Case Study: 121 Marketing Network

April 21, 2009 · Posted in Social Media Working Group

This week’s case study has been written by Joy Redmond, CEO of Flexitimers.

Background

Karina Heavey is no ordinary marketer but a marketer who has recently harnessed social media to affect change and create a community of pro-active people not content to sit back and wait for the recession to go away.

In August 2008, Karina formed the 121 Business Network Ireland group on LinkedIn in response to her dissatisfaction with the business networks available at the time, having identified that there wasn’t an appropriate group focussing exclusively for members based in Ireland.

Context

She didn’t actively promote or push the group until a turning point came in January 2009 when she was made redundant from a senior marketing position in SPSS. Although a highly competent and experienced marketing professional with a Masters from UCD, Karina prior to this had no online social media expertise or experience.

She felt there was both an opportunity to learn while giving something back and believed that if she brought people together, opportunities would arise for all. Soon she extended the brand to marketing with the intention of creating a community of people with an interest in marketing. Believing that the marketing associations valued the speakers at their events more than their individual members, Karina wanted her network to value and reward its members.

Tactics

First on her to-do list was to proactively build the group membership on LinkedIn. To achieve this, she joined 50 marketing groups on LinkedIn, filtered the members by region (Ireland) and keyword (marketing) and arrived at a list of 600 prospects. Again her marketing know-how allowed her to write a compelling personal invitation that resulted in 350 registrations within one week. Karina personally approves every request for membership to ensure the group ethos is not diluted.

Knowing the difficulty in engaging discussion and networking online and the importance and power of personal relationships; the next task was to organise monthly face-to-face meet-ups where members could informally build relationships (not pitch), have fun and feel valued.

Her experience of event management came into play and after researching several city centre hotels, the Mint Bar in the Weston Hotel was chosen as the preferred venue for two reasons -its central location and their promise to provide a space free of charge every first Wednesday of the month. Again her marketing training taught her that consistency was key and so the “First Wednesday” club began. There were 25 attendees the first night in February and numbers have doubled month on month since with the same people returning and bringing more people and spreading the word.

The First Wednesday club is also marketed via her website/blog which provides interviews with marketers, round-ups of the First Wednesday club and competitions to encourage more interaction both online and offline. One interesting application merging both online and offline activity is the video reel of corporate logos representing the attendees of the First Wednesday Club.

The blog also hosts links to her twitter account (@121business) and her YouTube Channel

Karina then created a Facebook page to extend the group’s reach where visitors are met with a Welcome video and members receive a welcome email that sets the rules, expectations and protocol for the group. There is a space entitled ‘Opportunities Exchange’ where members can promote/trade opportunities, jobs and business deals with the effect of minimising spam on the discussion board.

Regional Appeal

Karina is not content to limit the network to Dublin and has set up regional managers in Cork and in Limerick. The 121 Cork Network is going to launch that regions ‘First Wednesday Club’ next month and she’s seeing her memberships growing in Sligo, Kildare and Mayo.

Benefits

A sense of fun and achievement, continuously improving and progressing an idea through its ongoing successful destinations while facilitating important social and business communications is what Karina perceives to be the key benefit of all this social media activity.

Karina herself has been rewarded for her efforts and has proactively raised her profile with an RTE interview live from bizcamp, a podcast interview on The Persuaders and a feature in The Sunday Tribune. What’s more, she has created her own opportunity by being recently hired as Digital Campaign Manager with IIA Member Company TradeDoubler, no easy feat for a marketer with little or no digital expertise less than six months ago and in an extremely difficult economy.

Karina has become a role model and inspiration to many and like her 121Marketing Network, proves that there are still opportunities out there and with positive drive and enthusiasm success still awaits those who create their own luck.

Tags: case study, marketing, networking, social media, Social Media Working Group

Comments

12 Responses to “Case Study: 121 Marketing Network”

Mark Cahill on April 21st, 2009 9:01 pm

It is great to hear a success story, it just proves that positive energy and the right attitude can overcome a daunting situation.

Great use of traditional, digital, and good old fashioned face-to-face networking.

I am looking forward to the 121 Cork Network next month.
Micha Daly on April 22nd, 2009 2:24 pm

Well done to Joy and Karina! The case study was insightful and useful for businesses.
David McLoughlin on April 23rd, 2009 10:21 am

This is a fantastic story and I wholeheartedly agree with Joys last comments “there are still opportunities out there and with positive drive and enthusiasm success still awaits those who create their own luck.”! Well done Karina.
Fred on April 25th, 2009 6:24 pm

Brilliant article Joy.
Karina has definitely an attractive story… and this is just the beginning.
Elaine Rogers on April 28th, 2009 8:40 pm

Well done on the article and the Club. Looking forward to the first meetup in Cork. Sounds like a packed full evening!
So glad it is taking off with a flying start!
Enda Madden on April 29th, 2009 6:52 pm

Great story, hope to see a club in Sligo start shortly
Joy Redmond on May 1st, 2009 9:31 am

Thanks guys, glad you liked it. I chose 121 because it was a ‘good news’ story. A lot of my friends/peers are marketing directors of blue chips and nothing they’re doing in social media particularly inspired my – they’re just repurposing their offline marketing comms to different platforms and not really making a huge difference. Just one person made a difference here! Regards
Joy
Thoughts on Communications in Ireland » Blog Archive » LinkedIn Check List on May 29th, 2009 3:54 pm

[...] Redmond from Flexitimers did an excellent post on how Karina Heavey set up the 121 Business Network on the IIA [...]
James O'Sullivan on June 3rd, 2009 1:55 am

Great to hear some good news from home. Well done to Karina, I’ll def attend one of the events when I get back home.
Martin Voelk on June 27th, 2009 1:48 pm

The future is certainly in online marketing. Through boards like LinkedIn you reach the right people. Traditional flyers all too often end up in the paper bin or reach the wrong persons within the organisation. XING is also a great business board to make contacts.
Maria Boyle on June 27th, 2009 8:41 pm

Online marketing is key nowadays. I couldn’t agree more. All our marketing efforts are online. LinkedIn, Craigslist, Gumtree and so on seem to have a really great effect. Slideshare is also a great tool
Internet Marketing Alchemy on January 9th, 2010 1:53 am

That’s really cool, there is nothing better than networking with people who do the same thing as you. It would be great to have meet ups in my area.