Giles Edwards, Director at Gasp said, “By synchronising the social media campaign across all the media channels, Gasp is ensuring that correct and timely information is available whichever one is accessed. It’s a big job and we need to be meticulous in updating the sites, but our enthusiastic and dedicated team are up to it.”

The Facebook page is particularly successful with regularly updated news and information and plenty of pictures. With a bespoke logo, it looks good. It’s very well designed and easy to use so that it’s rapidly becoming the first place people turn to when they want to know more.

To boost the Facebook following Gasp ran a series of competitions between October and Christmas 2011 for new followers to win free rounds of golf at the Club. By early 2012, the Facebook following had rocketed to more than 550 people and plenty are talking about it.

One of the key marketing and PR objectives for Gasp is getting people to visit the club. Windlesham is a stunning golf club and once there, visitors are usually impressed by the course, the ‘inclusive’ atmosphere as well as the ongoing investment in the grounds and facilities. To that end, Gasp not only designed and managed the Facebook competitions, but a short video that is hosted on the Club’s new YouTube channel which showcases the stunning grounds and facilities at Windlesham Golf Club.

Twitter is used to spread the word about special events such as the Mothers’ Day lunch and the Ladies Indoor Putting Clinic. With regular Tweeting they’re attracted a number of fans and so far the club has attracted 782 followers in a short time.

The LinkedIn page is more corporate, detailing how the company is structured, who’s who and encouraging a community between staff and members. Together Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn cover all bases. Each medium calls for different treatment but by ensuring content is bang up-to-date Gasp is ensuring that Windlesham Golf Club looks professional and attractive all the time.

Underpinning the social media programme is the Club’s PR outreach. Gasp’s integrated approach to marketing ensures that all content created by the dedicated PR team is synchronised and leveraged across all appropriate marketing channels – and that includes social media.

Edwards concluded,

“That means that club events are not only promoted to local press, but via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and through more traditional marketing channels like the web site and printed material too. The beauty of this approach for clients is that it’s both seamless and highly cost-effective.”

“Having a beard says ‘I work in advertising, I’m creative and I’ve got more important things on my mind than shaving’,” says Campaign’s editor, Claire Beale.

Personally, I don’t think having a beard versus not having a beard is as simple as black versus white. There are many grays. Without getting too distracted with my own classification I have a beard and I work in advertising. I’m creative and I’ve got more important things on my mind than shaving. So, if I ever bumped into Claire Beale I guess small-talk wouldn’t be required!

Read the original article, How to get ahead in advertising, here

At one point, one of the marketing agency consultants remarked that he’d never met PR people who knew so much about SEO. Now, while it’s always nice to receive a such a compliment..especially in front of a client…(!) it did leave me wondering if there really is a widespread lack of understanding of SEO by PRs, and vice versa.

Where are the boundaries? Perhaps it’s something along the lines of SEO aiming to ensure that the brand’s website ranks well in search engine results for relevant search terms.

PR on the other hand aims to ensure the brand has a positive reputation amongst its audiences.

The Blog Battle

Blogs are a potential area of conflict. A corporate blog provides an ideal opportunity to post lots of keyword-rich copy on the company website to attract the attention of search engines. PR on the other hand will want to use it to publish thought leadership pieces and news announcements.

I say the two objectives don’t have to be mutually exclusive. If the SEO team is willing to provide key phrase insights, PR can make subtle use of them.

Different copywriting styles

Content generation can be a battleground too. SEO practice is based around reach and volume whereas the PR content should be more focused on careful messaging and quality.

The the press release for example. The first aim of a press release is to ensure the story gets picked up by as many journalists as possible; the release is designed to catch their attention. When the PR writes press releases, their first audience is the journalist… not the client and not the search engines (although there’s no reason why the latter shouldn’t be a secondary audience).

Get your SEO and PR people working in synch, the results can be wonderful; I’ve seen it happen.

