On October 10th, Team Ditzy joined a room full of inspiring local businesses and community leaders at the Eastbourne Business Awards, held at the beautiful Winter Gardens. The event was a great celebration of Eastbourne’s business community — showcasing the talent, innovation and collaboration that make our town such a great place to work and grow.

We’re absolutely delighted to share that Ditzy Media was named Employer of the Year and Young Achiever of the Year— two awards that mean a great deal to us and our team.

Young Achiever of the Year – Laura

This award recognises ambition, creativity and progress — values that sit at the heart of Ditzy Media.

It’s wonderful for both Scarlett & Laura to be recognised as finalists – and for Laura to win and see her hard work, innovation and passion being recognised in this way.

Employer of the Year

We’re equally proud to receive the Employer of the Year award.

Creating a workplace where everyone feels included, valued, and empowered has always been one of our key priorities.

“These awards mean so much to us — they’re a reflection of the hard work and creativity that every member of our team brings to Ditzy Media. We’re passionate about what we do, and it’s wonderful to see that recognised within such a strong and supportive business community.”
— Mina O’Brien, Founder, Ditzy Media

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to the Eastbourne Business Awards and Eastbourne Chamber of Commerce teams for organising such a fantastic event, and to all the sponsors who make these awards possible.

The post A Night to Remember at the Eastbourne Business Awards! appeared first on Ditzy Media.

Founded back in 2014 by Mina O’Brien, Ditzy Media began life in a spare room with a simple goal – to make social media marketing more accessible, effective, and manageable for local businesses and organisations.

Fast forward over a decade, and our business has grown into a trusted name across East Sussex and beyond, working with businesses, non-profits, and event organisers across the UK.
Over the years, we have supported a wide range of clients – and also created valuable opportunities for talented local young people to kick-start their careers in digital marketing.

We are proud to champion inclusive, practical, down-to-earth support – offering everything from 1:1 training and workshops to full-service social media management for those who simply don’t have the time to create content and keep up with the ever-changing digital world.

Reflecting on the anniversary, founder Mina O’Brien said:
“Ditzy Media has given me, and my lovely team, the opportunity to work in the heart of our community – as well as support clients across the UK and beyond. We like to think that in 11 years, we’ve made a positive difference in helping businesses and non-profits get to grips with social media and truly make it work for them.”

Here’s to the next chapter!

The post 🎉 Ditzy Media Celebrates 11 Years in Business! appeared first on Ditzy Media.

The first workshop is a good grounding on using Facebook, Instagram, the Meta Business Suite and LinkedIn.

Join us as we go through tips to save you time, improve the quality of your content and hopefully the results you get from your social media!

The second workshop is a deep dive into Video Marketing.  We look at creating Reels and TikTok’s, and some of the apps you can use to make creating videos easier and more impactful.

• First workshop is on 5th September  10am – 1pm. Link to book: https://ditzymedia.onlineticketseller.com/events/83121
• Second workshop is on 12th September 10am – 1pm. Link to book: https://ditzymedia.onlineticketseller.com/events/77346

Cost: £60 per workshop + booking fee.  Spaces are limited to no more than 8 people.

Venue: Chamber House, 49 Gildredge Road, Eastbourne BN21 4RY.

Any queries, please email: info@ditzymedia.com

The post Shine online with our Social Media Marketing Workshops appeared first on Ditzy Media.

We have a vacancy for a Social Media Assistant, to join our team on a part time variable hours contract.

We are a Social Media Marketing agency, located in Eastbourne town centre.

We provide support to small businesses, event organisers and non profit organisations – mostly situated in East Sussex.

We are looking for an assistant to join our team, to write and create content for our customers.

Some knowledge of Social Media is required, although training will be given.

There will also be a chance to get involved with Eastbourne Carnival 2024!

• Salary will be based on age and experience.

If you would like to find out more about this vacancy and get the full Job Description and Person Specification, please send an  email to:  info@ditzymedia.com

• Closing date for applications will be:  5pm – 4th February 2024
• Interviews will be held on 12th & 13th February 2024
• Anticipated start for this vacancy will be week beginning 19th February 2024
• We will accept applications from remote workers in the UK, though a knowledge of Eastbourne and East Sussex is desired.

The post We are Hiring! Social Media Assistant appeared first on Ditzy Media.

9 years since I decided that I would work for myself, helping local small businesses and non-profits harness the benefits of social media.

Social Media then was still a relatively new thing for businesses, and I remember there being quite a bit of scepticism about whether social media would be a contender to enhance or replace more conventional forms of marketing and advertising.

Social Media is now front and centre for most businesses and non-profits.  New careers have formed from the need to be online – and social media is just part of an ever-evolving landscape of technology.

