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The UK is a fertile breeding ground for social enterprises, there are around 82,000 social enterprises currently in existence employing more than 2 million people and their turnover is over £169 bn*. Approximately 4.2% of the adult population are working in social enterprises. Social enterprises are organisations that conduct trade to tackle social problems, improve communities, people’s opportunities in life or the environment. Any profits generated are reinvested into activity that delivers social impact. Social impact is the effect of an activity on the social fabric of the community that the organisation serves and includes the well-being of individuals and families.
According to a recent survey by Social Enterprise UK over half of social enterprises have seen an increase in their turnover in the last year. The sector compares favourably against regular small businesses with other metrics too. Some 40% of social enterprises are led by women and 11% have leaders from a minority ethnic background. This compares to only 18% and 7% amongst regular small businesses.
Social Enterprises
Working within a social enterprise has proven to be particularly appealing to the millennial generation and the outlook for the sector is overwhelmingly positive. However, for your social enterprise to thrive you must be able to market yourselves effectively. Marketing is just as necessary for social enterprises as it is regular businesses. Don’t think for a moment that the fact that you have a clearly defined social vision will be enough. How should you market yourself? In today’s connected society you should embrace Content Marketing and Social Media in the following ways:
Blogging
I am pretty sure that you know that you should blog and many of you within the social enterprise community will have some experience of blogging. However, you will need to commit to a regular blogging frequency of at least once per week. Once a month or every now and then is not enough. If you do not have resources to hire a full time blogger or to outsource the activity to a Content Marketing Agency gather together those most passionate voices within your organisation and put together a Content Calendar of future posts. You will be able to unlock the benefits of blogging ( better search engine results, more leads and customers, niche leadership, new opportunities, build a community) providing you are consistently producing good content. To find out more about how to generate blog post title ideas click here and here .
Many of you will already be using Twitter of course but across the social enterprise sector its full potential has not yet been realised. One of the key benefits of using Twitter on a consistent basis is that it is very effective at providing the dynamism that your marketing needs. You can drive traffic to your website, to opt in pages or to event sign up pages on other platforms. Twitter gives your organisation opportunities to deliver effective calls to action and to engage with your audience. Your objective is to build rapport and then relationships with your target audience. For more about how to use Twitter strategically click here.
Periscope
Periscope is a live streaming app that was founded by Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein in early 2014 and is now owned by Twitter. Periscope can be a wonderful tool for social enterprises. Your audience or supporters, potential investors, crowd-funders and the community that you serve will appreciate a look ‘behind the scenes’ live-streaming during your events, and conferences allows them this opportunity. Use Periscope and you will connect with a much wider audience plus broadcasts can be saved and uploaded to your YouTube channel or other platforms. For detailed information on the Periscope app click here.
2019 Update – I would recommend replacing Periscope with YouTube live. Once enabled, YouTube Live is likely to have greater reach and engagement from your community.
Want to connect with more potential investors? Meet potential members of the advisory board for your social enterprise? Most likely you will find them on LinkedIn. What should you do on LinkedIn? Create comprehensive personal profiles. Create Company pages for your social enterprise and regularly post content on your company page and personal profile. To maximise your effectiveness on LinkedIn you should also utilise LinkedIn publishing. You can re-purpose blog content for LinkedIn publishing or create unique content. Do this consistently and your audience on the platform and for your Social enterprise will grow.
Facebook Groups
Facebook is perhaps the most surprising inclusion on this list. However, my recommendation is that you create a Facebook Group for your social enterprise. All social enterprises should have the objective to create a community around their social vision. Communities need to be hosted somewhere – this will be a place where community members can interact with each other as well as with you. Facebook groups (not Pages) are perfect for this purpose. It’s important to remember that Posts within Facebook Groups receive a much higher level of visibility among group members than Pages.
B2B Content Marketing Agency London
Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency. We work with professional services firms and we have worked with social enterprises too. We create content that builds relationships with your potential customers (or supporters) and generates leads and sales via your website, YouTube channel and Social Media platforms.
If you would like us to create a successful Content Marketing Plan for you and execute it give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247 or email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com.and we will be happy to start the conversation.
Thanks for reading.
Mike Pitt
Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, Blogger, Content Creator
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