Category: Social media

Before I became a Regional Director for Get Ahead, I spent years as a Buying Director for major UK retailers — and then ran my own social media agency, with a specialism in Pinterest for business. I’ve used these platforms commercially. I’ve seen what works, what doesn’t, and what’s simply not worth a busy business owner’s time. This series is my honest perspective on each one. No strategy guides. No content calendars. Just a straight answer to the question you’re probably already asking.

Is Pinterest Worth It for Your Business? 

This one is personal.

Pinterest was the platform I built my agency around. For several years, helping businesses understand and use Pinterest properly was my work. So when I tell you my honest view of whether it’s worth your time, you can trust that it comes from somewhere real – not from a blog post I read, or a course I took, but from years of working inside the platform on behalf of businesses that ranged from small independents to established brands.

Here’s what I learned: Pinterest is one of the most misunderstood platforms available to small businesses. And the misunderstanding cuts both ways. Some businesses dismiss it entirely – it’s for mood boards, they say, or for people planning weddings. Others pile in expecting quick results and leave frustrated. Both responses miss what Pinterest actually is.

Pinterest is not social media

This is the single most important thing to understand about Pinterest, and the thing that most businesses get wrong before they even begin.

Pinterest is a visual search engine. Not a social network. Not a content feed. A search engine – one where people go to find ideas, plan purchases, and research decisions that often take weeks or months to complete.

When someone opens Instagram, they’re scrolling. Consuming. Reacting. When someone opens Pinterest, they’re looking for something specific, or exploring a category they’re already interested in. The intent is different. And that changes everything about how content works on the platform.

A post on Instagram has a lifespan measured in hours. By the next morning, it’s effectively invisible. A well-optimised Pin on Pinterest can surface in search results for months – sometimes years. I’ve seen Pins driving steady traffic to a business website long after the person who created them had stopped actively using the platform. That kind of content longevity simply doesn’t exist on any other major social channel.

I saw this play out clearly in practice. For one client, a marketing agency, Pins we’d created months earlier were still driving over 100 visitors a week to their website and steadily growing their email list. It’s a very different model to most platforms – slower to build, but once it works, it keeps working.

Who Pinterest genuinely works for

Pinterest works best for businesses that sell something people aspire to, plan around, or return to repeatedly. The platform’s own data consistently shows its strongest categories, and after years of working in this space, my experience bears that out.

If your business operates in interiors, home improvement, food and recipe content, weddings and events, fashion, beauty, travel, crafts, or gardening – Pinterest is almost certainly worth serious consideration. These aren’t arbitrary categories. They reflect how people actually use the platform: to plan a kitchen renovation, to find a recipe for Saturday, to build a mood board for a wedding that’s a year away.

The businesses that thrive on Pinterest share a few common characteristics. Their products or services are visually appealing. Their customers make considered, planned purchases rather than impulse decisions. And there’s a clear aspiration attached to what they sell – a vision of how life could look, feel, or be improved.

I saw this particularly clearly with a client in the food space, a well-known chef promoting her books and content. Because the content was so visual and aspirational, it translated easily into Pinterest. Over a four-week period, impressions increased from around 90,000 to nearly 400,000, with strong growth in engagement, saves and outbound clicks. It was a good example of how the right type of content can gain real traction on the platform when it aligns with how people use it.

Who it doesn’t work for – and why

Being direct about this is important, because Pinterest isn’t for everyone and pretending otherwise wastes people’s time.

If you run a B2B services business, a professional services firm, or any business where the purchase decision is driven primarily by credentials and conversation rather than visual inspiration – Pinterest is unlikely to be a strong channel for you. It’s not that your potential clients aren’t on Pinterest personally. Many of them are. But they’re not there to think about hiring an accountant or finding a logistics partner. The mindset is wrong for that kind of decision.

Similarly, businesses targeting a primarily male demographic have historically found Pinterest more challenging – the platform’s user base skews heavily female, particularly in the UK. This is changing, slowly, but it’s worth factoring in.

And businesses that can’t commit to creating quality visual content consistently will struggle. Pinterest rewards accounts that post regularly with well-designed, properly keyword-optimised Pins. An account that posts in bursts and then goes quiet doesn’t build the momentum the algorithm rewards.

