Social Media Working Group
Do you blog for your business? Tell us all about it
Calling all business bloggers! If you blog for your business, no matter what size, we want to hear more about your experience. We would like to gauge the effectiveness of blogging for business, start collecting data about trends, the costs involved, your target audiences and the benefits. We look forward to sharing the anonymised results of this survey and analysis of the data with you in due course.
Please take 10 minutes to complete our survey.
This is an initiative of the Irish Internet Association’s Social Media Working Group to gather information about blogging for business in Ireland. This survey was run last year (results available online) and formed part of the data for the guide “Join the Conversation: A Guide to Blogging for Business” Your response will be completely anonymous and the survey takes about 10 minutes to complete.
Did you complete the survey last year? Please take the time to complete it again; it will help us gauge developing trends in blogging for businesses in Ireland.
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Add Content to IIA.ie
Members of the IIA can add information to the IIA website easily. This content is considered for inclusion in the IIA’s monthly Digital Digest (more information about deadlines below). It really helps if you get the style and format correct first time.
Using your username and password, log in to www.iia.ie (Click the turquoise blue box in the centre above. It will turn orange when you have successfully logged in). The primary user in each company must request additional logins by emailing members@iia.ie.
Once you are logged in you will be taken to your company profile. If not click on "Member Network" on the left hand side of the navy navigation panel.
Here you will see a list on the left hand side.
Click on "Add Company News".
Remember to tag your information to help other users find it with ease.
Here are some general tips when adding news to the IIA site:
- If you are copying text from a word processing package like MS Word please ensure that you clean the text of all proprietary formatting by copying, pasting it into a text editor like Notepad and then pasting into the textbox.
You can apply formatting effects to your Content. The following options are available:
– Formatting: Bold, Underline, Italic, Strike-through; Alignment: – Left align, Center align and Right align;
– Extras: Create Links, Remove Links, Undo changes, Redo changes - Please write in a formal, press release style using the 3rd person plural where appropriate e.g. "Company A recently launched their new service." This avoids readers confusing your company’s news with IIA organisational news.
- Please include links where possible. This will allow people to visit your site. It will help with your search engine optimisation. The "Add company News" interface allows this. Select your text to hyperlink, click the link icon second from right and choose either http:// or mailto: depending on whether you are linking to a site or email address respectively. You are encouraged, for the purposes of accessibility, to complete all fields in the link dialogue box.
- Basic punctuation and grammar is expected. If in doubt check an online grammar guide. Please also run a spell check before publishing.
Hope this information helps but please do not hesitate to contact members@iia.ie if you experience any difficulties.
The IIA’s monthly newsletter, the Digital Digest, goes out to 5,500+ subscribers, usually on the last Wednesday of every month. In 2009 it had an average open rate of 20% so if there’s ever anything you want to include, please publish to your company profile on IIA.ie by 5pm on the preceding Friday. All content added to member company profiles is considered for publication in the Digest.
The schedule for the Digests for 2010 follows and is subject to change based on Association needs.
- 27/01/2010
- 24/02/2010
- 31/03/2010
- 28/04/2010
- 26/05/2010
- 30/06/2010
- 28/07/2010
- 25/08/2010
- 29/09/2010
- 27/10/2010
- 24/11/2010
- 22/12/2010
The deadline for each edition is 5pm on the preceding Friday.
International Strategy Working Group
International Strategy Working Group Case Study: Pigsback.com
The IIA International Strategy Working Group have created another case study. This time IIA Member Company Pigsback.com is featured. Jonathan Kyle of IIA Member Company Greenjobs.ie interviewed Michael Dwyer, CEO of Pigsback last December.
Dwyer shares some interesting insights about how having founded Pigsback in 2000 it turned out that the Dot Com Crash was not all bad for their company
as it allowed us to bring the Irish business to profitability and it also let us ensure that our product offering and business structure were strong enough for overseas expansion.
A salutary tale for the times we’re living in!
He also talks about what the company learned from their expansion into the very different markets of the UK and Canada.
Access the Internation Strategy Working Group’s resources to download the PDF and other case studies from the group.
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Exhibit your company in Hong Kong and expand your horizons
Expo dates: 13th -16th April 2010
Venue of IRISH PAVILION; Hall 3F HONG KONG Convention & Exhibition Centre , Hong Kong
Organisers; The Irish Exporters Association , supported by Hong Kong Trade Development corporation and Enterprise Ireland.
