This week we were absolutely pleased as punch to be asked to feature on the OC podcast with the wonderful Sophie Easton from Outdoor Ceremonies. In this episode we talked all about our experience of growing an outdoor business online for nearly a decade and of course offered our pearls of wisdom from a Yellow Tuxedo perspective now that we have exited the outdoor events industry.
Lots of you who have followed Yellow Tuxedo for a while now will know our backstory. We spent many, many years in the events industry and were presented with so many incredible opportunities mainly down to the online presence that we carefully crafted with Baylily Bell Tents.
So this episode is mainly targeted at those of you who are working within the wedding an events industry. For those of you that are INCREDIBLY skilled at what you do in events but who may struggle slightly to know your point of difference and to get your business seen in what is now a very crowded industry.
We discuss some of the key foundation blocks that events business owners should focus on and how social listening is paramount to successful content strategy!
Thank you massively to Sophie for giving us this opportunity to chat about a subject that really is close to our heart. We will always be a little bit in love with outdoor events!! And if you know of anyone who works in the outdoor wedding industry and who is trying to grow an outdoor events business online do sign post them to this podcast. It's well worth a listen!
If you need support with growing your outdoor events business online we are absolutely here to help. Visit our services page to find out about all of the different ways that we can support you
We are absolutely delighted to announce that this year The Digital Circus LIVE is being sponsored by none other than GetSet Solent.
Getset Solent is a business support programme delivering specialist, fully funded access to finance and marketing support to help businesses with the potential and ambition to grow, through a range of engaging workshops, 1:1 sessions and support to access the GetSet Solent Grant Programme.
The programme focuses on helping businesses overcome the two biggest barriers to growth – generating sufficient profitable customers and accessing finance. They aim to increase your knowledge and skills, giving you the clarity and confidence to achieve your growth potential.
The national GetSet for Growth service has already supported over 7,000 businesses across the UK that are looking to grow, who collectively turnover £2 billion. And as part of the GetSet Sponsorship for The Digital Circus LIVE any businesses who are currently accessing the GetSet programme can attend our event and will count towards your mandatory learning hours required to access the EU grant funding. Just buy your event ticket and we will liaise with GetSet Solent to make sure those hours are credited to you.
We are also happy to announce that anyone accessing The Digital Circus LIVE from the GetSet programme will be gifted with access to our Digital Circus membership for three months. This means they will get full access to our back catalogue of training, access to our monthly LIVE training and development sessions and full access to our online community hub for you to learn, network and grow alongside other small business owners.
Please do come and find out more about GetSet at the LIVE event. They will have their own booth in our expo tent for you to come and find out more information about the scheme and how they can help. Not only that but their team member Steen Stones will be delivering not one but two amazing sessions for us in the virtual Big Top all about Web3 and the opportunities it presents for small business owners.
We would absolutely love to see you in the virtual Big Top on the 28th March. There is going to be so much value packed into the day including key note speakers, interactive workshops, speed networking opportunities, round table discussions and of course of our expo area too.
It's going to be a great opportunity to look at human connection in a digital world in more depth, to connect with a wide pool of people and to come away with some actionable and practical items to implement in your own business.
Visit The Digital Circus LIVE to book your online ticket today.
We were absolutely delighted when Gayle Tong from Enrichment Coaching asked if we would like to help kick off series two of her podcast 'Confidence Conversations." We always love a good podcast discussion and this one was a particularly interesting topic. We were discussing confidence with your online presence and how business owners might sometimes have to feel a little bit uncomfortable, a little out of those comfort zones we all have, to strive for great things with our business and to show up for our clients and customers.
WIth a strong background in retail management and retail training Gayle is now an accredited Coaching practitioner. Her vision is to live in a world where people are confident to be the best authentic versions of themselves every single day. Enrichment Coaching exists to help empower people to take action through the exploration of clarity, courage and confidence for a more enriched life.
Now back for its second series, the Confidence Conversations podcast is hosted by Gayle and she talks with others about all things confidence from the highs to the lows and everything in between.
In our episode [ which you can listen to below] we talk about everything from marketing structure to your ecosystems to micro & macro marketing, from seasonal affective disorder affecting confidence to you being the expert on you.
There are some moments in this episode where we talk about upbringing, anxiety being a child at school again, getting the answer wrong and how that would affect confidence. We agree that often there's more to be said in saying nothing when it comes to content but that takes confidence to say to yourself I'm not going to post anything this week.
