We’re pleased to announce that we have confirmed dates for our October PR and social media marketing course. Why not call us now – despite the spending cuts we can still get your place on the course FULLY FUNDED if your business has five or more employees. (Even if you have less than five people, call us anyway – we may still be able to help)
The course will run on consecutive Mondays – the 11th and 18th October from 10am to 4pm. The course will be held at Pendle Enterprise Haven, in Nelson Lancashire.
The BrandSpankin' PR and social media marketing course trains businesses to:-
- Formulate key messages properly
- Write a compelling, "media-ready" press release
- Formulate an objectives-based Comms/Marketing plan that locks marketing activity into your Business Plan
- Understand the requirements of journalists and publication editors
- Use a series of freely available tools to monitor and measure the success of campaigns
- Understand how to optimise and best utilise your presence on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and Foursquare.
- Use a variety of online PR resources to "self-publish" news releases
- Use blogging platforms to "self-publish"
- Massively enhance your online presence - so-called "Digital Asset Optimisation"
- Significantly increase traffic to your website
- Significantly increase return on investment
Attendees also:-
- Have a q/a session with a business journalist
- Have a one-2-one follow up from the course
- Receive presentations from each module of the course
- Receive a "starter-pack" of journalist data and the means to build this for themselves.
- Receive regular updates on new developments that will assist you to stay ahead of your competitors.
Showing posts with label social media marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media marketing. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
BrandSpankin PR & Social Media Marketing Courses
Our next course starts on Monday 6th September and concludes on Monday 13th September. We are now taking bookings for our October course. The normal cost is £500 per attendee, but North West businesses can still get places fully funded
The BrandSpankin’ PR and social media marketing course trains businesses to:-
- Formulate key messages properly
- Write a compelling, “media-ready” press release
- Formulate an objectives-based Comms/Marketing plan that locks marketing activity into their Business Plan
- Understand the requirements of journalists and publication editors
- Use a series of freely available tools to monitor and measure the success of their campaigns
- Understand how to optimise and best utilise their presence on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and Foursquare.
- Use a variety of online PR resources to self-publish their news releases
- Use blogging platforms to "self-publish"
- Massively enhance their online presence – so-called “Digital Asset Optimisation”
- Significantly increase traffic to their website
- Significantly increase return on investment
Attendees also:-
- Have a q/a session with a business journalist
- Have a one-2-one follow up from the course
- Receive presentations from each module of the course
- Receive a “starter-pack” of journalist data and the means to build this for themselves.
- Receive regular updates on new developments that will assist you to stay ahead of your competitors.
The BrandSpankin’ PR and social media marketing course trains businesses to:-
- Formulate key messages properly
- Write a compelling, “media-ready” press release
- Formulate an objectives-based Comms/Marketing plan that locks marketing activity into their Business Plan
- Understand the requirements of journalists and publication editors
- Use a series of freely available tools to monitor and measure the success of their campaigns
- Understand how to optimise and best utilise their presence on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and Foursquare.
- Use a variety of online PR resources to self-publish their news releases
- Use blogging platforms to "self-publish"
- Massively enhance their online presence – so-called “Digital Asset Optimisation”
- Significantly increase traffic to their website
- Significantly increase return on investment
Attendees also:-
- Have a q/a session with a business journalist
- Have a one-2-one follow up from the course
- Receive presentations from each module of the course
- Receive a “starter-pack” of journalist data and the means to build this for themselves.
- Receive regular updates on new developments that will assist you to stay ahead of your competitors.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Ten reasons why North West small businesses should use social media marketing
1. It’s free - and that’s a pretty good price point compared to many other ways to promote your business.
2. It’s measurable – so you can see how effective it is at helping you to build awareness and generate leads. This then helps you to focus your efforts into the areas or channels that are most productive for you.
3. It presents your business as forward thinking. Much of your target market is becoming savvy and uses social media as a part of daily life. You will be more relevant and in-step with your potential customers and you can engage in an instant dialogue with them. Globally, Facebook now has over 500 million users – that’s the equivalent of the world’s 3rd biggest country and you’ve got an opportunity to market to them for free.
