Courtesy of techweekeurope.co.uk

This week we had a cry from one of our fabulous clients.  “Help!,” she said.  “I am glazing over with Twitter due to work pressures.  I don’t have time to ‘play’ on Twitter and don’t know what I am doing.  I can’t cope.”

The first thing was to reassure her she is not alone.  The one thing to understand about social media is that it is time consuming.  Do you remember when you started on emails – were you overwhelmed?  It hasn’t gone away, yet can you imagine not having email?  It is quicker and more efficient for all sorts of tasks but it is a constant demand.  It is very similar for social media.

Our client has been on Twitter for a while but not managed to get a routine or feel comfortable with it.

So here is the twitter training plan we came up with for her to assist her in managing her twitter account.

1.      @connect is the most important

At the top of your Twitter bar you will see a button saying @connect.  This is probably the most valuable tool on Twitter – it is where you can quickly see any ‘conversations’ involving your name, who has retweeted you, followed you or otherwise engaged with you.

2.      Four a day

You want to go to @connect once a day.   Try to spend no more than five minutes

• Check out the profiles of anyone who has followed you – just click on each of their icon

If you know them and rate them, follow them back.  If they are someone you would like to know better, also follow them.  Don’t follow back if you have nothing in common

• If you spot someone has retweeted something of yours, you might want to thank them – a retweet looks like this

• Similarly if someone ‘favorites’ a tweet of yours, you might want to thank them – the yellow star is for a favorite and means they want to save it for easy reference later

• Someone may have tweeted about a blog, article or guide that is on your website – in which case you also want to say thanks and ‘chat’ on Twitter.  This was a recent tweet on ours – you would definitely want to respond to this?

• So that is probably a minimum each day – not too bad?

3.      Start following people you rate and want to do business with

This is where we are going to help our client.  She wants to ‘meet’ and do business with directors in a particular sector – let’s call it retail.  She needs easy Twitter steps for senior people.

To give her a hand we are going to research who the directors, journalists and influencers in this field are and follow them for her (she’ll give us access to her account to do that).  There are plenty of lists on Google such as London’s 20 most influential on Twitter:  RETAIL or you can use Twitter search tools such as Followerwonk and others.

Courtesy of folkmedia.com

4.      Create lists to make it easy to follow key conversations

A good way to follow the conversations of key people easily is to make lists of those important people.  Anyone can see this list so make the most of it – name it something like ‘Top HR influencers in UK’.  Whoever you put into your lists will be notified – and it is a flattering start to getting to know them?

When you have time you can then go into Twitter and click on a list and you will see the most recent Twitter posts – or tweets – for all those in that list.  These are some of the lists we have created for ourselves and for PR work we are doing for our clients where we are managing twitter on their behalf.

5.      Engage on Twitter

Most people worry about what they are going to post on Twitter.  That is quite important – but equally, or perhaps more important – is starting to talk to the people you want to know and work with.

So once or twice a week, look at your lists or click on ‘Home’ and skim through conversations. 

If you see a really interesting conversation or link, retweet it and reply to it saying thanks or how you plan to use the information.

Here is an example of an interesting post that you might retweet and then reply with a comment

Stephen Tovey is an HR adviser and credible; his blog was about getting priorities in life right.  It is not amazing but is fine and reasonably thought-provoking (do always open a link before retweeting etc – occasionally accounts are hacked and a link goes through to porn).

You could reply with your own thoughts on the subject – also leave a comment on the blog and tweet about that.

All of that is about ‘engaging’ which is where social media comes to life.  It’s a new way of business development and networking – but quicker and cuts through layers of formality.

6.      # trending

Courtesy of z100radio.com

Our client wanted to know how to follow or create # trends – you may have heard ‘it is trending on Twitter’.  To be honest, if you are struggling for time and getting familiar with Twitter, I would leave this till later. 

If you are really keen put #topic in the search box, top right of your Twitter account.  Here I typed in #BBCTheVoice and you get conversations with this hashtag coming up.  You might like the comments of RedOne and reply or retweet (even though you have never met them, but you may feel their comments resonate with you).  Or you may completely agree with Simon Danson – and think he’s someone you would like to know better.  His profile says he is a SEAT car sales person – and mentions he is a connoisseur of fine wines and ‘appreciates the female species’.  You need to decide if he’s someone right for your business

7.      Your plan for Twitter

Like all social media, you want to give yourself a bit of time to understand and ‘play’ with the best media for you.  But quickly you need to be strategic, don’t just tweet randomly.

Look at your business plan and marketing plan.  Who are your existing customers that you want to strengthen relationships with and who are you targeting?  What would success look like?

Then do a plan and allocate time and tasks – time can run away on social media.  It will probably look like

• 5 minutes a day to respond to anyone on @connect
• Once a month take half an hour to research key contacts and build lists
• Two or three times a week – or whatever time you can spare – look at the profiles of people you are targeting.  Reply to their comments, retweet, favorite, thank. Allow yourself 15 to 30 minutes for this.
• Once or twice a week post interesting material or your own comment on something you have noticed – work or in the news.  But if you are struggling for time, your own comments are probably less important

Take a few months just to get yourself familiar and in a rhythm.  Don’t push yourself, you will find you become more comfortable, want to share helpful ideas and materials – but always keep it strategic.  Why are you doing it?

And as I reminded our client – we have all struggled when we started out.  I took half an hour to write and post my first tweet – and got everyone in the office to check it and have a view!!