The ICT EXPO is an annual event and is one of the most important platforms for ICT players from all over the world to network, make potential business contacts and explore market opportunities in the Greater China region. It is a "one-stop" shop for software, internet, electronics B2B venue for exhibitors to establish contacts with customers from the region and explore business partnerships with resellers and distributors.
Special Incentive package for Irish Internet Association Members:
This is your opportunity to book a place in the Irish Pavilion at the ICT EXPO 2010! Book now and take advantage of this special incentive package created for IIA Members:
- Complimentary Exhibition Booth presence
- Complimentary Hotel accommodation 1 room per company , for 4 nights
- Complimentary tailor -made one on one business service
- Free listing in Fair catalogue and fair website
Please email members@iia.ie for your booking form today.
BOOKINGS MUST BE MADE WITH IRISH EXPORTERS ASSOCIATION BY 29TH Jan 2010 so contact members@iia.ie for your booking form today to ensure you meet the deadline.
NB Only fully paid up members of the IIA are eligible for this package so please login and renew before
events
Get busy with it at BizCampNewry
I’m a big fan of Bizcamps I have to say. I’ve had great experiences from a knowledge and networking point of view at the two I have attended. When Nichola Bates from IIA Member company Grow Sales Online contacted me on LinkedIn to let me know about an upcoming Bizcamp in Newry I was immediately interested. I also love the logo. Slick!
So what can you expect at BizcampNewry? I’ll allow their own site to do the talking
BizcampNewry is a free business conference taking place in the Southern Regional College Newry on Saturday the 6th of February 2010! There will be talks ranging from entrepreneurs actively working to professionals ready to share their knowledge and skills.
If one of your New Year Resolutions was to get out and network or to do more public speaking or facilitation this is your chance! Register now online or volunteer to give a talk.
Sadly I won’t be able to make it; common sense dictates otherwise. It’s a week before I go on maternity leave!
social media, statistics
Deloitte feel the power of Social Media
Thanks to our Google alerts I just happened upon this post by Simon Murphy of Deloitte where he shares insights about the development, release, collation and results of Deloitte’s 2009 CIO Survey. It is very interesting to read that he concludes that LinkedIn proved by far the biggest pull to the survey results followed by his colleague Harry Godddard’s guest post here on the IIA blog and inclusion in the November Digital Digest. The fact that we also push these sources out to various social networks was undoubtedly helpful in spreading the word.
The survey results are well worth a read and with my nerdy social research background I am very happy to read on Simon’s blog that Deloitte plan to run the survey again next year. Nothing like the promise of some longitudinal data to get the heart racing of a cold Tuesday morning!
Scam
Beware the scammers aka Internet Register Ireland
<heavy sarcasm>I was delighted </heavy sarcasm> to receive my reminder from Internet Register Ireland this morning dated Dezember 2009 [sic.] as it reminds me that it’s time for me to warn you all to beware these scammers. We’re obviously not alone as there has been an increase in trackbacks and comments on our original post on this matter. As one of our commenters points out at least it’s on Recycled Paper (you gotta love those Germans! 🙂 ) and this is what you should do with this letter on receipt: recycle it.
If you ever receive a letter or an email inviting you to join a directory, do a link exchange or other such activities always, always do a search about the company. Don’t just visit their site: it may look fine to you, it may even look spectacular but all that glisters is not gold. You may do a search and find mixed reviews on blogs and discussion forums or other social media. These reviews may or may not help you decide. Remember what these sites are offering you is exposure so you need to find out what kind of exposure you will be getting from them for your money and they should be prepared to use all the stats in their power to convince you. However you can also check how their site measures up on sites like Alexa.com, which is okay. (Know of other similar services? Please leave a comment below!) You can check out their Page Rank but more importantly brush up your understanding of how Search Engine Optimization works. There are stacks and stacks of resources out there – not least from Google Webmaster Central itself. If you owned a shop in a shopping centre or were attending a tradefair you would do everything in your power to make your shop/ stand em stand out from the others around you. Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing and canny use of Social Media can get you noticed too. We run training events on all of these topics and plan to roll out lots of them in 2010.
