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Social Media Explored Seminar in Cromer

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Fazed by Facebook? Troubled by Twitter? Unsettled by social media generally?

Whether you’re a business owner, representing an organisation in the private or public sector or just a concerned individual the explosion in use of social media can easily leave you feeling left behind and uninformed. Maybe it seems everybody is getting involved except you?

Come to this completely free seminar and listen to experienced social media user, speaker and trainer Gary Dickenson explore, explain and unravel the mysteries behind social media. Anyone is welcome to attend the talk but it is primarily targeted towards business owners, management & staff and organisations & their staff.

The evening will be split into 2 parts with the first part giving a general introduction and the second optional part giving a specific brief twitter teach in.

Pt 1: Social Media Explored:

Where has the social media explosion come from?
What are the good/bad things about it?
Is social media right for you, if so what type?
How do you keep privacy and boundaries?
Should you be letting your employees use it?
Get tips on how to gain new business & exposure.
Learn what do to when it all goes wrong.
Learn how to use social media responsibly & effectively.
A time for questions and answers.

Break for refreshments

Pt 2: Twitter Teach In
This is the social media channel that everyone seems to dismiss as pointless but is it and why is so popular?

Why do I need to be using Twitter?
How to use Twitter, the basics?
Learn how to avoid bad behavioural traits and succeed with best practices

Where & When?
Cromer Parish Hall, Cromer.
Tuesday 30th of March
7pm for 7:30pm start

Please book your place in advance by calling Gary on 01263 579422 or email gary@creospace.co.uk so that we can make sure there are enough seats and refreshments.

People are talking about your business, brand or organisation right now,
…. are you listening?

Posted in Company Information, Internet, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Web Marketing, communication | No Comments »

Why you can’t base twitter success and expertise on stats

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Have you noticed recently the prolific increase in twitter based stats and reporting type websites ?

Have you noticed lots of people boasting about their position and status amongst their peers?

Have you noticed ’some’ social media experts using these sites as proof of their so called expertise?

Remember the saying ‘all that glitters is not gold’?

I’ll let you into a secret: On the whole these sites mean jack, zilch, zero, nout. And I say that being in the top 5 of one! But does that make them useless for everything or am I simply throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

Well no it doesn’t and no I’m not. Like many things in life it’s a case of ‘right tool for the job’ something that I believe in greatly. Now coming back to the issue at hand, that of folk using them to justify expert status.

The thing that actually counts is the thing that is almost impossible to measure

The trouble with this social media stuff is the thing that actually counts is the thing that is almost impossible to measure and gauge and that is engagement, interaction, meaningful relationships, true followers. lets face it numbers can be crunched and twisted to make anything look good, politicians do it every day!

For example: The number of people that follow someone (taken in isolation) is no real hard and fast gauge of how well you or anyone else for that matter doing because of several factors:

It’s easy to gain 1000’s of followers by simply following 1000’s and hope they follow you back
Your followers could be made of of a load of spam followers, bots and porn type followers. All of them meaningless
It doesn’t take into account the level of interaction with your followers
It doesn’t take into account the quality of your tweets
It doesn’t take into account the value that your followers place on your tweets (if people are re-tweeting you)
There’s no way to gauge what your followers truly think about you (unless you mind read)

Now some of these things are absolutely impossible to ascertain unless you interview every follower and review every single tweet and try and rate its value using some sort of predefined scale.

Useful for what?
So having established that these sites that rank lists of people into order actually mean nothing what can they be of use for? Well in the case of twiterholic.com you can find tweeters in your local area. You can see how active they are and use your own judgement as to whether they are worth following.

Some sites you can pick up stats about yourself that might give you an idea of how effective your tweets are by looking at the audience saturation level. In other words how many potential eyes has your tweet reached by others re-tweeting what you’ve said. Also a good indicator as to whether what you’re saying is of value.

Twitter based statistical websites include: www.twitterholic.com, www.tweetstats.com, www.twittercounter.com, www.twitteranalyzer.com to name but a few. There’s even one that pertains to gauge whether someone has more positive comments than negative said about them ( I tried it, it’s fun but essentially rubbish)!

The general rule is take it all with a pinch of salt and have a bit of fun. Learn to learn what is good and what is not and when a tool is useful and when it’s just a gimmick. Hopefully in 2010 we’ll start to see some more powerful analytical type tools that go some way towards being meaningful.

And remember; 56.8% of all statistics are made up!

