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Introducing Kiddihug
Mother & Baby Product Launch
We’re excited to be launching Kiddihug.
At Down at the Social we love launching new products, especially brilliant ones like Kiddihug. It’s cornered the market in style, safety and price and we are really looking forward to introducing it to our wealth of contacts across the women’s and men’s media, bloggers and to the public at large at The Baby Show.
Plus we have just launched the product’s own social channels which you can check out on our client pages –
For me launching a new product is such a great thing to be a part of and when the brand and product is so good, it just makes it better! We’re excited to be working with Ronnie and his team to make the launch, and its ongoing place in the market, a real success.
Ronnie Bergenthal of Kiddihug, said, “With their experience and abundance of press contacts, it was clear that Down at the Social would be the best for the job. We get on really well with the team which always helps, and both trust and value their knowledge and advise.”
Kiddihug carriers are specially designed to provide the ultimate comfort and well being for both parent and baby. The new design includes a large lumber-supporting strap to provide the ultimate comfort and prevent lower back pain. While the baby is embraced in a snug and safe position, parents have the extra comfort of an extra wide waistband and reinforced padded shoulder straps.
To schedule or not…
Social Media Know How.
What are the Pros & Cons of scheduling Social Media?
With social media being such a busy and fast moving world of different platforms and channels, it can be very difficult to keep on top of. A lot of people assume that posting tweets, status updates, picture uploads etc… is an easy thing to crack, little do they know that it actually takes up a big chunk of time.
Welcome scheduling.
Although scheduling is a great way of managing social posts, as with everything, its comes with its faults. Here are some pros & cons that we believe everyone should consider when entering the scheduling field.
Pros:
Saves time: a massive factor to take on board, when scheduling, is the amount of time it will eventually save you.
Easier to manage: this will save you a load of stress in the long run. SoMe is so fast moving, it’s nice to have that peace of mind that once you have scheduled you are sure to have something going out. You don’t want to be left saying nothing at all.
Guaranteed posts: if people are out of the office or life is just too busy, no need to worry, as long as you have scheduled the post in advance then you can take your mind off it for a bit and get on with other stuff.
Cons:
Double check: it’s easy to miss something when scheduling in bulk. Make sure you double check your posts, is the information correct? Are the posts going out through the correct channels? Are there spelling/grammatical errors? These are all the questions you need to ask yourself while scheduling.
Missing stuff: are you missing stuff that’s happening in the world that you could relate back to yourself/company/product? New trending topics that you could tap into to gain more coverage? Worldwide events that are happening? We recommend having a monthly planner of certain events coming up that you could tap into and talk about.
Repetitive: due to the nature of how it works, most posts are written in advance which means some posts can be a little repetitive (this isn’t always a con, twitter moves very fast so it’s a good idea to sometimes go over the same thing more than once, just don’t over do it).
Live tweeting: make sure you still live tweet every now and again. Talking about what’s happening in the world is a very good thing (when done correctly), take #TheDress for example, such a massive talking point online that many businesses jumped on to help promote themselves while also showing they are not just a bot.
It’s good to remember these pros and cons when scheduling. Keep in mind that although scheduling is saving you time and making life easier you should always set aside time in each day to immerse yourself in your timeline and it’s still good to live tweet when you can.
We Love Cocktails!
Earlier this month the talented bar staff from Cane & Grain’s The Liars Lounge, Emily & Joel, took to the bar for a special blogger cocktail masterclass, which I was lucky enough to attend. The masterclass showcased how the team behind the bar create their popular – and always fun – tiki cocktails.
I loved watching Emily & Joel demonstrate their skills and knowledge to an audience with varying understanding about cocktails and rum. It was funny to watch everyone scribble down their notes as if we were going to be tested on what we’d learnt.
Emily took us through the ingredients and history of four cocktails while Joel was the cocktail master creating each concoction before our eyes. Working with a number of bars has taught me a thing or two and means I know a good cocktail when I taste it, but being able to watch the ‘magic happen’ so to speak was really interesting and gave me a brand new appreciation for cocktail making.
The session focused on four cocktails – Daiquiri, Mai Tai, Ray’s Mistake and Zombie, these cocktails (apart from the Daiquiri) are popular tiki drinks which The Liars Lounge have perfected over time. The Daiquiri is the original rum cocktail made with three simple ingredients sugar syrup, lemon juice and most importantly rum!
