After almost 18 months of blissful romance, my wonderful boyfriend got down on one knee and popped the big question, “Will you marry me?”. Following the initial shock and surprise of hearing him say those fateful words, of course I wasted no time in saying yes, yes and yes again – just in case he didn’t hear me, or he decided to change his mind when he realised what he’d done.

Now here we are, two months on and wedding plans are coming on a storm with the date, venue, marquee and even the dress sorted.  But there is one thing I am struggling with; should I change my surname to his? Should I keep my own surname? Or should I have the best of both worlds and go double-barreled? Or will that look like I’m trying to be posh?

Now there are a few things to consider; firstly I am an only child, so the family name stops with me. Secondly, I am very fond of my surname – I’ve had it for almost 30 years. And finally, what about all the online references to Shelley Fletcher?

My final point may seem flippant, but I think it’s important, especially for women who operate, both in the business and personal sense, in an online as well as offline world – especially those of us who run their own business or who are the ‘face of the business’.

For the past 10 years I have been building up an online identity. I don’t just mean on social networking sites, but across a range of websites and my own company website.  As well as social profiles, this includes mentions on static sites, such as references to my name in past press articles, mentions in news stories and on client websites as a contact.

When I search for my name in Google (admit it, you’ve all done it), I find that the first couple of pages show links to my social media profiles like LinkedIn and Twitter. I then appear as a link from my company’s website and listings of my contact details on client websites and professional organisations like the Chartered Institute of PR.  There are images of me, I’m pleased to say none of which are of an embarrassing nature (famous last words…), and then, as we get to pages three, four and five, I appear less frequently, but I do crop up as a media contact on uploaded news stories, pdfs of past press releases, mentions in news stories about me, and comments on stories relating to my clients.

I understand that if I change my name on social networking sites and keep details of my maiden name then people will still be able to ‘find me’, but what about all of the links that can’t be changed, those on what are now on static sites? Do I need to start all over again? And does that mean I also lose the links and benefits of the mentions of me which can’t be changed?

What I’m worried about here is the fact I may lose a lot of online collateral in the form of the ‘online me’ if I change my name, as, as far as I am aware, there is no way of tying what is effectively two different personalities and profiles together.

I’m sure I’m not the only woman to have thought this after being asked to become someone’s wife. And I’m sure as more and more of our lives are played out online, more women will be working out effective ways to manage the transition of changing their name, both on and offline.

So, to go back to my initial question, should I change, should I stick, or should I lump both names together? Or, let’s throw another idea in the mix, should I keep an online and professional presence in my maiden name, and take my husband-to-be’s name in the offline world?

The more I look into this the more possibilities there are.

In this digital world, is taking your husband’s name a simple decision? I would argue it’s certainly not as simple as it was, say 10 years ago. And I know for a fact that when my parents married, there was no thought of the bride keeping her maiden name, it was just expected that once married the woman would change her name.

This isn’t going to turn into a feminist piece about me holding on to my single identity; my point is this, it seems to me that getting married and changing your name is now becoming much more complicated.

Is marriage in the modern world now effectively a complete online rebrand?  If a client were to come to me with the same scenario but based around changing the company name after 10 years of building up an online presence, what would my advice be?

My gut instinct tells me that going for a double barrel name is the best bet. It gives me the chance to keep the family name, which I am so fond of, whilst also evolving my online presence without having to start again and manage the transition from one name to another.  Still, the wedding isn’t until October so we’ll see if anything changes between now and then….. Who knows, there might be an App developed for it by then anyway.

@shelleyfletcher

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women

We are pleased to announce the final details of our second event here at Ladies That Tweet and boy, do we have some great stuff lined up! The date for your diaries is 22^nd March at 6.00pm and we will be hosting the event at Exeter Castle – a fab location right in the centre of Exeter.

The theme for the event is ‘Using Social Media for Online PR and Crisis Communications’ and we are thrilled to be holding the event in partnership with CIPR West of England. You can expect to hear from a selection of expert speakers about how social media and PR are developing together, with a particular emphasis on how these tools can be used for crisis communications – we think it’s going to be a great evening.

