For Blog’s Sake – Ellie Lovell

So it’s my third week at Pickle Jar Communications and the first two weeks have been very busy and exciting! Here are some of the things i’ve been doing…

I flew up to Newcastle and spent two days in the office getting to know my colleagues and familiarising myself with client projects, systems and processes
I attended a workshop with clients in Oxford to help explore different content formats, content values, persona development, customer journey planning
I attended a workshop with City University in London to help inform the Social Media Strategy that we are preparing for them
I went to the Content Marketing Show in London and heard lots of different organisations, brands and agencies talking about how they are using content marketing and best practise.

And i’ve spent 5 whole days working from home without going mad! I’ve been analysing audience and stakeholder research, preparing a social media strategy, writing up findings from workshops, and writing website copy for an international school in America!

It’s involved a few calls on Skype and GoToMeeting and lots of collaboration on sites such as Realtimeboard, Slickplan, and Gathercontent!

Any tips for remote working gratefully received! Or if anyone wants to pop around for a “meeting” and a cup of tea, visitors to my “office” are always welcome!

It’s been a busy month or so with lots of new and exciting beginnings and changes in my life:

I left my role at Birmingham Metropolitan College
I got married and became a wife (the word “wife” still sounds weird!)
I got a husband (as above!)
I went from Miss Lovell to Mrs Lovell (yes, I kept the Lovell bit!)
I went on honeymoon to Kefalonia
I started work as Head of Content Strategy and Social Media Planning at Pickle Jar Communications!

Here’s to new beginnings…

A little while ago I was visiting a friend and playing with her two children, aged 8 and 4. They introduced me to an iPad/iPhone game called “Dumb Ways to Die” – a great app from Melbourne Metro who have created a simple, fun addictive game with a public safety message!

It was obviously a big hit with the kids, and it didn’t take long for the catchy song/video that was part of the app to get stuck in my head.

The public safety campaign was launched back in 2012 so the song my be familiar to many and at the time of writing, it has had almost 56 million views on YouTube but the game was only launched in May 2013 (according to Wikipedia).

Melbourne Metro did well to capitalise on the popular campaign with a truly engaging mobile app!

An earlier version of the app also included a safety pledge, to reinforce the public safety message but unfortunately this has been removed from the most recent version!

I recommend that you check the game out, not just because it’s fun, but because it’s a great example of how to make a seemingly dull, difficult message, engaging and captivating! So engaging in fact that it has spawned many parodies on YouTube!

You can also see a Case Study about the campaign on YouTube from Australian Brand News:

Who knew train safety could be so much fun?! Have you seen any other examples of seemingly dull messages being made engaging through awesome content?

Freebie in-flight magazines – you reluctantly take one from the air-hostess as you know you will be in the air for at least an hour or two and you might flick through the bland pages of advertising and duty free to pass the time. But what a pleasant surprise when you find a magazine that connects you to a community whilst you are flying through the air.

Let’s Go, the in-flight magazine from Ryan Air, manages to connect you to ideas and people at the perfect time when you are in holiday-mode and thinking about your future adventures. If you’re like me, when booking a holiday you want to know who else has been there, what they thought and any tips for places to visit, eat or drink. Let’s Go gives you all of these things, including the tips from readers. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Want to know what to do whilst in Malta? Where’s the best place to do scuba diving? Which pubs should you visit in Dublin? As you browse the articles, you realise The Let’s Go community are talking about it on Twitter and Facebook and you can join in!

Back on the ground however, I realised that whilst the social media content is very well integrated to the magazine publication, when you explore the Twitter and Facebook presence there is definitely more room for growth and development. With just over 1500 Facebook fans and 1100 followers on Twitter (at time of publication), they are yet to reach the critical mass needed for a thriving, interactive community, but the potential is certainly there.

With a more conversational tone of voice (including more questions to the community), more regular updates, and some more images of beautiful destinations (who doesn’t want to see photos of beautiful places!) I am sure they will grow their community – particularly over the summer months when we’re all off on our holidays!

I will be following them to see how the community develops (and to ask for some advice on my next holiday!)

Ok, so a year ago I “found my blogging mojo” at SXSWi in Austin, Texas. A year later, and it hasn’t surfaced much! I think i’m going to just have to admit that I don’t blog any more! But I do tweet (quite a lot!).

I’m heading back out to Texas tomorrow for my second SXSWi and i’m really looking forward to it! You can see an early attempt at my schedule here but you will notice that I currently need to be in about 6 places at once to go to all the talks that I consider to be interesting or useful.

To see which ones I do end up at, follow me @ellielovell or wait for a blog post when I return (although I can’t promise that!).

