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Twitter: How Do I Get More Followers?

MARK SHAW, Twitter Specialist: When people first join Twitter, quite a common thing they say to me is "I'm desperately after followers, I want a 100,000 followers in a week" and all this sort of stuff. To a certain extent, followers is a meaningless metric. Why is it meaningless? Because I can go out today, and I can click on 100 people on Twitter, and by and large 30% will follow me back, just because I've followed them. So if they didn't know them in the first place, they aren't listening to what I'm saying, they are't interested in anything I have to say, so why would they want to do anything that I ask them to do, or advocate for me. What you're after is people who are listeners. read more

 

Twitter: How Do I Talk To Celebrities?

A lot of people ask me when they first join Twitter, they want to hook up with celebrities and have a conversation, and I think that there's a place to follow when you get involved with celebrities. I think the first thing to remember is that if the celebrities are doing Twitter properly, it's not about business, so stop this idea that you can immediately contact Richard Branson or Duncan Bannatyne with your business plan. By and large they're not interested, that's on their website. read more

 

Twitter: Why Bother?

MARK SHAW, Twitter Specialist: I actually think that there are some people that shouldn't be on Twitter. Twitter is all about sharing, adding value, listening, engaging to people, being open, being transparent, and so on. If you're the sort of character that is none of the above, then I think that Twitter is probably not for you. So if you're the sort of person that is very private, if you're the sort of person that just likes broadcasting, sending out information all the time, but never engaging back when people ask you a question. If you're the sort of person that doesn't like to share information that they find, then Twitter may very well not be for you. read more

 

Developing A Business Strategy

GUY RIGBY, Head of Entrepreneurs, Smith & Williamson: It's really important to develop the strategy as a team rather than have it imposed by an entrepreneur or a single individual. People buy into strategy, and if everybody's on board, they're all can-carriers, and they're not just going to sit there and say 'well, it's his idea, and when it went wrong, it's not our responsibility'. read more

 

Critical Success Factors

GUY RIGBY, Head of Entrepreneurs, Smith & Williamson: You have to start with the business strategy, and then you have to look at the critical success factors around it. So once you've decided what you're trying to achieve over a 2 or 3 year period, then you have to work out how to measure what it is that's going to determine whether you're successful. It might be the sales levels, if you can get the demand, then you're going to be successful in the business. read more

 

Managing Cash Flow

GUY RIGBY, Head of Entrepreneurs, Smith & Williamson: Businesses don't go bust because of a lack of profitability. They go bust because they run out of cash. One of the key reasons why businesses go bust is because they don't start with enough cash in the first place. So the first golden rule is always make sure you're got enough cash in your business to do what you're trying to do. Don't take that order that is going to bankrupt you because you can't afford to pay the supplier. The best day of your life is taking the order, the worst day is when you realise you can't pay for it. read more

 

Musts For Owner-Managers

GUY RIGBY, Head of Entrepreneurs, Smith & Williamson: There are a couple of musts for owner-managers. Firstly, they need to take time out to think about the business and its future, rather than working in the business. So they probably should be spending anything between 20 and 30% of their time on that aspect of their work as opposed to actually turning that handle on a day-in, day-out basis. read more

 

Orange Technology

MARTIN LYNE, Director of SME, Orange UK: We work with a number of entrepreneurs and what we see quite constantly is their ability to be the early adopters of new ideas and innovation. We've seen that through the early wave of mobile voice, we've seen it more recently with mobile data. They've been able to embrace the technology earlier, they gain and harness the benefits much earlier. Probably because they're nimble, not encumbered by the models that larger businesses work in, but they're actually working as pioneers for the rest of the marketplace. They're an important part of what we do within Orange, and they're an important part for the industry. read more

 

Orange Support

MARTIN LYNE, Director of SME, Orange UK: I think for small to medium businesses in the last year, certainly in 2009, it was a difficult year, with the recession and the way it started. Certainly from a trading perspective we have refined and improved our offers in the first quarter of this year, both for our sole traders and our larger businesses, through business solo and business sense. read more

 

Orange Mobility

MARTIN LYNE, Director of SME, Orange UK: Orange has been in the market for a number of years, serving SME's and small businesses, so starting with small businesses over a decade ago, that has allowed a very different way of working. More recently with mobile broadband we've allowed provision of access to email and internet connectivity in a number of environments on the move, and as we move into the broader internet world, which takes you into applications, then actually, we really are opening up people's lives, supporting a better way and a more productive and efficient way of working. read more