What we do know is that those behind the decision suggest there will be just minor changes which will aim to simplify GDPR rules. Look deeper at what is being proposed and you may find cause for concern.

After years getting to grips with the EU rules we face the need to adapt our approach yet again.

Impact of change

Initially there is a question of how to integrate regional differences into your data handling. Those operating within the EU may need to segregate data by market in line with differing legislation or choose to forgo the new rules in lieu of GDPR requirements so painstakingly implemented. 

There are advantages to both, but by separating datasets you may find strategic decisions become tougher, more diluted due to the new barriers splitting your customer data. Whereas maintaining one databank restricts you to EU rules meaning a lost opportunity may slip by under the new UK-specific rules. 

Of course there is also the need to consider the ethical side of things. Customers now accustomed to added privacy may take a dim view of companies they perceive to be taking liberties with their data. Trust in your company is among the most valuable commodities, regaining trust after it is lost is among the most difficult tasks you can pursue. 

What this really means for us is unclear, because the Government’s aim of “simplifying” privacy rules could amount to a simple rewriting of existing European law or it could introduce a myriad of brand new obstacles. 

Time will tell, but your customers will be keeping a close eye on proceedings. 

The post Impact of changing privacy laws on your marketing activities appeared first on Brighter Directions.

1. Inconsistency

Although there are many forms of social media that all require a slightly different tone of voice, your message throughout your post should be consistent. Not only your message, but your overall posts should be scheduled and regular to ensure you keep your audience interested and engaged.

2. Automation gone wrong

Scheduling can take time so automated scheduling websites can help manage your posts and interaction over a range of sites. However, a team member should always monitor social media posts, so customers can receive personalised replies and embarrassing mishaps are avoided.  

3. Ignoring your followers

Although social media is a great outlet for posting information about products and services, it is also a strong method of interaction that should be used between a brand and their customers. Therefore, it is important to answer all customer questions or queries, social media should be used as a form of communication which in turn, can help build brand loyalty and a strong brand image.

4. Not measuring your social media metrics

One of social medias great benefits is its ability to track interactions when posts are made, this is a useful feature for businesses as you can see if your goals are being achieved via social media metrics. This helps you plan for future goals as you can alter your objectives according to the results of your current content.

5. Forgetting to be personal

It is a common fact that people buy from people, so revealing the individuals behind your brand will help gain you more genuine followers. Even if you’re a corporate brand, by posting the occasional funny photo or inside joke you are more likely to gain interactions and create a more genuine brand image.

6. Repeating yourself

Finding another purpose for content on a different social media site is perfectly acceptable however, bombarding your followers with the same content repeatedly is not. There is a small variety of popular social media platforms so repeatedly using the same content can quickly become an annoyance to your followers. Try to use a varied amount of posts across your platforms or ensure you use a different format if you need to repeat yourself.

7. Not taking social media seriously

Although social media is seen as a modern and fun media outlet, when used for business it becomes a part of your internal marketing strategy. Therefore, all team members should be aware of its importance to ensure there are no social media fails. Typos and grammatical errors may seem like minor mistakes, but would you want them to be representational of your brand?

So although building a social media presence for your company might be difficult, with these tips on what NOT to do, you will be more equip on how to make your brand more visual online. Building a social media following requires patience, consistency and commitment to learn what your customers need and want from your social media platforms.

If you require any help or assist in building a social media presence or just keeping your posts more consistent, please let us know here at Brighter Directions. We offer outsourced services covering PR, Social Media, Content and more. Call our office today on 01246 586 330 to discuss your requirements.

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The festive season can actually inspire your marketing efforts to help you reach your target audience and build your profile. Here are a few simple ways you can use the festive season to inspire your social media strategy.

• Decorate your social media, change your cover or profile pictures to look more festive. Fresh cover photos can help motivate people to check-in on your pages. Even if you don’t sell products or services to a B2C base, it’s still a great idea to post festive pictures, even if they are of a festively decorated workplace.
• If you have more than one social media account use the same or similar festive images on all platforms to show consistency.
• Share in some Christmas fun as we have. Engage people, get them excited about the season and in turn they can get excited about you and your brand. Create posts that are asking what their favourite thing is about Christmas, maybe their favourite food, movie, advert, or song. You could ask what their most memorable Christmas moment is. What do they love or hate about Christmas dinner?
• Finally just because you might have a day of rest on Christmas day doesn’t mean your social media should. Wish everyone a Merry Christmas on the big day. People are going to be online wishing their own friends and family a Happy Christmas. So send out (even if it is scheduled) a Merry Christmas to everyone from your business.