Cocktail Masterclass PR.
The art of cocktail making is all about balancing the drink I now know. Something you don’t think about when throwing to contents of your cupboard into a cocktail at a party! I will now though.
My favourite cocktail was Ray’s Mistake which legend would have us believe was created completely by accident! As someone who loves history it was really interesting to learn the story behind the cocktail and how it has become the sweet, yet dangerous, rum filled drink we all enjoy today. This cocktail was attempted by the lovely Emma Pond from the blog Miss Pond who got very excited by the free reign of garnishes, which made the cocktail look very… unique.
I work with the bars (The Liars Club, Cane & Grain and Crazy Pedro’s amongst others) every day and know how seriously these guys take their drinks. I would recommend anyone interested in learning about the origin of the cocktails give them a shot as their the skill and attention to detail is second to none.
All in all everyone has a great time – what’s not to like! Drinking under the guide of learning… brilliant. And I get paid to do this!
We have award winning clients!
Retail PR and Social Media.
Here at Down at the Social we work hard to win awards both for ourselves and our clients. It’s our job to seek out the best awards, write the entries and where necessary canvas votes!
This year alone we’ve helped Black Dog Ballroom snap up the Best Late Night Venue in The Drinkies and Freeport Fleetwood was delighted to be awarded Retail Business of the Year in the Red Rose Awards.
After a bumper 2014 and an already successful 2015 Freeport Fleetwood is going great guns as a key member of its community and the go to place for shopping on the Fylde Coast. It’s the centre’s 20th year so what better reason to celebrate everything the team have achieved.
Just this week the centre has been selected as a finalist for the Large Retailer Award at the Radio Wave Culture & Lifestyle Awards! These awards celebrate business locally and are especially important as they aren’t decided by a panel of judges but voted for by the public.
The centre is the only independent business up against some big guns – Next at Clifton Retail Park Blackpool, Tesco Extra Blackpool and Debenhams Houndshill so it would be quite a coup to win.
Want to help? Click on the link here and vote for Freeport Fleetwood.
While we are on the subject of awards, our MD Daisy has been nominated as Best Marketer in the Downtown Women In Business awards. You can vote for her here please!
‘DATS’ The Life For Me!
PR Training.
Three months in, nine to go. I think its safe to safe this is no ordinary apprenticeship…it’s actually FUN!
With christmas 2014 just around the corner I knew I couldn’t wait around for a job to magically pop up, I had to work hard to secure something. I applied for this job as a social media whizz (which sounded ideal to me). The deadline for applications was early January and I applied start of December. Christmas came and went as did the New Year celebrations, before I knew it I had a phone call regarding the apprenticeship. I was invited to attend the bootcamp at The Juice Academy (the apprentice training provider) in the middle of January. Result I was getting somewhere.
The day of the bootcamp arrived. I was up early and out of the house to make it into Manchester City Centre for around 10am. I opened the door to what seemed like a million people all vying to be chosen for this opportunity. I got registered, took a seat, and it was at that moment, without me even realising, that I was about to start a new chapter in my life. The day consisted of a variety of tasks from; drawing a self portrait that describes yourself, making a vine that helps promote ‘The Juice Academy’ and even a speed dating session with the employers looking to find their social media star (speed dating with your potential boss?).
The tasks had been completed, the waiting had begun, and people were being called away. It was like The X Factor bootcamp with added stress because we weren’t watching it at home eating our takeaway we were living it. I got called up and in the room I was heading to I saw Daisy (my manager to be). I sat down and talked to Daisy about how the day had been, I got feedback…the usual interview stuff… then she offered me the job. I was thrilled!
Fast forward again but this time only a week and half and my life at Down at the Social was starting. I had no idea what to expect, what the people would be like, what kind of stuff I would be doing, never did I expect to be delivering pizzas on my first day. Yes that’s right…you read correctly…that is honestly what my first day consisted off. Our client Crazy Pedro’s is a pizza bar and had made some delicious looking pizzas for us to take and give to journalists to help drum up some possible reviews/press coverage. It was while doing this that I had fully grasped this wasn’t just your run of the mill boring office job. In the three months I have spent here I have done so much and everyday is so varied, its hard to feel bored or feel like you have nothing to do.
