Category: News

SEO Keywords For A Tree Surgeon In Cork is our latest upload on SlideShare and as the title suggests it will come in very useful for a tree surgeon in Cork. It details some of the best keywords that should be used in an SEO campaign and it would also come in handy when putting together a PPC campaign. It also details the main competitors in the region that currently dominate the first page of Google.ie.

The research has been compiled using Google’s keyword planner tool, which I would definitely recommend when putting together a keyword strategy for your SEO campaign. You will need a google AdWords account to use this tool but the insight that it gives is insane, you can learn how many people search for relevant keywords in your area and also get some suggestions for keywords you may not have though of.

We regularly post keyword ideas for an SEO campaign, but if you don’t see any suggestions for your business then get in touch with us directly, we would be happy to send you some “keyword intelligence” for your business

If you are new to digital marketing then this article is perfect for you as it provides a check-list of the things you will need to get started on the road to digital marketing success.

It’s 2023 – if you need something you Google it! If you run a business and you haven’t started marketing online then you risk being left in the wake of competitors that do.

The pieces of a basic digital marketing strategy puzzle should include:

• A mobile responsive website
• A Google Ads search campaign
• A Google Ads re-marketing campaign
• An SEO strategy
• A Social Media Strategy

 

Mobile Responsive Website

Buyers now research products and services before they talk to the businesses that supply them, with almost 70% of the research already done and competitors eliminated, your buyer is now more educated about your goods or service than ever before. According to recent research more than 50% of mobile users will shun a website that isn’t mobile responsive, in part because of the slower load time on a mobile device, but also because it’s harder for them to read text on a non-responsive website because they have to do a lot of zooming, so with more searches now taking place on mobile devices than on desktop computers, a mobile responsive website should be a key component of your digital marketing strategy.

 

A Google Ads search campaign

A Google Ads campaign can give your business instant visibility online and is one of the most effective ways to grow a small business.

Get in front of the type of customers that are looking for your proddigital marketing agency restaurantuct or service by targeting the keywords they are likely to be searching for. For instance if you are a restaurant owner in Cork, then you would use keywords like “great restaurant Cork” or if you were a plumber in Boston you would target keywords like “plumber Boston”. These kind of keywords are likely to get you in front potential customers who need your product/service at the exact time they are searching for it. Our Google Ads for Amateurs guide can help get you started on your PPC campaign. Google Ads is the most measurable form of advertising on the planet and the beauty of it is that you don’t have to pay unless someone clicks on your ad.

 

A Google Adwords Re-marketing campaign

Your google adwords search campaign now has you showing up in front of potential customers that are searching for your products or services, but what if your potential customer isn’t looking to buy right now and they are just doing their research and due diligence. A re-marketing campaign can help you stay in their line of vision long after they have left your website. This way if they are looking for a restaurant right now but it’s for a dinner date nearly 2 weeks away, with a re-targeting campaign they will see ad’s for your restaurant across the internet, reminding them how great your restaurant is and helping you grow your brand, so that when it comes to picking up the phone and making that booking, they are calling your phone and not your competitors. The beauty of this is that you don’t pay unless they click back to your website, so it gives you an insane amount of brand marketing at a very low cost. The beginners guide to re-marketing will give you a little more detail on how to get set up.

 

An SEO strategy

Just as a PPC campaign will give you extra visibility, an SEO (search engine optimisation) campaign is your key to long term growth. When you have measured the results of your PPC campaign and learned your best keywords, you can start to target them with your SEO strategy so that you gain organic traffic. Your SEO strategy should start with your on page SEO, in other words that your site is set up in a way that google will notice it for your chosen keywords. Google ranks pages not websites meaning you are going to want to pick a focus keyword for each page and optimise accordingly. In simple terms if you were an architect in London and you wanted to rank for the keyword “London Architect” you would create a page for this keyword, with the URL www.examplelondonarchitect.com/london-architect, the page title would include the words “London Architect”, The content would include but wouldn’t be stuffed with “London Architect” as would the Title and Meta tags. On page factors from Moz goes into this in more detail and the SEO guide for beginners will help you put together an in depth SEO strategy. If you are trying to decide whether you need an SEO campaign or a PPC campaign, this SEO vs PPC guide is packed with great information to help you decide. Although if you have a large enough budget, your best strategy is to do both from the beginning.

