Premier of our latest promotional video at 11 Downing Street

The 28th of October 2009 was an eventful day for Gateway Media and myself. We were able to premier our latest video work at Number 11 Downing Street as part of our parent charity, City Gateway, 10 year celebration. The event was attended by a number of Gateway Media's clients along with other partners of City Gateway and a number of MP's. The video shown was a short promotional video highlighting City Gateway's work followed by another video on how corporate partners could get involved. The video was another first for us as it was shot using a Canon 50D Mk2 which is a high quality DSLR camera rather than our normal video equipment. I was really proud to be a part of the night and how the Gateway Media team and City Gateway were represented (plus I got a pic outside number 10 next door!)

With so many media channels available, why video still wins...

How Video Helps to Grow Business
An interview with Steve Goodwin, CEO of What’s Up Information and Tilted Disco. Steve is also a Young Ambassador for the Princes Trust. 30th September 2009

Why did you need a video and what issues did it solve for your company?
"We needed a time and cost effective way to push forward our new 'Tilted Disco' project and felt that the most effective way of doing so was visually, to get the best impact. A high quality promotional video gives a really good representation of our business and has the flexibility to be used to warm leads up before business development meetings and as an effective form of online PR. Social media and networking sites make the video easier to distribute to a wider audience than it has been possible to do so before."

In light of the current economic downturn, how important was it that you made the decision to produce the video at this time?
"It was very important for us to commission the video when we did. In these times it is more important than ever to stand out from your competition and Gateway Media give a very cost effective and creative way of doing so, which delivers your message with real impact. Now we have the right tools in place to press ahead with our development."

What types of companies could this service be useful to?
"A promotional video is a really smart way to communicate a product or service. It makes the service or product on offer easier to understand and makes the business seem more 'real' than text ever would. It's a very effective and clean way of representing your business. I think every business could benefit from the use of video, especially as the internet has made it much easier to distribute."

Any last thoughts on your experience of working with Gateway Media?
"The team at Gateway Media were very helpful, being able to come up with a very creative and professional end product and making our budget go a long way. The whole process, from planning through to production, went very smoothly and we were more than happy with the end result."

"If you need a highly professional, well thought out and cost effective video to deliver your message effectively and with lots of impact then I would recommend Gateway Media to keep you ahead of the game."

For more information on Steve's ventures see www.whatsupinformation.com and www.tilteddisco.com

View Tilted Disco / Promotional Video

This motion graphics led promo film showcases Tilted Disco’s new themed night club to festival organisers and the festival-going public. Read more...

Recession means more young people are in need of City Gateway's youth training services

This month sees an explosion in press coverage of our parent charities youth training scheme. First we had Sir Ian McKellen visit, then ITN and the BBC and now I find out that England Football player Peter Crouch is coming to our youth club on Monday with Sky News. Oh the power of celebrity! We will have to see how much effect it has on gaining the enterprise as well as the charity some real exposure.

The BBC story has been put up on their website so check it out to see how the recession is putting more and more demand on City Gateway's training services, this in turn makes my job of creating unsecured funding through enterprise profits more important than ever. Click the video above to see the BBC coverage, or follow this link to see us on CNN! http://bit.ly/oSlxC

Now that's what I'm talking about, Sir Ian McKellen comes to say hi!

Last Friday we made a visit to the youth club our parent charity operate to film Sir Ian McKellen (famed for his roles as Magneto in Xmen and Gandalf in Lord of the Rings) judge an art competition. Having previously agreed to do the voiceover for our promo video we though we would try and get him to sit down for a chat on camera to help us gain exposure for the charity, launch an new volunteering initiative to get more office workers down to our centres in their lunch breaks and practice our interview filming skills. We are pleased with the way it has turned out and even managed to get some local press coverage from it. So if your running a social enterprise or charity keep your ear out for any local celebrities or sports people, you never know who might live down the road!

New Dockland Light Railway progress video finished and leading to greater things

I just delivered the latest construction update to Taylor Woodrow VINCI for their Dockland Light Railway Capacity Enhancement project. This is the third of four videos being produced for the project.

Having done similar videos for the past couple of years we are starting to get noticed by other construction firms for our use of digital media. Our video's are shown at high level presentations with an audience of senior management from contractors, and train operating companies. One such viewing of our video has lead us to book up a workshop with Network Rail's Corporate Governance team to explore ways they can use video so things are really looking up! Watch this space.

Gateway Media starting to make real waves in the construction industry

We have been working for some time in the construction industry creating record of progress video's, timelapse video's and training videos and now it seems to have started paying off. The time spent developing our relationship with our key accounts has lead to new contacts being made in other areas. Having started with a single newsletter production contract we have spread across some of the top construction firms in the UK and the latest contracts have seen us getting ever closer to actually making changes in the way the industry is run, which is traditionally slow to take up new technologies.

