Charlie Comms

13/06/2022

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the North East Business Awards with Stand. Stand are a management consultancy specialising in NHS Service change programmes. I help them out with marketing/comms.

They are a dream to work with, and I've learnt a lot from them. Despite only being created in 2020, they have achieved a huge amount. They were behind many of the vaccination programmes in the North East for example, and they did an incredible job. Great to see their achievements acknowledged.

11/04/2022

So excited to be doing more work for this wonderful charity

Hi, I’m Charlie. I’ve been the Press Associate with HOS for the past few years. But I’m going to be managing their social media this quarter too! I’m looking forward to connecting with all of our lovely supporters and telling you about all the amazing work that HOS do.

13/12/2021

'I just wanted to email to say we had a really great time. He loved the atmosphere and meeting other stall holders and the community.

Thank you for inviting us along and just to say that we would love to be involved in future markets.'

Such lovely feedback from the market at the weekend- makes the worry worthwhile!

07/12/2021

Today I got to meet two of my favourite clients IN PERSON for the first time (despite having worked together for over a year). Housing Options Scotland put on Afternoon Tea and me and my other client are both Associates, so we went too. Absolutely lovely.

09/11/2021

Such a lovely chat with Rachel at Business Northumberland this morning. I used to work in Northumberland, and the network there is so lovely, I'd forgotten

25/10/2021

Which platform should you use to promote your content? The answer is... it depends. I use all of them. I'm guilty of neglecting Facebook, but it just doesn't have the traction for me that the others do. But generally...

Twitter: Twitter is indispensable if you're trying to contact journalists. If you're doing anything even vaguely to do with the news, then you have to use it. The downside of Twitter is that really, because it's so current and fast moving, you need to be on it all the time. And you cannot just put out your own content- you need to interact.

Instagram: If you're selling a commercial product, then Instagram is your friend. It's easy to build your following, and as long as you have good quality images, you'll do well. It's not SO good for comms I don't think, as it's such a visual platform, it's hard to get as much traction on it- the photo elements are key. On the other hand, it LOVES video, so if you can do those you're laughing.

Facebook: Facebook is difficult. Followers are most often the most engaged, and the loyalist... but that all depends if Facebook fancy putting you in time lines. Good for accessing 40+ market. But with Facebook, I find that if you don't put money behind it, you're not going to get far.

I probably find Twitter the most useful, and since I muted the words 'covid' and 'Brexit' from it, my world has been a happier place. What's your fave?

21/09/2021

Being freelance has its advantages: being able to go tap dancing in the middle of the day being one of them. Had an absolutely mad dash to get tap shoes before class mind... Fully recommend going to The Dancers Pointe if you're in Newcastle and you need dance supplies. It's tempting to shop online, but shop independent instead 💃💃💃

04/09/2021

Can't wait for this next week. Such a nice event in the lovely location of St James' and St Basil's Church. And fantastic local peeps Charlotte's Butchery, FAB Bakery, grate Newcastle, The Olive Store, The First & Last Brewery, Northumberland and Love Leaf Tea

16/08/2021

I work with a wonderful charity called Housing Options Scotland, who help older people, disabled people and veterans to find their own homes. I am the Press Associate, and I'm often reporting on the amazing work that the charity does. However, recently Inside Housing were looking for amazing individuals to be featured in their 'One to Watch' article, and I was delighted to see Olivia featured- she is Head of Casework services at the charity. I consult with Olivia quite a lot when I'm writing about the charity and she is outstanding- extremely knowledgeable about her field, reliable and together. And so young! Read more about her in the article in the comments.

30/07/2021

Two marketing issues this morning:

1) There was a pastry chef in the bakery who used to take me amazing photos of the products they produced- she had done a course I think, but her eye for composition was absolutely fantastic. She's now left. Argh. Back to my photos. So I'm going to swot up on Skills Share see what I can find to help 🙈🙈🙈

2) Last time I posted about Bakewell Tarts, two ladies from Bakewell shirtily informed me that Bakewell Tarts aren't actually a thing- Bakewell PUDDING exists, but the tarts have no link to the area so people from Bakewell get annoyed when they are named as such. Quandary for me is how to market them?! Rightly or wrongly, everyone knows them as Bakewell Tarts?! So I have to think of a way to convey the meaning... and be correct. So I've just basically explained in the posts what I'm telling you now 🤣

26/07/2021

MAILING LIST.

I saw a post on Twitter about mailing lists the other day and it really resonated with me. Social media can be a bit of a numbers game: your success is measured on number of engagements, number of likes, and the number of followers you have. But ultimately, you never really know if your post is reaching the right people. Someone else is always controlling who your content is getting put in front of and when you're at the mercy of a constantly changing algorithm and a big rich man called Mark, sometimes it feels like a bit of a lottery. Enter Mailing List....

The beauty of a mailing list is that you have an audience who has SIGNED-UP to hear from you. They want your news, there isn't a big bad algorithm making judgements and calling the shots. You can write loads of things. You don't need to hashtag. You can link to your web shop and it won't be hidden. MAILING LISTS ARE SO GOOD.

You need to start one. Do it today. Just please don't spam with loads of sales schpiel and please don't write one when you can't be arsed just for the sake of it- you want to keep a hold of your subscribers.

21/07/2021

One of my clients works in NHS Service Change, and they have been working on vaccination programmes around the north-east. With a reported slowing down of vaccine uptake in the UK, I attended a webinar last week called , which was a discussion about 'the power of PR [in] the rise of trust (and mistrust) in vaccines.'

CARMA is a Media Monitoring Agency, and they have produced an excellent report about the impact on media on vaccine uptake, which provided data for the discussion. Some clear trends were identified, including the positive influence of Scientific Bodies being a part of Government Comms, 'Vaccine Nationalism', and how much the word of our leaders counts.

When the data and information is changing all of the time, it must be impossibly difficult sometimes to structure your Comms and deliver the right message. But what stayed with me was this: as a leader, you have to get the message right first time. It is extremely difficult to change your opinion (as identified in France and Germany: early doubting of the AstraZeneca vaccine by Macron and Merkel correlates with low vaccine uptake. Later praise of the vaccine hasn't done a huge amount for public confidence).

We all have a part to play getting out of this pandemic; not just by getting vaccinated, but the words we use, the things we share, and the people we hold to account. If you work in health Comms, I recommend reading the report: it's fascinating. Find it on the CARMA website.