The Queen comes to the MYnetwork Jubilee Party

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Today’s June meet up was Jubilee themed, Sara from our team even made a cake that one would say was ‘fit for the Queen!’ Visit our Facebook Page ‘ME Consultancy Ltd’ to see photos taken at today’s meet up. 

Once again thank you to all our fantastic MYnetworkers that make these events such a success and of course our MYnetwork partners  ‘The Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce’, ‘Ramsdens Solicitors’ and ‘The Media Centre’. 

The next MYnetwork event will be our MYnetwork Wakefield launch event which will take place on Friday 13th July at the Priory Bar in Wakefield from 12.30pm – 1.30pm. 

If you want to find out more about this networking group you can join the Mid Yorkshire Network  Linked In Group or Follow @MidYorkshireNET on Twitter. You can also visit The Media Centre website to see a video footage at May’s meet up produced  by Simon Bishop from Bish Bash Media. 

Mid Yorkshire Network – May

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Thank you to all the members that came along to today’s MYnetwork meet up, there was a great energy in the room thanks to all you enthusiastic networkers. You may have noticed that there were a few photographers at today’s event, we had Anthony from AF Photography Ltd and there was also a photographer recording content for a marketing video for The Media Centre. Visit our Facebook Page to see photos taken at today’s meet up ‘MYnetwork – April’. 

Our next meet up will be on Wednesday 20th June and we will be holding a Jubilee themed meet up; keep your eyes peeled on the Mid Yorkshire Network Linked In group as this is where the details about this meet up will be revealed. 

This networking group is going from strength to strength it’s attracting new members all the time whilst having fantastic regular mynetworkers who help make the networking group a constant success. In addition to this, the Linked In group now has over 1,000 members who actively participate in online discussions and attend our monthly meet ups and don’t forget you can also follow MYnetwork on Twitter @MidYorkshireNET.  

Business Profile: Howard Rushfirth (Rushfirth Creative)

Howard Rushfirth - Rushfirth Creative

Current Job Position?	Creative Director and co-owner of Rushfirth Creative, Creative Director and co-owner of Schools Teaching Enterprise Programme Ltd. (AKA STEPteam)
Best thing about your job?	Being paid to do the thing I love most and do best
Worst thing about your Job?	Not having enough hours in the day.
Favourite Restaurant in Huddersfield?	Being relatively new to Kirklees (I live and work on the Leeds/Wakefield extremities of the district) I don’t get over to Huddersfield that often, mostly to the MY Network meetings.
Your best achievement?	Being a major player in the creation and production of the brand identity for premium ranges of TWO major supermarket retailers.
Interest and Hobbies?	The precious spare time I have is spent with my wife Kathryn and my three children.
What do you value most about being a member of a networking group?	It’s essential for small businesses to ‘expand their team’.
Website Linked In Twitter Facebook	www.rushfirthcreative.co.uk Howard Rushfirth @RushfirthLeeds Rushfirth Creative

Bio:

I was born in a small house in Garforth in the Spring of 1970. And after a spending a year or two of behaving like a complete baby (literally), I made an important discovery.

I liked to draw.

Everything went in through my eyes, spun around in my head, flowed back down through my right arm and pushed its way out the end of a wax crayon creating my own unique reinterpretation of the world around me.

No one asked me to do it, or taught me to do it, or even particularly encouraged me to do it. I just did it. And did it. And did it.

40+ years later, I’m still doing the same thing. Sure, during the last 22 years, the crayon has been substituted by a ‘mouse’ with a little picture of an apple on it. But the drive and the principle remains the same. I’ve illustrated nationally distributed children’s books (at the tender age of 16) and created cartoons for comics. I’ve created corporate signage schemes for big-name high street retail, banking and pub chains. I’ve created branding for premium ranges for several major supermarket retailers. I’ve run press ad campaigns and story-boarded for film and television.

And I still like to draw.

With my wife Kathryn, I run Rushfirth Creative, a small but perfectly formed creative agency offering a wide range of expertise for those serious about moving their business forward through good design. Design that not only looks good, but gets results within the marketplace. If you want to find out a bit more, our website is a really good place to start. I also tweet all kinds of stuff (and nonsense, on occasion) on Twitter. We’d also love you to ‘like’ and interact with us on our dedicated Facebook page. Most of all it would be nice to meet up- we try to get to the MY Network meetings whenever we can- so perhaps see you around!

