Why wives always know best
Is it just me or do husbands never get it right? If I make the bed, my wife will tell me I’ve not done it properly (pillows not the right shape, quilt too lumpy); when I hang out the washing my wife feels she has to go out after me to finish off the job properly (clothes not hanging at the right angle, underpants are crinkled); if I stack the dishwasher my wife feels the need to restack it (there’s a toast crumb on a plate, she’s spotted half a millimetre of unused space).
Then, when I don’t do the jobs because I am obviously not good enough at them, I get told off for not doing the housework!
My feeling is there are some jobs where it is best to do it yourself. So when I got asked to do the social media marketing for a small wine business, I said no. Not because I don’t love wine (give me a glass of red and I’m anybody’s); it’s just that I am no expert. As I explained to the wine company: if Status Social Media Marketing is managing your wine accounts on Twitter and Facebook and a potential customer tweets you from Sainsburys asking which meat goes best with his Can Rafols dels Caus, me or my team wouldn’t know the answer. We could find out by asking our client but by the time we get the answer, it may be too late. So in my opinion, we are not the best option to manage such an account. It would be better if we trained the wine business how to do it themselves. They can speak with real passion.
I never heard from that wine business again. For all I know they may have got another social media marketing business to tweet on their behalf. Do I regret my decision? No, because I want the best thing for the customer rather than looking out for our bank balance first. Sometimes it is right to manage a business’s social media accounts – but only when you can do it better than they could do it themselves.
There is a lot of mystery surrounding social media marketing but it is not unfathomable. If someone tells you it can’t be taught, they are talking rubbish. Anyone can be shown how to run their own social media accounts and time-saving devices are available to avoid Twitter and Facebook taking over your life.
So the next time someone offers to run your social media marketing, ask yourself if you really need someone to do so. Or do you need to quote my wife and reply: “I’ll do it myself because I want it done properly.”
The Day I was Attacked by a Children’s TV Star
It’s not often you meet a true megastar and that moment in 1981 will stick with me with forever. Being a journalist for 20 years, including 11 years in the BBC, I met many famous people. Most were very ordinary in person, the odd one shone. But that encounter when I was just 10 years old knocks all other celebs into a cocked hat.
Emu (left) and Rod Hull (right)
I was sitting in the audience at the Pier in Cleethorpes when I was attacked by a large bird. No it wasn’t Jo Brand, it was Emu. His owner Rod Hull had been entertaining the crowd when he asked for a volunteer from the audience. As he walked from the stage, scores of children put their hands out to stroke the famous bird. I didn’t. To my cost. Before I knew it I was assaulted by a feathery monster. How does a ten year old react to such an attack? He dives on his mother of course.
Rod loved that of course and he dragged me up onto the stage to help him with a magic trick. As he prepared it, he asked me to sing a song to the audience so I obliged to loud applause (I was a show off even then). The magic trick was performed, everyone clapped and my moment of fame was over.
There’s nothing like an Emu cuddle
That was 30 years ago but the memories are still vivid. I remember the smell of Rod’s damp, yellow jacket, that moment when my world spun as Emu threw me upside down, that bashful feeling as the audience cheered my singing.
Isn’t that what we are all looking for in social media – to be memorable? Why else do we tell the world what we are doing? Why else as businesses do we try and get people to like or follow us?
Yet being memorable isn’t very easy. How do we create content that will stick in people’s minds? Well thinking about what your audience wants is a good start. Unless you’re a Gap or a Coca-Cola you can’t really keep your customers engaged by only talking about your product or service.
Most of us need to mix it up a bit. Work out who your target audience is and alongside the business updates, add other interesting content that you know they will like. It might relate to your business; it might be something in the news you know people are talking about; it might be products that your customers might go to buy that aren’t yours.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Don’t be predictable. Be creative. Keep the fans of your Facebook page coming back. That means posting often – preferably two or three times a day. Most people never return to a page after they ‘like’ it. Do YOUR Facebook insights tell that story? Click on ‘Reach’ to find out. With Twitter you should really be posting around five times a day to have a chance of making an impact.
