Where’s Waldo – or rather Where’s Sarah #mynewjob

With 18 hours until I start my new job (the nerves are kicking in), I think it is now time for me to share with you where you’ll be able to find me starting Monday morning.

A number of you already know because either  a) you are a good detective or b) you have run into me at an event and I have shared the news with you.

Tomorrow I will start my new role as Social Media Specialist with the London Convention Centre.

I look forward to taking on this new role and cannot wait to get to know everyone a the London Convention Centre.

My primary responsibilities will be to manage website content (I’ll do my best not to break the website Echidna!), including the LCC blog, and to manage all social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter).

I will fulfill other duties outside of these, but these will be my main responsibilities and the things you see me doing.

 

Here are all of the links:

London Convention Centre Website

London Convention Centre Blog

London Convention Centre Fan Page (Facebook)

London Convention Centre Group (Linked In)

London Convention Centre Twitter Account (@LondConvCentre)

 

I expect the number of fans, group members and followers to shoot up in the next week because all of you are going to follow me at work right? 

 

Feel free to send me a message to say hi, or to ask questions or make comments.

If you have any suggestions for content that you would like to see discussed on the LCC blog or on any of the social media platforms, feel free to send me a message via the @LondConvCentre twitter account or through my personal @Sadie_Liz account and I will see what I can do to address the topics that you suggest when possible.

Also if you have any favourite resources for any of the following feel free to send them my way, I would love to see them.

– Social Media or Social Media Metrics

– Emerging Technologies

– Conferences/Trade Shows

– Event Planning

– Presenting

– Business Meetings

– Wedding Planning

– Anything else you enjoy

 

Working at the LCC will mean that I am spending my days in London; this will allow me to attend more events and participate in more things happening in the London community. I have already started attending Geek Dinner (#gdldn) and I have joined Emerging Leaders. I look forward to getting involved in more things, including working with the Chamber again, and getting involved with the IABC and other community groups.

Hopefully being in London on a daily basis will allow me to continue to get to know the people I have met over the last couple of months (and maybe years for some) and meet even more great people in the London community.

I look forward to being a part of the London professional community!

Don’t be shy, if you see me in person or online, say hi!

 

 

The JLCReviewer – My Take

The JLC has always had excellent marketing, it is something I have admired as someone with a marketing/communications/PR background. Recently in addition to their already strong social media presence they have been making an additional push for engagement using social media.

Before the July 3rd Soundgarden Concert they had a huge giveaway of tickets on Social Media Day and a number of individuals, myself included, were offered a pair of amazing tickets to take in the concert that featured Coheed and Cambria and of course Soundgarden.

I think most of us on Twitter were shocked and amazed to see a venue do something like this. I mean I have won tickets before and know friends who have, but I have never seen a ticket giveaway on this scale before.

Talk about good PR! (PS – Unemployed (or Freelance) Marketing/Communications/PR/Social Media Gal right here if anyone is looking!)

It is said that word of mouth is one of the best tools in PR and this effort definitely capitalized on this, by using word of mouth 2.0, which is word of fingers!

JLC reached out to the wired demographic; the people who are online several hours a day tweeting, facebooking or blogging about anything and everything, and people who have arguably become a voice for the local online community.

By bringing people into the venue for free, the JLC earned some goodwill and created some positive buzz. The people who were invited in were definitely going to tell their friends and share the experience on Facebook, on Twitter or on a Blog. In this world of digital communications the number of people who this news could reach in a limited amount of time was exponentially higher than it would have been if the only tool had been word of mouth, instead of word of fingers.

Giving away the tickets was amazing, but the JLC hasn’t stopped there. They introduced the JLCReviewer for the July 12th Black Keys concert. The JLC asked people who wanted to be JLCReviewers to tweet them and for others to nominate people they think would do a great job. In the end four people were chosen to be JLCReviewers, Laura, Mike, Naomi and Amanda. By the sound of it they were provided with a number of goodies, including tickets to the Black Keys Concert, with opening act Cage the Elephant.

I think this is a fantastic idea! First, this is engagement at a whole new level. The JLC is facilitating an entirely new level of connection with the venue, the music, the performers and well the entire concert going experience. Next this is also a cost-effective way to grow their marketing department (good for them, bad for unemployed (“freelance” as I like to say) me!). The newspaper could write a review, and I’m sure they did, but I don’t think the LFPress is reaching as many people as it once did and if you’re like me you tend to take their reviews with a grain of salt. Also have you ever noticed that when a newspaper writes a review for a concert or a movie it often feels like the person writing the review is the totally wrong person to be writing it? (To me) it often feels like someone from the completely wrong demographic is writing the article,therefore creating a completely inaccessible perspective. We all know the JLC couldn’t write the review themselves because any review of theirs would be presumed to be biased in a favourable direction.

By using Twitter to recruit reviewers the JLC is finding people who are actually interested in the acts, who aren’t presumed to have a bias and who, in my opinion, offer a more accessible voice.

This to me is a shift away from Marketing towards Public Relations which, I think, is the way Marketing is evolving thanks to Social Media.

I am personally looking forward to seeing where the JLC goes with this. I think there is a lot of potential to further position the JLC as a top-notch venue not only provincially, but nationally and beyond.

*** I made a suggestion today on Twitter that the JLC could use the materials generated from the reviews to create art within the JLC. London is a very creative place, I think it would be interesting to see images and review quotes displayed throughout the JLC. I think using those materials as art would really make the JLC feel like a community, rather than a business.***