For the next in our series of case studies looking at how small businesses are using social media, we caught up with Laura Hampton from inafishbowl.com
In no more than 50 words explain what your business is.
Inafishbowl.com is a business reality website, aimed at giving people the opportunity to learn from the experiences of our 3 start up businesses who we follow via blogs, tweets and video updates. We have a range of business experts giving their advice along the way in their own blog posts.
How do you use social media as a business?
It is important for us that the experiences of the 3 Fishbowl businesses is documented in real time, and social media allows us to do that. Obviously, blogging is a big part of our business, and we use those blogs to give a transparent view into the journeys and experiences of the entrepreneurs. Our blogs link to expert comments on those blogs to ensure the user journey is streamlined and intuitive. We also have a forum on the site which allows further interactivity should people wish to comment on what they read.
In particular, Twitter has been a great tool for us so far to let our followers know when new blog posts from the businesses or from the experts have gone up, or when there is a new video to watch, via the feed of @fishbowlhq. On top of that, Twitter allows us to really engage with our target audience of business people, entrepreneurs and general viewers– something which we at inafishbowl.com view as extremely important. By tweeting updates, we ensure our followers are kept up to date, and by getting involved with conversations and creating discussions, we are able to bring that dimension of engagement, interactivity and a personality behind the brand.
We’ve even created our own weekly “chat” on Twitter, known as #fishbowlfriday, which encourages people to come together every Friday at 3pm to discuss business related topics and network with entrepreneurs and investors by simply ending their tweets with #fishbowlfriday. This can be a really powerful tool – as shown by the success of similar topics such as #watercoolermoment by Enterprise Nation.
We also have Facebook groups which appeal to different areas of our target audience, and a LinkedIn presence where we communicate with experts and potential experts. We also maintain a presence in business related forums where we discuss business topics which arise frominafishbowl.com and also any other business topics of interest where we can get involved and interact with business minded people, providing content which is interesting, relevant and engaging.
What are your business/marketing objectives for social media?
Above all, we always strive to utilise social media as a tool for engagement; creating, generating and facilitating content with which we and our audience can engage and from which we can all benefit and learn. It provides us with the opportunity to show the people behind the brand.
We want people to be really involved with the Fishbowl businesses and to be able to learn from the advice given by the experts, whether they are themselves entrepreneurs, would like to be entrepreneurs, or are simply interested in entrepreneurship (think Dragons’ Den followers etc). The site is about sharing, and social media is our way to facilitate this.
Do you measure the success of your social media marketing? If so, how?
We try to measure our social media marketing success in terms of engagement. So, we look at things like Twitter followers and number of participants in #fishbowlfriday, posts in the forum, ratio of posts left by us in forums to responses on those forums etc. We also utilise Google Analytics and look to achieve a good level of returning visitors and time on site/pages per visit as a measure of how much people are interacting with the brand.
Brand awareness and relationships with the brand are also really important – so if someone has heard of the brand or gives us positive feedback, or someone gets in touch with us on a friendly basis, we know we’re doing something right.
How does social media fit in with the other marketing your company does?
Social media is a fantastic tool for us and one which we really enjoy utilising for its engaging and interactive properties. We use it alongside other marketing techniques – online, we utilise SEO techniques to drive traffic along with online PR and inclusion of articles and blog posts on other websites; offline, we continue to value the use of offline PR and use leaflets, banners and networking events to our advantage, and have a team working with us to promote inafishbowl.com via traditional media.
Do you have plans to increase your use of social media in 2010?
We’re keen to always keep our finger on the pulse of social media, tracking what we think will be the next trends whilst also not being afraid to try out new ideas. Our plan for 2010 is to continue with what we do whilst integrating any new services which we feel will be beneficial to us and our audience.
We are also yet to use Pay Per Click, and have been looking into Google Adwords, Facebook and Twitter Promoted Tweets which may be something we will integrate in the future.
What would be your top 3 tips for businesses looking to get involved in social media?
Inafishbowl.com’s top tips for social media:
- Be engaging. You wouldn’t meet someone at a networking event and simply throw sales messages at them, so don’t do it in social media either. Say things which are relevant to the audience and interesting. Get them to engage with you.
- Be interactive. Social media is a conversation. So converse! You can’t have a conversation on your own, so always ensure you acknowledge all parties by asking questions about them and engaging with their content as well as telling them about you.
- Be transparent. People will see through showy offers and cryptic tweets, so just tell it as it is. Showing your business as transparent and approachable will benefit you in the long run by making you more trustworthy.
Thanks! Don’t forget you can keep up with future case studies by following us or by subscribing to receive our updates via email. If you want to be featured yourself, then get in touch.
Loading ...