Peterborough Biscuit

• Date: Wednesday 6th February 2019
• Address: East of England Arena and Events Centre, Oundle Road, Peterborough, PE2 6XE
• Website: www.peterboroughbiscuit.co.uk/exhibitors

mktgSHOWCASE - The Marketing Solutions Roadshow

• Date: Thursday 28th February 2019
• Address: Welford Road Stadium, Aylestone Road, Leicester, LE2 7TR
• Website: www.mktgshowcase.co.uk

Cambridge B2B (Cambridgeshire Chambers of Commerce) The Two Counties Business Exhibition

• Date: Wednesday 13th March 2019
• Address: IWM Duxford Conference and Events Centre
• Duxford, CB22 4QR
• Website: www.twocountiesexhibition.com

Huntingdonshire Business Fair (Cambridgeshire Chambers of Commerce)

• Date: Wednesday 3rd April 2019
• Address: The Burgess Hall, Westwood Road, St Ives, PE27 6WU
• Website: www.huntsbizfair.co.uk

Ely Cathedral Business Group, Celebration of Business 2019

• Date: Thursday 16th May 2019
• Address: The Chapter House, The College, Ely, CB7 4DL
• Website: www.elycathedralbusinessgroup.org/celebration-of-business

Business Booth Networking (Peterborough Greyhound Stadium)

• Date: Tuesday 11th June 2019
• Address: Peterborough Greyhound Stadium, Fengate, Peterborough, PE1 5BP
• Website: www.peterboroughgreyhounds.com/business-booth-networking/

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What was the best B2B exhibition you attended last year? Please share any you think may be beneficial to local business. 

Give yourself a makeover
Your LinkedIn profile is the first thing your new contacts will see so make sure you stand out for all the right reasons. First impressions really do count! Be sure to update regularly adding any new skills and accomplishments. Don’t be shy, make sure you include a picture to truly personalise your profile, it will make you appear much more approachable.
 
Show your business some love
By creating a LinkedIn Company page you are giving your customers and contacts all the information they need to learn about your business, your products and the services you offer. It’s free for anyone to set up company pages and having one really will benefit your LinkedIn profile.
 
Share the love
The more connections you have on your Company Page the more people will see your published updates. With InMail Don’t just connect to anyone, make sure you know them or have at least some synergy. Be sure to add any employees as they are far more likely to share any posts you make. Promote your company page on your website, in your emails and blogs to help try and encourage more people to follow you.
 
Communication is key
It’s easy to keep in touch with your contacts especially using LinkedIn messaging. You can use it to organise meetings and keep in touch with your connections. Sometimes a friendly chat is all it takes to reconnect with a business acquaintance.
 
LinkedIn is just as important as all other social media platforms, in fact in the last year it has seen huge growth with lots more people engaging on here daily. In platform advertising could transform it further. Show it some love and reap the benefits!

So what can we expect from Google as they move forward? Earlier on in the year Google held its annual I/O developers conference and announced some exciting changes and developments.
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• Google Assistant will have an update that makes having a conversation with the app much more natural. It will also have the capacity to understand multiple questions at once.
• There will be more AI features for Google Photos and powerful tools to edit and organise your photos as Google strives to become the home for all your photos.
• Google Assistant is coming to Google Maps. In order to better personalise the user experience with Google Maps, the new AI features will help provide better recommendations for local places.
• AI is also coming to Google News which will let users read about the news they actually have an interest in and understand the whole story.
• Gmail Smart Compose is a new addition which sees AI suggesting ways to finish sentences as they are being written.
• Google Duplex is the name given by Google for the new technology resulting from the research and development into “natural language, deep learning and text-to-speech”. The aim of this technology is to create computers that sound and behave like humans during interactions.
• Dashboard to help users find the right balance. In an attempt to help users moderate their use of technology Google have designed features that will help identify how much time they are spending on their device (and on which parts), a feature that will put the device to sleep and in silence mode when it is placed face down and a “Wind Down Mode” feature that will put the device on hold and dim the front of the device at a time set by the user.

