The Quest PR team wishes all our clients, business and networking partners in the UK, and our fantastic friends further afield – including Gini Dietrich and the team at Arment Dietrich and Jon Buscall from Jontus Media – a fantastic 2011.       

To kick off the New Year we have a guest post from Charlotte Britton of Optimum Exposure who shares with us the findings of a recent survey on how Yorkshire SMEs are harnessing social media to help secure new business.  

The results of the survey were fascinating – revealing how different sized companies in Yorkshire have integrated social media into their business and achieved a positive return on investment for their campaigns. Many of the companies have logged onto the benefits of social media as a tool to garner new business.

Blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn are undoubtedly the most popular networking sites amongst businesses. However, whilst small and medium businesses have really honed in on promoting themselves via LinkedIn, larger companies (50+ employees) are not actively exploiting the advantages of the site. Video content (YouTube) is lagging behind, presumably due to the perceived expense of creating a professional video.

As well as new business, Yorkshire companies are utilising social media to bolster their PR activities. 75% of respondents confirmed social media has been responsible for creating positive PR and 40% revealed that social media has helped with issues management.

Company websites are a common vehicle to promote businesses’ social media activity. 55% have links to their social profiles from their website’s homepage, whilst 30% have a dedicated ‘community’ webpage which signposts users to the various social media sites.

The survey demonstrated that social media is becoming a core part of the marketing mix.  Companies that are adopting the technologies and techniques are creating a competitive advantage for themselves as more people are using sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs. However, companies need to understand the objectives and metrics for success before embarking on any activity, so they know what success looks like as the campaign grows.

The research shows many Yorkshire companies appreciate the value of social media, leaving their non-web savvy competitors dead in the water. Yet there is still some way to go before perfectly mastering it as a fine art. 

View the full survey on SlideShare at:
http://www.slideshare.net/charlottebritton/yorkshire-social-media-survey-2010

Charlotte is Managing Director of Optimum Exposure (http://www.optimumexposure.co.uk/ , a consultancy that specialises in digital marketing strategies that help companies to make the most of the social web.

Charlotte Britton is a visionary leader and a widely acclaimed expert in the internet and digital marketing. She has regularly featured on expert panels and is a keen blogger.

Follow her on Twitter,, LinkedIn and her blog.

Having bemoaned the horrors of blatant rubbish dumping in Cairo – a city where recycling is a dirty word and where pollution from the city centre dump and offensive smoke belching from factories and traffic fumes permeates every space – I was horrified to read how almost 10,000 tonnes of waste (the equivalent of 851 bin lorries worth) that should have been recycled in Yorkshire last year ended up on tips or being burned. Such headlines make Britain, labelled by Paul Bettison as: “The dustbin of Europe, with more rubbish being thrown into landfill than any other country on the continent” a laughing stock.

They also make us seriously question our commitment to attaining our share of EU recycling targets (50 per cent for municipal waste by 2020) which would save emissions equivalent to more than 89 million tonnes of CO2 per year – the equivalent to taking 31 million cars off the road. Campaigners are calling on the UK Government to support and implement these targets to realise our vision of a low-carbon economy. As two thirds of all household rubbish can be recycled, we can maximise facilites provided by retail “champions.”

As businesses, we can also adopt responsible practices outside of recycling initiatives that can deliver both environmental and economic benefits. For those of you looking for a starting point, the Carbon Trust’s SME Footprint Calculator will give you an idea of your firm’s carbon footprint – then you can look at reducing it.

For a comprehensive list, Business Climate Change Champions have produced an excellent guide, but steps we have already taken at Quest include:

· Turning down your heating – costs rise by 8 per cent for every 1^oC incremental increase

· Switch off equipment when not in use – avoiding stand-by modes can cut cots by 30 per cent

· Maximise natural light and reduce use of artificial light

Let’s all do something more this week as householders and businesses to help reach these targets and make us proud of our contribution.