Tag: twitter

Be careful what you tweet about

Posted on February 26, 2013 by

I remember a time when a tweet was the noise a bird made – not anymore. People of all ages and from all backgrounds and sectors are taking to the social networking tool, using it to communicate with a global audience.

Most people have got their head around the hashtag and now recognise the importance of using twitter as a business generation tool, as well as a platform from which to simply engage and share content.

As tends to be the case, there are always a minority who try to spoil things and in this instance these people are known as ‘trolls’. They aren’t green and they don’t live under bridges but in my own opinion they probably should!

These people go out of their way to provoke reactions from others using twitter by being rude and offensive. The good news is that this may become a thing of the past – or at least be reduced – if new laws are to come into force which will directly apply to tweets.

The BBC has created a great news article today which focuses on the laws in relation to twitter and how they will change. It also uses some really good ‘real life’ cases to put the legal implications into context.

It goes without saying that there will be some who criticise these new legal practices but personally I think something has to change. There is a definite argument for free speech but what needs to be determined is when that becomes defamation of character or brand and takes an option to the masses, which is then reproduced (retweeted) and misconstrued as fact.

My advice to anyone reading this blog is to remember that when you use twitter it isn’t like talking with your mates down at the pub – you are publishing material to be shared. Twitter is a social messaging tool which promotes the opportunity to share and be shared – it is not a personal diary.

However accessible the internet is, sharing content needs to be taken seriously and until people recognise the implications my advice would be to carefully consider what you make public. It wouldn’t be the first time someone found their ‘joke’, light hearted comment or retweet landed them in a whole host of hot water and in some instances behind bars!

Perhaps we should take some advice from a cartoon friend of mine: “If you can’t say nothing nice, then don’t say nothing at all.”

Food for thought this Christmas

Posted on December 20, 2012 by

There was one headline in the news today which really caught my attention. The story suggests that children who sit around a table with their family during mealtimes are more likely to eat their recommended five fruit and vegetables a day.

Although I agree completely with this statement I also think that there are even greater benefits to sitting around a table together at mealtimes. As a family we try to do this as often as we can – it doesn’t always work out like that with one or both of us coming in late and the other playing out with friends – but we try when possible to make the effort.

The reason I’m so conscious of it is that with a teenager in the house it can be difficult to have the chance to catch up. Plus when we get in from work we fall into bad habits and turn on our laptops or iPads meaning we pretty much ignore each other all evening other than the odd grunt or murmur of agreement here and there. Mealtimes are the perfect opportunity to communicate and to natter, laugh and generally engage with each other.

Although our worlds are very much consumed by social media and technology (I’m texting my husband about what we should do for dinner as I write this blog and sending a Facebook message to my step son to let him know what time it will be ready!) I still feel that there should be importance placed on quality time together.

I don’t want to sound too ‘fluffy’ and I’m certainly not expecting any awards from Super Nanny anytime soon but I know that mealtimes in our house are our time and that after thinking about it this is one of the reasons that I enjoy Christmas so much.

We all get together and have a huge lunch, where we all spend hours catching up. We don’t count our vegetable intake and there’s rarely a piece of fruit insight – unless you count sugar coated or dipped in chocolate – but all of the food is freshly prepared and delicious. Better still once we’ve finished our meals we have a nap and it starts all over again!

So, this Christmas I’m going to put it out there – I think that everyone should take the time to come together and just think about how much fun it can be to sit together around a table, eat, drink, chat and be merry. Perhaps if we all appreciate the time we have with each other face-to-face we will do it more often.

Merry Christmas everyone!

An innocent drink with a banker adds value to PR

Posted on November 23, 2012 by

On occasion there will be a conference or networking session which catches my eye and yesterday I found myself surrounded by bankers (insert your own pun here!) at an event in Bradford.

The Ignite Business Growth seminar was hosted by Barclays and was pitched as an opportunity to hear key note speaker, Adam Balon, one of the founding entrepreneurs behind Innocent Drinks, speak about his business journey and the challenges faced by the brand.

I never like to pass up the opportunity to hear it from those who have ‘been there and done that’ and so went along. Getting the negative out of the way early on in this blog, I was extremely disappointed to find that although Adam was in fact a key note speaker we were watching him through a screen.

It became quickly apparent that the seminar was a collective of smaller events around the country all tuned in to the same station, so to speak. I would have found this quite impressive, particularly as the use of social media and twitter (using a dedicated hashtag #BarcT2M) at the event was a great example of how to use these tools for effective networking, but the fact that this was almost hidden from delegates was not my idea of best practice.

Anyway, on with the show. We were first introduced to Luke Hodson, the brains behind promotional merchandise company Awesome Merchandise. Luke explained how he had taken an idea, which started in the bedroom of a student house he shared with 10 others, to become a successful enterprise turning over more than £2 million a year.