Thank you so much to Gayle for allowing us the opportunity to talk about Confidence with your online presence. Do be sure to give the episode a listen and as always #besocial give her a follow and some love out there on the socials!
At the last conference or event you attended, did you ever wonder how people made connections? How they were able to meet new people and network? Of course, there is always the traditional method of meeting people in person. However, with such a vast number of events being held online these days, this can make it difficult to speak with the right people at them and to make those all important human connections – which is why we’re here to help! Here are some of our top tips for networking at a virtual event.
Don't be afraid to reach out to others.
Networking is all about making connections with people. If you're new to an event, come up with a few questions you can ask people who might be able to help you make those connections. This can include asking someone where they are from, or what they do. If the person seems like they might be helpful in connecting you with other attendees at the event, get their contact information so that you can follow up later on!
The first rule of networking is that you get out what you put in. You can't expect to meet and connect with everyone if you're only focusing on your existing contacts and not reaching out to new people who might be interested in what you have to offer.
It's a good idea to have a few introductions ready before going into the event, so that when someone comes up and asks what your business is about or why they should care about it, you can give them something real right away—not just some generic elevator pitch about how great everything is going without any proof of results.
Don't be afraid to reach out to people you didn't connect with during the event. Even though it can be intimidating, it's worth it! You never know what could happen and how beneficial a second chance meeting could be. Don't hesitate to send a follow-up email or message after the event, especially if there were some people who seemed particularly interested in what you were doing or saying throughout the day. Even if they don't respond right away, don't take it personally—just try again later on down the road when things have settled back down from all of the hustle and bustle of the event itself.
Of course, there's more to networking than just meeting new people. Here are some tips for making the most of your virtual connections:
Networking is an important part of being successful. It's the best way to get new clients, find new opportunities, meet new people and get to know your industry. Networking can also help you build relationships with other professionals in your field and make connections that can lead to exciting collaborations.
Don't forget it's always useful to reach out to the event organiser or the other event speakers after the event itself. Ask questions about their talk and get to know them a little better. Active participation in sessions not only helps pack the event with quality discussion amongst attendees but is also a sure fire way of getting noticed on the day and encouraging others to chat to you. Don't be a background lurker- get involved!
You could always offer to help and support with the next event. Perhaps give yourself an opportunity to be a speaker and share your wealth of knowledge as well to benefit the event community.
The day before the event, send a reminder to your own network that you'll be live during the virtual event to encourage additional sign ups. You can use social media and email to remind people. For example...
A virtual event is a great opportunity to share your own content, after all, the more people who attend the more opportunities you will have for networking with a broader range of people. As the attendee it is in your best interests for the virtual event to be as successful as possible!
While you can’t shake hands or make direct eye contact with your fellow attendees, it is still possible to network at a virtual event. The same skills that make networking in person effective apply just as easily to networking online: they include creating human connections, building trust and forming quality partnerships.
At The Digital Circus LIVE, our annual one day virtual business conference, we strive to make virtual networking one of the core pillars of the day as we see how incredibly important it is. Don't forget, human connections in a digital world is the main theme for the 2023 show!
Throughout the day we will be encouraging virtual networking as much as possible throughout our interactive workshops, the chat and of course the speed networking zone sponsored by our amazing event sponsors ONLE Networking.
And the benefit? Virtual events like The Digital Circus LIVE open us up to a really exciting space. We are no longer constrained by geography with our connections. Virtual events mean a global network of people from all across the world and that is a VERY exciting place to be!
So, if you're new to virtual networking, or just looking to improve your skills in general, these tips can help you. Remember: it's not a competition and networking isn't supposed to be stressful! Just remember that everyone else at the event is there for the same reason: they want to meet people and learn more about their industry. So take a deep breath, reach out when necessary and don't forget about your network before the day even begins (and after).
Do you want to find out more about The Digital Circus LIVE and how you can network virtually with other small business owners and entrepreneurs from across the world?
The Digital Circus LIVE 2023 is being hosted over on Hopin on the 28th March 2023 and is all about human connections in a digital world. It's an incredible one day virtual event designed to help celebrate your digital visibility, business growth and the new opportunities to support that growth. We would absolutely love to see you there!
