Brainstorm Design Blog

I have posted a video on how to use LinkedIn effectively: 

I have posted a video on how to set up your LinkedIn profile. 

If you run a business, you presumably have a business plan that sets out your aims and objectives for the next six to twelve months. But do you have a marketing plan? 

If you want to attract more business, you need to plan what you’re going to say to your target customers, when you’re going to say it, and how you’re going to say it. And it’s the “how” that I’m going to talk about. You can get your message across through your website, your pay per click campaign, your emails, and even through SEO. But social media has become such a major force for attracting new business, it needs a plan all of its own. 

Would you like more business through LinkedIn but not sure how to make it work for you?

Today, Friday 1st July, I will be holding an online question and answer session on Twitter. Tweet any question you like about LinkedIn to @brainstormdsgn and I will give you my opinion. 

I will be taking questions between 2-4PM UK time. I look forward to hearing from you!

So, you've launched your new Facebook business page. All your friends, relatives and even a couple of strangers have 'liked' it. What now? How do you continue drawing new fans to your page, giving it enough exposure to turn it into a useful business tool?

One way is to use other social media sites in order to promote it and drive traffic to your page. Of course, any time you post an item to your Facebook page - be it news item, poll, special offer or information -- you should post a link on Twitter. Hopefully, some of the visitors will decide to follow your Facebook page permanently.

LinkedIn is a wonderful tool for meeting new clients and suppliers, and the more connections you have, the better your chances of meeting new clients. Nevertheless, it is important to be selective about who you connect with - in particular, only connecting to people you actually know.

You’ve just started up a new business. So how do you get more leads? 

Well, you could employ a telemarketer to make some cold calls for you that might lead to an appointment. But it typically takes about 20 calls to get an appointment and several appointments to get a sale, so that’s a very expensive option for a new business.  

You could invest in some pay-per-click adverting, but you could end up spending more on advertising than you get in sales.

Or you could invest in search engine optimisation so that people find your website, but it can often take several months and several thousand pounds of effort until people searching for your products find you on Google.

But there is one other way that doesn’t take a huge amount of effort and that doesn’t break the bank. And that’s Networking.

My recent blog post on cold calling attracted some very heated responses, with many of you arguing that cold calling had a useful part to play in new business development and that no amount of social networking could replace it.