Love it or loathe it social media rules the airwaves Henna Roine, of Terry Lifts. È Warren Jenchner (left) with team members at Apex Lifts. È LEIA ANNUAL REVIEW 2017 Love it or loathe it, social media has become embedded in the world of business. Once seen simply as the communications system of choice for youth organising where to party, uploading holiday pictures and embarrassing their friends, social media is now an established communications channel used by people at all levels in commercial and public life – including heads of state. Like many revolutionary inventions, it creates challenges as well as opportunities. The inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, is so concerned about misuse that in March this year he set out a five-year strategy to combat fake news, the misuse of personal data and tighter regulation of ‘unethical’ political adverts. Another worry is how to define – and then monitor – the amount of time staff spend on social media, not to mention the type of material viewed and posted. Meanwhile, more and more businesses of all types are increasingly using social media, so it is timely for LEIA to find out from a cross section of the Association’s membership how they manage the bold new world of instant messaging and feedback. Representatives of five companies of varying size and location agreed to share their experience. Four of the five companies actively embrace social media, handling the task in different ways but all taking the view that it needs to be interlinked with other marketing and communications activity and managed with the same level of care and professionalism. It was retaining a public relations consultant that convinced Andrew Renwick of Caltech in Dundee of the value of traditional marketing skills in effective management of social media. “I met Alan Morrison at a networking event seven years ago and he has been doing a good job for us ever since,” he says. “As a photographer and journalist, he identifies great stories and packages them for the national newspapers, magazines and trade journals. He also knows that as an SME, we are always stretched for time so he strips down the published stories with embedded links for me simply to upload onto Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.” Coverage in the national press was the trigger that transformed social media use at Terry Lifts, in Knutsford. In-house Marketing Co-ordinator Henna Roine describes how a major feature about their Lifestyle Home Lift in the national Daily Mail got picked up by the news agencies and spread internationally. A video posted on Facebook went viral and the company now has 23,000 followers. “Facebook is definitely a key social media channel for us,” says Henna. “It is so effective in driving traffic to the company website and it’s getting smarter too. In paid Facebook advertising, it is possible to target a very finely defined segment, and campaigns are fully trackable down to actions taken on the website.” Another firm believer in the need for social media to be fully and professionally integrated in the marketing and communications mix is Steve Lipscombe, MD of Ronin Marketing, whose company has been delivering marketing services for Apex Lifts in Bexleyheath for the past three years. “We provide a package of communications - traditional PR, digital communications and social media, with each feeding into the other. When the Apex website was redesigned a few months ago, it was important to ensure that it was integrated with social media, to make the most of search engine performance.” Stannah is another lift company using a marketing consultancy to manage its marketing and communications. Angela Breckenridge, PR Director of bandv in Southampton has handled the Stannah account for many years and supports the company’s Marketing Manager Jo Monro with social media for the commercial side of its business. “The company was a relatively late adopter of social media, partly because of the belief that it was not particularly appropriate for its demographic,” says Angela. “However we are increasingly using Facebook, particularly to tell the story of the company which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. It’s a good opportunity to point out that whilst many think of Stannah primarily as a stairlift company it began by making cranes and hoists around the London dockyards and that it is active across a wide range of lifts and platforms.” Again the issue of integrating with traditional marketing comes up. “The days of product cards being a key marketing tool have gone and we certainly don’t print so many brochures,” says Angela. “But these things are still important – salespeople need to remember that even with a good website and their personal tablets, something tangible to leave behind is very valuable.” The personal approach and the ‘leave behind’ is the priority for the fifth company contributing to the debate, Global Lift Equipment in Flint, who has