Here are 7 free Google tools you should make sure you have on your device:

1. Google Calendar is a free, time-management web app. It allows you to create, edit and share events as well as  many other time saving functions
2. Google Docs this free app lets users create, edit and share all manner of documents, from invoices to resumes.
3. Google Analytics is a free app that allows you to analyse the data from your business and give you a better understanding of your customers.
4. Gmail Using Gmail as your email client for your domain specific email address is easy and free. Find out how here >
5. Google Drive is a cloud storage app, giving you 15GB of free storage space.
6. Blogger is a free publishing platform which lets users easily upload their content to their blog via email and other apps. It’s also integrated with other Google apps such as Analytics giving the user access to valuable information about their audience.
7. Google Voice is an internet based app which allows you use one phone number and forward it to multiple phones. This means as you move, change jobs etc your phone number stays the same for your contacts.

So, the future is looking great for Google and the end of Google+ seems to have been a mere blip for this innovative company. AI is a major development which sees Google moving from strength to strength.

For more information and downloads to the Google apps click here >

You know how important it is to update your website regularly and how maintaining your social media accounts can help draw in new customers but adding a blog to your website will also help drive traffic and boost your business.

So why should you blog?

1. Advertise your skills. You know your business better than anybody else so what better way to share your knowledge and skills than by engaging your customers and potential customers through your blog. Your customers may not know all the skills you have to offer and the blog is a great way of advertising this.
2. Connect with new customers. Your blog will drive new customers your way. Every time you add a new blog post it has the potential to be shared on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and could introduce you to a whole new audience. Also, every new post you write will boost the chances of your website showing up in a search engine which, in turn, can drive more customers your way.
3. Help your customers solve a problem. When you write your blog you should use it to answer the questions you think your customers will have. By doing this you will establish yourself as knowledgeable and an expert in your field and could help build trust in you and your services.
4. Give you content to post on social media. When you write your blogs they should be interesting and informative. This will ensure you have relevant, engaging content to post on your social media platforms which will then, get shared by your followers, and even their followers.

Business blogging should be seen as another essential marketing tool that can help you grow your business. By aiming for a regular blog post you can make sure you are engaging with new and existing customers on a regular basis, increasing your online presence and promoting yourself as an industry leader (it also helps with search engine optimisation!).

If you’ve not got a blog up and running yet, now is the time to start!
Need some advice or ideas on what to post? Get in touch here: sara@creativeremedy.co.uk

It’s professional and gives you the opportunity to connect with people who have an interest in your products or services. You can set up a company page which will help you build your business brand on LinkedIn, individual profiles can then be created to introduce skills, experience and act as ambassadors for the company.

If you’re new to LinkedIn you might find it hard to know how to get the best out of this online tool, so we’ve put together some handy tips to make sure you can get the most out of LinkedIn.

• Keep your profile up to date Ensure to update skills, expertise, products and services.
• Customise public profile URL It makes it much easier to share your personal profile and looks much better than a load of numbers at the end. Details on how to do this here.
• Set a profile picture It makes it much easier for people to recognise you when searching for you and your posts.
• Connect with new contacts When given a business card from a new contact be sure to ask permission to connect with them on LinkedIn - this helps build your network of contacts.
• Reciprocate Endorsements When a contact visits your profile they can endorse one of your areas of expertise or suggest a new skill to add to your profile. This is important as people with at least 5 skills listed on their profile receive more views.
• Use the search function The search box allows you to look for posts, people to connect with, jobs etc and with the filter option you can find exactly what you’re looking for.
• Connect with others Like their posts and share news that might be of interest to others in your network.
• File Business cards digitally If you have Evernote Premium it will automatically find the contact’s LinkedIn profile and add it to the contact details.
• Give recommendations to others This might lead to them giving you recommendations in return. Be sure to ask previous employers and business partners for recommendations for previous work.
• Join groups and communities related to your industry You can connect and participate in trending topics. It also gives you the opportunity to make new contacts.

If you’ve still not set up a LinkedIn profile or company page, now is the time to do it. It’s simple to get started and you could be missing out on many business opportunities and contacts. Make it part of your daily networking tasks.