Back in April Emily was fortunate enough to be interviewed for the Newton's Nuggets podcast and discussed big thinking for small business owners. It was the first time for a long time that she flew solo for an interview without Alan. It went so well that Paul asked if it would be okay to interview Alan separately as well to get his own perspective on Yellow Tuxedo, what we stand for and what our big WHY was. What we love about talking to Paul is that there is never any pre-defined structure for the interview and we never truly know which direction its going to go. So it was fascinating to see that what started as a conversation about our route to working in digital visibility actually became a fully fledged discussion about work life blend.
We've been together in business for over ten years now. And no, it's not been plain sailing for all of those ten years. Any business who claims that it has been easy is lying. And yes, absolutely, Yellow Tuxedo is outwardly a ray of Yellow positivity with our approach to our brand, our marketing and the cheerleading of our clients, but this has taken many years in the making to ensure that we can be the best that we can be. The little knocks and challenges we have faced are all part of the adventure.
Work life blend is a non negotiable for us. We don't believe in work life balance. That suggests that any point the equilibrium of the scale could tip in either direction. With work life blend we fully accept that our family and our personal life go hand in hand with the Yellow Tuxedo adventure. The why of our business is about building not only a strong, secure environment for our children but also to help build some core skills for them so that when it comes to them being of an age that they are independent they can be confident to go forth and conquer the world if they choose!
If you've listened to the first Newton's Nuggets with Emily then give the second episode with Alan a go. His version of the story of Yellow Tuxedo adventure differs slightly to Emily's and just goes to show that we are all different. We all have different perceptions, insecurities, challenges about ourselves and our businesses. Why? Because we are all blimmin human!!
Without spoiling too much of this episode there is a great example where Alan talks about Emily in the early stages of the business. In year one, She was out working three days after giving birth to Lydia-Rose and in year three she was going into labour setting up for an event in a field the day before she gave birth to Ben. Alan talks of how horrific that was, Emily wasn't phased, it was part and parcel of the work life blend!
Like before we really hope you enjoy listening to this episode of the Newton's nuggets podcast. It's well worth a listen. And of course remember to #besocial and give these guys some love and a follow.
Visit the Newton's Nuggets website
Listeners are now able to offer their support to the podcast with their dedicated Patreon account. Members can receive bonus videos and content, members t-shirts, badges and much more for as little as £5 per month. Find out more about how you can support Newtons Nuggets here.
Or if you're more of a visual type of person you can watch the full episode on YouTube here...
Social media is a beast. As business owners we end up posting out on social media to a relentless rhythm. Trying to pacify the needs of our clients, audience, followers, our business and our own personal needs and wants.
It’s hard work.. Lets not beat around the bush here..
Not only that, we want to master one platform, but increase our chances by being on as many platforms as possible! This is the challenge we face daily.
There is a lot to do.
This is why, if you widen your overall marketing strategy, your social media strategy can become so much simpler for you.
In this instance, we’re talking about putting on a business event.
Well, obviously you know what an event is. But, let’s just define what we’re talking about.
We’re talking about any type of event that you can put on within your business that gives you an opportunity to meet new people, talk to them and have something to talk about online.
Here’s a couple of suggestions…
They’re huge! Here are just a few of them… We’ll then talk about content.
As you can see there are a lot of benefits to putting on an event for your business. If you’re now thinking this is beyond your skill set, then here’s a really simple approach.
There you go.. You’ve just hosted your first business event in the simplest way possible… You also ticked 9 off of the list above
We started by hosting our own ‘Coffee Mornings’, which were online ZOOM networking events for 10 people, we still run them once a month to this day! But after a while and spending some time automating the Coffee Mornings, we wanted to put on something a bit bigger..
So, Emily, my wife and business partner here at www.YellowTuxedo.co.uk put on an event called The Digital Circus LIVE [www.TheDigitalCircus.LIVE]
The Digital Circus LIVE, is a one day virtual event using a platform called Hopin, where we celebrate digital visibility, business growth and opportunity..
It’s all about showing businesses how to grow online and benefit from the opportunities that are available to you when you do this, as they are huge.
The event has..
As you can see, putting on an event like this already ticks a lot of boxes for a business.
As I said, I wasn’t going to deep dive every benefit to putting on a event like this, but do want to explore the social media aspect of it.
Lets start with a fact..
As a business at no point do we aim to ‘beat’ the algorithm, but we do recognise that a lot of these social platforms work in certain ways and reward certain activities, ie They want you to be social and to chat.
What content do we start to create for this type of event?
