Business Connections

Most small businesses today imagine that the obvious answer as to whether they should have a social media strategy is yes. But the process of setting up an effective social media strategy is not so simple. It’s not just a question of starting a Facebook page or joining the world on Twitter, it’s about having clear goals, and an understanding of how others expect you to behave on social media. Here are some simple do’s and don’ts for ensuring you make the most of your limited time and resources.

After spending 19 years in advertising working with the likes of Coca-Cola, Hewlett Packard, Wilkinson Sword, Prudential and Vauxhall Motors, Mike Pitt set-up Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, a leading marketing consultancy for SMEs and entrepreneurs. He has just published his first book ‘How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog’.
There were 484,224 new businesses set up during 2012 according to research conducted by Start Up Britain so this is a great question. I have chosen to answer this question in two parts – considerations and then approaches.

Not all banks are struggling to increase the amount of credit they extend to small and medium-sized enterprises. While bank lending to SMEs under the Government’s Funding for Lending Scheme was £300m lower in the first quarter of the year than during the final three months of 2012, some institutions have managed significant increases in the size of their loan books. A clutch of new “challenger” banks launched in the wake of the banking crisis are slowly but surely increasing their market share – and for many SMEs, they may represent an important new source of finance.

Andrew Goode is COO of Project Sunblock
Facebook is still reeling from a week of allegations that it has failed to protect the brands advertising on the social network. After the Everyday Sexism project, a pressure group originating on Twitter, highlighted advertising appearing on several pages on Facebook advocating or making light of domestic violence, user feedback has been fierce. Vistaprint was the first company to be targeted, followed by Nationwide, Nissan, Dove and a whole host more.

More than a third of Britain’s smallest businesses don’t have sufficient insurance in place to protect themselves against attacks such as vandalism or theft, new research shows, even though such incidents could drive them to the wall.

After spending 19 years in advertising working with the likes of Coca-Cola, Hewlett Packard, Wilkinson Sword, Prudential and Vauxhall Motors, Mike Pitt set-up Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, a leading marketing consultancy for SMEs and entrepreneurs. He has just published his first book ‘How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog’.
This week – Follow these twelve steps and you will deliver a better return on investment for your business from Twitter.

Andy Yates is an experienced entrepreneur, business mentor, advisor and angel investor. He is an investor director at Huddlebuy (www.huddlebuy.co.uk).
Golden rules to becoming a business super-scrimping success.

How many directors of small and medium enterprises plan to deliberately flout new laws requiring them to enrol all their staff in a company pension scheme? New research from the Institute of Directors suggests some SME directors are prepared to risk criminal prosecution rather than implement auto-enrolment, the compulsory system of occupational pension provision that began coming into force last autumn.

Cyber crime is now costing small businesses almost £800m a year, new research from the Federation of Small Business warns, with more than four in 10 small businesses complaining that they have been affected over the past 12 months.