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Three Key Stages of Growing a Community Online

Fred Roed

Fred Roed

Fred Roed

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Fred is the CEO of digital marketing agency World Wide Creative. Fred co-founded The Heavy Chef Project, as well as Ideate, a forum for African entrepreneurs. Fred focuses on online brand building, marketing strategy and loud Hawaiian shirts. Fred is famous for his sartorial excellence, long diatribes about music and fanatical attention to detail when making pizza. Follow Fred on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Fred_Roed

  1. Three Key Stages of Growing a Community Online Posted in Community Management, Concocted by Fred Roed August 26, 2010 1 comment

    Community Building is something we’re very busy with at World Wide Creative (the digital marketing agency responsible for The Heavy Chef Project). We’re trying to build online communities around brands such as Honda, Virgin, Exclusive Books and even former South African minister Jay Naidoo, who, with his work on improving global nutrition, has become somewhat of a brand himself. Read Further

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  2. Online Reputation Management Heavy Chef Session with Andy Hadfield and Craig Rodney Posted in Heavy Chef News, Concocted by Fred Roed August 6, 2010 No comments

    On July 28th we had a scintillating Session with the hottest new tag team in Digital Wrestling, Andy Hadfield (Digital Marketing Consultant) from and Craig Rodney (Emerging Media) talking about Online Reputation Management.

    It was wonderful in that the talk was not your usual, agree-with-everyone delivery. Both Andy and Craig were ready and willing to tear down some of the widely held beliefs in the growing field of ORM.

    Check out the slideshow below and look out for the video coming soon on Heavy Chef. And, if you’re in Cape Town on Tuesday, we hope to see you at Part 2 of our events on ORM.

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  3. 4 lessons Sepp Blatter taught us about Online Reputation Management and Twitter Posted in Online Reputation Management, Twitter, Concocted by Fred Roed July 15, 2010 No comments

    So you may have heard about Sepp Blatter’s inauspicious arrival on Twitter. If you haven’t, here’s a summary: The FIFA president signed up in June. He tweeted. He promptly got over 20,000 followers, many of whom sent @replies stating how much they disapproved of him and his organisation.

    Whether Mr Blatter deserved that kind of treatment is another matter, but there are 4 helpful lessons we can learn from the whole affair:

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  4. Snow Angels, Speedos, The Rolling Stones and Online Reputation Management Posted in Heavy Chef News, Online Reputation Management, Concocted by Fred Roed June 3, 2010 No comments

    This was not an easy post for me to write.

    For the past few days I’ve um’d and ah’d, walking holes in our agency floor before typing these words. The topic of this article involves an incriminating video that was taken of me 4 years ago by my business partner, Mike Perk (pictured here with the beautiful ‘tache). Since then, Mike has continually threatened to expose to the general public the shameful behavior that I displayed that fateful evening.

    And so, this article is my get-out clause.

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  5. How can Augmented Reality build your brand? Posted in Augmented Reality, Branding Online, Concocted by Fred Roed May 4, 2010 No comments

    On Wednesday 28th April 2010, The Heavy Chef Project hosted a talk by Rich Mulholland on Augmented Reality (for those marketers amongst you with your head in the sand, Augmented Reality is the use of digital media within real life situations). We asked Rich to hold up a magnifying glass to this much vaunted technology and he delivered a scintillating talk. The conclusion Rich made was that, for AR to be truly effective, marketers and businesses must move away from seeing it as a novelty and looking to it as a utility.

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  6. A recipe for digital security: cooking up a website security certificate Posted in Digital Strategy, Website Usability, Concocted by Fred Roed March 23, 2010 No comments

    Preparation / Context: At school I was in the same year as Mark Shuttleworth. To paint a picture here, let me review our joint achievements. Mark led the school as head prefect; I led the detention list as head trouble-maker. While he was smoking Maths on the Eisteddfod leaderboard; I was smoking cigarettes behind the cricket scoreboard. Starting to see a pattern?

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  7. Heavy Chef Session Feb 2010: “A Taste of the Digital Future” Posted in Digital Strategy, Heavy Chef News, Concocted by Fred Roed February 3, 2010 No comments

    Last night, Louis Janse van Rensburg (World Wide Creative) and Justin Spratt (ISlabs) gave us an insight into the future. It was a scintillating session, with both speakers providing a sense of excitement of what’s around the corner.

    Louis covered the digital consumer, and what we can expect, and Justin tore into the macro-environmental landscape, sharing loads of love for Telkom along the way.

