Member Article

East Riding companies enjoy social media success

Hundreds of businesses across the East Riding of Yorkshire have taken part in free workshops designed to help local companies harness the potential of high speed fibre broadband.

Broadband East Riding, a multi-million partnership between East Riding of Yorkshire Council and BT, introduced its Business Support Programme in 2014 to help small and medium-sized businesses learn about the benefits of digital technologies.

Since 2014, more than 400 businesses have booked onto free training workshops covering topics including social media, search engine optimisation and cloud computing, with many hailing the sessions a great success.

Workshops have been held in Beverley Conference Centre, Driffield Business Centre, Bridlington Spa, Pocklington Arts Centre and The Courtyard in Goole.

Leading technology experts in the region have helped support the programme, including Steve Phillip, managing director and founder of Linked2Success and Sally Trousdale, director and founder of Pick and Mix Marketing Solutions, who have provided workshops covering LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Steve Phillip said: “We’ve had fantastic feedback scores from our joint sessions and many business owners have been returning to attend all of the workshops. Following on from the workshops and due to the high return levels, most attendees have become almost like family.”

Sally Trousdale commented: “I’m so pleased I was asked to be involved in this training programme. I’ve met so many different businesses and people and enjoyed helping them learn more about Facebook and Twitter and how they can use these sites to increase awareness for their businesses and generate sales. The feedback has been brilliant with some businesses saying they have doubled ‘likes’ on their Facebook page, had sales enquires and built connections with other suppliers.”

Many local businesses say they have enjoyed success following the Broadband East Riding Business Support Programme.

Driffield-based motorsport clothing supplier Nimbus Motorsport credits the Broadband East Riding workshops for helping it use Facebook successfully to increase the sale of its safety gloves around the UK.

Chris Kitchen at Nimbus Motorsport, said: “By being able to channel interest on Facebook into genuine sales, orders from here have now far exceeded the numbers from the initial marshals’ training day, even before we consider expenses. To think that these sales are a result of a post sent from our office is very eye opening and for the first time has led to Facebook becoming considered a genuine marketing tool for the business.”

Intelligent Offsite, a modular building supplier based in Market Weighton, has generated international business from its increased use of LinkedIn after attending a Broadband East Riding workshop.

Paul Bonacorssi at Intelligent Offsite, said: “I have learnt so many useful tips at the LinkedIn workshop, which I have been able to use in my business and LinkedIn helped us secure contracts worth £100,000 on more than one occasion.”

Broadband East Riding aims to make superfast broadband available to more than 42,000 properties by December 2015. The project is part of the Government’s national broadband delivery UK programme which aims to make superfast broadband available to 90 per cent of the country by 2015 and 95 per cent of the country by 2017.

Broadband East Riding Business support, via a range of digitally focused workshops, has been running alongside these infrastructure upgrades, to help businesses get the most from being connected and take advantage of new superfast availability.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Claire Woffenden .