Hopefully all our blog readers have seen our latest launch, a custom facebook page product which we announced last month. We’ve had lots of interest in our insanely bargainacious launch offer, and are working with a number of exciting businesses to turbo charge their Facebook presence as a result – but several are still Secret Squirrel, as they’re brand new businesses whose Facebook pages will be unveiled as part of a marketing plan.

One of the first projects to go live, though, is a number of custom tabs for the superb Apex venue in Bury St Edmunds. In addition to a cool new landing page for the main venue, and an extra dedicated tab showcasing their conferencing facilities, we created a standalone Facebook mini-site for a big event. We thought you’d be interested to see how this works, as a demonstration of  how powerful these Facebook business pages can be.

Fashion Fusion at the Apex

The Fashion Fusion event is designed to give local Bury St Edmunds fashion retailers an opportunity to showcase their new collections, through a fully professional, glamorous catwalk show. Run for the first time in April 2011, it was a huge success, involving over thirty retailers and raising thousands of pounds for charity. The Apex team decided immediately that an event should be planned for 2012, to be even bigger.

The marketing challenge

Marketing for next year’s event is in the early stages, but in order to make the day as successful as possible, the Apex team need to achieve two things: to involve as many local retailers as possible, and to build anticipation amongst the public and ensure that everyone who’s interested remembers to get their tickets.

Without a dedicated website for the event, and with some local press coverage imminent, they needed a place to send interested retailers and potential attendees in order to register their interest, and ensure that the event audience is kept informed. We were confident that a well designed Facebook page would be able to meet those needs.

And here it is!

You can see a screenshot of the custom page we created on the right. Here’s what makes it work:

Strong colours, images and splash branding ensure that the page makes a real impression on the visitor.

Then, they are encouraged (1)  to click the Like button, which ensures that all those visitors opt in to getting any future Facebook posts into their news feeds – straight away, the event is starting to make connections with those future customers.

The team were also keen to let people know that there’s a Twitter account (2) for the event, providing another way to keep up with news nearer the time.

The Twitter icon and text is a clickable hotspot, opening a new window which goes straight to the Fashion Fusion twitter page.

Most importantly, the page includes full signup facilities (3) creating separate mailing lists for interested retailers and  VIP pre-event ticket sales.

Julie Warren, Development Manager at the Apex said:

“”We were delighted with the success of last year’s Fashion Fusion event, and want to make an early start on getting the word out to Bury St Edmunds about the next one.

Rose McGrory did a great job of interpreting our brief, providing a really eyecatching and visual page which will encourage people to get involved. We’d definitely recommend them to anyone who wants a great Facebook page at a very reasonable rate!”

If you’re local to Bury St Edmunds and would like to attend, or get involved with the event as a retailer, just go to www.facebook.com/FashionFusionApex

Bury St Edmunds’ Theatre Royal has been blazing a trail with the use of social media.
The External Relations team are already using social media to reach new audiences, and increase engagement with the local community. The approach is working well to promote both the theatre productions, and also the wider use of the building itself which is a National Trust site.

As well as providing the venue for part of this year’s  Suffolk Twestival, the theatre has run a number of events making really innovative use of social media: a Tweeting tour of the beautiful building, and invitations for local social media users to attend dress rehearsals and respond to the production in real time via Twitter or Facebook!

So, we’re delighted to announce that Rose McGrory are working with the Theatre Royal team on their social media strategy. Over the coming months, we’ll be helping them to build on their existing achievements, to extend their use of social platforms and to work towards a diverse set of objectives which will benefit the whole organisation – from increasing the proportion of advance bookings, to reaching different sections of the community.

The team at the Theatre Royal are enthusiastic, creative and fun to work with – we’re looking forward to doing some great things together! Kate came out of the project kickoff meeting yesterday absolutely buzzing with ideas:

“It’s brilliant to be working with an organisation who are so open minded about using social media across many aspects of the business, not just the obvious promotional and ticket sales uses. Despite the pressures of a difficult funding environment, the Theatre Royal is approaching the whole engagement piece with exactly the right attitude, and we’re really excited to see where the next stage will lead”

Kate (on left) with the Theatre Royal team: Left to right, Alex (Press intern), Elise (External Relations Assistant), Chris (Head of External Relations), Sophie (Press & Communications), Emma (Marketing Officer) and Ellen (Marketing Intern).