I’ve also had situations where Pinterest wasn’t the right fit. In one case, I worked with a business offering bespoke, made-to-order products – visually strong, but very niche and reliant on a more considered, relationship-led sales process. Even with consistent activity, it didn’t deliver enough return to justify the time investment. It highlighted how important it is to match the platform not just to the product, but to how customers actually search and buy.

What businesses consistently get wrong

After years of working with businesses on Pinterest, the mistakes I saw most often weren’t about design or posting frequency. They were about fundamentals.

The first is treating Pinterest like Instagram. Posting lifestyle images with no keywords, no description, no thought given to what someone might actually be searching for. Pinterest is a search engine. If your Pins aren’t optimised for the words and phrases your customers use when they’re looking for what you offer, they will not be found – no matter how beautiful they look.

The second is expecting fast results. Pinterest builds slowly. In the early months, it can feel like nothing is happening. Businesses that give up after six weeks – which many do – never see the compounding effect that makes Pinterest genuinely valuable. The accounts that commit to twelve months of consistent, well-structured activity are the ones that start to see the platform working the way it’s supposed to.

Pinterest builds slowly. The accounts that commit to twelve months of consistent, well-structured activity are the ones that start to see the platform working the way it’s supposed to.

The third mistake is ignoring the link back to the website. Every Pin should lead somewhere useful – a product page, a blog post, a service description. Pinterest is one of the strongest social media drivers of referral traffic when it’s set up correctly. Businesses that Pin without thinking about the destination are missing the most commercially valuable part of the platform.

The time investment – honestly assessed

Pinterest requires less real-time engagement than platforms like Instagram or Facebook – there’s no expectation that you’ll respond to comments within the hour, and the lack of an algorithmically-driven feed means you’re not competing for immediate attention. In that sense, it suits time-poor business owners reasonably well.

But it does require consistent creative output. Well-designed Pins, properly written descriptions, a structured board strategy. If you don’t have the capacity to create quality visual content regularly – either in-house or with support – Pinterest will underdeliver. It rewards the businesses that treat it as a long-term investment rather than a quick-win channel.

A final thought 

Pinterest isn’t for every business.

But for the ones it suits, it’s one of the most misunderstood – and underused – platforms available to SMEs.

If you sell something people aspire to, plan around, or come back to repeatedly – and you’re willing to invest consistently over time – it’s worth taking seriously. The question isn’t whether Pinterest is impressive. It’s whether your customers are there, and whether you’re prepared to show up for long enough to let it work.

Pinterest strategy was at the heart of the agency work I did before joining Get Ahead. If you’re wondering whether it could work for your business – or how to approach it properly – I’m always happy to have that conversation. 

I’m Vicky McKenna, Regional Director for Get Ahead in Oxfordshire.

If you’d like a conversation about where your business should be showing up, I’d love to hear from you –  please get in touch via vicky@getaheadva.com.

Next in the series: Is TikTok Worth It for Your Business? 

If you missed Part 1 of this series discussing Facebook, you can find it here.

Regional Director for Get Ahead in Oxfordshire. Former Buying Director for major UK retailers and founder of a social media agency specialising in Pinterest for business. Vicky works with SME owners to find the right support for their business – and writes about the commercial realities of social media, outsourced expertise, and growing a business without burning out.

Before I became a Regional Director for Get Ahead, I spent years as a Buying Director for major UK retailers — and then ran my own social media agency, with a specialism in Pinterest for business. I’ve used these platforms commercially. I’ve seen what works, what doesn’t, and what’s simply not worth a busy business owner’s time. This series is my honest perspective on each one. No strategy guides. No content calendars. Just a straight answer to the question you’re probably already asking.

Is Facebook Worth It for Your Business? 

Let’s be honest about how most business owners feel about Facebook right now. 

Somewhere between mildly guilty and quietly relieved. Guilty because you know you probably should be doing something with it. Relieved because, increasingly, it feels like permission to stop trying. 

Everyone seems to have written it off. It’s the platform your parents use. Organic reach died years ago. The young people have left. It’s all ads and algorithms and content that disappeared into a void the moment you posted it. 

That’s the story. And like most stories, it’s partly true and partly a convenient excuse not to think harder about it. 

What Facebook actually is now 

Facebook has changed significantly, and it helps to see it clearly rather than through the lens of what it used to be. 

