Well, we’ve made it into month two of 2010 and I have yet to hear anyone complaining about the year as they seemed to do right through 2009.  Everywhere it seems people are more confident about their future, even if they do admit that it seems a bit uncertain in the global sense.   There also seems to be considerable shift in the way in which businesses view social networking too.

I have received far more ‘phone calls and emails about integrating social marketing than I did in a comparable time span last year and my feeling is that this is the year of the tipping point, when most businesses acknowledge that they could do more themselves to build relationships with their clients and customers – which of course, it the basis of social marketing (whether it takes place on line or in the physical world).

As many of you will know, I’m a big fan of WordPress as a content managment system for websites and in the course of promoting some workshops I’ll be running over the next couple of months, I was asked what the business case for using wordpress might be.  Naturally I responded by email, but then I realised I had the beginings of a great blog post too  And you can find out the business benefits of using wordpress by reading that self same blog post.

I’ve also been keeping up the LinkedIn Made Easy website too – sure I didn’t quite reach the dizzy heights of 200,000 e-books sold, but I did sell over 200 and so I decided to keep the project running  as a blog about personal branding (one of the big buzz phrases of the next couple of years I’d imagine).  You can still buy LinkedIn Made Easy from the site, and 40% of the profits will still be donated to charity.  Next month I’m hoping to be able to let you all find out where exactly the money already raised during the challenge went to, I’m just waiting for it all to come in at the moment and it seems to be taking a bit longer than anticipated.

Michelle Fischer and I also completed our online survey about the use of Social Media in the Recruitment industry and you can now download a copy of the social media and recruitment report we produced.  I’m also pleased to say that the prize of a bottle of champagne went to Bill Boorman.  Just in case anyone thought we might have cheated, the winning email address was drawn out the envelope by Laura McHarrie at the January Chines BXC meeting.

Two Day, INTENSIVE Weekend Workshops Coming Up

• Business Blogging Bootcamp – TWO Day Intensive Workshop – 27 and 28th February 2010
• WordPress Training & Development TWO Day Intensive Workshop – 6 and 7 March 2010
• Marketing for Authors TWO Day Intensive Workshop

Upcoming Half Day Seminar/Workshops

• Practical Search Engine Optimisation Made Easy – Half Day Workshop – 24 February 2010
• Social Networking for Business Made Easy – Half Day Workshop – 24 February 2010

Next Presentations

• Presentation to Dorset Open Commerce on LinkedIn – 2nd February 2010
• Presentation on The Business of Social Enterprise to Fish on Toast at Southampton University – 18th February 2010
• Presentation on Twitter for Business to the Hampshire e-Commerce Group – 9th March 2010
• Linking in with LinkedIn – Presentation to Dorset Junior Chamber – 13 April 2010