Social Media
You Can Never Take A Holiday From Social Media…
But You Can Have Some Fun!
By Beatrice Whelan, Social Media and Content Specialist at Sage
So we’re off to the Social Media Awards on Thursday 17th May (we are finalists for Best Blog Of A Business) and we thought we would add our own element of fun to the night. Sage have placed a beach ball in everyone’s goodie bag at the awards. One of the beach balls has a special code on it. Inflate your beach ball to see if you have won.
If your ball has the winning code, tweet it to @sageireland to claim your prize of an iPad. The next time you are on holidays you can keep a track of all of your social media channels via your iPad. Unfortunately there can only be one winner, so everyone else can bring their beach ball on holidays instead! You might also be interested in our related post ‘How To Manage Your Social Media While On Holiday’.
Unfortunately you can’t take a holiday from terms and conditions either, so here they are;
- Only the first person that tweets us the special code will win the iPad. Just like in the awards, there can be only one winner!
- We will reply to the winner to confirm they have won and will ask them to DM or email us their address to social.media@sage.com
- We will have the iPad delivered to the winner in the days following the awards.
- Enjoy the awards
Update 24th May 2012 – As no one found the winning ball at the Social Media awards, we have decided to open the competition to everyone. Tweet a photo of yourself with a Sage beach ball to @sageireland to win the #sockies iPad download your ball here.
Posted under: Managing Your Social Media While On Holiday
By Beatrice Whelan, Social Media & Content Specialist at Sage
You can’t take a holiday from social media, it is an always on job. For those using social media to market a business with a global audience, there is even more pressure to have round the clock activity on your social media channels. So what do you do when you need to take some time out, how do you manage your social media channels when that well deserved holiday comes up. Here are some tips that might be helpful;
Use Apps
Download the blog app on your phone or iPad and try using it a few weeks before you go. If you are taking a real holiday you shouldn’t need to update the blog while you are away but it might be useful to have the option just in case there is breaking news back at home that you should be writing about on your blog. For those attending the Social Media Awards on May 17th, check your goodie bag to see if you have won an iPad from Sage. More details available in this post about You Can’t Take A Holiday From Social Media.
Delegate
Trust someone else to look after your social media channels while you are away but don’t throw them in at the deep end. Make sure they have all of the knowledge and experience that they need to manage your social media channels. It is a good idea to use a colleague or employee that is already working on your social media channels in some way. If they need extra training to do the job make sure they have completed this training well in advance of your holiday and let them try it out for a few days while you’re still around so they can ask you questions. If there is no one in your organisation that fits the bill, consider outsourcing the role to a social media agency but only choose one that you have worked with before and that you can trust. Ensure that they understand your social media policy to avoid any potential problems.
Kinbark Nurseries Takes Over Our Facebook Page!
By Beatrice Whelan, Social Media and Content Specialist at Sage
Congratulations to Kinbark Nurseries who won our Facebook cover photo competition. The prize included Sage changing our Facebook Timeline cover photo to the cover photo of Kinbark Nurseries and promoting their business to the 4,000+ fans our our Facebook page.
Kinbark Products is a small family-run garden centre, which specialises in mature trees and landscaping, located just outside Camolin in Co. Wexford. Their Facebook cover photo really captured the essence of the garden centre; it shows their new redesigned centre made from 100pc recycled materials, the local wildlife and resident thrush who has set up home in one of their topiary plants; and it shows the beautiful landscaped gardens of Kinbark Products.
Kinbark Nurseries Facebook Cover Photo on the Sage Facebook page on April 27th 2012
As Michaelle from Kinbark Nurseries explained when she submitted the photo to the competition;
“The vivid colours and nature show how we can bring any garden back to life. The new site of the garden centre was originally a wasteland that we reinvented, showcasing our ability to transform any area into a garden lover’s dream. Some creative flair and innovative thinking seen our garden centre come alive this spring, which we think is captured in the cover photo.”
We also took the opportunity to share some of Kinbarks other photos on our Facebook page to ensure we got their message to as many as our Facebook fans as possible.
Kinbark Nurseries joined in the promotion themselves, telling their own Facebook fans that they were featured on our Facebook page.