Macro content and social content is created. Macro content is chunkier content, that can be SEO keyword optimised and will eventually become evergreen content. Usually it is a video, blog & podcast and it fits into your online ecosystem perfectly.
Social content is exactly what you believe to be social content. However, if you put on an event and create macro content, your social content becomes a heck of a lot simpler, because it gives you everything you need for your socials.
Macro content ideas…
Meet the speaker videos
Event breakdown videos
Platform explanation videos [How to’s]
Blogs explaining the event
Blogs with sign up and event information.
Blogs asking people to join your mailing list.
Podcast episode with each speakers
Podcast episodes with guests
Record a live podcast at the event
And perhaps even some LIVE streams.
Social Media Content Ideas
A reason to be social with your followers
All of the above would then create its own social content to launch it. It would give you images, short form video and way more to share out until your hearts content and your event is a success.
Not only that. It makes ‘selling’ feel less icky, if you feel icky selling that is! You should never ever feel icky selling, that’s for sure. But, some do.
- What we are doing at all times here, is sharing our adventure and being social on social media whilst continuously building our own online ecosystem that we want to work hard for us as it builds and grows.
- When you think you’ve posted out enough, you haven’t. Keep posting, keep sharing, keep creating content.. Yes, it takes time, but the rewards and benefits are there..
- There are over 7 billion people in the world.. You’re only looking for an extremely small percentage of these to become your audience.
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.
I’d love to know if you got any particular take away from it and if you fancied sharing that with us, then you can on on any platform with @YellowTuxedo or feel free to drop me an email on [email protected] Thanks again.
And….
We’d also love to invite you to subscribe to our regular newsletter, The Yellow Tuxedo Times, where we share digital visibility & online ecosystem hints, tips and news from our community. Oh and we’ll be letting everyone know about The Digital Circus LIVE next year, which is 28th March 2023.
????Here’s the link- https://www.yellowtuxedo.co.uk/stay-in-touch/
Thank you for reading today and have fun always.
Alan ????????????
We have been long term fans of the Newton's nuggets podcast. And when Paul contacted Emily to ask if she wanted to be a guest she absolutely jumped at the chance. Newton's nuggets interviews people from business, entertainment and very often the world of cyber security [ an interest that both Paul and Jesse have with their other project Mental Theft] whereby each guest aims to leave one useful nugget of information for their listeners. In this episode Emily discusses big thinking for small business owners when it comes to being more visible online. We may not all want to be the next Amazon or Tesco but we all have the ability to grow in whatever direction we choose. The problem is we are often afraid and this leads to us small business owners continuing to act like small business with our marketing.
Throughout this episode Paul also probes Emily on how it came to be that Yellow Tuxedo was formed. Paul and Emily go way back to when they both worked within the wedding industry. So Paul was fascinated to know how we went from putting up tents to coaching and training people to use SEO and Social media in their business better.
Because these guys made Emily feel so at ease she was happy to get a little bit deeper about why Baylily Bell Tents closed its doors and how the 2020 pandemic had a major impact on our business and the way in which we chose to continue.
Plans change and thats okay. Sometimes it means looking at the bigger picture, digging deeper, sleeping less and making it work.
We really hope you enjoy listening to this episode of the Newton's nuggets podcast. It's well worth a listen. And of course remember to #besocial and give these guys some love and a follow.
Visit the Newton's Nuggets website
Listeners are now able to offer their support to the podcast with their dedicated Patreon account. Members can receive bonus videos and content, members t-shirts, badges and much more for as little as £5 per month. Find out more about how you can support Newtons Nuggets here.
When Anna Bravington asked us to be guests on her podcast, Crossing The Content Chasm, we simply couldn't say no. We've been long time fans of Anna's content and were even more delighted when she recently attended as a guest at The Digital Circus LIVE back in April. It was a fun filled chat whereby we talked lots about our approach to social media, how more businesses could be using online events to their advantage and how we could all benefit from being less of a social media lurker and engaging more.
Crossing The Content Chasm is the lively and educational podcast for people who want to bring a content strategy to life. This show, hosted by twenty year marketing pro Anna Bravington, will equip listeners with knowledge and tools to pursue a complete content marketing strategy and help marketers embrace the power of great content with gusto.
We know that marketing can be a difficult and complex topic – particularly in the realms of stakeholder buy-in and strategy, but this show is like audio-camaraderie; not just motivational with a zeal for great knowledge but also creating actionable insights and enjoyable top-level marketing conversations - with a fair dose of humour- in equal measure.
