There is no doubt that the majority of online content is significantly enhanced by images.  Research shows that the time visitors spend on your website is greatly extended with the use of photographs of the contributors.  In a fast-moving world ensuring your existing and potential clients revisit your website frequently, is the knowledge that the information they will find will be up-to-the minute, useful content.  It is the short video clip which allows you capture your reader’s attention and many of the large investment management groups are including a range of video on their websites.

So what are the main benefits of including videos?

1. Video improves the look of the page

A video brings a static website to life making it a dynamic place for visitors to revisit. Some of the different types of information which can be included are:

• A promotional video featuring members of your team and their roles in the company
• For a complicated website, a  website tour which guides visitors around the site telling them where they can find specific information
• A virtual tour shows your visitors the physical location of your offices and brings your company to life.  This helps orientate guests who might be visiting your office.

2. Videos for Demonstrating Products and Services

The ‘How-to’ video is one of the most popular on the internet.  Companies use this genre to educate their clients on a particular aspect of their products and services.  This is intended to build a closer relationship between the company and their clients and to improve customer service, saving both time and money.

• Use video to demonstrate how to install or set up a product
• Use video to show how you work together as a team on particularly projects
• Use video to train clients and staff remotely

3. Videos for showcasing Your Expertise

Many of the topics in the finance field require detailed, specialist knowledge.  There is no better way to convince your audience of your expertise than to explain an aspect of a particular topic in a question and answer video.  Examples of such videos include:

• Educational videos that provide visitors with in-depth information relating to your expertise
• Keep your audience up to date with news headlines and how they are impacted by changes in the industry

4. Video for Driving Traffic to Your Websitel,

Any video that you produce should be hosted on the main video sites such as YouTube and Vimeo.  Vimeo has particularly good analytics and YouTube is the ‘go to’ site for all manner of videos and, owned by Google, it really helps with your website’s ranking in search engines.  Search engines love video and with the correct video SEO, including a transcript, you can use video to drive traffic to your website.

• Titles should include specific keywords and should be ‘tagged’
• Several videos which focus on a specific topic will help push your website up the search engine results
• Use multiple video sharing sites to increase links back to your main website

5.  Video for Promoting a Special Offer or Event

Just as many companies create a special advertisement to let customers know about an upcoming special offer, you can use video to ‘advertise’ on your website:

• Use video to explain the benefits of new products you are selling
• Include promotional codes within videos to reward viewers
• Use video to notify customers of upcoming, time-limited offers

6. Video to put a Face to the Name

As we all become more familiar with the idea of being ‘social’ on the internet, consumers will expect to see the faces behind the brand.  Clients like to know the face behind the name of the person they speak to on the phone.  This can be achieved with:

• A 30 second  welcome video on your home page
• Profile videos that introduce the people who key to the service you are offering
• There is nothing more powerful than a genuine testimonial video supporting your great customer service.  The independence nature of a video endorsement greatly enhances credibility

7. Video to Encourage Regular Visits to Your Website

One of the main challenges all businesses face, is keeping potential clients returning to their websites frequently.  Providing regular, quality content, visitors will return again and again to see what new videos you are offering.

• Produce regular video podcasts with timely information on the markets ensuring they are fully compliant
• Use an RSS feed which will email visitors as soon as new videos appear on the website
• Use videos to promote events and recent activities at your business and ensure that the content can be shared easily.

8. Use Video to Stand Out From the Competition

Probably the most important reason for including a video is that it allows you to distinguish your company from the competition.  Although more widespread, video is not generally used in by financial advisers and it is not yet viewed as common practice.  There are so many places on the internet where your videos can appear in addition to your website.

• Add a video to your business listing in online directories and in your LinkedIn Company page
• Promote your videos on local websites and Google Places and in replies to discussion on relevant forums
• Links to your videos can be shared on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media sharing and bookmarking sites. 

