50 Surrey-based businesses got to know their HootSuite from their Followerwonk at the first ever Social Media Week event to be held in Surrey and hosted by Woking business Padua Communications. The free breakfast seminar, held at the HG Wells Centre in Woking, was part of September’s global Social Media Week and offered business professionals free advice and tips on how to get the most out the social channels including LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ as well as how to create relevant blog content and what it can do for sales.
One of the event speakers Nicky Rudd, managing director of Padua Communications, said: “We are experiencing one of the biggest shifts in how we communicate in human history and by holding this event we wanted to share with local companies the impact, best practices and trends that social media can have on business. We were thrilled with the turn out and have had an overwhelming response from those who attended.”
The event, which was targeted at both beginner and intermediate users in a business environment, was followed by a panel Q&A session with some very lively discussions about whether the paid for service to LinkedIn was relevant to small companies and how social media can deliver a return on investment.
One example used by blogging expert Tracy Stonard, of Magenta eMedia, explained how an established US spa business nearly went bankrupt but for the power of blogging which ultimately saved the business and had a direct impact on creating $1.7m sales – it was a light bulb moment for many in the room.
Adam Lake, web content officer at Surrey County Council, said of the event: “It was a great chance to keep abreast of what is going on. The whole idea of social media is to be social! This event helped me find out what people are up to, what the latest trends are and also highlighted new channels we can expand into such as blogging and creating content.”
Among the speakers at the event, supported by Woking Borough Council and Connect2Innovation, included Leigh Hopwood, owner of Redd Marketing and chair of the Chartered Institute of Marketing for the South East region and Sally Pritchard, founder and managing director of Something Big.
The presentations from the event can be downloaded from wordpress-221387-749983.cloudwaysapps.com/blog
Note for editors:
SOCIAL MEDIA WEEK was held in September 23-27, 2013
The event hosted 2,500+ events in 25+ cities worldwide
Currently there are 10 million Twitter users in the UK, 75 per cent of whom are ABC1s.
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