4. The tone of social media marketing can’t be too ‘salesy’ or ‘shouty’ – it’s about adding value, sharing knowledge or providing a credible commentary. Small businesses are naturally really good at this – they win business and retain it by building relationships. This approach lends itself well to the dialogue based style of social media marketing.
5. Social media will generate additional traffic to your website. By updating sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with posts linking back to your site, you’ll create additional traffic to your site from people who have a specific interest in what you’re doing. Social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumbleupon and Slashdot will also generate traffic to your website if you frequently write articles and blog posts.
6. Your social media work can build inbound links which in turn supports your search engine optimisation (SEO), i.e. the way your site achieves a high ranking in search engine listings. Many social media sites use so-called NOFOLLOW tags that limit the outbound link value of posts made on their sites. Nevertheless, many leading social media sites allow DOFOLLOW tags including Slashdot, Digg, Furl, Mixx and FriendFeed.
7. Social media will help you to integrate all your marketing and PR activity – and this has great results in terms of your search engine rankings. Search engines such as Google and Microsoft Bing are increasingly interested in indexing and ranking posts and other information from social media sites. Videos from popular internet sites like YouTube can also be optimised for indexing by the major search engines – they also make great viral marketing (check out “Will it Blend” on Youtube – their iPhone blending stunt has had 8.7 million hits).
8. Social Media helps to keep you front of mind with your friends and contacts. It reminds them about what you do and means that they can either to use your services or act as an advocate for your business and refer you to one of their friends or contacts.
9. Setting up a company profile on a site like LinkedIn provides a great opportunity for you to regularly post updates on your activities, as well as important news and trends in your industry, allowing you to position your business as experts, “business champions”, “consumer champions”, or “community champions”.
10. Setting up a blog can provide you with a “destination” at which you can direct your social media work. If you use a technology like Blogger (which is free!) you can even get some free code to integrate your blog into your company website. This means you can efficiently direct traffic to your website to promote things like your latest offer, press releases or market intelligence.
2. It’s measurable – so you can see how effective it is at helping you to build awareness and generate leads. This then helps you to focus your efforts into the areas or channels that are most productive for you.
3. It presents your business as forward thinking. Much of your target market is becoming savvy and uses social media as a part of daily life. You will be more relevant and in-step with your potential customers and you can engage in an instant dialogue with them. Globally, Facebook now has over 500 million users – that’s the equivalent of the world’s 3rd biggest country and you’ve got an opportunity to market to them for free.
4. The tone of social media marketing can’t be too ‘salesy’ or ‘shouty’ – it’s about adding value, sharing knowledge or providing a credible commentary. Small businesses are naturally really good at this – they win business and retain it by building relationships. This approach lends itself well to the dialogue based style of social media marketing.
5. Social media will generate additional traffic to your website. By updating sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with posts linking back to your site, you’ll create additional traffic to your site from people who have a specific interest in what you’re doing. Social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumbleupon and Slashdot will also generate traffic to your website if you frequently write articles and blog posts.
6. Your social media work can build inbound links which in turn supports your search engine optimisation (SEO), i.e. the way your site achieves a high ranking in search engine listings. Many social media sites use so-called NOFOLLOW tags that limit the outbound link value of posts made on their sites. Nevertheless, many leading social media sites allow DOFOLLOW tags including Slashdot, Digg, Furl, Mixx and FriendFeed.
7. Social media will help you to integrate all your marketing and PR activity – and this has great results in terms of your search engine rankings. Search engines such as Google and Microsoft Bing are increasingly interested in indexing and ranking posts and other information from social media sites. Videos from popular internet sites like YouTube can also be optimised for indexing by the major search engines – they also make great viral marketing (check out “Will it Blend” on Youtube – their iPhone blending stunt has had 8.7 million hits).
8. Social Media helps to keep you front of mind with your friends and contacts. It reminds them about what you do and means that they can either to use your services or act as an advocate for your business and refer you to one of their friends or contacts.
9. Setting up a company profile on a site like LinkedIn provides a great opportunity for you to regularly post updates on your activities, as well as important news and trends in your industry, allowing you to position your business as experts, “business champions”, “consumer champions”, or “community champions”.
10. Setting up a blog can provide you with a “destination” at which you can direct your social media work. If you use a technology like Blogger (which is free!) you can even get some free code to integrate your blog into your company website. This means you can efficiently direct traffic to your website to promote things like your latest offer, press releases or market intelligence.
