This week’s guest blogger is Linda Higgins, former journalist turned some time social media something or other (just don’t use that Guru word!)
Once upon a time, there was a teenager with ambitions to make it big in the world of journalism and become the next Kate Adie or something similar. Except that I never did like hot climates or wars or loud noises, so that probably wasn’t a very realistic career plan.
So I settled for starting off in a national newspaper newsroom – not a bad place to embark on one’s journalism career.
I went on to enjoy a great and varied 16 years within different newspapers departments. I worked in news and learned to cover sensitive stories about death, drugs and poverty. I did lengthy interviews with celebrities. I lived in the city centre and made the most of the night life. At one point, I was out reviewing music gigs every second night of the week. Rock ‘n roll!
However, time moved on and I grew older and living in the city lost its attraction. I knew that I was all grewed up when I found myself moving to the countryside and acquiring a mortgage and a husband, followed by two sons.
Commuting an 80-mile round trip to work when I had been used to a five-minute stroll was a bit of a shocker, as was the realisation that I did not want to leave my kids when realistically I could do at least some work from home.
When I first started off in journalism, our computers were basic. We used pagers to keep in contact with the newsdesk and then later acquired mobile phones the size of house bricks. Research was done the old-fashioned way via phone or searching through clippings in libraries. If I was out on an urgent news story, then I had to find a pay phone and phone my copy in to a copy taker. And I am talking about the mid to late 1990s here – not decades ago!
It’s amazing how far we have come up in a decade when it comes to using and embracing technology.
I am very thankful for all the advances as it has given me both the chance to work from home all the time and to learn new skills and forge a new career.
I eventually took a redundancy package from the newspaper (it was that or the offer of a staff job with even more commuting involved and that was not going to happen…) I freelanced for a while, but then that work inevitably dried up as the recession started to bite.
Then early in 2010, I came across the opportunity to become the Meath Associate for Mykidstime.ie. Established by two mums in Galway, this website aims to become the definitive resource for parents and service providers and it is packed with information on local events, classes and activities for kids. They were looking for a local person in each county so I started the Meath site and also recently set up the Louth site. And we went national in October 2011.
Writing and managing the website is ideal for me. I can work from home and around the kids’ school times. I love writing content and imparting useful information to parents. I have enjoyed getting to grips with the IT aspects of working on the content management system side of a website. I have paying advertisers (this is where I make a few bob!) and it’s really rewarding to be able to give them positive feedback and statistics about campaigns and competitions that we are running at any given time. We can also offer an online bookings system, which works very well for small to medium-sized companies who don’t have a website or an online merchant provider.
The other upside is that I can wangle the odd free pass to a family attraction to test it out and blog about it. A friend phoned me recently as we were coming out of Tayto Park’s Halloween Attraction (great place, by the way! 
) and she drily commented that I seem to have replaced the freebies to music gigs to freebies to family attractions. Hey, it’s rock n’ roll parenting.
I’d already been online for several years before joining Mykidstime. In fact, I was pretty active and vocal on a certain parenting website when I was pregnant and had small babies – which is how I first met Anna from AMOSH.
I like to be busy. I am the PRO of my local Chamber of Commerce and I have been the PRO of Kells Pink Ribbon Walk since it started in 2009 (we have raised almost €250,000 for Action Breast Cancer in three years).
I am also bad at saying no to things. Even as I write this, it is way overdue and I have to look over the presentation for the Chamber AGM tomorrow before we launch our ‘Keep It Kells’ Shop Local Campaign Christmas 2011!
I was on Facebook before I joined Mykidstime.ie I thought it a fun way to catch up with friends and play games and share photographs. How little did I know that it would change my working life.
The advances in technology and the arrival of social media as an important marketing tool force have allowed me to work from home and to promote both my business and my voluntary and charity interests for free.
It’s a far cry from the days of phoning in copy.
Both my six year-old son and my 84 year-old granny are aware of Facebook and Twitter: that is how global a phenomenon both have become in recent times.
In September 2010, we at Mykidstime.ie launched our Facebook pages. We engaged the services of a ‘Social Media Guru’ (I really hate that term!) to show us all the tricks and tips that we needed to know in order to market our business pages. And believe me, Facebook becomes a completely different environment when you start to view it as a marketing tool as opposed to a place to hang out and be sociable!
Suffice to say that the team were very quick learners. By May 2011, Mykidstime.ie was nominated as a finalist in the Bord Gais Social Media Awards (Facebook Page For A Business). We were up against the likes of big businesses such as Vodafone and Meteor – not bad for a team of mammies who work part-time from home! We didn’t win our category, but it was a nice acknowledgement of how good we have been at harnessing the power of social media marketing.
In the meantime, a fellow board member of Kells Chamber who runs a web design company approached me with an idea. He was busy designing lovely websites for clients who all wanted to be on Facebook and Twitter, but didn’t know where to start.
So we sat down together and spent quite a bit of time putting together a Social Media Marketing course that I now deliver regularly to a group of people.
I find it very interesting. I enjoy showing people the basics of using social media marketing in a hands-on and hopefully non-jargon way. I don’t blind people with IT – that is not my background – but I do aim to give them some good ideas at generating creative content and effectively building and communicating with an audience.
I have a couple of other clients who simply don’t have the time or interest to manage Facebook pages and employ me to do it for them.
We get people on the courses from all sizes of companies and all walks of life. However, many of them are sole traders or own small companies. Others have taken redundancy or found themselves unemployed and have come up with a new business idea. They are all keen to learn how to use social media to get the word out there about their business.
I find that I take a huge personal interest in clients and how they progress after doing the course. I always make myself available via phone or email or Facebook for messages and tips and back-up support. In fact, I find myself checking each client’s business page regularly to see how they are getting on. I probably have enough on my plate with administrating 26 pages of my own on Facebook, but I love to see people learn new skills on the courses and then successfully apply them to their business.
So if you’re interested in learning more or doing one of the courses, then don’t FB me or Tweet me, just email me on belindajhiggins@gmail.com or phone me on 087 6864319.
I will take great interest in helping out your small business on the social media marketing front.
Possibly too much interest!
But hey, it probably beats reporting from a war zone…
Linda Higgins
