Let’s face it….after almost 18 months of many of us being tied to our desks in our home offices feeling a little Zoomed out, we could all do with some fresh air and thinking space.
Our members’ lunches have long been a firm fixture in the BCI events calendar – the perfect opportunity for a small group of members to connect and exchange information about their businesses. That said, these sessions are way more than just pitching; they offer a shared space for connecting with your peers to share successes and discuss challenges….and boy, there’s been a few of those in recent times!
As the world starts to open up once again, we’re keen to offer our members more creative ways of networking so we’re teaming up with Outside for a BCI Walk & Talk session on Friday 17th September. Similar to our members’ lunches, we’ll gather a group of 12 people who are keen to don their walking boots and explore the beautiful countryside around Bristol and Bath.
Over the course of a 3 hour circular walk, you’ll get to spend 10-15 minutes chatting to each of your fellow walkers. No agenda as such, just clear open space for thinking, connecting, sharing experiences and exploring possibilities. Chris Thurling (BCI’s Chair) and Alli Nicholas (BCI’s Membership Manager) will be joining the group too so it’s a great chance to chat to them about getting the most out of your BCI membership.
The starting point for our first Walk & Talk will be in the beautiful Mendips, just south of Bristol. We’ll meet in the car park at Burrington Combe ready to leave at 9am. If this format proves popular, we’ll look to arrange future walks starting from different locations around the area.
This event is exclusively for BCI members. There’s no charge but you do need to register in advance here.
I don’t know about you, but for a long time, LinkedIn was the platform that I felt the least comfortable navigating. Its whole demeanour is very different to other types of social media like Facebook or Instagram, and the content that’s shared on the platform is held to a very different standard and set of rules than I was used to.
Or at least it seemed that way.
LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful platform. Did you know that LinkedIn now has over 722+ million members and that there are 11 million millennial decision-makers on the platform?
LinkedIn is an important part of any business’s social media strategy and in today’s blog post I want to share with you the five key things to remember when engaging/to secure engagement on LinkedIn.
Though the platform is indeed much more formal and professional than the likes of Instagram or Twitter, that doesn’t mean it has to be dry. In fact, having a clear personality and personal brand is incredibly important.
Make sure your voice is clear in every post and chose a profile picture that truly represents you and/or your business. Believe it or not, it doesn’t have to be you in a suit with a white background (though of course don’t use anything compromising either – I’d hope that goes without saying).
Make sure your about section is more than just your job title. Who are you and why do you love what you do? Why are you good at what you do? Again, let your voice shine through.
Be honest. Share your professional journey. We all want to feel connected, and nothing is more relatable than having to overcome obstacles. LinkedIn is about presenting your best professional self, but that doesn’t mean presenting your perfect professional self. People don’t actually engage with perfection, because we all know it isn’t real.
I don’t know everything about the way the LinkedIn algorithm works, but what seems to be clear is that LinkedIn loves sharing native content. This basically means that LinkedIn is more likely to show a piece of content that originated on the platform more widely, than a piece of content that originated elsewhere.
If you’ve written a blog post, consider sharing it on your LinkedIn profile as a LinkedIn article rather than just a link. You can add a note stating where the content originated but it’s more likely to be seen when shared natively.
Like on any other social media platform, consistency is extremely important. If you want to receive engagement on LinkedIn, you have to engage with it yourself. Make sure you’re posting regularly. Don’t set yourself an unrealistic and strict upload schedule but think about how many times a week/month you could pop on and give your time.
Make sure as well as sharing your own content, you’re engaging with others. Comment, like and share content that interests you and is relevant to you and your business. LinkedIn isn’t about simply sitting there and shouting about how great you are. It’s not about sales. Like any social media platform there has to be a bit of give and take and you must demonstrate you are an engaged member of the business community.
If you’re having trouble thinking about what content to post, there are three categories that always go down well:
These are great go tos for forming content and are relevant across the board.
