The Chichester Social

I'm Debbie, a social media strategist who combines creativity and big-picture thinking to help founders (and their teams) harness the full potential of social media—particularly LinkedIn™—for their business.

Drawing on decades of marketing, communications, and change management experience, I specialise in guiding business owners who want to build meaningful customer relationships but feel overwhelmed by social media demands.

You might be:

➰ Ready to share your expertise but struggling to find your voice
➰ Keen to build authentic connections, not just grow your network
➰ Looking to develop a natural, sustainable social media presence
➰ Short on time but aware your business needs a stronger digital presence

My SuperHelpful™ approach is straightforward:

1) We start with a discovery session to understand your business goals and ensure we're the right fit
2) Together, we create an actionable strategy-based approach on where you are and where you want to be
3) Through training, support or even management, you'll gain the confidence and tools to effectively showcase your value on social media

My diverse client portfolio spans HR, IT services, financial services, national charities, and the arts—including my role as Director & Marketing Lead for a local independent cinema.

Ready to transform your social media presence? DM today. 

The Chichester Social - thechichestersocial.com

Founder

RUME2

Blurb from Rume2: 'A warm welcome: You all know Debbie right? Well if you don't where have you been! Debbie Ford one of our founding members & an integral part of the Chichester business community with her super helpful business The Chichester Social, Chair at Chichester Cinema, Co-founder of the brilliant business network group Last Friday Club & now from April she will be joining our Rume2 team once a week to help welcome all of you. We are over the moon we have such a positive, friendly & familiar face joining our gang.'

Front of House

Chichester Cinema at New Park

Voluntary role for this much-loved cinema and charity in Chichester.

As Chair of the Board, I lead a skilled and committed group of Trustees to help drive the strategic and charitable agenda of the cinema forward, to make it fit for purpose and inspiring to attract new audiences. 

I also lead on all things Marketing, working alongside the Executive Director.

Chair of the Board of Trustees

GoCollaborate Limited

Working with the GoCollaborate team to increase brand awareness by raising the profile of their services, which in turn will bring increased engagement and requests to provide a platform for consultations for more community, and locally-driven, projects.
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Creating and publishing engaging and informative content on the GoCollaborate LinkedIn company page — enabling the team to always have ready access to quality, relevant content to share with their connections

Social Media Marketing Specialist

Brake, the road safety charity

I managed the social media marketing and campaign engagement for Brake, the road safety charity. 

'We want a world where everyone is free to move in a safe and healthy way, every day. We work to stop road deaths and injuries, support people affected by road crashes and campaign for safe and healthy mobility for all.'

Find out more: brake.org.uk

Freelance Social Media Marketing Consultant

Sudden - bereavement support

I managed the social media marketing and community engagement for Sudden, which is an early intervention service to support people who are suddenly bereaved.

I also write short articles for the website and liaise with users of the service, partners and peer organisations.

Do reach out to me if you are looking to support or sponsor a charity this year in your organisation, or would like to know more about their services supporting individuals and professionals.

Social Media Marketing Manager

I was one of two project managers at D3R and I managed the allocation of developer resource, as well providing the client management and support during any development work - for new builds, ongoing maintenance or ad-hoc pieces of work.

I worked on big brand sites including luxury retail; aspirational travel; fine dining and contemporary, high-end hotel groups.

Project Manager

West Sussex County Council

This workstream was part of a wider strategic programme to enable employees to work smarter, more flexibly and efficiently. The IT refresh impacted approximately 6,000 staff, across over 50 sites in West Sussex. 

My key responsibilities were:

Managing the assigned migrations as a project.  Working to the milestones, raising issues and risks to WSCC and Capita that threatened the plan. 

1.	Responsible for all activities on the plan that are assigned to WSCC resources 
2.	Reported progress, issues and risks on a weekly basis for all tasks assigned to WSCC resources on plan 
3.	Gained an understanding of the business processes in the team migrating to help them with the change
4.	Developed good working relationships with key managers within area to be migrated
5.	Delivered programme awareness roadshows
6.	Created FAQs and other material for the project websites (SharePoint)
7.	Managed and monitored the programme discussion forums  
8.	Attended weekly joint implementation team meetings 
9.	Developed and managed the communications and engagement strategy 
10.	Contributed to organisation-wide communications activities

Change/Project Manager, Flexible IT Platform

Brought in to support stakeholder engagement a month before go live, due to proven track record in supporting big transformational projects.

