a Strong Brand Identity

What is Brand Identity?  

Your company’s brand identity is built up with a number of things, it’s what your brand says, it’s values, it’s how you communicate to your audience, it’s the feeling people get when they view your product or service. All in all it’s the personality of your company, and it’s the promise you make to your customers. 

The original term “Brand” comes from the mark that cattle ranchers would make to brand their ownership on their cattle. Nowadays the idea of the word “Brand” has evolved into much more than just a symbol or a name. 

A brand is a set of features that separates your company from other companies and/or its competitors. It helps communicate to your audience what it is that you do, and how you do it differently or better. Often a brand is comprised of a name, tagline, logo or symbol, visual design language and a brand voice.  

As Wayfair Senior Brand Manager Jared Rosen puts it, “Brand identity is more than just finding the right logo to place on coffee cup sleeves or mount above your front door. It’s about crafting a personality that amplifies the core elements to your brand’s DNA. Today, the most magnetic brand identities scale across digital platforms, IRL experiences, and even naturally converse with real customers.” 

In conclusion, your product or service will leave your customers with an impression. Your brand identity is the process of shaping that impression.  

Brand Identity Examples 

 Coca-Cola 

Audience 

With Coca Cola having so many different products and types of their drink I feel that their audience is everyone. They have a product that suits anyone and not like any other brand they communicate with the viewers with emotion and create a stronger bond. 

Brand Identity 

Coca Colas brand is based on its name, logo, colour and shape. All of these aspects make up its identity. It is an important factor influencing Coca Cola sales. The brand has is known all around the world as they have built their image on a universal value, happiness. The brand is perceived by customers as a part of daily life and of their life style. Coke is this globalized product that has the same taste customers are looking for and which give the same pleasure of refreshment during break together. 

Nike 

Audience 

According to the company’s business overview, Nike brands each have distinct target audiences. The main Nike brand is most targeted towards athletes, selling related products such as shoes, sporting equipment and clothes. The Converse, Inc. Brand markets more casual goods and is described as targeting premium customers. The Jordan Brand is also a premium brand, but it is targeted more broadly at athletes. 

Brand Identity 

Nikes target audience is mainly aimed at athletes and exercise. Nikes’ identity is made up with a few different aspects such as its name, logo, slogan, colour and shape. The brand is well known around the world to be associated with anything regarding athletes, sports or fitness related. Nike is perceived by its customers to be a way of life, to train hard and never give up. Its slogan “Just do it” has no need for its iconic swoosh logo anymore and is aimed at the not so fit audience urging them to get up and get exercising.  

IBM 

Brand Identity 

IBM has one of the world’s most recognizable logos. Maintaining its integrity is an essential part of protecting the brand. The 8-bar blue logo is more than a signature to our ads or a name on our products and services. To customers, it is a promise that represents trust, value, quality and advanced technology. In a world of confusing, competitive ads and product claims, the IBM logo is uniquely reassuring, conveying authenticity, reliability and quality. The IBM logo is present on every form of IBM communication. 

How to create a Brand Identity 

Find your target audience 

Behind every successful brand is a well thought out brand strategy. Part of that strategy begins with finding your target audience, these are the type of people who will be more attracted to the product or service you are supplying. Once you have determined who that audience is you can then tailor your mission and messaging to meet their exact needs.  

The key focus here is to get specific, figure out the behaviors and lifestyle of a precise audience. For example if were to target “All Moms” this would be too broad. But if you niche your choice down to “Single Moms who work full-time” this gives you a much clearer scope to create your content.  

Research competitors in your Industry  

When researching your competitors be careful not to imitate what it is exactly they are doing. You should only be aware of their brand strategies, and use this knowledge to differentiate from them. The end goal is to stand out from your competitors and convince your audience to purchase from you over them.   

Looking at your competitors or leading brands, study how well they have thought out their brand strategies. Have they missed anything? Are they sending the right message? See how you might do things differently or even better. A successful needs to be clear, recognizable and easy to remember.  

Establish your brand mission and vision  

Crafting a clear expression of what your company is passionate about is extremely important. This is your companies reason why, its everything we have talked about previously until now. But by having those steps completed previously, makes this step easier to achieve.  