Our speakers for the evening include:

• Amanda Hirst – Head of Communications for Avon and Somerset Police

• Sarah Pinch – Head of Communications for University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust and CIPR West of England Chair (@ms_organised)

• Katy Creates – Press Officer for Shelter Box (@katycreates)

You can find out more about our speakers for this event right here and you can follow them all on Twitter too.

The evening will follow a similar format to last time but for those of you who have never attended one of our events, we like to start off with canapés and cocktails before settling down to enjoy the words of wisdom from our selection of speakers. A panel discussion follows where you will have a chance to put your questions to the experts, all finished off with another opportunity for networking with your fellow attendees.

18.00     Arrival with cocktails and canapes

19: 15     Introduction

19.30    Local / regional expert speaker

20:00   Keynote speaker

20.45    Q&A session

21:15     Networking

The event is open to everyone – not just CIPR members or PR practitioners – we welcome anyone with an interest in social media and we are looking forward to seeing everyone there. And of course, this evening would not be possible without our lovely sponsors – email marketing experts Mail Away and local management and executive recruitment consultancy, The Really Good Recruitment Company. Make sure you check out their website as without them, these events would not be possible. And they really know their stuff too…

Tickets for the event are priced at £20 and you can buy them here.

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook so you can keep up to date with our latest blog posts, news and resources.

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women

The idea for this blog post came to me after a conversation on Twitter with @annholman and @juliabramble, where we were debating the importance (or unimportance, as we concluded) of influence measurement systems such as Klout. And it got me thinking, not just about influence measurement but the challenges of quantifying social media as a whole.

Social media activity and conversations are notoriously difficult to quantify in exact terms – whatever you CAN measure, is the minimum of what is actually happening, in my (humble) opinion. It is nigh on impossible to quantify what is essentially human interactions – sure you can utilise a host of social media monitoring systems, pimp your website analytics within an inch of its life and watch your Google Alerts like a hawk. But the truth is there will always be bits and pieces that slip through the net. And it may be these bits and pieces that have the most value to you, yet they are completely off your radar.

This comes as a surprise to many clients and decision makers – we have been spoilt with endless statistics and pretty graphs from the yonder-year of online marketing. And yes, for some areas of digital marketing this still rings true but social media is a different beast entirely. How can you really measure something as organic as word of mouth or human conversations, with their subtle nuances and references? Not well, is the answer you are looking for.

A few months ago I was investigating the range of social media monitoring systems available for a client of mine. If you follow me on Twitter you would have felt the pain of this process. I trawled the web, asked for recommendations and got attacked by eager sales reps on Twitter (never, ever mention the words ‘social media monitoring’ in a tweet, they will find you). Yet every system I tried out always let key data and conversations slip through the net or was missing some key functionality – making me even more reluctant to part with my marketing budget for something I just felt didn’t quite cut the mustard.

I will concur that the top-end tools, such as Radian6 and Brandwatch are more accurate than most but unless you have at least £500 a month to spend, you can wave goodbye to the benefits of these systems.

And don’t even get me started on sentiment analysis… I’ll save that rant for another post.

The same applies to Klout, which assigns users with a ‘Klout Score’, claiming to “measure influence based on your ability to drive action”. Your Klout score is based on three factors, according to their website:

• True Reach: How many people you influence
• Amplification: How much you influence them
• Network Impact: The influence of your network

All summed up in this handy little dashboard for you:

In theory, this seems like a good idea but in practice is it a truly accurate representation of how influential someone is in the real world? By the very nature of how your Klout score is calculated you should assume that this calculation of influence is a very vague indicator, because it only focuses on your visible online activity (and it is A COMPUTER). There is no weight given to the conversations that occur online behind closed doors or (shock horror) in real life. Or the fact that you can tweet loads, build up a heap of less then influential followers who have no tangible value to you or your business to dupe your score. Or you could have taken a step back from your online activity to focus on actual clients or to escape those on the constant hunt for ‘influencers’. The list goes on, I could go on but I won’t – point made, I feel.