For some festive fun here at Brighter Directions we asked some of our staff members what it was about Christmas they loved:

• Claire likes the Coca-Cola advert and the truck. Let’s face it, when you see Santa on the side of a delivery truck or on a can, you know the holidays are coming!
• Ryan’s favourite Christmas film is The Nightmare before Christmas, making time to watch it at least once each Christmas Eve as part of his holiday traditions.
• Mark is about family at this time of year especially with his little boy and it being his first Christmas. Mark is looking forward to his grandparents visiting and spending Christmas with them all.
• Sharon’s all-time favourite Christmas song is by Greg Lake – I Believe in Father Christmas.
• Amy enjoys watching her little boy opening his presents on Christmas Day.
• Kelly just loves Christmas as a whole, but she especially loves this year’s ‘The Big Night’ advert by Sainsbury’s, you have to love the kid dressed as a plug launching himself into a wall. And she makes a Christmas cake every year.
• Carla finds the smell of cinnamon spices, and watching Home Alone always has her feeling in the festive spirit. The only thing she hates at Christmas is Brussels sprouts
• Danielle has taken inspiration from the classic Mean Girls’ dance, adopting Jingle Bells as her Christmas soundtrack of choice whilst exploring the local markets and indulging in the spread of festive foods.

What gets you into the Christmas spirit? Is it the sound of that familiar Christmas song on the radio? Or is it, like Claire, the sight of that first Coca-Cola holiday advertisement?

The Christmas holidays are very nearly upon us now and for many businesses, this means they will be closing down and going on holidays, but it doesn’t mean you need to wind down your marketing activities for the year.

Keep going, have fun and have an amazing Christmas!

The post Making the most of the Christmas period appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Here are some of the ways you can stay current:

Social Media

It’s crucial to be on social media daily. Use it to stay connected with the top trendsetters within your industry. That way you’ll see when new trends appear. Customise your business’s feeds on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to easily scan relevant and trending topics. Follow the most influential movers and shakers, on Twitter, in your industry and track what they are talking about in real time. Use Facebook and LinkedIn groups to exchange tips and ask questions of experts about emerging trends and best practices.

Subscriptions

Subscribing to popular mainstream business publications, trade journals or consumer magazines, that cover the latest business or consumer news is still one of the best ways to stay in the know about specific industry issues. It is good practice to schedule regular time in your week to go through the publications, both online and offline, so you can refer to them while you’re on the go.

Networking

Networking is one of the easiest ways to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in your industry which allows you to explore how others are addressing challenges and coming up with new ways to serve their clients. The face time you get from networking is also beneficial to your business and a great way to make new business relationships.

Competitors

Competitors are going to see the same emerging trends and opportunities as you do. It is worth checking up on what they are doing to determine what ideas they’ve followed. Being the first one to try out a new trend isn’t always useful. By observing your competitors, you can then decide which methods will work best for you based on their success—or failure.

Don’t be the last person in the know, devote a small amount of your time to understand the emerging trends in your industry and stay on top. That way you can maximise your PR coverage, target and plan your marketing campaigns more effectively and gain more exposure. Proving your business is up to date and relevant!

We have also shared out best insights on how PR is important for your business, click the link to have a read and digest some useful information https://www.brighterdirections.co.uk/2018/09/04/why-public-relations-is-important-for-your-business/

If you remain unsure about how to implement your PR strategy, or would just like additional information, please contact Brighter Directions on 01246 586330, or at danielle@brighterdirections.co.uk.

The post How to keep up with the latest trends to increase PR opportunities appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Personal interactions are a foundation of business and we are lucky to work with truly amazing people. At Brighter Directions, we use our expertise to provide services and solutions to assist our clients in their own professional endeavours, and we place great importance on the partnerships we build.

Our clients are at the heart of our business and we honour the trust they place in us when they give us the responsibility of assisting with a part of their enterprise. Because of this we always ensure that we work alongside them, with honest and effective communications, never promising services that we can’t provide.

Throughout our years in business, we have been fortunate to work with clients and businesses within many sectors. It’s what makes our job unendingly interesting and it makes us grateful for every day that we get to be a part of this social industry. We’ve met some amazing, interesting, and wonderful people along the way.

The Brighter Directions team strive for excellence. We work together, combining our skills to provide the highest level of service we can for you, and we hope our clients are as happy with us as we are with them.

We feel truly blessed to work in this industry where every day is different, and we get to make the most of our creativity. At its heart, though, marketing is about people – communication and interaction – and we know that without our clients, we wouldn’t be able to do this job we love.

As Customer Service Week reaches its end let us say that the Brighter Directions team are incredibly lucky and thankful to have made so many wonderful clients and friends over the years and we will always be grateful!

The post The value of our clients appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Well, the answer is that it has the potential to drastically change the fortunes of your business, and also the way others view your organisation.

In the real world, PR can be extremely expensive depending on how and when it is used. This is because it is time-consuming, and involves a long labour-intensive process.

