What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 23rd July

Welcome to another week!

It's Fresh all the way this week at Cloud 9 Towers as the deadline for Fresh 2012 has been extended to Friday 3rd August at 12 noon or High Noon, as we are now referring to the new deadline!

www.freshawards.co.uk

We are getting lots of calls from PR and Comms Professionals thinking that the looming deadline is for the Fresh PR Awards, but panic not, this is for the Creative, Media & Digital Awards and not PR, which wont be launching until late October!

We're on a bit of a Twitter offensive for Cloud 9 at present and getting our new Summer interns up to speed on the do's and don't for the site, and social media in general. When you have a small company and limited time, then tools like Hoot Suite are invaluable, but we appreciate we have to be careful not to appear either bland or boring, and we know engagement is key.

The advice online for using Twitter effectively is endless but we think this post probably hits the right note!

1. …Your Homework, Do it!

Twitter offers an unprecedented medium for dialogue with your customers. It offers insights, trends and direct communication channels with the people purchasing products and services. Use it to to garner Market Research. This market research will quickly multiply your success potential. Speak with your audience, search out your target market and begin the conversation. Ask the questions – what matters to them? what are they looking for? how do they feel about your brand? how do they feel about your competitors?

Twitter offers an enormous opportunity to accumulate the feedback necessary to build your brand.

2. Make A Plan.

Don’t dive into the deep end with your water wings! Every business, big, small, wide and tall needs a strategy. This strategy should address key concerns such as:

Have a plan before jumping into Social Media head first.

• Who is handling your monitoring and communication?
• What are they posting?
• How often are they posting?
• Who (market target) are you chasing and engaging?
• What is your brand goal once you have followers?
• What message do you need to communicate?
• How do you communicate this?
• What is your contingency for customer feedback?

3. Make Your Brand Known.

Get out and spread the word. Pass along to clients, industry partners, and relevant contacts that your brand is on Twitter. They may not be on Twitter yet, and partnering with them in your efforts can often be beneficial.

Begin engaging others on Twitter. Follow relevant feeds (IE experts, competitors etc). Begin conversing with established brands. Create content that will position you as an expert in the minds of your audience. You want to develop credibility and build your reputation. The more of a presence you make the more people will take notice.

Remember that you want to remain consistent to your Brand message. Your Social Media efforts should never appear fractured from the rest of your business.

4. Engage.

Small Business success hinges on relationships and customer service. It is not often that the small business can compete on price point alone. Success is almost always determined by the brand loyalty one develops through nurturing their customers.

This is seldom easy, however it is highly rewarding (and profitable). Despite its online nature, Social Media is a great platform for developing these relationships. It is all about engagement, communication and dialogue. If your Twitter feed is a monologue then you are doing it wrong.

Talk to your customers, seek them out and begin the conversation. Doing so shows integrity and can instantly earn appreciation. Customers want and need to feel that they matter, by going to them you are reinforcing this association with your brand.

5. Be Human.

Be human. Be Authentic Be Honest. Be Real.

Remember in all of your engagement to be real, be honest and be human. Brands spend thousands of dollars annually, attempting to “humanize” themselves, to make themselves accessible to “Joe Consumer”.

Be human and authentic, create a friendly banter and enjoy a good conversation. Don’t take offense to their feedback, but use every opportunity provided to show your customers that you are a customer as well, and your brand understands.

This is one perk to being a small business. It often comes more naturally and requires less red tape.

6. Build A Following.

This is achieved through three key steps.

• Build relevant and creative content. Give your audience a reason to want more.
• Post on a consistent schedule. Maintaining an active presence is absolutely key to building and KEEPING a following.
• Post a consistent message. Whatever your content, ensure that you maintain a consistent brand message and meet the expectations of your followers. If you are plastics manufacturer, do not suddenly post LOLCATZ. You can change things up every now and again to keep it interesting – but always keep it relevant.

Keeping an active presence will ensure you build and retain your following. The value here is three fold:

• It allows for quicker spotting of unhappy customers – which you then will engage.
• It allows for more thoroughly spread updates to your audience.
• “Viral Spread” – The more people are talking about your brand, the more are people hearing about your brand. The bigger your following, the quicker your content will be shared en mass.

7. Know Your Lingo!

Make sure you know how and what to communicate on Twitter. Here is a quick beginners breakdown:

Know the lingo and make waves on Twitter.

• Tweet: A message of 140 characters or less.
• Retweet (RT): A reposting or sharing of someones else’s tweet.
• @johndoe: The means by which you directly address another Twitter user within your tweet.
• #Hashtag: Placing the hashtag (#) in front of any word or sentence turns it into a search reference for the Twitter search engine. It can also be used to accentuate the point behind your tweet.
• “Via”: Source or author of the content being shared.
• OH: Overheard. The means by which you share a rumour or story.
• #FF: The Hashtag (search reference) for Follow Friday. The means by which you share people you follow with your followers, “paying it forward” if you will.

8. SEO.

Search Engine Optimization is fairly easy to utilize on Twitter. First of all make a list of industry relevant key words. Implement them into your Twitter handle, your profile description and as often as possibly into your tweets. This will ensure that these key words are being associated by search engines, with your Twitter efforts 

9. Measure, Measure, Measure.

Hurrah! You have begun tweeting, you have followers! What does that mean? How do you measure the value? There are a number of tools to helop you do this. Consider Social media tools likeTweetdeck and Hootsuite. Both are easy to learn, easy to use, and can be downloaded free (Hootsuite also has a paid service).

Finally this week, we're off for a rather lovely, and probably very fattening evening at Eastwood Hall on Thursday. There's a BBQ and a Thorntons Chocolate Tasting so we just hope the weather holds! 

Eastwood Hall is located just a short drive away from the historic city of Nottingham and is a leading conference venue and hotel in Nottinghamshire. Set in 26 acres of spectacular grounds Eastwood Hall combines the historic with the modern to deliver an unforgettable setting for conference and business events, weddings and short breaks.

Whether you need a flexible conference venue for 300 delegates, an outdoor location for an inspirational teambuilding event, a private meeting room for your important board meeting, a beautiful backdrop for your wedding or a place to simply relax and unwind, Eastwood Hall delivers everything you need.

And with a wide variety of local attractions including: Nottingham and Sherwood Forest and fantastic onsite leisure activities, Eastwood Hall is also a first choice for breaks in Nottinghamshire.

Have a great week folks!