In most organisations there’s no shortage of people with the right skills, so the barriers to achieving this are largely political. It’s really just a matter of getting them to work well together.

Ascot, Berkshire, 24 October 2011 – Berkshire-based creative marketing agency, Gasp, today announced that it has been appointed by Windlesham Golf Club to provide public relations (PR) and social media management services.

The par 72, 6,650-yard course was designed by PGA Tour veteran Tommy Horton and is situated just off the junction with the A30 and A322 in Windlesham, Surrey. The management team at Windlesham Golf Club is largely comprised of a mix of golf professionals and entrepreneurs from outside of the traditional golfing industry and is keen to match its public profile with its reputation for innovation and service.

Peter Lumley, Managing Director at Windlesham Golf Club explained, “The Club prides itself on having a truly inclusive personality and an obsessive approach to perfectionism. Everything from the modern but sophisticated décor right through to the relaxed and friendly atmosphere makes the Windlesham Golf experience extremely attractive among business and golf members.”

Sophie Anderson, Director at Gasp added, “We are already a trusted marketing partner at Windlesham Golf Club as the supplier of creative design and collaterals. We are now also running a sustained PR and social media campaign that will feature news, competitions, an active Facebook community and Twitter feed. The Club is an excellent venue not only for golf, but also for corporate events and meetings. We’ll be proactively leveraging its extensive community of happy customers in our promotions.”

Ascot, Berkshire, 2nd August 2011 – Gasp, the Berkshire-based creative marketing agency, has been appointed as an official partner of Uncharted Play to boost brand awareness of its innovative sOccket product; a soccer ball that captures the energy during game play to be used later to charge LEDs and batteries. Ready for mass distribution across the globe this summer, the life-changing electricity product is designed to support impoverished communities.

sOccket will initially benefit from Gasp’s expertise as part of a new annual project that helps companies develop their marketing, completely free-of-charge. The team has created a whole new brand personality for sOccket, complete with new logo as well as a new website; a critical tool in raising the profile of the product.

“The input and expertise from Gasp to develop the sOccket brand ready for mass distribution and marketing has been invaluable. After a year of testing sOccket across Africa, Spain and Haiti, it has been really exciting to see the brand come to life. The Gasp team are creative, innovative and have fresh ideas; all of which will help us to empower hundreds of thousands of people worldwide living without modern energy to get safe, immediate access to electricity,” said Jessica Matthews, CEO at Uncharted Play.

Sophie Anderson, Director at Gasp added, “We were looking to use the skills of the team at Gasp to do something for the greater good and discovered the sOccket. It’s such a simple yet innovative product, which addresses the power-crisis; and we felt it a worthwhile cause to offer our services to Uncharted Play to help them market it.”

In most African countries, 95% of the population is living with no access to electricity (World Bank Millennium Goals Report, 2006). The World Bank estimates that breathing the fumes created from burning kerosene indoors equals the harmful effects of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. To address this, the sOccket harnesses the rotational kinetic (motion) energy of a soccer ball during normal game play and stores it to be used later for energy. After playing with the ball, the child can return home and use the ball to connect a LED lamp to read, study, or illuminate the home.

The ball uses an inductive coil mechanism to generate energy. sOccket is still in prototyping stage, where 15 minutes of play can light three hours of LED light. For more information about sOccket and the global power crisis visit www.soccket.com

As a brand with aggressive growth plans over the next five years, they are investing heavily in lead generation activities and asked Gasp to propose some fresh new ideas to rejuvenate existing activity and give them opportunities to target niche markets.

The SkillSoft Essential Briefing was born. Alongside the internal marketing/news team at SkillSoft who have been promoted to Editor, News Editor and Features Editor, Gasp will design and produce the newspaper which will help them cross and up sell their products and services, re-purpose their extensive news coverage and add credibility to their brand when breaking into new markets.

We are very much looking forward to working with them on this project which will launch in October.