As they say, “It’s not the size, it’s how you use it!”

In 2012 there are thousands of social media platforms to choose from but which one will you use for what purpose is the question… do you choose the big platforms because you’ve heard the names mentioned so many times by so many “experts” that you feel you really should… or do you wait and see what floats past your view finder?

The reality is you need to understand the main platforms so you can add them to, or remove them from, your to do list…

If you’re in the B2B space, looking to find more customers, then a must visit and find out more about site is LinkedIn, of that there is no doubt in my mind. The closer you look to LinkedIn the more you appreciate both its simplicity and its amazing power and potential… truly a business lead generation platform you need to spend some time on.

But then there are other, newer, cleaner coded platforms that you’ll have never heard of. That have been thought through by their creators, designed, coded and ready for the world to engage with but because they are not on everyone’s lips, you are unlikely to explore their websites to find out more… unless you are lucky enough to bump into them through a random search… or the strategic use of social media!

At the Social Media Business Awards events we find new tools and give them a platform on which to shine… we hope to introduce UK platforms developed by local home grown talent but it is likely that they are shy in coming forward, being British. We’ll have to wait for them to show themselves while we celebrate great social media tools we have found that are being a little more vocal… probably US based because they’re not that shy when it comes to business and we all could learn from them.

Book your seat for our new Social Media Business Awards and get their bright and early for my presentation “Social Media Business Sales Update…”

Thank you.

Book your seat for the UK Social Media Business Awards Dinner £75 + VAT

The whole point of the UK Social Media Business Awards is to make new connections, meet buyers, suppliers and industry colleagues. We ensure the whole event is a learning experience… finding out how different social media platforms and service could help your business grow and prosper… we ensure you meet at least 25 people during the course of the day, this is to help those who prefer not to make the first moves and so usually don’t get to meet many people at events.

UK Social Media Business Award enquiries…

Jon Davey
Social Media Awards Organiser
Call 01753 852904
Or connect via LinkedIn

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If you are reading this then please join…. You could make our days

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Then we need to talk and start by discussing your social media development strategy, then deciding who is going to be best suited to manage the social media distribution. This may be someone you already have in your team, we could take it on or we could find you a social media manager will the relevant skills for your business.

Do you need 5,000 twitter followers? Do you need Twitter?

Is Facebook the perfect place to shout about your products and services?

What about LinkedIn… what can you find out about potential customers? Are there groups where you could engage with customers and suppliers?

Industry related communities… where are your competitors and industries colleagues spending their online time?

How are you using video?

Do you have employees who could help implement a social media distribution plan, making the most of their knowledge and experience to achieve your business goals.

Let’s work out the best social media tools for you and your business, a plan of engagement and a social media distribution plan that make the best use of the right people to make that happen.

Thank you.

Jon Davey
Social Media Director
01753 852904

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It is easy to sit back and just let any old tut be displayed for the world to see and think that is doesn’t matter, what will be will be… but the people don’t like it…

I set up my first LI Group back in August 2008 and did very little with it until 2009. Based around the Business in Berkshire website we created to help local businesses connect back in 2004, the door is open for anyone to come on in who runs a business in or around Berkshire. Ex-pats are obviously welcomed into the fold but we do try and keep it Berkshire centric.

In recent months I made the decision that only paying BinB members could post items of self promotion on the discussions page as they should be given more flexibility than the average member.

You always get the freeloaders who don’t help the group in anyway and simply post how brilliant they are at any given opportunity. The course of action I have taken with these is to ask them politely to refrain and if they ignore, give them one more chance and then simply delete them from the group if they can’t help themselves!

We are now just 1 person short of 900 members and yesterday I had 3 requests… at 9am today I will announce 3 or 4 new members and ask the BinB LinkedIn Group members to choose which one should be awarded the title of the 900th BinB Group Member… we will then celebrate them and see if we can’t drive business their way… which will then make for another story Keep feeding that PR machine…

We also have a Social Media Directors group which I have simply let be and grow to 400 members organically… best go find the 400th member in their as well

Look what happened when I asked if we should have some rules the other day… the people, the quiet majority, they have spoken…

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I went from 200 to 1000 twitter followers on my @jondavey account in a few weeks which made me smile

At that time I had made a decision to follow anyone who followed me. Word got round and a colleague asked why I was following a bunch of ladies from Russia! Oppps, re-think was needed.

I decided to immediately unfollow all but 13 people and monitor what happened. Within 24 hours I lost 25% of my database, during the following week another third dropped away leaving me with half of what I had originally had.

More recent hands on research has shown me that although many may follow, only a few actually listen to what you have to say and many of those tend to be overseas!

