Well think again – whether you want to communicate with your beneficiaries, your community or corporate supporters, volunteers or the general public at large, you will no doubt find the most of them have a presence on at least one social media site.

Find out where they might be and how you can engage with them and develop their support for your organisation.

Friday 13^th marks a new chapter in my life as an online marketing consultant with a presentation to a number of charity delegates in North Devon.  The venue of the keystone centre is owned by Torridge Training Services, an innovative and entrepreneurial charity keen to encourage other organisations to make use of this fantastic space.

This is being run with Jackie Dawkins on Shine Charity Recruitment and there are a few places left, further details and booking can be made here http://www.shinecharityrecruitment.co.uk/events.php

This afternoon I spoke at the excellent Social Networking for Fundraisers at the Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education on Topsham Road in Exeter.  The topic was Inbound Marketing for Charities and was a full on session with discussion, interaction and input from the Charity Fundraiser’s from the Devon area who attended.

Regular readers of this blog will know I do a lot of public speaking (read more about it on my blog here) on web related topics and in particular web communication and social media for Charities.  Indeed during the number of seminars I’ve run it never ceases to amaze me the diversity of charities, from Hens to the RNLI (yes I said Hens) we really do have a diverse charity sector in the South West and I am pleased to do my little bit…

Also the Flip Camera that i refer to and heartily recommend for YouTube – i have one and this can be found on Amazon here.  I find the Flip Camera ideal for its simplicity, ease of use superb high quality.  There are other great HD camera’s available and some good examples again can be seen on Amazon here.

Recent Testimonials from our Charity Seminars

‘Really interesting seminar that gave lots of food for thought‘ – Donna, now with RNLI

‘James and Alistair are very entertaining and make the seminar fun!‘ – Anon

‘Really useful, good to think about integration‘ – Chris Penberthy

‘I’ve learning how to use my Twitter account more effectively‘ – Philip King, Devon Air Ambulance

Alistair Gleave & Danny Frayne, originally uploaded by alistair gleave.

Today i was kindly invited into the Corporate box of Exeter printers Quickprint South West. I am pictured here with owner Danny Frayne prior to the start of the game.

The match was between Exeter and MK Dons and finished 1-1 with a goal in either half, it was a good game and Exeter had a number of great chances to take all three points, they will just have to make do with the draw and 1 point.

Thank you Danny for the invite…. @quickprintSW a great local printer.

On the 18th November I spoke at the Shine Charity Lunch Event at the beautiful Hestercombe Gardens which is just outside Taunton.I have never been there before so i was very pleasantly surprised at the stunning location.

Hestercombe is a unique collection of three gardens spanning three centuries of garden history and design.  All have undergone acclaimed restoration works funded by the charity, The Hestercombe Gardens Trustand from what I saw of it, definitely worthy of a visit.

The Shine Charity lunch is fast becoming an established monthly fixture for those who work in the Charity Sector to meet up, exchange ideas, explore partnership working and generally network and it was a real honour to be asked to speak at the November event on the topic.

‘what Social Media has to offer the third sector in terms of engaging with the wider community, how it can be used to promote fundraising efforts and develop your volunteer base’

I only had 15 minutes which is by no means enough time to cover all that is needed but i hope everyone got a taster of what could be achieved in their respective charities.

As expected we did overrun a little and i did have quite a few questions, i hope all left knowing this is nothing to be scared off, inbound marketing and social media is here to stay – embrace it!

Thanks to Jackie once again for the invite, she is pictured below introducing me.

For charities in the South West we do run a number of FREE seminar that go into far more depth, the next one is on December 10th, more details and booking can be found on http://shinesocialmedia.eventbrite.com/.

If you have an event that you want to invite a group of people to then the ‘olde school‘ method is ringing them up or even sending an email and following up to get a Y or N – you could even use snail mail if you wanted to really go way back…

Help is at hand with event management software called Eventbrite this offers you a simple tool to manage, promote and take online booking for your event and best of all it is free to sign up, you can do this here….

