That time of year is once again upon us. The festive season, or more accurately the silly season, is a time of year in which diets, budgets and all too often common sense are thrown out the window.

We have all heard the story of the ‘friend of a friend’ who, having overindulged at the work Christmas party, informed their boss in no uncertain terms just exactly how they felt about his/her management style.  Once the hangover had passed, unsurprisingly the ‘friend of a friend’ found their position at work was less than tenable. Read all…

“Ratings have been disabled for this video.” That’s what Youtube says when you visit the Chasers’ grimacingly funny take on the dis-ingeniousness of Qantas. I really thought many times about the usefulness of this blog piece but, here I go, let’s dive in. Before the post-mortem, let me just state this is not an attack on Qantas. It’s a cry for common sense and honest communication. A warning to all those PR hacks working diligently on ‘key messages’ that are best left to shiny toothed travelling salesman. Read all…

Last Friday I attended a lunchtime seminar hosted by the Victorian chapter of the IABC on Crisis Communication.  Rhod’s opening  blog focuses on Qantas from a pr perspective already this issue,  so I won’t cover that specific case study here.  One of the observations from the session focusing on social media  talked about  the importance of understanding the difference between having an ‘online presence’ and ‘online engagement’.  The issue with the Qantas team was that they thought an online presence and a cool (?) idea was enough. However, without focusing on stakeholder engagement the campaign sank like a lead A380. A ‘new level of comfort, innovation and style’ indeed.

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89% of companies will use social media networks for recruiting in 2011. Most will do some stalking on Linked In, some Facebook profiling and perhaps set up a Careers page with some social media sharing buttons. Let us show you how to go much much deeper to transform your recruitment strategy, driving down staff turnover and costs at the same time.

In response to rapidly increasing interest in sophisticated social recruiting, Ellis Jones has launched a program of workshops for company HR and Recrutiment Teams.

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“If you want to make a song more hummy, add a few tiddely poms.” - Winnie the Pooh.

No matter what you want your website, social media stream or blog to do for your business, compelling content is non negotiable. Content that connects with your stakeholders, inspires action and arms them with a story worth repeating.

Australians spend more time talking to their friends and colleagues about what they like and don’t like than their US counterparts.  Now that we pass a significant part of our week online, story telling has become entrenched in our online activity.  Take a look at the first on and offline study on word of mouth done last year by Keller Fay – you may be surprised! Read all…

In an environment of rapid change affecting both industry and government, online community engagement has become increasingly important to ensure stakeholder participation. But how have community engagement practitioners traversed the digital divide to ensure the representation of older Australians?

Social media has given both Government and NGOs cost-effective tools which allow them to easily engage with larger audiences more than ever before – but are they inclusive? Has the emergence of these channels further disenfranchised the most overlooked segments of our society?

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Ever felt that the speed and intensity at which you’re attacking every week could actually be harmful, unproductive or just down right wrong?

You’re not alone. Like belching smokestacks and mowing down native forests, there are some things any thinking human knows are wrong. Problem is, we often wait too long to do something about it. Read all…

As with every other communication and marketing discipline, employer branding strategy is being redefined by the advent and meteoric rise of social media.

Our agency has invested significant resources into the development of a social recruiting model that establishes employer presence and reputation while managing risk. That journey has seen us take a hard look at standard employer branding models and how they need to change to be effective on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

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Are we listening to older Australians? That was the question asked at the ACSA 2011 National Conference, where Rhod Ellis-Jones and Kate Crawshaw pointed the conference delegates in the new direction. In the marketing and social media direction post aged care reform, that is.

In an engaging two-part workshop Rhod and Kate discussed how changes proposed by the Productivity Commission will impact on aged care providers from a communications perspective. Read all…

With top ranked websites receiving upwards of 42% of all click-through traffic, it could be argued that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the most important weapon in a business’ on-line armoury.

In a futuristic world of meta-tags, keywords and html coding, SEO can quickly become a Terminator like battle between humans and robots. With search engine robots creeping unseen through your web-site, SEO can become too focussed on making your website as robot friendly as possible, often to the detriment of the human end user. Read all…