It is no longer a platform where you post content and your followers reliably see it. Organic reach on Facebook Pages has declined sharply over the past decade and continues to fall. If you’re still running a business Page and posting content into it with no paid support, you are largely talking to yourself. That part of the story is true. 

But Facebook is also, still, the most widely used social media platform in the UK. Not among teenagers, you’re right about that. But among adults aged 35 and over, Facebook remains the dominant platform. Two thirds of UK adults use it regularly. And if you’re running a business that sells to people over 35, or to local communities, or to families, or to anyone who makes purchasing decisions that involve more than a moment’s thought, those are still your people, and they are still there. 

The platform has also quietly shifted its centre of gravity away from Pages and towards Groups. That’s the part most businesses have missed. 

The Groups opportunity most businesses are ignoring 

Facebook Groups are a different proposition entirely from Pages. Where a Page is essentially a broadcast channel that increasingly requires paid amplification to be seen, a Group is a community. Content shared within Groups gets significantly higher organic reach than Page content. Members receive notifications. Conversations happen. People come back. 

The businesses getting the most out of Facebook right now aren’t the ones posting on their Page three times a week. They’re the ones running, contributing to, or genuinely participating in Groups relevant to their customers.

This could mean running your own Group – a space for customers, clients, or a niche audience you serve. It could mean becoming an active, genuinely helpful presence in existing Groups where your target clients spend time. Not to promote, but to contribute. To answer questions. To demonstrate expertise. In the same way that showing up consistently at a networking event builds reputation over time, showing up consistently in the right Group builds something similar – just in a digital space. 

It takes time. It requires you to give more than you take. And it only works if the Group’s audience genuinely overlaps with yours. But for the businesses that get this right, Facebook remains one of the most effective community-building tools available, and it costs nothing but consistency. 

What about Facebook advertising? 

Facebook and Instagram advertising – they share the same Meta infrastructure – can be extremely effective for SMEs, with one important condition: you need to know what you’re doing, or work with someone who does. 

The targeting capability is genuinely impressive. You can reach people by age, location, interests, life stage, and a dozen other parameters. For local businesses, service businesses targeting specific demographics, or anyone selling something with strong visual appeal, the audience is there and the tools exist to reach them efficiently. 

But running Facebook ads badly is an effective way to spend money and learn very little. Without a clear objective, a properly structured campaign, and enough budget to generate meaningful data, the results are rarely worth the investment. If you’re considering Facebook ads, the question isn’t whether the platform can deliver, it often can, but whether you have the expertise in-house or the budget to bring it in. 

The honest question to ask yourself 

Before you decide whether Facebook is worth your time, there’s one question that cuts through most of the noise: 

How old are your best customers? 

If the answer is under 30, Facebook probably isn’t your primary channel. If the answer is 35 to 65, it almost certainly still is, even if the way you show up there needs to look different from how it looked five years ago. 

The second question is: 

Do I sell something that benefits from community, conversation, or local presence? 

Services businesses, local retailers, and businesses that thrive on word of mouth and relationships tend to find real value in Facebook Groups. Businesses selling to a broad national audience, or to a younger demographic, or whose customers make fast, low-consideration purchases, may find their time better spent elsewhere. 

A final thought 

Facebook isn’t what it was. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s not useful. 

For the right business, with the right audience, it can still be a valuable part of how you stay visible and connected, particularly if community is part of how your business grows. 

The key is not whether you should be on Facebook. It’s whether it makes sense for you. 

If you’re trying to work out which platforms are actually worth your time – and what to do with them – that’s exactly the kind of question I work through with business owners in Oxfordshire every day. 

I’m Vicky McKenna, Regional Director for Get Ahead in Oxfordshire. If you’d like a conversation about where your business should be showing up, I’d love to hear from you –  please get in touch via vicky@getaheadva.com.

Next in the series: Is Pinterest Worth It for Your Business? 

Regional Director for Get Ahead in Oxfordshire. Former Buying Director for major UK retailers and founder of a social media agency specialising in Pinterest for business. Vicky works with SME owners to find the right support for their business – and writes about the commercial realities of social media, outsourced expertise, and growing a business without burning out.

One of the most common questions clients ask us is “how often should you post on your social media?” We’d love to give you a simple answer but unfortunately, there isn’t one! But what we can do is give you a bit more information so you can make the right choice about your own social media. And if you want to outsource social media, we can help there too. 