So how to wrap up this post? Well, it’s how I conclude most posts about social media by emphasising that this is about establishing relationships with other human beings whilst contributing value to your community. By giving a little bit first you will go a long way and by not becoming obsessed with numbers you will go even further. It is the relationships you establish within social media channels that are of true value to your business or to your clients – whether this is with your customers, journalists, bloggers or potential partners. And how do you measure a relationship? Well, essentially you can’t because we are human beings and they are computers – there are some things about one another we will never understand…

@clemihardie

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women

There is a lot of chatter around the topic of how best to convince the top dogs to spend their marketing budget on social media – how can you make key decision makers see the value in utilising these tools and platforms to achieve and extend their business objectives?

Many other articles around this subject tend to have a firm focus on demonstrating quantifiable business objectives or utilising specific platforms to achieve these objectives. There is no denying that these are important parts of making the case for social media but in order to demonstrate these clearly, it makes sense to go back to basics first – to approach the issue from a more conceptual point of view. You may have already noticed that this post isn’t about giving you a definitive list of tactics to use in your pitch but is more about giving you food for thought when defining the direction from which your pitch should come from.

I would say the biggest challenge for those making the business case for social media is demonstrating to these decision makers that there has been a real shift in consumer behaviour. The increasing popularity of social media is a perfect indicator of this change, which is characterised by a shift in the way that people wish to communicate with each another, as well as brands. By utilising these tools and platforms, brands can adapt to this change and communicate with their customers in a more interactive and personal manner. People are tired of being numbers to businesses; they want a conversation and the long awaited return of the personal touch.

However, this shift is much bigger than just a change in choice of platform or ever changing technologies. Sure, we’ve seen an increasing preference for consuming information online on a variety of devices – something that has resulted in a definite shift away from the more traditional media channels of print, radio and television. But what is behind this change? It’s to do with more than technology – the popularity of these communication platforms lies in their ability to enable people to communicate as, well, people.

When we are coming from this perspective, it is easy to see why social media has become so popular. The Internet is inherently interactive and it is this interactivity that consumers are craving as it enables us to communicate with one another in a more natural way. In the same way as in real life interactions, using social media we can share information, thoughts and opinions as well as a large array of rich media content (an added bonus). Gone are the days of one-directional broadcast messages that we associate with more traditional media channels – the landscape that we see emerging today has a heavy focus on interactivity, the sharing of resources and user generated content.

So whilst this perspective may not focus on the specifics of HOW these tools can help businesses, it’s a good place to start in terms of explaining WHY it is important to utilise these tools. Rather than trying to make social media tick only the usual business boxes, inspire these decision makers to see the possibilities presented to them as a result of this shift in the behaviour and demands of consumers.

If someone can understand the concepts, then they will be inspired to apply this to their business – the key to helping decision makers see the value in social media is by going back to basics and moving away from focusing on specific tools or platforms. There is a temptation to focus your pitches around the tools they are most likely to know such as Facebook and Twitter but don’t fall into this trap just to try and make them feel comfortable. Go back to the basics, start with the concept and work it out from there using a strategic social media process.  It is up to you to connect these concepts with tangible business objectives moving forward but your pitch should always start with the basics and work its way up.

I’m inspired by social media on a daily basis and can see endless possibilities for how businesses can utilise these tools to achieve any number of objectives – whether that is:

• Driving targeted traffic to their website
• Providing real time customer service
• Connecting with new customers, key influencers and potential partners
• Gaining insight that can inform market research
• Aiding product development
• Supporting and extending existing PR and SEO activity

And it doesn’t just stop with customer or client communication – many businesses could also use social media to fine-tune internal processes such as project management, training and team communication. The possibilities are endless once you have inspired your prospect enough to start seeing the advantages for themselves. If you can illustrate clearly enough this change, then it will become clear the value of social media – in that it is embracing a shift in consumer behaviour. By being reactive to this change and embracing it, businesses have a real chance to connect with potential customers in ways that were never possible before.