With 9 months to go God only knows whats in store but one thing is sure I can not wait to find out. If anyone has ever considered applying for a social media apprenticeship then take my word for it and just do it, it’s the best decision I have made in my life. There are always brilliant opportunities coming up for anyone that is willing to go out and find them! Who knows you could one day be in a job loving what you do just as much as me!
Why Make News?
Many clients come to us wanting to promote their products through reviews in media and via their social media channels but they always take a bit of convincing when it comes to news stories and surveys.
Creative news making positions a brand as the authority on a subject, it also offers a reason for media to talk about a brand with a message that isn’t purely commercial. Whilst we love our clients and the products or services they offer, we have to be realistic that there are a finite number of places within the national media to celebrate them.
What’s more survey aren’t cheap – in fact they are pretty expensive unless you are lucky enough to have a huge database. Our recent work for British skincare brand Flint + Flint has shown how the right story can capture the mood of the media and generate huge brand awareness.
The survey, which was carried out in the brand’s skincare clinics, found that four in five women in the UK don’t wash every day. There was outcry and support for these findings in equal measures and our story catapulted Flint + Flint into every national newspaper, including the Telegraph and the Daily Mail multiple times, plus broadcast media including Radio Two and Radio Five Live. Chris Evans talked about it! Plus we made headlines online, in print and on broadcast across the USA and as far away as Malaysia.
The relatively unknown brand saw web traffic and sales increase, journalists call in products to review, social media Likes and Followers increase and primed the way for the reveal of our new face of the brand, the stunning Danielle Lloyd. (More on this in the news section of our blog).
All of this hit off our PR objectives and it didn’t talk about the product directly.
Something to consider to broaden the reach of your marketing yes?
The results:
20 national news pieces – at least one in each national title
4 national broadcast discussions
Became hot topic on MumsNet
In excess of 20 international pieces
With more coming through every hour!
100 million OTS plus in the UK alone
An 800% increase in website traffic in one week
See the story here – Mail Online
LEGO BAKE OFF, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK & STICKER SWAP SHOPS
LEGO Stunts & An ITV World Cup Fan Park Launch.
2014 was a brilliant year at Down At The Social.
We spent the year devising campaigns that generated headlines for our clients, helping them sell product and drive footfall, whilst making their brands famous.
We recreated some of the Uk’s favourite TV shows in LEGO for the LEGOLAND Discover Centre. Favourites were the LEGO Oscar selfie, the Great Brickish Bake-off and #WhoKilledTina, Corrie’s greatest mystery yet.
We welcomed Netflix legend Lea Delaria to lead the Parade at Manchester Pride, managed a press conference with Eurovision darling Conchita Wurst and took selfies with all of the stars of the Big Weekend from Pixie Lott to Foxes. Our coverage on the Manchester Evening News website generated nearly 2 million hits over four days. Amazing.
It was World Cup year for those who didn’t notice! Even though England didn’t do so well in the competition, we made sure our clients faired much better.
ITV Fever Pitch welcomed thousands of people from across the North West to experience the highs and lows of the tournament from their Brazilian themed hideaway in the Old Granada Studios. They even put on a 4D broadcast pumping out the smells of Brazil, cut grass and half time oranges to the eager fans.
Our sticker swap shops at Black Dog Ballroom had swappers flock to the venue to complete their collections and watch the games. We generated coverage on Sky Sports, Sky Sports News and BBC North West Tonight ensuring the venue off Oxford Road was the place to watch the World Cup in Manchester (alongside ITV Fever Pitch of course).
For all of this and more check out our coverage video on the right hand side of this page…
Dirty Britain.
PR Survey.
Wow what a day! It was great to see our Flint + Flint news story go international today.
Our rather shocking survey revealed that four out of five women don’t shower every day, with some admitting they go three days without washing! That was news we had to share – see the results below.
Plus The Irish Independent, The Independent Online, Standard Digital News, International Business UK, Sunday World, Seattle Sun Times, News Talk 106 – 108fm, WABC – TV, BT.com, Gloucester Citizen, Good To Know, The Rayat Post.
Oscar Selfie and Taxi for Moyes – LEGO® makes all news more fun FACT!
