Facebook & Twitter for Small Businesses.
(beginners to intermediate)
Business trainer and Hampshire Magician Sean Boon
Sunday, 23 June 2013 from 19:00 to 22:00 (BST)
Portsmouth, United Kingdom
When a Sean Boon offers to teach you how to use Facebook & Twitter you just know you’ll learn with a bit of magic 
| Article Categories: | Facebook,Social Media Directors Events,Social Media Events,Twitter |
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12 Steps to Social Media Success
Amanda Kennedy – 12 Steps to Social Media Success 23rd April 2013 12:30PM – 2:00PM Salisbury Big Business Event: Free advice for all businesses @ Salisbury Guildhall
**Places limited, please book here**
If you are baffled by social media, then make sure you register now for our fantastic FREE seminar with Social Media Queen Amanda Kennedy on Tuesday 23rd April at 12.30pm.
If you want to know how to use Facebook and Twitter to help you create brand awareness, build relationships and increase your sales then Amanda has the formula for you.
Her 12 steps to social media success will give you the knowledge to use your social media accounts successfully; eliminating any fear, saving you time and making it fun for you!
Amanda runs Kennedy PR and helps clients with social media marketing, content marketing (blogging) and search engine optimization. Amanda’s passion for online marketing shines through in each training session or speaking gig she runs, and has helped 100’s of businesses market themselves successfully across the social media platforms, eliminating any worries and creating excitement.
| Article Categories: | Facebook,Social Media Directors Events,Social Media Events,Social Media Platforms,Twitter,Uncategorized |
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What do you get when you blend Yahoo, Starbucks, social media & a Sleepy Skunk?
A brilliant insight into the modern world of job interviews, highs, lows, perceptions & heightened egos… If a sleepy skunk knows you’ve “crashed and burned” then wake up and smell the coffee Mr Interviewee, you’re in Starbucks but you ain’t gunna be a star, better save that buck for the tram home dude
Just watching the Big ReUnion gig on TV and thought I’d check responses to my recent auto tweets… I do love those little chaps pinging notes out around the world just waiting for an insightful response. Today I wasn’t disappointed, The Sleepy Skunk responded and I read his timeline… what fun, listening into an interview at the next table…
This is how all Social Media Director interviews should be conducted… the comments tweeted and the best candidate gets the most RTs… enjoy this timeline and go show The Sleepy Skunk your appreciation by following him on Twitter and telling him what movies you’d like to see next…
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
Sitting at a Starbucks and there’s a big job interview right behind me and it’s going horribly wrong! cc @katerbland
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
It’s to be a social media director with Yahoo! The guy was giving out ace answers but now he just repeated one of them… twice.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
Inappropriate comment made about facebook being for teenagers or adults “who don’t have a life”. That was followed by an awkward silence.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
Oh shit, she’s wrapping it up already but now he’s got prepared questions and is insisting on them.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
“What are the top ten things that you are looking for in an ideal candidate?” he says. She looks like she needs someone to help her escape
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
He now turned his question into an answer and is rambling about “the glory days of email spam”. She just looked at her watch.
My auto-tweet kicks in… Jonathan L Davey SMD @2020socialmedia 1h
@sleepyskunk Are you looking for a Social Media Director? Take a look at http://www.socialmediadirectors.co.uk
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
@2020socialmedia No Jonathan. I am live-tweeting a brutal interview happening right next to me in a Starbucks downtown Toronto, Canada.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
Oh shit, he just asked if he can work from home and she said she doesn’t believe in that. The last pin in the coffin!
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
Now he sounds completely oblivious to the fact that she has no interest in his answers. The dude is interviewing himself.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 1h
They’re talking about YouTube now. He just brought up the the April Fools prank about shutting down all videos and how he fell for it.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 57m
It’s a wrap! She just left and he’s sitting there alone playing on his phone.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 53m
He’s now talking to his buddy saying he nailed the interview. I thought tweeting about this would be funny, but now it’s just sad.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 52m
Being a social media director at Yahoo… that’s like trying to pick up girls at an undergrad keg party when you’re 50.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 51m
He didn’t say that by the way, that was my personal thought on the position itself.