Let’s take a closer look.

How often should you post on your social media?

The internet is full of articles telling you to post multiple times a day across all your social media channels. We love the theory…but seriously, who has the time?! Instead, prioritise sharing fewer posts while making sure each one is worth reading. 

In general, it’s a good idea to post at least three times a week on social media. Of course, if one of your posts performs exceptionally, or you put a great deal of work into it, a smaller number of posts might be effective. 

It’s also important to remember that different platforms have different norms. On LinkedIn, for example, you might share a lower number of posts but each one will be targeted, authentic and worth your followers’ time. But on X, Instagram and Pinterest, it’s usual to post several times a day.

How do you stay consistent on social media?

Most social media managers agree that consistency is more important than frequency. Posting consistently shows that you’re serious about what you do. Any potential clients or customers visiting your social media channels will see that your business is active right now. This means they’re considerably more likely to convert than if the last post were from six months ago. 

Many of our clients choose to schedule their social media in advance, so they know it will appear online even if they don’t have time to post in real time. Whether they produce their own content or outsource it to one of our social media managers, the content is usually scheduled a month in advance. 

A huge advantage of scheduling is that you and/or your social media manager can do all your planning at once. You don’t have to jump out of a heavy finance meeting straight into an upbeat Instagram post. Instead, you can put yourself into your social media groove and plan all your posts at once, then let them roll out in a timely fashion.

Doing all your planning is easier when you come up with a strategy and follow it. Maybe you create regular posts about different areas of your business, like a client spotlight, a product focus and a business tip every week. When you manage your social media within a strategic framework, you’ll soon see your content schedule fill up! And if you’re really stuck, think about what posts have worked well in the past and recreate that success. 

It’s important to be consistent in your interactions as well as your posts. Remember to block off time each week to visit your social media channels, reply to comments you’ve received and interact with other accounts. If thought-provoking, insightful comments go unnoticed, your followers will stop typing them and your online community will dwindle. Fortunately, you can keep up the momentum with regular interactions. 

Outsource social media

If you love the idea of creating stunning, effective, consistent social media posts but simply don’t have the time, our social media managers are here to help. Explore our site to find out more on how to outsource social media. 

We don’t just talk the talk – we walk the walk too! Follow us on social media for great insights, rolling out consistently across the working week. 

Social media is a fantastic tool for marketing your business. It’s free, easy to use and a great way to engage directly with your customers and clients. You can also outsource social media, winning back time and gaining dedicated support. But what social media is best for business? 

In this blog, our social media expert Chloe talks us through the different platforms to help you decide which social media platform you should prioritise.

What social media is best for business?

Chloe: the best social media platform for your business depends on a number of factors, like who your audience is and what kind of content you share. 

Different platforms are suitable for different kinds of content. For example, if video is the strongest way of marketing your business, it’s a good idea to put YouTube or TikTok at the centre of your social media marketing. And if your services lend themselves to long-form content, choose a platform that supports links to blogs like LinkedIn or Facebook.

It’s also important to remember that different demographics use different social media platforms. B2B businesses often share content on LinkedIn, for example, while lifestyle brands attract followers on Instagram. That said, there is some overlap – amazingly, Innocent Smoothies have gained loads of traction on LinkedIn while B2B brands have done well on Instagram and Facebook. Consider who your audience is and which social media platforms they use…but keep an open mind too.

How do I know who my audience is?

Chloe: Social media is free to use, but it’s still important that the time you invest in it is well spent. When we target the right audience, we can be sure that we’re using our time efficiently. 

I encourage my clients to imagine their ideal customer – how old they are, what they do for a living, whether they have a family, where they live, what matters to them and even what their names might be. With this information, you can work out which social media platform they are most likely to use. This is the platform where you should focus your energy. 

What content should I share?

Chloe: Instead of asking what content to share, think of the kind of content that best showcases your offering. If you specialise in tailored consultancy work, it’s important that you come across as someone who thinks in detail and understands the nuances of the industry. LinkedIn and X are great platforms for diving deeper into common questions and seriously analysing current issues. 

On the other hand, you might have a retail business or a lifestyle brand, in which case Instagram is a great platform for you. Share photos of your latest product or short videos of the experiences you offer. 