I have suggested the timings and regularity in the plan above as my own view of what is realistic for someone who is serious about Twitter but is very busy.

If you are struggling – we can help you with workshops (group and one-to-one), creating a social media strategy and linking Twitter with all your marketing and social media activities.  We can offer social media/twitter training in Harrogate or at a venue of your choice.

It would be good to hear what you think someone new to Twitter should be doing and how often.

The post Help – can’t cope with Twitter. 7 easy Twitter training steps for senior people appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

Courtesy of ft.com

Mrs Moneypenny of the FT asked this weekend ‘are you an adept user of social media?’  Since most of the FT’s readers are boardroom directors, I would anticipate the answer to that question would not only be ‘no’ but more likely ‘you must be joking’.

This is a major issue in the UK: senior people are not using, understanding or managing social media in their organisations.  And it was this argument that led to the BBC asking me to join 30 other women at their Expert Women training day at The BBC Academy in Salford last week.

And what an experience!  I have not felt so terrified, so energised, learnt so much or had such fun since I recently took flying lessons.  It was a mix of the scary, feeling over-awed at being in the company of so many amazing women and the really wonderful and supportive BBC team – for which many thanks to The BBC Academy.

I have been helping our clients with media training for years, particularly for crisis communications – but it is nothing like doing it yourself.   Here are the ten media training tips for expert women that I took away from the day which might help you if you have an interview on TV or radio.

And perhaps we should mention – why are the BBC training expert women?  Research last year showed that the ratio of men to women appearing in the media is anything between 3:1 and 15:1 on programmes such as Radio 4 Today, Sky News, panel discussions.  Lisa Campbell, editor of Broadcast magazinedecided something needed to be done – and this is the result.   Thanks also to The Two Per Cent Club for encouraging its members to apply.

1.       Experts are to inform

All through the day we were assured that an ‘expert’ is not there to be grilled Paxman-style, but to explain and add insights into a subject.  The challenge is that the media want someone who really knows their stuff – has published books, research and given lectures – but actually they usually only need a 90-second clip. 

Deep knowledge has to be explained in a way that your mother, your mates in the pub or your friends round the dinner table can understand and be interested in.

Courtesy of bbc.co.uk

 2.       Say yes

Apparently a problem with women commentators is that they tend to think everyone else will be a better person to explain something than themselves. 

Part of the training was to give everyone confidence that what they are saying is worth saying and is needed.  And that when the phone goes, please say yes.  You will have to put yourselves out sometimes.

3.       Work out your brand

The lovely Francesca Kasteliz helped us to understand the strengths of how we come over and then develop this into a brand.  We all gave our views on each other – confident, smiley, friendly.  Too many of mine were about being authoritative (hope this wasn’t bossy) but she suggested confident was a better brand!!

She then told us to think about our brand ‘I know about social media for business, I’m confident, I’m friendly’ before any interview – to remind ourselves and give ourselves that needed lift.

 4.       Focus on the eyes

When giving a TV interview – terrifyingly we all went on the Breakfast TV sofa! – stay focused on the interviewer or the other person speaking.

When we played back our interviews, I saw I had weirdly said good morning to those on the sofa and then seemed to turn around and look at the camera.  It took me a while to realise that whenever I say good morning at the start of an event or meeting, I try and look round to include everyone in the room – in this case those behind the cameras.  Not a good idea when on TV!

Courtesy of standard.co.uk

5.       Refer to your fellow speakers

There are often two or three guests to speak about a subject.  It works really well if you can refer back to something the presenter said in the introduction, or something that your fellow guest said.

This was particularly important in the longer Woman’s Hour-style discussion on radio.  It sounds much more interesting to the listener if there is genuine interaction between guests ‘Mary’s point is really valid and ….’.

 6.       Careful of language

This caused some debate during the day.  Sheena Byrom is a consultant midwife and concerned that over her career women have become more fearful of natural – or as she put it, vaginal – childbirth.

Apparently the production team winced at the ‘v’ word – particularly for a breakfast show.  But others felt this was the right phrase to use.  Either way, take care with language.

7.       Energy, smile , relax

My TV feedback was that it was a high energy discussion, smiling and relaxed.  Apparently this is all good – as is leaning forward slightly which shows you are really engaged in a conversation.

In our ‘piece to camera’ – when we had to talk while walking – we all learnt that you have to slightly overplay how you normally are.  Making ourselves slightly more expressive, more movement, more passion.  That all looks good on TV.

Actually passion is good for all this.

8.       Make a point

Many of us complain that the media is too black and white and always about controversy.  But you can see why to some extent.

One of our colleagues was very fair and even-handed.  While perhaps more natural, the media wants commentators to have a clear point of view. 

In our initial application for the training day, we had to say what our ‘issue’ was.  Instead of just saying ‘I have experience in social media, business and education’, they made us drill down into a specific point that needs addressing.  Mine was that business leaders don’t understand social media and the impact this is having on organisations – such as the 17 year old teenager, Paris Brown, who was appointed a police commissioner and her bosses had not thought to look at her social media profiles.

Courtesy of socialwhitepages.ca

 9.       Be persistent in pitches

If you want to pitch an idea to the media, you need to think about who the audience is, what the point is, why it is needed.  You may initially be rejected, but it can pay off to be gently persistent over time.