Once you have inspired a potential client, it is easy to apply these concepts to more quantifiable business objectives and specific platforms. Just remember, before you make the business case for social media, you have to make the business case for an overall change in the way they run their business and communicate with their customers.

@clemihardie

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women

Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I have to admit that I had some conflicting emotions ahead of last night’s first ever Ladies That Tweet event. On the one hand I thought (and still do think) that it’s a fantastic idea and was hugely looking forward to meeting like-minded ladies from across Cornwall and further afield. On the other hand however, I was pathetically whimpering inside at the thought of having to get up in front of a room full of people and ‘say stuff’. Not just any stuff either, stuff that they might (please god, let them) find interesting – or at least not horribly boring.

I should probably have more confidence in speaking in front of people by now, what with doing regular training for rooms full of them. But it’s something quite different up on a stage, with a microphone, and an extremely flattering introduction about how great you are (thanks guys!). I’m not a natural lover of the limelight – I can remember every line of every play I was in at school (“Yes”, “Morning, Doc Gibbs” and “And I”), and I very quickly decided the career of a TV reporter was not for me the first time I saw myself on screen.

But if the lots of extremely lovely tweets I received both yesterday and today are to be believed, then it turned out to be alright on the night. Certainly the event itself was a roaring success. Getting nigh on a hundred intelligent, interesting, professional women in the same place at the same time isn’t an easy job, but Clemi, Jo and Shelley did themselves and all of us proud. The room looked great, the technicals went without a hitch (not something I can say of any live event I can recall at the BBC), and the stew was off the scale delicious.

I decided rather than giving a ‘speech’ as such to try to share some of what I do and what I know – so basically talked around the bespoke social media strategy session I run for the BBC. I hoped there weren’t too many boring slides, and I hoped it all made sense (the run-through I did on my own in my kitchen I thought went pretty well), but it is a whole different ball game up there on the stage. To be honest, I still wouldn’t have any idea how well it went if it wasn’t for all the lovely messages I received in person, and (of course) in tweets.

Social media is such a new thing, and can be taken and used in so many different ways. But to me the best thing about it, is that there truly is something for everyone, and I hope this came across last night. Not just from what Molly and I said as speakers, but from all the hundreds of conversations I could see happening around the room. I certainly met people and discovered links that I know will continue in the future and I hope that is true for everyone else.

So really I want to say a big thank you to pretty much everyone involved: for inviting me to speak, for getting me out of my comfort zone, for the introduction to so many fab women who all live and work near me, and for that seriously tasty stew. But most of all, for the first (and quite possibly last) opportunity I’ve had in Cornwall to wear these shoes.

Thank You Ladies.

@daisygriffith

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women

Here is our latest guest blog post by our main speaker for our first event, Molly Flatt – take it away Molly…

Maybe it’s because everyone hates us so much we have to self-administer our pat on the back; maybe it’s because we feel the need to drown the suspicion that we’re maggots in a tsunami of stale champagne and canapés; maybe, just maybe, it’s because we think that we’re doing genuinely awesome work that can become a beacon for future generations. Whatever the reason, the marketing industry’s hunger for awards puts the movie trade in the shade; barely a month goes by without having to dust off your tux or shave your legs and drag a client to a murky bar backroom for an evening of air-kissing and false humility.

The situation has worsened now that we have a whole new play-chest of categories for ‘social’, ‘engagement’ and ‘community’. Often accompanied by a definition so fuzzy that an old-school TVC disguised as a YouTube hit can scoop a Grand Prix, these gongs are particularly hotly contested in a field so young, crowded and unregulated that the merest hint of validation is gold dust.