    We gave away some of our new T-shirts at the end, followed by a Q&A session with the audience particularly interested in some of the controversial and contentious future predictions by our favourite (not so skinny) Australian living in SA.

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  8. Why ORM is so important Posted in Online Reputation Management, Concocted by Fred Roed December 5, 2009 6 comments

    Online reputation management (ORM) is the analysis of your personal or professional, business or industry reputation as represented by content across all types of online media channels. Basically, when people online write stuff about you, you should know about it fast enough to be able to respond – especially if it’s negative stuff. So, why is this important? Here are a few damn good reasons.

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  9. Banner advertising – Why do we ignore most of it? Posted in Branding Online, Digital Strategy, Online Advertising, Concocted by Fred Roed November 17, 2009 3 comments

    Admit it: you’ve never really clicked on a banner ad unless it’s got a hot chick on it (if you’re a guy) or if there’s a diamond ring (if you’re a girl) involved. We all suffer from ‘banner blindness’, and the other dozen desperate ads that blink and flutter around the articles we read recede into the background.

    It makes our job very hard as digital marketers. As much as we shout about the ‘brand building’ properties of buying space online, nothing really beats a solid, honest-to-goodness click-through to a client’s website. This is the Holy Grail of online advertising, and it’s worthwhile to examine the top 3 reasons why internet users avoid banners at all costs. Read Further

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  10. 5 worst online mistakes of 2009 Posted in Online Reputation Management, Concocted by Fred Roed October 27, 2009 2 comments

    It is hard to remember a time before the internet. It’s only a decade or so ago that the web went truly mainstream and billion dollar industries have sprung up in its wake. These are heady times for companies like ours, kinda like the Wild West gold prospectors 200 years ago – they’d hear the buzz, pack their bags and get in their wagons to follow the next big lead. The problem is that it’s risky business, and mistakes are being made on a daily business. When pitching to clients, it’s our job as marketers to try and mitigate that risk by learning from our predecessors’ mistakes. So, with that in mind, here is a quick snapshot of the top mistakes in our industry.

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  11. Controlling your company’s brand in the world of Social Media Posted in Branding Online, Digital Strategy, Online Reputation Management, Social Media, Concocted by Fred Roed October 18, 2009 1 comment

    Control is an unsettling word in the new parlance. “Give up control, sir!” said Ricardo Semler in his seminal books Maverick and The Seven Day Weekend. “Control has been lost in the digital economy!” shriek breathless ’social media scientists’ on their blogs and twitter streams. “Power to the People; we control the corporate brand now!” scream the new marketers, all of 22 years old, speaking from their accumulative 6 months of experience.

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  12. Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid in your Social Media Strategy Posted in Digital Strategy, Social Media, Concocted by Fred Roed October 8, 2009 4 comments

    1. Generalisation
    Number one on the list, and possibly the most pervasive mistake of all. Too many companies out there have pointless blogs, boring Twitter streams or aimless Facebook pages. Try this rather: Have a point, and focus on one thing. For example, presentation and events gurus Missing Link, use their Twitter stream to educate followers on how to make better presentations.

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  13. 4 steps to building your company brand using Twitter Posted in Branding Online, Digital Strategy, Social Media, Twitter, Concocted by Fred Roed September 27, 2009 No comments

    Twitter is becoming such a huge part of the communications environment (almost 20m Twitter users projected by the end of 2010) that The Heavy Chef Project’s mother company, World Wide Creative, is getting referrals now for a “Twitter strategy”.  This is a big deal, since we’re seeing people use Twitter in ways that even the founders are surprised by. Here are some quick tips for you to get started on building your brand using Twitter:

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  14. Heavy Chef October (Johannesburg): Raising Capital for New Media Start-ups Posted in Digital Strategy, Heavy Chef News, Concocted by Fred Roed September 24, 2009 No comments

    October 5th sees a repeat of an earlier Session held in Cape Town featuring Vinny Lingham, CEO and Founder of Yola.com. The Session will be held at Deloitte’s offices in Woodmead, and will be restricted to 50 people. The Session starts at 6 for 6:30pm and will end at 8:30pm.

    As usual the drinks will be provided by Perdeberg, Corona and Carlsberg. We are expecting a full house (there are only a handful of spare seats since the invitation was sent out yesterday), so get in quick if you’re interested in attending. Click here to reserve your place.

