Involver apps integrate robust and powerful audience engagement tools to your social media streams. Involver has over two dozen applications tailored to Facebook, Twitter and the iPhone, offering a huge range of options for continuous two-way communication. Stream your Twitter feed directly to Facebook or deliver video directly to your social networks by incorporating your YouTube channel as a tab on your Facebook page.
MobileNoter is a note-taking application for iPhone, iPad or Android platform that is able to sync with Microsoft OneNote notebooks. Do you use OneNote on daily basis on your laptop or PC and dream to have a possibility to sync it with your iPhone, iPad or Android device?
BullMarket by Seth Godin, an eBook which informs you about companies that can help you make something happen. You can download a version of this eBook and donate to charity.
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TLC Business worked alongside our client, hardware partner BVM, to organise the launch of their new mobile division and range of ‘one-box’ mobile solutions. The event took place at Microsoft HQ in Reading and involved working with BVM partners: Microsoft, RS Components and Wireless Logic to deliver a successful event.
Below is a video that captures the day.
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Unless you have been shut off from civilisation for the past 8 months, you may be aware that a Royal wedding took place in April. Whether you were taking part in the celebrations, attending one of the thousands of street parties held, or tuning in to watch the all important balcony kiss, you will remember the day for years to come. The scale of the crowds was a reminder of just how rare such displays of patriotism are in Britain. Unlike other countries, we do not celebrate a national day. The royal wedding helped remind us just how captivated the rest of the world is with our little island.
The royal wedding triggered much discussion in the TLC Business office: Harry’s ‘bed-head’ hair; the unfortunate wardrobe choices of certain members of the royal family, would Prince Phillip stay awake and why was the rest of the world so interested?
The discussions prompted us to consider this: ‘far from being a drain on public finances, are the royal family this country’s USP?’.
A USP can be defined as a unique benefit of a product or service that differentiates it from competing brands. “Fifty other companies sell the same products and services as you do. Why should I do business with you rather than one of your competitors?” This can easily be applied to the UK. Some countries have amazing beaches, tropical climates, luxurious lifestyles, why would a tourist choose the UK over Spain, Thailand, America or Australia? One reason could be the heritage the royal family brings to this country; they help us stand out from the crowd.
Just days after the engagement was announced, magazines celebrating the couple were in the shops, souvenirs were being created and talk shows were discussing the lead up to the wedding. The announcement of a new royal was the catalyst for a wealth of opportunities for Britain to reassert itself on the global stage and a chance to present the country in a positive light.
The initial cynicism of ‘can the country really afford this?’ was gradually eroded as millions decided to embrace the bank holiday and sentiment behind the day and help put on a show for the rest of the world. Crowds filled the streets of London as millions turned up to join the party. 26 million more tuned in to watch the day unfold. 2 billion people around the world, 22.7 million in the US alone and 400 million on Youtube (the biggest ever live streaming audience ever), drawn in by the pageantry of the ceremony and the history of the royal family, watched on captivated.
“Our culture and heritage reputation is very strong around the world,” says Visit Britain spokesman Paul Eastham. “At the heart of that lies the monarchy.”
Even the most fervent anti-Royalist cannot deny the Royal Wedding has brought positive exposure to the UK and boosted tourism. Estimates suggest the Royal Wedding boosted the economy by £1 billion on the wedding day alone. Going forward, the royal couple are primed to charm the world and in doing so, keeping the UK on the world’s stage for years to come, boosting the economy and country’s global profile.
So if the royal family is the UK’s USP, what is your business’?
If you’ve got something that is unique, your competitors can’t replicate and your customers want, you have a competitive edge that can help your business thrive.
The royal wedding demonstrated that the royal family might just be the USP this country has been searching for. Make sure that you recognise the USP in your business and if you don’t have one, get one!
It doesn’t just have to come from what you sell. It can equally reside in how you sell. Make sure you take the time this month to find what your USP is, it might be staring you right in the face.
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Slow Cop – This websites helps you compare the speed of your site with the speed of a competitor’s website. Slow Cop scores the speed of your website out of 100.
Sticker Mule is a web based service that lets users place orders for custom stickers and skins. You can order custom skins and stickers for gadgets like the iPhone, iPad, your laptop, Kindle or stickers that could be used just about anywhere.
Unleashing The Idea Virus – This ebook by Seth Godin will help you better understand the time-honoured Marketing tradition of the idea virus, and help you launch your own.
As the new financial year begins, many of us will be busy putting together our new marketing budget for 2011. Budgeting can be a difficult process; many companies estimate or base their budget on last year. We feel there are more effective means but an estimate is better than nothing. Either route you take, it is important to review and evaluate what worked and what didn’t for your business in 2010. Any time and money you spend on marketing is an investment in your business, so you need to make sure it’s time and money well spent.
