Blog - twitter

Are you tweeting?

16.05.12

Twitter now has 10 million active users in the UK – Is your business one of them?

The once personally focused micro-blogging tool, Twitter, has developed in popularity with individuals but equally amongst businesses in the UK. Twitter may have been a source for celebrity status updates in the past, however, the times are changing and more and organisations are realising the potential behind the social networking site. According to research published this week, over one-in-six businesses now use Twitter to scout and engage with new customers.

So how are small businesses achieving success through Twitter?

• The London Studio

Theo Paphitis of Dragons’ Den launched a Twitter competition called Small Business Sunday. Once a week, Theo started asking entrepreneurs to tweet him about their business, choosing his six favourite, which he then flagged up to his 240,000 followers and on his website.

One of the companies that tried to attract the attention of the successful dragon was a multidisciplinary design studio called The London Studio.

“I tweeted Theo hoping to tempt him to look at The London Studio website and see the products I’d designed,” says the MD.

“He did — and his single tweet saw my website’s traffic more than double on its weekly average. I thought the server might break. Sales jumped too — gift shops and other independent retailers got in touch and asked me to be a stockist, and existing ones put in larger orders. I sold an extra 13,000 cards in the month after Theo’s tweet. Twitter has been great for business.”

• Big Green Bookshop

The Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green tweeted on the 24^th of February 2011 that without help they would have to close the doors to the book shop in nine months due to an unpaid bank loan. Shortly after the tweet was sent, the topic started to trend on the social media platform, growing in popularity, spreading throughout the social media realm. Due to Twitter the shop sold enough books to cover its bank repayments for two months and is now trading healthy.

Is your business one of the 10 million active UK users on Twitter? If so, has you ‘tweeted’ or ‘followed’ in the last two weeks?  Take a look at the top tips below to get your business on the path to social media success.

Tips to get your Twitter activity up and running:

• Follow other relevant small businesses - Quality rather than quantity
• Share tips related to your industry
• Post links to original thought pieces
• Give referrals via Twitter
• Communicate with potential customers, strategic alliances and suppliers
• Engage with industry magazines, editors and journalists – you never know who might read your latest news or blog feature.
• Ask your audience questions

Twitter is more than just a status update, the opportunities are endless....Get tweeting today!

For more social media tools and tips, click here.

 

---

Growing your greens

18.04.12

Strategies to help your green marketing flourish:

When it comes to corporate responsibility and green marketing, an increasing number of companies are recognising the importance of including environmental sustainability amongst their goals....TLC Business are one of them.

Green marketing definitions can be a little confusing, since green marketing can refer to anything from promoting the environmental benefits of a product, advertising a company’s sustainability initiatives, to simply channelling your marketing message in a more eco-friendly method.

When many people think of SMEs going green, methods such as recycling paper and conducting more meetings over the phone spring to mind. However ‘green’ strategies can incorporate even more day-to-day business activities, from using social media more effectively, to the tools you use to market your product or service. 

Green marketing can take many forms, below are some of the systems and tools you can adopt in your business:

• Green digital media
  Green marketing has gone digital with the help of social media and technology. Utilising Facebook or Twitter instead of print advertisements and providing digital versions of press packs are all steps businesses can take to more effective green marketing. Below are examples of how global companies are using social media within their green marketing mix:
  
  General Electric has introduced the Ecomagination Challenge, which challenges people all over the world, from businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators to students, to generate ideas how to improve the planet’s energy future. This project is promoted through the company’s website, blog and Twitter.
  
  IBM has created a Smarter Planet blog and encourages visitors to participate in conversations about creating a more sustainable planet. IBM also uses Facebook pages and Twitter accounts to keep the conversations alive.
  
  
• Re-design your materials with green in mind.
  One of the most effective ways to go green is to consider the potential environmental impact of your printed material at the design stage. That means taking into account factors like paper weight, item size, and mailing format at the beginning. This may seem extreme but a smaller, lighter piece will not only reduce the amount of paper you ultimately use, but also the emissions of the trucks delivering your pieces.
  
  Puma is a great example of a company planning ahead. The major sports brand is reducing its carbon footprint by redesigning the packaging for its shoes. Instead of packaging the shoes in a traditional cardboard box, which then necessitates a plastic carrier bag, Puma has designed a new product, dubbed “The Clever Little Bag”. Puma’s new packaging is made of a reusable shoe bag with a built in handle, thus eliminating the need for both a cardboard box and a carrier bag at the end of a sale. Puma’s green effort alone is projected to reduce the company’s paper consumption by over 65 percent, as well as cutting down on annual carbon emissions by 10,000 tons.
  