The Sleepy Skunk @sleepyskunk 51m
Feeling a bit depressed now… tough world out there.
BRILLIANT… cheery up stinky!
Thank you for great content for my first story for April.
Jon
Selling & generating business leads in 2013 compared with 1993
What are the differences between selling & generating business leads in 1993 compared with 2013? The world keeps spinning on its access, no change there then… we all need to eat, although Wagon Wheels aren’t what they once were
In 1993 I was working for Vistakon, part of Johnson & Johnson, selling Acuvue disposable contact lenses to opticians in the north of England. My original patch had been the M62 to Scotland but with the recent promotion of my Scottish colleague into management, I was asked to launch the 1-Day lens in Scotland…
Opticians are professionals and so that meant the majority were more concerned with the health of their patients than simply making a pile of cash… I’m not involved in that market these days but I like to think that is still the case.
I had a car phone & a Renault Laguna which allowed me to drive up to Aberdeen & Inverness in the north, Newcastle in the south, Edinburgh to the East and Ayr to the West… guess where I was living!
I’d built a database using Access 1 to help me with my call cycle… this was a new patch and I needed to understand the account profiles and so building a system that allowed me to manage my connections made a great deal of sense. This way I could identify the key account in an area, make an appointment with them and then drop in on the others to say hello, only making fixed appointments where necessary.
While covering my previous patch I was able to encourage the professionals gently towards fitting Acuvue and only needed to make appointments with 2 accounts out of 200 I set up… I’d launched the original Acuvue disposable contact lens in the north of England.
One media campaign in The Yorkshire Post involved encouraging 50 opticians to spend £30 each to be part of the advertorial… I match funded this and we had 3 or 4 insertions in the paper… the advertorial won Best Co-operative Advertising Campaign for United Newspaper Group… this would have been around 1990… I still need to chase up a copy of that award, so if you know someone who can help, do connect us… thank you.
I had gained the trust of the opticians by calling on them regularly, not ramming my message down their throats but simply building the relationship which saw them try a pair on a patient and evaluate the benefits for them… if it worked, they’d try another… and then another until 6-9-12 months later they were convinced that Acuvue had a place in their practice… if they were commercially minded then they would fit loads because the profit margin was very good.
In 2003 I had been running my own business for 4-5 years and was banging the doors of marketing & PR companies about the benefits of email marketing as a great marketing tool and the fact that the click through tracking provided the sales team with evidence of interest in a product or service. Back then, if you immediately followed through with a phone call, they would have thought it the work of the devil… leaving it a couple of days was seen to be the balanced approach… today you need to be calling them while they are thinking about it, as they click and it is fresh in their mind!
Html emails offered the ability to send a quality email, with pictures, for the viewers enjoyment… today these same emails are seen very much as an intrusion into someone’s day… we are really at a point of information overload… trying to please all the people all the time and therefore we only want essential messages coming through to our email accounts.
In 2013… I have spent the last couple of years preaching social media and still many are reluctant to join in… it’s less an age thing and more a resistance to change within each and every one of us. Those who just love the sound of their own voice will dive into tools like Twitter and share far and wide… younger people are using it to share their next move so others can join them mentally or physically!
If you have fun products then sharing them on Facebook makes sense as that has been the fun place to be… although as the accountants have moved in and egos have taken over, the people are looking for somewhere new to go and hang out…
LinkedIn is the best social media business tool in the box as it allows people to communicate in groups, connect directly and share their latest business moves in real time… other members can then log in as their time or their preference allows and review the moves of others while considering discussion topics and sharing opinions.
If you are looking for a new job, LinkedIn allows companies to share their profiles and promote job opportunities to their huge database… 11-12 million members in the UK means that most business professionals are choosing to at least add a few words about themselves on the platform, making it the most logical place to go and find fresh talent.
As well as new employees, the platform also allows you to search for your perfect customer… what is the profile of your perfect customer? What do they want to know about you, if they choose to click through on your profile image? You’d best make it clear and engaging… see what you think of my profile…
So how is selling and business lead generation in 2013 different, compared with 1993?
Technology, rather than giving us more time, has increased the urgency within us to deliver… if not for our own gratification, to meet the expectations of our mangers and in turn theirs.