For any agency worth their salt, awards are seen as something of a necessary evil; they keep clients happy, help new business and boost morale, but they also take a lot of time and effort to produce, which could be better spent doing the work itself. This particularly grates because the most successful campaigns from a business perspective are rarely the ones that win; sparkly one-off big-budget launches may make for a good story, but they by no means impact on the average consumer as powerfully as the quiet, unflashy, consistent grunt work that makes for a truly social brand.

And some brands consequently forget that their daily behaviour is far more important to the purchasing decisions, loyalty and evangelism of their customers than their QR code treasure hunt, however many marketing blogs it woos.

Let me tell you a story.

My friend Pam is in her 60s, lives in a rural village and regularly shops online. She signs up for a Groupon deal for a reduced-cost canvas photo print. The supplier warns her it takes up to ten days before she will get a dispatch email; she leaves it two weeks before she sends their customer support team an email. No response. She then tries their helpline (which takes some digging to find) but it just rings and rings. She roots around the net and finds a rumour that the company might have gone bust. So she turns to Groupon. She sends an email to their customer support. Cue automated reply giving a ticket number and saying they’ll be in touch.

Over a glass of wine, she relays her dilemma. The next morning I send the following tweet to @Groupon: ‘A friend of mine has been royally screwed over by one of your deals and neither their or your customer service will respond. WTF?’ @GrouponGreenBay are obviously more switched on than their transatlantic colleagues; they alert @GrouponUK to my tweet. @Groupon_UK then give me a ‘social media’ email address for Pam to use.

Back behind e-walls, Pam sends an email. Cue another automated response with another ticket number. After four days of silence, she emails again. ‘Kay’ replies, promising to ‘escalate this with her supervisor’. Pam eventually learns that they will refund the deal, but not the £5.95 postage charge.

There are three things that particularly depress me about this (I suspect common) story. Firstly, behind every shiny social commerce initiative or social marketing campaign, there are hundreds of these frustratingly antisocial encounters going on every day; you can talk social all you like, but if you don’t give your customers access to real people to engage quickly and effectively, it is revealed to be what it is – a purely cosmetic enhancement. Secondly, Pam only got any sort of response because someone with a bit of social media clout and the potential to embarrass the company – me – intervened. Pam doesn’t care a fig for Twitter; presumably this means she is less important to the business than I am (even though I have never bought a Groupon deal in my life). Thirdly, the postal charge. Really?

This sort of neglect isn’t limited to customer service. It can be seen in all that slick but meaningless brand content being pumped onto social presences; those disengaged salespeople on the shop floor; that grad recruitment scheme that looks gorgeous on Facebook but turns out to be the same old dry questionnaire.

Putting the mantra ‘be useful, consistent and consistently useful’ at heart of your social strategy may not win awards, but it’ll influence Pam. A Cannes Lions never will.

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women

Ladies That Tweet.

Grammatically speaking, it should be Ladies ‘who’ Tweet. No one is denying that. Perhaps we should have been Ladies Twit-T’who’ Tweet. We knocked around all sorts of options when brainstorming (or ‘thought showering’) during our initial meetings.
But it’s not a sentence, it’s a name. A name with a neat bit of alliteration, which we think rolls off the tongue. And I started that last sentence with a conjunction. And that one. And that one…

Now here’s the stinker. There is already a Ladies Who Tweet and there is a Ladies Wot Lunch in Plymouth. So why can’t we be Ladies That Tweet?

Yes, the pedantic amongst you will stamp your feet and tell us off, but we chose that name pure and simple. The notion, of course, remains the same . We are ladies. We tweet. We are coming together with other ladies who tweet (that, there, is a sentence).

We look forward to welcoming the joyful lovers out there to our small, but perfectly formed, event next week. I thank you.

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women

This post is brought to you by the lovely Daisy Griffith, one of our speakers at our first event which is being held at the Eden Project on Wednesday 26th October.

