Tuesday 11 July 2017

Birmingham Social Media Cafe #BRUMSMC May/June

 For May's Birmingham Social Media Cafe with CliveReevesPRBrum Hour aka David W Massey and Phil Choi aka The Blog Trainer took us to the quirky cool Tilt coffee bar in City Arcade.
Tilt Twitter
Craft beers, first class coffee and delicious treats such as BAKE's Snickers and lemon cheesecake bundt are all on offer at Tilt.
Tilt Twitter
By the Tilt window was the delegation of 4 from digital marketing agency Connecting Element led by Client Service Manager Matt Bowell. Matt talked about their clients from the restaurant industry and their work with bloggers and influencers to promote brands such as Miller & Carter and Harvester.
Near left in the photo is brilliant copywriter Anna Gunning who turns company jargon into beautiful content. To Anna's left was the Mac Birmingham team who are fighting back against huge funding cuts with exciting promotional content and events. To Anna's right is charismatic vlogger Sinead Latham who was a wiz at DigiCities week. Next to Sinead is the legend that goes by the name of Brummie Gourmand aka Ryan Parish. Ryan's blog is full of brilliant foodie finds.
BrummieGourmand.com
To Dave's left is accounting maestro Practical Edd who gives Ryan a run for his money with kwl restaurant tips. It was an eclectic group at Tilt working on some exciting upcoming projects.

Brum Night Cafe in the Gunmakers Arms
Brum Hour twitter
Wood you believe how good the Gunmakers Arms looks since it's recent refurbishment? The Two Towers Brewery real ale pub had just been completed before our visit mid June and hosts everything from gigs to board games nights and soon the Brum Vegan Beer Fest
Gunmakers Brum twitter
Attendees included PR specialist Karen from Cup & String Communications, visual communications designer Rachel Khor and Kelly and Becca from the JC Social Media team
 Dave introduced first speaker of the night Marketing Manager Adam Snelleksz from CMA Video who work with clients such as the Sealife Centre, Sport Birmingham, Legoland and Coventry Gin Festival. I was really impressed with what Adam said about a video communicating so much more personality than just a few lines of text. You can show off your knowledge, skills, enthusiasm and expertise to impress a customer with why they should hire your services. Adam mentioned the power of filming customer testimonials and user-generated content.

 Adam's Top 4 Video Tips
 1) Plan what you are going to say in the video by only having one or two main takeaway messages for viewers rather than a rambling conversation about everything you do.
2) Choose a short video length of 30 to 90 seconds to get your message across as many people may be watching whilst travelling so have less time to browse
3) Have a call to action message in your video e.g. call us now, for more information, to sign up.
4) Tell customers what they want to hear rather than generic phrases such as we have the best staff, reputation etc. They want to hear that you will save them money, time, make them look more attractive etc.
 Next speaker expert copywriter Anna Gunning told us that for you to resonate with your audience you will need to imagine that you were talking to one individual person rather than a generic crowd. So you personalise your content as if you were speaking to a customer named Joe and you imagine Joe's background, job and personality.
 Next rather than describing your product you talk about what problem it solves for Joe. You start broad then empathise then specialise. Work out where they are in the decision-making process and give them the information they need to guide them towards a purchase. Great advice!

June: BrumSMC Alpha Works
Everyone who visits Alpha Works gets excited by the surroundings, vibrant offices, amazing views and creative energy there.
 It was a great turnout with some new visitors. You may notice that a certain multimedia journalist and podcasting enthusiast Adela Earlington likes to be centre of attention in group photos. 😃
 Community Manager,  Theresa White told us about the diverse community of freelancers, entrepreneurs and small businesses in the offices. The hot-desking options are brilliant as you can pop in for a day, a week or a whole month depending on your needs.
 "Meeting you with a view to a kill".
Love these views from the 21st floor!
 Don't daydream too much as you need to make your own business dreams come true.

 On the ground floor the Alpha Cafe is run by the team behind the highly regarded Faculty Coffee shop in Piccadilly Arcade.
Mouthwatering treats! I had the raspberry and white chocolate brownie and it's fantastic!

Finally 
Theresa White and Phil Choi
The Blog Trainer Phil Choi is doing a free workshop as part of NatWest's Set For Success series.

If you need any help with the following this event is perfect for you.

Introduction to WordPress
Creating blogs for better SEO
How to craft a great blog post
Tools and apps to help you create better content
Driving social followers to your blog
Q&A


Words by Paul Clarke.
Pin It Now!

No comments:

Post a Comment