Members attending the February Breakfast Club today had a behind-the-scenes look at the Chamber’s website and enjoyed a plateful of tips on how to make it work for them.
Meeting for a change at The Georgian Hotel, Breakfast Club also looked at the Chamber’s Newsletter, and its Twitter and Facebook channels.
The session was led by Chamber President David Goddin, who drew on his experience of traditional and new media technology from a career in journalism and public relations to highlight aspects of good practice and tips for effective content creation.
He said: “The Chamber provides a 24/7 online local business news service, offering free publicity for members on the website, supplemented by mentions in the weekly Newsletter. Members may upload as much material as they like to complement their corporate profiles.
“They are also free to add links to their own websites, potentially boosting their own search engine performance.
“Our Twitter channel enables us to follow, like, comment on and retweet members’ social media posts. We do our best to maintain a daily watch on incoming Tweets, but it’s a great help if members either mention the Chamber (@HaslemereChmbr) or use the town hashtag (#Haslemere).”
He said good content for website posts included news and comment about a member business or its marketplace.
“You should have something worthwhile to say, so that you can reward your reader with some valuable information. Write in an authoritative, newsy style and ensure the delivery is professional.
“Whether writing for the Chamber website or your own, do it as frequently as possible and then promote your posts widely. The whole purpose is to drive traffic to your website, and into your business.”
The President ended with a plea for members to help the Chamber by adding a link to haslemerechamber.co.uk from their own websites.
“Please engage with us on social media and, above all, please encourage other local businesses to join the Chamber.”
- The ‘how to’ elements of today’s presentation will be edited for publication on the website in due course. Please watch for an announcement on the Home page.