Decide what content best tells your story, and which platform is the best place to share it. Then consider which platforms your customers and clients use. They should overlap! This overlap is the platform where you should concentrate your energy.

How many social media platforms should I use? 

Chloe: I never want my clients to feel under pressure to use every single social media platform. Instead of churning out content on lots of different platforms, I believe it’s more effective to focus on the platforms where you’re able to post regularly. For example, if someone is researching you on Facebook and you haven’t posted for several months, it could look as if you’ve gone out of business (even if you haven’t). You’ll only find Get Ahead HQ on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram – we’ve weighed up the pros and cons and decided where to focus our efforts.

When you remember that effective content is tailored for the platform where it is posted, it’s easy to see that using too many channels is a waste of resources. Most businesses don’t have the capacity to adapt their message for every platform – particularly if it doesn’t grow your business. 

If you’re trying to work out which social media platform is the right one for you, Get Ahead’s detailed guide can help.

Outsource social media 

Outsource social media and benefit from consistent posting, expert content creation and regular analysis of your interactions. You’ll also gain back loads of time – no more labouring over graphics or getting distracted online. 

If you’re ready to outsource social media, we hope you’ll consider Get Ahead. Read more about what we offer here, or follow us on LinkedIn to see us in action. 

If you’re a regular on social media – and if you’re a business owner, you should be – you know how important it is that a post catches the eye. Instagram is an obvious example, standardising picture-led posts and creating instant visual appeal. But even posts on wordier platforms like LinkedIn and X should have their own graphics. In this blog, we talk to Get Ahead’s experienced graphic designer Kate about why visuals matter on social media. She also shares her top tips how to make social media graphics that look great and drive conversions. 

Why do visuals matter on social media?

Kate: We all know that social media posts that include pictures gain more traction than ones that don’t. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words! Any post with a picture on it can immediately convey more information than one that is purely text. A picture brings the words of a post to life, giving potential customers a better idea of your products, or showing that you uphold the values listed on your website. 

It’s important to remember that we take in information from pictures faster than from words. So if you want someone to read your post, grab their attention with a picture first. 

I always think that a picture is another opportunity to reinforce your brand. You could put your logo in the corner, or choose highlight colours from your brand palette. 

It’s also important to remember that different people take on information in different ways. Some people respond better to words, others to pictures. When we include a graphic on a social media post, we widen that post’s appeal. The words people can learn from the written section of the post while the pictures people can learn from the graphic. 

What are your top tips for making graphics for social media?

Kate: Platforms like Canva make it easier for business owners to make their own graphics. If you enjoy doing it and it doesn’t take up too much time, DIY social media is a great way to save money and stay authentic online. But remember, it’s only a real saving if the graphics you produce work hard for your business. 

Here’s how I go about making graphics for social media that get results

1. Keep it simple

Most of us absorb visual information more quickly than the written word…but only if the design is simple. If your message is lost in a forest of colours, shapes and fonts, try cutting back on some of the design elements to make something more engaging.

2. Stay on brand

Reinforce your brand by using the same colours, fonts and logo that appear on your website and other touch points. Creating a social media template in your design platform can help keep the appearance of your posts consistent.

3. Check it makes sense!

If you’re creating a visual of your business values or an inspirational quote, don’t let the design take over. Reread it after you’ve created it and make sure the words have the same power now you’ve combined them with graphic design.

4. Be aware of proportions

Social media platforms change the proportions of pictures from time to time. If Instagram caught you out recently, you’re not alone! Make sure that whatever you create will work on your intended platform.

5. Make sure your design fits the platform. 

Scheduling software like Hootsuite makes it easy to make one post and then share it across all our social media platforms. But it’s not a perfect solution, so remember to keep your wits about you. You don’t want to lose valuable information because the platform crops the image, for example. It’s also important to make sure that the image suits the culture of the platform. For instance, a celebration of your morning coffee might work better on Instagram than LinkedIn.

How to make social media graphics that really work

We hope Kate’s top tips will help you make more powerful graphics for your social media platforms! And if they’ve made you wonder whether you should leave it to the experts, we are here to help. Get Ahead has a great team of graphic designers and social media managers ready to share your brand and increase your visibility. Explore our site to find out more, or follow us on social media.

Did you know there are lots of great PR ideas for small businesses you can try yourself? They needn’t be expensive, difficult or time consuming, but they could make a big difference to your brand’s reputation.

