The Business Builder Forum on July 6, 2011, featured discussions on social media marketing, emphasizing its critical role for businesses in today's digital age. Key takeaways included the importance of two-way communication, maximizing platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for engagement, and the necessity of maintaining up-to-date and interactive profiles. Attendees were encouraged to develop regular social media practices while managing the intersection of personal and business online presence.

1. Business Builder Forum
6th July 2011
Welcome
Rachel Girling – Meades & Company

2. 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

3. • Your event
• Feedback essential
• Networking

4. Social Media - exploiting
the tools for your
business

5. Pornography

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

8. How big is Social Media?
23% of all time
spent on the
internet in the
UK

9. Why do I need it?
• Successful social media marketing builds social
proof.
 64% are more likely to trust information coming
from ‘people like me’ – ie someone they trust.
The Edelman Trust Barometer

10. Why do I need it?
• 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

11. 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......

12. Monologue v Dialogue
• This is why Social Media is set to replace email
as a major marketing channel.
 It’s about two-way communication.
 Do your newsletters allow for dialogue?
 Social Media is dialogue not monologue

14. 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

15. 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’

21. 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

23. 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

24. 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.

26. Page Analytics

28. 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

29. 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

31. Connect
• 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

33. Groups
• 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

37. Join in discussions
• Look for new group discussions
• Use LinkedIn Answers (under ‘More’ tab – or
search topics in Answers using Search)
• Become an expert

38. Advanced Search
• Search for clients using keywords and locations
Eg, “owner+building” within 30 miles of your postcode will
return LinkedIn users that own a building company.
• Ask for introductions through contacts or
groups
LinkedIn shows you your current relationship to 2nd or 3rd tier
contacts – and it’s polite to ask!

39. 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)

40. Tips for Success

41. Manage your accounts
• Integration is the key
• Free Social Media tools to manage accounts
– Tweetdeck
– Hootsuite
• Manage multiple accounts in one place

42. TweetDeck

43. 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!

44. 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

45. 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.”

46. 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

47. 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

48. Golden Rules of Engagement
 Be active
 Be interesting
 Be genuine
 Be humble
 Have FUN!