The September H&C News Roundtable event took place on Wednesday 21st September at the fabulous Clerkenwell London, a concept store which showcases a globetrotting collection of designers and artisans. With an on-site perfumery, bespoke tailoring services and a wine cellar within its warren-like network of interconnected spaces, we settled comfortably into the Piano Lounge where we enjoyed a platter lunch whilst Denis Sheehan, Publisher at H&C News, welcomed each of the guests and gave a brief introduction to the afternoon.
Denis opened proceedings with the question “Does the number of people that follow you on social media say a lot about your company? Or not?”
As the delegates introduced themselves they each gave a brief outline of how they use social media as part of their job role and hinted at key points that they looked for when using any of their social media channels, although Twitter and Facebook dominated the conversation, in that order.
Engagement, engagement, engagement……was the resonating theme that came out. It’s not only the number of people that follow you, or indeed the number of people that you follow, and reciprocal following is not the name of the game – it’s what happens during the process – how engaging is your content, how does it resonate with your audience and what learning do you get from the interaction and most importantly, what you do with that information.
It’s an age thing, suggested one delegate – the younger generation know all about social media and what makes it work – they could teach the older generation a thing or two! But then of course you don’t know who is operating the Twitter account for a big company – it could be the ageing CEO or the bright young thing, no matter which, as long as they are providing the right level of input.
Done well, social media can be a key driver of traffic onto websites – up to one third of H&C News’ traffic comes via social media – and can be a huge part of any business, whoever does it, said Simon Esner from WSH. In a big organisation like WSH it can even work within the subsidiary companies – their internal twitter account was so successful that it went external, rightly or wrongly, but nevertheless an example of good and relevant content driving engagement.
One twitter account per company or more was another question. If you are in the restaurant business, for example, why talk about your restaurants collectively when you can have a separate channel for each one meaning that posts are more relevant and easier to respond to.
Think about what your tweeting and balance the tone of what you’re saying versus the response you’re looking for. Posts should provide positive news feed and shouldn’t be there to deal with complaints. “Please talk to us directly if you have a complaint don’t just post it onto our Social Media to get a reaction.”
Unique, clever and interesting were all buzz words throughout the afternoon. How should you or should you at all provide links to You Tube, for example? Why not, but the content has to be unique, useful and critically has to engage the audience within 10 seconds or you’ve lost them and using a personality always gets attention!
The conversation turned to the link between PR and Twitter, to launch a new product campaign, for example. If done well the post will generate tweets and interest in the product and it can be very motivating when you see people responding to your posts. It’s that engagement thing again!
Facebook can hit the spot however most agreed that Facebook is much more of a slow burn and is more popular with smaller businesses but it can give legs to a promotional campaign that is run over a longer period of time. Managing your analytics and using them to your advantage will ensure that you choose the right social media channels for your campaigns.
It can be worth paying for engagement to get specific results but while agency help is good and will ensure that your Social Media accounts are constantly monitored and ‘up to date’ you do need to be in touch yourself and think about how you manage the information that you get.
The overall image of all of your social media pages is important. Make it relevant and interesting and use the same theme across all of your channels. It’s not just about how the homepage looks and consider the amount of branding that you display – too much branding can put people off.
The conversation turned to sponsored tweets – how targeted are they? How relevant are they and most importantly how well received are they? The general opinion was that they can just ‘get in the way’on Twitter where things happen more quickly. Whereas if they appear on Facebook, you might take the time to read them, engage with them and even buy the product.
Key pointers for any of your social media channels
Your message – what you say?
Your wording – how you say it?
The person – who is saying it and who is it about? The use of well-known people to attract attention
The timing – not too early, not too late and use weekends – there’s more engagement on a Sunday morning/evening than you’d think
The analysis – Keep track of analytics and use them to your advantage
And don’t fail to recognise what your customers want and not necessarily what you like – this is more engaging for them.
So what did the attendees make of it all?
Daniel Nevitt, Group Marketing Director, Armourcoat: “The latest #HandCSocial roundtable was a great success, personally it was a fantastic opportunity to discuss the use of social media within hospitality with such highly regarded individuals. As a sponsor, we are delighted to continue the focus on social media to benchmark best practice and influence our own marketing activity.”
Julie Fell, Marketing Manager, Electrolux Professional: “It was evident from delegates that their ROI from Social Media marketing is measurable and growing. As such being able to take that learning back and apply to our own activity is valuable. We look forward to being part of the next #HandCSocial.”
Damian Wawrzyniak, Chef Consultant: “Having attended many #HandCSocial events I think it was the best so far! Great people sharing amazing insights and knowledge, thanks to the sponsors and H&C News.”
H&C News would like to thank both our sponsors, Armourcoat and Electrolux for making the #HandCSocial 2016 event possible. CLERKENWELL London for hosting the event and looking after all attendees so well. Most especially all of the guest attendees for their time and contribution to the discussions, we took quite a bit back with us to apply to our social media activity.