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Social media agency Simply Zesty hopes to triple the number of people it employs by the end of 2010.
Simply Zesty, which was established a year ago, recently announced that it had accepted an investment of €500,000 for a minority stake in the company, from The Oxford Research Agency (TORA), based in the UK. TORA specialises in FMCG new product development and customer experience research.

Simply Zesty director Niall Harbison told the Prosperity digital media ezine that the company was growing fairly fast without the investment to the point that it had 7 full-time staff.
“But we expect to be up to about 16-18 here in Ireland by the end of the year in Ireland as well as hopefully creating up to 6 jobs in the UK if everything goes to plan. We were a profitable company before investment but this helps accelerate our growth and enter new markets,” he said. Harbison established the business in May 2009 with co-founder Lauren Fisher.
According to Harbison, Simply Zesty, is hoping to add a new level of measurement to its social media offerings while also helping TORA to add a new level of social media to their research capabilities. “We want to add an extra layer of research and measurement to what we do so as we can really demonstrate how effective the work we do is. Measurement is the one area that is really lacking for social media and we want to try and exploit that as much as possible and bring the whole industry forward.”
TORA, he explains, has over 40 FMCG brands in the UK who will all hopefully be open to using social media in their marketing campaigns and as part of their overall strategy around customer service and other elements of their business where it might be relevant. According to Fisher, the company has some exciting projects lined up that will enable it to use social media in a completely new way.
“We are very excited about the level of growth that this will bring to the business and especially that it is going to be creating some much needed jobs here in Ireland in what are tough times,” concluded Harbison.