So what do you get out of it? Well Eventbrite event management system software sells itself on four main areas,

• Publish – You can use the FREE Eventbrite software to build your own online event and sign up page, it really is that simple.
• Promote – They have a number of inbuilt tools to enable you to promote your event ot the widest possible audience using social media and just straight emails.
• Manage – All these tools allow you to track the event, attendees, bookings etc, giving you a wealth of stats – you can see for example on an email invitation that has been sent whether it has been opened, clicked or then booked on – a very powerful tool.
• Sell – Through Eventbrite you can actually sell tickets to your event and they handle all the online payments so you need do nothing…. Within this you can also create time sensitive events, i.e. book before x date to pay y…

So whats the catch I hear you say? well i havent found one yet. The cost to you for a free event is nothing, that’s right nothing. You only pay when you want to charge for an event and then you pay a % of every sale you make. For any event management the use of Eventbrite surely is a no brainer?

Find out more you can visit Eventbrite here and see for yourself or if you need help planning an event why not use Event Planning Perfection to find out more Click Here!

Well Fast Company an award-winning monthly magazine, website, and digital distribution platform have started something called The Influence Project which aims to remove some of the mystery behind social connectivity.

What the Influence Project aims to do is remove some of the mystery behind the inherent passivity of social network numbers. This experiment will show what happens when an individual takes an audience at rest and applies an unbalanced force–through suggestion, advice or direction–that converts it into an army of action. That’s power that can be quantified and lead to an understanding that can be applied to both the largest and smallest of networks. No doubt it’s profound to address a million followers and get 100,000 of them to respond. But what does it mean when you have one hundred friends on Facebook and 97 of them click through to a site on your recommendation?

The clicks and networking and connectivity (out to six degrees!) collected in this experiment will provide a compass for where real influence lies on the Internet. It’s something I’m sure every business is curious to know more about. I also think it’s a powerful bit of awareness for anyone who wants to know who in their network is fully engaged with them.

Taken from Blog post by Mark Borden http://www.fastcompany.com/1666288/welcome-to-the-influence-project

I have joined this more out of curiosity than anything, I want to know when my social network is asked to do something like click on my influence here http://fcinf.com/v/bktm will you?

As at the time of writing this post my current rank is 2,659 out of 28,919 – it costs nothing just one click http://fcinf.com/v/bktm and I am looking forward to feeling your influence on me.

One of the main questions of concern i get is following people, who should i follow and why? and this i think boils down to a simple reason; that is when you follow probabaly more than a couple of dozen people your tweet feed can get full of useless chatter that makes the real message seemingly lost.

In my mind Twitter isnt about only following people who follow you — a blanket policy just wont work for those well know users, its pretty much unmanageable but I do think that it can be useful to know who follows your initial follow; To give an example, you may have followed a user back out of courtesy, but what they tweet is in your opinion low grade junk so if they have now unfollowed you, surely that gives you THE reason to unfollow them.

I use a great free tool called Twitter Karma and this shows your twitter contacts in a grid with a note beneath showing who is following whom, i use it to visually see who is doing what and within the site you can make some follow or unfollow action, you can also go more indepth if needed, try it for yourself its free.

At the lunch break i got to meet the legendary Chris Brogan and buy a signed copy of his book – Trust Agents.

Chris went onto sign a copy of his latest book for me;
‘the best part of getting to meet you is that we can start the relationship here. Good to meet you.’

I have spent the weekend reading a great book and can be summarised very well by a paragraph from the inside front cover;

‘learn to use the power of the Web and social networks for your business now. Trust Agents gives you all the tools and strategies you need to do it the right way – honestly, efficiently and profitably.’

Chris Brogan’s book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust and it truely is a great read.

Thanks to @katrinadegruchy for the photo.

She’s been with us for years and to be honest we make this decision every single year… but we never follow it through.

Why? Because we’ve grown emotionally attached to her.

Sure other cleaners would do a better job, but Sandy’s part of the family. She goes out of her way and she understands what we want. Most of all she cares. And for that reason alone, we are not going to change her until she comes to us and says she wants to leave.

I wonder how many companies operate in the same way? I’ve known several major organisations make decisions on suppliers based on pure emotion. Whether it was because they couldn’t bear to sever the relationship and face the emotional outburst, or whether it was because of their emotional attachment… the results are the same.

