Social media avenues such as Twitter and Facebook, are professional tools that any organisation with a pulse should have on their online toolbelt. We spend a lot of our time helping others foster their online presence and build their communities, but what about our online efforts?

Below is some information and links to help you find us out there.

We’ve been active on Twitter for the past year or so, tweeting and sharing under the @EllisJonesLive moniker about, well anything and everything to do with our specific areas of expertise. And as our health and ageing clients, practice and knowledge is expanding with each passing week, we’ve noticed our tweets have become increasingly crammed with health, aged care and ageing hashtags. So much so, we’ve found it necessary to launch a Twitter feed dedicated solely to the health and ageing sector.

Read all…

Even the staunchest social media advocate invariably stresses the importance of planning for the worst through the implementation of social media guidelines and issues management procedures.

As if by design, Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 exploded into the public consciousness and provided the perfect case study on the power and the pitfalls of social media.

Invisible children’s poignant video and call to action led to a collective cleansing of conscience as millions around the globe purchased bracelets and signed online petitions.

The documentary’s YouTube statistics alone are staggering. The video racked up approximately 50 million views in five days and, at the time of writing, has been viewed over 83 million times.

It is an extraordinary example of how quickly an idea can spread in a digital world where people from all corners of the globe are more closely connected than ever before.

Read all…

Last month, Rhod wrote a piece on fundraising within the aged care sector. Part 1 focused mainly on the organic, blood-sweat-tears approach to successful fundraising. Here in Part 2, I’ll be focusing on how to make the most of a range of online tools available.

The main message and overall moral of Part 1′s story is that people are more likely to donate – even in times of recession, if there’s a storytelling element. This key element also applies to healthy online fundraising practice.

Read all…

Right now, marketing and communication executives across Australia are scoping the year ahead. Government leaders are finely crafting their approaches to Treasury. Yes, it’s strategic planning and budgeting season!

We’ve been facilitating quite a few planning sessions with clients who are putting together budgets for the new financial year. In this article we share some of the process and some considerations specific to FY2013 .

Read all…

How an employer approaches the engagement of older employees and plans for their transition from the business is highly revealing.

Done successfully, not only does it boost productivity, protect intellectual property and minimise workers compensation costs, it actually defines the employer in the eyes of the workforce, stakeholders and customers – building and strengthening the employer brand while fostering higher levels of employee engagement.

The ageing of Australia’s population has been particularly apparent since the 1960s and is attributed to falling mortality and fertility rates combined with the effect of a baby boom generation as it moves into the older age brackets. Over the past two decades the workforce (and especially the full-time workforce) has been ageing at a rate faster than the general population. Workers in education and health are amongst the oldest workers, with fewer younger people and more older women in the workforce.

Read all…

The report of a comprehensive study into the activities of older Victorians on the internet was released today. A collaborative research study jointly commissioned by advocate COTA Victoria and engagement agency Ellis Jones, Older Victorians Online details surprising findings that challenge commonly held assumptions.

“This study debunks the myths and challenges stereotypes about older people and limitations to their activity online,” said Sue Hendy, Chief Executive Officer, Council of the Ageing (COTA) Victoria. “While not all older community members are active on social media platforms, there is now a significant population of older people active on web-based platforms.”

Surveying 174 Victorians aged over 55, the study tested activities and behaviours, including use of web 2.0 tools and services such as social media.

Read all…

New research, both in Australia and the US, has found that Baby Boomers continue to expand their online behaviours, with a continued increase in their online purchasing habits.  Bricks and mortar retailers are feeling the impact, the results of which have been well documented in the Australian media last week, with the significant drop in profits for David Jones, owing much to their late adoption of an online strategy.

Australian online retail businesses are warned to discount older consumers at their peril, with a new survey revealing 71% of those aged 50-64 make online purchases from domestic retailers.

Read all…

“VICTORIA is on the brink of recession and South Australia and Tasmania are already in one, as the high dollar, high interest rates and government spending cuts slowed Australia’s economic growth in the December quarter to just 0.4 per cent.”  - Tim Colebatch / The Age - March 8, 2012.

Add to this reasoning a drop in retail spending linked to concerns over Europe’s debt crisis and the relentlessly negative narrative emanating from Canberra.

We now have an Australian public that is willing itself into recession as many governments actively drive us there for fear of breaking the budget surplus promise.

But recessions are part of a market economy – what goes up must come down. The question is, how far will we fall, how hard will we hit the ground and how long will it take to recover?

Seth Godin believes there are two recessions: The first is the cyclical one, the one that inevitably comes and then inevitably goes. There’s plenty of evidence that intervention can shorten it, and also indications that overdoing a response to it is a waste or even harmful. The other recession, though, the one with the loss of “factory jobs” and systemic unemployment – is here forever.

Read all…

“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.”

Those words of Robbie Burns, Scotland’s favourite son, never rang so true so often as when facilitating a difficult meeting. You’ve prepared an agenda, you’ve done some background work by interviewing participants and you have an artifice or three to keep people engaged. Then someone derails the plans you have so diligently prepared and you madly try to steer things back on course. Suddenly you feel naive and an overwhelming desire to head home and change careers.

Ah Robbie, why did thee not supplieth the solution – instead of stating the bleeding obvious and being all poetic about it.

Read all…

In the world of PR, everyone is fighting for the same space. You choose a publication based on the target audience but, realistically, if there’s only one issue per month and the section is filling up – you need to create a story that stands out.

It is much the same with advertising. Connecting with the audience is a complex balance of variables which contribute to the effectiveness of an advert, whether it’s on television, radio, in print or online.

Read all…