I did suggest – apparently controversially – that business is not covered properly in the media.  The only two programmes we could think of were Evan Davies’ Bottom Line and Peter Day’s In Business.  That’s not much for its importance (the country is relying on successful businesses to get us out of this recession) – or recognising that a third of the UK is employed by micro businesses.

Courtesy of revital.co.uk

10.   Industrial hair spray

I don’t think any of us liked seeing ourselves on television.  I could not bear to see a matronly image when in my mind I am still young and slim.  One of our group worried about her fly-away hair all through the day – for which the advice was ‘get yourself industrial strength hair spray’!

We were also told to use plenty of make-up – the lippy was out all through the day – and powder, and not to be afraid of asking for more powder if you feel shiny under the cameras.  Chaps, you can ask too – though you may not want the hairspray.

Most of us know that stripes, checks and fussy patterns don’t work on TV – they create a strobing effect.  Best of all is block colour – and preferably bright, particularly if you are making a serious point.  Black and pure white are not good either.

So those are the tips.  It was a nerve-wracking day, can’t deny that.  But the BBC team and colleagues could not have been kinder and the expert women were so inspiring.

Have you been through any of this – any tips to share?

The post Top 10 media training tips for expert women – and men – giving media interviews appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

One company that uses social media really well is Petplan. As a B2C pet insurance company, they have a great presence on Facebook, as they know that’s where their customers are. People just love sharing photos and videos of their pets, and Petplan knows and encourages this through regular campaigns, such as the current competition to find the star of their next TV commercial.

But knowing their customers and how to create a high level of engagement on their Facebook page is not the only thing that Petplan excels at. I want to share with you something that recently happened to me that made Petplan stand out as having outstanding customer service. And it wasn’t because they did everything perfectly. It began with a mistake, but they quickly handled the situation exceptionally well, as they had the process and resources in place to do so.

Courtesy of petplan.co.uk

I’m afraid it begins with some bad news: my cat was hit by a car and passed away recently. Understandably I was very upset, but had to take the necessary actions of cancelling the pet insurance and healthcare policies etc. I have used Petplan for many years as I believe they offer the comprehensive cover on the market and I trust in the brand.

When I called Petplan, I was directed (as is customary nowadays) through an automated phone system – “press 1 for….” etc.  I chose the “I would like to cancel my policy” option. Option 2 was select a reason. I chose “I no longer have my pet.” Now, whatever the reason – either your pet has died or you’ve had to give them away – the last thing the person who chooses this option wants is to be sold additional insurance. But in much the same way that mobile phone providers give cancellation requests the hard sell on a renewal and upgrade, I was directed to the Petplan sales team.

Courtesy of parature.com

Not only was the salesperson I was directed to clearly reading from a script, they were completely unprepared for me telling them that I wanted to cancel because my cat had died. The conversation was awkward and upsetting, and I was told “I’m sorry, you’ve come through to the sales team and I’m not able to process your request. I’ll have to transfer you to the customer services team instead.”

Once transferred to customer services and having explained the situation, I was dealt with compassionately, quickly and efficiently. But I wanted to let Petplan know that their phone system was directing bereaved pet owners to the sales team, so – as I had their Facebook page open – I posted a message about it on their wall.

At this point, a company that doesn’t have adequate social media monitoring cover and well trained staff could quickly see this situation turn sour. As the page is so busy, sympathetic pet owners had already began commenting and sending their condolences.

Courtesy of lldpartnership.co.uk

But within two minutes, a named member of the Petplan team publicly replied saying how very sorry they were to hear of my loss, thanking me for getting in touch, and asking me to email my details over so they could look into the issue. My email was acknowledged immediately and within half an hour, someone called me back to apologise and say they were reviewing their policy to ensure this didn’t happen again.

By having the right people and processes in place to deal with problems quickly and efficiently as they occurred, Petplan diffused what could have been a really bad PR (played out in public on their Facebook page) into a situation where the customer felt valued and listened to. This is all that most people really want when they make complaint: to be listened to, and a quick resolution found. I followed up my Facebook comment with a thank you to Petplan for getting back to me so quickly.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. On Saturday morning, a huge bunch of flowers were delivered to my door from Petplan with a handwritten note saying how sorry they were to hear about the loss of my (named) cat, signed from the Petplan team. It was a really lovely personal gesture that they didn’t have to make, and it showed they were prepared to go the extra mile.

 (And yes, I posted a picture of the flowers on Facebook and said how lovely it was of Petplan to send them – and all my friends who have pets and other Petplan customers then commented on what a lovely company they were.)

This is how to turn bad PR into great PR with an integrated internal communications and social media strategy.

Exceptional customer service depends on a well trained team at every contact point: from the responsive digital team who are trained in how to quickly make the right reply on social media, to the customer service adviser who is immediately briefed and calls straight back to apologise, to the person who arranges the hand-written notes and delivers the flowers. It also depends on having high quality CRM systems that allow data to be shared quickly between teams. Great PR and exceptional customer service doesn’t happen by accident. It should be planned into everything a company does. And when all this happens in a company, staff can use the time they save on those little gestures that make such a huge difference.

The post Social Media – How Petplan turned bad PR into great PR with an integrated internal communications and social media strategy appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

Some analysts believe that a bounce rate of over 50% is bad. But bounce rate should not be looked at in isolation; it should be considered in the context of other metrics, the type of organisation the website belongs to, and what activities have been happening to cause the increase in bounce rate.