For your information I am including a scan of the letter so you know what to keep an eye out for.
new technology
A big wave to you all
You may or may not have heard of Google Wave. You may or may not think it’s the next big thing. One thing is for sure – it’s no use if you have no-one to communicate with on your wave! So I have a limited number of invitations to Google Wave and would like you to have one! I have set up a Google Wave for IIA Members and would love to add you in there too if you are a member.
If you would like an invitation email me at members@iia.ie or email me your Wave address and I will add you to the IIA Wave.
Neville Hobson originally gave me an invite so props to him. He also recommended this great guide which I have been dipping into now and then. Brian Greene also recommended this guide and his company (IIA Member Company Doop Design) have also created a repository of Wave and other cloud resources over at Wavelinks.ie. Add it to your RSS reader and never miss a trick!
If you have seen an innovative use of Wave please share in the comments below. I wrote an article about Google Wave for my monthly column in Beo! where I wondered how this proposed email killer was going to kill the technology that is the first port of call for most. I keep forgetting about Wave because unlike all the other social media I use there is no pull via email. I would also love a way of using it on my iPhone which is another way in which I get sucked into using new apps.
Similarly the fact that there is no easy way to currently share Waves (I know, I know it’s beta!) makes it difficult to draw others’ attention to their use. See above the convuluted (and email based!) manner in which I had to ask you to join me on the IIA Wave. A link would be so much more graceful.
Personally I really liked this example (see vid below) of how to use Wave. Very pertinent to many of us working on our online offerings!
Membership
Hello 2010! How’s it going?
Just a super quick post to wish you all the best in 2010! A couple of things were brought to my attention while I was on leave and I thought the quickest thing would be to share them with you all here.
- Firstly IIA member Pixel Design thought some of you might be interested in Dublin County Enterprise Board’s search for Irish Digital Talent to represent Ireland at a Campus Party Europa Event in Spain in April.
- Secondly I thought it was worth reminding you that one of our members is conducting research about social networking for a masters thesis. Please complete her survey if you have a few minutes to spare.
- And there should be a thirdly. Ah yes! If you are an IIA Member, your membership is now due for renewal. We are doing a special 10% for members who renew online by credit card. Email me at members at iia dot ie for the voucher code.
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Renew your membership today
We renew all of our members per calendar year and now we have made it even easier for members to renew online.
You can now renew online by credit card. Click on the turquoise section in the centre of the page above and login. This section will then turn orange to show that you are logged in. If you don’t see a red link on the top left of the left hand navigation, click on Member Network on left hand side of navy navigation and follow the instructions. Easy as 1-2-3!
Please include this code "ren-on-09" when prompted and we’ll give you 10% off as a thank you for renewing by credit card online. This voucher is valid until St. Patrick’s Day only.
As a not for profit organisation, the IIA relies heavily on membership fees, which are kept very low and are considered great value for money, to fund our extensive networking, education, promotion and lobbying efforts.
For your annual membership fee you can avail of the following key Irish Internet Association membership benefits:
- Discounts on events run by the IIA which ensure that all members are kept informed of technological, legislative and practical advances to the internet;
- Usernames and passwords for all staff within a member company which allows you lots of flexibility in the use of our extranet. This extranet is a key part of our strategic communications plan so to see exciting developments in the near future. Among recent popular developments are 3 widgets on the IIA homepage that allow members to showcase their news and blog feeds and company videos on YouTube. Please contact Roseanne, our membership manager at members@iia.ie, to hear how other members are already seeing increased traffic through these widgets and find out how you can do it too.
- All members are welcome to post industry-related press releases, tenders, publications, vacancies and appointments via the IIA extranet. This is a cost-effective and targeted channel which has provided invaluable leads to a broad range of companies and is an easy way to attract a net-savvy customer-base to your online services on a regular basis;
- Members can also avail of special offers made available by members;
- Member-only resources such as whitepapers, research and reports;
- As a member-driven and member-focussed organisation we rely on members’ input to ensure a vibrant and cutting edge programme of events and therefore welcome all suggestions for topics and speakers from our members;
- First option on cost effective advertising and sponsorship opportunities. Email advertising@iia.ie if you would like to find out more;
- Regular networking opportunities organised by us and by other members.
All of these existing benefits and any future benefits are made possible through membership fees. Please renew today to allow us to continue to offer them to you and your colleagues.
You can of course send a cheque or pay by EFT. Please email accounts@iia.ie for details.