Your brand vision can be an aspirational statement that your company hopes to achieve one day. What you hope your company will bring to the table, and how it can benefit/change your target audience.  

Your brands mission is what’s happening now, the building blocks you are placing to achieve your brands vision. Everything from your logo, tagline, voice, messaging should reflect what mission and vision are all about.

If you are looking for the best marketing agency in Dublin, Ireland, visit us today. To know more about our works, click here

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Digital Marketing v’s Traditional Marketing

16th November 2022

Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing

Let’s start off with an explanation of what digital and traditional marketing are:

Digital Marketing – digital marketing is any marketing that is conducted digitally/online. For example, social media ads, ppc advertising and email marketing, digital marketing is arguably the most valuable type of marketing and is widely used by the majority of companies today.

Traditional Marketing – traditional marketing is any type of marketing that isn’t online such as billboard ads, television ads, newspaper and radio ads. This type of marketing is known for being the best to reach a local audience.

Deciding which marketing technique to use is largely down to the business themselves and the audience they are trying to reach. When trying to decide on which best suits your business, it is common to choose elements of both to help reach your target audience. For instance, a business may find that their audience is very active on Facebook and YouTube and can best be targeted through those platforms but are also avid radio listeners and will find it beneficial to also reach their audience through radio, taking elements from both forms of marketing can ensure you reach your audience holistically.

When people think of traditional marketing, they tend to think of it only being used for the older generations, for people that are yet to utilise social media and other online platforms, but traditional marketing is still a very important tool for businesses to take advantage of, especially if your goal is to reach a very local audience. Ads can have a longer lifespan when conducted traditionally rather than digitally and the audience can be much easier to reach, for instance from billboards than an ad seen from scrolling social media.

Digital marketing is seen as the most popular form of marketing in recent years, due to the increase in online users and usage. As the world is becoming more digital it is inevitable that digital marketing will become a choice for many businesses as it can be a much more cost effective method of marketing than traditional, not to mention the benefits of being able to report and see exact returns on your investment along with the exact audience that is seeing and engaging with your ad, all very valuable information for a business to have.

Which leads to one of the biggest disadvantages of traditional marketing is the lack of reporting and visible correlation between the return on your investments and the increase in revenue/new clients, whatever your key metrics and goals are. Another big drawback for traditional marketing is the lack of interaction with your consumers. There are very few ways a business can hear the thoughts of its consumers on its marketing efforts and their impact on the intended audience. This is where digital marketing excels! Digital marketing allows businesses to see their target audience’s thoughts and perceptions of their marketing efforts along with being able to interact and create a relationship with potential customers and their larger target audience.

Another advantage of digital marketing is your ability to edit and change ads after they have gone live, contrary to traditional marketing where, once you click print or sign off on your ads, they are out there for your audience to see, no edits can be made without going through the whole process of printing/recording the ads again. With digital marketing, you can easily go in and edit your ads, whenever you like.

It can also be argued that one of digital marketings drawbacks is the fact that it relies on technology and if technology acts up or shuts down for a period of time, your ad isn’t reaching your audience at all, that is why a lot of businesses will take advantage of elements of both traditional and digital marketing at once.

A lot of businesses may switch to digital marketing, not only for its cost-effectiveness and reporting benefits but is also a great way to market if you are looking to market to a more global audience compared to traditional marketing’s benefits of a local audience.

Overall, it will completely depend on your business, your target audience, your budget and your goals. They can work hand in hand or separately depending on the audience you’re trying to reach and the objectives your business sets out with.

Check out our Branding and Digital marketing Services:

 

What makes a great logo - Idea Digital

14th October 2022

What makes a great logo?

Going by a dictionary definition, a logo is “​a design or symbol that a company or an organization uses as its special sign.”  

Businesses need a way to differentiate themselves from their competitors. They achieve this with branding. Uniquely styled visuals for their advertising, packaging and messaging. The logo on its own is not the brand but the symbol used to communicate which company owns a particular good or service. It’s a trigger for your awareness of that brand and all that you know and feel about it to come into play. The logo is the identifier of a brand. 