 

A Social Media Strategy

You might think that while your social media strategy probably won’t get the phone to ring off the hook, the same way that a PPC or SEO campaign can, it is great for branding and presenting the personal side of your business. And even more so nowadays great social media management can really get customers through the door. Do you love what you do? Then use your social media pages to showcase this so that potential customers can identify with your business and the people behind it. Run a cupcake bakery in Boston? Then post photo’s of this mornings batch of freshly baked cupcakes, post a quick video of the line up of people looking to taste your cupcakes. Run a personal training studio? Become an influencer by posting actionable content. Influencer marketing has also become huge in recent times, meaning that all you need these days to build a recognizable brand is good content and even better instagram filters. Run competitions that get your social media followers to help you grow your brand by sharing your social media pages. This blog from Bulkly is really great and it will teach you how to create a social media marketing strategy.

And that just about covers the most essential pieces to any businesses digital marketing puzzle.  If all of this is too overwhelming then it might be a good idea to hire a freelancer, Upwork and similar sites like Upwork can be a great source for freelancers. Or if you would like a comprehensive digital marketing review for your business from Legacy Communications, the hardest working digital marketing agency you can get one here.

When you make the (smart) decision to put your marketing money into digital marketing, finding the right agency to partner with to create and execute a digital marketing campaign can be tough. I’d like to give you an idea of things to look for when hiring a digital marketing agency, but first here is the case for spending your budget on digital marketing.

In 2015, moving the majority of your marketing budget into digital is the wisest decision you will make, the businessman’s creative process and planning a business is about investing their money online in the last 10 years have seen astronomical growth, businesses that stick with the older marketing means or no marketing at all are plodding along in the same place? financially that they were 10 years ago. If they are still in business then they are probably not in bad shape, but they also probably haven’t grown in the last 10 years either. These business owners probably don’t think that’s a bad thing, but if you leave the life of your business to word of mouth alone, then you are always going to struggle to grow, as your business can only grow as big as your network of customers will allow it.

There’s a number of different reasons why you would hire a digital marketing agency and there is plethora of digital marketing agencies out there offering a multitude of services, but for me your decision should really come down to expertise – Can your prospective agency do exactly what you need them to do? For instance I feel that if you want to put together a PPC campaign in Cork, actually probably in Ireland, you shouldn’t be looking anywhere else other than at Legacy Communications. Why? “Google AdWords addict” – that’s what we are. We absolutely adore AdWords, I read and learn about it every day, we look at what the top agencies worldwide like disruptive advertising are doing and we try to emulate it, plus we use a host of different tools that will enhance your AdWords campaign. So, we can honestly say that if you want to spend money on AdWords, then look no further you’ve found the right agency!

A question we often get asked because I’m “young and hip with the kids” is do I offer social media campaign management, the answer is no. So maybe consider this, if you are looking to create a digital marketing campaign with multiple pieces to the puzzle, new website, PPC, SEO, social then ask your prospective agency straight up:

Can you offer all of these services?

Have you offered these services to other businesses?

What were the results?

Now it may not bother you if your prospective agency doesn’t offer all of the services you want for campaign, if they don’t they can probably recommend another agency that does for instance I can highly recommend instamedia for social media management (they create great video content as well, last summer they went viral with this) or Synergy web strategies. Now you might be happy to meet me and know that I focus heavily on PPC so you are comfortable that I don’t “dilute” my knowledge and you might be happy for me to recommend other agencies we can partner with to create a great PPC + Social campaign, but you might not want to have too many cooks and if that was the case I would recommend you a full service agency (I’d probably recommend a couple too if you’re asking)

The other thing to ask is what is their level of expertise on the particular service you are interested in, for instance I have built websites for a lot of customers in the past year, but if you were looking for custom web development to create “the next big thing” and more than a brochure website then you won’t get it here, so again ask the question straight up, “this is what I want, can you deliver it?” In this case I’ll recommend someone like Doodle or Grange Web Design because I’m sure you will be very happy with the end result and I’ll be more than happy to drive traffic to the new website they create with a belter of a PPC campaign!

