On October 14th and 15th we had our first Tradeshow as 22 Group - The Northern Business Expo! I was honoured to be asked to run a workshop on social media at such a high profile event (particularly with our award winning Creative Director Robin Arnold and supermodel Caprice already on the billing)! Social media is such an integral part of a cohesive marketing plan and I felt this would be a good chance to talk to businesses about how they utilise its impact and reach to support their business objectives.

I wanted to ensure every participant went away with some new knowledge which they could apply on a practical level, so we covered some of the basics such as how Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (the most used social channels in a business context) differ in how users engage. This gave participants the opportunity to think about how to craft the appropriate content for each channel and look at what the banner, profile images and bio say about the company. Each of 3 social channels we looked at offer a range of measurement tools to really help businesses be strategic about their social media activity and we spent some time focusing on the benefits of each of these. We then moved onto how to manage complaints and took a look at some of the things the big brands are doing.

This was followed by a practical exercise, getting everyone into the habit of following, sharing, retweeting, scheduling and posting content! It was great to see how involved everyone got and see some real connections formed amongst participants - that's what social is all about after all! Towards the end of the session we started to put together a social strategy for each participant so everyone could take something useful back to the office with them. It was fantastic to see so many people there and everyone getting so involved!

If you would like to receive the slides for the presentation or want to discuss how 22 Group can support your social media efforts please email: amber@22group.co.uk