7 minute read
social media
What does your Social Media Activity say about your business? 2. Back it up with data Twitonomy.com can analyse your Twitter profile and gives huge amount of data. Things you can find include: • Number of Tweets per day • Percentage of Tweets that are Replies or Retweets • Percentage of Tweets of yours that are Retweeted • Users you most engage with • Hashtags used most For ourselves at Altrincham HQ in any given period it shows us that 68-70% of our tweets are replies and retweets. That means the data backs up the social element of what we do in terms of Social Media, and often we find it’s double that of our peers. 3. Run searches on your name Important stat for you - 31% of brand mentions on Twitter alone are indirect, not using a company’s handle. What will you find if you search your company name? How do you respond? And how is your response perceived by potential clients? Set a saved search up for your company names and “slang” variations of it where appropriate. 4. Have a LinkedIn Profile you can be proud of Repeat after me ... LinkedIn is a professional network! If you are in the B2B sphere as many reading, then there are things that are standard and
You’ve attended a networking meeting, You are what you share had a 1-2-1 with a perfect lead and We live in a world where people in walked away with that warm fuzzy feeling that all went well and you can potentially work together. And then you arrive back at the office the UK check their mobile phones 150 times a day on average, the average person in the UK spends 1 hour 20 minutes a day using Social Media. everyone should know, but often don’t. • Have a professional photo - not a holiday shot and check your Social Media profiles. • Don’t leave any unexplained gaps in Deal over. Just as great Social Media can massively increase a company’s So whether you personally like Social Media or not, you don’t have a choice • your career history Don’t post Facebook-style posts - yes bottom line, poor use or lack of Social whether you use Social Media. You to quizzes, maths tests or riddles Media can often be the end of the deal - and trust me, this is not an simply have a choice if you use it well or not. The biggest turn off however is no Recommendations on a LinkedIn exaggeration. The chances are that those people you profile. The 7 Second Test applies online We all know about the 7 Second Test - the fact that it takes only 7 seconds for us to judge another person when we first meet them. The same applies online. meet at Networking once or twice a month will actually have eyes on your Social Media updates more than they do face-to-face conversations. Here are some top tips to make sure you create the right impression for those So often I meet businesses at networking meetings and they talk about an illustrious history spanning decades working with hundreds of businesses, and then you connect with them on LinkedIn and they have zero recommendations from clients. That first impression of a Twitter profile, a LinkedIn profile, the opening couple of lines of your blog - what does it say about your business? post-meeting Social Media searches. Top tips 1. Click on your Twitter Profile and People like to do business with people they Like, Know and Trust, and part of the process is seeing testimonials and recommendations from people they You can judge a lot by the way hit Tweets & Replies option also Like, Know and Trust. someone uses social media. • Are they committed? • Do they turn up every day? (desktop only) If you are to view any profile from just tweets only, which is the default option So - what does your social media say about your business? • Are they exciting, creative and for Twitter, then most people would inspirational? Or are they beige? look like it’s all “Me Me Me”. • How are they different from It’s on the Tweets & Replies option that competitors? you truly get to see how people use • Are they a giver? Or are they a taker? twitter and whether they take the time • Do they show gratitude? to engage with others. • Do others say great things We all hate that person at a networking about them? meeting that offers a monologue And you thought it was just 140 AT you rather than having a two-way characters rather than a personality conversation WITH you. Tweets & test or a look at your emotional Replies offers a window to the type of intelligence... person they truly are in business.
Alex McCann
Altrincham HQ www.altrinchamhq.co.uk
lead generation
Are you getting enough facetime?
So, sales is sales and marketing is seen on the one hand as separate to sales and on the other hand totally linked to sales. But...
Sales people, we imagine, are the stereotypical pushy, not listening, dodgy, wheeler-dealer Delboy sort, or the smooth and smarmy, suited and booted, selling anything to anyone with only the £££s flashing in their eyes. Marketing people we imagine are hanging out, creatively thinking up witty one liners, spending hours behind their Mac with cool music playing to enable them to have free thought to produce the magic that sells brands and vision.
In reality though, businesses are often running at 100%, reacting to delivery, managing accounts, putting out fires and wondering at the end of the day, where did the last 10 hours go? The serious business of any business owner actually sitting down to plan the daunting task of managing a sales pipeline (especially if it is cold), and driving a strong and affordable marketing strategy which can be measured against sales (really???), seems to be as elusive as scotch mist. Moving onto the even more ‘shrouded in expensive methodology’ SEO planning and the like – well we may as well book onto that course to learn Mandarin…
Every morning I wake up and I am bombarded with messages from social media. I actually read some of it, and you tend to scan to find relevant things relating to your own life or business activities. These channels are used to raise awareness or promote what they are doing on a grand scale. It’s a bit like trying to catch rain or fly fishing in the pacific. The thing is there are so many people on social media and so much noise that these messages get diluted. It is a form of prospecting but without the oneto-one connection. People need people - we like to feel special, understood and valued.
Then there is networking, where you actually meet people and talk. People buy from people so the physical social engagement is a very important aspect of what we do I hope you all agree. So what I don’t understand with all this activity, all of these options to make the Sale easier, to make Marketing more direct, the one question is “Are we substituting this for the old school techniques of talking face to face?” • Did you know that over 80% of people that visit your website will never contact you? • 80% of sales are closed on the 5th – 12th contact.
We are left with all this activity to drive people to actually make the effort to come and find you, yet they will not contact you. Lots of reasoning behind that but we are still fishing. So, if you followed up all of the people that had made the effort to seek you out (they have a need) and you spoke to them face-toface, and you listened to what they wanted and you offered them a solution, could you turn a lot of activity into orders? Reverts back to being in the right place at the right time. Then all the activity you set out to generate in the first place would make sense.
The problem is most people are great at generating activity, but not great at measuring the results. This is the historic gap between sales and marketing. The art of good sales and marketing strategy is to join the functions up seamlessly. This has always seemed impossible, but now there are intelligent and affordable tools and techniques to make this happen. That is where we come in, Reach Communications helps companies to turn marketing activity into appointments and sales for the B2B sector.
Julie Cook
Reach Communications www.reachcommunications.co.uk
Visit us on stand 29 at the Trafford Business Expo on June 30 at Emirates Old Trafford sales and marketing support
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