Name: Ryan Dixon

Company: Thorpe Park

Job Role: Brand Manager

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @ryandixon85

What is a usual day for you?

A usual day for me in a season is looking at the figures of people coming into the park the previous day and whether or not we need to do any tactical changes. All of our business is driven by ticket sales so if we don’t hit the target we have set we need at look at if we need to change the communication.  That could be our communication via our social networking social, or it could be our website. Longer term there are key periods in our year, so there are usual things like summer and Easter, then we have various event throughout the year, such as fright night, so it’s putting plans together for them through key media.

How did you get into your role?

I did marketing at University and got into it that way. I started off with a big American manufacturering company; they weren’t actually doing the kind of marketing that I wanted to pursue, so I then went onto an agency to get more experience and then the role I am currently in came up, actually through a friend of mine. It was the kind of marketing I wanted to be doing. It was for a well recognised brand, doing some of the above the line stuff that I really wanted to do. It’s working on stunt shows to new ride launches; it is a fun place to be. I saw the role and thought that was the thing I would like to do.

On that journey at what point did you get introduced to social media?

It was very early on when I arrived at Thorpe Park, we didn’t have a Facebook page we were active on, and the Twitter page was in its infancy, so it really started at that point and since then it has been about not just having a page, but how the page can really work for us. So we have grown our fan page by about 250,000 in the last 2 years.  It has continued to grow from when I started. There is a big focus, especially for next year to drive engaging content on social media. So it has been there since beginning but it’s started to get more serious in the last year or so.

Have you seen a big change with social media and how you use it?

We have seen a big change. When we started with Facebook, we did it because it seemed like the right thing to be doing and everyone else was doing it and we used it to periodically update people on things that were going on at the park and we used it as a tool to communicate offers and things that have definitely driven sales. It has changed over time, our fan base doesn’t respond to just communication around offers, our engagement rates are really low on that, it’s putting content on there that people get really exited about. Whether that’s footage of a ride or it’s the latest developments on a new ride, I think now it’s the content people crave. So in terms of the change I think we have gone from using it as a tactical tool for updating people on things to actually it being all about content, that isn’t necessarily pushing a sale but it’s building the brand up which in turn (not tractable) drives sales to Thorpe Park. The other thing that is still evolving with us is that two-way communication. People are asking questions, they complain and its all how we look at that, deal with it and communicate back to people. I think that is definately a focus for us next year.

Do you think without social media it would be hard to drive ticket sales?

I wouldn’t say that it is impossible without social media. I would say we would be able to still do it. We did it for 20 odd years before that anyway but I think it’s a really important part of what we do now and it really help to drive that excitement and reach out and communicate with people, previously we were relying on people coming to us. In terms of our brand website we were relying on people hearing radio campaigns, TV adverts.  With this we have a great set of brand advocates on our social media site that we can start to have two way conversations with. So I wouldn’t say without social media it’s impossible but it definitely help a lot.

What’s the best advice for someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?

The key thing is knowing what you want to do from the outset. With me I knew I wanted to get involved with a consumer brand, I knew that I wanted to get involved with some above the line media stuff. I do so having that knowledge- it helped that every job I got was taking me towards that step. The problem is,  and this is more advice for people coming straight out of university- if you go into a channel that you don’t necessarily want to be in because you don’t really understand what you want to do, long term you will end up getting sucked in and will end up three years down the line not being able to break out of that channel and move into another channel. I think the barriers that get put up in the marketing industry once you get in are so high that its very tough to make that move, so I think the biggest advice from me would be- understand exactly what you want to do from the outset and make sure whatever job you’re doing,  the projects you’re doing within that job are taking you to that point.

To find out more about Ryan Dixon you can reach him on his linkedin page.

Last week I interviewed Georgia Rakusen, the account manager at Screenreach and she told me:

• How she ran her own digital media and events production company
• Why Twitter is so incredibly important

Georgia’s interview can be found here.

Name: Laura Fields

Company: Firetrap

Job Role: Online Marketing Coordinator

Follow Laura on Twitter: @eeeeekyfields

What is a usual day for you?

I’ll come in and see what is planned for the week, what offers we have got on, what promotions, how the sales are going, what we need to push – and then we can put that into social media as well. We push certain projects if we have competitions, and then if there is anything we can put on Facebook or Twitter and put anything on in the blog that links to that.

How did you get into your role?