According to sprout social, the best times to post on LinkedIn are as follows:
Most people seem to check LinkedIn during their morning commute and on their lunch break. This is something worth considering. If you’ve got a great piece of content the last thing you want is to share it at a time when nobody is looking and have it get snowed under by new content published at the key times of day.
This is probably the trickiest of the tips to master as it’s completely understandable that your schedule might look different day-to-day. Try your best but bear in mind it doesn’t count as a fail if you miss it.
Now, it can be argued that connecting with everyone on LinkedIn is a valid strategy and I’m not here to dispute it. However, I would highly encourage you to find your community and ensure that your LinkedIn connections are meaningful. LinkedIn is more sophisticated than a popularity contest. Networking isn’t about having weak links with everyone; it’s about building strong relationships that serve both parties. Just like friends on Facebook, the people you add and never communicate with aren’t really your ‘friends’. Nurture your LinkedIn network as you would your immediate face-to-face business network.
“For an industry that supposedly gets positioning, we generally do a pathetic job at doing it for ourselves.” Those are the straight-talking words of David C. Baker who joined us for a fascinating session earlier this month discussing how creative and digital businesses can nail their positioning statement to get the right clients.
Described by the New York Times as “the expert’s expert”, David C. Baker is an author, speaker and adviser to entrepreneurial creatives worldwide. He has written five books, advised more than 900 firms and keynoted at conferences in over 30 countries.
Here’s a summary of David’s brilliant talk with essential tips on how to come up with a positioning statement that works for your creative or digital brand.
The Wikipedia definition of positioning is: “the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers and how it is distinguished from the products of the competitors and different from the concept of brand awareness”.
Your positioning is vital if you want to win the right clients and for David C. Baker that’s all about coming up with a positioning statement that’s deeply focused on what you do and exactly who you do it for.
You need to go into a positioning exercise with the right attitude, David said. If it’s just about keeping busy, that’s a very bad reason, he warned.
Thinking about your positioning in terms of meeting the growth goals of your company is potentially a good reason but only if the goals are properly measured and sustainable.
A great reason for strong positioning is if it gives you the ability to deliver more effective work as a “deep specialist” and to charge a premium price.
But for David, the main reason he likes his agency clients to have a strong positioning statement is that he can’t write a marketing plan without one.
David says there are two types of positioning to consider.
Horizontal positioning is offering a specialist service such as annual reports or targeting a specific demographic such as older people.
The benefits of this approach are that you get lots of variety and the opportunity to work with larger clients.
You also don’t have to worry so much about client conflicts and your business will have a greater immunity to economic downturns than if you were focused on a vertical sector.
The second option is vertical positioning which is targeting a particular industry sector such as financial services, tourism and hospitality.
The advantages of this approach are that it’s easier to find clients and they will often take you with them if they move jobs.
It’s also easier for your reputation to spread as communities tend to organise around verticals, with conferences, trades and awards etc, and the money you can make tends to be higher because verticals place a premium on deep expertise.
Once you’ve decided on your positioning statement, you should test it by answering some key questions.
David grouped them as “quick tests” and “better tests”.
Is it the typical “more better” nonsense?
By this David means you don’t need to use superlatives in your positioning. Being “more better” than someone else is not a strategy. “Just state clearly what it is you do”, David said.
Could a prospect self-select themselves into or out of the running?
Prospects should be able to read your positioning statement and know straight away whether or not your business is right for them. This means you won’t waste your time on pitching unsuitable clients.
Do you have an unfair advantage in maintaining the claims you are making?
Do you have some things that other people don’t have? Perhaps it’s unique research insights or you’ve delivered the service many times before.
Are the claims readily verifiable to an outsider before they hire you?
David said: “There are a lot of things that your clients love about you, but they can’t really test the veracity of those claims until they become a client. So it’s good, for example, that you’re responsive or that you listen carefully. But how can they verify that because there’s nobody out there saying ‘you know what, we tried to listen to our clients, and it just slowed things down, so we don’t do that anymore’.
