Mick has been a marketing professional for over thirty years and has seen digital grow from a concept to a fully fledged discipline. His business, The Online Marketing Academy, equips companies new to the sector with crucial insight into best practice.

And as he prepares to give his presentation on key digital marketing concepts,  he revealed how his job has evolved in the digital era.

“I’ve noticed a step change in people’s responses to social media in the past 12 months,” he said.

“Social media is no longer something that is on the fringes. Clients I speak with are increasingly familiar with sites like Ecademy, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.”

However, much of this knowledge is driven by the younger generations who have the time to explore social networking sites and really understand them from the inside out.

“My business is to impart digital marketing knowledge throughout organisations, so it’s crucial that the key figures within that organisations are up to speed.

“As a Digital Coach I help the CEO by helping him or her to become familiar, if not expert in the new digital, online and social media world where all things personal and corporate are laid bare.

Digital Coach for the CEO

“Whatever the CEO’s business does in the future is going to be public knowledge in real time, as it happens.

“The CEO no longer has time to call a board meeting next week to decide how to react to breaking news, he or she needs to act instantly no matter what the time of day or whereabouts in the world they may be.

“Should the CEO wait until they have a disaster to manage before they engage a Digital Coach? Or should the CEO learn how to read, manage and engage with digital technology and social media now before (God forbid) they have a need for crisis management?

Mick has spent the best part of six months working with Cardiff based businessman and Whats Next Event C.E.O Allan Blair-Beaton, putting Monday’s event together.

He speaks about how 2012 will be a landmark year in Social Media. How new platforms will emerge, and new functionality will expand the scope for business engagement, virtually day by day.

“There’s a clear choice to be made by  S.M.Es” he said. “Embrace the new technologies and start a transformation – or let it slip by, while competitors take control of a changing market.

“What’s Next Event is for every small business owner who knows they could be doing so much more with Social Media: more to reach out and touch new prospects, more to engage with customers, more to sell more products, more often…everything the social web has to offer.”

Social B2B is an educational platform to help S.M.E.s to engage with the social web and to use best practices from platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

And Blair-Beaton is leading the charge in Wales to bring business up to speed with the latest developments in the world on social media.

What’s Next Social Media Event 6 Feb by exposure_radio

In his interview, he asserts how Social media differs from traditional broadcast media because of the ability to have conversations in real time to anyone who has joined a particular social network.

A chance to engage

“Social media gives us the ability to listen and engage with our targets markets in a way like never before. ”

“Your behaviour, language and tone will be completely different depending on the platform you are on.”

“For instance, Facebook is all about “Line of sight”.  We have to be connected to you, or a fan of your page to see your content.

“Twitter is a global conversation. Depending on how and when you tweet, I can be in another part of the world and have never seen you, and I can jump in on your conversation.

“They are different animals, but when you put them together in a package you can create a digital footprint on the web

Which social network is best for business?

“If a business decides they want a presence on social media, it’s best to look at when the need is first, then look at your business and figure out who your target market is. For example, how old they are, where are they on the web.

“In the beginning take it platform by platform. Set each up correctly and then move forward to the next if appropriate.”

To find out more about the agenda for Monday’s What’s Next Event, click this link

But that’s it, I am serious about what I’m doing, where I’m taking things, and I look at what we have achieved in three years in a difficult time and say why not?

“Now I’m trying to grow.  I love networking, not the yes I’ll do that and never hear from me again networking but the building relationships networking.  The taking time to understand people, get people to trust you and deliver what you say you’re going to deliver; and we do.  We’ve been successful in that, but there is a limit to it.  None of the businesses are high margin, we provide a lot of work for a narrow profits, so we have to hit a bigger market.”We can’t afford massive marketing campaigns, we don’t have marketing budgets in the hundreds of thousands, and just how effective are the big budget campaigns without already establishing a natural affinity and relationship between your customers and your brand anyway? We can’t compete with that.

Building relationships

 I’m not just extending my relationship with my customers, but extending my company’s relationship with my customers, via people and not a faceless brand

Today on the What’s Next Event blog, we have a collection of simple tips that can be implemented into your Facebook marketing strategy.

Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm works by promoting content that has the greatest number of interactions from your friends to your wall.

