How can your business be more remarkable and memorable to      your existing and potential customers? BIG question, huh?

We believe that one of the best ways to start unravelling this question is with a simple approach: (Visualise) Write down the type of business you’re in, its characteristics and also each one of the activities that you do everyday. Now, because you do them everyday and exactly the same way, you took for granted that there is where the opportunity lies!

But don’t worry, this time you don’t have to come up with ideas. We will do it for you, using online tools and social networks! Here’s how it works:

• Step 1: Leave a comment below  with your name, company, website and social media presence (if any).
• Step 2: We will select FIVE companies
• Step 3: The Channelship team will brainstorm some cool ideas to make your business different and remarkable.
• Step 4: Within the next few days we will deliver a specific video-answer for each one of the companies selected.

…and since we will squeeze our brains for you, we would be delighted to see your company take action.  Fair enough?

Go on, leave your comment below!! (Submissions finish at 6PM (GMT) on Tuesday, June 22nd)

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*UPDATE* 30/06/10

Hi everyone.
Thank you so much for all your submissions. We’re working on the selection of companies and in the next few days, we’ll start delivering the video answers so stand by!

*UPDATE* 05/07/10

First video-answer goes to Make Your Own. Check it out here!

Best,

Fred

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Dear grown-up web user,

How many times have you agreed to terms and conditions without really reading them?        

How many free services have you signed up to, in exchange of your valuable email address (until you created a Gmail or Yahoo one just for spam, but to continue getting freebies)?

In fact, how much does it currently bother you having ads targeted directly to your  Gmail inbox (the one you use every day)?

My guess is that if you start thinking about the above, you may find that after all, in all the different instances where you were a bit deceived by not-so-popular Mickey Mouse spammers, you were not that angry…

Dear business of any size,

Do you remember when advertising on TV or Radio was only for a few because of budget constraints?

Do you remember when in order to approach a prospect for a conversation you could only cold-call?

Actually, do you acknowledge how great it is to have almost free vehicles nowadays to talk to your audience (only requiring time-investment)?

Then, why are individuals and companies so surprised about Facebook’s recent decisions regarding Privacy and Business pages?

Because it is abrupt and looks sleazy on Facebook’s part, but not because we haven’t been deceived before in similar ways.

A few key thoughts:

1. Whatever is online IS public, no matter what the small letter says. I  don’t intend to defend Facebook in particular, but have a look at Ben Parr’s Facebook Defense (which really applies to using social media as a whole)
2. If you are a company and they give you the opportunity to showcase you brand for free, they may at some stage change the conditions, get over it
3. If you are a web agency like us and part of your revenue comes from building Facebook apps, the game may change suddenly too. Guess what? Those things happen: What about a transport company who builds a business based on the 3 factories in the area (which may move eventually)?

Now, if we (individuals and companies) don’t like these ever changing conditions, we can always choose to get out at any stage.

What are your thoughts?

Best,

Facundo

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Loving this campaign guys!

Short story: First, I got an email invitation. A few days later received this printed one in the post…

Later on, I discovered a Twitter hashtag for this event: #livead

Want to know what happened?

@young_kubrick is a character created by the Bord Gais team for their Big Switch campaign. It was a very fun night with loads of people in the room shooting out pictures and making videos of a live commercial that @young_kubrick and his family acted live for us.

Check out the famous commercial (captured from my angle. Loads of others are available)

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And here are the pics!!

Here’s what people said. Click on the image to pull the full stream of conversations:

This was a very interesting and creative  idea for a social media campaign that has just started. There still a lot more to come…

Best,

Fred

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In our last January post: “How can you improve the experience using social media?” we put a menswear and a barber shop through a deep make over with social media marketing. The ideas sparked some interesting comments including this one from Miriam Ahern, director of the Institute of Management Consultants:

“The strategies you suggest are fantastic for retail businesses Fred. True ‘out of the box’ thinking. However, I’d like to lay down a challenge to you!

Can, and if so how, professional services businesses (and independent consultants in particular) leverage social media marketing? In many cases the work we do for our clients is confidential. Often-times our ‘products’ are customised interventions or solutions for particular situations (unlike, say a website, where people can seek out examples of your work). Referrals tend to be based on reputation, relationships and are usually of the ‘word-of-mouth’ variety. Also many of our clients, particularly those in the public sector, probably would not like to see their names floating around on SM platforms.”

Now, can professional services businesses leverage social media marketing? The answer is:  Absolutely yes!! Social media is all about relationships and word-of-mouth so that’s a great match already.