Brand awareness is everything that attracts and connects people to a company’s products and services. How it makes people feel owning, wearing, using and supporting these brands adds to our sense of style, status and identity. All brands have a logo, a brand mark when advertised and shared becomes recognisable as belonging to one company over another. 

So what does makes a great logo? All the designers at Idea will tell you that logos should be unique, memorable, scalable and also work in one colour. Big brands the world over have been updating their logos to look cleaner and stronger at smaller sizes, spurred on by digital and how these logos look on your mobile screens. A quick search on Google will show how big companies such as Airbnb, Google, Spotify, Burger King and Mastercard have all simplified their logos to make them more confident and digital friendly. Interestingly Guinness went the other way and employed Design Bridge to add detail, character and life back into the harp symbol which brilliantly reflects the brand’s heritage. 

Great logos are memorable, versatile, appropriate and timeless. It needs to make sense of what it’s representing and be strong and confident when compared with the competitors. The easiest way to explain the thought and rationale that goes into logo design is to show you some of our own. Here are 3 logos we designed this year with a brief description to explain why we designed them to look like this. 

Simply Blue Energy 

Simply Blue Energy - an Idea Digital Project

A company focused on blue growth strategies to fight climate change by developing marine resources such as Floating Wind Farms, Wave Energy and Aquaculture. Inspired by the wind, our logo derives from a wind rose plot diagram, a chart that is used by meteorologists to measure the speed and direction of the wind.  

Dynamic Partners 

Dynamic Partners - an Idea Digital Project

A collective of experts who work with business leaders and their teams to give them the skillsets and tools required to enable them to thrive. Bringing insight and resource to the relationships between people in organisations takes conversation and a belief that we are better together. This logo captures these conversations by using speech bubbles to represent the D and P of Dynamic Partners with a Venn diagram overlap. The meeting in the middle is where real understanding and change occurs. 

The Arc Collection 

The Arc Collection - an Idea Digital Project

A company dedicated to the curated selection, development and management of short-term luxury rental properties in gateway getaway? cities across Europe. An exclusive and elegant logo designed to visually represents its name by using arcs to create the letters. 

Let’s consider and review some of the most successful logo designs in the market today. 

Nike Swoosh - an Idea Digital Project 

The iconic “swoosh” of Nike evokes a feeling of movement, progression and speed. Very appropriate for a sportswear brand. The symbol of a logo should be highly visible and memorable. Ideally a logo should be so recognisable that a client can recall it even after one quick glance. 

Fedex - an Idea Digital Project

The Fedex logo is famous for the arrow hidden within the letters. The negative space created between the letters E and x creates a forward pointing arrow that evokes a sense of speed, destination and perseverance in achieving goals. I got into a conversation with my sister about how to brand companies and what makes a great logo, a prelude of sorts to this article and I happened to mention the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo. She came back to me a few weeks later all excited about how she finally saw the arrow and now that she has seen it, she can’t unsee it. Small discoveries like this really elevate a logo in the mind of a client. Understanding and appreciating the meaning of a logo and how it cleverly ties back to the relevance of the company really helps to build brand confidence. We all like clever, it shows consideration, thought and understanding. We want our brands to understand our needs and to feel satisfied and better off by our purchases. 

 

When I mention 3 stripes which company do you think of? It’s like asking which company uses the tagline ‘Probably’. Taking something so simple and building a brand that is supported by something so powerful, memorable and simplistic is the gold standard in logo design. The three-striped logo is the cornerstone of Adidas branding. 

This mountain emblem conveys the idea of overcoming challenges, scaling mountains and pushing through to achieve your goals. In the same way we designed the Dynamic Partners logo to feel more approachable by using lowercase lettering for the name, Adidas starts with a lower-case letter to emphasise its sportswear products are accessible for everyone. 

Great logos are intriguing, eye catching, memorable and remarkable. Some may think that a logo should visually represent everything your company is or does, but I hope this article shows this is not what to expect from a logo. Nobody needs to look at a logo and see all of that. Ideally if you can visually capture the essence of the company or product in a simple, emotive and impactful way, it can create an attraction for the brand which is ultimately good for business. 

