PRESS RELEASE, 7 October 2015
Bristol companies chosen to showcase regional social media talent
Bristol businesses have taken a central role in helping the Government-backed Digital Business Academy launch a second tier of courses aimed at enabling UK SMEs improve their profile and trade online.
The new courses go live on the Digital Business Academy website today (Oct 7) www.digitalbusinessacademyuk.com with one – ‘How to Use Social Media for Business’ – having been designed by Bristol-based digital marketing consultancy Valuable Content.
It aims to demonstrate how to make the most of social media for business and features three examples of West-based companies that are using such skills successfully.
“A quarter of the UK’s SME owners say they do not possess basic digital skills.”
Their course is one of three new additions to an original offering of eight compiled by Digital Business Academy. Timing of this second wave is particularly relevant as, according to recent research by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), a quarter of the UK’s SME owners say they do not possess basic digital skills.
Richard Dennys, Head of Digital Business Academy, said:
“Small business owners are aware of the value that having a good online presence and trading capability can provide, but it is another thing knowing how to go about getting that right.
“Our aim is to take some of that pain or confusion away by giving them tools through these courses, which can be viewed online at any time and stopped and re-viewed whenever it’s convenient.
“When it came to the social media courses we knew we had chosen the right team in the shape of Valuable Content and the course they have designed could not be better.
“The introduction video is really fun to watch and easy to understand and the organisations they have focused on perfectly demonstrates that getting a social media approach right can lead to significant business success.”
Founded in 2000 by Sonja Jefferson, Valuable Content is based at Spike Island. In making the course, Sonja and Valuable Content’s creative director Sharon Tanton used principles they focus on for their own business and that they have also expanded upon in their international best-selling book Valuable Content Marketing.
Sonja said:
“It was a great privilege to have been picked to create this course but also we were very aware of the responsibility that we wanted to be able to make something that everyone could get involved with – and to help dispel any myth that you need to be a 25-year-old who has grown up using Twitter.
“To do this we were privileged to be able to work with three outstanding companies who are all very different and who have been successful in making social media an integral part of how they go about their day-to-day business lives.”
The businesses featured on the course are start-up dining app Wriggle, online beer club called BeerBods and Clutton Cox Solicitors, a long established law firm in Chipping Sodbury.
Paul Hajek, managing director of Clutton Cox Solicitors, said:
“We are a small firm in Chipping Sodbury and have been around for many years, so it could be surprising that we have been so successful through our online and social media channels.
“But I realised quite early on as I was using the internet for my own research to find things I needed how powerful a tool it would be. Our online communication now means we have a national profile and a brand people recognise.
“For us, it’s about knowing there are people out there online asking questions and that we can help them answer them – and if you’re not the one helping you can bet someone else will be.”
Matt Lane, founder of BeerBods, said:
“Our approach to social media is not about driving sales as much as it is about being a part of our customers lives and helping them do something they like – which is to drink and talk about beer.
“The more business owners and entrepreneurs understand this concept, I think that they would be surprised at how much this also helps them understand their own business and who their customers really are.
“I’d advise anyone who runs a small business to put any worries or misconceptions about social media to one side and watch this course as it really will help them figure out what approach is best for them.”
>> Link to the new course is here – How to use social media for business.
ENDS
About Valuable Content
Started in 2000 by founder Sonja Jefferson Valuable Content was created to help provide a new way of helping entrepreneurs and marketers in small businesses learn how to use the web to attract the work they want.
Sonja and business partner Sharon Tanton are ‘on a mission’ to help good businesses fly by teaching them how to create and share content that matters.
Based in Spike Island, the duo are also known by marketers and businesspeople around the world for their authorship of the best-selling Valuable Content Marketing book.
https://www.valuablecontent.co.uk
About Tech City UK:
We started life in 2010, with a mission to support the emerging Silicon Roundabout tech cluster in East London. Anchored in Shoreditch, we’ve grown into an organisation that accelerates the growth of digital businesses at all stages of their development, in London and cities across the UK. Examples of our programmes include FutureFifty, Digital Business Academy, Tech Nation, Tech North and the Internet of Things Launchpad.
A publicly funded organisation with a private sector mentality, we advocate for the digital entrepreneur. We inform policymakers on how to foster the right conditions to start, grow and scale a digital business in the UK. We aim to make life better for digital entrepreneurs.
www.techcityuk.com | @TechCityUK
About Digital Business Academy:
Digital Business Academy is an online destination offering free courses on all the business skills needed to start, run or join a digital business.
Full list of courses:
- Size up your idea – UCL
- Turn your idea into a digital business – UCL
- Develop and manage a digital product – Founder Centric
- Make a marketing plan – Cambridge Judge Business School
- Build the brand – Cambridge Judge Business School
- Understand digital marketing channels – Founder Centric
- Run a digital marketing campaign – Founder Centric
- Master finance for your business – Cambridge Judge Business School
- How to use social media for business – Valuable Content
- How to manage customers – Founder Centric
- How to track performance in early stage startups – Founder Centric
Partner organisations – including the BBC, O2, Twitter and Techstars – are offering rewards and opportunities for participants including paid internships, free training, mentoring, and free startup support.
Participants who complete the courses are awarded a digital badge and a digital certificate. As they finish more courses, they are able to apply for more of the rewards from programme partners.
PRESS CONTACT
Sarah Rice, 07944 798380, sricer2075@gmail.com