When an increase in bounce rate is a good thing

In the case of the client I referred to earlier, their website had seen fairly low traffic before we took over. Having introduced a blog to the site and scheduled regularly updated content to be uploaded on a variety of topics, we have seen a big jump in the amount of site traffic, alongside an initial increase in bounce rate. I believe that the more popular a blog gets, the more diverse traffic it receives, and therefore the more likely that some of that traffic will bounce. In this context, an increase in bounce rate is a side effect of the site generating a much larger volume of traffic, which is a good thing!

There are lots of other reasons why bounce rate may appear high. People often visit a website to find out a particular piece of information – for example a telephone number – and leave straight away when they have found what they are looking for. Another common reason is local services; for example, a local plumber offering services in a particular geographical area may rank really highly for “plumbing services” but traffic from other regions would leave the site when they saw the plumber wasn’t based in their area. If you only operate in a particular area, it is worth spending some time on optimising for local search, and making sure your Google Places listing is up to date. More tips on optimising your website for organic search (SEO training).

Other metrics to look at to help improve your website performance

• Returning visitors – this metric is a good indicator of how loyal your visitors are and how encouraged they are to come back on a regular basis.
• Direct traffic – this tells you how many people who have typed your website URL straight in rather than coming through a search engine. It can show you over time how well known your website is becoming, and is a good indicator for the success of offline marketing campaigns.
• Landing pages – these are the pages that people land on first when they arrive at your website. Look at your most popular landing pages to see what is working well and improve the traffic to other pages on your website.
• Exit pages – these are the last pages that people look at before they leave your site. Regularly check these to see which areas of your site are haemorrhaging visitors and do something about it (the tips below on reducing bounce rate also apply to improving exit pages).

As we do more SEO on a website and/or search engine optimisation training for a website we are more likely to increase its bounce rate: the more we work on a search engine optimisation strategy, the more keywords we rank for (some that we are not even working on or aware of!), and so also these keywords bring us traffic but may not be targeted. By looking at the full range of metrics available, it is possible to see the complete picture and gain a much better understanding of your website’s performance.

If you follow these tips, you should – over time – see an improvement in your website statistics and bounce rate:

10 tips on decreasing your bounce rate

1)   Ensure any outbound hyperlinks are set to open in a new window. If a visitor likes what you’re talking about and clicks through to an external link you have provided, this will be registered as a bounce unless you tick the “open link in a new window” box. It also saves your reader having to click the “back” button numerous times to get back to the article they were originally reading. More link building tips here.

2)   Offer a clear “call to action” at the bottom of every page. This could be signing up your e-newsletter or RSS feed, or a “Buy now” button.

3)   Encourage comments.

4)   Offer lots of engaging content. If there isn’t much to read on your website, or nothing new for regular readers, they will leave with spending much time on your website. Treat them to great content, as often as possible, and encourage them to stay longer.

5)   Pay attention to your website design. If the website is difficult to read or visually unpleasant, visitors won’t spend very long there. Your website is your shop window, so make it visually appealing with well-placed images and a good, clear design and layout.

6)   Increase the number of internal links in blog posts so keep visitors clicking through to other areas if your website.

7)   Keep revisiting your keyword list to make sure it still works for your site, and – wherever possible – include your keywords in page and blog titles.

8)   Make a feature of the most popular posts by including a “popular posts” box in your sidebar.

9)   Create an “about the blog” page and include it in the menu.

10) Add a list of related articles at the bottom of each page so your reader can find out more. This WordPress plug in would do the trick.

I hope you’ve found these tips useful. How does your website bounce rate compare? What tactics have you found successful in reducing your bounce rate?

Any examples of absolute no-nos when it comes to website design? What features of poor website design are guaranteed to annoy you most?

The post Search engine optimisation training (SEO) – what is a good bounce rate for a website? appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

Courtesy of The Telegraph

This weekend Paris Brown, newly appointed youth police and crime commissioner for Kent Police, demonstrated to the world why young people do not have the skills to manage social media for corporates.

How often have I heard a chief executive say ‘oh social media, we got a graduate in to manage that’.

In the case of Paris Brown, she had posted messages when she was younger referring to homosexuals as ‘fags’, immigrants as ‘illegals’ and travellers as ‘pikeys’, and said she had ‘a thing for older men’, apparently a reference to a teacher at her former school.

Which just shows how boardrooms need to understand enough about social media so that they can manage it.  In the case of Paris Brown, at the very least anyone who had a basic grasp of social media would have

• Gone through all her social media accounts, identified the risks and had a clear plan of action.  Yet her boss, PCC Ann Barnes, admitted that ‘social networking sites are a no go area for most adults’ – and no, no-one had thought to check or discuss her online activities
• Trained Paris in how to use social media for business in her job role (in our free ebook on social media we show how to work through what you would or would not tweet – see page 43)

I was in fact seriously impressed at how Ann Barnes supported Paris Brown – and she is a great example of outstanding leadership and how to handle a crisis like this.  But she is very open in admitting she doesn’t understand social media – and of course by implication, is not managing it in her organisation.

If you cannot see the YouTube clip please click here http://bit.ly/16PXazY

So what should bosses of all sectors – private, public and voluntary – be doing?

Here is a five step plan

1.       Recognise social media is a corporate issue that needs boardroom management

Let’s give an example of what we are saying here.

