Social Matters and Natters

Well here it is... 2015. Welcome, welcome and a Happy New Year to you. Yes, I know that I am posting this pretty soon into the New Year, but I figured you will all be fully of minced pies, possibly consumed a little too much alcohol and have had your mind numbed by Christmas TV... So here we are reading something fresh to get you excited for 2015 - hopefully. So this year I have decided I am not going to set New Year's Resolutions...I have experienced how much things can change in one day, let alone in 12 months, so this year I am setting myself goals/a bucket list for 2015. If anyone wants to help me achieve these, fancies an adventure, is up for a challenge, or just wants a laugh please let me know... 1. Lose a stone and tone up 2014 has seen me lose 3 stone, drop nearly 3 dress sizes and completely changed my body confidence. This year I am heading back to Slimming World with the aim of losing another stone and joining a gym to tone up... 2. A weekend in Berlin It'

We are getting to the end of 2014 so I thought I would take a few moments to reflect on the year and share these with you. A lot has happened in 2014 for me, with a hell of a lot of changes but I cannot believe how happy I am am, so here we go... www.pinterest.com 1. Final year at Uni/Graduating Well this was a roller-coaster and a half but I did it! Final year has been and gone, my time at Hallam is officially over (sob) and I have recently celebrated my graduation. I cannot thank my family and friends (especially Anna and Cact) for helping me through this year, the laughter, the uncontrollable sobbing, the late night library sessions and the ghost in our apartment. It was a tough year but so so so good. 2. Entering the "REAL WORLD" I am so so so lucky to have landed myself an incredible job with a fabulous company and the best team I could ever ask for. I LOVE MY JOB. I even love Mondays... I know, right? So good! 7 months in and I am one happy Chick!

Not to panic anyone but CHRISTMAS IS LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AWAY!!!!! Compose yourself. Anyone else struggling with the Christmas shopping this year? I feel like I have left everything far too late, everyone else has been doing their Christmas shopping since October and me, well I started 2 weeks ago (aka still desperately online shopping now). How are we meant to know what to buy people? Short of buying things solely from a list I have no ideas for anyone this year! But I am looking forward to Christmas (just not the shopping), here's my run down of the top things this Chick loves at Christmas time: 1. Spending time with the family 2. Singing Christmas carols 3. Drinking... Mulled wine, tea, Malibu, I love it all! 4. FOOD. Enough said. 5. Presents - I prefer giving them and seeing peoples reactions! 6. Snow... I'm dreaming of a white Christmas 7. Christmas films - Elf, The Holiday, Love Actually, etc. 8. Christmas Jumpers/Festive wear 9. Boxing D

Hands up if you are in love with Monty the Penguin! *Raises hands and jumps around* Not seen it? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? This brought a tear to my eye and made me feel so Christmassy, I love it! Monty finding his true love is perfect, what a brilliant advert! Congratulations John Lewis, and hats off to Adam&Eve/DDB for producing such a corker! Tom Odell also had an impact on me falling in love with this, what a beautiful cover of John Lennon's Real Love. Mwah Tom, you little beauty. (Side note: Go and see Tom if you can, suchhh a good act live!) So after going to MK yesterday and heading to John Lewis in search of a soft toy version of Monty I was greeted with empty shelves - HEARTBROKEN! The advert has taken off to much that they had sold out in a matter of hours! But... Today my fabulous friend James got me a present, so here is Monty (the cat) with Mabel (the penguin)  Real Love. Lets get social! Get  tweeting  or  LinkedIn Disclaimer

Ello ello. Gawddd, it's been far too long but I am back! A lot has happened recently and I have been a very busy bee, but I have now got a bit more time on my hands so back to blogging! I am now another year older and a hell of a lot wiser... Now... first things first I am back to my old rant about retail pressure on female sizes. You must have heard or seen THAT tweet about the Topshop mannequin... no? Take a look here . Oh the power of social media :D How on earth Topshop can get away with that baffles me...! I am a curvy lady, there is no hiding that, and I love it! I don't understand why those in retail cannot embrace that the average size in the UK is a 16! Marketing and advertising for this is as much to blame as well, using skinny models to act as "Role Models" and "inspiration"...  COME ON PEOPLE embrace the curves! Rant over :) I'll be back again soon, so tune in next time folks! Lets get social! Get  tweeting  or  LinkedIn

So this week my topic to look into is about interacting with customers via digital communications at the weekends... Do we love it or hate it? (Think Marmite) Personally I like it when a company is still interacting with me over the weekend. I work Monday to Friday till half 5, by which time a lot of retail places are shut and if I want to get hold of them I have to wait till the weekend, so for them to be interacting via social media and email is brilliant! But what about B2B? Do you think that weekend interactions work well in a B2B environment? Or is everyone off shopping for their Christmas presents? (Oh snap, yes I did just mention the dreaded C word...)  It would be great to get some thoughts on this! Do you work in B2B? Do you check your emails over the weekend? I am not convinced it would work but let me know! And what about social media? Interaction over the weekend would expect an instant answer, correct? I use social media platforms to approach companies if I have a que

I am back from my fabulous holiday in Croatia and I am ready to take on the world! A holiday was exactly what I needed and now I am feeling fresh! How crazy is it that October is going to be with us next week?! I have now been working for 5 months and the time has absolutely flown by, I never believed people when they said it will go by in the blink of an eye but it really does! I am so lucky that I absolutely love my job! So October is a very busy one for me and I think the month will be over before I know it - going to make the most of it though!  I am trying to think of a few blog topics to get stuck into so that i have material for October, otherwise it will be silence from me! Now back to the holiday... my question is whether anyone uses Flickr or any other photo sharing site and if so, which would you recommend? Or would you advise against them? I took hundreds of photos and am not sure what to do with them (I've already bombarded my Facebook friends with all the snaps!