“There are a lot of things that are true that are not a part of the positioning discussion, they are just there. You want to distinguish between why clients come to you, and why clients stay with you. They stay with you because of some of these other things, but that’s not why they come to you in the first place.”
Would you let a client of yours get away with a lack of precision in your claims?
You probably have some clients who want to make claims about their product or service that you don’t think are courageous or strong enough. But if you’re really honest, are you doing the same? You should be “bold and unique” with your positioning, David said.
How many competitors are there who occupy the same expert positioning as you?
David said that the number of competitors in your geographic client area should be between 10 and 200. If it’s fewer than 10, your positioning is probably not viable unless you’re starting something very new and you’re the first, or one of the first, to market. If you have more than 200 competitors, David advised that you should work on narrowing your positioning down.
How many client prospects are there that you could address?
David said that number should be between 2,000 and 10,000. Many will probably not hire you, but could they hire you if they wanted because your positioning fits their needs?
10 immediate, unrehearsed “aha” moments between peers
David gave the analogy of sitting on a train and striking up a conversation with a fellow passenger who he discovers works in marketing like he does. “I know a fair bit about marketing but I still expect to have 10 “aha” moments from the other person because they are positioned in a different space than I am. I want to have 10 of those “aha” moments in a 10 or 15 minute conversation.”
Your positioning needs to be such that you surprise others in your sector. If not, David said, then you’re probably not positioned well enough because you haven’t focused in an area and dived in deep enough.
Do you never run out of topics to write about?
When writing blog posts, do you sometimes think “I don’t know what to write about that is interesting or hasn’t been written about by lots of other people already?”. If the answer is yes, that’s a sign that your positioning probably isn’t right. “The deeper and tighter your positioning, the more things you can write about that are interesting to a smaller segment of the population,” David said. “Positioning is an exercise in exclusion, not inclusion.”
David shared some key tips for writing a positioning statement.
You do [this] for [these]
Your positioning statement needs to answer two questions: What do you do? Who do you do it for?
Keep it snappy
Your positioning statement should be no more than 12 words. Don’t use a lot of adjectives or adverbs and avoid superlative statements. ”Be brutally objective and rational in your statement. Let other parts of your website provide the ‘we’re the best’ and ‘we’re amazing’ messages.”
Scare yourself a little
Smart positioning decisions are made when people look at everything they do and decide honestly what should be included. That might mean leaving something out because there are too many competitors or it’s not your best work. That’s a painful decision to make”, David said, but scaring yourself a bit is no bad thing.
Socialise but don’t democratise
When coming up with your positioning statement, it is important you bring everyone along by involving your team, listening to feedback and answering questions well, but you (the managing director/chief executive/president etc) have got to make the final decision.
If all else fails, reluctantly build a sub-brand
If you settle on a positioning statement but you realise you only have very limited examples of how you fit and you’re nervous about jumping in with both feet, David said you can create a sub-brand. This is useful for a generalist business that is doing lots of things for lots of people but wants the advantage of a tight positioning.
Let us know how you get on with writing your positioning statement by tweeting us at @Bristol_CI.
Join the next Bristol Creative Industries event on 2 March: Clubhouse as a media platform.
For our first big announcement of 2021, we are delighted to reveal the new members of the Bristol Creative Industries board of directors.
Following the launch of our new brand and website towards the end of last year, our focus has been to bring on board a new team of directors who will help us deliver our plans to support members and Bristol’s creative industry in nurturing and attracting talent, connecting and growing their businesses.
The diversity of Bristol’s creative industries is something we are immensely proud of, but we also recognised the need for our board to better reflect that diversity. We need individuals who can bring different perspectives and experiences and help us widen our reach across the city. That will help us to future proof the organisation and better support our members.