Do you remember the first websites that you saw?  Dial-up broadband, created by a designer who added all sorts of fun, irrelevant features – and frankly, for most of us were a complete waste of time.  (I remember bouncing tennis balls that you had to click to open a site and a flickering fire to click open a service!)

Courtesy of Maddy Sargent

Then gradually the market shaped up.  The early adopters started producing websites that were business-focused.  As business leaders made a purchase online or researched a target company through their website, they realised this was a serious business tool.   And they started to have a view about what their website should do, put proper budgets aside to manage the process and were part of the panel when recruiting web designers.

Today, no-one expects anyone in the boardroom to design a website themselves – but if they don’t know what a website does or have a view on how customers could use it, would you want them on your board?

So it now is for social media.  Your first action should be to ensure everyone in senior leadership positions has a basic understanding of strategic social media – its opportunities and above all, its risks.  We run very successful half-day boardroom workshops on how to use social media for business, tailored to your organisation.  Book us!

2.       Every senior manager must start using some form of social media

How do you explain a website to someone who has never used the internet?

You can read all you want about social media, but until you start using it you will really struggle to ‘get it’.  Create an anonymous Twitter or another account and start following your customers or strategic partners.  Yes, a great deal is rubbish in business social media- marketing people generally would agree with this – but there is a lot that is good. Start finding the gems and learn from them.

3.       Hold a half day social media risk assessment workshop

We recently heard of one FTSE 100 corporate that manages social media by allowing just the top few hundred managers to access the internet.  As if no-one will use their smartphones to go online if they want to.

Do you have a social media policy to explain what employees can or can’t say about customers online?  What if Paris Brown was your employee – what are your guidelines about personal vs work life?  Ann Brown said her organisation does not check social media accounts when recruiting. 

Organise a team day with your senior managers to identify the risks from social media in your business and check that your policies and guidelines will address these.

4.       Include social media in your recruitment checks

Most organisations now check out employee reputations online – nothing devious, just what do you see when you look at their public accounts?  Last month, we were approached by a journalist who wanted to do freelance work for us. He included his Twitter account details in his email signature – so of course we looked at it.  His current Twitter stream used the ‘c..’ word twice and had a deeply unpleasant hashtag conversation about celebrities.  No way would we ever use him – this all showed a serious lack of judgement about us, our business, our clients.

Club Pay said employers cited the following reasons for deciding not to hire a candidate – all from online checks.

Courtesy of Club Pay

Read our guidelines to create a social media policy for employees.

 5.       Who is managing social media?

Paris Brown has hopefully shocked a lot of organisations into action.  Maybe the penny will finally drop – just because an employee is young and grew up on social media, it does not mean they have the skills to manage social media in your business.

It is not necessarily about age – the story of the journalist above (who must be 50) shows older people can be as stupid as young ones online.  But you do need judgement. 

For most businesses you also need to understand senior, sophisticated networking skills.  You can bring business in from business to business social media – but you do need the skills and experience to do this.

Paris Brown has now stepped down from this job, courageously facing the media as she did so.  She will have grown up quickly in the process and probably be an asset to many an organisation in the future.

Are corporates and other organisations sitting on social media time bombs?  How many senior managers do understand and manage it in their organisation – how many are completely clueless?

Friday 12th April, Nicky Campbell on Radio 5Live, discussion on ‘Should careless tweets cost you your job?’

Listen again available for the next 7 days http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rr6x7 starts from 5.42 minutes

The post 5 social media lessons every chief executive should learn from Paris Brown appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

Packed with examples of best practice and case studies, I have been so impressed at how professionals are using social media – from consultants and GPs to occupational therapists and a policeman.  There are really strong, supportive communities in this field of mental health and the last impression from working with these really inspiring people is – business has a lot to learn from this.

 So what has impressed me over the last few months?

1.  The breakdown of hierarchies

One upon a time, doctors were king and expected to know all the answers.  These days patients are seen as part ‘expert’ and joint decision maker in their treatment.  In mental health, more than any other field it seems to me, treatment has to be a partnership between ‘the expert’ and ‘the patient’ (I got myself into knots over the language used in this field and my apologies if I am still making mistakes).

Social media is a fantastic way to break down barriers in achieving this.  And if business leaders are wanting to engage more with their employees, there is a lot to learn from how this is being done in mental health.

Mark Brown, editor of One in Four a lifestyle magazine by and for people with mental health difficulties, points out how satisfying it is for someone who in everyday life would be seen as a ‘patient’, becoming the ‘expert’ when talking to others through social media – and both learning from the experience.  He says: “I think mental health professionals have to keep up with the aspirations, ideas, hopes and ideals of the people they work on behalf of.  Engaging with social media is part of that.” 

 And a blogger, who goes under the name of Little Feet, says:  “I would love to see the ‘them’ and ‘us’ barriers broken down in mental health; social media has provided the medium for this to happen.”

 2.  Learning from peers

There were two great examples of professionals who have set up social media forums and sharing and engaging with their peers.

Sue Sibbald is a service user consultant in Sheffield, living with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  Sue is online on Twitter as @BPDFFS (FFS – fighting for services) Facebook and has a blog

She set up @OfficialBPDchat in 2012 to help people affected by the diagnosis. Each Sunday at 9pm, anyone can take part in an hour long chat using the hashtag #BPDchat – on anything from ‘coping skills for the holidays’ to coping with difficult times.

The other was @wenurses which has the #wenurses chat on a Thursday evening at 8pm.  They were kind enough to host a chat about what we should include in the social media ebook and particularly looking at some of the issues around boundaries between professional and personal lives.