In this blog, we talk to PR expert Caroline who shares some of her top PR ideas for small businesses.

Why do small businesses need PR?

Caroline: For small businesses, reputation is everything. This means that it’s really important to establish your brand and tell people why it matters. PR is the best way of doing that! Yes, your website and your advertising can tell potential customers what you have to offer, but your PR will tell your story, bring your brand to life and share it with a new, wider audience.

What PR can small businesses do themselves?

Harness the power of social media

Caroline: One of the easiest approaches is social media. You can choose between affordable outsourcing or doing it yourself. And best of all, social media accounts are free.

For effective social media PR, choose the right platform for your campaign. For example, if you’re a B2B business, your first choice should always be LinkedIn. But if, say, you’re bringing a lifestyle product to a new audience, Instagram would be the best option.

Make sure your profile is strong and says exactly what you do in language your audience understands.

Look for opportunities to share your news too. If you attend an event, achieve a milestone, appear in the press or win an award, don’t waste the opportunity – shout about it on social media!

Responding to someone else’s social media posts is also important. The more support you show, the more you’re likely to receive. Communicating with others also shows you can see the bigger picture – a great position for any brand.

Share your story

Caroline: There’s always something going on in a busy business. You might be celebrating a business birthday, gaining B-Corp status, welcoming a new employee or something else. Maybe you’ve merged with another business, or you’ve broken into a totally different market.

These developments are all worth sharing. From a warm, authentic social media post to a targeted press release, there are lots of ways to tell your story and celebrate success.

I try to maximise the effectiveness of press releases by reaching out to the right publications and websites. It’s better to make the front page of an industry-specific publication than be ignored by the Financial Times!

A strong press release should always include the “who, what, where, when and why” of your story. Try and think like a journalist and make it as easy as possible for them to get the information they need. Include some quotes they can drop into their finished article, as well as contact details in case they have any questions.

Enter for awards

Caroline: There are awards for almost every industry that recognise hard work, innovation, inclusivity and more. I’d always recommend business owners enter for awards and competitions because the resulting PR is so strong. The application might cost you time and money but you should see a good return on your investment.

It’s great to be able to post on social media that you’ve entered for a prestigious award – you can ask your community to vote for you. And if you’re shortlisted or even win, you’ve got a great piece of news to shout about. Not only does it make a great social media post, but the press might be interested too. We’re really proud of how many times Get Ahead has been featured in the business press for just this kind of achievement.

Delivering PR ideas for small businesses

If reading Caroline’s expert view on PR has made you wonder if you could be doing more to increase awareness of your brand, we’d love to hear from you. Caroline and our other PR experts can help you see your business in a newsworthy way, finding the stories and turning them into positive press. Visit our PR page to find out more, or contact your local regional director here.

If you’re a start-up or a family enterprise and you’re mindful of the bottom line, it can be hard to think of giveaway ideas for small businesses. But the good news is that you don’t have break the bank, or leave yourself out of pocket when you give something away.

In this blog, we share our top five giveaway ideas for small businesses.

Why does giving matter to small businesses?

Giving is an essential part of any business’ marketing strategy. When we give things away, we reinforce our brand with our customers and clients. We interact with those people in a different way from usual, strengthening the professional relationship. This can be a very effective way of getting customers further down the sales funnel. It can also help you appeal to different markets who respond to different approaches.

Think of giving as lighting one candle off another – the second candle gains but the first candle loses nothing.

Top five giveaway ideas for small businesses:
  1. Promotional items

An on-message promotional item can be a great addition to your marketing toolkit. Trainers and coaches can give out branded pens and paper so their clients can take notes. Trades often prefer a branded fridge magnet to a business card – their customers don’t have to rummage when they need a plumber quickly! Events organisers sometimes give out branded bottle openers while travel agents give out branded luggage labels.

Get Ahead has a number of suppliers in our network of contacts – if you need a recommendation for branded items, please ask!

  • Your own products or services

Obviously, we’re not suggesting that you just give away all your hours and stock! Instead, think about how you can use a giveaway strategically. Who is likely to respond positively to a free software trial – will it make them more likely to buy a subscription at the end? Yes, they’re using your software for free for a month, but if they turn into loyal customers then the freebie was a valuable investment. Remember to research likely groups and target them strategically so you get the best outcomes from giving away your own product or service.