I started at ASOS where I spent 2 years in buying. I then did some freelance work and work experience for 6 months, then I worked at Ben Sherman and also worked for two of Peter Jones’ (Dragons Den) companies and I then I saw the Firetrap position and got the job.

How essential is social media for your role?

Well before I started we didn’t really do a lot with it. Then when I joined they focused on it a bit more and as time goes on its getting bigger and bigger – so I’m putting more and more effort into it. It is quite a small department and can be quite tricky to keep on top of, but it is getting more important that we do it.

How would you say social media has impacted Firetrap as a brand?

It’s brand exposure at the end of the day and it improves sales figures and means more people go to our site as well. Social media really links well with the ecommerce side of the site and it’s good because we can talk about events we have got going on, getting people down into our stores as well and then that increases sales at the end of the day.

What social media tools do you use on a regular basis?

Facebook and Twitter. We have a few things going on YouTube and you have the blog on the site. Our biggest social platform is Facebook. We build Facebook tabs to promote competitions to get more people to ‘like us’.

What is your best social media campaign?

We worked with V festival and that worked really well for us. We ran a competition where we posted a link on the V festival page and from that we had a 10,000 sign ups and saw an increase in Facebook by 1,000 likes a day. So working with partners really does help. Its gets us followers and brand exposure. We also did a project for Deadly the Gnome – our brand mascot. That is just a bit of fun and gets people interacting. It has it own Facebook page where people upload and like pictures and using it on Twitter. It just gets a lot of people talking about it.

What is the best advice to get a role like yours?

Work experience is so important. Go out and gain as much as experience as you can by working for different companies. Then it will show you what you really want to do.

To find out more about Laura Fields you can reach her on her linkedin page.

Last week I interviewed Poppy Dinsey, founder of What I Wore Today and she told me:

• How she set up WIWT
• Why having a basic understanding of HTML is important
• Her vision for her online brand

Poppy’s interview can be found here.

Who: Facebook users – socially and for businesses

Tip: Facebook is continuously adding new features to the site for you to be more socially connected and/or for privacy reasons. This new feature adds to the privacy reasons, It lets you hide any activity on facebook that you don’t want to be seen.

How to ‘Hide’ your activity: If you hover above any activity of yours for e.g. a comment you have made on a friends photo there will be a X in the top right corner, click on it and it will give you the option to either a) ‘Remove the post’ or b) ‘Hide all wall activity’.

Note: You can always modify setting. You just go down to the bottom of your profile feed and click on ‘edit options’ and you can then make the changes you would like.

So what: This is a feature wanted from facebook users for years. If you are a brand and posting some kind of promo for it on numerous walls you can hide the activity and make your page look cleaner, and I suppose it look like less effort on your behalf and gives a good perception of the page for the business.

Who:

• Individuals/small business
• Designers
• Content managers

Tip: The more the web turns to a social landscape, the more you need to a have social life for your website. This can be done through a number of ways. A basic tactic can be as simple as letting your audience know where they can find you in the social arena…..However, it’s important to do it with a bit of style.

Here are our top 5 places to get icons to boost the look.

Top 5

1. webexpedition18 is a web and graphic design blog. We feature tutorials, freebies, resources, and inspiration posts.
2. fasticon allows you to get quality icons for designers and developers.
3. sixrevisions gives you useful information for web developers and designers.
4. icontexto is a blog that provides you with web apps and free icons.
5. instatuts provides you with free graphic design tutorials in photoshop, illustrator and more.

So what:

Perception is everything. They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but people will judge your website. These icons will not necessarily make you rich but having ugly or none could cost you business. Also, it is a simple tactic for people to find you outside of your website.

Who:

• Individuals (who like a bargain)
• Local businesses
• Events company

Tip: We are entering a world where we are either a local or global business. Local can be defined as a business that can only make money at one specific point i.e., the Starbucks on Oxford Street that can only make money when you pay at the till.

If you can make income elsewhere then you are global. Facebook realizes this and created places. Check out the definition of Facebook Places from Mashable.

The video shows you how you can find and take advantage of these deals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ-rTseVwes&feature=player_embedded

So what?

Location based deals within social media is increasing rapidly as the way we consume content and hunt for “bargains” have changed. Understanding not only Facebook’s role, as there are other location based networks like Foursquare & Gowalla, in this could not only help create a smarter business decisions but also save you money.