Posts to your Facebook page are highly unlikely to actually be seen on your fans’ walls unless they have engaged with you in some way. This is even more relevant now with the changes to Facebook and the presence of the “ticker”.

Let’s imagine you have created an effective Facebook advert that drove traffic to your previously unknown FanPage. The challenge you now have is to engage your prospect with your brand.

There are many ways in which the consumer can interact with a Facebook page:

1. Liking Posts

2. Commenting on Posts

3. Sharing Posts

4. Uploading content

5. Tagging themselves in pictures and video

But what are effective techniques for securing these interactions, and turning your prospects into retained fans?

This week on the What’s Next blog, we will be flagging up some of the features of each of the sessions, to help you make up your mind which three seminars are best for you.

What’s Next Event has been specificlaly designed to meet the needs of S.M.Es. and with 10 seminars to choose from the What’s Next Event can offer several different experiences, dependent on your company objectives.

Ask yourself a few questions:

• Am I looking to implement a digital side to marketing operations in 2012?
• Does my business need to sharpen up it’s current digital marketing activities?
• Am I looking to reach out to consumers?
• Am I looking to cement relationships in the business community?

Then  shape your day around your choices.

An example day could be:

Seminar 1: Mick Say: Digital Marketing – Attend this if you need an overview of the digital landscape and want to get to grips with the fundamentals of bringing your brand to life online.  More here

Seminar 2: Amanda Hill – Facebook – Attend this if learn how the world’s largest social network functions and can benefit your business – More here

Seminar 3: Allan Blair-Beaton – Twitter for Business – Find out how you can express yourself effectively in under 140 characters – More here

Click here for the full agenda

What’s Next Event C.E.O Allan Blair Beaton said: “We have structured the day in such a way that you can really get precisely what it is you need out of the event.

“We want to inspire people to look at how digital can help their business. With three seminars, two key-note speakers, a networking session and an aftershow means there is a lot happening in just one day.”

Registration opens at 8.30, and the event closes at 15.45. You can use this link to buy your ticket here.

Don’t forget the afterparty,  at the Ladybird, Mill Lane, Cardiff. There’s more information about this here

Google’s Laurian Clemence and Social B2B’s Allan Blair Beaton are calling for Welsh companies to improve their online presence and reap the financial rewards.

Blair-Beaton, who will host What’s Next, the largest social media event ever to be held in Wales on February 6, believes Wales is on the cusp of a revolution in internet take up.

He said: “I think Wales is lacking quite badly when it comes to using social media. The Google report of 2010 showed Wales had the lowest internet usage of any part of the UK. It’s only now that business is starting to wake up to the opportunities that social media can bring.

And this sentiment is supported by Google, who are set to run a series of workshops across the country in 2012 Clemence  said:  ”You are really missing out if you can’t be found online.”

Up to 40% of small Welsh firms have no website.

Beginning in Cardiff this March, Google will launch a travelling “Juice Bar,” a roadshow of experts offering a “digital health check” with workshops, tutorials and advice.

Ms Clemence said Google hoped to help at least 1,000 firms develop a website through its Juice Bar work.

She said: “We do believe that there are definitely more benefits than not. The key thing is that people who have their business online see their business grow four to eight times faster than those that don’t.

“We realised that Wales was lagging behind in the adoption of web presences for SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises].

Room for improvement

“There is a lot of opportunity there to help them get a website for the first time or if they do have a website, to improve it,” said Clemence

The campaign aims to train a team of specialists to advise small business owners for the rest of the project.

Business Minister Edwina Hart said: “We welcome this initiative to help companies gain maximum benefits from using and exploiting digital technologies to innovate, grow and access new markets, driving business growth.

“Digital technologies and online services have the potential to revolutionise the competitiveness of business and I hope as many as possible take advantage of the expertise on offer from Google.”

Google, and its social network Google+ will be discussed at What’s Next, to book your place, click THIS LINK.

They came up with a bespoke app which worked with Facebook’s check in functionality to solve a brand awareness challenge in Sweden.

