It’s a brand New Year, and hopefully most business owners will have had the benefit to have some time off over the festive season and return full of fresh energy and ideas for their businesses.

2015 saw the continued rise of Social Media Marketing for businesses, with more small business owners getting to grips with Facebook and Twitter, and other platforms relevant to their business.

The challenge for most is ensuring their social media pages consist of regular quality, original content which is going to help grow their influence and keep their customers engaged.

Knowing what to say, and creating content which matches your brand values can be a challenge.  Here are some tips to get you on the right track early in 2016:

• Quality not quantity is king when it comes to social media. Yes, you do need to post regularly but it is better to post quality content which speaks of your business than posting for posting sake.
• Be original! Try not to rely upon general news which your whole industry may be showcasing ad infinitum, and take trends or issues and make them personal to you.
• Seek out stories within your business which can be curated into blogs or even vlogs (Video blogs). This content should enable you to showcase your expertise and underline why customers should buy from you.
• Use visuals wherever possible to make your posts stand out. Try to avoid stock photography, but if you have to use stock photos, go for a quality supplier e.g. Shutterstock.
• Do have a budget for social media marketing. Facebook advertising is a great way of reaching customers and ensures your key posts are seen.  Other platforms worth considering will depend on who your customer is e.g. LinkedIn for business to business.
• Be aware that some paid for advertising can be expensive so map out who you are trying to reach before spending any money.
• Don’t forget testimonials! Customers increasingly research who they should buy from before they make a decision to purchase. Consider which platform will be the most beneficial to your business for your customers to leave reviews. For example, LinkedIn may be more beneficial for business-to-business, whereas Google or Facebook may work far better for business-to-consumer businesses.

Video will be increasingly important in 2016, as consumers have become more accustomed to seeing short video posts from business.  A lot can be done resourcefully, but investing in quality visual content may pay dividends as social media evolves towards this trend.

I offer consultations, campaign and account management for businesses that would like assistance organising their social media effectively.  An initial chat costs nothing so get in touch today to make your social media marketing effective in 2016.

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Almost time to put our feet up and enjoy the Christmas season

Christmas is just a week away!  I thought this would be a great time to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas as I know a few businesses have closed their doors today, whilst others are preparing for a very busy week ahead.

It also gives me an opportunity to let you know when I will be available over the Christmas period. My last working day before Christmas is 22nd December, and I return to work on 30th & 31st half day but am then closed until Monday 4th January 2016.

I do love a New Year, and I sincerely wish my customers, associates and the whole community a very happy & healthy 2016!

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Interview with Andy Kybett, MD of Wyntercon

We are just over a month away from this amazing event, which takes place on Halloween weekend at the Winter Garden in Eastbourne.

I am proud to be involved with this unique event again for the second year, as the official Social Media partner for the event.

As the excitement to Wyntercon builds, I managed to track down Andy Kybett the MD, for an interview.

How did the idea for Wyntercon come about?

I am a geek and a gamer at heart. I saw a gap in the market for a convention to be held in Sussex, specifically Eastbourne for a number of reasons.

Firstly Eastbourne is normally perceived as being a retirement town and is not commonly associated with young alternative events. This was a great chance to put Eastbourne on the alternative map and acknowledge the growing scene within the town for sci-fi, cosplay, gaming and more.

Secondly, it was a chance to bring a convention closer to home and thus avoid the need to travel far and incur expenses that come with that to Conventions held in other areas – that’s not to say they are not worth it!

So what is Wyntercon? How would you define the event for someone who did not go in 2014?

Wyntercon is a collaboration of everything geeky, gamey and nerdy. It is a family friendly event and we encourage everyone to have fun and discover their inner nerd. In a nutshell if you love Dr Who, or Game of Thrones, or Star Wars etc you will LOVE Wyntercon.

What are the highlights for Wyntercon 2015?

We have so much going on this year it’s just awesome but some of our top attractions include the Replica Game of Thrones Throne, the 1989 Batmobile, a number of very special guests which can be seen on our website and include Norman Lovatt, Actor from Red Dwarf, Virginia Hey, Star of many sci-fi films, Horror Star – Emily Booth, Spencer Wilding Actor starring in The Green Lantern, The Wolfman and more.

We also feature a high number of East Sussex Artists, Authors, Businesses, and are proud to be sponsored by local business Chatfields Jewellers, Best Western Lansdowne Hotel, Online Ticket Seller, and Media Attention – all local Eastbourne businesses.