On a personal level for me, a good indication of an agencies expertise is whether they show up on Google or not, if they don’t then they probably aren’t worth even looking at. In my opinion it’s a trust builder, like if you want an accountant you will probably go with someone that you’ve personally met or maybe an accountant that has been recommended by someone you trust personally. (If you are looking for an accountant in Cork by the way, I’d recommend you speak to Caroline at CPC or Gearoid at ODM) In my opinion for a digital marketing agency, showing up on Google is the only recommendation and trust builder you should need, because if an agency can do it for themselves, they can do it for you (I’d waive this rule if they concentrate solely on social media or video content though) for instance if you google “AdWords agency cork” PPC agency Cork” “AdWords specialist” or “AdWords agency Ireland” you will find Legacy Communication on Google’s first page, this is not an accident but then you as a business owner can see that we’ve done it for ourselves, so we can just as easily do it for you. I’d love to rank for keywords in bigger markets like “PPC agency London” or “PPC agency Boston” so I can expand my market, I’ve started targeting those keywords too, we’re not on page one yet, I will let you know how we get on!

If you are building a new website for your business then you’ll be met with a mass of people that can “build you a website” but so many of them are “bedroom agencies” that will cease trading when they get a better job offer, so hiring the right web design agency could prove to be a critical choice. With web design agencies especially, a big buzz word is SEO and SEO friendly, this really grinds my gears, I’ve lost out on projects because of this kind of bulls***. The difference being that I’m quoting to carry out actual SEO work that will take many hours of my time over many months and I expected to get paid for that time. My competitors quote had SEO on there but “SEO” on the quote meant nothing more than preparing a nice website with nice clean code, no actual SEO work and I can report that approx. 10 months later there is no sign of that companies website on the first page of Google for any relevant keyword (In case you haven’t met me, I don’t like losing, so I’ve been checking), so if you hear “your new website will be SEO friendly” make no mistake, this is probably nothing but a bid to dazzle you with things you don’t understand so your next steps are.

1. Google web design cork (or whatever their location is) and see how “SEO friendly” their own website is, if they are not there then move onto an agency that is.

2. Call bulls*** and ask them “Will my website show up on Google’s first page”, if the answer is anything other than an honest no, then move on, if they say “no, BUT we can get it there eventually by doing A, B and C” then sit back down at the table, they are honest and trustworthy.

At the time of writing I’m sitting on a plane from London to Cork and realize that I’ve probably gone off on a bit of a tangent but it’s late and I’m going to be too tired to edit and re-write this, so to summarize the above you need to decide what you want, then decide whether you want to do it with multiple agencies or one full service agency then hire based on their expertise and results. I’m only writing this for my own SEO to be completely honest, have you noticed how I’ve squeezed some of my targeted my keywords in there and added some links to other great websites? That’s part of my SEO strategy, an article a day keeps Google’s page 2 away!

So you’ve decided to build a website for your business. This blog will give you some guidance on the things to do to start off right. One of the questions I’m frequently asked is how much a website will cost and to be honest the answer differs greatly. It all depends on your business needs and your budget. So the real answer is your website should cost as much as you are willing to spend.

The most important thing in my opinion is that you make each page on your website a “landing page” this way as your website visitor navigates through to the site they will have a better chance of converting into a lead. What is a landing page I hear you ask? The anatomy of a landing page goes some way to explaining this and gives you a guide for creating a landing page.