We need to be remembered on social media or there’s little point in doing it. So don’t neglect your accounts. Think about what your audience wants and get stuck in. And if you don’t do it properly, I’m going to send round Grotbags.
Read MoreRugby tackling the Duke of Edinburgh
It’s not often you come within a hair’s breadth of committing treason. That’s what happened to me one, almost fateful day, in 1999.
It was the 800th birthday of the city of Hull and as a Yorkshire Television reporter, I’d been sent to report on the visit of the Queen to mark the occasion. My role was a pretty minor one – I had to interview the people who Her Majesty spoke to on her walkabout on the city’s streets.
The Duke had a lucky escape that day
I was behind the cordon when the Queen approached and she stopped to talk to a lady on the opposite side of her route. So, I waited for the Queen to pass and prepared to make my move. When she was a safe distance away I ducked under the barrier and darted towards my target. But as I charged across no man’s land, a blur of something caught in my peripheral vision. I skidded to a halt, narrowly missing accidentally rugby tackling the Duke of Edinburgh. And saving my journalism career at the same time.
I didn’t have much of a strategy that day and it wasn’t a concept I thought about much in reporting assignments. As a social media marketer, though, it plays a big part. One of the first things I talk about in every training session is strategy. Why are you on social media? Where are your customers? What do you want to get out of social media? So many businesses jump into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, without any thought of how they are going to make the networks work for them. Why waste months floundering about with social media when a well-thought out strategy could have made it effective straight away?
I’ve been doing a lot of LinkedIn training in businesses recently and one of my first questions is: What do you want to get out of it? What is your LinkedIn strategy? LinkedIn reminds users they won’t be as effective without a 100% completed profile. What rubbish. LinkedIn, for instance, say you ought to have an application on your profile but if their applications don’t fit your strategy then don’t install them. Especially the Amazon reading list when your last book was a Harry Potter.
The same goes for filling in your past jobs. Only put in the ones relevant to your strategy. Don’t copy the example of the general manager at a Porsche garage who put ‘burger flipper at McDonalds” as his previous job 24 years earlier because he ‘needed to list another job to get my rating up so there you go’. Everything you do on LinkedIn should be tied to your strategy, whether it’s your status updates, the groups you get involved in or the connections you make.
So when you think social media, think strategy first. Don’t rugby tackle your way into it. You never know when you might suddenly commit treason by mistake.
The Pet Shop Boys and me
Did you know I was once the third member of the Pet Shop Boys? Well, in my head I was. I loved the keyboard-based music of the Eighties – The Human League, ABC, New Order… I’m even listening to Erasure as I write this blog. One day I even went out and bought a keyboard, a rather expensive one. The Pet Shops Boys (x3) Bigger than Baltimora?
The keyboard has since been sold and I never became a famous keyboard player. Despite my undoubted natural talent, it was clear my lack of putting what I learned into practice was to blame. Isn’t that the case with much of what we learn? I did lots of courses as a journalist at the BBC and much of what I was taught went in but never really sunk in – no matter how good the content. I’ve trained hundreds of people to use social media yet many will never properly put into practice what they’ve been taught. It’s no wonder really; life is so incredibly busy that even the best intentions sometimes fall by the side of the internet superhighway.
Next month (February) we are running one of the UK’s first BTEC’s in Social Media for Business. It caused quite a stir when we launched it. We were asked: could we really help people to understand how to run a social media campaign on a part-time course?
Well that’s where my Pet Shop Boys failure comes in. The BTEC involves three days of classroom coaching followed by several months of putting it into practice. Participants will take what they’ve learned face-to-face and use their new skills on Facebook, Twitter and whichever other social media networks they decide are appropriate for the customers they are targeting. If there’s one thing I learnt from keyboard playing, it’s that you have to put your learning into practice straight away. 