News Jacking With LEGO.
First the team at LEGOLAND® Discovery Centre created our own LEGO® recreation of the famous Ellen DeGeneres Oscar selfie and then yesterday following a stroke of genius our client, Shaun and his trusty master model builder Alex, created this picture of David Moyes outside of the LEGOLAND® Discovery Centre’s recreation of Old Trafford.
We issued the #miniselfie image to our contacts across the national news and celebrity media and it was picked up by everyone from The Sun, Daily Star, Mail Online, the ITV website, Heat magazine, E Online and Mashable.
The Taxi For Moyes tweet moved even faster, being retweeted and shared by ITV.com and Metro almost instantly, and going on to be discussed by Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 2, ITV Granada Reports, The Mirror and Manchester Evening News. It has also been shared by @MailSport and @MailOnline and countless other media outlets.
Turtle on the slim fast plan to rid him of his cankles!
Launching SEA LIFE Manchester.
Animal stories are hugely important for us when communicating to potential customers what the SEA LIFE Manchester attraction is all about.
We have worked with media to promote the arrival of the creatures including the sharks and giant ocean turtle Ernie, generated coverage around Ernie’s diet when he ate ASDA out of sprouts last year and most recently Ernie hit the headlines again when Lucy, his curator, had to put him on a diet!
In his first weigh in Lucy discovered that Ernie has got a bit flabby round the ankles – or cankles as they are known – and he was put on a diet and exercise plan to rid him of the 4KG of fat that had concentrated around his flippers.
We generated coverage for the centre in a selection of media for this story including The Metro, Manchester Evening News, Daily Star and Mail Online.
A lonely heart with a difference.
Creative PR.
Bruce, the Patterdale Terrier from Black Dog Ballroom, is a bit of a celebrity around Manchester but he doesn’t have a special someone to share romantic moments with – apart from his owner Jobe of course.
A local Manchester celebrity who inspired the Black Dog Ballroom branding, the pup also had his very first acting role in the new Dog Bowl cinema ad, and more recently a range of Dead Legacy t-shirts featuring the pup’s print.
We needed a story to promote the brand at Valentine’s Day and thought why not kill two birds with one stone and find Bruce a date at the same time.
We penned a lonely heart ad for Bruce, complete with a carefully selected photo -you can’t underestimate the power of a profile picture in this modern social media mad age – and issued a press release to the media.
“Athletic 4 year old male, 3ft tall, 22lbs with black hair and brown eyes currently seeks playful pooch who enjoys the outdoors, American-style food and is unfazed by fame.”
This quest for love was supported by local media including Northern Quarter Manchester, 4 Manchester Women and I Love Manchester, and then his search for a date went nationwide with coverage on the Daily Mirror.
To keep abreast of Bruce’s antics you can make friends with him on Facebook here!
You Gotta Wear The Shoes To Bowl!
Today we are excited to be launching our newest online film for our client Black Dog Ballroom to promote their newest venue Dog Bowl.
It’s all about the different scenes of the city from hipsters and indies to BMX kids and rockers all set to a fantastic voice over from the brilliant Tom McGarva.
The video created by the fantastic team at The Mob Film and it looks and sounds fantastic. We love the hipsters the most, the styling by Paula McNamara is spot on.
Check it out and let us know what you think.
Down at the Social crash This Morning
Today saw the 25th anniversary of This Morning and to celebrate TV gods Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan were presenting the show from the original set at the Albert Dock in Liverpool.
Having had a model of the Dock in MINILAND since opening there was no way our client LEGOLAND® Discovery Centre was letting this pass without getting right in the thick of the action. Alex immediately uninstalled the model from the attraction’s mini NW model display and got to work creating a TV studio and weather map complete with minifigures representing Richard, Judy and one time weather man Keith Lemon.
The team tweeted pictures of the model tagging the show and the team at the Albert Dock and waited to see their response. Luckily we didn’t have to wait long, 18 retweets later our pictures had been shared by ITV’s Twitter team and the show’s Twitter account to over 300,000 of our client’s key target audience (mum’s who love daytime TV).
This picked up momentum and before we knew it Alison Hammond had shared our photos to her 131,000 followers further driving RTs and shares from Bella magazine and other media titles.