The second thing when building a website for your business is to pick the keywords that you would like to show up on google for, write your website content for these keywords and create your pages for these keywords. The keyword planner from Google is a great way to learn how many people search for the keywords you like best each month and can also give you some suggestions on alternative keywords to use. Pick the keywords, and write the content second. For instance, if you were a plumber in London, a good keyword would be “plumber London” so write a page that contains this keyword and it will give you a better chance of ranking than a page that doesn’t have this keyword.

Choose a website that has a CMS, I favour WordPress as it is easy to use, offers a range of themes and comes with so many plugins that just make life so much easier. Using a CMS will help you save money in the long run as it will mean that you don’t have to go back to your web designer for every single change you want to make.

At the very least create the following pages:

Home

Services

About

Contact us

How to layout a homepage gives some insight into the type of information that you will want to put on your homepage to make the website look professional.

Ideally your services will be broken down further into multiple pages for the multiple services you offer, this will be better for SEO. For example our own website breaks our services down into PPC, SEO and web design, and further breaks them down again by location, meaning we have specific pages for each of these keywords/locations and thus have a better chance of ranking organically for these keywords. But if you don’t have time to break them up, then get all of your services on this page, explain what they are and why they will benefit your website visitor.

Your about us page should tell your potential customer about yourself or company, what you do, why you love doing it and why your website visitor should get you to do it for them.

The contact us page is pretty self explanatory, ideally there will be a map pointing to your business address, your email, phone number and a quick contact form to send you their information.

In fact get a quick contact form on every single page on your website, this will increase conversions – guaranteed! The easier you make it for a website visitor to give you their information, the more likely they are to do it.

Ideally your website will have a blog as well so that you can add new content that is relevant to your visitors, but if you are struggling to write content and break your services up into separate pages there is no way you will be sitting down regularly to write a blog, so leave it out.

If you do use WordPress CMS get your web designer to install the visual composer plugin or another drag and drop page builder. This will allow you to create great looking pages in future without having a whole lot of technical knowledge.

And that’s your basic website covered. If you want any help, suggestions or a quote to build this website for you, then feel free to get in touch with our Search team.

If you have decided to go it alone and don’t want or can’t afford to enlist the help of a PPC agency, then this guide should give you plenty of info to get you off on the right footing.

Before you dive head first into setting up a Google Ads campaign and end up dropping it due to frustration from lack of understanding of what you are doing, you can do some googling yourself and find some beginner guides to Google Ads. We’ve pointed out some of the best ones in this blog.

The Beginners Guide To Setting Up A Google Ads Account gives some great tips on how a Google Ads campaign works and how to set up a Google Ads campaign. This should be your first reading when trying to understand what Google Ads is, what it does and what it can do for your business.

LinkedIn Learning offers some great courses and their Google Ads Essential Training course is absolutely brilliant for beginners and will help you set up a great beginner campaign. The course itself is about 3 and a half hours long and it’s probably best to set up your first campaign as you watch it, this way you can learn on the job and set your new campaign up as advised in the LinkedIn Learning tutorial. It’s best to schedule about an hour and a half each day for 5 days to get this going, so you can watch the instructional video, then pause it and take the actions advised in the video. LinkedIn Learning offers a 1-month free trial, their monthly pricing is really attractive at about $25 a month, you can cancel after one month so it’s 25 bucks well spent given the knowledge you will gain from their course and a lot cheaper than a PPC consultant like myself.

This free guide from a PPC agency in Utah – disruptive advertising – also gives great advice on creating a successful campaign. In my opinion these guys are one of the best Google Ads agencies in the world so I would definitely subscribe to their blog to receive ongoing updates because they are an absolute mountain of information on PPC.

Once your new adwords campaign is set up you are going to want to monitor it so that you can learn if the campaign is performing well or not. “What To Track Based On Your Advertising Goals” is a great article on some of the key metrics you should check on your new campaign. Going forward you can use these metrics to improve the campaigns performance, by taking actions such as removing keywords, adding keywords, improving ad copy etc.

