Communications agency H+A Marketing + PR is to create six new social media jobs as part of a two-year €250,000 investment.
The investment will also include a focus on monitoring and training tools to ensure growth in the fast-moving social media space.
H+A Marketing + PR already employs 38 people at its Cork and Galway offices.
The agency specialises in fully integrated communications and handles a broad mix of services, including marketing, PR, advertising, media planning, graphic design, web and increasingly social media management on behalf of local, national and international clients.
Clients include Laya Healthcare, Unilever Food Solutions, Kraft Foods Ireland, Ford, Barry Group and 48 Mobile.
Explosion in social media
The new social media department will be headed by Dara O’Donovan, who said the team is being set up as a direct response to the explosion the company and its clients have seen in social media.
“Our team is an uber-savvy group of digital natives who live, eat and breathe social media for our clients. It’s our mission to capture online conversations, build buzz, drive talkability and ultimately, turn fans into fanatics.
“We’re excited about working with a diverse mix of new brands this year and helping them unlock their potential in this space,” O’Donovan said.
A graduate of UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, O’Donovan has helped define and mould H+A’s expert social media offering by consistently pushing the use of social media as an everyday marketing device.
She has won new clients and continues to boost the popularity of existing ones, including Ford Ireland and national retail franchise Costcutter and Carry Out off-licences.
In the 10 months since launching Laya Healthcare’s new brand, H+A Marketing + PR has worked to build a 7,360-strong vibrant and dynamic online community for the health insurer whose posts regularly reach tens of thousands of Irish Facebook users.
“We have seen a huge jump in brand recognition and perception since joining forces with H+A Marketing + PR,” said brand manager at Laya Healthcare Laurie O’Connor.
“Dara and the social media team have played a central role in our success and we will continue to work together in driving strategic and creative online campaigns.”
Community managers Cian O’Regan and Sean Lucey will provide key support in the development of the H+A social media department.
O’Regan, who co-organised World Social Media Day 2012 and was twice nominated at the Irish Web Awards, specialises in new fan and follower growth while Lucey, who holds an MSc in marketing consumption and society, oversees the monitoring of all social media platforms for clients, their competitors and industries.