Our official charity for this year is the Eastbourne Branch of Starlight Childrens Foundation.

What next for Wyntercon?

Our goal is to continue to build on the event – we are already getting things together for 2016. We also want to look at regular activities for the local younger generation to encourage diversity and to promote another side of Eastbourne.

To see a full list of what will be on at Wyntercon 2015, including the build up events, and buy your tickets visit: www.wyntercon.com

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I had an interaction with a local business recently which really made me think about the messages businesses are receiving about the big Why. Why should a business be using social media if they have a consistent loyal customer base, or if other forms of traditional marketing work well for them.

Social Media is a time intensive investment and lots of businesses are rightly concerned about how to resource this online activity. So of course, it is very important to tackle the ‘Why’ in order to consider whether this is a business critical tool.

So we all know Social Media is a marketing, advertising and PR tool. We also know it is a social networking tool enabling us to have conversations and build relationships with other businesses and the wider community.

Let’s see the world through the eyes of our potential customers and imagine their decision to purchase journey.

A search query for a type of business or service will begin on a search engine, and bring up a number of listings and websites. A customer will of course look at a few websites and may then try to establish more qualitative information about why they should buy from a particular business.

A good responsive website will have social media links to various accounts from which a customer can then find out more personable information.

If you have not looked in your online mirror recently to see what your business looks like – now is the time to.

A few business critical areas to look at are:
• Is your website responsive for mobile devices?
• Are your social media links prominent on your website, email and other customer contact points?
• Is your information current online? Do you post blogs, special offers, new products and services, share information & advice?
• Is the quality of your visual brand reflecting your business values?
• Is your brand visually consistent across your website, social media, email marketing?
• If you have social media accounts, do you monitor them for engagement and post qualitative, relevant content consistently?

Social Media forms part of a businesses online real estate. If you have a Facebook page, does it look like a page you can be proud of? Or is it desolate, soulless and unkempt?

Another important point is increasingly the customer expectation IS to contact businesses via social media. Why would a customer wish to hang on to a call centre of leave an answerphone message, when a tweet is highly likely to trigger a faster response?
Social Media is fast becoming an extension of how customers communicate with businesses, local authorities and other organisations.

If we as business owners do not embrace this change, this will affect how our potential customers view us and ultimately whether they decide to buy from us.

How can I help?
I have a suite of training to go over both technical and qualitative content marketing coming up on 6th October. See: http://ditzymedia.com/social-media-training-courses/

I also offer one to one training, and social media consultations, designed to meet the objectives of individual businesses, charities and community organisations.

You can contact me by phone, email, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest if you need my services.

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Of all the social networks, Twitter is probably the one that most people are nervous about starting. For me, it is my favourite of the social networks.

Whether you are on Twitter or not, you hear about it everyday whether watching a TV program “Share your views with us on Twitter” or because something someone has tweeted has been picked up by the media and caused a bit of a stir, notably by Celebs, Politicians and other high vis people.

So it’s not surprising that people are initially wary of Twitter.

My big bit of advice in getting started is: it’s ok to jump on twitter and not say anything initially. A high number of users in the UK read only. Let’s take a look at why.

You choose who to follow based on your subject interests.

Just like we would buy a newspaper or magazine that most matches our views beliefs and interests, Twitter enables you to follow the things that matter to you.

Whether you are passionate about politics, sport, a TV program or celeb or just want to find out what’s going on in your community – Twitter gives you the power to follow what you want ensuring a high quality user experience which you control.

When you first start Twitter, you will be offered a selection of popular twitter accounts to follow. These are good in giving you an initial idea of how twitter works.  When you chose to follow an account, their tweets will start to populate your ‘Home” tab.

#Toptip: use the search bar at the top of the screen to insert keywords and filter through content to find tweets relating to that content e.g. #Fashion or #Eastbourne

From here you are likely to find accounts that you want to follow. If you are keen on gardening you may want to follow @The_RHS or @GardenNewsMag

If you are following a program like BBC Question Time and just want to see what others are saying – insert the hashtag #bbcqt while the program is live and all tweets relating to that program will stream live as they are posted.

Hashtags enable you to search for tweets relating to a subject if the hash tagged word is in the tweet.

If you were writing a tweet wishing to reach people that are interested in gardening in Eastbourne you would hashtag #gardening & #Eastbourne so your tweet comes up in a search.

Organise your interests into Twitter lists

If you have a number of different interests you may want to start lists early on to manage the content that comes in to you.