  

•  Clean up your database:
  An up-to-date database can also play a key part in your green marketing strategies. Whether you are sending a direct mail campaign using your new eco friendly marketing collateral or you are sending regular e-marketing campaigns. You can save money, reduce paper use and delivery impact, simply by cleaning up and reducing the size of your database. Regularly updating mailing lists and removing undeliverable addresses, duplicates and bounced email addresses, will play a part in saving resources.
  
  
• Adopting a lifecycle approach:
  Selecting green materials and products for marketing materials and adopting a lifecycle approach that looks at the whole campaign, thereby foreseeing areas of potential waste. More and more companies similar to Recycle Match are evolving. Recycle Match operates on the philosophy that one company’s trash is another company’s treasure and matches businesses who have waste products, such as used billboards, textile waste, and salvaged building materials, with businesses who need them.
  
  
• The Green Community:
  Finally, community is another component to successful green marketing. The green revolution has caused the growth of thousands of organisations and causes, each championing their own method of fighting for the environment. Find the businesses that fight for green living in the area, which relates to your product or service and contact them for support.
  
  

With the current emphasis on going green, recycling, and saving the planet, it would be foolish not to engage with the green consumer. However, it is important that your actions are credible and sincere. It is all too easy to employ ‘green wash’ when communicating your ‘green’ policies. Organisations that do this run the risk of attracting negative feedback and potentially damaging their reputation. A business doesn’t have to implement all of the suggestions above, simply adopting one or two can be a step in the right direction. Like any marketing or business activity, having a plan is essential.  Your green plan doesn’t need to be complicated or lengthy, but you should outline the steps you need to take to ensure effective execution and alignment with your overall marketing strategy.

---

Pinteresting…

22.03.12

Recently we mentioned Pinterest in our March marketing top tips and we thought it would be a good idea to share a little more about the latest social media trend and how your business can get involved.

Pinterest recently hit our social media world with an almighty bang, receiving more than 103 million visits in February. If you have not yet joined the millions of other social media enthusiasts on Pinterest, it may be hard to understand the fascination. At first glance, the Pinterest home page may appear to be a wall of fashion trends, cupcakes and food thumbnails. However, once you start searching your own interests, you may find yourself quickly addicted to the new world of pinning.

How Pinterest works:

Pinterest invites visitors to set up their own  virtual "pinboards'', incorporating interesting images, designs and styles into different categories that the user invents.  From kitchen designs to jewellery collections, there is an array of ‘interests’ to suit everyone’s needs. So how is Pinterest a social networking site? Well, Pinterest allows members to comment on each other's images and follow their pinboards. If a photo strikes a user's fancy, then they can simply repin it.

Who’s involved? 

 Google Ad Planner recently showed that nearly 1.5 million unique users are visiting Pinterest daily, and spending an impressive 14+ minutes on the site. Pinterest is very much tailored towards the US market at present but it is rapidly growing in the UK. According to Andrew Lipsman, ComScore's Vice President of Industry Analysis, females account for 68% of the site's visitors worldwide and a whopping 85% of the activity. However, in the UK, the demographic is different, with a mostly male audience, interested in more than just re-pinning and showcasing photographs. Instead, they are focusing on the web statistics and analysis associated with this new social networking phenomenon.

How can my business get involved?

So, can a business benefit from yet another social networking site?

SMEs who currently promote their brand on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+ should start thinking about adding Pinterest to their mix. Pinterest HQ suggests that businesses first spotlight "aspects of your brand that may not come to mind at first,'' such as charitable activity and coporate social responsibility schemes. They also suggest incorporating other aspects of social media, creating a communication hub to new and potential consumers.

Currently, Pinterest works best for brands that can display their service or product in thought provoking, attractive and sometimes funny images. Photographs are a great way of engaging users and encouraging them to follow and interact with your brand. Businesses can also make sure that a Pinterest user who clicks on their photos will be taken directly back to their website, where the product or service is displayed. According to top marketing researchers, last month, Pinterest delivered more referral traffic then Twitter.

However, like any social networking site, Pinterest comes with a warning. There have been recent headlines claiming there are copy right issues regarding Pinterest. Our advice would be, as always, be careful what you upload online, if you ‘re pin’ an image, check that the link goes back to the original website, thereby providing referral links & traffic to the copyright owner. Inform your employees of your social media best practice and finally use this as an excuse to upload original and creative content that reflects your brand and engages your consumer.

See below for a couple of brands using Pinterest, one you may expect and the second one you may not. 

Unicef:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GE:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more advice on safe social media for your business, click here.

 

---

Pages:

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

---