Calling Windsor business owners and those planning on attending The Thames Valley Business EXPO… news just in… an opportunity for you to shine in more ways than ONE!

When you attend an exhibition the organisers will hand you a goodie bag as you enter. Mostly full of flyers from exhibitors who have paid for their insertion into the bag… well now is your chance to have your flyer or goodie placed in the bag for FREE… yippee, something for nothing… almost.

The EXPO is on the 13th June and we want to get as many business people as possible registered sooner rather than later… as we stand around 275 are registered to attend, an excellent number 6 weeks out. It would be great to see 500+ pre-registered before the big day…

A goodie bag can only contain a certain number of items… 20 flyers + 5 goodies would make for an excellent gift for the businesses that attend. To make choosing whose flyers & goodies go in the bag fair, we need to run a competition.

What we can monitor is registrations… so it’s a very straightforward competition… those that drive the most registrations get to shine the brightest

• Registrations who say you recommended them score you 20 points
• Tweets containing #WindsorEXPO score 1 point, RTs 2 points
• LinkedIn Updates #WindsorEXPO score 2 points, likes 3 points

I can search Twitter & LinkedIn easily for the #WindsorEXPO, Facebook is not so straight forward but use it and other social media and digital marketing channels, like your newsletter, as registrations introduced by you count 20 points.

Obviously, if you WIN you’ll need to provide a minimum of 500 goodies or flyers…

So let’s get this party started… cut off date is Monday 3rd June 2013… registrations will be counted and verified and the TOP 20 winners made aware of their contribution to the event. The official announcement will be on the day and the actual winner celebrated throughout!

You can register via the link at the top of the EXPO website…

Thank you.

Jon
07717 820823

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Anyone in business today who is looking for new opportunities (for them to generate more business) and not using LinkedIn is neglecting a massive data source… one that most progressive business men and women will keep up to date… not with just a title but a summary 150 – 500 words around what it is they are doing… or better still, the type of clients they are looking to engage with.

If you are not using LinkedIn much and know you should but feel nervous about that very first step, then you need to speak to my good friend Mark White… he runs excellent training courses for people just like you. He has a corporate background in the Sales & Marketing space, training his teams and so knows how to pitch just at the right level to whatever audience engages him to deliver a workshop.

www.howtouselinkedin.co.uk will tell you more…

I guess many fear to boost their profiles just in case one of their managers spots it and assumes they are looking for a new job… my view is sales people are missing out on great lead opportunities if they don’t share their brilliance with the world through LinkedIn.

Many users will use it as a first point of call when researching a solution to a problem… I know I do… those who have made their profiles fuller and added content of interest grab my attention.

Those that haven’t firstly are invisible and if I do come across them, I assume they are either too lazy or too busy blowing wind & playing politics for me to make the effort.

TOP sales people make use of every channel as best they can.

Get it sorted and if you don’t know how, give Mark a bell…

Thank you.

Jon
07717 820823

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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

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We cornered the founder of enthuse.me, Dan Jacobs, at his buzzing office in the hub of start-up Shoreditch to find out more about him, the team and the background of hot new website enthuse.me, which invites you to create an elegant one-page profile showcasing the things that best show-off your expertise.

This office is very on-trend, minimalist and very start-up! Looking around the team seems young, fresh and vibrant, however Dan has been in the industry for a while so can you tell us more about yourself.

Dan: Yes thank you the office look and feel is clean and elegant like the enthuse.me website. It helps that some of the best organic coffee & cake shops are also around the corner. On a serious note I have 18 years experience working in technology, operations, product management and general management roles in companies such as Virgin.com, IDT Global, LineOne, Delphi Internet.

As an entrepreneur, I have also worked in many successful start-up and early stage businesses as well as on new product launches. I’m also a passionate advocate of vegetarianism, having given talks on the subject and more importantly, I make a mean veggie lasagne!

Why did you decide to launch enthuse.me?

