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Q&A: Like Minds conference organiser Scott Gould
February 11, 2010
Marketing Donut will be bringing you live blog coverage of the second Like Minds conference on Friday 26 February. To whet your appetite, we caught up with the social media conference organiser, Scott Gould, to find out more about his Like Minds journey and what to expect at the forthcoming event.
How did Like Minds come about?
SG: It started when Trey Pennington and I arranged a meet up when he was over in the country. He suggested we start a "social media club" in the style of what he'd been doing across the United States. I got to work on the idea with Andrew Ellis (who became my partner in Like Minds) in August 2009. Andrew challenged me to make the event highly accessible and affordable rather than expensive and exclusive, with the idea of reaching a wide range of people who were also thinking with an eye on innovation. Hence the name, Like Minds.
What did you take home from the first Like Minds event which focussed on ROI?
SG: It takes investment in the first place to ensure a return on investment. Then you've got the work of social media, engagement, policies, guidelines. And measuring all of this is no 'one tool fits all'. It takes work and careful analysis to have measurement that is meaningful. All of this is effort.
Of course to core business activities, this is how things have always been. But there's this misconception that social media is free and easy. It isn't.
How will Like Minds 2010 format be different from the first event in 2009 (workshops etc)?
SG: We've worked hard to bring multiple ways to get inspired, to learn and connect with each other into one event. Whilst we still have keynotes and panels, like we did last time, we've first of all been able to welcome speakers and panellists who are world class leaders in their respective industries.
We have then created an innovative lunch time workshop format in partnership with local restaurants that allows delegates to talk over specific subjects with our speakers. This means they get workshop time with these experts to get first-hand integration advice. Integration is a big focus for us this year, hence we are also holding free workshops hosted by our sponsors during the week leading up.
You pride yourself on the low ticket price. If that isn’t enough to convince a small business to attend, what is?
SG: Yeah we're proud about the price, but even more proud about the incredible line-up of people we have coming. Our keynote speakers and panelists consist of a range of backgrounds, cultures, industries, sectors and experience. We have the world foremost social media thought leader speaking, Chris Brogan, and two other top ten social media bloggers and Orange's head of internet.
Then when it comes to networking and lunchtime you'll find out how many incredible and successful people are just coming to attend. Some of the delegates flying in from America and Europe are worth the ticket price just to meet.
The theme for this year is People-to-People — tell us more about this.
SG: Social media have introduced a more personal form of business communication, which is replacing the anonymous corporate communication that has tended to prevail hitherto. Thus, the lines between the organisational voice and the individual voices of representatives of organisations have become blurred – to a large extent it’s now the individual voice that prevails. B2B, B2C, consumer, prosumer and owner forms of communication now follow a more socialised model; collaborating and conducting business in a way that is fundamentally different to ten years, and even five years ago.
Understanding this is vital. We have keynote speakers and panellists talking from such a wide range of experience and expertise that most business types and sectors will be covered at the conference.
- The Like Minds conference takes place on Friday 26 February. Half day tickets are still available and full programme details can be found on the Like Minds website
Blogging businesses benefit best
January 22, 2010
A new report into the benefits experienced by small and medium businesses with blogs has been conducted by social media research specialists, Hubspot. Having previously released findings that demonstrate blogging businesses experience 55% more visitors to their target website than those who do not, the latest research has shown the overall reach a blogging business can expect through Twitter increases by 79%.
The most impressive statistic for small businesses with blogs is that small businesses that blog, on average have 102% more Twitter followers than those who don't. This highlights the personal relationship and down-to-earth communication a small business can take advantage of over big businesses and businesses that do not make the most of blogging opportunities. The more open and regular your conversation with existing and potential customers, the more likely they are to invest time, an online connection through a follow or subscription and ultimately, financial commitment.
The report, which looked at a dataset from 2,100 Hubspot customers, concludes,
“…businesses of different sizes and service nature can reach more potential customers via Twitter by enriching their Twitter streams with content from their blog.”
A blog alongside your business website is a great way to add that splash of personality and open up your day-to-day business experience with your customers. Everytime you publish a new blog post, tell your Twitter following all about it, you are writing for them as much as for yourself and so you should let people know and join up your online community dots.
The more you engage with your customers and link up your communications through Twitter and blogging, the greater the opportunity you have to be noticed as an expert in your business area and as a small business, you offer personality, understanding and an environment where consumers build-up trust and a relationship with you the company and the products or services you can provide. So, why wouldn’t you want to put your business in the proverbial shop window?
What do you use your blog for? How do you make your blog stand out from the other 126 million?
Blogging strategy: copy what the clever web app businesses do!
December 07, 2009
Marketing your business via your blog or a social network takes an adjustment in the way you think about how to write for your business. In this video, we look at four great web apps which know how to get a Web 2.0 marketing strategy spot on.
