Myself and the Big Biscuits extended team have been working together on many projects over the last few years. We have been working with SME's on creating their own digital strategies to large corps on how they maximise their efforts and duplicate their brand online. I have also spent some time speaking in front of and training groups and individuals on how to build their profile online to meet business goals.

From experience we have been able to come up with a clear process that covers all aspects of the social spectrum and it can be manipulated to accommodate each clients needs. What we have found is that the framework works and we have had great success. Phew!

Big Biscuits are currently looking in to many joint ventures moving forward but we have also seen the need to help smaller companies and start ups to start thinking socially by pointing them in the right direction. For this we have a new service offering!

I am running a 1hr 121 virtual session to help people and business understand the social journey and get focused. Together we confirm a time and I send a short questionnaire about your business so I can go in to our call with a head start. You will be asked to fill in a bit about what your business does and what you are looking to work on and achieve from this session. During our 121 I will be able to advise you on how to progress online, what you are doing right and what could could need tweaking. I will hopefully be able to help answer most of your questions and also generate some ideas. This hour is for you to tap in to my knowledge base and you will walk way with a more strategic understanding of how to use social media.

The 121 session is only £75 (Per business/Individual)

If you would like to find out more then please email me directly at becky@bigbiscuits.co.uk

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A key part of any strategy is understanding your current landscape and your competitors activity. It's an ideal opportunity to look at what is working well and what you feel could be improved to consider when executing your own digital strategy.

When looking at an online social media strategy this exercise is incredibly helpful and insightful and can help you to make a great head start. It will also inspire your creativity and maximise your opportunities using the online space.

Have they been consistent with their brand personality on all channels?

Does their activity reflect well on their brand?

Where are they most active with the highest level of engagement?

Have they encouraged visitors to continue to connect with them by adding social buttons?

Do they have a blog to highlight internal talent and solidify credibility?

Have they included social sharing?

How could they improve the content?

Do they integrate online with offline?

Are they consistent?

Are they engaging in real time and responding to prospects in the right manner?

And the most important one of all - What could they do better and what other opportunities are there?

When sitting down to start your discovery remember you need to look at this excercise from a prospect, client, influencer, board member or fans prospective. You are trying to look from the outside in opposed to your already professional, knowledgeable and cynical eye. How would your target audience respond to what they are seeing and hearing? It's also advisable that you get more than one perspective. Try and ask a few people within and some outside your organisation to give you some feedback for a well rounded view.

Here are some helpful questions that you can ask when visiting their social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube as well as their website and company blog.

From these insights you can start to map out your social strategy with awareness of your competitors and fresh ideas to give you the competitive edge.

 

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 Instagram is the tool you can use to take, enhance and share pictures with others. It is used to share a visual journey of yours or your business’s daily life. What sets it apart from Flickr is the ability to easily edit and enhance your photos so they look more impressive and of better quality. 

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Guest post by Charlotte Waller from SEO Gemini

I became so excited recently when I heard about a brand, sparkling new social media platform…until I was informed by someone within the digital industry that there’s always a "new” and "upcoming” platform around.  Authorities in the SEO world have started talking positively about a new site http://ifttt.com/, lets explore the potential possibilities.

 

Some interesting viewpoints have already been put across by the SEO industry, exploring the potential of this new platform which does not offer new ground breaking technology but does boast quality backing and easy use for it's users often resulting in viral uptake. How does partially automating your social media sound? On one hand, this can save you time, on the other hand you can lose your personality - different platforms have different voices and tones, you could risk sounding like a robot and losing your authenticity.

 

Automatically backing up your photos to Dropbox, thanking someone on Twitter for retweeting you or setting up an alert for when someone you are interested in and following posts something to Twitter or mentions you in a Tweet are some of the options mentioned in this SEO blog (link to http://www.rootswebsolutions.com/social-media/social-media-autopilot/). What are your thoughts? Visit the IFTTT platform to sign up and have a look for yourself but be aware, automation is not the key to everything.

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Something in our Twitter stream today caught our eye. @Lakey posted a tweet highlighting the poor use of social media when he had clicked through to a website. This type of 'ranting' is common with the social evangelists and is not always the best way to go about proving a point but today we feel this was justified.

The website, as many do, had a pop up which asked the viewer to share or like the page with their network. This is OK and a great way to remind the visitor but as you can see the site below was trying to use other tactics and in this case adding the button 'Share or wait 600 seconds'. Does this really take a rocket scientist to know that the person on the other end of the keyboard is just going to click off or is that just common sense?

The entire ethos of using social media platforms is to connect with the people and brands who you know, like and trust and for you or your brand to also create that environment. Straight away this website is going to lose that trust then not be liked and in turn lose that viewer who will not invest the time to get to know them.

