My name is Emma Wardall, and I’m a Digital Marketing Consultant. Basically that means that I am like the proud mum of your business – you continue to do what you do best, and I try to find every person I can to tell them about how amazing you are!

Starting with a little bit about my history – I’ve worked in Marketing for 12 years, in a wide variety of industries including; investment banking, convenience stores, and local government. Until last year I managed the Marketing Department of Farleigh Hospice, and working there made me realise that I wanted to continue doing marketing for good causes and so decided to set up freelance to help small businesses and charities who can’t afford to pay agencies fees or employ someone.

While working freelance, what I’ve found is that most people who are starting a business feel like they need to know everything and, just in case no-one has told you yet, it’s not possible!

And it turns out that the work other people can’t (or don’t want to) do is the stuff I love! And the great thing is, it’s a wide variety of work! In a typical week, I’ll:

  • Help businesses get noticed on Google
  • Publish press releases
  • Create advertising campaigns

And most recently, my favourite pieces of work include:

  • Ghost-writing a blog piece about living with Alopecia (I have a lot of hair… I definitely don’t have Alopecia)
  • Building an epic website for all of you lovely networkers

AND

  • Planning a series of training events!

Training events

I have to say, as much as I’m looking forward to launching the Enterprise Networking website, I’m really excited about the training events!

The reason behind the training events is that I’ve realised that loads of people are looking for help with social media, but can’t afford the usual £200 to £400 it would cost them to attend a training session.

So, I’ve convinced a client to let me use one of their computer rooms so the sessions can be really hands-on, instead of listening to me talk and then forgetting everything I said when you get home. And, because I’m aiming the sessions at small business and charities, I’m keeping the costs as low as I can without bankrupting myself.

The sessions are looking to be held around once a month, and they’re going to be on a range of subjects such as:

  • Which social media platforms to use (and why sometimes one is enough)
  • In-depth tutorials on using each of the social media platforms
  • Using social media for recruitment
  • GDPR compliance on social media
  • Protecting your personal security online

As I said, I’m still in the process of planning these training sessions so if you’d like to attend, please email me and I’ll let you know when the events are launched.

In the meantime, I’ll give you a quick taster of one of the sessions – namely, choosing the right social media platform for you.

So, the top 4 platforms for social media are:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn

Although there are others that may be suitable for you depending on your industry and target audience.


Twitter

Starting with Twitter – or the “less is more” platform. Pros of this platform from a user perspective are that it’s a fairly clean layout, you can connect to businesses and celebrities, and it’s always the first place for news to break. Cons from a business perspective are that there aren’t as many advertising opportunities, most users only connect to your business when they want to make a complaint (unless you’re absolutely killing it), and the speed of posts appearing mean that yours get pushed down the timeline alarmingly fast. My general suggestion for Twitter is to use it as a person representing your business, as opposed to actually being a business page. The reason for this is that you can join in some great conversations with potential consumers and at industry events, and the engagements you get are more likely to be rewarding and will help you to learn about your target audience.


Instagram

Next onto Instagram – or the “look at me” platform. It’s the newest of the big 4, and some businesses struggle to see how it can be useful for them since it’s image-based. So, Instagram is amazing if you want to connect with a younger audience (say 18 to 30 year olds) and if you have really visual work you can show off, like home renovations or personal training. If your work is more text-based or has confidentiality issues, then this probably isn’t the best platform for you.


LinkedIn

LinkedIn – or the “who you know” platform. This one is great for networking and business connections, particularly if you’re in recruitment, but users have complained when people use it too informally (probably the same people who complain when someone brings a puppy to the office). If you’re in a business to business industry, then this one is great, but otherwise it can be a little limited.


Facebook

I’ve deliberately left Facebook till last, and the reason being that it’s my personal favourite. It’s had some bad publicity lately, but I still find it to be the most user-friendly and the one with the best return on advertising investment. It’s kind of the opposite to LinkedIn – if you’re looking to connect with other businesses, then this may not be ideal for you, but if you deal directly with consumers or want to get your brand noticed then I really can’t recommend it more (unless they start paying me, in which case I’ll wear a Facebook hat for all future meetings).


Contact me

If you have any questions, or want to learn more about using social media for business, please grab me for a 1-1 at a future meeting or email me!

Emma Wardall

Chelmsford Web Studio

hello@chelmsfordwebstudio.co.uk