Despite the previous paragraph being of a rather downbeat nature, don’t be fooled, because PR will reward your investment, and hard work in the long-run, by providing your business with the best achievable return, for its marketing budget.

With many placing PR in the same basket as marketing, PR is arguably the least understood of all marketing tools. The main objective of PR is to use intermediaries to communicate with your audience and influence them. The said intermediaries will most likely include industry spokespersons, stock analysts, investors, trend setters, industry analysts, customers, employees, and even the electronic and print media. More than likely, your company will have very little power over those influencers, or intermediaries, which will result in the public relations side of your business being problematic.

On the flip side of this, advertising is able to provide you with that control because it lets you create your company’s messages, pair them with a supporting graphic, and then place them where you wish your audience to view them and as you intend for them to view them.

To get people to take notice of your business, you must convince many important influencers that the service or product you are selling is worth considering. This includes having a complete plan in place, as people don’t have time to waste weighing up incomplete ideas.

The main points to tick off when coming up with a well-rounded plan will include: –

• Knowing your competition well.
• Knowing your chosen industry well.
• Knowing you your product/service can be most effectively utilised.
• Knowing your audience.
• Knowing your customer’s needs, and requirements.
• Understand why what you are communicating to your audience is of vital importance to them.

You may also have convinced yourself that everything is in place with regards to your advertising audience. But, this isn’t the case. As they are individuals on a database or spreadsheet, they will remain mainly anonymous to your business. As a result of this, the best way to communicate with them will be to see them as a circle that shares common interests, rather than attempting to reach out to them as a specific individual. Because of what it is, advertising focuses on mass communication.

PR also gives your business invaluable credibility, because it will operate through many well-respected intermediaries. An added bonus that these intermediaries provide, is that they target the intended audience, while also filtering out any irrelevant content. If these messages are then chosen to be communicated, they will gain credibility because of the intermediaries already established credibility.

A first-class public relations strategy will always involve laying down ongoing relationships with important intermediaries (which will then include their audience), while also understanding how your business may turn into an excellent data source for the influential. In order to get this relationship aligned correctly, it is essential that your company has provided the following:-

• An in-depth knowledge of the influencer’s needs.
• A quick response to the influencer’s requests.
• Instant accessibility to key executives within your organisation.
• Honestly being able to state your case.

Your PR communications with influencers doesn’t always need to be in relation to your business. By offering accessibility to your consumers in order for the influencer to study how they’re finding solutions using your company’s services, is an essential method of being able to offer more data. The influencer appreciates that you are not going to provide them with a disgruntled customer, but without your assistance, they very unlikely to be able to gain access. The influencer will also have the opportunity to contact your customer regarding your competitors and look at what they’re doing on a broader scale compared with your company.

As you can see, public relations is a very important part of your business, and if you are able to accomplish all, or at least most, of the above, it will help your organisation look more influential and imperative than it is in reality.

If you would like any assistance with PR & Media relations, don’t hesitate to contact us on 01246 586330!

The post Why public relations is important for your business appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Meet Angie…

Angie first started working with Brighter Directions on a freelance/ contracted role back in 2013 where she provided creative expertise to a range of our clients, and our love for her has grown from there – we simply will not let her away from our little claws now!

Angie is a true creative Queen, she is not only graphic and creatively design experienced and trained, but she’s also a fabulous qualified and experience illustration, fine art and is also a painter and photographer too – a very rare quality in design she bridges the gap between modern creatives and traditional standards!

Her role;

Angie runs the creative division for Brighter Directions, she not only manages hundreds of our client creative and visual brand campaigns, but also supervises and mentors our newest designer Diana, who loves working with Angie under her creative leadership and skill.

About Angie;

Angie is a very sweet, nurturing and genuine person with a ‘wicked’ sense of humor and a laugh that makes the office stop dead. She is always the first to offer out hugs when needed and often makes us laugh with her little giggles from the creative corner of the office!

Outside of work, she now resides between our offices in Chesterfield and Scotland… (you read right, she moved for love!), in her beautiful country home with Stephen and her kitties who often plaque her life with fun (ruined carpets) and laughter.

Some things you may not know…

Angie is a genuine and incredibly creative person who often surprises us all with how she takes our scraps of drawings and notes and turns them into branded perfection!

As well as keeping busy with work, Angie is also incredibly passionate about charity, Cancer Research who she works with all over the country with her partner to create fundraising inclusive events such as Halloween walks, fun-runs and more. (She’s also amazing at baking cakes!)

In her spare time she is often found out enjoying the countryside or with a hot cup of chocolate (or coffee, crikey this girl loves her coffee!) in front of a warm fire…. bliss!

You can read more about Angie on our MEET THE TEAM PAGE – as well as learning about our other incredible team.