This also relights the debate about the pressure and focus of getting followers. We are still seeing lots of people asking for more followers and going on and on about it forgetting that the followers that they have already are getting pretty bored of these tweets. We are still also seeing people posting far too much thinking that this will get them more followers but in fact all it is really doing is turning people off and they're reaching for the unfollow button. It's quality not quantity!

What this comes back to every time is understanding your goal, purpose and why you are there first and foremost but then you need to tie these objectives to the needs of your audience. Without a deep understanding of the audience that you are trying to create how are you meant to serve them and then in turn how can you expect them to want to engage with you and follow you. Forcing them to be your 'friend' should never be an option.... now follow us or you will not be allowed to leave :)

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There are lots things to consider and a lot of hard work that goes in to creating an event. With multiple stakeholders to consider it’s no wonder that some things such as maximising your online opportunities gets pushed to the back burner. Here are our top 10 tips for making your event a social success.

1. Pre – event promotion and build up
It’s imperative that you give your events time to filter through to the right people online. Posting a few updates weeks before the event is just not enough time to get those facebookers sharing and tweeters re-tweeting. Coming up with a strategy to really indentify your target audience and give them time to learn about your event will increase buzz, ticket sales and WOM.

2. Good correspondence online
Communication is always key. With the build up to your event keeping your audience involved with the journey will not only give them the impression of a likeable, well organised event but it will give them confidence to share with their network growing your true reach.

3. Hashtags #
Hashtags are a great way for people to follow the unfolding event via Twitter, In fact, there are many benefits to using a hashtag for your event.

• Manage online WOM to answers any questions, queries or respond to comments
• Gives the event credibility to see others involved
• Easy for everyone to follow the day’s highlights and connect with others
• Share real-time information and resources
  

4. WIFI
This sounds a simple one right? Wrong! In a recent study WIFI came out on top of the list as one of the most negative sentiments relating to an event. By not having clear, easily obtainable network details and a strong WIFI connection, your event is setting itself up for unnecessary negative criticism online and offline, where good content and the value of the event can be over shadowed. Our advice would be to check out the venue prior to the event and put in place a plan B&C for if something was to go wrong on the day.

5. Speakers details
You’ve worked tirelessly to get great speakers and/or performers who your audience are going to love. They take to the stage and you notice people in the audience not really concentrating, why? Because they are hunting around online trying to find the speakers twitter handles to share the highlights with their network and credit the speaker. Pre-empty this situation by tweeting their Twitter handles prior to the event and ask for your speaker to add their info to their slides and at verbally at the beginning or their presentation of performance.

6. Visual Tweets
This does not work at every event so is at individual discretion and preference but visual real-time tweets on a screen is a good way to remind people to tweet and share highlights meaning more activity online. The downside is the wall can act as a distracter for the audience when listening and watching the stage. You can also not police the content.

7. Taking questions and comments from the audience
Rather than halting the flow of the event unless it’s interactive already you can take Q&A and comments from the audience via Twitter and Facebook. Attendees can post something online that can be fedback, filtered and answered by the appropriate person either online or on stage. This is a great way to get instant feedback so you are able to be flexible during your event. You can also take some Q&A from your wider audience, the people watching virtually to all the highlights which will keep them involved and engaged. These might be your next customers. The best way to manage you social media output and reactive engagement is appointing a Brand Representative or Community Manager. Their key role will be to orchestrate and prioritise the day’s online activity and ideally will be the person involved pre and post event.

8. Post event resources
After the event it is important to provide your audience with further information such as the speakers slideshares, questions that were unable to be answered on the day and links to websites for further info referenced throughout the day. Give them great customer service with the WOW factor!

9. Creating content
With all the great knowledge, experience and talent under one roof you’d be crazy to pass up the opportunity to capture it and share it later with your network. You can interview your attendees not only about their experiences but also their own expertise. Take videos and pictures throughout the day that capture the event and the talent pool within it. You can create small snippet Youtube videos, quotes, blog material, possible guest bloggers, tips and promotional material by capturing and maximising these opportunities on the day. This will not only give you great content and give your event longevity but it will also help to create further buzz and credibility around your brand and for future events.

10. Get feedback
Feedback is the window to opportunity. You can use free tools such a survey monkey to ask specific questions or use more targeted monitored survey tools such as Social Optic this will help to improve events in the future. You can also learn from social media by listening to general feedback where people will openly talk and share. Be open to this and always thank them for taking the time to reach out to you. If you are to put their recommendations into action then be sure to take the time to update them and your audience personally. This will show that you have listened and valued their opinions.

There are lots more tips for event success online. What are yours?

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