m: +44(0)7881 400679 e: stuarth@stuart-hall.com blog: www.stuart-hall.com

An award-winning social media professional, with cross-sector expertise spanning global e-commerce and consultancy roles, with a passion for collaboration and innovation.

SKILLS

• Social media and community management strategy and practice, user-generated content, and community manager mentoring.
• Metrics creation and reporting skills using both in-house and Google Analytics to demonstrate progress on community-specific and global e-commerce KPIs.
• Extensive social marketing skills; integrating online campaigns with offline events.
• Customer relationship and engagement management (social CRM).
• Expertise in managing social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Flickr, YouTube, and WordPress.
• Social media creation including blogging and videos; blogger management skills.
• Social media monitoring skills, using both quantitative and qualitative methods.
• SEO skills in creating and reporting on organic and paid-for strategies, including page tag optimisation and SEO-friendly content creation.
• Web content management skills including content strategy and implementation.
• End-to-end contract, supplier and stakeholder management skills.
• Proven team in-house/remote creative and technical staff management skills.
• Project and product management skills, including using issue tracking and collaborative software tools.
• Editorial skills, including interviewing, fact checking, copy writing, and production editing.

CAREER

Social Media Consultant – Plectic Ltd (2011 – date)
Developing a mobile social gaming product Name That Place, with partner discussions ranging from Tesco to Burberry.

Head of Marketing, Community & SEO – Shopping.com UK/eBay Inc. (June 2010 – Sept 2011)

Responsibilities:

• To develop, lead and execute the social shopping/online community strategy to drive traffic and engagement with both the portal and Facebook community.
• Establishing metrics and targets for social media & community, demonstrating local progress on global user generated content targets.
• Developing and executing social media messaging for social media platforms; organising marketing events for the UK market with leading tech PR agency BallouPR.
• Creating and implementing a SEO plan for the UK in line with organic traffic revenue targets.
• Local implementation of the global social CRM content & community marketing strategy.
• Inputting into the planning, budgeting, legal, and reporting processes in line with eBay UK policy and practice.

Results & Achievements:

• Successfully met the user generated and professional content creation targets for reviews and guides using paid for promotions from Q3 2010 onwards, to time and within budget.
• Increased the size of the opt-in email membership of Shopping.com UK by over 250%.
• Developed the brand’s UK Facebook Page, growing the level of engagement and number of followers from 1K to 6.9K with a low-cost promotion; it also drove over 1.3K responses to a social shopping survey gaining both offline and online media coverage. (See Slideshare of campaign)
• Leading the weekly global community manager ‘roundtable’ to help drive company-wide innovation and share good practice.
• Took on the running of the company’s global customer engagement programme to help the business learn directly from its customers.
• Led the UK response to Google Panda SEO changes, implementing an innovative ‘social SEO’ strategy to ameliorate the impact on SEO revenue. (Blog piece on my social SEO strategy)
• Organised a successful ‘influencer’ blogger event with BallouPR to promote the brand.

 

Social Media Consultant – Plectic Ltd (Jan – June 2010)

Responsibilities:

• Blogging on driving revenue through innovative community management strategies.
• Produced five year social media strategy for international development charity Bond.
• Marketing consultancy for document management start-up Docutiva.com.
• Business development consultancy with innovative patient appointment reminder software BAM.
• Business plan development and venture capital discovery with China-based surgical planning start-up Surgi-plan Medinfo Technologies – a web-based portal dedicated for the surgical planning sector to offer pre-operative planning software solutions.

Results & Achievements:

• Shaping the current debate on community revenue generation, generating comments from leading practitioners in the US and UK.
• Providing development charity Bond with its first ever comprehensive social media and community strategy.
• Introduced BAM to a leading healthcare device provider Ultrasis.

Community Management Consultant – SiftGroups (Jan 2009 – Jan 2010)

Responsibilities:

• Working with B2B clients to launch new online communities, including mentoring community managers on a weekly basis before and after launch.
• Advising clients on how to implement a successful growth strategy, including running KPI workshops to integrate organisational and community metrics.
• Developing and delivering standalone products to clients, including review and recommendations of existing social media offerings, quarterly health checks, and online training for social media and community managers.
• Managing the work of junior community managers and co-ordinating internal developer work for client communities.

Results & Achievements:

• Mentored the community managers of CIMA, NCVO and CMI, resulting successful community launches with CIMA achieving 12k members by the end of 2009.
• Delivered social strategy and workshops for key B2B clients including the IET, OUP (in partnership with Socialtext) and the Law Society. Plus the FCO’s Chevening, and health charities including TalkTalk-sponsored Treehouse and the National Autistic Society.
• Co-winner of the ‘Sift Innovation of the Year Award’ for co-creating a Drupal-based online community metric package, drawing on client input from NCVO.

Online Communities Manager – Institute of Chartered Accountants (Dec 2007 – Dec 2008)

Responsibilities:

• Launching the community site IT Counts, including configuring the design and login to meet the needs of the business in partnership with Microsoft UK, co-creating the initial marketing & engagement proposition.
• Engaging and generate interaction in the all the online communities; moderating and updating content, communicating with users, gathering feedback and input from community on site functionality and passing on to relevant business owners.
• Working with ICAEW website editors to cross-promote the online communities throughout the organisation’s online presence.
• Managing a team of professional bloggers to seed content and to sustain engagement through expert-led discussions.

Results & Achievements:

• Achieved the target launch membership of 3k within half the time set for the IT Counts community, in collaboration with Microsoft UK.
• Launched an additional series of niche communities, achieving a combined 27k membership by 2009.
• Won the ‘Best New Web 2.0 Initiative’ for IT Counts in an industry-wide award, in partnership with WordFrame.