Saturday, 17 July 2010
A few social media marketing tools for you to try
We're constantly on the lookout for new ways to monitor and evaluate media relations and social media work to enhance the "PR and Social Media Marketing Course" we run for small businesses.
There are an increasing number of really good free services, so here's a few for you to have a go at.
http://www.pickanews.com – this is a free online monitoring tool that picks up any print coverage you win. You can search it using key terms or even set up email alerts. It’s got its limitations because you can’t drag PDFs of your coverage off the site – but at least you know when you’ve featured in the “Heckmondwike Herald”, and it’s free!
http://www.socialmention.com – this is a great tool as it picks up online coverage, but also any mentions you might get on social media sites too. It’s like Google Alerts for social media!
http://www.twoolr.com – This is one for those of you that are seriously into twitter. It’s a monitoring tool that allows you to see who retweets you most frequently, amongst other things.
If you discover any new tools yourself, let us know! And if you're considering using social media as part of your business' marketing, why not give us a call on 01282 878 301 to find out about the PR and Social Media Marketing courses we run in East Lancashire? If your business is based in the North West we can help you to get your place fully funded!
There are an increasing number of really good free services, so here's a few for you to have a go at.
http://www.pickanews.com – this is a free online monitoring tool that picks up any print coverage you win. You can search it using key terms or even set up email alerts. It’s got its limitations because you can’t drag PDFs of your coverage off the site – but at least you know when you’ve featured in the “Heckmondwike Herald”, and it’s free!
http://www.socialmention.com – this is a great tool as it picks up online coverage, but also any mentions you might get on social media sites too. It’s like Google Alerts for social media!
http://www.twoolr.com – This is one for those of you that are seriously into twitter. It’s a monitoring tool that allows you to see who retweets you most frequently, amongst other things.
If you discover any new tools yourself, let us know! And if you're considering using social media as part of your business' marketing, why not give us a call on 01282 878 301 to find out about the PR and Social Media Marketing courses we run in East Lancashire? If your business is based in the North West we can help you to get your place fully funded!
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
August PR & Social Media Marketing Course
We've just confirmed dates for our August PR and Social Media Marketing course. Why not get in touch with us to see how you can get your place fully funded? Call us on 01282 878 301.
The course will run from 10am until 4pm on consecutive Tuesdays - the 3rd and 10th of August. It costs £500 per attendee, but if you're a North West based business with 5 or more employees, we should be able to help you get the course fully funded.
The course will enable you to:-
- establish your key messages
- write a compelling "media ready" press release
- formulate an easy to manage marketing communications plan
- understand how to measure and monitor your work for free
- get to grips with marketing you business via social media
You will:-
- experience a q/a session with a journalist
- get publication/journalist data to distribute your press release
- win positive media coverage (!!!) to build awareness of your business, its offerings and values
- generate more leads
Don't just take our word for it - here's what some recent attendees have to say...
"The atmosphere on the course was relaxed and friendly. I learned how to write and distribute strong press releases - and monitor coverage. Since the course we’ve had stories in the Nelson Leader, Lancashire Telegraph, Bolton Evening News - plus online coverage. The social media elements have helped with lead generation, so we’ve seen a real return. Overall was thrilled with the course and better still it was fully funded by Business Link!"
Victoria Evans - Office Manager, Uno Coffee, Nelson
“Great course, can’t wait to put it all into practice”
Tracey Taylforth - Marketing Manager, Hillendale Group, Nelson
“Brandspankin’s training has helped us get to grips with PR and social media. We got our first item of coverage before the course had even finished”
Tracey Humphries - Practitioner, Vitality+, Ramsbottom
“Thanks to BrandSpankin’, we’ve now won coverage in business and
regional media – and we’ve been in The Daily Telegraph”
Andy Gott - MD, MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, Manchester
The course will run from 10am until 4pm on consecutive Tuesdays - the 3rd and 10th of August. It costs £500 per attendee, but if you're a North West based business with 5 or more employees, we should be able to help you get the course fully funded.