We offered the model to the team for the show and sadly they didn’t have enough time to guarantee us a spot BUT that didn’t stop us… Pippa and Alex arrived at the studio at 8.30am this morning and before the show had even started they had met Eamonn Holmes and he had tweeted a picture of the model to his nearly 600,000 followers.
Then Alex was invited on to the show to be interviewed about the model, then he did a radio interview with BBC Radio Manchester and Heart FM, then he went on Granada Reports and to top it all off Richard and Judy asked if they could take the model home!
That one LEGO® model reached over 1 million Twitter fans in just a few hours all with our client’s Twitter handle alongside it.
The digital world has changed PR more than many of us can begin to understand, and social media has opened up channels for brands to talk to media, celebrities and viewers in totally new ways, but nothing has replaced the thrill and excitement of seeing your client/ product on one of the nation’s favourite TV shows.
As a PR and social media consultancy what we really love is seeing the two elements work together, creating lasting engagement that will help drive our client’s brand and generate conversation with their fans.
Award Winning PR Agency
Best Use Of Media Relations.
We were delighted last week when we were awarded the Gold for Freshest Media Relations Campaign at the Fresh Awards.
It’s the first award we have chosen to enter and it’s for LEGOLAND® Discovery Centre, our longest standing client, so a special one.
The campaign has been an opportunity to let our creative juices go and create masses of fantastic content to wow media and social media fans getting them engaging with the attraction time and time again.
The brief was to use our creativity to generate as much media coverage across the attraction’s 1.5/2 hour catchment area as possible. This meant that we needed to take the activity outside of stories about the attraction as the titles in Preston, Chester, Bolton etc wanted something that would resonate directly with their readers.
With Alex Bidolak, the attraction’s talented master model builder; Shaun Rhodes, the immensely creative North West obsessed marketing manager and Carl Sukonik, Manchester’s favourite photographer, we had a crack team devising story and picture ideas, building models, taking brilliant photographs and selling them in to national and regional media.
MINILAND, the attraction’s LEGO® recreation of various buildings and landmarks from across the North, was the perfect canvas for our campaign.
We recreated everything from the heart-stopping Corrie fire to the tremendous efforts of women across the region as they donned their running shoes to take part in the Race for Life raising money for Cancer Research UK. We crashed Alex Ferguson’s retirement media furore with a life size LEGO® model of the Premiership trophy and even put two stormtroopers on the roof of the Trafford Centre.
The Corrie fire pictures were shared by Coronation Street and ITV across their social channels reaching over 400,000 followers and the team at the soap loved them so much that they have them displayed on the notice board in the green room.
The team generated a steady stream of great quality regional and national coverage for the attraction throughout 2013.
Not only has this content been successful with key media but it has also generated a tangible increase in social media engagement through the brand’s key social channel, Facebook, driving Likes up to 10k and generating 2,894,657 page impressions across the campaign.
Now to the hard bit – devising next year’s award-winning campaign.
It's Glam Up North
The Mirror Ball.
Friday night was the third annual Mirror Ball at The Lowry Hotel.
We organise this event with the amazing Andrew Barn, Natalie Grey and Jo Briggs from NoChintz, Emma James from Forever Manchester, Siobhan Hanley from Edge Street Events and this year Suzie Bell from So Beautiful Events.
As ambassadors for the charity Forever Manchester we take pride in bringing together the great and the good of the city to raise money for this worthy cause whilst putting on a thoroughly good party in one of Manchester’s best event spaces.
On Friday six months of planning came together complete with fairground games, the Manchester poet Longfella and Britain’s Got Talent finalists Faces of Disco who confused a few of the celebrity guests and Andrew with masks of their faces! What’s more we raised a whopping £14,000 for Forever Manchester.
Our celebrity guests included Helen Flanagan, Catherine Tyldesley, Jack P Shepherd, Simon Gregson and former and current Hollyoaks stars Leah Hackett, Rachel Shenton, Jennifer Metcalfe, Sinead Moynihan, Andy Moss and Jessica Forrest.
Coverage was already online on the Mail Online before the event had finished and the coverage has continued to pour over the weekend with pieces in the Sunday Star and Sunday Sun; followed by Reveal and Now and a double page spread in the Manchester Evening News diary page thanks to Dianne Bourne.
Check out the links below…