The Importance of Social Media and meeting 'Run Geordie Run'
This week, we attended a seminar hosted by the Benfield Motor Group on how to maintain customer engagement using social media. The event was supported by The Entrepreneurs Forum. We learnt how Benfield Motors developed their social media strategy and how they continue to do so now.
We share Benfield's thought process, and are keen to be innovators rather than sheep when it comes to utilising the strengths of different social media platforms. We already have a strong presence on Twitter and Facebook so we would actively encourage you to follow us now for the latest job updates.
The evening featured a guest speech from local fundraising hero - Mark Allison, also known as Run Geordie Run. Mark famously ran over 3,000 miles across the USA in just 100 days last year. He updated his followers on Twitter (over 9,000 at the time of writing) with regular Tweets and updates on his gruelling journey.
Mark commented, "There were many dark days on my journey. When you run through some desolate parts of the country, often clocking up 50-60 miles a day, you will have moments when you feel down. You always miss family and friends. However, every 5 or 6 miles I would check my Twitter timeline and it would be full of support from people not just back home in the North East - but across the UK and the world. This is what kept me going. Additionally, you'd have people tweeting you saying "There's no way you can do this" so in a sense I wanted to prove that small percentage wrong and also prove to myself and my supporters that I could do it. Although I don't have quantitative data to prove this, it is my belief that around 30% of donations were as a result of my Twitter followers which is unbelievable."
Mark went on to raise over £100,000 for St. Benedict's Hospice and the Children's Foundation. His next venture will see him attempt to run across Australia between October and December 2013. Everyone at Westray would like to wish Mark the very best of luck!
To find out more or to donate, please visit www.rungeordierun.com.