Global Site Manager – MedicExchange Plc. (Sept 2006 ­– Dec 2007)

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for global site management, specifically the clinical content and site layout, in line with business strategy.
• Analysing market feedback and develop a B2B mall strategy for each clinical community.
• Implementing online & offline marketing initiatives, from launching the site after beta testing, producing e-mail bulletins to targeted professional audiences, to driving organic and paid-for SEO campaigns.
• As a member of the business development team, it was my duty to share in the wider management of the commercial activities.

Results & Achievements:

• Launched an innovative pay-per-click global e-commerce portal.
• Successfully launched MedicExchange ar RSNA 2006, the largest medical event of its kind in the US.
• Achieved a market value of $15m by 2007 by successfully building the brand through integrated online and offline marketing, including optimizing (including US real time feed and China content restirction issues) the use of expert content from Reuters Health to build credibility among professionals. (See AMEX: MGT)
• Personally secured key partner BioMed Central to provide free high quality scientific content, thanks to their innovative use of open access publishing.
• Led an online campaign to reverse an EU directive which threatened the use of MRI.

Freelance Projects (July 2006 – Sept 2006)

• In partnership with the Works Software Ltd submitted a proposal for an innovative web 2.0 style shift handover software product originally developed by BP,
  Honeywell Control and the University of Cambridge, to the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement. Download the scorecard appraisal as a PDF (92kb). Despite the quality of the product the overall score for the submission (69.54%) was insufficent to take it to the next stage of development.

Social Media Consultant (Apr 2005 – June 2006)

• Advised social media consultancy Headshift Ltd (now part of the US-based Dachis Group) on key health clients including the World Health Organisation and the NHS Connecting for Health, and blogged on UK health policy.
• Usability and project management on a new website for the General Medical Council.

National Advisor – National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Sept 2000 – Apr 2005)

Responsibilities:

• Creating, developing and managing content for the national programme’s high profile web presence.
• Copyediting and proofread all web content, including managing freelancers, including writers, designers, and content supply from external organisations.
• Tracking and report on all site metrics, implementing new marketing strategies.
• Researching and creating database products to track and report data on the effectiveness of the national programme.
• Contract tendering & implementation of content, database and re-design services for the series of five websites.
• Lead responsibility for managing and recruiting team staff.
• Training the national programme staff to use all new developments and online applications.

Results & Achievements:

• Successfully integrated a series websites as part of a NHS corporate merger in 2005.
• Won an IVCA accessibility award for knowledge portal Wired for Health in 2004.
• Successfully managed tendering & implementation of content, database and re-design services for five websites with a £200k annual budget from 2002.
• Presented a short paper on system design from my knowledge management experience at the International Nonlinear Sciences Conference in Vienna, 2003.

Communications Consultant (Apr 1996 – Sept 2000)

Responsibilities:

• Promoting freelance communications consultancy with focus on health, not-for profit and health sectors through networking and marketing activities.
• Securing core revenue through development of freelance journalism contracts.
• Developing my skills and services from studying public relations, to researching online business opportunities.

Results & Achievements:

• Launched Linux User magazine in early 2000 as part of the editorial team.
• Communications consultancy for the Forster Company, including speech writing for Body Shop CEO Anita Roddick in 1997 on the emerging internet revolution.
• Provided media training to mental health user groups and professionals across London for the national charity Mental Health Media in 1996, as well as helping organisation the Mental Health Media Awards.

Publications Manager – Release Ltd (Mar 1994 – Apr 1996)

• Commissioned a series of visionary international white papers and took the initiative to publish them online in 1996, an innovation for national drugs charity Release.

News Editor – Red Pepper Ltd (Mar 1994 – Apr 1996)

• Launched the current affairs magazine Red Pepper in 1994 achieving a ‘Best International Magazine’ award, and a circulation of 13k by 1995.

Senior Reporter – EMAP Norfolk & Suffolk Express Series (Mar 1992 – Apr 1994)

• Won an EMAP award in 1993 for news reporting.

AWARDS

• Sift Innovation of the Year Award (2009)
• Best Web2.0 Initiative (2008)
• Accountancy Age Awards, finalist (2008)
• Web Accessibility Award, IVCA (2004)
• EMAP Regional News Award (1993)

QUALIFICATIONS

• MA in Social & Political Science, University of Cambridge: 1^st class (Oct 1984 – June 1987)
• Masters in Social Science in Industrial Archaeology, University of Birmingham (Sept 1987 – 1989)
• National Certificate in Journalism (NCTJ), University of Wales Institute (Sept 1990 – Sept 1991)

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

• British Computer Society, Internet Specialist Group; organised the ‘Social Networking & Web 2.0 within the Enterprise’ expert speaker meeting in Jan 2010.
• Member of the Association of Online Community Professionals

SPEAKING EVENTS

• Future Digital Strategies Summit, social media expert panel member (Nov, 2011)
• Cass Business School, ‘Applying lean start-up principles and practice to building corporate communities’ (Feb, 2012)
• Social Media World Forum, ‘The role of communities in bringing shoppers together to communicate and aggregate information about product and price deals’ (Mar, 2012)

PUBLICATIONS

• Featured in Blaise Grimes-Viort’s Oct 2010 e-book: 60 Insights from Experienced Community Managers eBook
• Featured in Janet Fouts’ Mar 2010 e-book (available on Amazion): 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Nonprofit Social Media Engagement

INTERESTS

• Archaeology, architecture, Brazil, cinema, comedy, complex systems, health, history, industrial design, innovation, online communities, popular music, psychology, soccer, and social media

DOWNLOAD MY CV

• Downloadable version of my full CV (Word)
• View my shorter resume