Some research was published by academics in the US earlier this year, claiming the way we use social networks these days is a form of ‘modern madness’. Well that’s as maybe, but for the last year since leaving London for a new life in Cornwall, social networks have kept me sane. So, US academia, here is my response to your findings…

In September 2010 I left my well-paid, highly enjoyable and semi-glamorous job at one of the few remaining organisations that pretty much offers you a job for life (the BBC), to move from London to Cornwall. Why? Partly because I adore the place and love the sea, but mostly because I’d had a baby the year before and suddenly all the news items about the ever-increasing deficit in primary school places in the capital became very, very relevant.

My husband and I did spend some time trying to figure out a safe, salaried way to escape to the seaside, but it turned out the only way we were actually going to do it was for me to take a massive leap of faith, leave my career and support network of friends behind (as well as my husband from Monday to Friday), and just go. We (very wrongly!) calculated that we could just about pay the mortgage and bills on one salary so I could spend the first few months finding my feet and spending quality (ha!) time with the toddler.

As it transpired, we had not factored in a string of outgoings in our amateur forecast, including the exorbitant cost of commuting from London to Cornwall – so I was wracked with money stress from the first day on my own. Add to that having no friends, no family and no work in the near vicinity plus the on-going realisation that however much I love my son, I am not a natural mother and find spending all day with a two year old (who still did not sleep through the night) either boring or stressful. All in all, my dream life was turning out to be a pretty bleak existence.

Enter social networking. I have been on Facebook since the giddy, gold rush days of trying to get as many ‘friends’ as possible – but since having a baby had only really used it if I was sent a direct message, which appeared in my email inbox anyway. Now, while I increasingly find ‘Facebook the entity’ pretty creepy in a world-domination kind of way, on a personal level it is a brilliant way to share pictures with close friends and family and keep them updated on my and the toddler’s life in the wild Westcountry.

My real lifeline however has been Twitter. I was a relative latecomer to the Twitterverse but I quickly became hooked. First in a professional sense as it is an invaluable tool if you work in news – and once I’d bulldozed the plans through my bosses’ resistance, it revolutionised the newsroom at BBC London. But since moving to Cornwall it has changed my life.

Twitter is the SOLE reason I know what is going on in the world. The toddler situation means I never get to watch a proper evening news bulletin, the Six O’Clock News is taken up by bath-time, Channel 4 News is merely background music to the hour-long battle to get him to sleep and the Tens (BBC and ITV) are an hour after the ridiculously early bedtime I need in order to face yet another round of night waking and dawn rising. I follow somewhere in the region of 500 people – some out of politeness, some for professional reasons – but most because they are brilliant sources of not only information, but also entertainment, analysis, insight and advice.

It’s thanks to the people I follow on Twitter that I hear the news before it appears on TV and radio bulletins, plus I get reaction and analysis from all sides. I also know what the surf is doing every morning at various breaks along the coast. Thanks to Twitter I keep up with everything that’s happening not just in the news, but amongst the people in my old newsroom – and various other newsrooms around the world PLUS I’ve found a brilliant local food delivery service.
But perhaps the most important thing about social networks and the internet in general is that it’s an outlet to be all the different things you might want to be.

On Facebook I can be the world’s best mother sharing pictures of my son growing up on the beach, on Twitter I’m a respected professional sharing comment and opinion with people from all walks of life, and on my anonymous blog I can be honest about my feelings (and failings) as a mother and how incredibly hard my new dream life has turned out to be.

Social networking may be modern madness to some of the cleverest people in America, but at this moment in time it’s one of the few things keeping me sane.

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women

Well, it’s been quite a week in Facebook land to say the least and here’s our take on the new developments announced by Mark Zuckeberg at the F8 conference last week.

There’s been much chatter about F8 – the new frictionless apps, Facebook privacy and, of course, the logging out procedure.

Frictionless apps now mean we can leave Facebook without ever having to leave Facebook.

It leaves me with something of a dilemma. Do I read the Guardian?

a) in print (yes they still print a paper)
b) on my iphone via guardian.co.uk
c) on twitter
e) on my iphone via my app
f) on my computer via guardian.co.uk
g) on my computer via Facebook app

It will be a while until I would rely entirely on my Facebook app as teething problems mean I still can’t see any content apart from the top six articles most read by  my friends – nor have I worked out how to add it to my Facebook Apps yet. Give them time, though – they’re still in Beta.