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Choosing the Right Social Media Channels for Your Business

15th September 2022

Choosing the Right Social Media Channels for Your Business

Choosing the right social media platforms for your business can be difficult, it can be hard to know where to start or what you should be looking for to make sure you choose the right ones. 

To help, we’ve compiled some tips to make the decision a little clearer for you. Here’s some things you need to take into account:

1. Your Audience

Knowing who your audience is, is probably the most important thing to take into account when you are choosing which social media platforms to set your business up on. One of the main reasons businesses create social media accounts is to put themselves in front of their ideal audience, so knowing what social media platforms your audience uses is key to succeeding on social media.  For example, if you are a B2B company, the majority of your target audience may use LinkedIn as their primary social media channel, so that may be the best fit for your business.

2. Your Goals

What are your social media goals? This is something you must focus on setting out before you establish which social media platform you will use. Depending on your social media goals, it may make it clearer which social media channels will benefit your business, for instance, some social media platforms are built for brand awareness while others are built to drive conversions. Understanding your social media goals and what it is you want to use social media for, will help you decide on which social media channel will help you yield the right results.

3. Research Competition

Research all of your top competitors. What social channels have they chosen, what type of content are they posting, which of their content performs best with their audience, and which social platform are they seeing the best progress on? These are all questions you must answer when looking into your competitors,  to help identify the right platform for your business.

 

4. The content you want to create

Examine the type of content you want to create. Different content works better on different social channels, for instance, if video is something you want to focus on, you may find YouTube and TikTok the best platforms to use.  Each social media platform has a particular type of content that it is known for or that performs best. Take a look at what content you have and what content you have planned to use/create in the future, using this information you will be able to determine the best social media channel for your business. 

Once you have completed the points above, it is now time to compile the information together to help you make an informed decision as to what platform aligns to your goals, has the highest presence of your target audience and fits with the content you want to create.

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website860x557

16th July 2018

Depend on Digital: Adding Value To Your Property Development

Having a strong digital presence is an essential element of property marketing. This medium can be hugely effective by strengthening visual effects and reaching and capturing a wider audience. So what steps can be taken to increase sales and encourage interest in your development?

Website

Having a visually appealing and functional website is a crucial element of your campaign. By developing a an engaging website, you can showcase both the property and its surrounding area with impressive images and videos.

Engaging, informative content through your website on the property and its location will increase brand recognition and boost sales enquiries. Well-researched copywriting throughout the website (e.g blogs which capture themes such as local amenities, interior design options) will help potential buyers visualise living at the property.

Technical content such as interactive floorplans, sitemaps and building specs can also be included on the website to further interest and engagement with prospective buyers.

Social Media

The growth of social media over the last 5-10 years has been astonishing to say to the least. Our mobile phones capture the majority of our attention – so it’s important to have a strong social media presence to capture the attention of potential property buyers. Without a social strategy you missing out on a cost effective platform to reach your target audiences.

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn are very useful for interacting and engaging with your target market. These platforms can showcase the property and location with striking images and video, while also providing valuable and engaging content through posts and captions.

Using paid advertisements, as well as organic content, can be effective for targeting potential customers based on demographic, location and online behaviours.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is how you can organically optimise your website to appear higher up in search rankings. By having an effective SEO strategy, you can direct prospective buyers who are searching for property towards your website.  A large majority of your potential customers are researching their future homes online- don’t miss out on targeting them. You can reach users organically by employing both onsite and offsite SEO.

Onsite SEO includes copywriting website content which strategically targets relevant keywords. There are also several technical onsite SEO techniques we can use, including meta tag optimisation and site speed analysis.

Offsite SEO includes running an ongoing campaign on creating backlinks on domains which have high authority ratings, and making optimisations to any Google Map listings that are relevant.

Find out more about SEO here.

AdWords

Google AdWords (soon to renamed Google Ads) is a very effective way of increasing your online presence, through both Search & Display.

Search:

Search advertising can help ensure your website is at the top of the search rankings for relevant identified keywords. An example of some keywords could be: “Mortgage calculator, places to live in Dublin, Greystones new homes etc.”. Ads can be targeted to audiences who Google have identified as searching for property based on their web browsing activity as well as a full range of demographic information.

