Web Consultancy UK

Not that I’m one to blow my own trumpet (he says with a knowing smile on his lips), but my recent interview for venues.org.uk is now live on the big old World Wide Web.  You can check it out at Social Network marketing or, if you’d like to read the unedited transcript, please see below.  Love to hear your thoughts

“Adaptation is the key to surviving in a difficult business environment; understanding what your customers want and staying one step ahead of your competitors.  Nowhere is this more important than in a company’s marketing efforts.

In July, Andrew Nicholson, E-Commerce manager for events firm Sodexo Prestige, hailed social networking as the future of the events industry.  Four months on, he stands by that statement.

How has business been recently particularly with Christmas parties?

We’ve actually seen business picking up of late; we’ve had a lot of last minute bookings coming through and overall there’s a strong sense of optimism within the industry. We still have spaces available but we also have quite a few venues which have sold out their Christmas parties and are now moving their focus onto New Year’s Eve and spring.

Which strategies have been working for you recently?

In terms of recent strategies we’ve been finding it challenging selling the higher end party packages, which have had quite a lot of pressure put on them by the recession, so we’ve been adapting and focusing our efforts on more fiscally viable party packages. £30 per person, all inclusive, is the kind of party price that has proven very popular.

What are your plans for the near future?

We’re going to keep going as we are; we’ve already started moving away from more traditional media, and are scaling up our online marketing effort. We’ve started training individual sales staff at venues around the UK to bring out the benefits of social marketing. We’ve a long term strategy in this regard, and we’ve been working of late on a social networking policy to roll out across Sodexo Prestige. It provides guidelines, advice and policy on how to make best use of social networks to attract customers?

Why is social networking so effective?

If I’d claimed 30 years ago that the main form of sales communication would have been over the telephone, people wouldn’t have believed me; countering that face to face will always be the most effective sales channel. Today we’re looking at a similar paradigm shift; where a couple of years ago social networking was a tool to utilise when communicating with friends. Today it has become the tool for communicating with friends, colleagues, business leads and the like. It’s invaluable, as everyone is on a social network. 70 per cent of your customers are on social networks daily, so it makes sense to communicate with them this way. It’s a non intrusive, non aggressive marketing channel, and always keeps you at the front of your customer’s minds, and for most companies it’s essential for generating sales.

What are the risks associated with corporate social networking?

With social networks you’ve got to bear in mind that whatever you put up online is there permanently, embedded in history for all to read.  Even if you delete something straight away, someone could have recorded the information or emailed it. A lot of companies have got into trouble for posting inappropriate information, amending it almost immediately only to find out that people still have access to it.

Imagine you are in a playground back in your school days. This is similar in many ways to a social network. You have the popular kids, who control the dialogue, and ultimately you have little direct control over what is said in these conversations. What you can do however, is act as an influencer, creating social champions to guide conversations on your behalf. When looking at the risks we can extend the playground metaphor – the school ground is a hotbed of germs and virus’s. The social playground is no different, and corporations should be aware of the heightened threat of viral and trojan infections inherent in social networks.

Furthermore, data can get lost and hacked. People put their personal details on social networking sites and that can give prospective bad guys an understanding of what makes you tick as a person. Hackers can even work out your passwords based on your personal information, so you have to be careful about what you make available on line. The golden rule is that if you don’t know a person; do not accept them as a contact or friend. There’s a trading card mentality about social networking, where users try and build up the most friends, or the most LinkedIn contacts. This sets a poor security precedent. In the case of social networks, little is often more. You also have to make sure that you keep your personal life and business life separate. Golden rule number two is you cannot mix the two. On Facebook you see people talking about their companies, and day at work in their personal profiles, or you invariably see users posting pictures of themselves sitting around and chatting like they’re in a pub, with information linking them to a business. Facebook can be used successfully by businesses, but I strongly advise using your company page as your corporate profile, and using your personal profile for your friends and family.

Have Sodexo avoided any problems like this so far?

So far we have avoided them, as far as I am aware, but Sodexo is an awfully large company and people talk about it a lot. Every company will have negative comments online. The trick is to follow online conversations and respond to them. Use tools such as Google Alerts to keep track of online dialogue.  The worst thing you can do is ignore comments and negative groups because it can escalate, and this can potentially be very dangerous. Respond to people fairly and promptly, and respond to them as individuals. You’ll find that normally you can resolve any issues online and more often than not, with a well handled response, you’ll be able to turn dissatisfied users who have been quite negative, into brand advocates.

So, do the risks of social networking increase with the size of your company?

I think it is inevitable that the bigger your company the bigger the risks from social networking. The more interactions companies have with people the more opportunities there are for negativity. A large scale company you has a lot of interactions. 99.9% of the time those interactions will be very positive, but on the occasion that there is a negative interaction, you need to make sure that you jump in there and try the best you can to resolve the issues. There are multiple horror stories of customers that have been ignored (American Airlines, Dell etc.) and negative online dialogues have irrevocably spiralled out of control. From a customer service perspective, I think that social networks are great. In the olden days, people who had a bad experience would go away and grumble; they’d tell their friends and family about bad experiences, but the afflicted company, who most needed to know about the issue, was always the last to know. These days customers can go online and blog their experiences, or they Tweet them, and if they’re really aggrieved, they set up a Facebook group. Yes, it is negative exposure to the wider public, but it also means that we can get immediate feedback from the customer and we can actually react to it in real time. So in many ways social networks are helping us grow as a company.

Does this mean that traditional sales channels are dead?

Traditional sales channels aren’t dead, there is always a place for face to face and there is always space for telephone communication. However what we have found from personal experience is that social networks link in to these channels, and are a great way to compliment them. As a sales person, you attend networking events, and you meet a number of people that you see as potential leads. You used to give them a phone call a couple of days later and that was pretty much it unless they became a customer. Whereas these days you go away, you talk to them, you sign them up on a social network and then you have a long term relationship with them. Even if you’re not talking to them every day they’re still aware of what you’re doing, if you’re promoting an offer, it can take a one time touch point and convert it into a long term relationship.

How do you see the industry doing next year?

I’m a marketer, not an economist; however there has been a lot of optimism in the industry of late about where we’re going financially. Personally, and I’m trying not to sound negative here, I think we’re still in for some tough times. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the recession, and many people who are a lot smarter than me have suggested that what we’re looking at now is the peak of a W shaped recovery. That said, whilst it’s been hard, there have been benefits. The recession has forced a lot of companies to streamline. The event industry has been known in the past for its flamboyance, and whilst this is no bad thing, the economic strain has led to companies re-focusing on their triple bottom line. Cutting back wastage and streamlining purchasing, whilst investing in the development of key staff has resulted in a more efficient, more focussed industry, which I think will reap benefits for all involved in events in the long term.”