Nice to hear that a UK company wins a global award. Step forward Wiggly Wigglers and their MD - Heather Gorringe. 

Dell awarded Wiggly Wigglers their Global Dell Small Business Excellence Award. The reason Wiggly Wigglers won....in Dell's own words....

Wiggly Wigglers, a rural England-based natural gardening company, was awarded by Dell and its global partners for its innovation and leadership in social media. Using tools like Facebook, podcasting and blogging, Wiggly Wigglers:

Business Week looks at the value of Social Networking sites to SME businesses.

Their conclusion? I suppose it has to be ‘could be’.

The sub-headline of the article says it all: 

“….To get the most out of social networking sites, small companies should look past the hype, set concrete business goals, then start experimenting…”

Our experience with a larger client (Poundland) was that using Facebook as a community information point worked well. We posted updates on new store openings, new stock lines and special offers. The customers used it as a way of asking questions of the company and sharing information with the company and among themselves. It also became a place for ex-employees to communicate amongst themselves and catch up with old friends and workmates. It was not used as an advertising platform but as a community where the customers shaped the ongoing conversations. The company already had established communication tools with customers but this opened up a new method and one to a previously difficult to reach group of younger consumers.

Another company (not a client) puts most of her success in building a £2.5m+ business down to the power of social media. Check out the Facebook pages of Wiggly Wigglers, their web site and podcasts. Almost 800 members on Facebook and a monthly audience of over 50k for the podcasts is a great ROI for something that takes them little time and money to update. Heather Gorringe, the MD talks about what she has done and the results. 

Heather Gorringe was recently featured in The Sunday Times being interviewed on How She Made It. Taking an initial £15,000 investment she has turned it into a £3m annual turnover business. Check out her mail-order site at Wiggly-Wigglers.

I interviewed Heather for a video podcast while we were both speaking at the recent European Podcasting Summit in London. 

If you want an additional insight into how Heather made it then watch here. You will hear how she has used audio podcasts as a way to help her become a global brand.

Wiggly has embraced social media and now has its own Facebook group.

Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wigglers in a comment to one on my recent post summed up the power of podcasts for her:

"Apart from our listeners it has enabled us to get valuable pr and we are just partnering with a couple of major organisations to make a section of our podcast relevant for them. This will mean that once again podcasting allows a small business to pack a really big clout!"

Those major organisations have seen the power that social media tools - blogging and podcasting - can bring to highly targeted marketing or 'narrowcasting'. Why spend a fortune 'broadcast' advertising to large sections of the population who could not care less? Target an already an engaged audience who are well qualified and likely to be receptive to your message. 

Hugh McLeod talks about the global micro-brand. In effect the ability of small local businesses to 'punch above their weight', to make an impact globally for a fraction of the budget used by big corporations to do the same. But with one important difference. Heather is an authentic voice. She has not been 'filtered' by a Corporate Marketing or the PR agency. Her personal passion for her subject and enthusism shine through. She does actually 'narrowcast' from her sofa on her farm. It works for her because of the product and service she is promoting. Others may choose to take a different approach to having a conversation.

At the recent European Podcasting Summit a number of speakers stressed the importance of engaging the audience in active conversations. This can be done by via e-mail, comments on a blog, podcast dial-in and even User Generated Content (UGC). If you check out Wiggly Wigglers you will see just how interactive Heather and her team is being. A model for us all I think....

Transparency statement: Whilst I have worms in my garden none have been supplied by Wiggly Wigglers.

Just spent the last days two at the European Podcasting Summit in London (19th and 20th March) organised by Anita Yaa Agyeman and her team.

It was a well organised event (by First Conferences) with a great mix of new and traditional media types plus independent podcasters and corporate marketing people. With such a mix you get a variety of views but what I love about the industry is that it is still so new and exciting that everyone is happy to help everyone else. A passion for the subject that transcends potential business rivalry.

