Q Social Media

Getting Social with Q Social Media

There’s no getting away from it – the social media revolution continues to gather pace and understanding your ‘Tweets’ from your ‘circles’ is seen increasingly important in communicating to consumer and business audiences. We talk to Exeter-based Q Social Media about how it supports its clients in this ever-changing area and find out what to expect from social media in 2014.

Q Social Media founder Chris Wood moved to Exeter from having previously contracted in IT in the City of London just over four years ago to provide computer support for local clients. However, he quickly found that his experience of using social networks since their infancy was in high demand and after just 18 months he re-branded his services to become Q Social Media. The company has since grown to provide a wide range of in-house training and outsourced social media management services for businesses across the region.

“Each of our clients require a different level of support and we offer a range of services to suit specific needs,” said Chris Wood. “That might involve in-house social media training for staff, Google Adwords and Analytics campaigns, audits that highlight what you’re doing well and what could be improved, or a fully outsourced social media account management service. For larger organisations we also provide a full strategic consultancy service, where we work with you to identify a clear purpose and direction for your social media use, and create a strategy accordingly.”

Chris cites social media management as an area that’s showing impressive growth within his business, with more clients recognising the need for a presence on social networks, yet not having the necessary time to dedicate to activities that produce results. As such, Chris now employs another member of staff to help manage his busy workload.

This workload includes sponsorship and support for the popular ‘Exeter Trails’ campaign, which provides shopping routes to encourage people to explore the many independent retailers dotted across Exeter. Having begun to assist with the Facebook campaign as recently as three months ago, Q Social Media has already nearly doubled the number of Facebook ‘likes’ and has introduced ‘boosted posts’ as a way of increasing the audience reach for key messages.

Chris is an active member of Business Network South West and it was at one of these events in 2012 that he met Simpkins Edwards partner Mary Jane Campbell, who is a regular attendee and speaker. Already considering changing his accountancy firm, Chris first approached Mary Jane about our Libertyse online accounting package and now receives other practical support from us, including a bookkeeping service and the production of end of year accounts.

“Libertyse fits my business perfectly,” added Chris. “It’s really allowed me to streamline my invoicing and bookkeeping process, which has saved me time and money. Having the support of Mary Jane and her team is also reassuring, as I can contact them at any time for advice, even though I can operate Libertyse independently if I wish.”

Of course, whilst talking with Chris about his business, we were keen to pick up a few tips on what to look out for in the ‘social media world’ in 2014.

“I think that the success of all social networks, whether it’s Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook, LinkedIn or any others, will be driven by how intelligently people use them,” concluded Chris. “There is so much more you can do than simply upload posts and hope for the best, and I see the future as being determined by how intelligent you can make your social data because we’re only scraping the surface at the moment. In this sense it’s not so much about the technology developing or one particular network racing ahead of the others – it’s about users getting more savvy about utilising what already exists in more intricate, strategic ways. I also think that social media management platforms such as Hootsuite, which allow you to anage multiple accounts and analyse performance, will become ven more important than they are currently.”

If you’re eager to find out more about Chris’ predictions for 2014 or would like some tailored social media and digital marketing support for your business, visit www.qsocialmedia.co.uk or call 01392 311340. Follow Chris and the Q Social Media team at: Twitter: @QSocialMedia @QChrisWood Google Plus, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook: search for ‘Q Social Media’

Are you interested in hearing more about our Libertyse online accounts package? Call Mary Jane Campbell and see how we can help.