Explaining how he had turned to simple marketing techniques, such as sending out his own products as free samples, to encourage engagement with prospects and build the business was refreshing. It may not set the world alight but ideas like this work.

Luke even mentioned a really simple, yet effective, campaign he had launched using a mug, which had an image of an arrow on it saying ‘I’m awesome’. He sent the mugs out and asked that people have their picture taken with them and send it back. The response was overwhelming with people taking the trouble to have their ‘mug shot’ taken in a whole host of weird and wonderful places, including America.

It was really pleasing to see a local business doing good and to listen to someone who clearly has their head screwed on and the drive, passion and dedication that is needed to make it work.

Next it was over to Barclays to do a not so hard sell before Adam took to the stage.

I don’t know what I was expecting but I have to admit that Adam was a real inspiration. The way he told the story of Innocent Drinks was funny, charming and surprisingly down to earth.  What was most interesting about Adam’s talk was the way that he used experiences alongside tips to make it relevant to the audience.

In some of these events you can find yourself wondering why you are wasting your time listening to some multi-millionaire witter on about how they finally got to the top and that they can confirm that money really can buy you happiness – well, nice work but that isn’t really helpful.

Adam was different. He mentioned that in order to develop a sustainable and successful business you had to have values, vision and purpose. He also mentioned the importance of having a clear tone of voice for the brand, which is used across all communications.

This was music to my ears. We constantly explain to clients and prospects that you need to have an established tone of voice in order to give a brand personality and to provide consistent communications across all platforms.  It makes sense when you think about it but many businesses carry on regardless, leaving customers and prospects wondering why in one sense the company is personable and friendly and in another professional and aggressive.

It was apparent from Adam’s talk that the team from Innocent had done a fantastic job on their PR. They had used the media to secure a listing with Harvey Nichols and from then on went from strength to strength. TV, radio and print media were eager to cover the story of the three boys from London who had launched a fruit juice business from a back bedroom and they made the most of it.

Adam was eager to point out the value of PR and of course I couldn’t agree more. I had no idea that PR would be such a strong topic during this session but I really do hope that people in the room were paying attention and recognising just how important clear, strategic and managed communications and messaging are to a business and its long term success.

The session wasn’t just about the successes of Innocent, although mention was made to the fact that in just three years it went stratospheric making the three owners multi-millionaires and allowing them to employ a full team to support their enterprise, there was also talk of the things that went wrong including dressing as Nuns and trying to ‘pull’ at London fashion week – but I’ll leave those little nuggets under wraps just in case you have a chance to see the Innocent team speak in the future!

Overall the session was inspiring, engaging and useful and certainly made me step back and think about Open Communications and what we do well and perhaps not so well. I strongly believe that you need that reality check sometimes and am sure that other businesses in the room felt the same.

So, well done Barclays, I still think you should have been more honest about the way the session was being run but overall a really good event, which was well worth attending.

For flood sake!

Posted on September 26, 2012 by

Once again the weather is taking its toll on business and not only those who are struggling to get to and from work but of course those who provide the transport in the first place and then there are those who are self-employed and have to open their doors or take their products and services to their customers to earn a living.

The biggest problem with the weather impacting on business is that there is very little you can do about it. It is difficult to assume that a situation is going to be as bad as it is until it happens and as for predicting it – well, we all try to leave that to the weatherman!

Natural disasters come in all forms and flooding is just one of them. I was surprised to see that Catterick was one of the areas that was most badly affected this time around, with many of the roads resembling rivers.

More importantly I didn’t have to rely on the news to let me know the scale of the problem – my younger cousins, family and friends were posting regular Facebook updates to actually show me almost real time what was happening. I had access to photographs from my home village, videos from the local town and then update’s every minute from those stuck in traffic trying to get home.

Another great source of information was twitter, with local journalists posting regular tweets and pictures of what was happening, as it was happening.

Although we often put social media into a box labelled ‘business’ it would be much more appropriate to place it in a box labelled ‘communication’. If it hadn’t been for my friends and family updating me about the flooding at home and the fact that I follow local news reporters on twitter then I would have had to rely on regional news online – which is fine but not as frequently updated as I would have liked during a situation like this.

When people have stopped tweeting and adding pictures and videos to Facebook perhaps we can take some time to reflect on this disaster. The clean-up process will no doubt take some time with businesses, schools and of course those who have had their homes flooded needing to go through lengthy processes with their insurance but at least we know that there will be a normal again.

It’s at times like this that we need to remember that things could be worse. It’s not easy when you have a mop in your hand but perhaps we should all take the time to think and be thankful for what we do have, rather than what we don’t.