For more information about Kinbark Nurseries see http://www.kinbark.ie or drop over to their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/kinbark.nurseries
We also got some great Facebook cover photo entries from other businesses.
Facebook Cover Photos of Andrew Considine – Inspire To Achieve
Facebook Cover Photo of Cute Honey
Facebook Cover Photo of Kerrigans Craft Butchers
Keep up to date with upcoming competitions by visiting the Sage Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/sageirelandofficial
Sage Is A Finalist In The Social Media Awards 2012
By Beatrice Whelan, Social Media and Content Specialist at Sage
It was a nail biting wait but we were very excited this week when we saw that we are a finalist in the Social Media Awards in the Blog Of A Business category. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on May 17th in the Mansion House, Dublin.
The Sage Blog is our social media hub, it holds the content and information that we share via our other social media channels and is also where people can come to find out more about the our various social media initiatives such as our Facebook Lunch ‘n Learn chats and our Facebook Page Takeover Competition.
The blog has grown dramatically in 2011 and 2012. We now have a range of guest bloggers from accountants to Sage Business Partners, entrepreneurs and business experts and over fifteen Sage Ireland employees have written their own posts for the blog in the last six months. The blog was also re-designed in January and is now mobile friendly and the new design combined with rich content from a variety of sources has really increased the repeat traffic on the blog.
Join Sage At The Awards
We ran a competition on the day that the finalist was announced. Everyone that subscribed to our blog by email was entered into a draw for two tickets to the awards so they can join us in all of the fun to be had on the night. The winner was Ian Gibney, congrats Ian. We will also be tweeting live from the awards to keep you all up to date on the winner for each category so keep an eye on @Sageireland on the night of the 17th May.
Business Start-Up Advice From The Experts
By Beatrice Whelan, Social Media and Content Specialist at Sage
‘How To Survive The First Two Years in Business’ was the topic of our third Facebook Lunch ‘n Learn on the 12th April 2012. Terence Bowden, Venture Manager at DCU Ryan Academy and Stephen Dillon Managing Director of The Corkage Group & Founder of Startups.ie joined us to answer questions on the topic and we also got great input from small business others that joined in the conversation on our Facebook wall. You can see all of the questions and answers by looking at our Facebook Timeline for the 12th April but here is an overview of the conversation and advice from Terence and Stephen.
- Stephen Dillon and Terence Bowden about to take part in the Sage Lunch ‘n Learn on April 12th 2012
How To Choose A Social Media Expert For Your Business
By Beatrice Whelan, Social Media & Content Specialist at Sage
Many businesses large and small are looking for the help of social media consultants. As the industry is unregulated anyone can be a social media ‘expert’ so how does a business owner tell who is good and who is not so good, especially if they don’t know much about social media themselves. There really is no such thing as a social media expert just people that do social media well.
In his 2011 interview with TechCrunch TV, Gary Vaynerchuk said that “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns“ He talked about social media ‘experts’ that rave about Twitter Followers and Facebook Fan numbers without ever having a sales result. For me, results is one area that will definitely separate the good from the bad.
Results
Results won’t always mean direct sales, there are other results that your business can aim for when using social media, like brand exposure, obtaining and showcasing customer testimonials, PR, customer care, increased website traffic etc. Of course all of these things will lead to increased sales and yes sales themselves should also be another measurement of your social media activities. So when talking to the person that you are considering selecting as the social media expert for your business, ask them what results they have had when using social media in the past.
Are they measuring how many sales or conversions on their client’s websites are a result of social traffic? Can they show you how much PR coverage their other clients got as a result of social media activities? Can they show you an example of customer interaction via a social media channel that resulted in a positive outcome for the organisation they were helping? Do they even measure results? If they tell you these things can’t be measured then back away. If they only thing they measure is number of followers and likes then you don’t need them.
How To Be Successful On Facebook
By Amanda Webb of Spiderworking.com
Facebook is the world’s largest social network expected to tip one billion users by the end of the year, so it’s not surprising that so many businesses are keen to utilise it as a marketing tool. As with so many other kinds of marketing it’s not enough just to set up a page, to be successful you need to work at it and measure the results against business goals. Here are some tips on how you can ensure the success of your Facebook marketing.