So make a difference to the way you communicate on your website and consider the wide variety of content you can share on a short video.  With an enthusiastic presenter, you can get your message across in a fast-paced piece to camera giving the visitor to your website much more detailed information than if they had to read it.

It is a well-known fact that it costs all professional service companies approximately 10 times more to gain a new client than provide exemplary customer service to maintain a healthy relationship with existing clients.  Nevertheless, few of us escape the task of finding those all-important new clients who are the life-blood of growing businesses.  The article on presentations and pitches, published last week, clearly demonstrated that trust is best built at the personal level once all the hard work of  cold calling, e-marketing, direct sales letters and telephone calls has been done.

So, how do we advise our clients on the best use of social media marketing for raising awareness of presentations, seminars and local events?  One of the ways we recommend is using LinkedIn.  This social media platform is the perfect business tool as so many individuals use it every day.  There are over 8 million individual UK LinkedIn members.  Unsurprisingly nearly 1.5 million are based within 10 miles of the centre of London – these numbers are growing every day.  Within 10 miles of the centre of St Albans where we are based there are 111,000 LinkedIn members.

So if you are planning an event, such as a seminar on NEST, to educate your existing and potential clients there are essentially 3 simple steps to setting the details up on LinkedIn:

1. From your Home screen, select More on the main Navigation bar and from the drop-down menu click on Events.  LinkedIn selects some events you might be interested in from the information in your profile.  We have found clients by attending events we would otherwise have not known about from this part of LinkedIn alone.
2. Once you click on the Create Event button the next screen is self-explanatory.  Ensure you check any links feed through to the correct page on your website and that you include the correct time and details of how to register.
3. You are then able to share this event on LinkedIn itself, on Twitter and on Facebook.  There are other ways you can use this LinkedIn page by using the domain name assigned to the event (url) in communications:

• Send LinkedIn messages inviting your connections and include the url.
• Post the url in a LinkedIn update.
• Create a discussion on the LinkedIn Groups you are a member of.
• Include the url in your next newsletter or e-marketing campaign.
• Ensure all your employees who have a LinkedIn profile share the Event with their network.
• Post an update to your LinkedIn Company page.
• Once someone comments on the event the information is then spread to their network and so on.

For a full explanation of how this works in practice, take a look at this video which gives you a real life example of how the process works.  We used LinkedIn to promote a local Kick Start 2021 business event and over 83 people registered on LinkedIn and there were over 120 visitors on the day. 

The main advantage of using this method for promoting events is the fact that it is free, apart from a little time.  In addition, it gives you, the organiser, a chance to communicate with attendees before the event and a reason for following up with those people who didn’t make it on the day.

Why not try this simple technique the next time you hold those all-important seminars?

Using LinkedIn to Promote your Events

Alterra Business Consulting shows you how to use LinkedIn to promote Events

Heavenly Cakes has a great brand in ‘Betty Bakes’ and their ‘made- by-hand in Herts’ cakes are sold to retailers and distributors both large and small.  They came to us with the problem that their online sales were virtually non-existent, only a few Twitter and Facebook followers and an incomplete LinkedIn profile and a handful of connections.

Our strategy on social media is to concentrate on two niches:

1. Local people who will buy online – local is not a necessity for Heavenly Cakes but it makes it easier to find them on Twitter and Facebook using screening tools and additionally, people like to buy from local suppliers even though it is online.
2. We are keen to develop a following in the coeliac, gluten and wheat free market as these people are poorly served in the supermarkets with little choice at high prices.

If you would like to know more take a look at their website http://www.heavenlycakes.co.uk or follow them on Twitter and like their Facebook page.

At the end of last year, we carried out a review of the use of LinkedIn by the top 100 firms of accountants in the UK as listed by Accountancy Age.  The purpose of this research was for our own internal use but we feel it is now worth sharing with a wider audience.