And that’s pretty much it for beginners, if you use these resources then you will be well on your way to building a successful  Google Ads campaign that brings customers to your business and a positive return on your investment. Remember a well set up Google Ads campaign will save you money and grow your ROI. If you have any questions or if you are looking for some Google Ads strategy tips, then feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or by emailing: micheal@legacycommunications.com

It’s a big buzzword these days, and I get asked many questions like “How can I rank number one” or “How do I do an SEO audit?” Web designers will tell you that the sites they design are SEO friendly for Google, that can basically mean anything if I’m honest and is often a BS statement to dazzle you and seal the deal with you to build your website. If you are confused about what your web designer means when he says your new website will have SEO, then ask him straight out ” will this get me on page one of Google?” If the answer is eeeeh, aaaaaah or weeelllllll then it’s buzz talk.

To me SEO or search engine Optimisation in its long form is the ONGOING process undertaken to get search engines to notice your website. This article goes into further detail on what SEO is but I’ve tried to simplify it here in terms of the most important things to understand when you are exploring SEO and only want a simple understanding of what your SEO is doing.

First of all you have on page SEO and this to me comes in two parts:

1. Making your website crawl friendly so that googles spiders can easily crawl, understand and index the information on your website. This is done by creating HTML site maps, removing robot.txt? etc.

2. Creating great content for your keywords, if you were a baker in Cork who wants to sell more wedding cakes then a good keyword for you to target would be “wedding cakes cork”. You should create great content that uses this keyword in a normal way so don’t write “if you want wedding cakes Cork you’re in the right place” instead make say something like “when searching for wedding cakes cork has plenty of extremely talented bakers, we are one of them….”. Write a headline that incorporates your keywords. Create a URL for the page that incorporates your keyword like www.examplebaker.ie/wedding-cakes-cork. Use your title and meta data, this article gives you some great insight on this subject.

Secondly you have off page SEO and if I was to explain all of these factors you would be reading for days but the simplest way to think of this is links and social. Build links that are useful to your business for instance, write a blog post for a relevant website that links back to your website. Enter your website in the major directories like google my business and yahoo local. Social comes into the link building as well because it helps you share your content with more users who may in turn share it with their peers.

This may increase your traffic and get people “talking” about the relevant subject you’ve written about which can help increase your website traffic and thus increase your ranking. In basic terms the more people “talking” about your website and your relevant content, the more likely googles algorithm is to sit up and take notice of your website. Creating great content on a regular basis is more likely to get people talking about your site.

If you want to get more serious about SEO then get off my website and go to learn from the masters at Moz and Search engine land, their blogs and communities offer a whole wealth of knowledge that will help you gain a really great understanding of SEO and what to do to rank your site.

If you have any questions we’re always here to help, get in touch with our Search team.

Kevin Moore, Managing Director at Legacy Communications

Originally published in Sunday Independent and Independent.ie March 15 2020

Despite what the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once claimed, it is times like this when sport and all other forms of entertainment are firmly put into context. What originated as a virus strain in China in December has steadily spread and become a worldwide issue.

‘Football is not a matter of life and death, it’s much more important than that’ – Bill Shankly.

The past week has proved to be a seminal one, with the World Health Organisation declaring Covid-19 a global pandemic on Wednesday. Italy, one of the worst affected regions, saw its virus death toll surge by 30 per cent to more than 800 on the same day. US President Donald Trump quickly followed with the announcement that travel to and from the majority of Europe would be suspended.

It has also proved to be a seminal week in Ireland. On Monday the St Patrick’s Day Parade was cancelled. On Wednesday Ireland recorded its first Covid-19 related death and on Thursday the Irish government and medical leaders announced a series of stringent measures to try to control the spread of the virus. All schools, colleges and childcare centres are closed for at least two weeks and all indoor gatherings of more than 100 people and outdoor events involving more than 500 people are recommended to be cancelled.

All week, conversations, social media and traditional media platforms were dominated by Covid-19 and its impact from both a health and economic perspective. Sport was not long in entering the conversation. While Shankly was a little off the mark with his statement, the power of sport in society globally cannot be overstated.