As ever your comments are really welcome, please leave them below.

Posted in Social Media, Twitter | 6 Comments »

How Twitter has Successfully Worked for Us.

Monday, December 14th, 2009

We’ve been social media users for as long as I can remember, in fact it’s fair to say that this business has been built solely on the back of various social media channels. This said we only started to harness the power of twitter no more than 3 months ago although to be fair the methods of approaching twitter are the same as any other social media tool it’s just a case of learning the little idiosyncrasies.

I admit it was a time thing that was most off putting, how was I supposed to shoe horn in one more thing to my working day? But, one day I read an article and the last parting comment was this:

The train is leaving the station with or without you

This was a general reference to social media but in particular twitter as that is the forerunner at the moment. The next day I was on that train brandishing first class tickets yelling at the driver to take off the brakes and get this train moving full steam ahead. The one thing I can say without doubt is ‘why didn’t I start tweeting earlier?’.

Twitter success
It takes a while to get established and in the first few weeks getting stuck in and finding your feet does take up a lot of time but we’re confident we’re taking the right approach to our tweeting (open to opinion though) because of our achievements with it so far in about 6 weeks and 600 or so posts.

So in no particular order of importance we have: Found 2 new suppliers, have been invited to show at an exhibition (which went very well), am talking to one contact to do some consultancy for them, have been invited to guest blog with good exposure, had the opportunity to quote for work (2 largish contracts so far) we otherwise wouldn’t of, connected with people who have been asking about our service that we otherwise would of missed and we’ve actually won some work!

But maybe more importantly we’ve forged some fantastic relationships with people and anticipate doing more deals within the next month or so and all as a direct result of twitter alone. All within approx 8 weeks, although to be fair the productive parts have been in the last month or so.

We’re firmly on that train now, are you? If you are looking for help and/or advice regarding the use of Twitter for your brand or indeed social media in general then do get in touch via our contact page. We can provide your business with various social media based products from twitter backgrounds up to training seminars/workshops.

Your comments are really welcome, please leave them below.

Posted in Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Web Marketing | 1 Comment »

Social Networking and Business Success

Friday, November 6th, 2009

If you haven’t read our article ‘Social Networking and Business Image’ then it may be a good time to read it as we cover the first two ‘musts’ when you decide to embark on social networking. There are 100’s of sites to get involved in but you may eventually decide to stick to just one site because it suits your business and works for you so our guide covers them all in a general non-subjective way.

Business success can be achieved if you approach social networking in a certain way and following on from our last article we have written some further tested points to follow.

Cutting Costs Through Social Networking
We have already established that social networking can offer up more leads in return for our time and our willingness to appear less formal than perhaps we do in a face-to-face environment. Social networking sites have been established to connect us and they are free, plus you can receive instant feedback on your products.

You may eventually decide to stick to just one site because it suits your business and works for you so our guide covers them all in a general non-subjective way. However try a few sites and find that final one where there are good quantities of like-minded people, people that are passionate and want to socialise in your area of business and you will build a following that you can market to, for free.

Through all of this, remember to say who you are – anonymity is no longer a good idea, why would you hide your true identity if your business is a trustworthy one? Build trust and you will build loyalty.

No Direct Sell
The whole idea of getting into social networking is not to promote your business but to raise awareness in an indirect way, give it personality and ultimately build your business success. This is done by interaction, engagement and getting conversations going. The wrong idea would be to sign up to, say, Twitter and start hard selling your products. Firstly this does not say much for your business ethic so, as we mentioned in our last article, try to remain a little laid back that you would usually – people do expect less formality. Secondly it tells your followers that you have your blinkers on and perhaps are not interested in them and that’s a good way to turn people off.

Try a bit of humour, you are there to network not sell and there is a big difference. Once you have a good group of followers that are interested in you and your industry you can throw in some subtle messages regarding the product or service you are looking to sell. Again we are talking about trust and loyalty so interacting with people and engaging them in a quick bit of chat will tell them you are aware of them and are not simply connecting to sell them something, they will feel a little more comfortable with you and your business this way.

For most SME’s spending money on advertising campaigns will soon, if it hasn’t already, become a complete waste of money as 95% of people don’t take any notice of most advertising. We do believe that businesses are going to be very disadvantaged by not involving themselves in social networking and perhaps getting to know people that may well be their potential customers.

Posted in Social Media, Social Networking, Web Marketing, communication | No Comments »