Author Archives: sequentia

Video: 3 lessons from the frontlines of B2B social media

by sequentia

“Social business” has quickly turned into a buzzword, but for many companies figuring out the best way to deploy social media tools for a B2B audience can still be a big challenge. Every organization has a different comfort level with social media, and not every channel is appropriate for your business niche.

To help sort out the Facebook likes from the Google+s, our sister company Environics recently hosted a panel discussion entitled The B2B Social World with Ryan Poissant of MaRS, Samantha Morris of Backup Heroes, Rob Maurin of Wave Accounting and Amrita Chandra from Sequentia Environics.

Check out the event on YouTube, including insights such as:

• Why Google+ might be an overlooked but effective B2B tool
• How Facebook can be used to improve intercompany communication
• When to use a blog to establish thought leadership

What social media channels have successfully met your particular B2B needs? Feel free to share with us some of your recent experiences.

Looking for contract Community Managers!

by sequentia

Sequentia Environics, a digital marketing agency with a focus on building online communities and generating leads, is looking for an experienced Community Manager and Moderator for ongoing freelance or contract work. At Sequentia, we help clients like HP, The Globe and Mail, Bell, and Microsoft turn their audiences into their communities.

At Sequentia, you’ll work with a super smart team of community and content strategists, writers, developers, and client services consultants. Your amazing people and communication skills will be put to work managing active communities and developing new community strategies.

Skills and experience required:

  • 2-3 years active online community management/moderation (experience with forum-based communities is a plus)
  • Strong familiarity with social media concepts and current events
  • Strong familiarity with common social media platforms (blogs, forums, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, etc)
  • Strong writing skills in English (French is an asset)
  • Light HTML/CSS (for example ability to properly format blog posts)
  • Familiarity with the Lithium and vBulletin platforms is a plus
  • Familiarity with Enterprise software is a plus

Sequentia is located in a funky office space near Queen and Spadina in beautiful downtown Toronto. Sequentia has a unique and supportive culture. We’re smart people, working hard, and making a difference.

If this sounds like you, please get in touch

Opening for Researcher (CONTRACT)

by sequentia

Sequentia Environics, a digital marketing agency, is looking for a contract Researcher with strengths in qualitative, online research. You’ll work with an eclectic team of strategists and researchers, gathering insight for brands such as Microsoft, HP, The Globe and Mail and many more.

What you’ll do:

  • Gathering qualitative data through Advanced Google search and tools such as Sysomos and Scout Labs.
  • Assisting in qualitative interviews and coding interview data.
  • Working with the Strategy and Research team to analyze data and develop insights.
  • Analyzing and reporting on quantitative research.

What you’ll have:

  • Academic degree;
  • Past experience in online qualitative research;
  • Proven ability to effectively manage your time and deliverables;
  • An eye for accuracy and attention to detail;
  • Hands-on mentality;
  • Experience using advanced Google search;
  • Excellent communicative and written skills in English;
  • Experience using Social Media Monitoring Tools is a plus.

If this sounds like you, please get in touch with your resume and references.

Emotional (brand) rescue: why more companies should put some heart on their sleeves

by sequentia
Warhol portrait of Mick Jagger

Brands that tap into the emotional drivers of their audience have a definite advantage over their more rational, Spock-like competitors. We have seen proof of this time and again with brands that develop nearly identical products yet experience dramatically divergent success rates: Nike vs. Reebok, Dell vs. Apple and Red Bull vs. any other energy drink on the market.

I also witnessed this firsthand while conducting competitive research on three major car manufacturers: Kia, Mazda and Volkswagen. I was interested in finding out how their social programs stacked up, expecting to see Mazda and Volkswagen take the lead history in connecting with their audience and making their brands culturally significant. Instead I found the opposite.

All three competitors have social programs that span the usual suspects of social platforms (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs), they all run regular contests and sweepstakes and are all fairly engaged with their audience. But Kia was mentioned over three times as often as any other competitor and had far more on-platform engagement, despite having less than half of the reach of a brand like VW. Why? The reason appears to be that Kia was the only brand that did an effective job of tying their content strategy, contests and brand messaging to the emotions and motivations of their audience.

Kia’s brand attributes hinge on environmentalism and social responsibility. This resonates loud and clear throughout every piece of online content and contest. Social content that touches on these attributes, connecting with the emotions of their audience, receives the highest amounts of participation and engagement. Kia has managed to outshine their much larger, older and well-known competitors by understanding the emotional drivers of their audience (what makes them tick, what they care about) and then developing social and content strategies that align with these values. It’s not brain surgery but it can have a big impact on driving social engagement and relationships.

research

Are you currently planning content or social strategies? Are they aligned with the emotions and motivations of your audience?

Image credit: Oddsock

Looking for Freelance Graphic and Web Designers

by sequentia

Hey, are you a freelance web or graphic designer? Let’s chat.

Sequentia Environics, a digital marketing agency with a focus on building online communities and generating leads, is looking to find a Designer with strengths in front-end web design and general graphic design for ongoing freelance work. At Sequentia, we help clients like HP, The Globe and Mail, Bell, and Microsoft turn their audiences into their communities.