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  15. New website design for World Wide Creative Posted in Digital Strategy, Heavy Chef News, Website Design, Website Usability, Concocted by Fred Roed September 8, 2009 No comments

    The Heavy Chef Project, as many of you know, is an initiative by our parent company, World Wide Creative. This forum is an extension of all the stuff we learn working with our clients in Europe and Africa on digital marketing campaigns. So, we’re pretty excited about our new presence that began with the redesign of the Heavy Chef site a few weeks ago, and now continued with the launch of a fresh new look for the WWC site.

    There were three reasons for the design:

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  16. How I use Twitter for business Posted in Digital Strategy, Social Media, Twitter, Concocted by Fred Roed September 7, 2009 2 comments

    Since registering my Twitter account around a year ago (I’m a casually late adopter), I’ve watched the steep rise of this humble little social networking tool with interest. At first I did not know what all the fuss was about, but then I quickly realised Twitter actually held some importance other than tweeting about a colleague who left only two squares of toilet roll or whether I think Daniel Craig makes a crap Bond or not. So, for the sake of crystallising my thinking on the matter, here are some reasons why I’m a fan for business usage of Twitter:

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  17. Corporates increase spending in Social Media Posted in Branding Online, Digital Strategy, Social Media, Concocted by Fred Roed September 3, 2009 No comments

    US research company, McKinsey released a report today revealing the results of a survey on social media adoption for corporate marketing strategy. It’s well worth a read, with some healthy support coming out in company’s marketing strategies for Web 2.0. adoption in the corporate environment.

    This is one that the strategists and account managers will enjoy, with multiple sound bites to use in their client presentations.

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  18. A thirst-quenching vitamin-rich success story: glaceau vitaminwater Posted in Digital Strategy, Concocted by Fred Roed August 21, 2009 No comments

    Forgive us if this comes across as a little “advertisey”, but believe me this is a sincere story. Recently we’ve been sponsored by glacéau vitaminwater for the Heavy Chef Sessions we run each month. So, intrigued by this relatively new brand that’s now EVERYWHERE, I scratched below the surface for some tasty tidbits. A while back, Thurlow from thewinwingroup related to me the story of a guy called J. Darius Bikoff, who started a small bottled water company in 1996 after eating a vitamin C wafer on the way to a yoga class.

    Amidst serious personal difficulties, Bikoff managed to get the company up and running, and within 5 years the company was the company’s drinks were sold in over 4,000 retail stores in the New York area.

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  19. The first Heavy Chef Course ends today Posted in Heavy Chef News, Website Design, Website Usability, Concocted by Fred Roed August 14, 2009 No comments

    Phew, what a week!

    After months of planning leading to the last three days of exhilarating learning, we’re pretty pleased with the results. After stellar feedback on the various modules, we’re looking at a winner here.

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  20. August 2009 Session: “Youth Marketing – Where Are We and What Has Worked Before” Posted in Digital Strategy, Heavy Chef News, Concocted by Fred Roed August 13, 2009 No comments

    We’re particularly excited about this month’s Heavy Chef Session focusing on Youth Marketing.

    The youth market has always been a tough nut to crack. Fickle. Trend conscious. Unpredictable. Notoriously outspoken. So, how can we reach ‘em?

    We’ve asked some leaders in the field of Youth Marketing to come and share some insights with us.

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  21. The first Heavy Chef “Creating Profitable Websites” Course starts Posted in Heavy Chef News, Website Design, Website Usability, Concocted by Fred Roed August 12, 2009 2 comments

    Today is a big day for The Heavy Chef Project in that it marks the first day of the first ever digital marketing course run by the Heavy Chef’s in our digital kitchen. With a small gathering of 10 delegates, we began bright and breezy this morning with an ice-breaker. This entailed Mike giving the course attendants some ingredients (ingredients, heavy chef course… geddit?) that they needed to taste blind-folded and identify.

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  23. Fresh new design for The Heavy Chef Project website Posted in Heavy Chef News, Website Design, Website Usability, Concocted by Fred Roed July 27, 2009 4 comments

    As most of you know, The Heavy Chef Project has revolved around the monthly sessions we hold. These sessions have gradually picked up steam, with the amount of people registering for our newsletter increasing week on week. All this interest has called for a rethink of our web design, with our creative team working overtime on creating this fresh new look that you see before you. Read Further

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  24. Viral meme for KFC: featuring many, many bones… Posted in Branding Online, Online Advertising, Concocted by Fred Roed July 22, 2009 2 comments

    This has gone viral in seconds.

    Not sure whether it’s intentional, but I’d love to know the official stance from KFC. These pics are being sent via email, with the subject ‘When you’re feeling bored at KFC’ to just about everybody today, and it’s going round the world at a brisk pace. Read Further

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