The company were successful in reaching over 1.2 million users, with engagement levels reaching 15,000.  This translated into positive PR for the airline and Facebook like uplift of over 3000%

The brief:
How can we raise awareness that Air China flies, not only to China but also throughout Asia, while also making the brand a winner in the Swedish market?
The solution:
We carefully selected a number of Asian restaurants to act as ambassadors for Air China. At the restaurants, guests were encouraged to check-in with Air China, right then and there, only this time on Facebook.

What is Facebook Places?

Places is a Facebook mobile application that allows you to see where your friends are and share your physical location. You can check in to nearby Places to tell your friends where you are, tag your friends in the Places you visit, and view comments your friends have made about the Places you visit. Use Places to experience Facebook in a completely new way by connecting with your friends in the real world.

A Place page shows you a map of where the Place is located, a list of friends who are currently checked in at the Place (if any), and a Friend Activity stream of other friends who have visited the Place in the past. The Place page will contain additional relevant information about the Place if it’s available. You can post a story about the Place page to your profile (timeline) by clicking the “Share” button on the bottom left of the page.

How do you use places? Tweet us @whatsnextevent and let us know

Today on the What’s Next Event blog, we look at three ways that business can achieve an instant result using social media, so business objectives are achieved faster and at lower cost.

The challenge for social media teams is finding ways to populate their social media channels. The old perception that Facebook and Twitter are simply about trivial status updates has been replaced with smarter thinking from digital marketing teams who are able to leverage the power of their community and serve their needs by:

Improving products through group discussion
Building a more connected community
Gathering usage data from users

These are all tangible  business benefits, lets take a look at three ways you can achieve these:

Conduct Surveys and Polls

Engage the users of your social networks by asking them to share their opinions on a particular issue of importance to your company. The easiest way to gather quantifiable data is by using surveys and polls.   Facebook has an excellent poll application that will serve this purpose.

If you have a Twitter account, why not integrate your campaign by opening a dialogue with your community and pointing them back to your Facebook page.

Collect Product Feedback

Anyone who has ever tried to modify an existing product, or launch something new into the market place will have made the following observations.

1. Getting community buy in is crucial
2. Expect some dissent from the community
3. Prepare for bugs and modifications after launch

Harness the engaged users in your network before launching products using social tools. Gather feedback from the people that really matter to your business – your customers.

Because of the inclusive and expansive nature of social media, your network will consist of  current customers,  prospects, target customers, and industry influencers.

Direct, and cheap access to these sub groups provides  a wide range of feedback on new products and features. For instance, are new features easy to use, are they are worth developing in the first place, or what should be next in your development  scedule.

Using this tactic can mitigate the chances of broad consumer backlash on launch day, and any subsequent PR disasters as your community will rally to your defence if they feel they have been part of the development process.

Host a Focus Group

Google + provides a means for business to hold group video chats, for free.  It’s a remarkable development in group communications that could same businesses a pretty penny when it comes to gathering community feedback.

Effective focus groups have always segmented audiences, and many social networks have advanced in such a way that there is sufficient functionality to perform your own R&D. With Google+, why not circles to segment people by industry or location to better target your questions, then invite them to a Hangout.

You could set up a Twitter Chat to explore a suggestion from the Hangout you can even let one of your community’s power users co-moderate the chat with you. Find a unique hashtag and see how the Twittersphere responds.

Because focus groups require feedback from an audience that fits specific criteria, make their participants feel inherently special. They’re fantastic ways to get people actively involved in the success of your brand while simultaneously soliciting quick feedback that helps you advances your business objectives.

How do you use social media to gather information for your company? Why not tweet us @whatsnextevent ? We’d love to talk!

These clips have been taken from an interview Allan did last month with yourBusinessChannel.   Mark Sinclair, founder of yBC, is presenting a workshop about online video for business at next month’s event.

1.   COCA-COLA: Used social media strategically and achieved the strongest global marketing integration ever with Expedition 206, a social media promotion where a small group of travel ambassadors went to 206 countries over 365 days to “generate happiness” and published on social networks.  It enabled global promotion execution and integration among 3,500 Coca-Cola marketers around the world.

How does your business use social media? Tweet us at @whatsnextevent We’d love to know!

2. JETBLUE: Started a Twitter account to have more direct relationship with customers and to listen and respond how they could serve them better and deal directly with any complaints.  They now have over 1.6 million followers.