Monthly Archives: March 2012

How social media can destroy a brand

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Social media has become a require­ment for busi­ness con­tinu­ity. As we all look to become com­fort­able with the chan­nels we use, it can also become det­ri­mental to a brand message.

A good example of this and see­ing first hand was the recent Busi­ness 2012 event at the Lon­don 02. In a nut­shell, the poor exe­cu­tion and lack of atten­tion to detail of the event went viral and with a three-​day event, the expect­a­tions were set from day one.

The power of response was also evid­ent via the #biz2012, not just because of the sheer num­ber of people com­ment­ing, but the speed at which the inform­a­tion was shared dur­ing the exhib­i­tion. This is purely as an example of a recent event that was built up via social media chan­nels but was cas­tig­ated just as quickly. What it does show is that if you don’t man­age your digital foot­print, oth­ers clearly will.

How­ever, this does encour­age that when it comes to using social media as a mar­ket­ing chan­nel we need to take respons­ib­il­ity and account­ab­il­ity for our actions. There is noth­ing worse than read­ing con­stant hard selling mes­sages from com­pan­ies who haven’t got to grips with the etiquette. This does even­tu­ally pro­mote intol­er­ance for brands that don’t ‘step-​up’ and cus­tom­ers begin to switch off. The abil­ity to share dis­sat­is­fac­tion is immense.

By adapt­ing to a chan­ging world and with social media at the fore­front, can we really say that we are ‘social media experts’? With the dis­cip­line still rel­at­ively new, a more apt role would be ‘social media enthu­si­asts,’ expert­ise comes after years of ded­ic­a­tion, study and practice.

As own­ers and users, it is import­ant to recog­nise our respons­ib­il­it­ies for the brands we rep­res­ent and organ­ise how they stand out in a crowded mar­ket­place. Cre­ativ­ity, adapt­ab­il­ity and enga­ging with audi­ences builds advocacy.

When does a brand become bigger than a person?

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It’s an age-​old ques­tion for any SME, but at what point do you become self-​sufficient without YOU being the reason people do busi­ness with you?

When you have a small busi­ness, per­son­al­ity sells and becomes one of the biggest trig­ger decisions to buy. As Jay Abra­ham said (Author of ‘The Stick­ing Point Solu­tion’), “you have to hon­estly want to provide your cli­ent with the best future through your prob­lem solv­ing.” Whether the reason to have a busi­ness was for per­sonal wealth, self-​fulfilment or more time with loved ones, the nir­vana was for the busi­ness to stand on its own two feet and recog­ni­tion for what the brand rep­res­en­ted, rather than you as an individual.

The step comes when you have a team around you that rep­res­ents all those facets that you wanted to por­tray, such as integ­rity, humil­ity and trust. If your team are recog­nised as mak­ing a con­nec­tion with the world around you and cham­pi­on­ing the reason you set up your busi­ness, then the factors for cus­tom­ers to buy from you instead of the com­pet­i­tion becomes the key reason. It’s a case of get­ting into the real world. Cus­tom­ers love deal­ing with real people who care deeply about their hopes, dreams and visions.

This then moves to the next stage where your brand is seen as hav­ing own­er­ship of your field of expert­ise. If you estab­lish your­self this way, cus­tom­ers will get bet­ter res­ults, pro­spects will have a higher regard for your products and your repu­ta­tion will be exten­ded by your market.

The long-​term goal for any SME busi­ness owner is that your brand is infin­itely more import­ant than any one per­son. Obvi­ously it takes time, but when your brand strives for great­ness – not great­ness in your­self, you’ve made that step.

How to manage your time

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It’s so easy to fall into bad habits and things we become accus­tomed to such as check­ing your emails the very first thing in the morn­ing. Have a read of what we think is key to being more pro­duct­ive in the same amount of time to your work­ing day.

Set goals and object­ives for yourself

Set real­istic tar­gets and goals for 3 months at a time. Focus on build­ing rela­tion­ships with exist­ing cli­ents and branch­ing out ser­vices to pro­spect­ive cli­ents and businesses.

Organ­isa­tion is key

Make lists, use a diary and have remind­ers of things you need to do. By stay­ing organ­ised, this will provide you with clar­ity of your goals for your com­pany and your cli­ents as well as aid­ing in man­aging your time. Don’t be reactive.

Plan your week

Alloc­ate tasks to each day in order of import­ance for your com­pany and your cli­ents. By doing so, this allows you to fol­low a steady plan of pro­gres­sion to plan your next steps.

Keep a schedule

Sched­ule meet­ings and leave enough time to handle com­pany busi­ness. Keep time aside for work­ing on your busi­ness (not in your busi­ness) and alloc­ate time to respond to emails (don’t be a slave to the ‘ping’ of your inbox).

Use your time effectively

By stay­ing organ­ised, you will be able to make the most out of your time. With meet­ings, leave extra time in case they run over. Com­pany busi­ness must be just as import­ant so people are aware of things you are doing within your par­tic­u­lar industry.

Delegation/​outsourcing

Out­source cer­tain aspects of the com­pany to oth­ers, to allow you and your busi­ness to flour­ish in the best way pos­sible. Stick to what you’re good at and what you’re not pas­sion­ate about give it some­body else.

Take a break

Don’t over­load your­self with more than you can handle so it’s always a good idea to take short breaks to refresh your mind. Step out of the office and get some fresh air.

