Firms learn how to get their message across in a socially networked world

Some of the leading lights of corporate twitterati gathered at UCC yesterday to discuss the most effective methods of representing a company in the networked world.

Social Newsmaker Cork, organised by mediacontact.ie along with UCC and the Irish Examiner, heard from internet 2.0 success stories Irish Rail, the Defence Forces, Cully & Sully, and Colm O’Regan, the creator of @Irishmammies on Twitter.

The approaches taken differed, from the military’s targeted strategic approach, to Cully & Sully’s crowd-sourced user-generated viral advertising. However there was agreement across the board, summed up by military spokesman Cmdt Denis Hanly (@defenceforces), that “content is king, engagement is queen”.

Thanks to social media, bodies such as Irish Rail and the Defence Forces, usually seen as grey faceless entities, have developed personality, a phenomenon noted by speakers at yesterday’s event.

Irish Rail’s corporate communications manager, Barry Kenny (@irishrail) outlined the growth of the company’s Twitter following. It came from two freak events, the collapse of the Malahide viaduct and the 2009 “snowpocalypse”.

Irish Rail began using Twitter as a means of interacting with customers and make them aware of disturbances to services, but then went beyond this to tweet with updates of the coldest temperatures recorded, pictures of workers clearing tracks, and eventually posting pictures of lost animals.

Cully & Sully’s marketing campaign manager, Elaine Doyle (@missdoyle2u), explained how the premium brand had fought the recession to maintain its relevance to consumers.

She explained the success of the Chef Factor, which offered someone the chance to learn how to cook professionally and develop their own career in food, operated on the philosophy of “seeing our customers as co-creators of the brand message”. Using this simple philosophy, and offering a €12,000 course in the Ballymalloe Cookery school, the company gained over 100,000 votes.

Irish Examiner chief sub-editor David O’Mahony (@davidomahony), who addressed the conference, said that as communications evolved newsrooms had to embrace social media.

“The face of communication is constantly changing and we, as journalists, need to embrace it,” he said after the event.

“Social media complements what we do and helps people share their stories with us, much as it helps us share our articles.”