V aluable businesssupport and as-sistance for ex-porting is beingmade availablefree-of-charge

to start-ups and SMEs by theEnterprise Europe Network(EEN) in Ireland and overseas.

The EEN is a European in-itiative run by Enterprise Ire-land in conjunction with fivechambers of commerce in Du-blin, Cork, Galway, Sligo andWaterford.

‘‘We set up meetings over-seas and connect Irish busi-nesses with local or regionaldevelopment agencies abroad.We can advise companies oninternational trade, legislation,and EUfunding ^ a lotof fund-ing is currently available for Ir-ish companies, innovative andgreen companies in particular,at the research stage,’’ saidMarion Jammet, manager ofthe EEN in Dublin.

‘‘The free service is deliv-ered by Dublin Chamber ofCommerce as well as the EI ^the leading partner in the pro-ject and mainly responsible forinternational technology trans-fer,’’ said Jammet, who hasbeen working with the EEN inDublin for more than twoyears.

Regular eventsThe EEN hosts regular

events to encourage Ir ishSMEs and business people toexport and explore foreigntrade and procurement possi-bilities.

The network was set up bythe European Commission in2008. Prior to that, two sepa-rate networks existed; the EuroInfo Centre Network and theInnovation Relay Centre Net-work. ‘‘The network was setup to assist small companiesin exporting and doing busi-ness in Europe and worldwideand is made up of 600 partnersaround Europe.

‘‘We’re mainly in Europe,but we are extending to otherparts of the world as well,’’ saidJammet. The EEN has officesin China,the US and it recentlyopened an office in South Kor-ea.

The participating chambers

assist on the business side ofthings, said Jammet, primarilyin the area of business con-tacts.

‘‘We provide avariety of freepractical services for smallcompanies seeking to export.Small companies by EU legis-lation have up to 250 employ-e e s. We he lp c ompan ie sexplore new market opportu-nities, conduct market researchand connect local businesseswithour networkof 600 officesworldwide.

LegislationThe EEN also assists SMEs

in understanding and applyingEuropean legislation and na-tional member state legisla-tion. ‘‘If you are a smal lcompany and you encounter alegal difficulty in Slovakia, wecan get a partner to check thatout for you.

‘‘ We can’t give legal advice,but we can assist them in theirunderstanding of a relevant le-gal area and highlight piecesof legislation to comply with,’’said Jammet.

Businesses tend to gravitatetowards traditional marketssuch as the UK and US, butalso to the Eastern Europeanmarket, which Jammet feels isgrowing steadily.

‘‘The main problem we havewith small companies is thatthey come to us saying: ‘wewant to be global’. That’s fine,but you need to have some-thing done before that.

‘‘We tell them they need todo their own work, they needto know why they want to ex-port, and know if they havefully exploited opportunities inIreland as well,’’ she said.

Overseasconnections

The EEN advises mostSMEs looking to sell to Britainand other European markets.Jammet said these destinationswere abit more accessible,bothin terms of language and legis-lation.

‘‘The good thing about thenetwork is that our partner or-ganisations know the business.We have connections withchambers of commerce across

Europe, so that if somebodyneeds something in Brussels,in Madrid, we can get in touchand see what we can do forthem,’’ she said.

Cork Chamber’s Siobha¤ nHoran said local EEN eventswere well-attended by busi-nesses from Cork, Kerry andLimerick.

‘‘We usually have a casestudy, a local company, teamup with embassies and Enter-prise Ireland,’’ she said.

Horan was also full of praisefor EEN’s business partnershipdatabase. ‘‘Here, businessesseeking partnerships abroadcan upload a prof i le andbrowse for a suitable match.There are 13,000 profiles onthe network,’’ said Horan.

‘‘The network is a great wayof getting in touch and it facili-tates introductions of theroughly 30 local businesseswho signed up this year, twohave already made partner-ships; one in France, one inGermany. Information is the

big thing ^ it can seem like aminefield of resources, from le-gal structure, to registering asan exporter, not to mention thecultural and geographical chal-lenges.’’

Choosingmarkets

Choosing suitable exportmarkets was sector-dependent,Horan said.