Dan: Being a longtime web worker and consumer, I have followed the trend of people selling their products, services and skills online very carefully. I came to the conclusion that a lot of websites that help you sell yourself in one way or another are missing a key component, which is that we are all individual and bring something unique to the table. Examples of this would be people that sell their products on ebay or their time on a freelancer site like elance or services on mybuilder or other vertical sites. They are all good in their own way but often their product or service becomes a commodity i.e. the purchaser is deciding on price and time to deliver as opposed to who is behind it.

I wanted to create a site that really allows each individual to show themselves off as an artisan, you could be an artisan plumber or an artisan tax advisor, the point is that each person brings something unique and special and we want to highlight that.

How is enthuse.me helping people to sell their products and services in a unique way?

Dan: Initially the site is a place to show yourself off, you can pick the best pieces of content and examples of your work that gives people a really great sense of your individuality. In the future we will add the ability for you to sell your time, services and products through your profile and within a market place on the website.

Speaking to the developers here they all seem very passionate about the various areas on the site – the A List, social media buttons etc. What is your favourite part of the website?

Dan: I think the product as a whole is my vision, which is the combination of great existing content, new content like our Insights feature which asks you to give a snippet of insight into your expertise and our social presence module which highlights your social stats in one place. The overall package gives the end reader a really great sense of what you can do and how you do it.

The site has only been available in beta for a few months and you already have a strong user base, what type of people have you got signed up?

Dan: I am astonished at the wide spectrum of users we have with profiles – we have actors, photographers, students showcasing their work, stylists, home-working moms, small businesses and even an etiquette expert. Of course we also have lots of techies and designers who are great early adopters.

The online space is rapidly changing and I am sure the enthuse.me site has a lot in store for the near future, can you give us a sneak preview of what we can expect to see in the next twelve months?

Dan: Our dav team are innovation hungry and we have a large feature pipeline based on user-feedback. Within the next three months we will be introducing some classic social networking components suck as connect with (follow) other ‘experts’, and notifications. We’re also bringing in the ability host and contribute to discussions around ‘insights’ and later some of the transactional features such as allowing users to sell their time, products and services through the site.

The beauty about enthuse.me is that we are fanatical about building around our users feedback. We listen and then create. I’d like to welcome everyone to share their thoughts with us on our twitter account, Facebook page and if all else fails email me at dan@enthuse.me

Twitter: @enthusedotme
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/enthusebeta

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Most recipients of my auto-tweets obviously don’t respond, they just click through to the articles, scan them and continue on their life journey…

Of those that respond, 80% are positive and happy to make a new acquaintance… but there are 20% who throw some form of negative response back. I assume they attended a Twitter course run by a marketing person who hates the thought of actually having a proper conversation, they’d much rather keep their distance and position some marketing spiel as thought leadership instead.

Me, I come from a sales background and enjoy the banter of real life conversations. I love it when someone has an opposite opinion but is solid enough in their belief that they can have a proper conversation about it… but it does annoy me when some Twitter Negative Twit (TNT) throws over a “You can’t spam me with your stuff ‘cos I know way more than you about engagement. I’m in Marketing and have a degree don’t you know!”

Yawn, yawn… it’s not so much their comment, it’s when they block me from responding back… they throw over the dynamite and then build a wall quick, just in case they might get an intelligent response back that they’d have to deal with.

I’ll lock and load a few of those responses later, need to go put the tea on before the Mrs gets back and there’s another explosion

Thank you.

Jon Davey
07717 820823

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First off, the video introduction… prepare to be amazed…

Which is then followed by the process in action… boosting your social media influence…

OK, so if I was a video editor then I could blend the two together but I’m not, so let’s have 2 videos and therefore 2 opportunities to bump into like minded folk

In summary, for those who would rather read than enjoy the videos. If you want to maximise your social media influence then use auto-tweets to engage with those on Twitter, encouraging them to comment on your blog… if the topic is interesting, as you generate more tweets this will result in more comments and thus increase the relevance of the page, ensuring it flies high on the search engines.