PostRank knows the importance of great content. Writing about the right topics will ensure that customers become readers and return to your blog time after time. Since starting your business blog, what response have you had from readers? If you haven’t started a blog, perhaps this video might help.
Social media for business – is the honeymoon period over?
October 01, 2009
Social media is all the rage and no end of people are trumpeting what it is and why you are nothing without it. But the honeymoon period is over - what businesses need now is concrete information: how, actually, do you use social media as a marketing tool in your business? And what’s the return on investment?
In a couple of weeks, businesses and social media practitioners will gather in Exeter to discuss these very issues and by the sounds of it, we wont be let out of the room until we have the answers!
The Like Minds event in Exeter takes place on Friday, 16 October at Exeter’s Conference Centre, and not only does it have sponsorship from social media savvy big business boys, the organisers have also sourced small-business owners and managers to put forward their experiences and views on how these new tools can be used in smaller firms.
Event organiser, Scott Gould explains: "Every business owner knows that social media is providing plenty of new opportunities for new business, it’s enabling firms to engage more deeply with current clients, and it’s helping them become a stronger leader in their market.
"But every business also has the query of how to implement it, coupled with the fear of making mistakes and getting it wrong. For the businesses that are doing it, and particularly agencies offering social media to their clients as a service, a roadblock they may be facing instead is providing return on investment.
"Like Minds is a gathering, bringing together some of the world's foremost social media and media experts who will be discussing, debating, and answering your questions."
Naturally, Marketing Donut will be there and we’re planning to provide a live blogging commentary of the highlights and report back to you the big ideas and how they can be implemented in small businesses.
The event promises to be a purposeful mix of speakers, panel discussions and networking. So, don’t forget to tune in! And if you’re interested in going yourself, early bird tickets are £25, available from http://www.alikeminds.org
The blog is mightier than the sword
September 18, 2009
In the old days a quibble over a product or service not being up to scratch would be resolved through an exchange of letters with a customer service department. A swift resolution ensuing, the customer would be happy and the business might have gone beyond just saving face and reinforced its brand values, too. Today, this model is not quite so strong.
According to Webuser.co.uk, a holidaymaker has secured £600 in compensation for a disastrous holiday as a result of the prominent Google search ranking he achieved for the angry blog he fired off when a complaint letter to the holiday firm yielded no result.
The holidaymaker had originally penned a letter of complaint (ten pages of letter, in fact) detailing a depressing series of problems he encountered during a less than satisfactory Tunisian holiday. After six weeks, having only received an acknowledgment for his rant, the increasingly angry traveller went public and recorded his troubles on his personal blog.
In no time, he was getting lots of traffic – much of it from people who had simply typed search terms relating to holidays in Tunisia. In fact, the critical blog entry’s Google ranking was creeping ever closer to the summit on all the key search terms the travel company would rather see taking you to the holiday package they were trying to flog.
Once the holiday company became aware of the growing popularity of the blog post, blogs about the blog post and probably even blogs blogging about the impact of blog posts about the original blog post - such is the way the Internet feeds off itself - it became apparent that an “elevated” level of response was required. Compensation was paid to the blogger and an apology posted on his blog, to boot.
However, it may be too late for damage limitation - the rant, of course, has been widely seen and still exists in the public domain. The digital footprint of a blog post that would never have seen the light of day had the travel company responded sooner is now leaving the most indelible - and embarrassing - of stains on its reputation.
Twitter downtime highlights need for a traditional and modern marketing mix
August 07, 2009
My digital footprint is sizeable and I can twit, stumble, blog and flickr like there is no tomorrow. I am even writing this blog post on my phone on the train in to work. Yesterday, for one brief moment, it looked like there would be no tomorrow in social networking terms.
Yesterday, when Twitter, Facebook and other social networking resources went down, thanks to a coordinated and malicious Distributed Denial of Service attack (the name of a seemingly brilliant unmade Will Smith blockbuster), I was bereft and pondering a question. What did small businesses do to market themselves before the Internet?
At the Marketing Donut, as a web based resource, we do focus a lot on the modern marketing mix of online complementing the traditional. So while there may have been people out on the streets walking aimlessly like zombies, many carried on regardless.
Anecdotal evidence from fully fledged professional marketers came through on Twitter after the down time. Twitter for Business expert, Mark Shaw and one of our very own Donut experts both reported their ignorance of any Twitter downtime and relief they were away from their computers as they were at actual face to face meetings with clients.
If yesterday highlighted anything to me and the small business owner, it is that all the new online get up is brilliant when it works but should not be relied upon as a sole means of marketing activity. Of course, there are a whole variety of simple and effective ways in which small business interact with their customers in the 'real world'. Despite the rise of social networking, businesses still push for coverage in their local media, they still distribute promotional leaflets to target customers, they still concentrate on friendly and professional customer service as a way of generating word-of-mouth recommendation. These - and many other marketing techniques - are practices that have stood the test of time and will always be immune to the impact of malicious denial of service attacks like the one that took Twitter down yesterday.
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