‘‘It comes down to the pro-duct or service you are selling.Of late, there has been a lot ofinterest in the Bric (Brazil,Russia, India and China)economies, which are emer-ging, but say your business isin renewable energy, youshould look to France,’’ shesaid.

The Chinese market is ofparticular interest to Corkbusinesses this year, becausethe city has forged numerouslinks with Shanghai, which ithas been twinned with since2005.

The EEN plans to host an-other international brokerageevent next spring, and is al-ready linking in with represen-tatives from across Europe

with aview to facilitating meet-ings between them and Irishbusinesses to facilitate poten-tial business opportunities andpartnerships.

Hayes CulletonOne business that has bene-

fited from the support offeredby the EEN is Hayes Culleton,a financial training and educa-tional consultancy firm basedin Dublin.

The company is now a cor-porate affiliate of FinanceMalta.

‘‘Often SMEs think: ‘what’sthe point’? But I think you haveto be prepared to ask for help ^you can’t know it all,’’ saidHayes Culleton’s managing di-rector Susan Hayes.

Last year, a trade delegationfrom Malta visited Ireland aspart of the EEN, and Hayeswent along to meet some dele-gates.There she met several in-du st r y r e pr e s e nt at ive s ,including Dennis Vella, chairof Malta Enterprise Board,who suggested that she visitMalta.

‘‘I took the first small step indeciding to go,’’ said Hayes.

‘‘From there, the EEN spoke toMalta and did the rest.’’

During the visit, Hayes hadmeetings with representativesof the Malta Stock Exchange,with the University of Malta,the Malta Banking Associa-tion, and was interviewed bytheTimes of Malta.

‘‘I just couldn’t believe I wasbeing given an itinerary,’’ shesaid, ‘‘I also had my own dri-ver, and was greeted by the Ir-ish ambassador to Malta onmy first evening.’’

One meeting led to the next,which prompted another ^ inall, Hayes estimated that sheattended between 10 and 15meetings during her time inMalta.

Hav ing del ivered pro-grammes to the Malta Instituteof Accountants and the Bankof Valletta, Hayes said herbusiness profile changed ‘dra-matically’ upon returninghome.

She has continued to dobusiness in Malta ever since.

‘‘My credibility and my de-mand increased ^ I became aninternational speaker. HayesCulleton became an interna-tional company, covered in in-

t e r n at io n a l m e d i a . Mybiography changed utterly, andcontinues to.

‘‘Ipaid for my flightout, e30,and covered my own expensesout there, of course, beyondwhich there was no cost,’’ shesaid.

Hayes Culleton gained ac-cess to valuable informationon export markets and net-working support from theEEN, said Hayes, allowing thebusiness to re-orientate itstrade towards export marketswhere it now generates 50 percent of its revenues.

‘‘I got great help in breakingdown barriers. If you wantsomething, you have to startby knowing what you want. Iwanted towork internationally,but I didn’t know how to getthere at first,’’ she said.

‘‘I would have been makingcold calls without the EEN.With them, I had incrediblestructure.

‘‘A privately funded EENequivalent in NewYorkchargeshundreds of dollars per meet-ing ^ that’s an idea of the mar-ket equivalent. To me, theassistance was invaluable,’’ shesaid.

Help for export-minded firmsOUTONYOUROWN

Small businesses are availing offree support and advice from anexport network with a presencenationwide, writes Siobhan Brett

‘I got greathelp inbreakingdownbarriers. Ifyou wantsomething,you have tostart byknowingwhat youwant’

Susan Hayes, managing director, Hayes Culleton, with Marion Jammet, manager of the EEN in Dublin TONY O’SHEA

B logging should be an essen-tial part of your socialmedia strategy. With al-most 173 million blogs

worldwide, the size and scale of theblogging phenomenon means it isnow a crucial tool for consumer com-munications. Blogs can enable you tocreate and sustain a relationship withyour customers.

What is a blog?A blog (short for web log) was ori-

ginally a personal online journal writ-ten by opinionated writers/bloggerswhich were frequently updated andopen to anyone on the internet toread.

