Another interesting meeting. Ian Williams gave some insights into using Social media like twitter, facebook, blogging and ecademey as part of your marketing.
A successful case study was
Dairy Queen who have handed over their social media marketing to the employees.
An example of how social media could be used to potentially damage a business was
Dave Caroll's music
video about his bad experience with
United Airlines.
All very thought provoking. I have to say, our business productivity suffered when we had a couple of prolific bloggers working for us, but offsetting that, we definitely benefited from their online connections. Whether it balanced out or not over the long run is debatable, and I've noticed that now the people in question run their own company, they seem to have much less time for blogging! I guess, like most things in life, it works if you get the balance right.
There is a certain inevitability that before long the majority of business connections are going to be made using social media, unless the Poli-tics decide it's unfair business practice to favour the contacts you make via your tweets, dents and blog posts. In which case getting in early (if getting in now can be considered early) will put you in a strong position.
The next talk, by Michelle Cockayne, was an insight into the legal requirements of marketing. Very usefully she was handing out copies of "The Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform" Pricing Practices Guide and "The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations" basic guide for business. These two documents are vital reading for anyone involved in selling who want to stay on the right side of the law, which hopefully is all of us.
Jon Upton was also demonstrating how to update your information in the new
members directory. If you haven't already received your username and password, it will be sent to you soon.
A big thank you for all the effort that goes into putting these meetings together. I've been a member for three months now and have learned a great deal more by attending. I don't know about you, but I find these meetings invaluable.
Robert