We are extremely grateful to the stellar line-up of individuals who have joined our board. With their incredible expertise, they will help us build stronger connections with creative businesses, government organisations and individuals in all corners of the city.
Supporting our members
During the pandemic, members have relied on us for advice, counsel and connections. We will continue to do that as challenging times continue and our priority remains to provide a valuable service to our members.
The sector is a vital part of the region’s economy and we look forward to shaping many exciting new support initiatives, supported by our new board. Talent pipeline and business support are areas we know members want our help with and we’re looking forward to sharing more information about some exciting new initiatives in the coming weeks.
Despite the current economic conditions, there is much to celebrate. Bristol remains a brilliant place to run a creative business and we continue to see innovative companies making the city their home and joining our creative cluster.
Promoting diversity and inclusion
Bristol Creative Industries Chair Chris Thurling said:
“Despite very challenging times, our sector remains positive which fills us with confidence. Our role is to help future proof Bristol’s creative industries and our members by ensuring their businesses grow in a way that better promotes diversity and inclusion. The new Bristol Creative Industries board will help us to do that.”
The Bristol Creative Industries board
Joining Chris Thurling, Chair, Lis Anderson, who steps up to Vice Chair and Steven Coombe, Finance Director, we are delighted to welcome the following new board directors:
Julz Davis
Julz Davis has a 20+ year track record of delivering disruptive engagement solutions for complex campaigns across the community, civic and commercial sectors. He has worked for award-winning communication agencies, world food distributors, large-scale events, ethnic media and ethical banks. Julz is proud to have transformed, enriched and saved the lives of people from under-represented groups.
From Knowle West to Westminster, as an award-winning creativist, he is inspired to creatively use the tools of activism to co-create with organisations and other like-minded changemakers keen to advance adventures in diversity and social change, for good.
Marissa Lewis-Peart
Marissa Lewis-Peart is a designer from Bristol with a passion for how people interact with brands and how that experience is shaped through design. In 2019 Marissa won the Ben Martin Apprentice Award in collaboration with Bristol Creative Industries, Babbasa and The IPA. Through that, she attended SXSW in Texas to build her network and gain industry experience through a local internship program.
In addition, Marissa is a scholar on the Editorial Intelligence Social Capital Network programme funded by Google and a dancer in her spare time. She is passionate about helping other young people from underrepresented backgrounds into the creative industry.
Heather Wright
Heather Wright is a BAFTA-winning animation Executive Producer and Creative Industries Consultant. She is a collaborator and connector with a passion for creativity.
In 2020 Heather set up her own agency Springboard Creative. Prior to that she spent 22 years as Executive Producer, Senior Management Team and Board Director at Aardman Animations, where she was credited with being a major contributor to the cultural, commercial and creative success of the company.
She has many credits to her name but is most proud of her work as Executive Producer on BAFTA winning ‘Tate Movie Project’ actively engaging over 35,000 children across the UK, to co-create ‘Itch of the Golden Nit’. As Chair and Trustee of Creative Youth Network she supported the CEO and the Board during a time of transformation from being a local activity centre to being one of the South West’s most respected youth arts groups.
Heather is also an active member of the AHRC Creative Industries Advisory Group and supports South West based companies as an Innovation Expert for Business West.
She also has a lifelong interest in enriching the lives of children and young people everywhere, whatever their background, whatever their circumstances, by unlocking their creative potential.
Gail Caig
Gail Caig is a freelance consultant, working in strategy and policy development and specialising in the creative industries. She is currently working as an advisor to the Creative Industries Council. Gail has worked in national government for over a decade, primarily as Head of Creative Industries Policy at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Working across the private, voluntary and not for profit sectors, she has successfully secured major funding bids, overseeing programme delivery and advocating with, and for, a range of interest groups including people with learning disabilities.
Gail was Head of Policy for Creative England. She worked with governments and agencies in countries including Columbia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Germany to share best practice.