When completing your new marketing budget, it is important to consider any changes that may have happened in your industry. Have there been any important innovations? What about the use of technology within your market? What about the distribution channels used to deliver your product or service?
As well as looking outside the box, it is important to consider factors within your business. What were the most successful marketing activities last year? Can they be repeated? It might be an event your business ran or a successful lead generation campaign. Likewise, what are the failures that should be omitted all together this year? Did your advert generate any sales? What about the mailouts? Did you follow them up with a phone call? No? Perhaps that is why they weren’t more effective. When evaluating the relative success or failures from last year, it is important to ascertain whether it was the implementation of the campaign or the activity itself that was fundamental in the success or failure. Don’t make kneejerk reactions.
A new international survey from E-consultancy and SAS found that overall marketing budgets are up, with over 52% of UK businesses claiming to have increased their marketing budget for 2011. Digital marketing continues to be the focus for many marketing budgets, with 72% of companies investing online, compared to 26% purely on offline channels such as print and direct mail.
As an SME ourselves, we understand that marketing budgets can be tight. But that doesn’t mean you can’t budget. We’ve put together some effective, low cost activities that your business can do online in 2011. The success of these activities can be easily measured, helping evaluate the success of your activities when it comes time to define your budget for 2012.
Web Content – Is your website up to date, do you spend time generating new and relevant content for your website? Keeping your content moving is a great way of getting the search engines to love your website and keeping your target audience fully informed. Do you use Google Analytics to review traffic to your website on a monthly basis? Analytics is an incredibly powerful tool for businesses to understand and measure the effectiveness of their marketing mix – a great way to determine appropriate areas for your future marketing budget.
Social Media – Do you have a strategy in place? Have you set a target of likes/followers you want to reach in the next 6 months? Yes, you do have to invest your time in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, however, it’s a great way to showcase your business and keep customers up to date with your business activities and news.
Email Marketing – Do you monitor who views and opens your email campaigns. E-marketing software is a great tool to measure how successful your emails have been. Integrate your email marketing with telemarketing; call the companies that are showing an interest in your emails.
Now is the time businesses need to look closely at their past, present and future marketing activities. Businesses need to create more revenue for less cost and this can take some creative thinking. If you are struggling to know where to spend your marketing budget most effectively on measurable solutions, click here to find out more about TLC Business FREE Marketing MOT.
A selection of SME apps for your blackberry. From a travel assistant that gives users instant access to travel and weather updates to an app to help you source the best place for a business lunch.
Mylikesbox – Facebook application that provides an easy way to view your Facebook likes. Each page’s thumbnail image is shown for easy recognition. You can also filter your Likes by viewing pages according to their categories.
Do Less – Another eBook from Seth Godin. Learn how to be pickier about what you do and who you do it for so you can enjoy more of your life.
MARKETING FOR DUMMIESThis was a very funny email a client sent us. Hope you enjoy it.
1. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: “I’m very rich. Marry me!”
-That’s Direct Marketing
2. You are at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says: “He’s rich. Marry him.”
-That’s Advertising
3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. Next day you call her and say: “Hi, I’m very rich. Marry me!”
-That’s Telemarketing
4. You are at a party and see a gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie, you go up to her and pour her a drink, you open the door (of a car) for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her a ride and then say: “By the way, I’m rich. Will you marry me?”
-That’s Public Relations
5. You are at a party and see gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says: “You are very rich. Can you marry me?”
-That’s Brand Recognition
6. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: “I’m very rich. Marry me!” She gives you a nice hard slap on your face.
-That’s Customer Feedback
7. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: “I’m very rich. Marry me!” She introduces you to her husband.
-That’s Supply and Demand Gap
8. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say anything, another person comes up to her and says: “I’m rich. Will you marry me?” and she goes with him.
-That’s Competition Eating into your Market Share
9. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say: “I’m rich. Marry me!” your wife arrives.
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You may already know that TLC Business supports ‘CamKids’, The Cambodian Children’s Charity. ‘CamKids’ is a development and relief organisation, dedicated to providing direct aid to children in Cambodia who are either poor or whose parents are not there for them: orphans, street children, children living in poor rural areas and children affected by natural disasters, such as flood or famine.
Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Crippled by decades of war, international embargoes, political instability and economic stagnation. The majority of the population live in rural areas, are poor and lack access to even the most basic services. With over half of the population under the age of 18 years, there are serious concerns for their economic and social well-being. Cambodia is one of the countries worst affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the impact on many households in human and financial terms is devastating.