I feel privileged to have created a business which has enabled me to work closely with our community. Whether it is through supporting clients through our outsourced service, troubleshooting tech issues, consultancy, and of course, delivering training to many start-ups, SMEs and non-profits.

I have had the good fortune to be an employer, having some fabulous people working with me now and over the years.

Over the past 9 years, I do believe Ditzy Media has helped and added value to our local community through the work that we do.

This has always been at the heart of what I wanted for Ditzy Media – and the passion that I have for our community only grows over time.

The post Celebrating 9 years in business! appeared first on Ditzy Media.

Are you looking for an opportunity to work in Social Media Marketing?

We are hiring!

Our current vacancy is for a Social Media Assistant on a part time variable hours contract.

Ditzy Media is an Eastbourne based agency, providing support to small businesses, event organisers and non profits.

We need an assistant to join our team to help with content writing and scheduling for our customers.

Salary based on age and experience.

If you would like to find out more about this vacancy and get the full Job Description and Person Specification, please email info@ditzymedia.com

Closing date for applications will be:  4^th August

Interviews will be held week beginning 8^th August

Anticipated start for this vacancy mid-late August

The post We are hiring: Social Media Assistant appeared first on Ditzy Media.

Seven years of being in business is quite a thing to achieve.  This feels especially so coming out of the pandemic.  So, to mark the occasion – here are our top highlights of Ditzy Media’s time as an agency.

Being able to support our community

Being in business gives us a unique opportunity to be a force for good when it comes to engaging with our community – doing our bit to support other business owners, charities and non profits.

We have been privileged to work with so many great SMEs and non-profits over the course of the last 7 years, and hope we have made a positive contribution, to their success using social media to meet their goals.

Supporting some rather awesome events

In our first year, we had the pleasure of supporting of Wyntercon, the first comic-con of its kind held in Eastbourne – and have gone on to partner the event each and every year since.

In 2017, we began working with Carnival Expo and sponsored their 2017 and 2018 events.  A chance for us to work in an area we are very passionate about – the business of Carnival!

The pandemic has not stopped our working with events thankfully, and we look forward to supporting the Eastbourne Vintage Festival, Wyntercon VIII and Eastbourne Carnival all taking place later this year.

Winning Awards for our work and customer service

We have been in the top ten most loved businesses in Eastbourne, and best UK PR & Media Agency on thebestof.co.uk/Eastbourne based on customer testimonials for our work and customer service.

In 2017, Mina was awarded Sussex Digital Woman of the year, which was a huge achievement – particularly receiving recognition from the Sussex community.

We are proud to have over 450 5* customer testimonials on The Best of Eastbourne.

Working on projects involving young people

We have supported Eastbourne Youth Radio, and The Big Futures Show for a number of years.  In 2021, we worked with Holding Space to contribute towards a booklet helping children with their mental health – providing guidance on tips to manage their wellbeing online.

We also get involved with school visits, Creative Cafes and work experience to try and inspire the next generation to think about tech and digital marketing as a career.

Our fabulous customers

Business is nothing without its customers.  We have had the pleasure of working with many sectors over the years including hotels, car dealerships, estate agents, home improvements, trades, food businesses, actors, authors, therapists, accountants, wedding suppliers, IT providers, events, numerous non-profits, and more!

Our training offer has seen us working with EDEAL, 3VA, Mid Sussex Voluntary Action, Business East Sussex, and the FSB East Sussex – delivering presentations, workshops and 1-2-1s.  We typically train on average 3 businesses per week so that is over a thousand businesses that we have helped start their journey online.

Looking forward

The pandemic has been a challenge for everyone, but we have loved the passion and resilience our community has shown.   We are rightly proud to be part of it and will continue to be supporting it in proving advice, training and social media marketing services, doing what we can to help!

The post 7 years in the business of Social Media appeared first on Ditzy Media.

Here are our top five writing tips to help inspire you!

Writing content for social media can be a challenge.  If you are posting 5 times a week to your social channels as a minimum, you will need to create 20 bits of shiny new content per month.

Knowing what to write to engage your followers and keep them coming back to your pages is an art in itself.

So, in the spirit of being helpful for National Writing Day 2021, we thought we would share our top five tips to help inspire and plan great content for your social media.

1. Set aside time to plan each month.

A couple of hours at the end of each month gives you the chance to reflect on your monthly analytics and consider what content performed well, and importantly, what didn’t.

You can use one of the many free social media planning templates available online – such as this one from Hubspot to help plan your key dates for the month ahead.

2. Key Blog or Vlog themes

Whether you are happy to write 300 – 1000 words once or twice a month, or go ‘live’ or do a pre-recorded video; Blogs and Vlogs lend themselves to writing richer content about a topic which relates to your business.

You could be responding to trends or current affairs which affect you or your customers, or be providing advice and information – just as we are here.

The great thing is they can become part of your evergreen content plan, which means, so long as they are not time specific, you can reuse them in future too.