We set out to answer three questions:

1. Do accountants participate on LinkedIn?

The majority of the Top 100 has a strong and increasing presence on LinkedIn.  Few have no individual or company profiles.

2. Are accountants using LinkedIn Company Pages?

There is a disappointing lack of use of the Company Page feature with limited summary information and almost no use of images and pictures

3. Is there an understanding of company Following?

The numbers show that companies do not understand the concept of following on LinkedIn.  This is not limited to just the accountancy profession.

Do accountants participate in Linkedin?

The starting point in our research was to look at the number of employees with LinkedIn profiles linked to the largest 100 companies.  A summary of the numbers is set out in the table below.  The largest 6 companies with over 10,000 employees have been separated out as their numbers bias the band averages.  The remainder has been grouped in bands according to their numbers of employees.

There are 7 companies with Company Pages but no employees on LinkedIn and 5 companies which have employees with profiles but no LinkedIn Company Page.  The figures mask some omissions where employees have connected themselves correctly to their company and also where Company Page administrators have failed to remove rogue employees and leavers have failed to remove themselves from their previous company.

In addition, there are firms of accountants with several company pages, particularly the larger firms who have an international presence and firms with subsidiaries and complex corporate structures.

So, broadly speaking about a third of all employees in the Top 100 have a LinkedIn profile and there has been a 16% increase in the number of employees in this population in line with the 14% in LinkedIn membership in the UK in the same period.  11 firms have doubled their numbers on LinkedIn and only 6 have seen a fall.

Are accountancy firms using LinkedIn company pages?

At the beginning of 2011, LinkedIn introduced the section on the LinkedIn Company Pages call Products and Services.  This offers the opportunity for companies to create a ‘website-like’ profile with descriptions of all their services, supported by images, videos, and links back to web pages.  The profile can be tailored to 3 different audiences depending on the characteristics of the person visiting the company page.

The main move by LinkedIn is in recognizing that companies want to have ‘corporate’ as well as individual recommendations.  It is also the only place on LinkedIn where a company can have a free advertisement.  Take a look at the Dell’s company page for an example. Company pages are searchable and are therefore indexed by the search engines forming another strand to SEO.

Looking at the Top 100, 72 companies had NO products and services on their LinkedIn Company Page.  The table below shows the details:

Clearly, there are missed opportunities for companies to promote themselves further.  This part of LinkedIn also gives companies an opportunity to have a changeable area on the internet where they can display events, special offers and news.

Are you following your company followers?

There is often a misunderstanding of the difference between ‘connecting’ and ‘following’ on LinkedIn.  When you ‘connect’ with an individual you see their update stream and can view details of their profile.  ‘Following’ happens either in Groups or Companies.  Following a company means that the LinkedIn user sees company updates but not employees’ updates.  You can follow 1,000 companies.

Clearly, if someone is following your company, it is sensible to visit their profile to assess if someone should connect with them.  Set out below are the statistics for the 88 companies with Company Pages.

The key piece of advice here is to share your company page with all your connections and to ask them to follow the page so they are kept informed about news in your Company.

And finally….

We will be carrying out further research in the coming months to support the LinkedIn strategy and training Alterra undertakes and this will include an analysis of the LinkedIn Activity of the largest firms.

Feel free to get in touch with comments and suggestions.

Amanda Brown BA MSc DIC

Checking my update screen I see the last 46 minutes of posts.  Many of these are from people around the world whom I don’t know but have connected with.  Let us assume that we wish to communicate with active members of my network in the vicinity of St Albans.

We can do this using LinkedIn Signal.  This is found underneath the More tab on the main Navigation Bar.

The easiest way for you to see how this feature works is to check out our YouTube video which shows you full instructions:LinkedIn Signal – Cutting through the noise

A lot of clients ask me “What shall I write about?” or “No-one will be interested in what I am doing”.  There is always plenty to write about.  You may not think your opinions on your field of expertise are interesting to other people but you are in business to make it interesting for your audience. There are so many blogs on the internet which are pieces of vanity writing but the key to enticing people to come back to your website or blog or to follow you on Twitter and Facebook, is to think about your clients or customers and your suppliers.  Why do you do business with these people?  What value do you offer that keeps your customers coming back to you?