‘CamKids’ work on a number of projects and programs to help the children of Cambodia. ‘Camkids’ opened the Who Will Village in 2008, the village is doing all it can to provide a fantastically stimulating, happy and safe home life for the poor or abandoned children of Cambodia. Many of the children have come from broken and underprivileged families and/or unsuitable, risky living conditions. A lot of importance is placed on fostering the children’s self worth and emotional needs and actively encouraging the children to be proud of who they are and to have dreams to aspire to. There are currently 46 children under the care of Who Will, ranging from 4-16 years old. The children all attend a local government school and also have English lessons once a day at the village.
This year the team here at TLC Business decided to help ‘CamKids’ further by sponsoring a child from the Who Will Village. Sreylim Ngeth is 11 years old and arrived at the village in 2009. Sreylim’s parents are incredibly poor farmers who cannot afford to look after their children. Social Services have established that it is in the best interests of Sreylim and her brother Chanrith to live at the Who Will Children’s Village.
Our donation will contribute towards the cost of Sreylim’s food, school uniform, medical expenses and her education. We will be raising money this year through various activities to help support Sreylim and the Who Will Village.
The team here at TLC Business are looking forward to seeing how Sreylim progresses over the next few years. To find out more about ‘Camkids’, click here.
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Research indicates that a third of UK companies have now signed up to online networks. We all know about the big B2C companies such as Starbucks, Pringles and Adidas, who offer their audiences a strong presence on social media sites. So what makes them so successful? Their use of Facebook fan page features to promote complimentary social media and advertising campaigns demonstrates a commitment to engage with their target audiences through proactive online interaction on popular social media channels.
Most recently, Adidas ran an exclusive Facebook contest where a fan could win an all-expenses-paid house party. What made this campaign so successful was that Adidas chose to work alongside MTV, a partner that echoed the Facebook user demographic, forming a perfect partnership. Adidas also promoted the contest on their fan page before and after the campaign. Once they had chosen the lucky winner, they used their page to share the fan’s blog posts, photos and videos from the party. This resulted in further fan engagement and interest. Adidas and MTV used the power of social media after the event as a follow up tool, which offered added value to fans. Followers could see how the campaign played out, start to finish.
Fan pages such as these are actively engaging with companies’ target demographic. These pages have creative content, two-way communication, active discussion boards, images and videos. Facebook pages present an exciting platform for brands to directly engage with their existing and past customers and generate new ones. Case studies indicate that the more time you invest in your brand’s Facebook page, the better response you’ll get.
So you may be thinking, how does a Facebook page relate to my business? Every day we are asked the question, ‘Isn’t Facebook for friends and big consumer brands, how can I use social media in a B2B environment?’ Every organisation, no matter what sector is selling an idea. It might be associated with a product or less tangible like: ‘you should invest in our company’, ‘we need your donations’, ‘we’re a great place to work or volunteer’, or ‘we promise to take care of the planet and be good corporate citizens’. These are ideas that require social interaction and social media seems the perfect platform to facilitate it.
Deloitte, one of the big 4 consultancies, are a well known B2B player on Facebook. Deloitte annually recruit over 1000 new people. They know that in their industry recruitment is key, as human resources are their main asset, and they use Social Media to recruit as well as retain employees. Through a heavy presence on Facebook they are able to connect their employees together, and identify students from the best universities.
Deloitte produced another great example of a powerful Facebook campaign. To get their staff to reflect on Deloitte’s business culture and values, Deloitte launched a Deloitte Film Festival competition in which workers in their US offices were invited to submit short videos answering the question: “What’s your Deloitte?”. The campaign was a huge success with the videos posted on YouTube receiving 400,000 views.
As a business focused on working with SMEs, we know it is often difficult to find the time to focus your efforts on building your social media presence, as well as generating ideas for interesting content. Here are a few tips to help you get started in producing a successful social media channel for your business.
1. Use your own unique brand image on your profile. Use images and content that reflects the values of your business. It is common knowledge that the ‘about us’ and ‘meet the team’ pages are often the most viewed pages of a website. Your Facebook page is an excellent platform to introduce your team.
2. Post relevant and industry related content. Interesting content is required to keep people engaged. Use links to blogs, articles and videos that are relevant to your industry to supplement your own original content.
3. Start a conversation using social media. Facebook and Twitter are supposed to be interactive, participate in discussions on relevant topics or comment on someone else’s postings. Find every opportunity to start a discussion.
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Really Bad Power Point – This Seth Godin eBook explores why power points are so bad and how we can tackle them to create a better presentation.
Search PSD – Free online collection of over 1,500 PSD files. You can search for them by name or category. When you hover the mouse cursor over a thumbnail of the file, it shows a download link that helps you download the file in zipped format.
ytplaylist.com – A YouTube playlist maker that helps you effortlessly create playlists out of different videos, and then share them with friends or embed them on your website. An easy way to create videos for your blog and no sign up needed.
