I was recently interviewed by the AXA IP Team about how brokers can benefit from social media.

The interview went very smoothly and I am happy with the results. At FWD Digital we work with brokers, insurers and other financial service organisations on a range of areas from web design to social media. One thing that is becoming apparent it that a lot of clients and prospects are looking to build their knowledge of digital with a view to stepping up their activity in 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter Management

One of the issues users often have with Twitter is the level of information that they are bomdarded with on a daily basis.  The more people you follow the more of an issue this is likely to become and if you genuinely want to read, manage and engage with your fellow “Twitterers”, consider using a “Twitter Client” to help you do this.

Twitter clients include the likes of www.hootsuite.com and www.seesmic.com.   These tools have grown up alongside Twitter and create a more enhanced user experience than you can achieve through Twitter itself – which is sometimes criticised for its simplistic functionality.  And importantly they give you, the user, more control.

The features offered by these tools are extensive and growing all the time:

Simultaneous Account Views

If you manage several social media accounts, perhaps multiple Twitter accounts, a Linkedin account, your Facebook page and so on, you can view all feeds at the same time.  This ensures you can maximise information flow across all the accounts more effectively and easily.

Multiple Contributors

If your organisation sets up a Twitter account and wants more than one person to access and contribute to it, Twitter Clients allow them to be easily added and deleted and for there to be strong levels of general  administrative control.

Track Your Twitter Clicks

The tools also allow you to track how many people click the links on your Tweets.  This is especially important if are trying to gauge how engaging your tweets have been in your efforts to generate content that will drive genuine traffic to your site.

Other features allow you to manage your followers more effectively, schedule your Tweets, integrate your blog search for topics on Twitter and so on.

Using these and other tools, FWD Digital offers the full range of Twitter Management services to clients.

That’s enough discussion…take the leap into social media.

We have attended three different social media events so far this week: – Social Media World Forum at Kensington Olympia

- Silverpop’s Advanced Engagement Marketing Masterclass

- The Insurance Age Social Media Round Table

These events included some very interesting discussions led by people who are knowledgable and strategically focused on making social media work for businesses of all types. We have been trying to drive this dicussion within the Financial Services industry and are beginning to see companies entering the digital space with various activities.

In no way are we advocating that you just plough into activity as soon as possible. There needs to be a solid thought process behind anything you do, but there does reach a point when enough is enough in terms of analysis, discussion and research and the only way forward is action.

It’s only when you begin social media activity that you really start to understand it.

You will see what topics generate discussion and which topics do not engage people. You will learn who in your organisation understands and gets excited by social media and who is terrified at the thought of it. You will start to see ideas and enthusiasm growing from within your company that may include recording events and posting them on YouTube, letting clients contact you through Twitter to improve customer service or installing Google Analytics to track referrals.

We have developed a strategy for creating content and letting that content do a lot of the work for you to drive conversation that can engage all of your stakeholders. The title of this blog sums up our content strategy: Passion >> Patience >> Proactivity

So if social media has been a topic of discussion within your company maybe it is time to take the leap and get involved. You can contact the FWD Digital team on 020 7623 2369 or fill out an enquiry form and we will be happy to take the leap with you, while making sure there is a safety net to catch you at the bottom.

Corporate activity online is growing with social media and blogging seeing large growth in 2009

Todays blog from emarketer.com shows that big business is starting to realise the benefits of digital marketing. It looks at the Fortune 500 group of companies and analyses their pick up of blogging and social media. The findings indicate that the larger organisations are coming round to the idea of social media as a marketing tool.

It has been SMEs that really adopted this space early on and it has helped them punch above their weight by driving traffic to their site, making them more visible in the public eye and engaging their target market in conversation. This level of activity has helped them bond with their audience, even encouraged advocacy in some instances, and led to a more transparent relationship. It is this relationship that will keep customers and clients coming back time and time again to buy products and services.

Big business has been nervous of social media. The idea of losing control of the conversation and engaging with public opinion has put many marketers and CEOs off. However, if managed properly online communications can enhance your brand reputation, client satisfaction and ultimately turnover. It seems that in the US atleast these benefits are being seen:

- 35% of the Fortune 500 companies are Tweeting

- blogging increased from 16% in 2008 to 22% in 2009

- Three in 10 Fortune 500 blogs include video blogging

- 19% of blogs feature podcasts

As a digital agency in London we are seeing a greater desire among UK Financial Services organisations to build their online activity and we sense that the industry on the whole is on the brink of adopting social media and blogging in a big way.

If this is the case for your organisation please contact us on 020 7623 2368 to discuss how your business model can benefit.