It reminds me of the early days of the PC industry. It was full of people who had a vision of a different way to use computers. The energy and enthusiasm was infectious. We were all sharing a vision and a mission. Even those of us working for Lotus (1-2-3 and Notes) actually spoke to the guys from Microsoft. We even worked on of a couple collaborative projects together. As it became big business it maybe lost a lot of that raw passion and energy. That will happen with podcasting some time in the future but in the meantime it will be great fun.

What I did hear and see were end users keen to start to experiment but keep it internal first rather than learn in public. Large companies have the brand to worry about. Risk avoidance is important so would involved Corporate and Legal oversight. What they wanted to hear were ‘authentic’ case studies presented by real people and not agencies. One of the most fun contributions was from Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wrigglers. She was wonderful. Full of energy and passion. She has a great website, blogs regularly and within days of hearing her first podcast in 2005 started her own. Almost 2 years down the line she attracts 20k people to her weekly podcast and has successfully taken her company international – all the way from her farm in rural Herefordshire.  

One other thing that did strike me was just how hard traditional media agencies who spoke at the conference are at understanding what podcasting and social media is all about and what they have to do to completely adapt. They have invested massively in infrastructure and processes to support communication via traditional print and broadcast media. Social media – blogging, audio and video podcasting - does not need so many multiple levels. Even if traditional agencies can learn to work creatively in the new medium (they are smart people so they will either buy-in specialist agencies or talent) the current cost structures just do not work. The traditional agencies are used to working on large budgets. Social media uses the internet, WOM and viral to deliver. There are no commissions and rebates available on something that is free.  

A busy day in the studios.

We had almost 1 hour of video from the shoot last week to edit into 3 videocasts of 5 minutes each. All of them have different target audiences so the story boards and style is different.

One is for an internal audience only. The members of the Company of Information Technologists although working in IT in the City of London are based around a wide geographic area. The Company has the equivalent of a Chairman. They are called a Master and serve a 12 month term. Usually they update the members of progress during their term in office via a letter in the in-house magazine. This is published 4 or so times per year. Why did they want to do a videocast? Speed, authenticity and cost effectiveness.

• Speed – a videocast takes less than an hour to make, a couple of hours to edit and could be ready in less than 24 hours.
• Authenticity – even using a Q&A format a letter in a newsletter or even an interview is not 100% authentic. During reporting some things will get edited. An audio podcast or videocast is 100% real. It is the person speaking their own words.
• Cost effectiveness – there is no print, handling and distribution cost apart from storage of audio or video files on server space.

Another videocast will be used as a ‘virtual’ presentation at the European Podcasting Summit. The client was asked about their interest and uses of podcasts to help their communication strategy. The replies have been recorded and will be used to help explain the application and benefits to an audience of other organisations.

The 3rd vide shoot will be used as a webvideo to be used on the Company of Information Technologists web site so site visitors can get a 'presentation' on the company. This online presentation is a powerful tool.

Finally we were able to film in the oldest surviving church in London - the Priory Church of Saint Batholomew the Great. Started in 1123 it serves the local parishioners of Smithfield’s and the surrounding areas as well as being Church to a number of local Companies. We were given an excellent tour by the Reverend, Dr Martin Dudley. It is a wonderful Church and due to its age it has been used as a location shoot for many TV programmes as well as major movies.

Two of the three will be available to the public. The other one – aimed at members – will be used on the Companies Intranet.

Finally we recorded a podcast with Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wigglers. They are podcasting and blogging veterans. They are a mail order business that has actively adopted e-commerce and web sites plus e-mails and newsletters. They started podcasting in mid 2005 and now have a word wide audience. Heathers answer to my question about the benefits and reaction to podcasting was that the community they had built up previously just loved them. For the audience it was the authenticity and directness of actually hearing the person speaking. It humanised the company and the individual. A lot can be conveyed by a companies web site and the way it does business. A blog can give you more of an insight. But actually hearing them speak puts 'flesh on the bones' so to speak.