Dr. Susan McMillan
Dr. Susan McMillan is an award-winning television producer and writer who has spent much of her career at the BBC. She has also worked on many international co-productions with Discovery Channel, National Geographic and film companies in Australia.
Susan now inspires the next generation of creative industries talent in the South West. She developed the BBC partnerships at the University of the West of England, the first of their kind in the UK.
Susan set up the new School of Creative Industries at Bath Spa, partnered with Pinewood Studios and IBM. She has also developed exciting new film and gaming degrees with Bristol’s Boomsatsuma to ensure diversity and inclusion.
In addition, Susan is Executive Producer of Bath Spa Productions, a commercial production company and film studio with clients including BBC4 and BMW. During lockdown, she launched Z.Ed, a platform for emerging talent in the South West. She has also worked with Vuni, an app showcasing creative content from young people in Bath and Bristol.
Networking. For many people, the word fills them with dread. For others, there’s an element of guilt as they know they should be devoting more time to making useful connections.
Perhaps you’re more extroverted and revel in the idea of being in a (virtual) room of new faces. Or you may feel ok about it but are unsure how to do it with the “stay at home, see no-one” Covid business environment.
There’s no doubt that networking is essential to the success of a business. But as it’s not urgent or immediately fee-paying it’s something that can easily end up at the bottom of the to-do list. Whether you love it or loathe it, Bristol Creative Industries (BCI) has just the ticket.
The BCI Virtual Lunch is an opportunity for a small group of members to connect virtually and exchange information about their business. The BCI team chair and host the one-hour session and invites are sent to contacts within the network.
We see businesses of all shapes and sizes during the session. From the managing director of an established 50+ person agency to founders of an innovative startup, each month we encourage a variety of members to attend. You’re more likely to meet potential partners or referrers than competitors.
Each guest has a three-minute slot or ‘elevator pitch’ to talk about their business. Some provide a general overview whereas others are more focused on the ‘who, what, how, why and for whom’. You don’t need to fill the three minutes, and you can add in a bit of informality and fun. It’s just three minutes and then you’re back on mute.
The members’ lunch is much more than just pitching; it’s a shared space for connecting with your peers to discuss challenges: Covid, managing remote teams, communicating over zoom, missing the office buzz, getting rid of office space, recruiting, new business pipeline and conversion, confidence, those on slowdown, those overstretched… the hour flies by. General themes are shared and collected by the Chair, who also is the rigorous timekeeper. It makes for a busy hour of listening and a feeling of community.
Does it sound terrifying? Well, maybe, but virtual lunches do have some advantages compared to traditional face-to-face networking, which can be unstructured and uncomfortable. You participate from the comfort of your own office/home, there’s no travelling, no small talk, only three minutes of talking for which you can prepare, and you hear from 11 other businesses – quite a high hit compared with an event. There’s no competing for airtime and you don’t have to ask for contact details as these are circulated after the event.
BCI’s Virtual Lunch is proving an effective way for members to widen their networks and it’s likely we’ll continue the format even when the pandemic has passed.
But don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what Kate Sikora from Noble Performs had to say about her first BCI Virtual Lunch in November 2020:
“What a delight, mid-lockdown, to spend an hour seeing some familiar faces, meeting new contacts and discussing our current challenges in business. Thank you to Bristol Creative Industries for keeping us connected, as you have done so well for so many years.”
“We’d love to meet you and hear about your business,” said Chris Thurling, Chair, “and if you’ve been before, do come again. This region is known for its cluster of creative businesses and BCI is here to strengthen those connections. From one conversation, that links to others, that cross-refer to more contacts, to work contracts, to talented people. It’s a network that’s constantly growing, changing and on the move, offering opportunities.”
Feel you need to brush up on the art of developing your network? Chris recommends, “Taking the work out of networking – an introvert’s guide to making connections that count” by Karen Wickre.
If you’re a BCI member and would like to join us at a virtual lunch, contact our Membership Manager, Alli Nicholas.
If you’re not a BCI member, join today.