You can add or remove twitter accounts from lists by using the cog icon in the twitter profile. You then create the list and give it a name e.g. Gardening or Food.

From there you can organise the people or organisations you want to add to those subject lists ensuring you can have a quick fix of your interest when you want, without trawling through the main “Home” feed which will include everyone you follow.

Going to start using Twitter for business?

Then my advice is get used to Twitter as a user first. Create a ‘personal’ account, which is just for you to get used to how twitter works.

A business profile can then be created to enable you to represent your brand and grow your tribe on twitter.

I offer practical workshops on Twitter for businesses, please see: http://ditzymedia.com/social-media-training-courses/

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My technical Social Media Marketing workshops have been designed for businesses, charities or community organisations with little or no knowledge of how to use social media effectively.

The workshop can be purchased for a full day or half day as required.

The next workshop will be 30th April at the Cohub in Eastbourne.

The morning workshop covers: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Bufferapp.

The afternoon workshop covers: Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Content

Business breakfasts are also available starting every Wednesday for 5 weeks from 29th April at The Lansdowne Hotel, Eastbourne.

Each breakfast will give you the tools you need to get started on the following platforms

– 29th April: Intro to Twitter

– 6th May: Intro to Facebook

– 13th May: Intro to LinkedIn & Google+

– 20th May: Intro to Pinterest & Instagram

– 27th May: Content – Blogging & Vlogging

To book please click here: http://ditzymedia.com/social-media-training-courses/

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The View, Coco Reef Resort, Tobago

Freshly back from my fourth visit to Trinidad and Tobago, I wanted to share what I learnt about how these beautiful Caribbean Islands are using social media for business and how this compares to us over here in the UK.

When I reflect back to planning our first visit in 2002, it took us ages to research and plan where we would stay. The internet was alive and kicking albeit on dial-up, and information from the Islands was quite basic. Finding accommodation and seeing reviews to ensure a good experience was quite a challenge then.

Moving forward to today, planning a visit could not be easier. Thanks to review sites and social media you can get a real flavour of the selection of resorts on offer, with testimonials from customers guiding you in your decision making process.

It was great to see so many local businesses in Tobago on Facebook and Twitter, and the use of hashtags to join up conversations was excellent. Tobago’s economy relies greatly on Tourism and social media has been embraced to showcase the beauty of the Island with great effect. We stayed at the beautiful @CocoReefTobago resort which I can highly recommend for anyone thinking of visiting Tobago.

A lot of smaller businesses don’t have a website, so Facebook seemed to be the basis of most promotion, and in this way this was quite a big difference to the way we use social media in the UK.

It was interesting that some of the mistakes made by businesses over here in regards to Facebook were also made in Trinidad and Tobago, particularly with businesses using profiles instead of pages to promote their goods and services.

Kiddies Carnival Saturday 14 February, Port of Spain

We always go to participate in Trinidad’s Carnival, famously known as the Greatest Show on Earth. Carnival is not just about the actual parades on the Monday & Tuesday, it is an entire season which always begins after Christmas. Trinidad’s Carnival is a pre Lenten celebration so the dates change each year according to when Easter is.

There are an amazing amount of Fetes which take the form of breakfast, day, or all night parties varying greatly in costs to attend. These parties happen all across Trinidad in the run up to Carnival, and the stars of carnival music, Soca, and DJs can be enjoyed throughout the season.

Carnival is big business. Social Media plays an increasing part in the promotion of the fetes and other Carnival events throughout the season.

Massy Trinidad All Stars
Winners of Panorama 2015

There are a number of national competitions which culminate into ‘finals’ in the days leading up to Carnival, covering the best Steel Bands, Costumes, Soca artists and Calypso singers.

The most popular platforms used in Trinidad to promote carnival were Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Hashtags such as #pretrinicarnival, #TrinidadCarnival2015 and #weon2015 helped build the excitement in the run up to and during the carnival itself.

Social Media is helping to bring the wider global carnival community together and certainly made a big contribution to the enjoyment and build up. 13 years ago, you would not have been able to jump on YouTube and learn the songs before you travelled, and reminisce once back home.

Carnival season now continues throughout the Caribbean, the US, Canada and of course our very own Notting Hill Carnival on August bank holiday.

Good Trinidad carnival social media accounts:

https://www.facebook.com/carnivaldiary

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Trinidad-All-Stars-Steel-Orchestra/26536277151

https://www.facebook.com/NCBA.Carnival

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