Real Fresh TV presenters Cara Doyle and Gabby Anderson meet one half of Manchester band The Charlatans

Real Fresh TV started out in 2006 as an Internet TV website for musicians in Manchester. We organised and filmed gigs around the city, creating short, MTV-style music videos that could be watched online and on an iPod.

Launching on the back of the arrival of the first Apple iPod that could play video, we successfully published Europe’s first live music video podcast, the 3 Minute Gig in early 2006.

We also filmed music festivals in the region and interviewed many established bands and musicians including Guy Garvey of Elbow , Andy Rourke of The Smiths and Graham Coxon, formerly of Blur.

We were lucky enough to capture some of the region’s top musical talent before they went on to make it big: we filmed Ivor Novello winning, Grammy Award-nominated Salford pop duo The Ting Tings before they were signed.

Our initial business model was around selling advertising and sponsorship on an internet TV channel that showcased emerging bands and musicians in Manchester.

In the process of trying to find advertisers willing to sponsor our live music videos, we discovered that brands and media agencies were more interested in understanding the social technologies we were using to promote our content: YouTube, MySpace, a blog and an iTunes-listed video podcast.

In 2006, Facebook was still very much a US-centric social network and Twitter didn’t exist!

In the face of competition from well-funded media giants like YouTube and MySpace, we found it harder and harder to secure sponsorship for our fledgling internet TV channel.

Instead, we discovered that organisations were willing to pay to receive training on how to use the social media tools we were using to market Real Fresh TV.

We successfully changed our business model to developing and delivering social media marketing training courses and launched the UK’s longest running ‘social media for beginners’ training course in October 2008.

Since then we have trained organisations as varied as T-Mobile, PUMA, Arts Council England, University of Manchester and Contact Theatre Manchester on how to use social media to market and grow themselves.

We also provide social media implementation consultancy and support on projects where organisations need help to implement the techniques we have trained them to use in marketing to consumers using social media.

Real Fresh TV founder Chi-chi Ekweozor was nominated for a Channel 4 4Talent Multi-Platform Award for the 3 Minute Gig video podcast in 2008.

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