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The mArKeT | FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012

celtrino specialises in the delivery of smart supply chain management solutions that reduce the cost of managing and operating

supplychains. By eliminating non-strategic and non-value-add supply-chain administrative activities, these solutions allow users to focus on core revenue-generating activities. With customers such as BWG (SPAR Ireland), the Musgrave Group and ADM Londis, Celtrino platforms processed approximately €4 billion worth of invoices in 2011.

pArT of The mArKeTing miXAfter joining Celtrino as Head of Marketing in 2009, Michael O’Brien began focusing on the company’s online presence, beginning with a revamp of its website to incorporate social media functionality. “We have always recognised the importance of social media and set about addressing this when we re-branded the company to Celtrino in early 2010,” he told The Market. “Alongside redesigning our website and marketing collateral, we began to build a profile for ourselves on social media platforms such as LinkedIn. Before any of this took place, we undertook extensive market research, including key-word analysis to understand words being used online by customers, industry commentators, analysts and competitors.”

Celtrino began working with STEAK Digital, a UK digital marketing agency, in 2011 through The Social Media Programme offered by Retailer Solutions (see panel). This programme was developed by Enterprise Ireland’s London office to support established Irish companies seeking

to adopt social media as part of their business development strategy in targeting the UK.

“STEAK helped us to increase our listening capacity, as listening is a key function of building a social media platform,” O’Brien said. “Listening and understanding the market enabled Celtrino to increase its reach into new markets and sectors. In September 2011, we launched our blog as the central point for content distribution. We also added SlideShare and YouTube as well as several other platforms for content seeding and distribution.”

Quality content on its website and corporate blog is helping Celtrino to differentiate itself from competitors and to improve its search engine optimisation, he believes. In order to keep content current, new posts are released three times per week.

relevAnT, uniQue And freQuenTMichael has three key points to offer companies looking to engage online: “Firstly, content must be relevant to the audience. Busy people do not have the time to read material that does not relate to them.

“Secondly, information must be unique – you should not repeat and paraphrase. If your content is unique, there is a good chance that it will be reused, which ensures that you are seen as a relevant and trusted source of content.

“Lastly, I would stress the importance of frequency –it is critical to maintain frequency so that you stay on the radar of your target audience(s). Frequency can be determined in part by the type of content and who is being targeted, but at a bare minimum, it should be once per week.”

celtrino’s head of marketing, michael o’brien, tells Aislinn mahon about using social media to communicate with iT buyers in the retail industry.

SocIAl MEDIA AS PARt of thE MARkEtING MIx

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