Here are three easy steps to take, following on from watching the videos:

Firstly… go buy stuff for all those amazing people in your life!

http://www.handymitts.co.uk

Secondly… add your comment to our measuring social influence blog post…

http://www.socialmediadirectors.co.uk/is-measuring-social-media-influence-an-oxymoron-smioym-smwldn/

Thirdly… call me and let’s work out how I can help you shine a little brighter and have more influence in your world.

Thank you.

Jon Davey
Sales & Marketing for Web 2.0
Encouraging Positive, Proactive Participation
SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTORS
01753 852904

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In the words of one famous magician, the response might be, “Not a lot!”

Then again, maybe you just have something others would like to hear… my wife said to me the other day, “The emptiest vessels make the loudest noise”… not heard that phrase before so after giving her the “look”, I checked Google and Wikipedia tells us “As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers,” from the early English author William Baldwin (1550′s hence his poor grammar!).

There is certainly plenty of social media noise, lots of babbling going on… what we require, to take social to the next level of maturity, is for those with insightful comments to feel inspired to step forward and add their two penneth to the conversation. Those that can add some value and in so doing make themselves known to a wider audience… although, for many, that’s the bit they don’t want and so don’t engage in the first place!

In the days of Baldwin you might be known by 50 people in the local area… in 2013 this can be 1000+ in the blink of an eye… and before the day is out 1,000,000+ might hear your words… should they be witty enough

So we need to get a few hearts racing, people inspired to take that next step…

On Thursday 13th June, a week before Royal Ascot, at Windsor Racecourse the Thames Valley EXPO will be taking place and a few of the speakers have been announced… Brad Burton, Warren Cass and Jon Davey…

Brad certainly knows how to tell a good story… we captured this last year… careful ladies, he’s a bit of a charmer…

Warren will tell you about his favourite subject and as for a our very own Jon Davey…

All these three guys have pioneered a path that others feared to tread but have, once at the party, leveraged for their own ends… worth a couple of hours of your time to come and see if they ignite a spark in your mind… hopefully leaving you wanting more…

We’re looking forward to seeing you on the day… hopefully we’ll help you see the value of taking those first steps into social media engagement… this could get your heart racing… but that could simply be the fillies in their short skirts on what is bound to be a beautiful summers day in June

If you are planning on joining us or have seen Brad, Warren or Jon present before and would like to share a few thoughts, do add them to the comments below…

Thank you.

Jon Davey
Sales & Marketing for Web 2.0
Encouraging Positive, Proactive Participation
SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTORS
01753 852904

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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

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“But that would mean we’d have to do some work… Google guys want to hang in the labs, not do real work!” one insider was heard to moan when the announcement came in.

The Guardian reported at the end of November, “Milorad Trkulja, a music promoter, took action against Google over material online, which linked him with criminal figures in Melbourne. Trkulja has never been involved in any criminal activity, but was unfortunate enough to have been shot in a restaurant in 2004.”

It reminded me of the case of Richard O’Dwyer, the student wanted for extradition by the USA and initially signed off by Theresa May MP, who was simply adding links to sources of TV content… he didn’t publish the content… oh, yeah, but he manually added links so I guess that makes him an evil criminal! It was his mum who sorted that out, as all good mums do…

The only reason the yanks wanted him was because he’d made a few quid out of it… so I guess he paid tax in the UK but that’s not good enough for the Americans? The only reason Google have been able to get away with it is because they have bigger lawyers and as we have seen from Big Brother, “USA are best, the greatest, they offer freedom”… mmmm well done Australia.

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

Related posts:

1. Social Media Award of the Week ending 12th Jan 2013
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An American software developer’s amazing outsourcing scam where he paid 20% of his salary to a Chinese firm to do his job for him has been busted.

See on www.fastcompany.com

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