At Sequentia, you’ll work with a super smart team of community and content strategists, writers, developers, and client services consultants. Your design skills will be put to work on a variety of internal and client projects, ranging from info graphic design to illustration to PowerPoint decks to web design.

Skills required:

* Strong familiarity with PowerPoint. Yes, PowerPoint. Keynote too, but mostly PowerPoint
* High degree of expertise with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop or equivalent
* Good working knowledge of HTML and CSS – hand coded, preferably
* Highly organized and able to manage multiple deadlines
* 3-5+ years design experience

Sequentia is located in a funky office space near Queen and Spadina in beautiful downtown Toronto. Sequentia has a unique and supportive culture. We’re smart people, working hard, and making a difference.

If this sounds like you, please get in touch with your resume and a link to your online portfolio.

Hiring: Junior Content Producer

by sequentia

Sequentia Environics, a digital marketing agency with a focus on building online communities and generating leads, is looking to hire a Junior Content Developer for a 3-month renewable contract. At Sequentia, we help clients like HP, The Globe and Mail, Bell, and Microsoft turn their audiences into their communities.

As a Junior Content Developer, you’ll get to work with and learn from some of the best and brightest minds in the brave new content marketing landscape. Your days will be filled with writing, editing, interviewing and researching, while helping to execute highly effective content marketing strategies. We’re doing some cool stuff with content, and we need your help.

Skills required:

  • Strong writing and editing, ideally with a background in journalism or PR
  • Familiarity and interest with social media tools and networks
  • Relentless attention to detail
  • Highly organized and able to manage multiple deadlines
  • Passion for development of audience profiles and editorial calendars

You’ll be working with us in our funky office space near Queen and Spadina in beautiful downtown Toronto. Sequentia has a unique and supportive culture. We’re smart people, working hard, and making a difference.

If this sounds like you, please get in touch with your resume and a link to your online portfolio.

6 Key Insights For Building A Successful Community

by sequentia

How do you ensure your online community is a success? Online community programs take a lot of thought, planning and work to get them off the ground, but if done correctly can bring so much value for members and brands.

Community

While there is no silver bullet when it comes to ensuring the success of an online community, recent research on Digg and Reddit, two of the most prolific online communities, have highlighted the following elements as necessary for designing or managing a community that will thrive:

  • Optional anonymity. The ability for users to remain private helps shift the focus onto issues rather than individuals. Anonymity is also critical to help promote collective action within a community setting.

  • Democracy. The basic need for community is driven by a desire for collective action and a change in the balance of power.

  • Earned authority. While authority is tolerated in communities, it must be earned rather than appointed.

  • A strong sense of purpose. Every community needs a purpose or collective agenda, whether implicit or explicit. This purpose needs to go beyond products, services and tactical activities.

  • Transparency in operation and intent. The heart of an online community involves its relationship to a countercultural agenda. Transparency in operation forms a critical piece of that approach.

  • Inclusive ownership with scale. Every community should provide a mechanism for members to take ownership of certain areas of interest. This is especially important as a community begins to grow, as it allows for the development of collective identities.

To learn more, download the full research report (registration required).

 

Photo credit: Jack Louis Batchelor

4 tactics for engaging your brand’s biggest fans

by sequentia

Are you looking for ways to take better advantage of your brand advocates? The Social Media Examiner recently published a post entitled 9 Reasons Your Company Should Use Brand Advocates that described different attributes of brand advocates and provided suggestions for engaging with them. Based on their findings I’d like to share the following four tactics that Sequentia uses to wrangle and engage a client’s biggest fans:

Continue reading »

How starting your own charity can make you a more effective employee

by sequentia
Do you ever wonder about the best way to make a difference? What started as a backyard chat among a handful of university students trying to answer that same question evolved into a not-for-profit charitable foundation known as The Burgundy Brick Foundation. Since its creation in 2007, The Burgundy Brick Foundation has raised over $150,000 for Habitat for Humanity Toronto. We started with a simple goal of making a difference. But there was a catch. There were only four of us, all young women in their late teenage years working boring and temporary summer jobs. This meant we only had three months to accomplish our goal of before we had to go back to The University of Western Ontario. Continue reading »

Sequentia strategist to debate Internet culture at NXNEi

by sequentia
What is Internet culture, and why has it become so significant to society and business? On June 16, Sequentia community strategist Ujwal Arkalgud will try and answer these and other questions as part of the NXNE interactive panel, “Internet culture, its proliferation and observation.” This panel will debate and define Internet culture, examining the significance of various memes and what happens to them when they cross over into mainstream culture. The panel will look at some of the unique aspects of Internet culture, including the fact that creators often find themselves interacting with culture watchers, who play a key role in curating and promoting the creators’ content. Ujwal will also share findings from his recent research with colleague Heather Morrison, which they compiled in the report, “A Guide to Successful Community Building: Lessons from Reddit and Digg.” (Available with no registration required on SlideShare.)