In the next few weeks I will be meeting with Network Rail, Simons Construction and Bechtel (Crossrail) to hopefully offer them some of our solutions. In light of this I have drawn up a press release with our key account holder, Taylor Woodrow Vinci, to publicise the movement we are making.

TOP CONSTRUCTION FIRM EMBRACES DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS REVOLUTION

VINCI Construction UK Limited is using digital media agency, Gateway Media London, to support the work they are undertaking for Network Rail as part of the £500m redevelopment of King’s Cross station. The award-winning media agency are producing a series of record-of-progress style video updates to be used for internal and external communication, highlighting the construction industry's move to using digital media as a more effective form of communication.

Fred Garner, Programme Director for the King’s Cross project said, “We understand the benefits of using these new techniques to enhance communication. The industry is moving in this direction to be more dynamic in the current market, and we’re happy to have Gateway Media on board as we move with it.”

Read more...

Representing UK Social Enterprise to the Japanese Government

Social Enterprise is a movement that continues to gain momentum both within the UK (with over 55,000 SE's now active) and worldwide. I have recently seen a surge in interest in the sector, it all started with a visit from a group of Irish Entrepreneurs who were on a tour of London based SE's looking to get tips on how to develop their own. Then I had an odd email from a 'fixer' to arrange a meeting between our social enterprise and a delegation of the Japanese Government who were interested in looking at the best examples of social enterprise in the UK. Having not advertised the fact that we are a social enterprise (we try to sell on the quality of our services instead) I was surprised that they had found us, and later learned that it was because we were picked as Social Enterprise London's Social Enterprise of the week. The group that visited were members of the Governments financial institution called the National Life Finance Corporation or NLFC. Their aim was to research how to create a policy to supporting small and micro enterprises through loans and consultancy services, in order that if successful they could solve social problems and assist in community regeneration.

It is encouraging to know that Social Enterprises are being seen as a success around the world and that they are being supported by governments to bring social change. If you would like to arrange a visit to the Gateway Media office then get in touch!

To view an article in which City Gateway's enterprises are hailed as an example of good practice by Ofsted click here.

The Gateway Media Summer eBulletin is now live

Well it's been a pretty crazy summer with some of our biggest video jobs to date and no number of website development enquiries but I have found the time to pull together some highlights for our Summer eBulletin to try and keep past and prospective clients in the loop and us on their mind. In this months edition we have tried to include something for everyone, 3rd sector, corporate, SME and construction. Also, following the success of last months digital marketing seminar, every reader has the opportunity to sign up for the next one we have planned for mid Septemeber. I hope you enjoy and if you have any comments on what you would like to see in the next newsletter let me know!

VIEW SUMMER NEWSLETTER

SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER

Your digital marketing strategy: Getting it right first time

Your digital marketing strategy: Getting it right first time

Having attended a number of seminars, workshops, networking events and conferences we decided to put on our own workshop, titled as above. The aim of the workshop is to teach people how, with the right open source software, it can be pretty cheap to set your digital marketing strategy up. As the attendees were all social enterprises or charities this was important. Workshops are also a way of getting the company name out there and improving our rep, although obviously they do take some planning.

Today was the first session and the results were good. I wasn't sure how much detail to go into and what to focus on as digital media is such a broad subject so was pleased that there were only 7 or so businesses present. The topics covered included an overview of digital media, developing your online presence (including Content Managed Websites and Social Media), client relationship management as a backbone of the company (we use Sugar CRM Community edition which is open source) and Promotional strategies. The power point is above, although if you really want to find out more you should attend our next session, click here for more details and some feedback from today's session.

Our new Green Screen Studio is up and running and here is the first video!

The team was really excited last month when we purchased our own Green screen studio. The idea was to use it on our upcoming training video production for Canary Wharf Construction but we have managed to put it to good use already! Tilted Disco, who tour a club night around UK music festivals, asked us to produce an online promo video to get festival goers and organisers talking. The club night, which has already featured at Glastonbury, is sure to gain more exposure following our efforts. The video was shot frame by frame with a DSLR stills camera and then animated in post production. As I predominantly work in corporate media it was great to be involved in a project that really let the creative juices flow, more of the same please! - Here is what we came up with.

Keeping the business Flexible for Customer Satisfaction - Getting out of the comfort zone

A key element for customer retention is customer satisfaction. Our clients have shown in feedback that they really value our flexibility and it is this that ensures great levels of satisfaction. This idea was tested this week when one of my largest clients called first thing in the morning and asked to move an agreed deadline forward from a weeks time to 2 hours time(!).