How many of you have been on courses and never used your new knowledge ever again? I remember getting some wise advice from a course leader to re-read his course material three times if I wanted it to sink in. As a news editor, I used to get my reporters to report back their course experiences to their BBC colleagues – but how many bosses ever ask you about the course THEY put you on?
I look back with regret at my failure to be a pop star. I could have been as big as Baltimora if I’d persevered. Mind you, there’s still time, I suppose – when the Pet Shop Boys realise my Hovis remix would make a great dance track…
Find out more about the BTEC Social Media for Business.
Message for Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe: Here is the Hovis tune (without a disco beat) so you can hear the potential.
Too boring for social media?
Are some businesses too boring for social media? I’m talking about those industries people may describe as “traditional”, “safe” or “straight”?
Well, it’s currently that time of year when people start predicting what will happen next in social media and there is one thing I’m sure of: Next year will be the turn of the “boring” businesses to get social media.
Last week a businesswoman said to me after spotting one of my LinkedIn updates:
“You’re moving in good circles. Who would have said barristers would want or need social media training!?”
Barristers - not too boring for social media
She isn’t alone in thinking that. I’ve been warned off approaching certain types of companies because they apparently wouldn’t be interested in social media. Yet in the last few months, Status Social Media Marketing has trained power station suppliers, insurance directors and staff at a credit card processing company. I’ve been invited to speak to estate agents, turf manufacturers and architects. Power stations - now loving social media
It may have taken some time but the more traditional businesses are realising that they CAN gain from training in social media marketing. It’s dawning on them that using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging is not just a medium for the service industry but for the business-to-business (B2B) market too.
It’s always good to get feedback after a training session, especially from someone who’s gone home and put our teaching into action straight away. Emails like this one; from someone in one of the traditional companies we trained:
“Last night I searched through Linked in to find more connections. When I logged onto my emails this morning I had 26 new connections and one of them is an expert who advises all over Europe and I have arranged to meet him at Harrogate in January!
“Although this is only a small success and no extra business has obviously come from it yet, it amazed me that in such a small space of time this was possible and it certainly would not have happened without social media and without the training we had.”
Who says “boring” companies can’t use social media marketing? Not me!
Gary Barlow and me
Gary Barlow and I have something significant in common. We have both improved with age. Do you remember when Gary was the “fat, ugly one” from Take That? Nobody fancied Gary – not when you had Robbie or Mark to oggle, or even Jason and Howard at a push. There was no doubt the bleach-blond haired Gary was the talented one but fanciable? Not likely. Skeletor - better looking than Mark Saxby Gary Barlow before he was lovely
Now of course things are very different. Every Saturday night during The X Factor, social media is full of remarks from ladies young and old enthusing how gorgeous Gary is. He has no doubt improved with age and you’d be hard pressed to guess he’s 40 years old.
That’s where me and Gary Barlow are kinsmen. I was an ugly muggly when I was younger – my lips were so large that my school nickname was Beaky. Kids used to shelter under them when it rained. My cheeks were hollowed, my hair greasy. Yet, like Gary, I’ve improved with age.
But was Gary really fat or were the others just thin? Was Gary actually ugly or the others better-looking? Was I as funny-looking as I remember being. Well the photos from my school days don’t lie and I’ll let you judge Gary’s early Take That photos…
What is undeniable is that Gary and I have reinvented ourselves. Whether by design or accident. 
Facebook is a place for reinvention too. Not getting much interaction on your page? Try something different. Don’t just put status updates on it, post photos, videos, add polls, run a competition. Before you know it your fans will start coming back – Facebook rewards varied and consistent content by placing it on your fans’ newsfeeds.
Want to get more business through your LinkedIn profile? Post a daily status update, unconnect your Twitter feed, and interact with people in groups. After a few days check the “Who’s Viewed My Profile” feature and you’ll see how popular you’ve become.
So you CAN reinvent yourself. As Gary Barlow and I have proven. But let’s not get carried away. After all, my wife recently told me how I think I’m better looking than I actually am. And I’m sorry to say she’s probably right.
Want to find out more about Mark Saxby and how he looks now?
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