Infographic: Which of your social media profiles will give you the best lead generation?

Digital Media Report…What has the biggest impact on lead generation?

Infographic sourced from SearchEngineLand

As a business were very active online; we have social media profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, WordPress and a few other networking forums. Whilst our social media activity had been great to increase brand awareness, strengthen our existing relationship with contacts/customers and even start new relationships; were always looking for ways to help increase lead generation through social media. 

This Inforgraphic has helped us identify which of our social media channels is most likely to generate leads. Overall, we’ve found that Linked In is the most succesful social media channel for generating business leads but we’ve started getting more results through Twitter. However, over recent months we have develop a Facebook page and from the results of this infographic we will definitely be focusing our efforts on generating more leads through this channel as it has clearly worked for many other businesses. 

Speaking of Social Media; you can follow us Twitter @smilessms @ME_Consultancy or on our Linked In Company page, ‘like’ our page on Facebook ‘ME Consultancy Ltd’  and read our blog. 

Infographic ‘Digital Marketing Report’ sourced from http://www.searchengineland.com

SMileS & Seabrook Crisps working together, are you doing all you can to encourage working with fellow businesses in Yorkshire?

Seabrook’s  is based in Bradford  and in the 65 years since they’ve been in business the company has grown into a £28 million brand and is still very much a family run business. SMileS setup a SMS campaign which was based on encouraging people to text in a keyword (CRISPS) to a shortcode (67777) a text response would then be received which contained a link to the Seabrook website where they could access a 50% discount code which could be used for online purchases. This is a great offer for Seabrook’s consumers as they can bulk buy online and then use their 50% discount from texting in the keyword. Seabrook’s website allows you to purchases products from their whole product portfolio and you can even mix ‘n’ match to create a customised box of crisps; each box contains 48 spaces. Packaging and Delivery is charged at £5 for your first box and then £2 for every other box in a single order. Purchase here

The benefit of using social media as a SMB

Article sourced from ‘eMarketer digital intelligence’. Read the full article here.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) surveyed in April 2011 by Pitney Bowes rated social media as highly cost-effective and easy to use, rivalling email in its benefits. More than seven in 10 SMBs surveyed by social marketing platform Roost in May said social media was effective as a marketing channel, and nearly 90% thought it was at least somewhat important to their marketing efforts.

“Creating a profile on a social network” was named the most effective marketing or advertising tactic used according to the nearly 5,000 local business owners polled by Merchant Circle in June 2011. Additionally, 34% of respondents in the Deluxe Corp. study who had used social media said it helped them reach new potential customers and 15% said it increased sales.

SMileS Comment;

Me Consultancy Ltd is an example of a SMB using social media to provide us with exposure. Social marketing has been a great networking tool helping us to generating new business and strengthening our relationship with current contacts. Firstly, we developed our ‘Linked In Company profile’ account which is our primary method of networking. SMileS which is ME Consultancy sister company even generated business from an event group on ‘Linked In’ as our SMS Software was used to send out text messages reminders to inform members of group all the relevant information they would need in order to attend the event. This shows how we have used the social media site ‘Linked In’ to network with the right sort of people effectively generating business.

Cake Friday

Here at SMileS we strive to be a welcoming and innovative business so we are always thinking of new ideas of how we can find new prospects and convert them into long-term mutually beneficial relationships. One idea we came up with is Cake Friday; we try to hold meetings and networking on this day and our team member ‘Sara’ makes a different cake every week. Cake Friday allows us to reflect our company ethos which is all about keeping people happy whilst providing excellent service.Cake Friday helps us to create a welcoming and friendly business atmosphere. It’s a key factor in helping us to establish good friendly relationships with the people we work with to allow for good communication.

Cake Friday has proved very successful mainly due to us promoting it via social networking sites which has helps to encourage more meetings and networking on cake Fridays and has created a buzz around our company. Here are some of our pictures from Cake Friday; you can find more on our Twitter ‘smilessms’& Facebook page ‘Me Consultancy Ltd’.

Why don’t you come and visit us at our office in Golcar and truly experience our cake Friday – And go away full of text messaging ideas (and cake.)