In this situation I think the key is to be as proactive as possible but always managing the clients expectations. The work that needed doing was a video job, we had already produced the final edit but didn't have the DVD menu system designed and our video editor was away for the week. With no previous experience on the software I had to go through a steep learning curve using blogs and online resources to deliver for the client. In doing so we have ensured that our flexibility can be relied upon. Small firms have a flexibility that just isn't present in larger entities, it also means that those involved in managing and working are constantly stretched, accelerating their personal and professional development, which in turn motivates the team. I think if it's a challenge and it's possible then why not go for it.

If you are interested, here's what I learned: A Step-by-step guide to making a autoplay DVD on DVD Studio Pro on a Mac:

1. Export file from final cut:
Export Quicktime File - DV PAL 48 Khz, Anamporphic.
2. Open DVD Studio Pro and Click Import Asset (top left) - import your .mov file
3. Delete the blue 'menu' box
4. Highlight both the video and audio files and drag into center of the Green 'track' box.
5. Set properties of track - click on the Green 'track' box and bottom right box of screen will turn to 'track'
- Set Display mode as 16:9 Pan-Scan & Letterbox
- Rename file if necessary
- Select end jump, from drop down select 'tracks and stories' then select your file and chapter 1.
6. Set properties of disc - click off the Green 'track' button and onto the gray and bottom right box of screen will turn to 'disc'
- DVD Standard - SD DVD
- Video Standard - PAL
- First Play - Drop Down - 'tracks and stories' then select your file and chapter 1.
- Rename if necessary.
7. Test - click simulate on top panel
8. Burn your disc - Select File - Advanced Burn - Build and Format - Check Name is Correct - Select a file for the current build - Don't touch output device - Select Build and Burn.
9. Check the disc on a PC and Mac (please not that when playing you may need to turn on deinterlacing if you see any lines come up from rapid movement on screen, although most DVD playing software and all DVD players should do this automatically).

I launched the Young Social Entrepreneur Linked In Group

Today I set up the Young Social Entrepreneurs Group on Linked In. I am a member of a lot of the groups on Linked In but realised that there wasn't much aimed specifically at people in my position. Also having become part of the Future Shifters community I think that as one of the leading business networking sites on the net, Linked In is a place that young social entrepreneurs should have a unified presence.

Join the movement - Click here if you would like to join the group.

What is Social Enterprise?

Do you know? I don't think anyone really knows do they? My view is it’s when a business is run commercially but is also ethically supportive of an element of our society or environment that needs help. Gateway Media is more towards the commercial side of SE, we are trying to get funds for our parent Charity City Gateway through selling our services, but we do not deliver much of the social outputs ourselves. Our sister enterprise, Flavour Gateway, is a catering company which uses lots of economically inactive women to deliver a great quality catering service so they are more socially focused (www.flavourgateway.com).

As all business are individual it's hard to pigeon hole them into a specific definition of Social Enterprise, but for the people working in a Social Enterprise, they know who they are doing it for, in our case the local community instead of a group of shareholders...rock on.

Oxfam also describe it well in the following ad (although Social Enterprise is never actually mentioned you should get the idea!). The video is produced by Benji at Frater (www.fraterfilms.com), who I hope to collaborate with in the future.

Gateway Media May 2009 Newsletter now available online.

It's been a while in the planning but for once we are doing our very own Newsletter rather than another companies, wonderful. To kick it off this month we have:

Tips from the team - Social Media
Sir Ian McKellen Lord of the Voiceovers
Playing games with Canary Wharf Group
Taylor Woodrow speed up time
City Gateway charity goes mobile

Click the image to go to the online version, I hope you like. Subscribe to the newsletter here.

The City Gateway Blog - Tips on how to improve your blog

Our parent charity City Gateway had just launched it's 10 year celebration blog, this aims to improve recognition of the charity using big named MP's that are involved. You can view the blog here and watch out for some posts featuring Gateway Media's clients soon.

I believe that people sell to people, that means getting your face out there and being honest and personal. Company blogs are fine but lack that personal touch and therefore if you can get a blog which has good links back to the business but contains enough of your personality then your on to a winner. Here are ten tips on how you could try and improve your personal or company blog to drive more people to your site.javascript:void(0)

1. Find some high ranking blogs, websites, and other sites and start exchanging links on blog roll.
2. Make sure you sign up for Google Analytics and track your web statistics
3. Submit your RSS feed and url to rss and blog directories as well as search engines
4. Comment on other blogs that are within your industry and that has an influence on their readers.
5. Post, post and post at least 3 to 5 times per week. Content is probably the number one reason a blog boost to number one.
6. Be polite by always responding to comments on your blog as well as thanking other bloggers who have linked to you. Also, always site where you got your story lead or content.
7. Don't be afraid to interview other bloggers.
8. Use your blog to get media credentials
9. Get off the computer and network with your targeted audience. Add your blog address to your business card.
10. Promote your blog using social media networks.