The Guardian does appear to have leaked into every corner of my online existence, though. It’s clever, if not a little frightening.

In trying to ease the privacy woes of the Facebook many, a new system has appeared whereby every post, every photo, every video and album can be shown to different groups of friends.This confused us so much in the first few days many people were shouting that Facebookers they didn’t even know were now able to not just see, but ‘like’ their status.

It appears whenever there is a privacy re-vamp the default is to allow everyone to see everything, leaving individuals responsible of limiting access slowly but surely.

And then to ‘Log out’. When is logging out not actually logging out? Now, apparently.

It does appear that Facebook can continue to ‘follow’ you even after you have manually ended your session. Is it following you now?

Logged out, I clicked on a Twitter link to swat-up on a blog about the subject, and lo, a Facebook window popped up asking me if I wanted to share it with my friends. Interesting – how did Facebook a) know where I was or b) who my friends were?

There was uproar a few years ago when FB launched adverts which essentially followed what you bought on Amazon, ASOS etc and then recommended that to your friends. Girlfriends were being advertised ‘how to keep your affair secret’ books which their boyfriends were surreptitiously buying. All was chaos.

In fairness to Zuckerberg he re-thought his ways and relationships everywhere breathed a sigh of relief.

This logout issue is a little more sinister, though. We don’t really mind what Facebook gets up to, so long as they’re transparent about their motives. Why should Facebook want or indeed need to know where we are on the www post-poking?

They’ve come a long way, but they should remember we came with them. We shared content, clicked on adverts, slain vampires. Please don’t be careless with our goodwill, Facebook.

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women

Ladies That Tweet is a concept that was developed by three social media savvy entrepreneurial women in Cornwall. The idea behind the event is to bring together like minded women that are using digital technology and social media to engage, influence and develop online relationships for personal and professional means.

Sponsored by Northcliffe Media and MailAway, the first event looks set to draw the crowds with two high profile speakers confirmed. Molly Flatt, Social Business Director for 1000heads, the leading global specialists in word of mouth marketing and Daisy Griffith, who is responsible for setting up the first multi-platform social media strategy within BBC News, at BBC London, will be talking about making the case for social media in business.

The event will take place at The Eden Project from 18.00 until 21.00 and will include networking, cocktails and canapes and a selection of brilliant local and national speakers – all rounded off with a panel discussion.

Commenting on plans for the first event co-organiser Shelley Fletcher said: “We felt passionately about providing an opportunity for women to meet and hear from inspirational speakers on a range of topics, all related to digital media. The three of us all use social media, to varying degrees in our personal and professional lives, and we wanted to showcase some of the women that are leading the way in digital technology.”

Fellow organiser Clemi Hardie added, “The online and digital sector can sometimes seem to be a male dominated industry, particularly at the top, what we wanted to do was to showcase the skills, knowledge and expertise of women at the top of their game in this industry and inspire other women to follow in their footsteps.  We’re not setting out to develop a feminist group, we just want to provide women who are using social media with an opportunity to meet likeminded people and learn from high profile women in the industry.”

Ladies That Tweet is a Cornwall based initiative that seeks to become a not for profit organisation within the next three years, with all money being reinvested in future events and in growing the business to create a national network of ladies that tweet.

Organisers, Shelley Fletcher, Clemi Hardie and Jo Wood, plan to hold quarterly events for women that provide insights into the latest social media and online trends, technology and tactics through national and international, inspirational digital and online expert speakers.  At each event a local expert speaker will join the main speakers for a panel discussion and there will always be the opportunity for a Q&A session and networking.

Tickets for the first event will be on sale soon.  For full details and to find out more please visit www.ladiesthattweet.co.uk or follow @ladiesthattweet on Twitter.

An article for Ladies That Tweet - events, articles and resources for digital women