  • Expertise

Yes, it is possible to write a blog or a newsletter without giving away your trade secrets! Instead, give away a small amount of useful knowledge that will help your clients get more from what they already buy from you. For example, letters from your bank often feature a market or finance update. By sharing these insights, banks can help customers to make their money work harder, in turn promoting more of the bank’s products.

Think about what ideas you could share that would help you and your customers at the same time.

  • Discounts

Even if you can’t afford to give something away completely free, consider whether you can afford to offer a discount. Do your sums and work out what percentage you discount from the price of your product or service. You can also give a discount in exchange for something, like signing up to a mailing list. Discounts like this can be excellent investments: once customers or clients have joined your community, they’re more likely to buy from you again in future.

  • Referrals

This one isn’t a traditional sort of giveaway, but it makes a real difference to others, grows your network and establishes you as someone worth working with.

When you’re networking, be ready to praise others in the network whom you’ve worked with. And if there’s a request for a recommendation on LinkedIn, for example, don’t be afraid to put others forward – they’ll really appreciate it!

Marketing strategy support with Get Ahead

If you think that giveaways could play a bigger part in your marketing strategy, Get Ahead would love to help you make it happen! Explore our marketing pages to find out more, or contact your local regional director today.

 

Many businesses share a monthly newsletter with their client community, but we’ve seen a great engagement rate from sending out a different kind of message at Christmas. Instead of the usual combination of “hero” theme, tips and discounts, Christmas is a time to engage on a more human level.

For this blog, we talked to our digital and email marketing expert Claire about how to write a business Christmas message to strengthen your business relationships for the coming year.

What do we mean by a Christmas message?

Claire: Most monthly newsletters follow a standard format. Business owners have considered what works best for them and share a great combination of product promotion, top tips and special offers.

However, Christmas is not the time for a hard sell. It’s not really the time to talk about business either. Many businesses have their golden quarter in the run-up to Christmas…but by the time Christmas actually comes, it’s time to stop talking shop and connect on a more personal level.

What should I include in my Christmas message?

Claire: The best Christmas messages include a strong awareness of the reader, appropriate emotion and gentle humour. They’re a good opportunity to invite your clients to recognise your team members who have made a particular contribution. You can also show empathy by referring to challenges you know your clients have faced in the last year.

You can show emotion in your seasonal message with phrases like, “we’ve all found X tough this year…,” “I’m really proud of Y…,” and “Z was really exciting – such a privilege to be part of it!” Referring to your feelings will help your readers see you as a person and not just a business – this will reinforce your connection.

It’s easy for clients to overlook contributions made by individual members of your team. It’s not that they’re selfish – they just don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. But giving them some new insight has two benefits. Firstly, it shows that the service or product you offer doesn’t just magically appear – this helps your clients to understand its value. Secondly, it reinforces the fact that a real person has made something happen – a real support to the message that “people buy from people.”

Lastly, your Christmas message is the time to write about your clients and not about your business. Write about industry highs and lows, and praise your clients for how well they’ve coped with any recent storms. Thank them for supporting your business, including making referrals, being understanding in times of stress and remaining loyal.

Email marketing from Get Ahead If our blog has inspired you to write a different sort of Christmas message this year, Get Ahead are here to help. Our experienced marketing team includes content writers like Claire as well as graphic designers and email automation experts. Explore our site to find out more or follow us on LinkedIn. And if you’re ready to outsource your email marketing or any other back-office support, contact your local regional director here.

 

Social media marketing is a fantastic, low-cost solution that helps you share your message with your online community. Social media is also a great place to establish yourself as a thought leader and build your reputation through your expertise.

But what makes this complicated is that some content works better on social media than others, and it’s also important to stay-on brand.

In this blog, we look at how to flex with content while also keeping up your brand consistency.

What type of content is best for social media?

All types of content are great on social media…but you might have to adapt them. For example, sharing a whole blog as the main part of your post rarely works, because people using social media are looking for quick content rather than a long read. However, sharing the subheadings from a blog, or copying and pasting the intro paragraph, can be very successful. Both work as a teaser for the blog – you can then add the link to the whole blog if anyone wants to click through.

Similarly, you can adapt the message of your latest newsletter to share on your social channels. This helps you share the quality information that’s gone out to your mailing list with your social media community too.

