Mecca Ibrahim, Head of Social Media at Great British Chefs, gave a presentation on innovative ways to stand out on social media. She discussed how Great British Chefs gained 61,000 engaged Facebook fans in under 8 months through collaboration, listening to the community, and creating content worth sharing. She emphasized treating social media as a guest in others' spaces and using open questions to start conversations. Ibrahim also highlighted tools like Pinterest, Reddit, and gamification to engage communities and drive traffic.

1. Mecca Ibrahim
Head of Social Media
Great British Chefs
Innovative ways to
stand out from the
crowd
Presentation by Mecca Ibrahim

2. A BIG FIRST YEAR

4. How did we get to 61,000 fans < 8 Months

5. “ENGAGED” FACEBOOK FANS
Typical response to a post:

6. AND WE MEAN ENGAGED

7. COLLABORATION
& LISTENING

8. IT’S NOT ONLY ABOUT YOU

9. IT’S ABOUT
THE COMMUNITY
AND YOU

10. HOW DO YOU APPEAR IN SOCIAL NETWORKS?
• How best to put the content you create into
social networks?
• Standing out by blending in!

11. CIRCLES OF PARTNERSHIPS
Twitter followers
Bloggers
Your Content Special Interest Social Networks – eg
Pinterest, Flickr, Reddit
Facebook fans

12. LIVE WITHIN YOUR COMMUNITY
Social media is at heart of our
site:

13. YOU’RE A GUEST IN THEIR SPACE

14. OUR RULES

15. MAKE WORTHY OF SHARING
MAKE IT LOOK GREAT

16. THREE GOLDEN RULES
Make it look good
Make worthy of sharing
Open up conversations

17. ASK OPEN QUESTIONS

18. OPENING UP CONVERSATIONS
Use open questions that
allow people to show off:
– How do you?
– What would you?
– Tell us how?
– Could you share?
– What are your secrets
for?

19. HOW DO YOU DO?
WHAT WOULD YOU?
TELL US HOW?
COULD YOU SHARE?

20. OPEN QUESTIONS
“OPEN” QUESTIONS

21. NOT
“WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MY
NEW LOOK? WHAT’S THE BEST
BIT?”

22. NOT
“I HAVE A NEW PRODUCT – BUY
IT NOW”
FIVE TIMES IN A ROW

23. EMBRACE DIFFERENCE
• Not all people who use Social Media are the same
• Focus on amplifiers: creators, critics, connectors
• But appeal to the many: collectors & crowd members

24. ONE POST FOR DIFFERENT USERS
• Making it look good appeals to
collectors, crowd members
• Making it worthy of sharing
encourages connectors
• Opening up helps everyone
particularly conversationalists,
critics, creators, commericialists

25. CIRCLES OF PARTNERSHIPS
Twitter followers
Bloggers
Your Content Special Interest Social Networks – eg
Pinterest, Flickr, Reddit
Facebook fans

26. FINDING THE RIGHT COMMUNITIES
• You can get all the seeds you like for
your garden, but they won’t grow if
you don’t tend them
• Weed it to get rid of the trolls /
disturbing people – tools in place to
filter out really bad swear words
• Plan for growth & transplant – don’t
rely entirely on Facebook, have other
areas where your community can
grow

27. FIVE DIGITAL TOOLS TO HELP YOU STAND OUT
• Tools to utilise to become
an active part in your
community’s life
• Almost 25% of internet time
is spent on Facebook
• Users 4 times more likely to
conduct a transaction inside
Facebook if referred to
them by a trusted friend

28. FIVE DIGITAL TOOLS TO HELP YOU STAND OUT
• Tools to utilise to become
an active part in your
community’s life
• Decline in use of
conventional cameras for
taking photos
• Smartphones took 27% of
photos in 2011, an increase
of 10% from previous year

29. FIVE DIGITAL TOOLS TO HELP YOU STAND OUT
• Tools to utilise to become an
active part in your
community’s life
• Gamification - Rewards for
doing frequent activities eg
Foursquare
• Anything you spend time on
becomes worthwhile &
valuable
• How can you turn real world
situations into games where
people can compete?

30. FIVE DIGITAL TOOLS TO HELP YOU STAND OUT
• Tools to utilise to
become an active
part in your
community’s life
• Reddit – the
bookmarking site
that’s a silent giant
• Really drives huge
amounts of new
traffic to sites

31. FIVE DIGITAL TOOLS TO HELP YOU STAND OUT
• Tools to utilise to become
an active part in your
community’s life
• Pinterest growing fast &
people spend lots of time
on it
• Really drives new traffic
to sites

32. FOUR DIGITAL TOOLS
TO HELP YOU STAND
OUT
“It works very effectively for us
as people not only love looking
at attractive photographs of food
but are also keen to find out how
to make them, so they will click
on the pictures and not just
share them”.
Metro – 27th Feb 2012

33. SO WHAT IS PINTEREST?

34. Mecca Ibrahim
www.greatbritishchefs.com
www.facebook.com/greatbritshchefs
meccaibrahim.co.uk
@gbchefs on Twitter