I guess there are a few good social media forums in business – the best that comes to mind is Yorkshire Mafia’s LinkedIn group which has some really good discussions and helpful sharing.  I just felt there was far more going on in the mental health field than we’ve started to see in business yet.

 3.  Fantastic community engagement

Any business looking to engage with their local community should read the ebook.  Here are ideas about how you could support community projects or set up ones under your umbrella to be a part of your community.

I love the Leeds Wellbeing Web which is a blog by and for people experiencing mental health difficulties. It is run by a group of volunteer community journalists who contribute information, stories, pictures or films about places and activities in Leeds which help maintain their wellbeing. The aim is to create a fantastic online resource where people can share their experiences of staying well in Leeds.

This blog aims to encourage people to think more positively and proactively about their mental health and help them to maintain their wellbeing.  It’s about giving people a voice to tell their own stories and the story of their city through their own eyes.

  4.  Social media as an innovative tool for your business

Businesses are very slow to understand the role of thought leadership blogs.  But used imaginatively, you can engage with people you only ever dreamed of meeting or having a conversation with.

Mental Health Cop is a serving 24/7 police inspector blogging in a primarily professional capacity with an informal tone. He set up a range of social media accounts in 2011 to engage and educate around the role of the police in mental health related scenarios – originally to help police officers to ensure better and more informed responses to incidents.  But he noticed an appetite for direct engagement with other non-police professionals and more importantly with people who use mental health and police services.

He said:  “My blog – www.mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com  – is the primary store of information: almost 250 articles on all aspects of policing, mental health and criminal justice.  Twitter and Facebook are the vehicles by which to publicise the articles and engage with people who want to discuss them. 

“I have also found Twitter has been a space for people to raise whatever issues are affecting them and ask for a police view.  This has included patients checking the application or relevance of legal frameworks that are being applied or considered in relation to them, either by the NHS or by the police.

“I prefer to think of social media as a dialogue rather than a broadcasting platform.   I keep things quite informal and think that the term ‘cop’ in “MentalHealthCop” indicates this informality.  I have been known to jest and joke with people where it seems appropriate because I hear positive feedback about ‘official’ Twitter accounts that show a human side.  I think it is important to be accessible and engaging but this is almost always around the main theme of the platforms:  policing, mental health and criminal justice.

I am extremely grateful to have been invited to help on this project and inspired by all those who have helped – thank you.

My overwhelming impression of those using social media in mental health is that they are incredibly generous of spirit, authentic and extremely open-minded to learn and help each other.

For me there is a lot for businesses to learn – and I am still reflecting on what we should be taking from these inspirational leaders.  If you have had a chance to read this (free) ebook, what is your impression of about these thought leaders?

And with many thanks to the kind reviewers of this ebook

Mental Elf

Connecting Social Care and Social Media

Reviews from Niccola Swan, director Leeds Mind and Sheena Hastings, chief feature writer, Yorkshire Post

The post What businesses can learn from mental health practitioners appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

Courtesy of elearningbase

This weekend Google changed the algorithms that affect how your website is ranked on its search engine. If your rankings on Google have suddenly changed – this is why.

These are probably some of the most significant changes Google has ever made – thanks to @chrisnorton and his excellent blog for alerting us to the date this was happening – and they are very good news for those in the B2B market, who care more about quality relationships than getting thousands of visitors to your site.

How does Google rank your site?

What Google used to do was rank your site based on the number and quality of links (called backlinks) to your site containing the keywords you wanted to be found on.

This led to a whole industry based on SEO (search engine optimisation), where people in back rooms have been working all day to set up links to your site which contain the keywords you need such as ‘Leeds litigation lawyer’ or whatever pulls traffic to your website.

Courtesy of thoughtl

Google recognised that this often delivered ‘a low quality experience’.  In other words, people who were searching for ‘Leeds litigation lawyer’ did not necessarily land on the sites you would expect to have come up top.

Our associate, Jonny Ross, wrote about Penguin and Panda in a guest blog for us in December, explaining how these backlinks used to work and what will be needed in future.

The future for your website on Google rankings

Courtesy of webdesignerdepot

So how could Google find a way to rank websites based on what most people would say was a ‘good site’ or ‘a high quality experience’?

By measuring what is happening in social media.

Let the people do the talking.  If lots of people are tweeting about the latest content on your website and clicking through to it; if they are leaving comments on your blogs; liking it on LinkedIn – well, Google reckons that is a pretty good measure that you have got stuff on your website that is useful.

But if all you have on your website is static copy – how are your clients going to rate or talk about it?  You need to set up mechanisms so that the wider world can interact with your business online.

Three easy ways to help your Google rankings

If you are reluctant to enter the world of social media, throw away all thoughts that this is about teenagers chatting on Facebook.  It really isn’t.  Enter the grown up world of doing business online and forming relationships with people you only dreamed that your business might ‘meet’ one day.

1. Start with a blog.  Provide insights, tips, advice for your clients.  Make it easy for clients to comment and share the blog.  This isn’t expensive.  WordPress is generally reckoned to be the best blogging software and is free
2. Set up a Twitter account, also free.  Start tweeting about things that will interest and help your clients – it could be a newspaper article, a speech or a discussion online.  We had a really helpful discussion on Twitter recently when we posted a question ‘should internal communications sit with HR or external communications?’
3. Share your blog on LinkedIn

Google+ will come of age

Courtesy blog.songcastmusic.com

Google has been struggling to get its own social media platform, Google +, to be used and recognised.  These new changes mean Google+ is about to become more important.