Earlier in the week basketball superstar, LeBron James, claimed he would refuse to play if the Los Angeles Lakers games were held behind closed doors, a stance that he soon backed down from.’

It’s far too early to give a sense of the scale, but it is safe to say that Covid-19 will impact on all businesses and industries in some shape or form. Sport is responsible for most of society’s most regular and widespread mass gatherings and it looks like 2020 will be a year that packs a punch to its bottom line.

Now believed to have surpassed the $500 billion mark, sport is one of the fastest growing industries globally. It will survive, it will recover, but time will tell just how many stitches it needs.

The epidemic threw Chinese sport into disarray at the turn of the year and as it stands, most football leagues around Asia have been postponed indefinitely. Images of Ronaldo celebrating with his teammates in an empty stadium last week as Juventus beat Inter Milan revealed the stark reality of what was to follow in Italy and across Europe.

A study conducted by Calcio e Finanza’, an Italian website specialised in soccer finance, estimates that playing behind closed doors would result in a loss in the region of $34m (€30.5m).

Earlier in the week basketball superstar, LeBron James, claimed he would refuse to play if the Los Angeles Lakers games were held behind closed doors, a stance that he soon backed down from as the gravity of the situation heightened.

Talk of empty stadia and closed doors have now turned to postponements of matches, leagues, and competitions across a host of sports globally. The UK’s biggest racing festival in Cheltenham, however, did not seem to get the memo and averaged almost 60,000 attendance per day. As each day of the Festival passed, the decision to open the doors seemed more and more irresponsible.

Football’s richest league, the Premier League, generates over 70 per cent more revenue than its nearest competitor, the Bundesliga. So, it may not be a surprise that they stalled in adopting an empty stadium policy. On Friday an emergency club meeting was held in the wake of both Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta and Chelsea player Callum Hudson-Odoi testing positive for Covid-19. The decision was made to suspend Premier League fixtures until April 3, while next week’s Champions League and draw have been postponed.

Ireland faced its first significant virus-related economic hit when its Six Nations match against Italy on March 7 was called off, resulting in a financial blow for the IRFU, the Aviva Stadium and the Irish economy. Most key sporting fixtures in Ireland took place over the past couple of weeks as authorities monitored the situation.

On Wednesday, Basketball Ireland took what could have been perceived as a rash decision to suspend all basketball related activity until further notice due to the virus. In reality though, they were one step ahead as 24 hours later all major sporting authorities in Ireland began to follow suit. The Allianz GAA Leagues, the Guinness Pro14 amongst others . . . all postponed.

The financial impact of the fanless matches and postponements is significant. Like most businesses trying to cope with Covid-19, it will hurt. Loss of income through gate receipts, loss of tv revenue and loss of opportunity for sponsors.

The wider loss of income to the Irish economy from packed stadia in March and April is a big blow. The Italy v Ireland fixture and the Pro14 derby between Leinster and Munster along with the Allianz League football and hurling finals, for example, would run into the tens of millions combined.

It’s not the first time in the sporting world that unforeseen events have thrown sport into disarray and it won’t be the last. Natural disasters as recent as the bush fires in Australia last year and an earthquake in Japan in 2016 resulted in the cancellation of sporting fixtures and with it millions of dollars worth of income. The SARS outbreak in China in 2003 led to the Women’s World Cup being moved to the US. Closer to home, the foot and mouth outbreak played havoc with the Irish economy and sporting fixtures in 2001.

However, this scale of sports disruption across the world has not been seen since World War II. As an industry, sport is well equipped to deal with any short-term pain. Short-term means events are postponed rather than cancelled. Revenue is delayed rather than lost. Leagues and annual competitions will adjust. Sponsors will find innovative ways to respond. Fans will attend and watch sport as soon as it returns.

It is the larger global events that are more complex. UEFA took an innovative step to spread this year’s European Championships across the continent, hosting the event in 12 countries, including Ireland. This plan to spread the tournament throughout Europe has collided with the spread of Coronavirus. The championships now look set to be postponed until 2021, according to L’Equipe. As one of the host nations, Ireland will have to deal with the fall-out of such a postponement and with it the financial and tourism repercussions.

