We backed the bid, now we really need to back team GB, using social media of course!
Author Philippa Bowen
I’ve spent my weekend glued to the TV, the pc and my phone – why? Well I’m a huge fan of the Olympics whatever country they’re held in. So to have them on the doorstep is a real thrill and I’m loving the fact we can access every minute of every event. (I’m also looking forward to seeing some things live next week but that’s another story…..).
Would you say what you tweet?
Author Graham Parker MA MCIPR
Is twitter the last bolt hole of the coward? A radical question perhaps but one I believe warrants investigating.
Why are some people successful using Social Media and some aren’t?
Author Philippa Bowen
This is a question that I have been pondering for a while now and cropped up again in conversations last week so I thought I’d share my ideas and thoughts with you.
I think there are several obvious answers.
When a business comes to me and says that they aren’t getting the return from Social media that they see others (and in particular their competitors) getting I usually assess what they’re doing by asking the following questions:
Do they have a specific strategy for what they want to achieve?
Market Strategy
Author Graham Parker MA MCIPR
Has the marketing world been turned on its head or are businesses so desperate that they are chasing up and down every route to market in the hope of a sale?
Every marketing strategy put forward over the last 20 years has been driven by market segmentation and the narrowing of marketing channels. The aim has been, and should be, to focus on a key target market, identify how to communicate with it and make the message so irresistible that customers cannot refuse the offer.
Personal opinion v business opinion
Author Graham Parker MA MCIPR
Living in Nottinghamshire and being in public relations I could not help watching the recent Channel 4 series, Coppers. I was keen to see how the programme portrayed our local police force and how the public reacted to it as well.
The Unexpected Outcome
Author Helen Wilson
I know social media still has such a buzz about it in the business world and when I joined twitter it was purely for business reasons as I was looking at developing business opportunities. However as I was new to it I played with it a little before I sorted out a business twitter account. The unexpected outcome from this is that it really has had an impact on my personal life as well. All for the better.
I have been using twitter for quite a while now after much persuasion and encouragement from @EssexSocial I have grown a substantial following resulting in some great friendships and business opportunities. In fact I have found some people I actually feel closer to online than some people I know offline.
This last month has been an interesting time for me with lots of positive outcomes, some of which were totally unexpected. This has been both on a personal and professional level.
C’mon I Want to Know Now!
Don’t be afraid to ask
Author Julie Hayward
A while ago I was in Malta and it happened to be the weekend of the Malta Powerboat Grand Prix.
All very loud and exciting.
My husband is a brilliant photographer and is always keen to take pics of anything and everything. It was certainly a wonderful opportunity for some incredible images, especially if he could get a Press Pass to get in the pits.
That got me thinking – how could I get him in there? Who might be able to get him a Pass? Boat Magazines! They could potentially get coverage and images that they wouldn’t have been able to get and for free! I had a plan.
Listen to your Inner Crystal
Author Julie Hayward
A little while ago I spotted a tweet on Twitter. It had been posted by Hugh Hefner.
Now I don’t follow him but someone had deemed it worthy of a retweet. Although I can’t remember the exact wording it went along these lines ‘Crystal has had a change of heart, the wedding is off.’
Filling in the blanks it became apparent that Crystal had been due to marry Mr Hefner about a week later.
A day or so after the announcement another tweet showed the front cover of the next editi0n of Playboy boasting pictures of the new Mrs Hefner. It was an edition that had obviously gone to press before the wedding was cancelled.
What Crystal did had taken guts, bucketfuls of guts. A lot had hinged on this wedding for her, the Playboy business and her groom. Her marriage would have given her so much and she could have easily gone along with the wedding and taken full advantage of it but she didn’t. She stayed true to her heart and called it off even though it was only days away and she would have been seen to be ‘letting so many people down.’
How often do we ignore our Inner Crystal in our personal and business lives? Doing something just because it is easier to do it than ’cause a scene.’ Giving in to a customer’s demands when we know we are in the right and they are trying their luck? Taking on tasks that someone else should be doing as it is quicker and easier than confronting them?
Maybe we should all be a little more like Crystal sometimes. Go with our gut instincts and what we know is the right thing to do whatever the consequences.
Next time you find yourself torn between what you feel is expected from you and what you feel you should really do in a given situation why not ask yourself ‘What would Crystal do?’
How important is Facebook to your business?
Author Lesley Morrissey
Social media isn’t going away any time soon, so platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter will have an impact on our businesses – or will they?
How do you use the social media available to market your business? Does the information that 100,000 people in the UK have left Facebook recently worry you at all?
What’s behind your website?
Author Graham Parker MA MCIPR
A colleague of mine recently asked me for advice on social media strategy which resulted in us exposing some serious flaws in her company’s on-line presence which left me wondering – just what lies behind most websites and how effective are they?
Being yourself …
Author Lianne Dupre
What comes to mind when someone mentions authenticity? Genuine, credible, real, dependable are just some adjectives that you may first think of, all of them are admirable adjectives and no doubt ones that we would hope to be associated with ourselves. We all have the possibility to create our own image and yet some spend so much time on creating a ‘front’ in order to hide their authentic selves, that this becomes almost a full time job especially when they have a different ‘mask’ for each different social setting.
How do you feel when you partner comes to a work party with you? Is it difficult for you to merge your work and home persona or are you totally at ease in this situation?
10 top tips for new blog ideas…
Author admin
As its Easter and a Bank Holiday we’re not posting a blog from one of our regular contributors but thought we’d post one from us instead.
The most frequent question we get asked as the admin of this site is “what would you like me to write about?” so we’ve written this post about where we get the inspiration for our posts from, or which topics make us read a blog post.
Lord Sugar and the Telegraph corner shop
Author Graham Parker MA MCIPR
As a marketeer I’m always on the lookout for inspirational ideas and stories about how businesses and business people are successful in marketing their products and services. Few business people will fail to recognise the face of Alan Sugar, even fewer will fail to acknowledge the value of reading his autobiography – What you see is what you get. I’m currently about half the way through it and thoroughly enjoying the read. Apart from it giving me an insight into the man, it is also challenging a key tenet of my belief about the value of low pricing as part of a marketing strategy. The Amstrad strategy was always built on “stack them high and sell them cheap” and without a doubt it was a successful ploy; the company made millions that way. In my marketing workshops I advise small and medium sized businesses to avoid this strategy and to focus on quality and customer care because only the big boys with massive buying power can win in a low price war; it’s a well documented marketing theory and one that’s easily understood. Once the undercutting begins, only the player with the biggest and deepest pockets can win out.