Isn’t the internet amazing ? I mean we have, as exporters, access to a multitude of possibilities 24/7. And with it have come along some really new and interesting ways to reach people. We have recently started a facebook page for the company, a twitter site and now we have just started a youtube page for the company as well complete with 6 videos filmed by a local company for us at minimal cost but offering maximum return.

But are they working ? What time is taken by running them ?

Well the Facebook page now has 274 members…

The Twitter site has 6 followers and we are following 12 other companies and organisations we are interested in…

But the YouTube videos have been viewed 578 times since they were placed online just 2 days ago.

And we have found all this new media very useful, especially the videos, for all of our distributors around the world as a quick overview of the company. It has also served us very well as we have used them in negotiations with a company in Korea who are very interested in becoming our distributor in their country. Just a simple overview of our company, what we do, how we do it and the process and the machinery used has been priceless. And it is almost that. For an investment of £750.00 for the videos to be shot and produced we now have 6 lovely filmlets to post out into the ether and spread the word on our company.  In my book thats a pretty good return.

We have 274 members of a facebook group we can now talk to and ask advice from about new ideas, a twitter blog which although is small at the moment will continue to sit there and grow and evolve into another great (and easy with only 140 letters used per post) peer group and the youtube videos which really have impressed us with the number of views.

So whilst we continue to get the possible distributor contacts via email and letter we now are able to send them back a quick link to show them exactly what is required. It looks clean and tidy.  It looks professional and its another great tool in our arsenal we can use when speaking with new or existing customers.

The most interesting part is the fact that other companies we deal with have seen them and have started their own pages - it has spawned a new batch of companies using these possibilities to publicise themselves far and beyond the normal everyday capabilities we have access to. And the facebook page was free and so was the twitter page. Only the Youtube page has cost us and only because we weren’t confident enough to produce our own videos but it shows how it suddenly spreads.

Word to the wise though. Use them thoroughly but dont submerse yourself in them. Facebook can remove hours from your day so all I am saying is set up a company page and let it sit there and gain momentum.  Put the fact that you now have these ‘pages’ available in every email you send out to stimulate growth for minimal input. Just add news or new products as and when required and this doesnt take long. Tweet every few days -  little notes to keep momentum going and let your YouTube channel sit and happily gather more and more hits, votes, subscribers…

These really are useful tools especially the videos for international trade - no language barriers just a quick simple visual message to stimulate interest.

Isn’t that worth looking into ? Doesn’t that give you a competitive edge ?