	Provided advice in relation to communicating with service providers 
	Change impact analysis on providers’ needs to ensure web content and layout supported them
	Developed communications for a variety of stakeholders including customers, in-house staff and providers
	Established effective relationships with Finance, Purchasing and Case Management subject matter experts
	Redesigned the Adults’ Services intranet pages.  This was a key resource for system users and supporting teams  
	Managed the activity under challenging timescales
	Active project team member
	Developed a reporting suite for senior stakeholders
	Produced and maintained FAQs online for Users and Suppliers

Communications and Change Manager, Adults' frameworki

Worked across Finance, Procurement and HR services – July 2010 – May 2011 (Jan – May solely on H2R):

	Developed, managed and monitored Business Readiness Assessments for all 3 projects – these were used to gain further information from key managers about their Services’ understanding of the forthcoming changes presented by the implementation of SAP
	Planned and co-ordinated a series of workshops to increase knowledge about the changes coming for all staff
	Managed communications to and from project managers and monitored completion of any actions
	Developed a reporting suite following the initial go live in October 2010 – findings were shared with senior stakeholders, actions were then followed up to increase support to users and improve the system generally
H2R only:
	Planned and co-ordinated a series of workshops and surgeries for Users to get to engage with the new functionality in both ESS and MSS
	Worked with the Library Service (pilot group) to understand impacts on wider organisational roll-out
	Produced and analysed daily reports following go live in February 2011 – findings were shared with senior stakeholders, actions were then followed up to increase support to users and improve the system generally
	Task managed individuals’ input from HRMI, Employment Services, SAP Support and HR Customer Services Team to ensure I captured all essential feedback to inform stakeholders
	Researched and produced findings and a proposal for Head of People Management to advise on the most effective approach to rolling out Self-Service HR reports for managers

Assistant Change Manager, SAP Programme

Subject Matter Expert for Resources, FSR Programme

	Presented initial resource/programme view to Change Board 
	Worked with Capgemini to deliver a Portfolio Mgt model in order to prioritise FSR projects against varying scenarios – worked closely with programme, project and workstream leads to feed into model
	Final presentation of findings and position on resource challenge for prioritisation focus
	Developed a toolkit to support better planning and forecasting for project managers.  Worked with functional specialists for their inputs

Subject Matter Expert for Resources, Change Programme

	Managed a consistent and compliant approach to business planning and performance management across the Customer Services Directorate
	Managed a consistent and compliant approach to business continuity and risk management across the Directorate
	Represented the Directorate on the External Funding Network on the Steering Group
	Led the Performance Mgt Community - organised monthly meetings, ensured actions were met and learning was shared

Business Planning and Performance Management Officer

Improvement & Development Agency (IDeA)

I did this role alongside my main job with West Sussex County Council.

Regional Liaison Manager and Chair for London and South East Toolkit Local Communities. I also held the national communications role for the Toolkit.

My objective was to help local authorities engage with the national, regional and local government agenda to electronic service delivery and to respond to the ongoing challenge of improving services to citizens through a better understanding of customer need. 

The work on this directly fed into what became the .gov.uk website and improved online services in local and regional council websites for citizens to self-serve or find the information they needed without needing to understand the differences in services provided between, town and county levels.

Regional Liaison Manager (esd-toolkit)

Jobsite

- Worked in a vibrant marketing team specialising in: candidate communications and engagement
- Developed nationwide marketing campaigns

Marketing Officer

My focus every day is to show people that social media (especially LinkedIn™️) doesn't have to be scary or stuffy — or make you feel sick!

Since founding The Chichester Social in 2016, I've been helping business owners find their confidence and voice online and actually enjoy it. With 25+ years in marketing and communications, I know what works, but more importantly, I know how to make it work for YOU.

Community is at the heart of everything I do. You'll find me wearing various hats around Chichester - as a Trustee and Chair of the Board, I help to shape the future of our beloved independent cinema, Chichester Cinema; creating a supportive space for freelancers through the Last Friday Club (which I co-run with my brilliant friend, Emily); to being part of the welcoming and community engagement team at RUME2's co-working space.

I'm here to help if you're:
➰ Looking at LinkedIn™️ thinking "where do I even start?"
➰ Ready to share your expertise, but not sure how to put it into words
➰ Keen to build real connections, not just collect random connections
➰ Want to develop a social media approach that feels natural, not forced

No corporate jargon, no out of the box solutions - just practical, personalised support to help you communicate confidently online with your customers and clients, in a way that feels genuinely you.

Taplio

Debbie Ford's Linkedin Analytics

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Taplio

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Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Debbie Ford's Linkedin Analytics