Here at Make Your Mark we love the web, so every month we gather to celebrate all things digital and social media-y, and welcome a marvellous guest speaker to Make Your Mark towers.
The next social media afternoon is tomorrow and we are being joined by social reporting supremo David Wilcox who will give us an insight into how social reporting can be used around events, how it can impact membership organisations and any other hot topics.
I’m well chuffed today! Intrigued? I’ll tell you why…
It started off as a day like most others. I woke up, used snooze five times, fell back to sleep, got up with 15 mins to get ready for work, ran down to the station… got into work and turned on my computer.
And guess what I found? The email of all emails, a golden nugget in a sea of ’spam’, what every entrepreneur wants to hear, a lovely webby delight… I’ve been named as an ‘up and coming young entrepreneur’ on the 98point2 website (thanks guys!).
The winners of the 2009 Make Your Mark Enterprising Young Brits Awards were announced today (Tuesday 24 March 2009) at a very swanky ceremony at the Institute of Directors (IoD), London.
They were each presented with a trophy and £1,000 prize money by Chancellor Alistair Darling, who made time to chat to finalists and hear their positive stories.
In my own slapdash style I will attempt to open up the discussion about social media and charity campaigning.
Why? Well, not only is it constantly fascinating (no, really) but it was also the SXSW festival last week and some of the stuff I’ve been reading about it got me thinking. In a more stitched on and connected world it makes sense for all facets of society to be represented and in a larger sense they all are.
I won’t really go into that part of the story as I’ve already touched upon that in my own unique and special way, which I’m guessing you all read right? Right.
The winners of the Global Entrepreneurship Week competition, Unleash It, went along to their prize pow-wow with Raj Anand and the social networking geniuses at Kwiqq this week. The ACS (African Caribbean Society) sat down for a one on one with the team and they grabbed the guys to share their thoughts. Take a look…
Summary of the meeting with Kwiqq from Ugochukwu Obi on Vimeo.
Feedback on meeting from Raj COO @ Kwiqq from Ugochukwu Obi on Vimeo.
Yesterday was the third in a series of webchats in which we look at the somewhat tricky subject of finance in the current climate. Focusing on how businesses can promote themselves online, we invited Jennifer Pirtle, owner of The Make Lounge and Raj Anand, Operations Director of Kwiqq.com to share their ideas on effective online marketing and PR.
Twitter=Pretty good
Jennifer: I use Twitter both to meet people in my industry and get the word out about my website. It’s more than just a cut-and-dried promotional tool it’s also a way of being part of an online community. In term of opportunities I have meet lots of potential suppliers and wholesalers and teachers who could run craft workshops.
We are more connected then ever before. We may not talk to our neighbours anymore and it definitely isn’t all fields round these parts, but if you want to connect, to anyone, anywhere, you can with a click of mouse and a mild dose of RSI.
Fun.
We have moved leaps and bounds to get closer and perhaps moved away from each other in the process. And our connection has become easier, faster, smaller and lighter. The house phone paved the way for the mobile and this was before we became chained to our PC then our Macbooks (of course).
Now we social network, Wikipedia information and Youtube videos. We text and we ring and we talk and talk and talk.
Have you thought of being your own boss, of being an entrepreneur? Maybe you are an entrepreneur. Can you explain it in a video?
The European Commission is looking for videos that explore one of the following subjects: “The entrepreneurial spirit”, “Innovative Entrepreneurship”, “Responsible Entrepreneurship”
For the best video in each of the three categories the European Commission will award a prize of € 3,000, the second best video will be awarded € 2,000, the third best € 1,000.
The producers of the best videos will be invited to the opening event of the European week for small and medium sized enterprises on 6 May 2009 in Brussels, Belgium. Enter here.
Today I read an article that advised me that I should regularly monitor my competition to see what they are up to, to work out their sales strategy and showing me a few ‘back door’ ways to keep tabs on what my competitors are doing online.
Don’t take my word for it (hey I work here) but check out a lovely blog from one of our ambassadors Raj Anand which includes this rather cool pic…
Chocs away
Raj is a fine example of one of our brilliant ambassadors - he spreads the good word about enterprise on social media in particular, he ran a competition in Global Entrepreneurship Week and is supporting Make Your Mark with a Tenner. An all round good egg!
On Tuesday 10 February we held the first in a series of webchats focusing on money saving. We spoke to Alan Young, Home Business Expert and Clive Lewis, from the ICAEW (Institute of Charted Accountants in England and Wales) who gave us their top tips:
1: It’s good to talk
Alan Young “Word of mouth is 100% important as networking can generate up 90-95% of new business. It’s also really important to have as many communication channels to your stakeholders as possible. But make sure you devote your time and effort to the ones you feel are giving you the best results. Be objective and decisive about those that are not working and cut them out.”
2: Tweet about you business
Clive Lewis “I find that Twitter adds value to any business. Personally I think it’s important because there are other accountants on there, who tweet when there are important changes in legislation. This helps keep me up to date and informed.
Secondly, it helps me to notify my clients and followers as to updates on our blog which will then provide them with more detailed information. In the real world, not everyone is going to visit your blog every day, but by tweeting into a channel where people are watching, it drives more traffic to the site.”
3: Find your customer base
Alan Young “It is of course vital to have a customer base and it is always worth considering purchasing a targeted database from, say, BT, Thomson, or via your Chamber of Commerce.”
As you know we do like a bit of web magic around here, so it is with glee that we begin the first of our special Access to Finance web-chats. Today is all about the Rise of the Frugal-preneur and the lovely people from cmypitch (blog roll friends) will also be hosting the chat. Get involved
Make Your Mark with a Tenner is well under way and so now is the time to start telling the world about all of the exciting Tenner-fied activities you’ve got planned - because the world wants to know!
But where can I do this? I hear you ask. Well that’s simple - on the Tenner forum of course! It’s brand new and dying to hear about the latest Tenner happenings, so please show it some love and get commenting!
If you have a suggestion for a new forum topic them please send it on through to [email protected]
Just a quick one-the nice chaps at Business Zone have pinned down the 10 ways Twitter can help promote your business. It’s all very useful stuff and we at Make Your Mark HQ are slightly (very) obsessed with a bit of Twittering so these tips come in super handy.
Diana
PS: We are not the only Twitter lovers out there, take a look at what Stephen-polymath genius-Fry has to say about it…
Today whilst collecting my 6 year old daughter from school, I thought about this question and whether the most enterprising ideas come from a ‘Eureka’ moment or gritted teeth?
To fill you in, I’m up in beautiful Yorkshire - well it usually is beautiful but today it’s raining and snowing! This was the reason for my gritted teeth but it did give me an enterprising idea…
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