Here is one suggestion of how you might structure a month’s communications.

1. Write an article about one aspect of your speciality.

If you are an event manager it might be about the range of entertainers which you have used at different events.  It should include photos, links to website, links to your LinkedIn profile, Youtube and your website and other blog posts.

2. From the Article develop 4 blog posts

Our event manager might do one on Magicians for Children’s Parties, Entertainers with Animals, The Best Tribute Bans and The Top 10 Entertainers for Corporate Events.  She has all the information from the Article so putting the blog posts together takes a limited amount of time

3. From each Blog extract 5 LinkedIn Updates (20 in total)

At this stage you are going to have to think very carefully about your audience.  This determines whether you link your LinkedIn updates to Twitter and then onward to Facebook.  I prefer to select the linking each time I post an update to LinkedIn by checking of unchecking the Link to Twitter box.

4. From each LinkedIn Update extract 3 Tweets (60 tweets in total)

Once again, think about your followers – are they interested in the same topics as your LinkedIn connections?  If so then link your twitter account permanently to LinkedIn.  If not you just need to add #in to your tweet to do it selectively.

Using this example from one article which can be added to your website, you have posted 205 updates to the internet!  I have used quite conservative number here – there is no doubt that this could easily reach 1,000 from just one well researched article.

Get the article right in the first place and the rest will follow.  Use automation to post what you want from each platform when you want it.

LinkedIn on the Go!

Like all new toys, they get played with all the time from Christmas until New Year.  Then the novelty wears off and the dust gathers.

Don’t let that happen with your LinkedIn marketing.  LinkedIn is more than just a place to post a profile, make a few connections and then sit back and wait for business to come in.

With our LinkedIn Timetable you can start to build a strategy which will allow you to use LinkedIn to benefit your business in just 10 minutes a day.   What’s more is the ability to intelligently link your LinkedIn activity to Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

How long do you spend in face-to-face networking in a month.  On average business owners spend between 3 and 15 hours a month.  The cost of that in time as well as subscriptions and meals has to a factor in your marketing.

Join us at a LinkedIn Live with your Laptop session soon ………………

At last you can more accurately show your location on your profile.  This is how you do it:

1. From the Home screen click on Profile and then Edit
2. Find the small Edit next to your name and click on this
3. In the next screen scroll down to location and you will find lots more choices of location
4. Highlight the one which best suits your business and save the change

Why does this matter?  This change will make local searches much more relevant which if this is important to your business it will make LinkedIn a more powerful platform.

If you need help in making the changes, just get in touch!

There is, however, one new feature which allows you to invite people who have just joined LinkedIn directly. By directly, I mean without the usual requirement of being a member of the same group or having their email address. The image below shows a screen shot of what you will see.

People you may know

How do you find this screen?

1. On the main navigation bar go to Contacts
2. From the drop down menu select the 2nd selection “Add Connections”
3. In the next screen you will see a sub-menu
4. Select the 4th item from the left “People You May Know”
5. Up pops LinkedIn’s recommendations from the information gathered from your profile and your current connections.
6. On the right just click on Connect and an invitation pops up.
7. Always add your personalised message before pressing send.

Just joined LinkedIn?

It is useful to see people who have just joined and whether or not they have connections in common.

Grow your network carefully, thinking about your objectives, your audience and your message.

One of Alterra’s specialities is helping businesses develop really powerful strategies using LinkedIn.  This is fast becoming one of the most  useful research tools for companies to use to find new clients and more importantly to find the right person in the right place.

To use LinkedIn effectively, members need to understand the Navigation bar.  This video shows you the way around LinkedIn.  So once you have an account, this is the way to get started.