If you create ebooks, you can use social media to promote your latest publication without sharing the whole thing. Remember to include a link to help people buy or download the complete ebook – don’t leave them hanging!

How do I find time to adapt my content?!

It’s often a good idea to write all your content from one idea at the same time – it can be a real time saver. If you write a blog, think about which sentence would make a strong social media post while you’ve still got the Word file open. Think too about how you can make this idea into a newsletter that will appeal to your mailing list.

All of Get Ahead’s content writers offer packages, where clients can have their blog and newsletter written from the same idea, with a suitable social media version too. This can be a great value solution that gets all the content written at the same time.

How do I maintain brand consistency if I’m changing up my content?

Editing your existing content doesn’t mean you have to compromise your brand message. If you have a strong brand that’s really embedded in what you offer, it’s almost impossible to go off-piste. That’s why it’s worth investing in your brand…but that’s another blog!

Re-read the carefully selected sentence from your blog before you post it on social media. It might be strong, but does it convey enough on its own? Consider whether it could be misinterpreted without the whole blog or ebook to give it context. Don’t be afraid to tweak it again to remove any controversy or reinforce your brand message.

Pictures can be very powerful on social media. Remember to illustrate your posts with pictures from your brand palette, accompanied by wording in the right font. If you regularly share content from your website to social media (e.g. estate agents sharing the latest properties), plan how these regular posts will look to keep up your brand consistency.

Outsource social media marketing

Our experienced social media managers love helping businesses like yours get more from Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and all the other channels. To find out more, explore our site or contact your local regional director.

 

Virtual sales team –  what’s most effective for business development?

An increasing number of businesses are choosing to use a virtual sales team. From digital marketing to cold calling, there are a variety of way for business owners to drive growth and connect with new customers.

In this blog, we talk to Vicky McKenna, regional director of Get Ahead Oxfordshire, who shares her insights into our most popular business development services and which one might work for you.

Why are so many businesses choosing to use a virtual sales team?

Vicky: One of the most interesting statistics to come out of a recent Get Ahead survey is the 11% increase in clients choosing our business development services. This indicates two interesting business trends:

Firstly, more businesses are aware of the need to put their energy into business growth – they’re actively pursuing it instead of just accepting the status quo and crossing their fingers. This is good news – it raises the bar for business leadership, as well as meaning that more businesses are likely to succeed in the long term. I’ve always been horrified that 50% of businesses fail in the first three years – active business development could reduce that figure considerably.

Secondly, the increase in outsourcing business development shows that business owners are looking at what the competition is doing. We’ve already seen this race in social media, which has gone from being a nice-to-have to a business essential. In the same way, strategic business development is becoming the norm. More business owners are realising that what they have is worth shouting about, as long as they shout louder than the competition!

What are the most popular business development services?

Vicky: Our survey of clients – who have businesses of all shapes and sizes and are located all over the country – shows that 38% come to us for digital marketing to drive their business growth. This includes email marketing, SEO, pay per click and more. We don’t know exactly why this is, but we are aware there are many aspects of digital marketing that make sense to outsource. For example, I couldn’t jump straight on Mailchimp and send out a marketing email – my role is talking to clients on an individual level and matching them to virtual experts. If I need to send out a marketing email, I outsource it to one of our team who’ll put it together in less than an hour.

The second most popular is social media, which 28% of our clients ask for. While most of us know how to write a post and share it on Facebook or LinkedIn, we also know what a drain on time social media can be, and how hard it is to post consistently. For this reason, our clients find it’s more efficient to outsource social media for business development.

In third place is customer relationship management and sales campaigns. As with digital marketing, these are areas where it’s useful to have an expert take the lead, which would account for their popularity among Get Ahead clients.

What’s the best business development approach?

Vicky: We’ve seen that digital marketing is the most popular, followed by social media and CRM. However, the best business development approach is the one that works for your business and delivers the best return on your investment.

Different businesses grow in different ways. Some gain more customers, while others evolve, improve or find their niche. Each of these approaches needs strategy behind it to be effective – the strategy will also highlight what business development approach will be the best for your organisation.

If you’re ready to develop your business but you don’t know where to start, Get Ahead can help. I’m part of a team of regional directors – each of one of us helps clients identify the right solution for their unique business and we can help you too. Explore our site to find out more and get in touch whenever you’re ready!