2nd Public Sector Digital Marketing Summit and Book Launch at The Helix

I attended the 2nd annual Public Sector Digital Marketing Summit and this year is was held at The Helix, Dublin City University.  The organiser and serial entrepreneur Joanne Sweeney was in fine form and when we arrived she had already donned her signature red shoes.

As we arrived and get into our seats the lights dimmed and Joanne took centre stage.

The days talks and case studies centered around tactics and strategies that would best support Public Sector companies with their Digital Marketing.  A broad range of businesses came to the event from charities to universities.

Communication

Awareness and responsiveness are vital components of a successful strategy but the first two talks of the day dealt with communication namely in crisis management and then leveraging your brand on LinkedIn.

Paul Connor, the National Director of Communications at the HSE gave a deep down presentation on how they have managed with recent digital crisis over the last couple of years.  With emotive claims on both sides of the fence when dealing with personal health issues it was something they have had to manage diplomatically.  He went through the pros and cons of each campaign and explained what lessons had been learned. Paul said subtle pivoting of their images and adding community hashtags, including creating event hashtags made it easier for their information to be found for their audience.  He shared a circle of considerations that helped them improve and build on what had already gone out.

Next up was LinkedIn Aficionado, Melonie Dodaro. She went through the main precepts of this professional platform and how every business could better utilise this tool.  Its ability to leverage your brand and generate conversation is horribly under utilised.  For too long it was seen as only a mobile CV but its now morphed into a platform that can help you engage on a more personal level with your end users.

Case Studies

A nice touch to add to any conference is evidenced and structured successful strategies.  All too often we are left with being told what we should do without better understanding what had been done.  By including case studies we had a direct understanding from the practitioner what they did and what lessons they learned.

We first heard from Dr Sandra Buchanan the Communications Officer of Donegal Education and Training Board.  She gave us a detailed explanation of how they made changes to their social media to better reach they audience and how they adopted different platforms to reach them further.  Their brand when they first started was quite confused due to the close association of VEC and FAS.  It was essential they steer a more direct brand to help people understand better what they do.

To this end they created a long tail strategy integrating not just social media but their website, adding a part time Communications Officer (which late became permanent) and even creating brand and community hashtags.  It all started with an audit that found a staggering 150+ social media accounts!  This couldn’t have helped their brand!  This led to them developing a Social Media Usage Policy.

Next up for their case study was Aisling Heffernan of the OPW.  When the Office of Public Works were tasked with creating a campaign to promote the Irish Landmarks through social media, they had to create something cleverly and cost effective.

After building an onboarding strategy that incorporated a subscription (to build loyalty) and creating a balanced but targeted audience.  The team then spent time and money on building a campaign that pushed the website and social media at the same time and built on their analytics of same.

Bringing it back to People

An energetic presentation from Chris Ducker, business mentor to Joanne followed shortly after.  He reminded us that building a better understanding of your business is by making it more personal to the viewer.  This is much easier to achieve by humanising it rather than by using corporate expression or logos.

He showed us personal responses on social media that achieved much more engagement than ones that toed a more corporate line.

As Public Sector agencies tend to have more bureaucracy it can make them seem faceless and even at times even heartless.  By personalising your engagement it makes your whole brand more approachable and authentic.

Being Yourself Online

Sergeant David Cryan of Operation Transformation fame was up next.  As a member of the Garda he naturally always needs to present a professional front at all times.  Now with his social media now incoraporating various charity events that he’s supporting he also needs to show his personality too.

Sharing your story online from A to B is heartening and creates a rapport you wouldn’t get with a stiff worded report.  Using images of his weight loss also gave a visual aid to his storytelling too.

Plummeting Organic Reach on Facebook

This duo from the HSE, Muiriosa Ryan and Rachel Wright did an exemplary job of explaining how they overcame this issue.  It became apparent quite quickly for this team that Facebook groups were the way to go.  They were responsible for spearheading the Quit Smoking campaign and trying to use the standard business page was insufficient and frankly not supportive enough.

Over a period of months they created dedicated groups for people that would give them a direct link to supporters who would encorage them to quit smoking.  This became a go-to community that started to become widely shared and respected.  Other teams within the HSE saw the success of this and decided to also incorporate something similar for their departments.

Smartphone Video Tactics

Dan Knowlton of KPS Digital Marketing told us how to utilise this tool which pretty much everyone has to hand these days!  Storytelling is for every shape and size of business.

The four basic pillars for every business to build on which are Plan, Shoot, Edit and Promote were clearly explained and he even suggested free and paid for platforms that he recommended to use.

His frank explanation that you need to put up rubbish videos to show improvement made everyone laugh but the gist is true.  Most people online are rooting for you!  Making the odd gaffe won’t entirely damage your reputation, but it will become a conversational point and shows the human element you wouldn’t ordinarily see from a polished and professional video company.

Bringing the Next Generation to the Fore

Communcations Manager Aoife Carragher from the Office of Ombudsman for Children put on a very emotive talk with her campaign for World Children’s Day called Child Talks.  Their idea of getting their target audience to talk to their target audience was inspired.

By using Facebook Live and streaming it at a pre-arranged and well advertised event at Dublin City Hall, they had an amazing success rate.

As you can see the figures spoke for themselves.  The core of the success of this campaign was a workable strategy using a platform that already offers free promotion when going live.  The team remained responsive to queries and built a genuine rapport before during and after this event.

How Derry Girls Put Derry on the Map (again)

Television and internet searches about Derry in 2018 was all about Derry Girls.  This new series started in 2018 and was an invaluable gift to the team at Visit Derry.  Karen Henderson the Sales and Marketing Manager of Visit Derry spoke to us about how they leveraged this phenomenon to highlight this part of the world all over again.

The image above is actually a mural painted only last year and has now become another sought out tourist attraction for the area.  Visit Derry have made this along with the creamed horn food top things to do and see in Derry as a nod to the series.

Writing articles about where they filmed on location, creating tours to the same and of course using the hashtag #HomeofDerryGirls its transformed this unique Walled City over the last 18 months.

Book Launch

Over the last year Joanne Sweeney has been writing a book about strategy and techniques for the public sector entitled Public Sector Marketing Pro and she has launched it alongside her team, friends and family.  I have been given a copy and hope to review it in the future.  This book is now available from Amazon.

There were more talks on the day but sadly I had another function to head to and had to leave early.