Businesses are only as UNemotional as the humans that run them!

So, as business people, looking to win and keep business, how can we benefit from this?

I suggest two simple points:

First – don’t even try to sever a client/supplier relationship if it smacks of emotional attachment! Eventually you may achieve what you want, but it’s a long bumpy ride, and at the end of it you’re going to have big boots to fill. And you need to be certain that the business gained is really worth it. So, if your potential new client is “very happy” using their brother’s wife to do their filing, no matter how cost-effective or perfect your proposal is – just step away!

Second- It’s time to get emotional with your clients.
SHOW them you care. Tell them that you’re “so excited by their recent expansion”. Find out what matters to them, and help them make it happen. (Be genuine, of course, because nothing is more obvious than professional cupboard-love.)
If you’re working with a team, spend time with each individual to make sure they realise how important each person is – and how vital it is that you’re playing a big part in their success.

The great thing about this approach is that it really works. Not only does your client now know that you care, but all that caring and supporting will be bound to help improve your service offering, give you some incredible USP’s

What if you can’t get emotionally attached?

What if you’re not so excited by a client’s business? If you really can’t bring yourself to care, perhaps they are not the right client for you. It may be harsh, and it’s certainly going to need some deep consideration, but how much damage is it doing to YOUR business, if you really don’t care about your clients? Consider the impacts of letting them go, and opening up the space and the environment to gain customers that you feel really motivated about.

Making it work for your client – AND YOU!

Whilst this article may seem to be all heart, we’ve also got to consider the impact on you as a business. And the good news is – it can be really good news…

Emotional business and PR

Once you think of PR as one big word-of-mouth reputation management machine you can see how the emotional approach makes for great PR, great business and great fun.

The more involved you become with your clients, the more delighted they will be when you want to use them to promote your own business.

Whether it be a case-study or a press release, it’s so obvious to them that you’ll care about how they fare, and because of that you can create a win-win situation.

When it comes to client testimonials or referrals, it’s show time too! They are more likely to sing your praises when they know you are genuinely enthused by their business.

And finally…

Your own business model is likely to improve. Consider how you’ll be better able to retain and recruit the right staff and keep motivation levels high. This approach can filter down to cost-savings, resources, being more environmentally friendly, finding new clients, expansion and just plain doing better business… And guess what? You’ll feel great about it too!

About the author
Sue Haswell has been in PR, marketing and sales for more years than she’d care to mention. Her own business Big Results, launched in 1997, and is based in South Devon, offering creative PR to clients small and large, throughout the UK.

Past and current clients include Cosmopolitan ™ (licensed products), Jane Shilton ™ , Central Trains, Corus, Pago Fruit Juices, Coventry City Council (Coventry NDC) and Groundwork the environmental charity.

Sue offers a range of services stretching from pure consultancy, to implementation and PR coaching, helping SME’s to take charge of their own PR and marketing.

“I LOVE working with clients who want to see results, and who are prepared to try something a little different! You don’t get noticed if you’re doing the same as everyone else, so I like to stretch the boundaries, maximise my clients’ impact, and keep their costs down.”

Sue has had one book published (PR Superstar) and a several more books “nearly ready to go!”

Website: www.bigresults.co.uk

So you have your Twitter account now what? Do not make these mistakes…..

You must create an Avatar
Don’t leave the Twitter standard Avatar in there, add a photo personal if possible, a default avatar means the user is either a spammer, an idiot or something else that you don’t want to be associated with so steer clear

You don’t list a location, website or biography
Come on people it’s in the settings tab and its really easy to fill in, so please use it and create your identity on Twitter you won’t regret it.

The website you list is a Facebook profile
When you add your web address, think carefully a Facebook or MySpace link just really isn’t getting it, you are better to leave this blank to be honest.

Your updates are just about you
Yes I know you are great but Twitter isn’t about that and we don’t all want to hear about you.

You don’t engage your audience
People that follow you are channels of communication, imagine you are at a dinner party or networking event would you really just stand up and talk about yourself all the time, no I dint think so you’d ask questions, you’d listen and you’d engage – so make sure you do this on Twitter.