Twitter Tips

*** Guest post by Flame Conference speaker, Frank Furness ***

Here are 3 tips that bring your more traffic without ever sending a single tweet.

Twitter Tip 1:

In the upper right hand corner of your Twitter page is the profile area, or information about you. One choice you have is what website you want to include a link to after the space marked “web.” Most people just send people to their main website. The problem is most people’s main website has no opt-in page so there is no way to capture the prospects email address.

So what you want to do is include a link to an opt-in page, or at least a page that has an opt-in box somewhere. While your followers on Twitter are a list, you also want to add them to your email list.

Also make sure you change the link every now and then to provide some variety.

Twitter Tip 2:

Also in the profile area in the upper right hand corner is a space to create your bio in 71 characters or less. Most people include things like “mother, father, internet marketer, CSI fan, love buttered popcorn” or some other way in which to be cute or funny.

As is often the case, don’t do what most people do. Instead, use the 71 characters in the bio to let your follower and prospect know what you can do for them. After all, your follower and prospect is looking at your Twitter page and asking “what’s in it for me?” So show them.

Twitter Tip 3:

Included in your profile section is a category called “favourites.” What most people do is link to their favourite tweets. Again, don’t do what most people do.

Instead favourite the positive things people are saying about you. Then when someone comes to your Twitter page and clicks on your Favourites, they can see all these “mini-testimonials” about you.

I’m looking forward to giving you loads of tips and tricks around Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Linkedin at the FIA Flame Conference on 27th June.

A Vital Shift in Priorities

***Guest post from Flame Conference speaker Mark Williamson, Director of Action for Happiness ***

There is a vitally important shift underway in how we think about progress. Growing numbers of economists, political leaders and expert commentators are calling for better measures of how well society is doing; measures that track not just our economic standard of living, but our overall quality of life. This shift also mirrors the way many of us are feeling too: that the modern consumer economy has failed to deliver fair outcomes and fulfilling lives.

In recent decades our lives have become increasingly orientated in the service of the economy, rather than the other way around. Yet economic growth is really just a means to an end; it only matters if it contributes to social progress and human wellbeing. And the tragedy is that decades of growth and material progress have failed to deliver a measurable increase in life satisfaction.

When Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he was asking the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to start measuring the UK's national wellbeing, this was greeted with derision and eye-rolling in the media. Critics suggested that it was a cynical attempt to distract us from our economic woes, or simply a waste of money at a time when there are more important things to worry about.

These concerns are understandable, but misplaced. It is of course difficult to trust a government that claims a commitment to wellbeing while simultaneously slashing funding for public services that contribute to it. But to see this only through a political lens would be to miss the point. Focusing on wellbeing isn't a distraction, it's about finding out what will really improve people's lives and then acting on it, which is surely what good government should be all about?"

Mark Williamson is Director of Action for Happiness. He will be presenting a seminar entitled “Ten Keys for Happier, More Productive Living”at the FIA Conference.

Book your place now or call 020 7420 8560 for more details.

Be Bold & Win

*** Guest post by Flame Conference 2012 speaker, Shaun Smith ***

"To emotionally bond with your customers, you must first engage your employees. So how do you create customer experiences that create an emotional bond with your brand? Here’s one way: Having a purpose beyond profit. This may come as a shock but most employees do not leap out of bed in the morning excited by the prospect of making more profit for their organisation that day. Profit may motivate senior executives but it rarely does so for the front-line unless they are shareholders too, as in the case of the John Lewis Partnership.

What motivates employees is feeling connected to the brand promise. That can be ‘Delivering Happiness’ as in the case of Zappos or ‘saving the planet’ as in the case of the World Wildlife Fund. If you ask employees of Umpqua – the community bank based in Oregon – what their brand promise is, they will tell you ‘making customers feel dealing with Umpqua was the best thing that happened today’. Quite a tall order for a bank!

Connecting people to a purpose is an important way of helping them feel good about your brand and we know from our research that there is about an 85% correlation between the way your employees feel about the brand and the way your customers do.

One organisation that understands this relationship is the mobile phone operator O2, as CEO Ronan Dunne explains: “If you cannot turn your employees into fans there’s no way you will turn your customers into fans.”


The co-author of the award-winning book 'BOLD, how to be brave in business and win', Shaun Smith, is delivering a high-octane general session by the same title at the FIA Conference. Be prepared to learn how to be bold and win from some of the very best.

Book your place now or call 020 7420 8560 for more details.