Highfields Better Business Group

I had the pleasure (the very early morning pleasure) today of addressing members of the Highfields Better Business Group at their monthly breakfast.  This morning I spoke on social media and its application in business.

As I woke in the pre-dawn light to the sound of kookaburras – Highfields is about 30 mins travel time from my home, and they were starting at 6.30am – I wondered whether I would be sufficiently awake to make sense.  After all, there’s so much to say about social media, and I had only 20 minutes in which to say it.  I could have gone with a slide presentation, but thinking it was far too early in the day for that, I went with the spirit of social networking and did a ‘bare-faced’ presentation; my sole prop was my iPhone.  That, after all, was the key-note in my presentation: using social media in an integrated way to leverage your business outreach whether at your desk or on the go.

I gave the group a task for the day: to see how many times they saw someone on a mobile phone or tapping the screen.  That, more than anything, I think, makes sense of the figures recently released on Million Plus about social media takeup by Australians, and their use beyond the desk or laptop on mobile phones.  9 million Australians keep up with Facebook and Twitter, and they enrich the outreach – personal or business – with content like hotlinks and attachments, and they do it mostly on their mobiles.

The application of social media to business had not, I suspect, been really thought through by the folks at breakfast this morning.  These apps and services are still newish, and, in most cases, thought of with the emphasis on social i.e., as for fun and recreation rather than as a ’serious’ business tool.  Some people are not sure how to use them; some noted that businesses are afraid to dive in.  But the social media landscape is no longer as empty or using them as hard as it was even a couple of years ago.  The critical mass in uptake means that there is a fertile listening ground out there.  Everyone in the group this morning had a business website, some had Facebook or knew about it as a way for family and friends to stay in touch, and one other (only) had a Twitter account.

I pitched the group my favourite model for integrating social media: use your website or blog as a hub, with Twitter and Facebook as the outliers.  Linking them up helps to put the social back into business networking – create or futher relationships – and drive eyeballs to the website, where you hope potential clients or customers will engage further through communication, discussion, and contact.

 I suggested a couple of ways that particular businesses in the room might use Twitter and Facebook: video or still images from the field sent up via the phone through YouTube or Flickr and then out into Facebook or Twitter with a hotlink; using Twitter to send out news of special events to encourage people to visit the business; creating a Facebook page for someone involved in a community fundraising campaign or getting a discussion going on a community issue.

Invariably, the issue of time management is going to put its hand up.  Social media users need to learn how cross-posting works i.e., one post to link to all, and then integrate the use of social media activity into daily business routine; there was some discussion on prioritising tasks.  Maybe someone in the organisation should be tasked with managing the media; perhaps share it round the office on a weekly or monthly basis!

I’m hoping the members of the Highfields Business Group will be considering – as they watch those mobiles in use today – how their business can be enriched by the use of Twitter, Facebook, and also YouTube and Flickr; all are accessible from any smart phone.  They resolved on a business tip of the day: open a Twitter account, check out Facebook and just ‘have a go.’  No better way to learn!

Summing up, it went pretty well, if I do say so myself.  It was a diverse group that knew one another, and they were willing to listen and keen to hear how this social media stuff could help their businesses.  I was grateful for their attention so early in the day!  I had begun the session with a disclaimer that I didn’t know the answers to everything, knew a heck of a lot from my own experience, and recommended that the way to learn was to dive in and try them for themselves before putting the digital services like Facebook and Twitter to work. 

With these powerful tools we’re only limited by our creativity and imagination.

First, though, you need to get your hands on them.  I promised some links to further reading, and they are listed below.  I hope you find them useful.

• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for business.  A terrific step by step guide from Chris Brogan.
• 32 Ways to Use Facebook for business.  More very useful ways to get started.

Now there are thousands more articles out there; do a Google search and see what I mean.  These two articles are more than enough to get you started and thinking.  Hopefully they will open up new ways to develop your business.

As always, don’t hesitate to send feedback, ask questions, give us a call if we can assist your business through a group training or private individual coaching session; we love to help!

Oh, and after you open that Twitter account, please consider adding us @expressiveplus We promise to follow back!