Is Your Target Market There?
With such a large user base it’s safe to assume that almost everyone is there. Facebook users span all ages, genders, occupations and interests. There are particular age groups and genders that are prevalent however. Currently the largest share of visitors to Facebook fall into the 25 – 34year old segment (but the spread is pretty even across all age groups) and 57% of users are women. http://allfacebook.com/facebook-statistics_b76427
If your target market isn’t female between 25-34 there is still a strong chance they are on Facebook so how do you find out?
B2C – If your target market is consumers Facebook is probably a good bet. As revealed in the statistics above whether male or female, young or old a massive proportion of the online population are on the network. If your target is either too young to use Facebook or elderly you might think about targeting their parents or children instead.
B2B – If your target market is other businesses the best way to discover if your clients and potential clients are online is to look. Make a list of existing clients and Google the company name and ‘Facebook’. If a good portion of your customer base have Facebook pages then you should too. Once you have set up your page you can go into ‘business mode’ by using Facebook as your page (select use page as and your page name next to ‘home’ on the top tool bar) and connect with these companies and business to business.
Take Over Our Facebook Page!
Do you want to take over the Sage Facebook page? Well for one day, Friday 27th April, we are offering one business the chance to be featured on our Facebook page. We will change our Facebook Timeline cover photo to the cover photo of your business and publish a post from our Facebook page about your business and showcasing your cover photo. We are delighted to see how many other businesses like the Sage Facebook page. We want to share your business stories on our Facebook page and in this case, put you in the spotlight and showcase your business to our 4,000+ Facebook fans.
To enter just email your Facebook cover photo to social.media@sage.com before 5pm on Tuesday 24th April along with up to 200 words about why your image captures the essence of your business. We will pick the best one and the winner will have their cover photo featured on our page on Friday 27th April.
Here is the boring bit, the terms and conditions;
2012 Bord Gais Energy Social Media Awards
By Beatrice Whelan, Social Media and Content Specialist at Sage
Yeah! Sage are nominated in the 2012 Social Media Awards in three categories; Blog Of A Business, Facebook Page for a Business (owner managed) and Integrated Facebook Campaign: Page, App & Ads.
This is the second year of the Social Media Awards or #sockies as they are otherwise known. They are due to be held in Dublin’s Mansion House on May 17, and we are looking forward to attending whether or not we make it to the next round.
For anyone interested in some good social media case studies from Irish businesses check out the case studies from last years winners of the Social Media awards.
That Tweeting Accountant!
By Sian Phillips, an Accountant that likes to write.
We Accountants sometimes have a tag attached to our name and I don’t mean the letters ACCA or ACA. We’re classed as boring! Fancy that! We all go to the pub, have fun hobbies, families, pets…don’t we? Not always do we have our noses stuck in the books and never seeing the light of day. But how do you tell that to the normal Joe Bloggs who dreads’ getting a call from us as it’s that time of year again? He only sees us sifting through his books or boxes of paperwork, maybe picking up on this or that he thought he may have got away with. It’s not always that we have a client that we can save loads of the dreaded tax for unfortunately.
So how do we get away from this boring tag? Because we really do need to. Especially with Social Media as people will normally check out your bio and the word Accountant flashes up. You can almost imagine the sigh and bored look that then occurs and they probably go no further. You’re not in a networking meeting seeing people face to face so they don’t get to see the fun side of you and realise you are actually quite normal.
As an accountant you’re qualified (I hope) so for a client we may all seem much of a muchness. Not even location is that important these days as accounts are easily done remotely and a few hours drive to meet a client a couple of times a year is easy. Fees probably won’t differ too much although a client should be aware of the old adage “you get what you pay for!” So at the end of the day on Social Media it boils down to personality and getting it to shine through somehow. Online is the same as when you meet people face to face – you want them to like you and hopefully become a client. So be a bit of fun online, engage with other tweeters and chat. Your accountancy skills are a given so it’s your personality that now has to be sold. And you do have one really.
I often work with Tom Holmes at Ballymount Accounting and he is a relative newbie to Twitter but doing very well. Here are his comments on how he sees it for Accountants.
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