Enterprise Nation Birmingham May and June Highlights

 There is no such thing as a routine Enterprise Nation meet up when Debbie Assinder is the organiser. For May's meet up Debbie arranged a visit to Enterprise Nation member and champion Rosie Ginday's wonderful boutique shop Miss Macaroon in the Great Western Arcade in Birmingham.

As you will note from the photo below what makes Miss Macaroon extra special is that it combines producing outstanding luxurious quality macaroons with its social enterprise values.

Ocia below left, is a star graduate of Miss Macaroon's training scheme helping those overcome difficult experiences and it was a joy to hear her talk about all her new skills, confidence and enjoyment from being part of Miss Macaroon.

On the business side Miss Macaroon is thriving on some big name corporate clients such as Karl Lagerfeld who is a regular customer of some super stylish personalised macaroons.

Can you spot founder Rosie Gindlay in amongst the portraits below?

Miss Macaroon are fantastic at marketing the brand and are always trying new activities for promotion. Francesca Chong headed to the Bullring in June to run an eye-catching boutique pop-up hosted by Appear Here 

Elyssa Horton talked about the collaboration with Blow Ltd the Uber of the beauty world delivering beauty services direct to your home or office.

 After a successful launch night in May the Blow team are back on Friday July 14th offering free makeovers and up-dos with every £5 spend. Add in a glass of prosecco and some exclusive ice creams and it's the perfect way to start your weekend off with some fun. 

Grab a free ticket here: Miss Macaroon x Blow Ltd Summer Beauty Blow Out

Taste the rainbow.

Miss Macaroon is a wonderful example of the talented and inspiring members of Enterprise Nation who benefit from supporting each other's success through sharing skills and meeting up at networking events.

June Meetup

In June Debbie treated us to a trip to the Jewellery Quarter and the very sophisticated surroundings of Assay Studios "A creative place for curious minds".

Assay Studios Manager Ally Mitchell told us that the building founded in 1877 was home to the Assay Office for over 130 years and used to hallmark millions of precious items a year. One can picture the safe below full of glorious silver items.

The great Matthew Boulton played a big part in petitioning parliament to establish Birmingham's first Assay Office in the 1770s.

Nowadays it's where the top talent of Birmingham's tech and creative community hangout.

Glide up the beautiful Victorian staircase and you will find plush offices aplenty.

All that's missing is Sherlock Holmes smoking a pipe.

Assay Studios is home to John Lewis Tech and Deliveroo so there is a tremendous energy and momentum in the building.

The offices range from 300 to 10000sq foot

 We all loved the period details.

You can't find a 'safer' meeting place.

She Means Business in Birmingham

 Debbie had the female entrepreneurs of the West Midlands scrambling to write notes about places on Enterprise Nation's forthcoming trade missions to New York and Singapore potentially being partly sponsored by the local DTI.

Everyone's favourite social media guru David Glenwright gave expert tips and insight on making the most out of Facebook for your business.

Top Facebook Stats

1) In 2017 Facebook has 2bn users.

2) Daily active users open Facebook 14 times a day and spend 4 minutes on average browsing.

3) The optimum number of times a business should post a week is 3-5 times.

4) Videos get 2.5 times more engagement than text posts. Longer videos attract more people.

5) 60% of Facebook users are mobile only.

Top Facebook Tips

1) Choose a good profile photo as it will appear on every single post you make. Your logo or image should be clean, simple and text light.

2) You can now have a video cover photo at the top of your page.

3) Use apps such as Quik to group still photos together into a video with music and a text overlay.

Credit Debbie Assinder

Beating the Facebook Algorithm

1) The algorithm which determines what posts are shown to who and how often is influenced by 1000s of factors. These include who you are close to, your previous actions, location and how your friends are reacting to posts.

2) You are competing for attention so choose only your best content to post and the optimum time to post it.

3) If you post something at 9am and no one likes or comments on the post, Facebook may not show any more posts from you that day.

4) The more likes you get the more people Facebook will show the post to. If your post is a hit Facebook may show your next post to a bigger audience.

5) Shares are the most valuable reaction to a post as the viewer must be highly engaged to want to do this.

6) To get more comments ask questions at the end of your posts.

7) The optimum post length is around 250-300 characters and be sure to use a catchy opening line.

8) Facebook skewer the algorithm to promote new products. At the moment that would be live streaming.

Good examples of Facebook practice are:
1) Innocent Drinks for fun content.
2) Birmingham Hippodrome for promotional activity.
3) KLM for customer service.

Finally

A big thank you from all to Debbie for all the wonderful support she gives to local entrepreneurs.

Words by Paul Clarke

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