Making the most of social media

Getting started in social media can seem like a very daunting task - I am often asked for advice or tips on how to make the best use of this valuable marketing tool. Following on from my post translating Twitter terms, here are a few pointers to help you make the best use of your social media activity to raise the profile of your business:

* Watch & listen before you “speak” - you don't have to join the conversation straight away.
* Integrate with your current website - using links to your current website is crucial if you want to use social media to drive sales - www.bit.ly and www.tinyurl.com are great space saving link tools.
* Competitions and offers - use social media to publicise special offers or run a competition for everyone that shares or retweets (RT) your post.
* Encourage and engage conversation – it doesn't cost anything to be helpful but users will remember you for it.
* Market research - social media is a great place to get up to date with your industry and find out what your competitors are up to.
* Select your tone of voice – keep it consistent with your brand. That means you can't use frequent foul language if you work for a very straight corporate company.
* Don’t be too “salesy” – communicate not broadcast. People hate to be sold to on Twitter as much as they hate it elsewhere.
* Time-saving tools – Use applications like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck etc. to save time and schedule your activity

What is marketing?

When I'm delivering my training courses on marketing for small businesses and start ups across Norfolk, we usually start with a fairly simple question - "What is marketing?" I ask everyone to jot some ideas down to try and get a picture of the level of knowledge in the room (and also to give my voice a break from talking all day!) This exercise is also hugely valuable to get people "into the groove" and "thinking marketing". I truly believe that marketing is so much more than just a process like accounting or administration, its a whole way of thinking. Those that srtuggle with the concept will often start by putting advertising down on the blank sheet of paper but marketing is so much more than simply advertising.

Some of the most successful small businesses and start ups are those which think marketing all of the time. By this I mean that they are open-minded to creative ideas - anything from giving some products away to a charity to forming alliances for referrals or collaborating to host an event. So here are a few of the more unusual things that some of my training course delegates think are marketing that you might not have thought of:

1. Giving away free samples of your product - this could be at an event, in the street or even mounted onto the front of a magazine
2. Holding an open day
3. Writing an article in a magazine
4. Writing a blog or using other social media
5. Setting up a customer loyalty scheme - use a simple business card to collect stamps and give loyal customers a free drink etc on their 6th visit.
6. Clever packaging and point of sale (POS) - a dull product can look totally different in a clever box or display stand
7. Incentive schemes - encourage word of mouth from existing customers by rewarding them for referring a friend to you
8. Giving away branded promotional gifts such as pens, stickers or carrier bags

Can anyone suggest any other smart marketing ideas?

Competition for Publicity

I'm often asked for some (free) marketing advice and find myself giving out tips and ideas readily. I gave a talk on PR to The Business Club in Norwich recently and one of the ideas I suggested seemed to spark a lot of interest so I thought I would expand upon it here.

I really love using reader competitions to generate PR coverage for clients and projects. Printed publications (especially newspapers) are getting a bit less keen on this type of coverage as their staffing is limited with marketing posts often made redundant, but there is still plenty of scope for this type of promotion through online and offline outlets.

Competitions offer many advantages to companies looking to raise the profile of their goods or services:
* Usually free to insert - cost is only in prize value
* Opportunities for data capture - every entrant is expressing an interest in your product or service and can therefore be considered a warm contact
* Impression of kindness and goodwill bestowed upon your company for giving away stuff
* Editorial style coverage which is a lot more discreet than advertising
* Implication of endorsement by the magazine etc by association with your product/service


Many publications will have a minimum prize value which can often be in the region of £500 - consider though that this is the retail value and the cost to you as a company is only perhaps half of that. Offering a money can't buy prize such as a VIP experience can also negate this prize value. Competitions are often given a generous amount of editorial space and frequently a full page of coverage plus front cover teasers so this still represents excellent value for "money".

Entry levels for competitions vary by publication - we only had one entry to a competition to win a martial arts lesson some time ago but we had 150 entries to another to win a hamper of spring bulbs from a garden centre.

Top Tips for Running a Reader Competition
1. Give plenty of notice to the publication - magazines are often running 2+ months ahead
2. Don't bother with BBC radio stations - they no longer run listener competitions since the bad publicity surrounding fake entries on Blue Peter etc.
3. Commercial radio stations will generally charge a fee to run a listener competition - expect to pay £300-500 plus the prize value.
4. Check with the publication to make sure they comply with Data Protection laws and ensure that there is a relevant tick box to allow you to share data captured.
5. Use Twitter to run a competition by asking people to spread the word about you by re-tweeting (RT) your message in exchange for a free entry into your competition
6. Follow up, follow up and follow up

You can arrange a competition yourself with some research or we would be delighted to help you to arrange a reader competition. Speak to Kate on 01603 716700 or email kate@activemd.co.uk for information

Creating a social media personality

I have been lucky enough in the last week to deliver two workshops on social media and to share the potential of online networking with some interested individuals. The great thing about training and teaching is that I always find myself learning something at the same time as sharing my knowledge with others. One of the key comments raised in one workshop was the importance of integrating all aspects of social media activity into a streamlined strategy with blogging at the core. As I work my way through the maze of social networking opportunities I can really start to see the potential benefits of a holistic approach, although I am not yet tempted to go as far as "cheating" by using automatic updates as i still feel the individuality of the posts is crucial. One of the key values of social media is the importance of personality, which must show through in both individuals and brands. This also extends to adding an element of emotion to posts which makes them far more interesting to the reader.

Kirstie Allsopp @KirstieMAllsopp (posh presenter of Location, Location, Location) is an astute example of a social media-savvy celeb. One of her tweets which stayed in my mind when asked for a twitter tip was simply FFF - follow fun folk. She mixes home life and work life in her posts to achieve a healthy balance of personality and emotion with the serious promotion of her new tv series. When recently appointed as a celeb ambassador for the Keep Britain Tidy campaign, organisers credited the fact she made a personal call to express her keen interest in the role as a key factor in their choice. Again the real personality is shining through.

The challenge for small businesses is to identify and develop this type of appealing, almost human personality for their brand and share it with the world.

Social media madness

I've been neglecting my blogging recently in favour of exploring some of the other (many and varied) social media channels out there. The reason for this exploration is rooted in the social media workshop I am delivering next week for a Norfolk County Council programme to support tourism businesses (called Trading Up), but I've actually found myself secretly quite enjoying the journey. Social media (like all technology) is moving so fast and in many scenarios its still more a case of trial and error than following a set of tried and tested rules. This rings true with many aspects of marketing for small businesses too - I have lost count of the times I have been asked for a simple answer to the age old question: "What type of marketing will work for my business?" There is no one word answer I'm afraid.

I'm slowly being converted to the joys of Twitter despite a very sceptical start, and have already made 3 new Twitter friends of which i am justly proud! While its great to have all this amazing technology which makes life so global, its always good to be able to bring it back to a local level too, so i have concentrated my Twitter activity on tracking down other local Twitterers to engage with.

Linked In is also growing on me, and I now have kind recommendations from 6 associates. Time will tell if people actually read them!