Nobody’s per­fect, we slip into bad habits but put­ting into prac­tice these points can make a huge difference.

Business 2012 — last day opinion

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After the stor­ies and neg­at­ive feed­back from the open­ing day, the emphasis of a busi­ness event focused on com­pan­ies run­ning as well oiled machines, this can be said wasn’t a reflec­tion of the event organisation.

How­ever, if there was the atti­tude to throw your­self into the sem­inar rooms, become a sponge and listen to views and stor­ies from those who had achieved vis­ib­il­ity and cred­ib­il­ity, then it could be said that you could take a lot from the day and a wise invest­ment of time.

It was also inter­est­ing to see that the major­ity of speak­ers were Amer­ican and apart from Nigel Bot­ter­ill, very few UK speak­ers, why is their such a dearth of home grown ‘fig­ure­heads’? It was good though to have so many respec­ted indi­vidu­als in one place (and the sched­ule for the day sheets were help­ful), so credit is due to the organisers.

One thing that did become a bit tire­some was the huge dis­coun­ted rates if people booked courses that very moment (at the end of a sem­inar). It made me think, is this kind of prac­tice legal? There were screens show­ing huge rates if booked ‘nor­mally’ at the end of present­a­tions, but didn’t seem quan­ti­fi­able with fig­ures that could have been plucked from the air and then at massive dis­coun­ted rates (a bit like a B2B GroupOn offer).

The head­line act (with Lord Sugar) kind of typ­i­fied the whole event. You had the steak, but not neces­sar­ily the sizzle. The audi­ence were invited to give ques­tions to Lord Sugar, but without vet­ting any of the top­ics before­hand. Com­plete mad­ness in my opin­ion, what happened to tak­ing advant­age of the pop­u­lar Twit­ter #biz2012 that was used through­out the event. We heard everything from ‘can we have a chat over a cup of tea’ to ‘my eleven year old daugh­ter wants to make an app, where can I find a mentor?’ You could sense the ‘what am I doing here’ from the head­line act and the ‘we all feel a bit uncom­fort­able watch­ing this’ from the major­ity of the audience.

There is merit on hav­ing this type of event, par­tic­u­larly with the prom­ise of Bill Clin­ton at the Novem­ber exhib­i­tion, and can become a worth­while edu­ca­tion exer­cise. To build advocacy and for those who atten­ded to spread the word, people need to feel that they are part of some­thing spe­cial that runs like that well oiled machine.

Business 2012 — blog feed

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It cer­tainly has caused a buzz over the past few months with a great online cam­paign pro­mot­ing the exhib­i­tion of the year to ‘take your busi­ness for­ward’. With a host of reput­able speak­ers and sem­inars, surely this was an oppor­tun­ity that couldn’t be missed and with the added bonus of being FREE, one that the organ­isers should be given full credit for organ­ising and being in part­ner­ship with some noted brands, added that extra credence.

How­ever, with feed­back over the open­ing day caus­ing a mix of frus­tra­tion and dis­ap­point­ment, could it be a day out of the office that wasn’t productive?

“VIP recep­tion with #richard­bran­son a com­plete dis­ap­point­ment £94 two glasses wine & richard on stage 2mins of ‘thank you’!”

“No info of any kind, even asked repeatedly, got clue­less shrugs from staff #business2012″

“Today I’m at #Business2012 in the O2. So far I have learnt quite a lot about start­ing busi­ness, get­ting a mentor, dos and dont’s on websites”

So, with enthu­si­asm and belief that the ini­tial ‘teeth­ing prob­lems’ could be rec­ti­fied, how did the clos­ing day bring an end to an event that cer­tainly has the prom­ise for a suc­cess­ful future initiative?

Keep pos­ted to this page and we’ll give updates through­out the day. It’ll be just like you’re there, but someone else is paint­ing the pic­ture for you and you won’t be stung by the lunch­time pan­ini and coffee.…

9.40 — It feels like the last day of Gla­ston­bury, a quiet start with not many people at the main stage, but when you know the head­liner is on (Alan Sugar at 5.25pm) you know it will be packed.

10.30 — This is what regis­tra­tion looks like…slowly get­ting busy

10.35 — Let’s see what the USA Speaker room has to offer (from JT Foxx). Rooms slowly filling up and have to say staff do help and seem to be well rehearsed now

11.00 — Tip: to get the most out of this, don’t spend ages walk­ing round the exhib­i­tion hall, get to the Sem­inar Break­out Rooms. A wealth of know­ledge is every­where. Listen­ing to Ray­mond Aaron, great speaker!

11.45 — Ok, read­ing reac­tion from the first day it was a bit under­whelm­ing. But was that because it was a weekend/Mother’s Day? Now we’re into the work­ing week, it does feels like you’re con­trib­ut­ing to your busi­ness (if it has the cap­ab­il­ity to trig­ger an action). It’s the age old say­ing ‘you get out what you put in.’

12.00 — A bit of Botty, sem­inar room is nearly full

12.25 — Sur­pris­ing how few people use Pay Per Click (on a show of hands in the sem­inar room)

12.40 — Nigel Bot­ter­ill acknow­ledges there have been challenges/​problems with the event. Key phrase used was ‘atten­tion to detail.’ Inter­est­ing state­ment for an event focus­ing on bet­ter busi­ness practice.

14.55 — The 02 is an impress­ive build­ing. Keep­ing things busi­ness related and the power of this par­tic­u­lar brand, can any­one remem­ber the name before The 02?