A little over 6 months ago the newly
formed marketing team at The City Bin Co. was given the task to
build a social media platform and propel the award winning company into the
engaging world of online videos, posting pictures, tweeting, liking, following and blogging. Not
an easy task, as we pondered about who would want to engage with a waste
collection company. What does a waste company make videos about? What do we
post on line? Why would anyone or our customers want to connect with us?
The first step taken was to follow Verne Harnish’s advice and read David Meerman Scott’s book, “The new rules of Marketing and PR’. The book was like a godsend signpost mapping
out exactly what needed to be done.
First we started this blog ‘The Flying bin’ using the blogger platform. The second thing we done was to take David
Meerman Scott’s advice and buy a flip camera, well, a Samsung w200 to be
precise! It was a fantastic investment. On March the 6th we opened our
YouTube channel and 7 months later we have over 8000 organic views
and growing. Not bad for a waste company! We have embedded videos on the
company’s homepage and have even recently found one of our video’s embedded on the Firstpost news site and Alliance Française of Galway’s website. We have all the regular information; The
FAQ’s about our service, community, social and charity events, interviews with our CEO,
business learning, WOW!'s from our customers, and the Volvo Ocean Race videos. We even learned the value of having a chicken in your video and having the head
of the country, Taoiseach Enda Kenny
talk to it! Yes people loved to laugh. It was our most viewed video so far!
Real Time Marketing is one of David’s
messages and we experienced this first hand during the Volvo Ocean Race when we
managed to clock up 4000 Organic views by riding the high wave (with
permission!) of the Volvo Ocean Race Galway Facebook page with over 20 short
videos on the daily activities during the July event. Each video finished with our branding. When we
send over the first video to their social media team they posted it straight
away. By the end of the week they were calling us and asking for
videos and giving us VIP access to get great footage. We would film and edit on location and send the
guys at the Volvo Ocean Race Galway facebook page the link to the videos that were posted on our YouTube channel. The videos were happening in real time. In some
cases the events were not finished and we’d have a snapshot summary of the
atmosphere posted online.
Another great aspect of the social media experience is that it’s a two way street. As well as creating your own online space you get to find and follow interesting people and companies. We have become fans of businesses on the other side of the world, who otherwise, we would not be able to experience and learn from, such as 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, Bluewire Media, and a host of other amazing onliners.
We are starting to integrate and embed our social media channels, Facebook, Linkedin, twitter, YouTube and The Flying Bin blog on our main website. We have created a solid foundation to build on, but then again, social media is always a work in process. We are only taken the first steps in our social media story and the best thing is that it’s never to late to start. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, there are always people that want to connect with you.
Will the real David Meerman Scott please stand up! Thank you for the signposts and taking us this far so far! The story continues…
Another great aspect of the social media experience is that it’s a two way street. As well as creating your own online space you get to find and follow interesting people and companies. We have become fans of businesses on the other side of the world, who otherwise, we would not be able to experience and learn from, such as 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, Bluewire Media, and a host of other amazing onliners.
We are starting to integrate and embed our social media channels, Facebook, Linkedin, twitter, YouTube and The Flying Bin blog on our main website. We have created a solid foundation to build on, but then again, social media is always a work in process. We are only taken the first steps in our social media story and the best thing is that it’s never to late to start. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, there are always people that want to connect with you.
Will the real David Meerman Scott please stand up! Thank you for the signposts and taking us this far so far! The story continues…
Standing as asked!! I'm thrilled with your success. The best part of what I do is helping people achieve amazing things as you have done. Congratulations on your success!!
ReplyDeleteThank you David, next stop: newsJacking!
ReplyDeleteReally interesting blog post. We are thinking of getting a flip cam in work too!
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