Business Builder Forum6th July 2011

WelcomeRachel Girling – Meades & Company

Morning agenda

07.45 Arrival

08.00 Registration, breakfast and networking

08.20 Welcome: Rachel Girling,Client Manager at Meades & Company

08.30 Guest Speaker:Luke Jackson, Marketing Consultant at AVN Ltd

09.30 Q & A

09.45 Close and networking

10.00 Stadium tour with former Watford FC player Neil Price

• Your event

• Feedback essential

• Networking

Social Media - exploiting the tools for your business

Pornography

Research conducted by OpiniumResearch on 27th March 2011 across a representative sample of 4093 adults aged 18+

How big is Social Media?

23% of all time spent on the internet in the UK

Why do I need it?

The Edelman Trust Barometer

• Successful social media marketing builds social proof.

64% are more likely to trust information coming from ‘people like me’ – ie someone they trust.

• Millions are active on Social Media...

Your competitors are already there...

Your customers are already there...

“If you’re not there yet you should be...”Newsweek, Feb, 2009

Why do I need it?

• Because 93% of Social Media Users believe a company should have a presence in Social Media.

However, that doesn’t mean that 93% of users think companies should treat Social Media as another channel for broadcasting......

Why do I need it?

• This is why Social Media is set to replace email as a major marketing channel.

Monologue v Dialogue

It’s about two-way communication.

Do your newsletters allow for dialogue?

Social Media is dialogue not monologue

Twitter

• Established 5 years

• Micro-blogging site (140 characters per tweet)

• “An information network”

• 175,000,000 registered users worldwide

• 370,000 new sign-ups daily

• 95,000,000 tweets per day

• Use to engage with others

Twitter

• Fast-moving – don’t try to keep up

• Jump into conversations

• Follow interesting users

– LocaFollow.com

– FollowerWonk.com

• Ideal for mobile use to react ‘on the go’

Facebook

• Established 7 years

• Sharing site – friends, news, updates, photos

• 500,000,000 active users worldwide

• 1,500,000 active businesses with Pages…

• …with 5,300,000,000 ‘Fans’

• 30,000,000,000 pieces of content shared each month

Facebook

• Simplest way for a business to have a Facebook presence

• Add info, wall postings, photos, team news

• Interact with ‘fans’ and send them messages

• Create and share events

• Share YouTube videos

• Link to your website and other useful links

Facebook

• How many team members do you have?

• Average Facebook user has 130 friends

• How many of them fall into your target audience?

• If they all ‘Like’ your company page, their friends will also see this on their News Feeds.

Page Analytics

LinkedIn

• Established 8 years

• Largest professional online network

• 100,000,000+ members worldwide

• 1,500,000 Company profiles

• 5,000,000+ UK members

• 877,000 groups

Profile Tips

Make sure your LinkedIn profile “sells”

• Get to 100% ‘completeness’

• Share best practice and content

• Summary must give strong reason to talk to you– Eg free meeting, free report, free seminar, free advice

• Move low impact sections to the end – Education, Experience, Additional info and Contact settings

• Find people you already know

– Friends

– Clients

– University classmates

– Contacts from previous employment

• Upload your Outlook contacts

– Select which ones you’d like to connect with

Connect

• LinkedIn has a limit of 50 groups per user

– Only join those you can keep up with

• Interact with other users but don’t spam

• Useful groups:

– Institute groups

– Local networking groups

– Groups for business owners

Groups

Join in discussions

• Look for new group discussions

• Use LinkedIn Answers (under ‘More’ tab – or search topics in Answers using Search)

• Become an expert

Advanced Search

• Search for clients using keywords and locationsEg, “owner+building” within 30 miles of your postcode will return LinkedIn users that own a building company.

• Ask for introductions through contacts or groupsLinkedIn shows you your current relationship to 2nd or 3rd tier contacts – and it’s polite to ask!

Recommendations

• Use the rule of reciprocity (or “give and you shall receive”) (change settings to hide quid pro quo recommendations)

• Ask favourite contacts

• Ask clients when they say ‘Thanks’

• Get the team asking for recommendations (make it a competition with a prize for the most)

• Use them beyond LinkedIn (website, proposals, brochures)

Tips for Success

Manage your accounts

• Integration is the key

• Free Social Media tools to manage accounts

– Tweetdeck

– Hootsuite

• Manage multiple accounts in one place

TweetDeck

Add Social Media links to your website

• Make it easy for people to find you

• Image links work best

• Put them on the homepage

• Put them on every page if possible!

Tip: add links to all your team members’ email footers too!

Keep updating

• Social Media moves quickly

• Don’t answer quickly and your competitor will

• Make sure your information is current

• Diarise time each week to post updates

• Allocate to several trusted team members

Tip: consider implementing a social media policy

“Be conscious when mixing your business and personal lives. Online, your personal and business personas are likely to intersect. The Company respects the free speech rights of all of its associates, but you must remember that customers, colleagues and supervisors often have access to the online content you post. Keep this in mind when publishing information online that can be seen by more than friends and family, and know that information originally intended just for friends and family can be forwarded on.”

Social Media Policy

Go mobile

• Twitter Apps available on most smartphones

• Easy to install and update frequently

• Interact with people ‘on-the-go’

• Enables quick response

• 11m UK users

Track progress

• Measure key stats– e.g. Number of followers, tweets, mentions, ‘likes’

• Use analytics to find out– Number of leads generated through Social Media

– Number of new clients won

• Update weekly and share with the team- Know what works best for you

Golden Rules of Engagement

Be active

Be interesting

Be genuine

Be humble

Have FUN!