Will we all be using Google+ properly by the end of the year?  I know it is important – but does that mean we will actually use it? Or love it?!

The post Google changed its algorithms this week – three steps to ensure your website is highly ranked appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

An effective intranet that is functional, easy to use and has been created with the buy-in of both senior managers and employees is one of the most effective ways of sharing information across large organisations. Sadly, however, intranets often fall short.

If your organisation is considering a new intranet system or planning a new intranet project right now, then this blog should help you focus your efforts in the right areas and create an effective intranet that employees will value and use.

Do you need an intranet?

Companies that decide they want an intranet first, then ask what they could use it for, tend to build something expensive that doesn’t get used. As with all communications channels (social media a perfect example), you should begin with the business problem or goal and then choose the right channel to solve it; not the other way round.

If your company is a single site SME and you simply require a portal for sharing documents, then a shared network drive will be a much cheaper solution. If you only require somewhere for multi-site employees to keep in touch with one another, then a social media solution like Yammer may be better.

What can an intranet do and how much will it cost?

If your job is selling the intranet concept to your board or senior management team, then you need to be very clear about what it will achieve. Requirements determine cost, and intranets or internal portals are (or to be effective, should be) bespoke depending on requirements. It is therefore difficult to put a figure on a new intranet until you know what you want it to do.

When considering cost, don’t forget to factor in staff time for managing the whole project, including post-launch training and maintenance. Don’t underestimate how large an intranet project can be! However, this blog by Mimi Garrity Denman shows it can be turned round very quickly if you have full buy-in and support. 

Choosing the right intranet functionality features

Basic systems can simply be a portal to share common policy documents, templates and staff guidance handbooks etc. Additional communication requirements might include things like: latest news; staff discussion forum; ceo blog etc. More sophisticated systems might include a higher functionality specification, for example:

• Live calendars for booking events, meeting rooms and staff holidays or rotas
• Interactive online training with a video player and bookings system
• Collaborative project management software with project group forums, task lists and discussions

Getting employee buy-in and engagement

Introducing an intranet system for internal communications involves a culture change. Be aware of this, and sensitive to whether it suits all teams in your company – everyone needs to feel included. Provide additional training for all staff who require it and make sure everyone has equal access.

Intranets also need to be compelling otherwise employees won’t use them. Employee engagement should be a consideration right at the start during the scoping and briefing stages, otherwise an intranet system can simply become an expensive white elephant.

(1)    Time saving functionality – A good starting point is to look at where employees are spending their time and save it for them. Are the HR and Finance departments wasting a lot of time sending and processing standard forms and timesheets? Or are the R&D teams saving project progress reports and task handovers for monthly project team meetings when an online forum with task management could shorten the critical path for their projects?

(2)    Usability – An intuitive feel, effective search functionality and simple navigation are all key components of a user-friendly intranet system. Design should be a key consideration, with content and layout focused around making the end user journey as short as possible.

(3)    Reasons to visit – Give employees lots of reasons to visit! As well as functional job-related reasons, think about social (organising the Christmas party, details on local restaurants) and financial incentives (classified ads for staff to sell things or request tradespeople recommendations etc). Morrisons cleverly shows its up-to-date share price on the intranet. As all staff have shares in the company, it keeps them logging in all day to find out how much their shares are worth!

Maintaining your intranet

Once set up, an intranet needs to be managed and maintained or it will quickly become dated. Appoint an Intranet Champion (great debate on whether this should be from the HR or Communications team here) to lead the project, organise staff training, and ensure content is regularly updated (a content schedule can really help with this). For larger organisations, this role may require a dedicated full time member of staff.

Thank you to Sue Symington and Jonny Ross for sharing their intranet expertise for this blog.

The post How to build a successful intranet for your company appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

Courtesy of styleweekly

This was the question that a client emailed me last week and it set me thinking.  My immediate response was, it has to be in external comms.   Then I started thinking about some companies where they have outstanding HR teams and it would sit more naturally there.

I posted this question on LinkedIn and Twitter – and here are some of the thoughts.  Interestingly, internal communications is clearly an activity that everyone wants to own – those in HR said it should sit in their domain, those in marketing and comms insist it should rest with them!

Look at the responses below.  There are contributions from Kingsley Iball, retired ecologist and board member of Leeds Federated social housing; Nick Eggleton who specialises in branding and marketing; Lorna Branton, head of external communications at Sheffield Hallam University; Gareth James was personnel director of Rhone Poulenc and  now runs People Plus – an HR consultancy; and Simon Kingsnorth was head of people experience at First Direct and now runs Optimal HR..

Simon Kingsnorth makes a valid point that a lot of this will depend on what he calls ‘the level of HR maturity’ – in essence is HR there for compliance and tactics or in an organisational development role.

J Craig Mundy writes in the Harvard Business Review, on Why HR still isn’t a strategic partner.  He says the very fact this question is still being asked is because in so many organisations it just has not happened.  He suggests that HR leaders should ask of every activity, does this cause friction in the business or flow?  He explains ‘Friction is anything that makes it more difficult for people in critical roles to win with the customer.  Flow, on the other hand, is doing everything possible to remove barriers and promote better performance.’