“The show begins with voices, soft at first then louder, it ends with applause and between these two there is love, laughter, a letter opened, a gun concealed, a joke that runs and runs and after the banquet there’s a ghost and a voice that sings and a soft light and a loud whisper and a kiss that’s just a kiss and a long, long, very long silence that turns into sound and a party and a question and a curtain that closes and there’s history, memories, forgetting, dream and celebration and a fading light in colours that you could never name”

This quote appears in EAT restaurant at Warwick Arts Centre and I love it. I don’t know if it describes a particular play (any suggestions?) but I like to think it summarises life a bit too.

I will try and find out who wrote it as I forgot to write it down last time!

I hate when blog posts start with “I haven’t blogged for ages” but I feel I need to say it! It’s been almost a month but I have been pretty busy! Very poor – especially since I was given a plug on Matthew Watson’s blog – I now have something to live up to!

So the month of July mostly consisted of my CIPR Planning Assignment but it was a massive relief to finally submit it and have it out of my life (unless of course I fail and have to re-submit!). Generally in life, I like situations when you know what the right answer or direction is – but this assignment was like feeling my way in the dark. There were so many options or possibilities that the ‘right’ answer was hard to find so who knows how I got on! Well, I guess I find out in mid-September! I am already thinking about the final project for the CIPR diploma – a 6000 word research project on a topic of our choice – but I will blog more about that another time!

Apart from that I have been enjoying having my social life back and have been to a few parties including Pickle Jar Communications 1st Birthday party and the University of Warwick’s Staff Summer Party. I have also celebrated Mom’s birthday and waved goodbye to my cousin Maria who was home for the Summer after three years living in Jakarta, and has now moved on to Singapore for two years! Plus it’s my own birthday tomorrow and on Sunday I am going to London for my friends daughters 3rd birthday. Then a week today (next Friday) my cousin is having a baby! There really is no rest for the wicked!

Work has also been pretty busy lately. People think that it’s quiet at a University during the summer months when there are no students around but they are quite wrong. There are lots of preparations to be made for new students especially with A-level results, clearing, confirmation, enrolment, preparations for induction etc. The University has also taken on a new enquiry management system to assist communications with prospective students and applicants so there is a lot of planning going in to that as well as the usual ‘comms’ stuff.

So after that re-cap, I think I need to change my approach to blogging and try a more little-but-often approach as this entry is far too long and boring…!

So I have resigned myself to the fact that, like April, July is going to be pretty much…

Where is my sunshine?

We received our CIPR planning assignment on Monday 30th June and progress so far has been slow. It’s a pretty tricky assignment and being busy with work I just haven’t made much headway with it so it’s time to knuckle down!

I have lots of things to look forward to in August so that should keep me motivated. I’m making a note of them here so that when I am struggling with the assignment and feeling miserable I can remind myself of the fun to come!

Saturday 2nd August – Leaving Party for Sam and Mark (colleague and her husband who are moving to Brighton)
Wednesday 6th August – Pickle Jar Communications‘ 1st Birthday Party
Thursday 7th August – University of Warwick Staff Summer Party
Saturday 9th August – Nottingham for final CIPR Diploma teaching session
Tuesday 12th August – Mom’s Birthday
Wednesday 13th August – Mom’s twin sister (Mag) coming over from Dublin
Saturday 16th August – My Birthday – there will be a whole weekend of celebrations for this but I haven’t got round to planning it yet!
Monday 18th August – Going to see Mary Poppins at Birmingham Hippodrome
Friday 22nd August – Cousin Laura having baby (if not earlier!)
Saturday 23rd August – Casey Leaver‘s 30th Birthday
Tuesday 26th – Friday 29th August – CASE Annual Conference in Brighton

EDIT: this list is not exhaustive – I shall be adding to it!

So, bring on August when I will feel more like this…

I can do anything if I try

EDIT: I also feel that August might need a theme tune so am open to suggestions…preferably in the form of links to YouTube please!

…I use them incorrectly. I should refrain from my overuse of ellipsis…

el·lip·sis
–noun, plural -ses

1.

Grammar.

a.	the omission from a sentence or other construction of one or more words that would complete or clarify the construction, as the omission of who are, while I am, or while we are from I like to interview people sitting down.

b.	the omission of one or more items from a construction in order to avoid repeating the identical or equivalent items that are in a preceding or following construction, as the omission of been to Paris from the second clause of I’ve been to Paris, but they haven’t.

2.	Printing. a mark or marks as ——, …, or * * *, to indicate an omission or suppression of letters or words.

Ellie Lovell

Week 3 as a Pickle

New beginnings…

Making public safety fun with Dumb Ways to Die!

Let’s Go! From in-flight magazine to online travel community

Off to SXSWi 2011

“The show begins…”

I haven’t blogged for ages…

Looking ahead…

I love ellipsis…

Category Archives: For Blog’s Sake