JVN Blog

Matt Collins is a digital marketing consultant who runs www.charitychap.com. He can help charities use social media and online tools to achieve your organisation’s objectives cheaply and effectively.   Social Media is something of a misunderstood tool when it comes to marketing your company. Many people find the idea of blogging or tweeting to raise your company profile a bit daunting; in fact, many don’t do it at all! Matt speaks up on Social Media and how these tools can help you to build positive relationships with your current customers, boost your networking and even introduce you to your future clients! This can apply for the charity sector as well – charities need to raise their profile and gain support from potential funders, particularly in the current economic climate. We’d like to thank Workplace Live for letting us share Matt’s thoughts.

Every company, whether they sell consultancy or canned goods, answers the phone. Someone out there wants to speak to a real person, calls up, and someone in the company chats to them. Happens every day. Cutting the phone lines would cut any company off from a network of people who want their business.

And yet, far too many companies do just that – most companies, in fact. They do it by not bothering to engage with people on social media. Refusing to tweet or not showing the human face of their organisation through platforms like Instagram and Facebook flies in the face of the maxim that good business is about good relationships first and foremost.

Sharpie has created a loyal and engaged online community by showcasing the creative ways that their customers use their products, which let’s face it, are just pens. O2 got more than 3,500 retweets of their Twitter conversation with a disgruntled customer in which they used street slang. It’s the personal approach of organisations like these that boost brand profile, show an organisation to be forward thinking, and win customers.

Note how Sharpie and O2 don’t just send out “Buy our pens” or “Sign up to O2 broadband” updates every five minutes. They engage, they chat and talk around their areas of interest. In short, they use social media not as another corporate channel, but as a chance to be social.

How could your organisation improve business by being more social online?

To find out more about JVN’s cloud computing partner check out Workplace Live for more information on how Cloud Computing can help your organisation.  To find out more about JVN’s Social Media Partner, recently awarded 14th on Forbes Top 20 Women Social Media Power Influencers, check out Lilach Bullock at http://www.socialable.co.uk/ for more information on how social media can work for you.