We regularly look at online trends and create content for our clients that is relevant, timely and results driven. If you know the hot topics and subjects people are talking about you can feed keywords and phrases across your social media channels to generate sales. Using social media without this responsiveness, wider strategy, crisis plan and measurement against marketing and business goals is, well, pointless. It will also make little or no difference to the bottom line. Do you want to spend several hours a day doing something with no tangible outcome?
Recently, when carrying out this online research, we came across something really interesting. We noticed that Google searches for ‘social media training’ in Croydon had gone up by 47% in one week alone. We also noticed that searches for ‘PR training’ went up even further – 117%. Hmm, we thought, there could be several reasons for this. We are coming to the end of the financial year and many businesses are reviewing their budgets. Maybe there’s some money left over in the marketing or training pot and it’s a case of ‘use or lose it’. Not an approach we recommend by the way – training should be part of your regular business plan!
Reputation is everything
Another theory is reputation, or rather the fear of losing it, has never been so important, or more in the public eye. There have been some high profile cases already this year from KFC running out of chicken, to the Oxfam scandal. But these are large organisations with the capacity to react and respond quickly. What about something that can happen to any Croydon business – a fire, theft or employee misconduct? How many businesses were caught out by the snow and the impact it had on its operations? In some cases staff couldn’t get to work, deliveries couldn’t be made, shops and restaurants had to close. Managing relationships with customer, suppliers, staff, partners and local stakeholders requires careful thinking and even more careful planning if your reputation is to remain intact. Maybe this was the wake-up call people needed?
And let’s not forget good ole GDPR, which is just around the corner. Every business needs to meet the new requirements and will be subject to increased scrutiny. Would you be ready if someone decided to jump onto social media and accuse you of breaching their privacy? That’s just a few reasons to reach for social media or PR training right now to benefit your business and protect its reputation longer term.
Social Media Training to help your business
Knowing that there is a sudden demand for your services is very valuable information. This is like gold dust – an opportunity you can’t ignore. Bare PR works with many Croydon businesses to help them manage their social media activity and look out for online trends to take advantage of. This can include 1 -1 or group social media training, managing social media channels in their entirety or helping businesses to develop their overall social media strategy. Services also extend to PR and media training for press and broadcast. We are happy to deliver social media training from our Croydon headquarters or at your office. If there are any areas you need further support in, or would like to discuss some ideas, please get in touch to see how we can help. Thank you!