By IMAGE
29th May 2018
29th May 2018
Lauren Murphy has come from a background in Business & Law to the world of Digital Marketing back in 2013. Since then she has worked in a range of Digital roles including Digital Marketing Management & Social Media Strategy. Lauren is currently the Head of Social Media in the advertising agency ‘goosebump’ and lectures in Social Media at The Digital Marketing Institute, Trinity College Dublin & DIT.
Ahead of our first Mentoring workshop of the year taking place on Tuesday evening, 26th June at the Merrion hotel, we asked Lauren Murphy, head of social at Goosebump the importance and effectiveness of social media, and how it’s an essential component of any professional business strategy in today’s society.
How did you begin to work in the realm of social media?
I started off working as an intern in an agency called Radical (now ‘core’) as a Social Media intern. Radical won ‘Social Media Agency of The Year’ 4 years in a row when I was working there so it really was the ideal place for me to learn from the best!
As a lecturer in social media, what are the main components that contribute to a successful and healthy relationship with social media platforms? Especially for a professional business.
As a business, the best thing you can do to ensure you have a successful & healthy relationship with Social Media is to have a firm content & social media strategy in place. It is important for any business with a social presence that their team is aligned as to what the role of social is for the business, what value they are aiming to get out of it & how they plan to achieve their goals. When a business has a strong social media strategy they can ensure they get the right content, in front of the right people, at the right time.
Tell us about your role as head of social at goosebump and what kind of projects you’re working on at the moment.
My role is to lead the Social Media team & expand our Social offering into the exciting new territories we have planned for the future! Some of my favourite projects we are working on at the moment involve helping our client’s bridge the gap between shopper & social. In goosebump, we see social as a shopper tool that can help drive sales by supporting other advertising efforts to ensure our client’s brands are front of mind when customers go instore.
Do you think that the recent controversy and investigation surrounding Facebooks Cambridge Analytica data scandal will affect the future of their company? / How can we as the public continue to trust this social media site with our personal information?
I don’t think it will affect the future of their company negatively. We have not seen any significant drop in reach in advertisement since the scandal which would suggest the usership of the platform has not dropped. Facebook is just too big for users to abandon. That being said, businesses advertising on Facebook now need to be more cognizant than ever to police themselves. They need to ensure they are capturing, using & managing data ethically & in compliance with GDPR.
Social media has caused concerns for our younger generation for many reasons, including cyberbullying, harassment and access to disturbing images and videos surfacing online. How do you feel about this topic and what advice would you give to concerned parents?
I would advise parents to be the one who introduces their child to the internet. This will be beneficial for both the child & the parent. I’d tell parents to let their children show them what they like to do online & encourage their kids to tell them if they ever have any negative experiences. Lastly, I would advise them to warn their children of the dangers that might be associated with sharing personal information online.
What has been the most positive impact of social media in your opinion? (For a brand?)
People are 90% more likely to trust a recommendation from a friend than one from a brand. With that in mind, I would say the most valuable thing a business can get from social media is when their customers become advocates for their brand.
How do we avoid the negative side of social media platforms?
As a brand, there’s a number of ways you can avoid negativity on your page. We create ‘House Rules’ for our brand pages which act as a Rules of Engagement for social users interacting with the page. A brand can also create a list of negative keywords, and if any comment exhibits any of said keywords it will automatically be removed from the page. From an advertising perspective, negative accounts & full audiences of social users can be blocked from seeing or interacting with ads.
Across industries, social media has drastically changed from a “nice to have” app on your phone to an essential component of any business strategy, how important is it for people to brush up on their social media skills in today’s society?
If you are not applying a social media strategy, your business is missing out on an incredible marketing opportunity. Having strong social media skills will allow any business to (name a few); leverage the power of social media advertising, boost brand awareness & increase conversion rates.
Join IMAGE contributing editor Melanie Morris for a luxurious evening at The Merrion Hotel, starting with a Ruinart champagne reception with paired canapes, before learning how to bring the maximum return to your time spent on social media.
Photo credit Caitriona Lawless
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