August – the month where everything is supposed to be quiet apparently

At Altrincham HQ it was far from it, I mean it wasn’t a record breaking month, but it was on par with most months for us this year.

When you run your own business you can make the decision to slow down or keep on going, whereas for many of salaries August is holiday season regardless of whether you’re away from the office or not

So what have we been up to this month – here’s some highlights

INTERNATIONAL VS LOCAL SOCIAL MEDIA
In August we worked with a business that is truly international in all senses of the word.

Co-owned by a South African and a Brit, based in Altrincham, getting their website built back in South Africa, launching in the UK – but with an international audiance of potential customers!

Bit of a mouthful and I can’t say what the business is as it’s a little secret – but I wanted to talk about how different it is working on a strategy for a business that doesn’t have a hyper local following

Think of what you have to think about when working locally

• Timing’s
• Language
• Hashtag strategy
• Competitor Analysis

There’s a huge gamut of things to think about when you’re working on a 5 mile radius, but throw in 12 different time zones, the language barrier, the fact that you want to get the marketing message out there far and wide across different platforms and there’s a lot more to think about.

By the end of the session we’d looked at the targeted customer base and had a structure in place of which social media platform to use and highlighted 2 potential new markets for suppliers

Do you need help developing a national / international strategic approach to your social media? Get in touch on alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

COPYWRITING
I was 21 when I first got paid as a journalist and it was something I did for around 6/7 years solidly (with a brief spell out of journalist retirement a few years to interview Jedward of all people)

Despite writing copious amounts of blogs for Altrincham HQ and my music website I had never really pushed copywriting as a service to our clients – i’d become used to the world of 140 character missives to the world and blogging was something I did for my own passions rather than other businesses.

This month however a client called me – “We’ve got an article to submit on Chorlton – problem is I can’t write and the deadline is 5pm tomorrow night. Would you be able to help us?”

Write and redraft and write some more and I had 500 words on Chorlton that I was happy with. The client loved it and the result is more copywriting work writing about Small Towns, the local environment and USPs for each area. It’s Altrincham HQ on steroids and fits into all my passions

Do you need help with copywriting for your business? Or do you simply need a blogging brainstorming session to push your in the right direction? Email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

STREETFOOD VS RESTAURANTS
Every day I read about streetfood in some capacity – the broadsheets seem obsessed about it

Manchester has been running a weekend streetfood market in Piccadilly Gardens for a couple of months now and early August we went along for the Manchester Picnic which further extended our love of streetfood with the the likes of falafel, hallumi, crepes and gormet burgers featuring heavily.

I’d attended as a punter rather than professionally and it’s very telling that on a rare meet up with an old friend we decided to eat al fresco with streetfood rather than head to one of Manchester’s many restaurants

Locally in Altrincham, one of our clients Pitta Crepe are proving that streetfood is as important as the local restaurant scene by gaining themselves the coveted number 4 slot out of 70+ restaurants in the Altrincham, Timperley, Hale area

Next time you’re passing – why not stop by? It’s out ranking many of the towns leading restaurants on customer reviews. It’s one of Altrincham’s true USPs

MONTHLY TIPS FOR AUGUST

• Timing and hashtags are key for twitter usage – literally 30 minutes can make all the difference so look carefully at engagement for certain times
• Blogging is key for both B2C and B2B businesses – work out a 3-6 months series of topics to keep yourself on track with weekly blogs
• Pitta Crepe are using review sites such as Tripadvisor to enhance their reputation – look at relevant ones for your business be it Linkedin or Freeindex

Altrincham Hq

“With over 12 years experience of Social Media and 17 years experience of online marketing in other companies, clients come to myself when they want a veteran rather than a rookie” Alex McCann