The post ‘Meet the team’ – Hello Angie appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Digital Day links industry professionals with schools and colleges across the UK to raise awareness of the fantastic opportunities for young people in digital!

Digital Day is aimed at 13-18 year olds and sees digital professionals head back to school for a day on 15 November 2016 to inspire students and give them insight into a world of digital careers.

The UK has a vibrant digital sector with thousands of people working in agencies, technology companies, established businesses, start-ups and within the public sector.

The House of Commons have announced recently that the UK is in the midst of a digital skills crisis. Ministers accept that it is vital that Government coordinates a coherent strategy to address the digital skills crisis at all stages in the education and training pipeline.

Here at Brighter Directions, we’re already working on closing this gap and we take great pleasure in nurturing young talent. We take young people at the apprenticeship stage of their marketing career journey and build their digital skills through intense in-house training and personal development plans, ensuring they’re fully equipped to tackle the digital age we live in head on!

Happy Digital Day everyone!

The post Brighter Directions are supporting Digital Day! appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Google develops new spam filter

Google announced last month that it will be investing in a new advanced verification process that will reduce the amount of spam found in searches both for businesses and generally.

The new process is currently in beta testing in the USA but will be rolled out worldwide after the analysis has been completed.

What does this mean for businesses?

It means that small service businesses (such as plumbers, locksmiths, vehicle repairs etc.) are currently getting held up in search spam filters, specifically within Google Maps, while other larger (further away) competing organisations are dominating the search criteria with their spam marketing – which isn’t fair.

Even larger B2B organisations will start to see this imprint on their outbound digital strategy, if it continues.

How can a business get verified?

Google states that the verification process is simple. You’ll need to create a Google My Business account, if you don’t have one already. Then, instead of following the link to verify your listing in Google My Business, you should follow different steps created specifically for advanced verification.

These steps include confirming your business info, such as name, phone number, location, business hours, and more, as well as completing an application with Pinkerton, which takes about 30 minutes to fill out.

Google is hoping that this new advanced verification process will weed out the fraudulent businesses populating its ads and search results.

The post Google’s New Spam Prevention appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Moments is linked to Twitter’s content so it can show visitors, current topics that are popular or relevant. This can be searched via categorized tabs by News, Sports, Entertainment, Fun, and more.

In our minds, Twitter is not only using this update as an extended tool for users to build a better experience as part of their usage, but it also means that you as a company can extend your reach when it comes to topical subject matter and as a result, also extend your digital footprint through SEO keyword tagging and external linkage.

Think of Twitter Moments as you do Pulse within LinkedIn – a tool for you to utilise to better extend the branded journey for your audience.

Mashable describes the new launch pretty succinctly too: “Moments, however, is something new and very different, for Twitter, at least. The goal is simple. As one Twitter representative put it, Moments provides “better discovery for an easier, more delightful experience for users who haven’t been able to find value thus far.”

What’s the point?

Moments is the answer to the question, “What would Twitter look like if it started as a news curation site?” Clicking on Moments on the desktop (and mobile) reveals a place that it doesn’t really look like Twitter

In the left column is a simple section navigation stack with “Today” up top. Under that you’ll find News, Sports, Entertainment and Fun. Each section is full of “Collections,” which is basically another word for “Moments.” Individual Moments (or Collections) revolve around a single story. Visually, every Moment has a category, like “Weather” or “NFL,” a much larger headline and a synopsis. Inside a Moment you’ll find a carefully curated and quite-attractive-looking collection of images and centred tweets.

Images are singular and in grids. Tweets are overlaid on images and those tweets without images are in larger fonts (at least larger than your usual Twitter stream tweet) and, interestingly, centred. The overall effect is consumer-friendly and inviting.

While every tweet in Moments looks different than the Twitter I know, there are also some comforting and familiar elements. Every image, tweet, Vine and embedded video includes the usual Twitter tools: retweet, favourite and more.

How to create a Moment

There are three ways to begin creating your own Moment. You can access Moments through the Moments tab, your profile page, or through a Tweet detail. To get started all you need is a title, description, Tweets, and a selected cover image.

The easiest way is from the Moments tab on your profile page: Click on the Moments tab, then click the Create new Moment button to get started.

Ways you can use moments:

1. Have your say on topical subjects and opinion pieces – great for PR
2. Share thought-leadership content and interesting viewpoint articles (extended from your blog)
3. Search and segment the news and topic you want to see/ reflect on, creating a personalised experience for your needs

If you are looking to develop your Twitter business profile, why not take advantage of our free analysis and recommendations consultancy session. To access yours, simply call our professional team at Brighter Directions on 01246 252855.

We work with organisations from start-ups,  growing SME’s through to corporate firms looking to advance their digital strategy successfully.

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