Social Media Marketing With NatWest Business In Southampton

A couple of weeks ago I returned to NatWest HQ in Southampton, Hampshire to present a mini beginners course on how to use social media for business; and how to use blogging and vlogging to boost your business. This is the second year we have presented this social media course in Hampshire after receiving some amazing feedback from our group - which has made me super delighted as I love bringing value to local Hampshire businesses!

The social media for beginners course focussed starting from the very basics all the way to measuring your ROI. Many business owners think that just because social media and the digital world feels like a totally different planet to them personally, they can't utilise it. Social media has shaped how brands interact with their clients, and most consumers will check out the brand website/Facebook/Instagram before contacting or buying from the brand. So making sure these platforms are active and represent your brands and products is super important.

We started by covering 'why is social media so important for a business?' You can read my answers to this questions in THIS BLOG POST. If numbers is your game, I'll just leave you with this: Studies have shown that 75% of companies engaging in selling on social media platforms have increased sales reports over the period of a year. If your brand is new, social media marketing can help increase brand awareness and establish your brand. You can connect with your audience and studies have shown that over 50% of followers are loyal to their brands and will come back time after time.

It was great to see my audience intrigued and inspired by the statistics and the possibilities of marketing with social media!

We then delved into all the different social media platforms, who they are, and what types of businesses they benefit. Figuring out where you audience lives online is crucial when it comes to your social media marketing strategy! The exercise which many found a little more difficult than expected is figuring out their ideal audience - we spent 10 minutes filling out their profile and the results surprised many who thought they knew who they were marketing to. We then shared our ideal customers with each other and the room was buzzing with ideas!

From the different types of content to the importance of hashtags we covered everything you need to know to kick off your social media strategy. And then of course we needed to know how to monitor what we're doing - so I shared with the group my secrets to gathering all those golden nuggets of social media analytics.

It was great to see some familiar faces return to the second part of the course which was all about blogging and vlogging - they shared with me how they scheduled their posts and were really excited about their social media marketing plans!

We then settled to talk about blogging and vlogging as a business. More than ever, focus is being put in visual content - especially photo and video. We can all sit down and write ‘A Day In The Life Of Me’ - but will that post really attract the right audience and help you sell your product/service? In this short course we looked at how to to create blogs & vlogs that will help push your business further.

As blogging and vlogging is still relatively new to small businesses, we talked about the importance of having a blog, how it helps your website with SEO, and dissected some interesting stats - did you know that 70% of businesses invested their marketing funds into video and blogging in 2018? It's all about making those connections and allowing customers to trust your brand!

This interactive and informal course was a big success as everyone who attended took away some new information and knowledge; but most importantly they were inspired to do more with their business blogs. It was great to see the room buzzing with ideas throughout the course and especially after.

Here is just some of the feedback I received from the audience:

"Lana's digital media presentation last week was packed with information whilst managing to keep all of us in the audience engaged & motivated."

"Will attended a brilliant event today about Vlogging and Blogging hosted by NatWest and run by Lana Suhova! We would highly recommend it to all our followers who want to know more about Blogs and Vlogs."

"I was astounded by the extent of the content & the energy & positivity of Lana's delivery. Thank you so much!"

It was also amazing to be dubbed one of NatWest Business best speakers and to hear how many people requested a repeat of the social media for beginners course!

I love teaching business owners how to use social media marketing to grow and blossom their brand. It's truly a passion of mine. I do one-on-one training sessions, as well as group sessions - if you want to learn and be the master of your own social media accounts contact me today and we will tailor a training session completely to your and your business needs!