In mid-September 2009, WSI is holding a 2 day Social Media XChange event at the Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel for its European consultants.  WSI is the world’s leading provider of Internet solutions to small and medium size businesses with over 1500 Certified Internet Consultants spread across 87 countries.  The UK is WSI’s second biggest market worldwide with nearly 200 consultancies in the UK WSI community.  

One of the main speakers at this event will be Tony Thornby of Living Streams, an internet consultancy based in Marlow, Bucks. 

On day one, Tony will be presenting a case study illustrating the importance of having an integrated marketing strategy before undertaking large scale use of social media / networking.  All marketing and branding, on the internet (online) or offline, is dependent on a detailed understanding of your target market and what customer benefits differentiate you from your competition (your USP).

On day two, Tony will be looking at how to build a following in Twitter and how companies can efficiently combine their Twitter micro-blogging, with other social media activities and their website content, to gain maximum benefit for their efforts. 

Now is the time for companies to get ahead of the crowd by becoming involved in social media.  Living Streams believes that many companies still haven’t fully seized many opportunities that the internet offers to increase their profile or their contact with prospects and customers alike. 

Even if a company doesn’t sell online, a website should earn its keep by delivering a return on investment  A well planned use of the internet can make companies’ advertising / marketing more cost effective,  improve customer service, reduce support costs, increase revenue from existing customers and meet operational needs at lower cost.