The course will enable you to:-
- establish your key messages
- write a compelling "media ready" press release
- formulate an easy to manage marketing communications plan
- understand how to measure and monitor your work for free
- get to grips with marketing you business via social media
You will:-
- experience a q/a session with a journalist
- get publication/journalist data to distribute your press release
- win positive media coverage (!!!) to build awareness of your business, its offerings and values
- generate more leads
Don't just take our word for it - here's what some recent attendees have to say...
"The atmosphere on the course was relaxed and friendly. I learned how to write and distribute strong press releases - and monitor coverage. Since the course we’ve had stories in the Nelson Leader, Lancashire Telegraph, Bolton Evening News - plus online coverage. The social media elements have helped with lead generation, so we’ve seen a real return. Overall was thrilled with the course and better still it was fully funded by Business Link!"
Victoria Evans - Office Manager, Uno Coffee, Nelson
“Great course, can’t wait to put it all into practice”
Tracey Taylforth - Marketing Manager, Hillendale Group, Nelson
“Brandspankin’s training has helped us get to grips with PR and social media. We got our first item of coverage before the course had even finished”
Tracey Humphries - Practitioner, Vitality+, Ramsbottom
“Thanks to BrandSpankin’, we’ve now won coverage in business and
regional media – and we’ve been in The Daily Telegraph”
Andy Gott - MD, MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, Manchester
Friday, 25 June 2010
ReclaimedBricks.com pays for itself in a fortnight!
Two weeks ago we launched a new website for our client ReclaimedBricks.com. The website generated its first leads within the first hour of going live and within 48 hours had generated a significant order. Today it’s pulled in an order that’s paid for the site!
At BrandSpankin’ our remit is to help our clients build awareness, generate leads and make more money – and what better example of our philosophy in action than the success of ReclaimedBricks.com.
Besides the fact that the ReclaimedBricks.com website looks great, we’ve done quite a bit of search engine optimisation work (SEO), so the website already features highly on Google for searches such as “Reclaimed Bricks”, ”Victorian Bricks” and ”Old Bricks”. Our aim is to build on this good start and use PR and social media marketing to keep building awareness and generating those valuable inbound links!
That way, our client will see a very significant return on their investment and we’ll have built a website that is more than just an electronic brochure – it’s a highly profitable sales channel!
At BrandSpankin’ our remit is to help our clients build awareness, generate leads and make more money – and what better example of our philosophy in action than the success of ReclaimedBricks.com.
Besides the fact that the ReclaimedBricks.com website looks great, we’ve done quite a bit of search engine optimisation work (SEO), so the website already features highly on Google for searches such as “Reclaimed Bricks”, ”Victorian Bricks” and ”Old Bricks”. Our aim is to build on this good start and use PR and social media marketing to keep building awareness and generating those valuable inbound links!
That way, our client will see a very significant return on their investment and we’ll have built a website that is more than just an electronic brochure – it’s a highly profitable sales channel!
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Valley at Work
I'm speaking this evening at "Valley at Work", the networking group set up by PEER in Rossendale.
I'm speaking on 'Low-cost marketing and social media marketing for small businesses' at the Russian Tea Rooms in Bacup. I'm looking forward to it for several reasons, but not least because Valley at Work is something I'd like to see replicated in Pendle - I think it's potentially very powerful to have a community enterprise board working closely with a business networking group.
I chair "Enterprising Pendle" - PEER's sister organisation - and it's a model I'm very keen for us to adopt in Pendle.
Tonight I'll be talking about the social media landscape, it's pitfalls and opportunities - but most of all I'll be reiterating the message - measure, monitor, analyse and adjust. This help you to ensure that your marketing spend is doing it's job. It's all about return-on-investment - which requires people to not put the medium before the message.
I'm speaking on 'Low-cost marketing and social media marketing for small businesses' at the Russian Tea Rooms in Bacup. I'm looking forward to it for several reasons, but not least because Valley at Work is something I'd like to see replicated in Pendle - I think it's potentially very powerful to have a community enterprise board working closely with a business networking group.
I chair "Enterprising Pendle" - PEER's sister organisation - and it's a model I'm very keen for us to adopt in Pendle.
Tonight I'll be talking about the social media landscape, it's pitfalls and opportunities - but most of all I'll be reiterating the message - measure, monitor, analyse and adjust. This help you to ensure that your marketing spend is doing it's job. It's all about return-on-investment - which requires people to not put the medium before the message.
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