One question on many sports fans’ minds is around the biggest event of them all, the Olympics, set to be staged in Japan in late July. Cancelling the Olympics is unthinkable. As it stands, time is on its side.

The more action that is taken now by governments and sports authorities around the world, the greater chance there is of curtailing the spread and therefore limiting the pain.

Amy Hacon, Account Manager at Legacy Communications

Originally published in Marketing.ie Magazine, March 2020 Issue

We now live in a world where one misused word can result in a life sentence. A world where people are tiptoeing around each other and praying something isn’t taken out of context and becomes the next big viral hit. But what if all this social pressure and power of persuasion was actually used for good?

Apparently unthinkable things can be achieved, unthinkable in the form of over AU$200 million and counting, all for the good of the planet.

We’ve all heard about the devastating bushfires in Australia that have reportedly killed over a billion animals, claimed 28 lives, destroyed 3,000 homes, burned through 25million acres of land and left people distraught and helpless. Fires that have been out of control since July 2019, yet five months later are only just beginning to get some substantial support. Why? Because people started to put the social pressure on.

Australian comedian, Celeste Barber, noticed some of the country’s richest weren’t among the early donors, so she took to Twitter sharing a link to her fundraiser for the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), urging the top 0.01% to participate.

“Hey billionaires, Notre Dame burning down sucked. I get it. Times that by a trillion and that’s what’s happening in Australia”. “Feel free to flick us a quick couple of million. You make it seem pretty easy.”

The tweet went viral and her fundraiser for the NSW RFS has become the largest Facebook fundraiser to date, with an ever-increasing AU$51 million (€31.7 million) in donations from people across the world. The fundraiser has helped raise much needed funds and helped prompt businesses, celebrities and upper class to make a contribution resulting in a total of more than AU$200 million donated to bushfire fundraisers.

The true power of social media? Or the true power of social pressures?

In Dublin, businesses and influencers got on board to help the cause after seeing all the devastation through social media. Sustainable Fashion Dublin hosted an event with clothes donated by well-known Irish influencers with all profits going towards the Australian bushfires. The event raised €4,340 and received a huge traction and kudos on social channels.

On a global scale, both indigenous and international businesses have become part of the social media fundraising conversation. Australian brand, Bondi Sands, donated $100K to the cause and announced they will be selling reusable cups and bottles with 100% of proceeds donated to the Red Cross to support bushfire relief.

As social media has become a key outlet for people and businesses to have their stories, opinions or messages heard it’s also become a successful platform for fundraisers to gain maximum targeted reach with minimal effort. As a Kiwi living in Ireland and seeing the devastation in Australia, it really hits home. A social fundraiser helps eliminate the challenge of distance and enables anyone to make a contribution and feel more connected to the cause.

In Ireland, social fundraising has taken off beyond expectations. Before Christmas we saw Irish influencer, Rosie Connolly, raise an impressive €287,636 for Irish Children’s Hospitals all through a simple incentive fundraiser. Anyone who donated €5 went in the draw to win an original Gucci bag.

With more fundraisers popping up each day, is this just the latest social ‘bandwagon’ or are we actually seeing a societal shift of people being more generous towards these much-needed causes? Could the Gen Z influence on ‘doing good for the planet’ be encouraging us all to be more giving?

Facebook were ahead of the curve recognising this social fundraiser opportunity by introducing its own fundraising dedicated tools five years ago. According to the Sept 2019 figures report from Social Media Today, users have collectively raised over US$2 billion for a variety of causes through the platform tools. A staggering US$1 billion of that total has been raised simply through birthday fundraisers.

To further leverage this need for social donations, Facebook recently announced its fundraising stickers for Instagram Stories will soon be expanded from the US to Europe. With Instagram users being digitally savvy and socially aware this launch could be a major gamechanger for brands and non-profits in Ireland.