I understand some work and names might be confidential, or that the products could be customised solutions and that the client might be the government… but if that’s the problem, why focus on leveraging social media from such a tough angle? There’re so many other fronts to capitalise on!

Some consultants might say that their clients “are not online” (not sure to what extent that is right). More likely in the next 2 to 5 years most of their clients will be online. The question is, do we focus on building an online reputation now or in the future? Lead generation nowadays is much more about “being found” than going out and hunting.

Personal branding is a  HUGE priority  that anybody in the professional services field should have. Typical phrases such as “…with more than 10 years of experience in the industry” are no longer enough. There’s got to be something really relevant that as a consultant you  should be able to do to capitalise on the present and the future. Let’s have a look at five great examples:

1. Interact with your network

Most of you already heard of main social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, etc. The good news is that you don’t have to adopt all of them in one shot but it’s crucial to get started with LinkedIn for instance. Just think about all the projects that you worked on, all the presentations given, recommendations received, etc, etc… where is the record of all this? Why not keep an online point of reference for all this fantastic work!!

Ask yourself the following: how big is your phone book? How many business contacts do you have? 200, 500? Now, how many of those contacts do you keep in touch with or more importantly, do you know what are they up to? Unless you leverage the power of a business platform such as LinkedIn, you won’t be able to stay in touch and learn from your network.

Before you go to a business meeting, networking event, tradeshow, visit a new client, etc, people will either Google your name or look you up on LinkedIn. If your profile doesn’t come up or show anything interesting, you will be missing several business opportunities. Trust me.

2. Build a home base

Many of you have heard already about blogging. Unfortunately, many business professionals believe that it’s not something for them or that their audience won’t read them. Blogs are already part of the future folks and you must embrace this practice as soon as you can.

If you are really good and knowledgeable, write about it. Share what you know and more people will find you! You would be surprised how many people search in Google for what you offer! (including people in the government) Not kidding you. Go to the Google Keyword tool and enjoy
Take your business blog as if you were the owner of a newspaper. You are free to publish anything you want with the difference that your valuable information will not be only available to 3,000 or 10,000 individuals but the entire world!

3. Make a deeper impact

Video is the most engaging way of communication. Maybe you’re not very good at writting blog posts, then share what you know in front of a camera for instance.
Below, there’re two examples of busisness consultans that use video to promote their services and recommend others.
Yes, there is a lot of room for improvement: include branding in their videos, improve the image/sound quality, practice more, etc. However, the point is: these individuals dared to try something new to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

The truth is that nobody has to be Steven Spielberg to adopt video. It’s as simple as grabbing your €100 camera, setting it up on video mode and later uploading that video onto YouTube

4. Reach farther

How do you offer or deliver your professional advice? Do you visit your clients or they come to you? What about neither?
You can reach out to hundreds (why not thousands) of people from your own country and abroad offering webinars (online seminars/sessions). We currently use Gotowebinar.com technology. It’s very affordable and it’s a fantastic business tool that is expanding our opportunities incredibly. There are several webinar and online meeting tools out there. We leveraged LinkedIn a few months ago to ask other professionals like you what would be the best option, so feel free to flick through the answers here.
After each webinar, we compile all the material, including the full recording and we make it available in our blog so more people find us and can also benefit from the information.

5. Be creative

If you think that video is cool, then explore the huge opportunity for business professionals behind “LIVE stream”. There are a few platforms out there like Justin TV and Qik but I recommend Ustream.tv

This is like having your own TV station folks! For example, bring your laptop to any of your presentations, connect a good webcam and point it at you. Then press “broadcast” and offer your talk to whoever wants to join you around the world! The idea is that you promote any of these events so more relevant people click on that link and can follow your expertise and chat with you LIVE from their own computers as if they were there.

If the information is confidential, then don’t share it, but as we mentioned…why focus on what we cannot do?
Leverage these tools, share what you can, be original, flexible, dare to try different things and to think outside the box. There are brilliant opportunities for business professionals in social media.

What are your thoughts? Will you try any of these tools?

Best,

Fred

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Hi all,

Last Wednesday we finished the last pilot for Up & Connected: Social Media Training for Irish Companies.
We received great feedback and questions about leveraging the different social networking tools available to enhance business opportunities in today’s marketplace.

I’ve worked on three short videos based on some of the main questions:

• Facebook for busisness: How to remove photo tags and how to set up a Facebook ad.
• Linkedin: Is there an “insights” feature available?
• Twitter alerts: How to set up an alert with “Twilert” to track specific keywords/keyphrases.

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Did you enjoy the post? don’t be shy, make a comment below and share it!

Best,

Fred

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