3. Collaborate and support

As a business, you will have key suppliers, customers, charities and peers that you will wish to support online.

Keep an eye on what is happening in their world e.g. any milestones, events, job vacancies, new team members, fundraisers etc. so you can support them by sharing their content on your social media.

You can also consider asking them to guest blog on your website.  A great thing to do – as you get the benefit of not having to write the content, and you get the chance to support a local business or charity.

4. Awareness Days

These can really help with ‘writers block!’.   I am writing this on National Writing Day, so I hope to make the most of the online energy that will be around this awareness day today.

As part of your monthly plan, check in advance what key dates are coming up which relate to your business, or a cause that you are passionate about.

This will help give you enough time to get creative and generate good content for those key days.

5. Social listening and trends

Twitter is particularly strong for monitoring key conversations and trends.  Keep an eye on what is happening by going to the Explore tab, and seeing what the news of the day is, or what is trending.

You can save or follow hashtags which you want to monitor regularly for fresh content ideas on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

You can also follow content on Facebook and LinkedIn.  Just use the separate page news feeds features to monitor industry content, or pages which interest you.

We hope our tips help inspire your content planning, and help with Writers Block!

Strong coffee and decent chocolate can also help.

If you need help with planning your social media, content writing – or just need someone to take it off your hands, check out our services pages to see how we can help you

The post Writing content for your Social Media pages appeared first on Ditzy Media.

We hear a lot from business owners about the drain on time that social media can bring.

Fear not!  There are some simple techniques you can implement to manage the time you spend on social media – without reducing your impact!

Top top tip: Schedule time within your working calendar once or twice a week to work on your social media.

There are a number of tasks we all have to do to ensure our content is fresh and relevant.  Make sure you allow a few hours per week to enable you to do the following.

1. Social listening. What stories and conversations have come up which relate to what you do?  Can this inform the content you will create?
2. Content research. Looking at your main social media feeds where you may be drawing informative content from e.g. news sites, industry sites, activities from people you collaborate with.  What trends or awareness days apply this week?
3. Creating or sourcing suitable visuals
4. Writing or recording (if video!) your content
5. Scheduling your content to go out at the key times that work for your audiences.

If you post on multiple platforms – using a social media management tool to schedule your content is a no brainer.  Some tools are free or low cost but can save you priceless time within your business.

Our fave is Zoho Social as it can post against Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google My Business and YouTube! 

Three further social media jobs – the icing on the above cake of work you have already created if you are doing the above – is to make a little bit of time daily to:

• Engage with others
• Grow your followers on the platforms that matter to you
• Monitor messages and interactions on your platforms

Social Media is your online shop window.  Taking the time to make it fresh, interesting and above all, welcoming to your customers and community is time well spent!

If you need advice on how to manage your social media for your business – reach out to us for an informal chat.  We can offer training, and consultancy to support your business or non-profit to make the job of social media easier and less time consuming.

The post Making the best use of your time appeared first on Ditzy Media.

Review your 2019

So, what worked well in 2019?  How does this compare to others like you?  This will help inform what your overall marketing objectives and specifically your social media objectives should be for the coming year.

If you are starting up – this is a perfect time to research your sector and if relevant, your community and of course your competitors.

This can help you identify what makes you unique, what good looks like and also what mistakes to avoid.

A planned approach

The hard part can be getting started.  A plan can help greatly to ensure your marketing is defined and supports your business objectives.  You can then adopt this into your social media content.

Try to plan at least the first 3 months with key aspects of your business

• Marketing messages: Sales / Products
• Awareness Days & Events
• Your ‘Social’ content
• Frequency of content – how often are you going to post

Know where your customers are active

There’s no point posting to the wrong network if your customer is not there.

Equally, it’s important not to make assumptions about what type of person uses which platform e.g. Instagram or Facebook may not work for B2Bs – that would be wrong if you are working with SMEs’; or only young people use Instagram.  That is definitely not the case.

Take time to see if businesses like yours are active on each of the networks and what their following and engagement looks like.  This will help indicate the value of you using it.

Keep up with trends and technical changes

This can be hard enough if your Social Media IS your business – let alone if it’s not!

Try to keep your ear to the ground on a regular basis to see what changes may be coming on the platforms you are active on.  Technical changes happen all the time and can affect the way the platforms behave (glitches) or can lead to a complete platform update like we are seeing with Facebook and LinkedIn.

Trends in what works regarding creating engaging content for your customers is equally important.  If you write a blog will someone read it – or are you better considering a Facebook Live Q & A Session?

Having a plan, using your resources efficiently and being aware of changes will all help ensure your visibility and keep you hopefully ahead of your competition.

If you need advice, training, consultancy or for someone to take your Social Media off your hands – get in touch!

Wishing everyone a prosperous and healthy 2020!

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