This blog post is a little out the ordinary but stay with me! Having studied for 4 years at uni and worked for just over a year I would say that my understanding of marketing is still continuing to develop. However, there is one key element which has stuck with me throughout theory and practice - and that is sexiness sells. We've all seen it... Flawless women, Men who look like they belong on muscle beach... And I get it, having studied marketing/advertising I get that everyone wants to aspire to be like these beautiful, photoshopped men and women... I know I do! But... and it's a big butt (puny)... I hate the impact this is having on people (especially girls) so my blog this week is to beg you to believe in real beauty.... The Dove "Real Beauty" campaign has to be one of the best advertising campaigns I have seen, these women are 100% real with no photoshop and they are stunning! Even if this only impacts one persons life then that's an achie

Hola! So it has been a crazy few weeks, lots has happened! I have now been a graduate for 3 months, can you believe it?! It seems so strange not to be going back to uni this year - my little sister went back to London yesterday, made me slightly sad that it's all over for me! But.... I passed my probation period at work so I am one extremely happy Chick! Cups of tea all round! Right so this blog post doesn't exactly have a clear theme but bear with me...!  My lovely friend Emma is currently looking for work experience in Northampton within a marketing related role, as she is keen to kick start her career! If you would like to give her an opportunity, a few days or a week, then please (flutters eyelashes) get in contact! You can check out her LinkedIn here and Twitter here . I am so grateful to those who gave me a chance, so I beg someone to do the same for someone else :D I will be back with a better blog post soon! Lots on! Lets get social! Get  tweeting  or  Lin

Meet my boy Monty, cute right?! I am going to use him to market my blog today, seeing as at the moment cat's seem to have it all! Marketers have definitely done their research when looking into using our feline friends to promote products and services. And the worst thing is I am a sucker for it all! Throw a cat in and I am hooked! So here are a few of my current favourites.... Do you love cats? Would they purrr-suade you to buy anything?! Let me know! :) Lets get social! Get  tweeting  or  LinkedIn Disclaimer: This blog reflects my own opinions, not those of my employer.

So I am very lucky in that I got a placement year whilst at uni as part of my sandwich degree which (I think) has played a crucial part in me getting my graduate job. I worked for a year in a marketing department and get a wealth of experience, which set me up for my final year at uni. Alongside this I got additional work experience on the client side, with Orange Juice Communications , so that I was heading back to uni with a better understanding of both and also some direction for when it came to applying for graduate roles. These both aided my knowledge for final year projects too! I guess the point of this blog is to beg you to give someone who is in the same position I was a chance.... I know how valuable this experience is and I cannot encourage you enough to take someone on and share your knowledge with them! I'm not saying it has to be a year long thing (although that would be incredible!) but a week or so would provide someone with so much!  Have a think about it! An

I have a confession to make... I am a 20 something graduate and I have access to social media where I work.  " The horror " I hear some of you cry! Others of you will think that it's perfectly natural to have someone young posting tweets, facebook posts and updating google+... to you I say thank you. To the aforementioned I say why?! Recently I have seen some people tweeting etc about having a your social media run by a graduate  or leaving your social media to someone in their teens . Well guess what, we do actually know what we are talking about most of the time! Fair enough some people can go a little OTT on there... but majority of the time it's all good. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying I am a "guru" or anything, but having grown up interacting with companies via social media I would say I am pretty savvy with what customers want.  Right so rant over, I have just seen too many people posting this week on this subject and I couldn't ke

So if you hadn't realised everything is digital and we are living in a digital era... If this comes as a surprise to you, you must have been living under a rock and probably won't even be reading this blog... Companies are bombarding me on a daily basis with offers, emails, tweets etc craving a relationship with me... driving me to a purchasing landing page or an online offer to download. And yes, I did once purchase something from them on impulse but no I do not want a free Subway every single day... Being passionate about digital marketing I am fully aware of these tactics and I have to admit that sometimes I do fall for them. B2C marketing enables a company to build a relationship with a customer, getting to know what they search for, what they like, demographics etc and fully target customers based on their data catching. And don't get me wrong, this can be brilliant. I certainly enjoy feeling like a valued customer, and that I have built up a relationship with the

Hello and welcome to my new blog! To all of you who already know me you might want to skip the next paragraph... To all the new readers Welcome! I am a marketing graduate and have just started my first marketing role since finishing uni in May at Sheffield Hallam. My previous blog was about my life as a marketing student, you can read it here , (go on be nosey) however now that I am starting off my life in the "real world" I have decided to start a new blog! I hope you will enjoy reading it, and I will (try) to post regular content! So there is no better way to start this off than with Marketing Week Live! Check out the website here . Having never been to this event before it was a brilliant experience, I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to go! It was a fantastic opportunity for me to talk to both CIM and IDM , as coming straight from uni I wasn't aware of all the additional qualifications I am now able to do. Great stuff. Definitely time to get