Display:

As property is often sold on a visual basis, display advertising is hugely important to:

  1. Make users aware of your new property development if they are not searching
  2. Keep the development in the user’s attention if they have already visited your website before, by placing visually appealing ads on other websites that they visit.

You can target certain demographics, keywords on websites or individual placements based on website categories, while there are also placements available outside these networks, such as Daft and MyHome.

 

A strategic digital marketing campaign can have a huge impact on property sales and brand recognition – don’t miss out on these essential sales tools.

Need help with your digital marketing strategy? Why not benefit from our experience? Get in touch – info@idea.ie

 

Andrew Browne, Account Manager

 

20th June 2018

If it Ain’t Broke – Why Run with a Rebrand?

 

For many the risk of renaming and rebranding something that is much loved and highly successful can be too great – but for others the danger of becoming ignored and no longer relevant is even greater. So what companies are choosing to give themselves a refresh to stay ahead of the game?

Grass Roots Ambassadorship

Circle K, formerly known as Topaz have begun rebranding the 420-strong network of forecourts around the country. This rebrand is part of a global rollout and is expected to take 18 months to complete with an estimated total cost of €55m (with €35m being invested in the development of four new sites)

Niall Anderton, managing director of Circle K in Ireland, said the Irish rebrand was the final leg of a Europe-wide rebrand by the Canadian group, which also owns the former Statoil network on the continent.

Grass Roots Ambassadorship

The company’s investments to date go beyond the rebrand and new sites – with money also being spent on new pumps, new coffee machines and new premium products. “We have to stay investing in the market so our consumers get the best offers,” said Mr Anderton. Circle K is currently running a television and outdoor marketing campaign this summer to highlight the new brand and the change from Topaz to Circle K.

The current marketing and advertising shows the value of engaging employees with the rebrand by making them brand ambassadors. Ultimately, no marketing strategy or advertising campaign will ever communicate the brand as favourably, or as sincerely, as engaged employees, amplified by social media. Understanding your employees and empowering them with marketing savvy and social media freedom can incentivise ambassadorship and sincere messaging. Your workforce can double-up as brand evangelists, inadvertently communicating the awesomeness of your company to the world!

 

Here are some successful rebrands you may remember happening within your lifetime.

Marathon to Snickers

In 1930 Mars introduced Snickers, a chocolate bar consisting of nougat, peanuts and caramel coated with chocolate and named after the favourite horse of the Mars family. The bar was marketed under the name “Marathon” in the UK and Ireland until July 19, 1990, when Mars decided to align the UK product with the global Snickers name.

Marathon to Snickers

BackRub to Google

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, students at Stanford University in California, developed a search algorithm – originally known as “BackRub” in 1996. The Google company was launched in 1998 by Page and Brin to market Google Search, which would later become the most widely used web-based search engine in the world.

BackRub to Google

Opal Fruits to Starburst

Opal Fruits were introduced by Mars in the UK in 1960 and introduced in the US in 1976 as Starburst. In 1988 the UK name was changed to match the US brand in order to keep a constant brand name.

Opal Fruits to Starburst

Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike

On January 25, 1964, Blue Ribbon Sports was founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. On May 30, 1971 Blue Ribbon Sports officially became Nike with its iconic “swoosh” logo to represent the sound of speed.

Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike

 

Your brand is vital to your company’s potential, and must be instantly identifiable for the successful future of your business, it’s important to get it just right!

Have questions about your company’s brand? Why not pop in and chat to Idea?  

Stephen Gibson, Creative Director

Idea Digital - Leading Marketing Agency in Dublin Ireland

24th May 2018

Our Rebrand Journey

After 22 years of breathing life into brands for our clients it was Idea’s turn for some love. We felt our mission, brand statement and values were no longer reflective of who we were. So we assessed the risk of rebranding, conducted a client survey, and then asked ourselves some tough, but thought provoking questions. Who are we, and what is it that we love to do?