According to our good friend Mr Trevor Young over 90% of your audience are actually lurkers. This isn't all that surprising really. We all fall foul of not engaging sometimes and its easy to slip into that trap.
Don't lose sight of the reason that social media was created. Make sure you are using it to start meaningful conversations and to be more curious about the people who surround us more so than worrying about making your social media feed look more aesthetically pretty.
Social media lurkers suck...don't be one of those people!
Within this episode of Crossing the Content chasm we also go into depth about why business owners should think more about the opportunities that can be presented online outside the realms of social media. Anna asked us some brilliant questions about our thoughts on online events and in particular what made us create The Digital Circus LIVE as a way of connecting with our wider audience.
We really did love recording this episode with Anna, it was such an easy conversation and we really could have chatted with her for hours. We hope you do enjoy listening to it and of course, if it resonates with you in any way do be sure to engage in some way. Perhaps leave Anna a review or search her out on social media to give her some love. Remember....don't be a social media lurker, make it count!
P.S. Whilst you're here did you know that we have a membership called The Digital Circus? Doors are open for £200 per year [ or £20 per month] and you can get full access to our online community, learning resources and monthly networking and accountability sessions. Come and join the adventure, we'd love to see you in there!
Last Thursday, 26th May 2022, we headed down to the Lighthouse Theatre in Poole for the YATM Creator Day 2022. YATM is You Are The Media, the community created by Mark Masters.
We had been asked by Mark to deliver a talk on 'being found orgaincally' and we'd been asked to share some hints and tips to get people going as they worked together to create an piece of content to share out and support each other whilst doing it.
To bring our talk to life even more, we strapped a yellow door to the car and headed down.
What did a door have to do with building online ecosystems and being found organically! Well, it's simple.
We're huge fans and believers in that if you're already creating content to put on the internet, which 99.9% of businesses are in some shape or form, then that content should be working harder for you.
If you create nice quality content and keyword optimise it, then that content appears on Google for those keywords and the more you post up for each keyword the more likely you are to appear at the top of Google.
Well, each of these keyword optimised pieces of content, then become virtual doors to you and your website..
Think of a supermarket, like Tesco having it's main shop, then having as many virtual doors as it can create, spread around the area allowing people to get straight to the shop! Well, that's what your keyword opimised content, virtual doors can be doing for you and your website..
So, we used our door, which was representing a virtual door as a whiteboard to work through a real world example..
If you created a blog, video & podcast every week for 8 years, just like Mark at You Are The Media has, well then you'd have 1248 virtual doors to you and your website. This doesn't even include all of the other sites and platforms you could be sharing optimised content onto...
Well, what are you waiting for? Get optimising your content...
Oh and we had an epic day at Mark's event down in Poole. A huge thank you to him and everyone else we saw for making it just the most awesome of days. Highly recommended by us.. Defo check it out.
Have fun always and thanks for reading.
P.S. Pictures courtesy of Zelda de Hollander
We were recently privileged to be asked to be guests on the 68 Hats podcast hosted by Pete Avery and Jodie Newman to discuss our thoughts surrounding Digital Visibility. Have you had a listen yet? If not do be sure to click above to get it in your ears.
68 Hats is the podcast for small business owners who find themselves having too many hats to wear. Created by Jodie Newman of The Business Allotment and Pete Avery of We Are Stride, each edition takes one of those hats of expertise, examines it, pulls it apart, extracts the important bits and hopefully delivers you insight, ideas and inspiration to help you war that hat with more ease.
It’s not about making business owners an expert in every hat - whether that is websites, pricing or mindset - it’s more about not feeling such a twit when they put a hat on. They invite expert guests on to share their wisdom and insights and each edition will give you a hat trick of practical points to apply straight back to your business.
Within our episode we talked with Jodie and Pete all about the concept of Digital Visibility and why we think it shouldn't be overlooked by businesses. We also talk lots about business overwhelm in a very noisy online space and how your online content, when done right, need not feed into the mass of online babble but can be a clear pathway for your customers to get to know you and your products and services so much better.
Thank you to Pete and Jodie for giving us the opportunity. We absolutely loved this interview and it was so much fun to spend some time in their 68 hats world.
For Anyone looking for a podcast recommendation 68 Hats should definitely be on your listen list!