How to humanise your company and get people talking about what you do.

There are a few great companies, who we love to talk about. They seem to thrive, whatever they do, people can't help wanting to share how great they are. Their customers are loyal and they buy from these companies time and time again. What have they got that many other larger, corporate companies don't seem to have? Answer - A personality!

Personality matters because people matter.

In this video Rohit Bhargava, senior vice president of digital strategy and marketing at Ogilvy and the author of the book Personality Not Included.

Rohit talks about how to put personality back into your company to tell a better story about what you do, get people to believe in your company and tell everyone about it.

sme_bw2010_rohit_bhargava_v3 from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

(Check out Social Media Examiner for more information)

How to humanise your company:

• Get your personality back talk to your customers as real people.
• It's not just about the product - it's about the people. Include your staff on your website - people buy from people, your customers don't want to buy a faceless brand. Think of the direction MacDonalds had taken with it's TV ads.
• Identify the employees who are your “accidental spokespeople” Cultivate these people to become a voice for your company - encourage these people to talk freely on Social Media sites.
• Why Innocent Drinks has a great personality - customer centric, ask customers what they want to see in their products - implement customer ideas
• Find the right backstory for your company - are you the 'Inspired Inventor' or 'Ethical Action Taker' trying to make a difference to the world or 'The Entrepreneur' struck it lucky, in the right place at the right time - people like this to because they think, "That could be me!"
• Humanise your company - you can do this by creating conversation using Social Media, blogs, Twitter, Facebook.
• Tell Your Story. Get out and talk you your customers more, do some public speaking, include videos and presentations on your website.

Which companies do it well?

• Magic Whiteboard - http://www.magicwhiteboard.co.uk/
• Muddy Boots Burgers - http://www.muddybootsfoods.co.uk/
• Wiggly Wigglers - http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/
• Innocent Drinks - http://www.innocentdrinks.ie/us/
• Dyson Hoovers - http://www.dyson.co.uk/insidedyson/article.asp?aID=clearbin&disType=&dir=&cp=&hf=1&js=1
• Holy Well Spring Water - http://www.holywellspringwater.co.uk
• Rather Inventive - http://www.ratherinventive.com/
• Ninety Five Creative - http://www.ninetyfivecreative.com/

If you would like some advice on how to improve your company image through effective use of social media - please give me a call - Helen 01905 23902 or send me an email helen@coldicottfreelancetraining.com

Inbound Marketing and Social Media Strategy...

Social media and blogs are a key part to any inbound marketing strategy.

I love this cartoon on the Hubspot Blog. It illustrates perfectly the
power and reach of inbound, compared to outbound marketing.

Here are 6 ways inbound marketing helps to grow your business:

1. Quick to Start. You could launch a Facebook page today or get a blog going in a few days.
   
   
2. Low Cost. You can get started in social media and blogging for very little or no money. They are among the most cost-effective methods of reaching your audience.
   
   
3. Instant Interactivity. Both blogs and social media can give you nearly instant market feedback - good or bad. We get all kinds of feedback through the comments on our blog; people also leave reviews and other comments for us on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media channels.
   
   
4. It's the Search Engines, Silly. Surveys indicate that 90% or more of people begin their purchasing process in search engines. Blogs and social media make it more likely that your prospects will find you online when they search.
   
   
5. Inbound Marketing. I'm a big fan of inbound marketing, it basically saves me time and money by filtering out all the people who don't want my services and just delivers qualified, inbound leads to my website.
   
   Outbound marketing is telemarketing, direct mail, cold email blasts (not lovely nurturing emails like this one to you), TV and print ads - all the things that buyers tend to block out more and more. Social media and blogs are essential inbound marketing tools.
   
   
6. First Mover Advantage. For blogs and social media, there is an advantage to moving first. If you don't jump into the conversation, your competitors will (if they have not already) and then you're fighting an uphill battle to become influential in these online conversations. Start now to claim that first-mover advantage.

How are you using social media today?

Learn how you can build a successful inbound marketing strategy that combines social media, blogging, lead conversion, and marketing analytics. Call Helen for a complimentary Inbound Marketing Assessment - 01905 23902

Ten Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers

This guest post is written by Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg and the co-founder of Revision3 and Pownce. Kevin, who has over 88,000 followers on Twitter (making him the second most followed after President Obama), also “bloggs” atkevinrose.com. He is an investor in Twitter.

1. Explain to your followers what retweeting is and encourage them to retweet your links. Retweeting pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, resulting in clicks back to your profile. Track your retweets using retweetist.
2. Fill out your bio. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much to someone that doesn’t know you. Your bio is the only place you have to tell people who you are. Also, your bio is displayed on Twitter’s Suggested Users page. Leaving it blank or non-descriptive doesn’t encourage people to add you.
3. As @garyvee says, “link it up.” Put links to your Twitter profile everywhere. Link it on your Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, email signature, and everywhere else you live online. Also, check out the great feedburner-like badges from TwitterCounter for your blog.
4. Tweet about your passions in life and #hash tag them. Quality content coupled with an easy way to find it never fails. If others enjoy your content, they’ll add you. Learn more about #hash tagging here.
5. Bring your twitter account into the physical world. Every time I give a talk, speak on a panel, shoot a podcast, present slides, or hand out business cards, I figure out a way to broadcast or display my twitter account.
6. Take pictures. Pictures are heavily retweeted/spread around. This one from US Airways Flight 1549 has been viewed 350,000+ times. For mobile pics use iPhone apps such as Tweetie or Twitterific, both which support on the go uploading.
7. Start a contest. @jasoncalacanis offered a free macbook air if he reached the #1 most followed spot. That never happened, but Jason added thousands of followers…brilliant.
8. Follow the top twitter users and watch what they tweet. Pay attention to the type of content they sent out and how they address their audiences.
9. Reply to/get involved in #hash tag memes. search.twitter.com lists the hot ‘trending topics. Look for the #hash topics and jump in on the conversation (see #4 for links to #hash instructions).
10. Track your results. TwitterCounter will show you how many new users you’re adding per day and Qwitter will email you when someone unfollows you after a tweet.

If you enjoy this content, add me at twitter.com/kevinrose, thank you.