The results of our client research gave us great reassurance about to our decision to rebrand. What also emerged from this process was that it was time for Idea & Idea Digital to merge under one overall Idea umbrella to create a fully integrated agency with a strong team of creative consultants.

Keeping the name Idea was probably the easiest decision in our rebranding process. It was too good to change. Initially it stood for Image, Design, E-Commerce and Advertising. All which remain relevant to the business today, but we work with ideas…creating them, growing them and making them happen, so it was a no brainer to keep the name, it stood the test of time since Ciaran Flanagan named the company 22 years ago! The client feedback confirmed that this was the right thing to do!

We divided our talented team into two and conducted an internal competition to develop a new brand and overall brand strategy for the business and we were delighted with the end result! We refreshed our colour palette (hello raspberry red!), modernised our logo and more importantly updated our brand values to reflect who we are now. We are thrilled with our new look, energy and feeling. But rest assured, we are still the same Idea that thrives on using branding, marketing and digital to craft strategic and design success stories.

Our new brand reflects the core philosophy of our business; collaboration. We believe great work comes from working collaboratively with great clients and fellow creative partners.

Our Rebrand Journey

There were several challenges we faced along the way:

  1. Time: Making time to treat ourselves as a client. Our client work always came first, which resulted in our rebrand taking a lot longer than we’d have liked (despite us having all the skills in-house!)
  2. Colour: After some initial testing it became clear that the neon colour we initially chose was going to be a nightmare to work with and reproduce consistently, so we had to change it! It is important to examine fully how a colour will work across all channels, digital, print, paint etc before going with it!
  3. Budget: it would be lovely to change everything at once, but that is just not practical, so we focussed initially on the client facing touchpoints…our website, signage, meeting room, furniture and redecorating key areas of the office (pop in and see our new look!)

Key learnings  

Don’t try to do it all at once, we had to phase our work with the rebrand for both time and budgetary reasons. Once the initial audit was done we knew the scale of the work involved and we had to break it down into phases…we are delighted to have our new logo/ website /documentation and initial office refresh done…but there is plenty more to come in the phases to follow!

Tips

Do some research with your clients, you might think you know what they want/think but let them tell you…this allows for concrete foundations for change/keeping some elements of your brand/values/name/colour palette/tagline/messaging.

Our advice for anyone rebranding

  1. Decide why you are rebranding in the first place.
  2. Understand the scale and scope of the task
  3. Set realistic expectations and measure performance
  4. Find out what people’s views of the current brand are before you change anything
  5. Involve your people in shaping a new brand for the future
  6. Use the opportunity to sharpen up your act across the whole business

 

Give us a shout if you’re thinking of rebranding or if you’ve a development you’d like to develop a brand for…having just gone through the process ourselves we know what it’s like to be in your shoes! info@idea.ie.
Check out some of the works done by Idea Digital

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link building blog

1st May 2018

Link Building: 5 Things To Remember

A link building process should be central to every website’s SEO strategy. But what exactly are links, and why are they so important?  

What are links?

Links are the streets and avenues that connect websites. According to moz.com ‘search engines have treated links as votes for popularity and importance in the ongoing democratic opinion poll of the web. Links aren’t everything in SEO, but search professionals attribute a large portion of the engines’ algorithms to link-related factor.’ So in other words, link building is important to boost your web ranking and website traffic. It helps algorithms see what websites are indirectly connected, helping them with quality control. To put it another way – ‘your tribe is your vibe’!

Link building is the process of ‘earning’ links for your website from other external websites. Backlinks can be received from social media websites and other directories, but usually come from blog posts and the content of other websites. Ideally, you would hope to receive backlinks from other companies in your industry and field. For example, a farm compliance application company may reach out to big players in the agriculture industry, such as Bord Bia. But how to you plan an excellent link building campaign?

Here are Idea’s Top 5 recommendations:

(1) Create quality content

Before you set out trying to gain quality backlinks to your website, you have to give these websites a reason to share your links in the first place. Writing quality blog posts or articles on an industry-specific topic will surely stand out to the websites that you hope to receive recognition from. Try and make your pieces long, elaborate and thought-provoking. Don’t throw in random industry buzzwords where they don’t make sense. The algorithms will outsmart you!

