Event season is upon us. We joined local recruitment experts Adlib earlier in the month for another fully booked breakfast seminar focussing on microblogging before heading up to London for Media140 which focused on the Third Sector, a space that we are working in more and more these days.

TFM&A - Technology for Marketing and Advertising - takes place on 23rd & 24th February at Earls Court and we'll be joining forces with Sift Media and PracticeWEB to run a Social Media Marketing theatre, featuring speakers from SiftGroups, Salesforce, RightNow, Sift Media, Oracle and PracticeWEB. Then a quick dash across town to Olympia for Publishing Expo where our lead consultant Peter Furtado will be speaking.

Then onwards into March & our next Social Media Masterclass which will be happening closer to home at the Watershed in Bristol on the 26th. Featuring Dan Martin, the Masterclass will give real and practical examples to illustrate how Twitter can boost membership, drive up revenues & raise awareness of your brand. If you think that you would be interest in attending our Masterclass please contact Polly Holbrook.

If you'd like to join us at any of these events, please do get in touch. I look forward to seeing some of you there.

James Skinner
Managing Director SiftGroups

SiftGroups News

We are pleased to announce that we can introduce a new member of the team. Tom Lambert has come to us as our new Sales Consultant, coming from a background of selling private social networking sites delivering on-boarding and community solutions. Welcome Tom!

With an exciting and varied set of new projects starting soon, we’re looking to add a further PHP developer, Project Manager and Account Executive into our existing team. If you think that you would be interested in these positions and would like some further information, please do not hesitate to contact Polly Holbrook.

New Consultancy offering

What we offer our clients

We’ve worked with some clients on defining their new web offerings, with others on technology solutions, and with yet more on training and consultancy in bringing their plans to fruition. A few have travelled the entire journey with us.

As you know, we recommend our clients find ways to collaborate with their customers, so in turn we’d like to collaborate with you - helping you think through planning and sustaining your new web presence, and hoping you can help us at the same time. So we’ve developed a complete suite of workshops, audits, training courses and technology covering all aspects of your communications, content, community and commerce. These cover the five key phases of your project:

• Defining your USP
• Diagnosing your assets and needs
• Designing your web presence
• Delivering the build
• Developing your skills and your ROI

Wherever you are on this journey, and whether or not SiftGroups is your sole partner on the way, we’d be very happy to talk to you about where you are and where you might go next to make the most of your investment.

Read more about the new consultancy offering

Homebuilding & Renovating, Community Healthcheck

Homebuilding & Renovating magazine is the UK’s best-selling title for anyone interested in creating their dream home through self-build, renovation or conversion.

The challenge

As Homebuilding & Renovating found, when you’re working with your website every day, it can be difficult to see improvements that could be made. The previous website had been in place for a number of years; functionally and from a design perspective was quite dated.

The Solution

Conducted by our experienced consultancy team, we provided a qualitative and quantitative review of the Homebuilding & Renovating website.

First our consultants carried out an overall quality review covering design, editorial, usability, navigation, structure, interactivity and social media adoption. Homebuilding & Renovating were then presented with an overall summary of the site, highlighting what was working well and which areas could be improved, as well as an action plan for delivering those improvements.

Read more about the Homebuilding & Renovating healthcheck

Latest from our blog

It’s time to expand your social media policy
by Elena Goodrum

A few weeks ago we asked if you have a social media policy, and gave you some ideas for how to create a simple plan which will enable your internal team to help support the audience-facing representatives of your company or organisation. But a social media policy is more than just knowing how to respond to online enquiries in a timely manner. It’s also about how your organisation presents its brand online, and how individuals within your organisation speak about your brand in their own...

A 3-Part Guide to Content Strategy - Part 1: Publish and Don’t be Damned
by Peter Furtado

We talk a lot about community and community management, blogging and content-sharing, but while the sexy stuff is important, don’t forget the old-fashioned arts of editing and publishing when you’re planning and developing the inhouse parts of your website. Content management systems normally offer two friendly buttons at the bottom of the page, one marked Preview, the other Publish. Of course, your access rights to those buttons will have been set by the site manager, but if you...

Do you have a social media policy?
by Elena Goodrum

What happens when someone asks you a tricky question in your community, website, Facebook page, Twitter page or blog? Do you answer them? How long does it take you to answer? If you don't know the answer, do you know the appropriate person to contact in your organisation? Does that person understand the importance of timeliness in a web environment? Every organisation needs a team of internal “champions” to help support the audience-facing person of their team (you may call...

Read more and comment on these blog posts.

10 twitter tips from Dan Martin

1. Retweet, retweet, retweet!

If you're new to Twitter you may be confused by the regular use of 'RT'. This stands for retweeting which is the reposting of particular tweets from other people on your page which you find particularly interesting or useful. It's worthwhile doing this as it demonstrates to your followers you're not all about flogging your products or services but you're also willing to share tips and advice.

Read more of our Twitter Tips.