If people are able both mentally & practically able to make a decision on a subject quickly then fantastic, away we go… but if they are middle management, with more than one master to please, then this could be an arduous task as their priorities are changed daily… is that any different to 1993? Faster and less personal comes to mind…
The upside is the key decision maker will have a full diary and therefore as they, as individuals, become more comfortable with technology, they will be happy to review online, rather than in person, make a decision and catch up at the relevant industry award dinners!
Most simple products and services can be sourced online and so ensure your e-commerce system is the smoothest it can possibly be to make that straight forward purchase, straight forward.
Use social platforms… make them work for you, creating, building and strengthening relationships with those around you.
On balance the best piece of advice I can give you in 2013 is to ensure your LinkedIn Profile is saying who you are and what you can do for another… this way, when that perfect client comes virtually walking by, they will have no choice but to make a connection… and as they say, the rest will be history
People still deal with people… they just make decisions more quickly… so best make sure you are talking to the right person at the right time!
Also, make sure you add your two penneth on the difference between 1993 & 2013 to the comments below… this site has great SEO and so adding comments will enhance your own… assuming you need a little pull up the rankings
Thank you.
Jon Davey
Sales & Marketing for Web 2.0
Encouraging Positive, Proactive Participation
SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTORS
01753 852904
Social Media Award of the Week ending 12th Jan 2013
My first social media award of 2013 has to go to Mark Zuckerberg… he was one of the first to start the social media party… some might think this great business practice… others will find it a tad arrogant… does it make you laugh or cry? You can send Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg a direct email via Facebook… it only costs you $100 if you want it to land in his inbox… I wonder if that guarantees he’ll read it or is that $1000!
Everyone loves to win a Social Media Award… so we thought we’d make it more fun in 2013… we’ll give out a social media award of some description every week… if you want to be a winner then you’d better tell us why
Every week I’ll shine a light on a social media campaign that made laugh or cry! Or it might be a thought that grabs my attention, something I think you should ponder…
You need to tweet @jondavey with the reason why you and yours should be a winner… or complete our contact us form with a few words…
Thank you.
Jon Davey
Sales & Marketing for Web 2.0
Encouraging Positive, Proactive Participation
SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTORS
01753 852904
| Article Categories: | Facebook,Joined up Social Media Campaigns,Social Media Awards,Social media engagement,Social Media News,Social Media Platforms,Social Media Thoughts |
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An Ode to Social Media Engagement & Mother Earth #MYPOEM
Today, 4th October is National Poetry Day #MYPOEM and so it seemed only fitting to scribble a little ditty to celebrate social media, how it makes us engage and how we need to use it to make a better world for our children’s, children’s, children.
Social media, social media, social media
How you draw me to engage
Something in the media triggers my interior
Creating such a rage, I have to put something on a page
Twitter, Twitter, Twitter
How you make me witter
This, that and the other makes me want to shudder
But limited to 140 characters it doesn’t give me any rudder
Facebook, Facebook, Facebook
How’s my makeup
Friends sharing happy memories, some celebrating celebrities
Being careful not to upset Green Peace or they’ll have a bean feast
LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn
Now we’re talking & connecting
Strangers come and say hello
Make a friend & not a foe
Google+, Google+, Google+
You know you’re an absolute must
Everyone can be spinning in circles
Or hanging out waiting for turtles
YouTube, YouTube, YouTube
Help me get my message on world news
Talking pictures make us smile
And others share them for a while
Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest
How quickly you’re picking up interest!
Stick a pin in it to show the world you love it
Then just let them share it, who knows who might buy it
Engagement, engagement, engagement
Social media forces a commitment
Whatever the arrangement, the platforms don’t matter
People are talking & having a natter
What’s next, what’s next, what’s next?
Just round the corner another platform is dawning
We need to change of course, but what is its warning
The planet is warming and we need to BE COOL!
Go visit www.nationalpoetryday.co.uk
And share your own poems with us below (as a comment) or use #MYPOEM in a tweet and we’ll pick it up… let’s enjoy sharing positive words with each other today…
Thank you.
Jon Davey
Director of Aspirational Customer Experiences
Encouraging Positive, Proactive Participation
SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTORS
01753 852904