(2) Guest post on other websites

Posting on industry-related websites is so key to link building. Make it a win-win situation and ask the owner of the website you are posting on to write one for your website too. More people will come across your website name and links which is sure to drive more traffic to your website. It’s a win/win for everyone!

(3) Be wary of websites linking to you

When it comes to receiving backlinks from other websites, you should focus on quality over quantity. A quality backlink is a link that comes from a reputable, well-respected website with a high Domain Authority (DA). A website with a DA score of over 60 is considered good, 40-59 ok but anything less than 40 isn’t too great. Receiving links from websites with a low or ‘spammy’ score may be picked up on by Google. Robots will crawl these spammy websites and may also deem your website to be ‘spammy’. Be selective in which websites you receive links from!

(4) Create aesthetic Infographics

Infographics have the potential to add real quality to your websites blog posts/articles. They’re simple, usually colourful, easily shareable and simple to understand. Infographics, when designed correctly, can really stand out on your website. Create an infographic that provides value to your reader. In turn, these people are likely to share your infographic on their website. Even better!  

(5) Share your content all over social media

Creating and sharing content on social media platforms is a great way to improve your backlink strategy as Google uses social signals for rankings. The best way to gain attention and traction on social media websites such as Facebook and Instagram in particular, as well as Twitter is to run a competition that is sure to engage with your customers and increase the number of links going back to your website.

 

Do you have questions about your website’s SEO or online strategy?  Why not talk to Idea – info@idea.ie.

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3rd January 2018

Bricking it: Building your career

While everyone has a different career path, there are skills and advice that can be useful for everyone. Idea were delighted to attend the ‘Bricking it: Building Your Career’ event last week, hosted by The Marketing Society. Speakers included Fiona Sweeney (Strategic Marketing Director for Kerry), Orlaith Blaney (CMO for Ervia) and Jules Fallon (Founder and Managing Director of 1st Options) – and they all had interesting points to deliver:

Go Back to Basics:

Orlaith Blaney has a career spanning over 23 years in the Advertising industry – and her take home point is simple, effective and yet often overlooked. She explains we can often forget to say ‘thank you’ to clients – they will be surprised but happy. Keeping a strong working relationship is key. Orlaith also advised there is so much opportunity out there – if you are not fully content in your current position then get out and explore more opportunities – life is too short!

7 Steps for Success:

The next speaker Fiona Sweeney began her career in 2000 when she began an Internship with Smirnoff Ice. Fiona has worked with many brands such as Diageo and Coca Cola and Superquinn. Retail she explains is definitely something that all people should experience – it’s a tough and fast-moving industry. The next change in Fiona’s career was to join Kerry as Marketing Director. Fiona has seven golden rules that she believes are key to develop and sustain a successful career:

  1. Only you will fight for your career as hard as you – It’s your own career and you have to work hard to put yourself in a position for promotion and self-development.
  2. Let your position guide you – if you find your position or work is getting a bit stale then it is time to look for other opportunities.
  3. Be self-aware – think about what you can leverage in yourself to be successful. You should be accepting of your flaws but be proactive in your attempts to fix them.
  4. Emotional intelligence is king – it’s important to network and interact with people who are in your industry.
  5. Find a great leader – reach out to someone who inspires you and ask them for advice and motivations that will drive you. Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone – most people will be flattered and happy to help!
  6. Embrace the fear – Being uncomfortable is good and needed if you want to progress. It’s ok to make mistakes, but learning from these mistakes is the challenge.
  7. Be insatiably curious – keep learning and asking questions.

It’s Good To Talk:

The final speaker Jules Fallon was modelling from a young age before accepting it was not her desired career. She decided to continue in the industry, albeit in a different role going on to found 1st Options Model Management. As echoed by Fiona in the previous talk, she believes finding a brilliant mentor is key to success. Old fashioned communication – such as asking your mentor to go for a coffee – is the best thing to do. Finally, Jules stated that networking is imperative. Get your name out there and watch your reputation grow she advises.

Thank you to all speakers for your invaluable advice – we are feeling inspired!

 

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