With the launch of I Love Windsor and wishing to tweet regularly but not having the time you need to have a plan B. Revisiting Hootsuite and it appears to have moved on a peg or two with some nice added value. You can create multiple RSS feeds, plug in Google stats, plan, generate reports. A most impressive suite of tools for the budding online business apprentice of the future and the slightly older, less flexible, not so sure business person of today

I have signed up for a PRO account to gain access to the new features and will feedback the results of my engagement through this here blog and you can see for yourself the impact on the Tweets by tuning into @windsordaily and then obviously sharing this news widely with your followers.

Thank you, in anticipation of your first re-tweet

Jon Davey
Social Media Director
01753 852904

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With over 130,000 business men and women registered within a 10 mile radius of our Windsor office, there will be thousands more thinking, “I really need to know more about that LinkedIn that everyone is talking about!”

We’d like to speak to those who are willing and able to value their training so we can offer our How to Use LinkedIn for Business workshop.

A few of those who have attended our workshops have added their comments and testimonials to our Social Media Directors blog, please review and contact me, Jon Davey on 01753 852904.

We would particularly like to talk to Associations and Business organisations that would like to gather their members together for a workshop, tailored around your specific industry.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and we look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Jon Davey
Social Media Director
01753 852904

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Within 15 minutes of me joining I got a well timed email to say thank you for joining, there would be a lot of interest in my services for [main discipline] as I looked so fab in peach and I should check out this 2 minute LinkedIn video.

Not your standard video, a 2 minute snack, nice and short, they’ve obviously been on the “keep it tight” training course but forgot all they learned on the “Don’t try and pull the wool over my eyes” course the previous week

The subject was not “How to use LinkedIn to max your business lead generation” but the alternative, “How to bring all your known contacts over to our club so we can bleed them dry” DVD which can be bought at the Techies Rule the World video store over on City Ville, a store I have yet to create but will when I have enough moolah! (That’s a game that really gets you engaged over on Facebook for those who are like, “What’s he swallowed today?”)

I’m sorry but I am happy to pop by and have a look around your great new social media platform but please respect my boundaries and don’t try and get me to be your best friend within 4.3 seconds of us meeting and don’t expect me to open my rolodex for you to pinch my cards and spray my contacts with your spam, they get enough of mine!

Are social media techies trying too hard?  Please apply traditional sales and marketing values to your social media platforms if you want humans to engage.

This is where LinkedIn have it so much righter than many other imitations… and why I am a fan and keep preaching its value to professional business men and women that I meet… and why others don’t create the head of steam they would like.

But, hey guys, thank you for giving me fodder for this story as I had needed a few hundred words for my Social Media Directors blog, I’d been so busy laying the foundations for new local world which requires the minimum effort on the part of my fans… that’ll be www.ilovewindsor.co.uk

If you are not busy on the 24th June please join us for our
How to use LinkedIn for Business workshop
at The MacDonald Windsor Hotel.

Thank you.

Jon
Social Media Director
01753 852904

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According to a major burger chain that is unlikely as they have a new recipe which is based on home grown stock rather than African imports

I have posed a question on LinkedIn asking for feedback on What’s your over riding attitude to the re-tweeting of others tweets?

BUT this survey misses the most important point… I put it to you that the re-tweeting process is not what is important, it is the visual impact a story has if it has been re-tweeted that matters.

A page showing 2 re-tweets makes you go “Well!” in a sympathetic way… a page that says 2000 re-tweets makes you go “WELL!!!” these guys are like way popular, I must get to know them

I guess you could add a zero to your invoice if you rock the re-tweet world?

Go compare our LinkedIn event, now has 6 shares on LinkedIn, so looking a little more important than it did with 2, with those re-tweets over at Mashable.

Even if people like what we do, which they do, they may be unsure how to use the “share” button… we’d best ensure we teach our workshop attendees using our event promotion page button

They also may not feel motivated to join in such a small re-tweeting gang… not even a gang, just a few appreciative folk…

While over at Mashable they have a bunch of stories that are being redistributed around the planet every second of every day, with “likes”, “shares” and “re-tweets” coming out of their ears… if 100+ have liked something then you’d better make sure you do too, if you want to be “in with the in crowd” that is…

Is there a playground theme running through all this?

I hope you can join us for our next LinkedIn workshop on the 24th June, take a look at the detail at www.howtouselinkedin.co.uk or call me for more information.

Thank you.

Jon

01753 852904

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Find out more…

http://www.howtouselinkedin.co.uk

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Spot The Apprentice in the room

http://www.howtouselinkedin.co.uk

In the meantime we’ll add a few comments below during the day and please feel free to join in…

Enjoy these LinkedIn workshop testimonials from today…

LinkedIn workshop testimonial Margaret Haynes OFAS

Social Media LinkedIn testimonial

LinkedIn training workshop testimonial by Raleigh Addington

Jazz mouse’s Paul Fawcus talks acoustics over lunch in Windsor

Thank you.

If you would like to know more then please call 01753 852904.

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