As the scale and quantity of fundraisers start dominating people’s social feeds it sparks questions around whether people are still donating for the good of the cause or if social pressure is becoming too much and people simply want ‘to be seen doing good’?

The results speak for themselves, with more funds being raised for causes than ever before, maybe these public social pressures are actually a positive move that we desperately needed to give hope during desperate times.

Social pressures or social good – it’s anyone’s call, but either way it’s making a significant impact across the globe.

Claire O’Grady Director of Strategy + Innovation at Legacy Communications

While seismic changes are happening, brands shouldn’t just go dark. Find your lane + keep communicating

COVID-19 rules the world right now. We’re in the throes of something seismic, that may change us for good.

We’ve lost jobs; our movement is restricted; we can’t hug our loved ones; our mental health is suffering and we’re fighting a war.

This is not only a global crisis but a personal crisis. But why have some of our most loved brands stopped talking to us in our time of need while others have found the perfect words? If you want to be a brand that’s in it for the long run don’t go dark and abandon your consumer. While this crisis is temporary, it’s real. Don’t think about today, think about how you want to be perceived in the long run. You can’t just be there for the good times.

So how do brands communicate?

By applying simple consumer mindset thinking a brand can build a meaningful connection during a crisis. With some basic crisis psychology, a good understanding of your consumer and how you anticipate they will react to crisis mode you’re unlikely to go wrong.

Rules of Play:

Don’t be afraid to show up

Never leave anyone in their time of need – their memory is long. Don’t give up communicating “until this is all over”. Now is not the time to say nothing.

Take a good look at yourself

Specifically, your existing campaigns – do they make sense? Hotels.com repurposed their latest creative campaign which had their central character Captain Obvious enjoying a luxury break to Captain Obvious using hand sanitiser and practicing social distancing and advising everyone else to do the same. Magic.

Focus on the right stuff – Do Good; Don’t Look Good

The balance of communicating while not appearing to profiteer is a fine one but it’s key to put profit motivations on the back burner. Focus on how you can help. New Balance have moved from making sneakers to making protective equipment, others are offering their fleets for vital local pharmacy deliveries; supermarkets like Dunnes Stores and Supervalu have made times instore for the most vulnerable in the community and Glenisk are asking their social community to nominate small Irish businesses they will buy vouchers from.

How you act at home matters

Treat your employees with as much care and kindness as your customers. They will talk, customers will listen. Quantas CEO Alan Joyce has forgone his salary for the next few months to help drive the business, true leadership living the brand values of ‘Spirit of Australia’. In contrast Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man asked the public to donate to an Amazon employee relief fund.

Use your platforms for good

Some brands are nailing this, including Coca Cola giving their OOH space in Times Square to remind people to social distance or Nike encouraging everyone to #playinside.

Admit you don’t know

Brands who are manoeuvring through this period honestly and showing vulnerability are winning out. Admit when you don’t know what the latest announcement will mean for you or how you’re going to tackle it. Everyone feels the same.

Don’t talk about yourself

Now is not the time to push product attributes unless they have a relevant benefit – Dettol have every right to keep talking about the antibacterial qualities of their products and are sharing valuable information to their community but talking about the laces on your luxury shoe brand is not for now.

Don’t act like it’s business as usual

Acknowledge what’s going on or run the risk of building a real disconnect with your customer. Case in point is the brand appreciation Vogue Italia is experiencing. For the first time ever, the iconic brand is turning its cover white- when it could have told itself that their audience needed fashion beautiful images – “White is, first and foremost, respect. White is rebirth, light after the darkness, the sum of all the colours. White is the uniforms of those who have saved lives while risking their own. It’s time and space for thinking. And for staying silent too. White is for people who are filling this time and space with ideas, thoughts, stories, verses, music and kindness to others,” said Vogue Italia editor in chief Emanuele Farnetti “It’s a reminder that after the crisis in 1929, clothes turned white, a color chosen to express purity in the present and hope for the future. And above all, white is not surrender; it’s a blank page to be filled, the frontispiece of a new story about to begin.”

If that doesn’t build an emotional connection, nothing will.