This very much supports our view – I wrote in this blog about the role of internal communications to understand the customer better.

We are just about to start working with a major new client on their internal communications.  They liked the fact that we are strategic and our starting point is to look at what internal comms are needed to deliver business goals.   We’ve all seen businesses where they have loads of newsletters and an intranet with lots of information that may be interesting but add little value. 

Our role with this client will be to set up communications that create an innovative culture; that will ensure employees trust what they hear from management; that will deliver better value and service to the customer.

So coming back to the original question – where should internal comms sit?  I guess you have to ask the following questions

-        What do you want internal communications to achieve?  What is the biggest issue and what will be its role?

-        What are the roles and skills in existing HR and marketing/communications teams – is either team already a ‘strategic partner’ in the business?  (while J Craig Mundy talks about HR not being a strategic partner, everything he says could equally be written about communications)

-        Do you need to recruit new skills – and where will they fit best culturally?

And that comes back to the debate we had on LinkedIn and Twitter.  I went back to Kingsley Iball to say I agreed that internal comms must sit with everyone including customers and stakeholders, but I think our client was asking about where physically an internal comms person/team should sit and who should manage them.

He came back to say ‘Ah!  Hot-desking freelancer maybe’

And actually, I had already been thinking about this.  When I went to Ernst & Young many years ago, it was just as the law came in that allowed professionals to market themselves (I know, hard to remember all that now!).  Marketing and PR were very new functions and there was no natural ‘home’ for them in our London office and no-one quite knew how to structure marketing – should it be central or functions in divisions or sectors – or part of the international structure?

Courtesy of verax

As a result we were reorganised every six months it seems and my team was located not just on different floors but in different groups and buildings.

It was the best thing that could have happened.  Apart from the rapid promotions this involved, we got to understand the breadth of the business, the gripes in different departments, how communications reached the outer corners of our operations.

In terms of where should internal comms physically sit, I would say ‘keep moving’.  As to who should manage it, I think this should go into the team that is most strategic and business-focused.   As Simon Kingsnorth says, the most important thing is to be clear about purpose and have influence.

But whatever the decision, HR, external comms and internal comms have all got to work as a close-knit team.

So, thanks to everyone who contributed to this debate – and have we ended up with the ‘right’ answer for our client?!! 

The post Where should internal communications sit – in HR or external communications? appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

She rightly points out that corporate response to internet abuse is ‘wildly inadequate’, with most companies relying on issuing guidelines and doing some monitoring – but says they might as well not bother.

The article was inspired by Prof Ugrin’s research, which says that American employees can spend up to 80 per cent of their working day cyberloafing on tasks that have nothing to do with their work.

It seems there are two issues here.  The first is a corporate culture which has such poor management that employees are presumably 80 per cent inefficient?  The remedy here is clear leadership, a motivating culture, great internal communications and clear direction – and measurement – as to what employees have to produce in the way of work.  And performance management for those not delivering what they should.

The second issue is that of distraction – and I confess, I give talks with advice on how to manage time on social media efficiently, but fail to do it well myself.

Lucy admits that she often works at weekends to make up for lost time.

So this issue is about people who are highly motivated, want to do a good job but are wasting their time. 

I recently came across a very large corporate whose answer to this is only to give internet access to the top 500 senior managers.  The director who told me, admitted that large swathes of people in their company were inefficient because of this – the word ‘dinosaur’ was mentioned somewhere in this.  As the FT says, bosses are just kidding themselves if they think this is a solution – people will just use their smartphones instead.

BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme last week mentioned the blogger who is caught in legal disputes because she tried to film Carmarthenshire Council meetings.

When I heard Jacqui Thompson interviewed, I just thought what are council bosses doing?  They don’t understand social media and they have absolutely no idea how to engage with bloggers and tweeters who are critical.

Last year I ran a workshop on social media for some 30 business leaders. Going round the room at the start, I asked what each delegate wanted to get out of the session and their view of social media.  A shipping boss was forthright in saying ‘I want to learn how to shut all this Facebook nonsense down’.

Courtesy of Europeword

Later in the morning, having talked through the opportunities of social media, I asked small groups to look at the risks to their businesses.  As I got feedback, imagine the room’s shock when the same shipping boss said ‘the greatest risk to my business is not using social media – I need to get everyone on it and using it.”

While I was delighted to have such a rapid conversion, this wasn’t right either.  And I pointed him towards our guidelines on creating a social media policy for employees!

But there is a clear message.  While business bosses avoid social media, they are not running their businesses efficiently.  You cannot understand the risks, opportunities – and time wasting aspects – unless you are hands-on to some extent.  And until you are active, the chances are that you are not managing it.

Courtesy of Easy-strategy

So what is the answer on managing time?  Lucy summed it up neatly.  She sent out a tweet asking if anyone had found a fail-safe way of getting off Twitter and back to work:  “The great Tom Peters replied at once: ‘Just ignore it and move on!’ – the speed of his response rather undermining his advice. More honest was the man who simply tweeted “no”. But my favourite response came from a woman who said: ‘Too late. #genie/bottle/out.’”

And that is the point. Social media is here to stay.  So if you aren’t yet using it, get started.  You will waste time but you will also find new doors, new conversations and new ways of doing business.  And the opportunities are exciting.

(and do tweet @lucykellaway and @nlightspr if you have any fail safe tips to share!)

The post The genie is out of the bottle – social media is here to stay. Are you managing it or avoiding it? appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.