business advice

businesses should be posting on social media depends on their specific goals, target audience, and industry. However, here are some top tips for social media content:

Hayley Quinnell Founder, DIGI Media Management

Top Tips To Succeed On Social Media

Social media management involves creating, editing, and publishing content for businesses across a variety of social media platforms. The rise of social media marketing over the past few years has led many businesses to shift their marketing budgets away from traditional marketing and towards a new form of digital marketing.

A common problem between businesses is that many don’t know what content they should or shouldn’t be posting. The content

• Engaging and informative posts: Share valuable and relevant content that educates, entertains, or solves a problem for your audience. This could include short-form video content, graphics, blog posts, articles, infographics, helpful tips, what you are selling, or industry news.

• Behind-the-scenes content: Give your audience a glimpse into your company culture, employees, and day-to-day operations. Showcasing the human side of your business can help build trust and connection with your audience.

• User-generated content (UGC): Encourage your followers to create and share content related to your brand. UGC can be in the form of testimonials, reviews, photos, or videos. It not only helps increase engagement but also serves as social proof for your products or services.

• Promotions and discounts: Offer exclusive discounts, promotions, or giveaways to your social media followers.

This can help increase brand loyalty and drive sales.

• Interactive content: Engage your audience with interactive content such as polls, quizzes, contests, or challenges. It encourages participation and boosts engagement levels.

• Inspirational and motivational content: Share quotes, success stories, or inspiring content related to your industry or target audience’s interests. This type of content can be uplifting and resonate with your followers.

• Industry insights and thought leadership: Position your business as an authority in your industry by sharing valuable insights, tips, and expert opinions. This helps build credibility and trust with your audience.

• Trending topics and hashtags: Stay updated with current trends and participate in relevant conversations using popular hashtags. It shows your brand’s relevance and can help increase visibility and reach.

• Visual content: Utilise visually appealing content like images, videos, and infographics to capture attention and make your posts more shareable.

• Calls to action (CTAs): Include clear CTAs in your posts to encourage your audience to take a specific action, such as visiting your website, subscribing to your newsletter, or making a purchase.

Remember to maintain consistency in posting frequency, tone of voice, and branding across your social media platforms. Regularly analyse your content performance, engagement metrics, and feedback from your audience to refine your social media strategy and optimise your content.

The Cross Border Partnership provides recruitment assistance and employment advice to employers on both sides of the border. A reciprocal agreement is in place between the employment services in both jurisdictions when placing job adverts on www.jobapplyni.com and www.jobsireland.ie

The Partnership run a series of events to help cross border employers, workers, and jobseekers including cross border job fairs, both on-site and virtually using our platform www.crossborderjobfair.com as well as employer incentives and tax briefing seminars.

The Partnership covers all of Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland in Louth, Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal, Sligo, and Leitrim. The main target groups for the Cross Border Partnership for Employment Services include

• Frontier workers in the region

• Employers in the region experiencing skills shortages

• Jobseekers in the border counties

• SMEs in the region

• Unemployed young people who are living in the border region

• People who are long-term unemployed who are living in the border region

Cbpes Supporting Jobseekers And Businesses Across The North West

The Cross Border Partnership for Employment Services was established in 2022 succeeding the EURES Cross Border Partnership Ireland – N. Ireland, with the objective of making things easier for people moving freely across the border in order to earn a living, to assist employers by providing them with access to a larger and more diverse workforce, and to assist those already working in the other jurisdiction.

The EURES Cross Border Partnership in Ireland – N. Ireland had been in existence for over 20 years and was seen as a key contributor to the lives of the cross border worker, jobseeker, and employer. The Cross Border Partnership aims to continue the work that went before by addressing imbalances for our target groups through supporting employers in finding the skillsets required which can contribute towards the stability of the employment environment and through supporting jobseekers in cross border movement.

To find out more about CBPES, to contact any of our cross border advisers, or to check out our upcoming events, please visit our website www.cbpes.com that the next generation aren’t interested in taking on the responsibility of business ownership – they’ve watched their business-owning parents always on-duty, and they have seen the burden involved in managing evermore onerous regulation and ever-more needy employees. Many business owners feel marooned in their business, seemingly unable to get out.

So, what is the reality? In our experience, acting for business owners in the North West –and across the country, both North and South – there have been two significant changes in this region that business owners need to know about.

Firstly, we have seen a marked decrease over the last five years in the number of businesses passing from parents to children. Maybe there is some truth in the generational generalisation.

Managing Partner, Caldwell & Robinson

HAS

OWNING A BUSINESS BECOME LIKE PARENTING – YOU CAN’T EVER RID YOURSELF OF THE RESPONSIBILITY?

We’ve all heard the grumpy over-50s say

Secondly, we have seen a marked increase in the number of businesses being sold to third parties - this is a most welcome counterweight to the first trend. Whether it’s a result of post-Brexit all-Ireland supply chain consolidation, or some post-Covid cash-rich balance sheets, there is a significantly greater appetite and confidence amongst otherwise ordinary businesses seeking to acquire other ordinary businesses, and to look outside the big cities to find their targets. For us, the proof is that the number of business acquisitions or disposals we have acted on in the last two years – with values of between £1.5m and £10m – is now running at between 10 and 15 a year, a significant increase from five years ago.

This is good news for real businesses owned by real people.