A typical blog combines text,images,video and links to other blogs,websites and other online media re-lated to its topic. Blogs are often ar-ranged in reverse chronological orderfrom the most recent blog ‘post’ (or‘entry’) appearing at the top of theweb page.

Blogging creates new and updatedcontent for your website which willimprove your overall search enginemarketing by providing Google withmaterial to present in search engineresults.This will drive more traffic toyour website or social spaces.

As blogs are designed to have user-friendly content management sys-

tems (CMS), they have now beenadopted by web designers as a plat-form for building entire websites.

Getting startedIdeally your blog should sit on your

website, for example, http://www.so-cialmedia.ie. However when startingyour blog it may be an idea to experi-ment with a separate blog first con-taining URL links to your website.

More and more websites are beingbuilt using easy-to-update bloggingplatforms like WordPress, Bloggerand Tumblr. If you are designing andbuilding a new website, we advise in-corporating a blog from the outset.Alternatively, a blog can be added toyour existing website.

What to blogabout?

Okay, so now you are ready to blog,but what are you going to write about?We advise you look at your targetmarket or audience and think aboutwhat interests them.What interestingangle can you come up with that canalso include your products or ser-vices?

On SocialMedia.ie we regularlygive away free advice to readers inthe form of blogs and eBooks to de-monstrate our expertise.

What do you want your readers to seeyou as an expert in? You can add incontent from other sources like You-Tube, Slideshare and Twitter so youhave a nice mixof multimedia contenton your blog.

Blogging tipsBusiness blogging is growing fast

and here are some tips:1. Be authentic: blogs are built on

the principal of authenticity and hon-esty, and should not be used to justpush marketing messages onto custo-mers.

2. Regularly update your blog: beconsistent and commit to a minimumnumber of posts per month.The moreyou update your blog, the more trafficyou will get from search engines andsocial media.

3. Engage customers: encouragereaders to join in the conversation on

your blog posts, listen to what theyhave to say and reply to them.

4. Monitor competitor activity: usethe blogosphere to monitor what yourcompetitors are doing and what theircustomers think of them.

Promoting your blog1. Allow sharing your posts. To do

this use the ‘Share’ button at the bot-tom of your blog page to link yourpost to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twit-ter.This will make your blog visible tomore people.

2. Add your blog’s RSS feed to yourLinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter ac-counts, and add URL links back toyour social media sites on your blog.

3. Add relevant tags (keywords) toyour blog posts to make it easier forGoogle to find your content.

4. Include a link to your latest blogpost on your email signature.

5. Use your company newslettersand emails to link to your blog posts.

6. Read other blogs. Follow, partici-pate and comment on other third-party blogs and discussion boards, asthese are great ways to get your nameout there.

Last week, SocialMedia.ie won theIrish Internet Association (IIA) NetVisionary Award for Best Use of So-cial Media.

Conor Lynch is a social mediastrategist and founder of SocialMe-dia.ie, a Dublin-based firm thatadvises businesses nationwide. So-cialMedia.ie topped the category forBest Use of Social Media at the IrishInternet Association’s recent 2011Net Visionary Awards. For moreinformation, see www.socialmedia.ie

In the fourth part of our series on usingsocial media, industry expert Conor Lynchexplains how business blogging works

Social media for start-ups

Conor Lynch

Last chance to book forthe Investor SummitO n Thursday, the

ballroom of theShelbourne Ho-tel in Dublin city

centre will be thronged withinvestors and traders won-dering what the next smartmove for their money and as-sets should be.

Whether you’re abeginnerin the markets or a seasonedtraderor investor,you will getlots of ideas and insightsabout stocks, currencies,commodities, trading ‘dosand don’ts’, investor psychol-ogy, strategies and muchmore besides.

The day starts at 9.30amwith rolling workshops upuntil 3pm. You can call in atany time and plug into theones that are of interest toyou.

The Investor Summit itselfbegins at 5pm with registra-tion from 4.30pm.

This is a must-attend eventif you’re exercised aboutwhat’s going on in the world.

All the big questions willbe discussed, including:& Where is the euro reallyheaded?& What should you do ifyou’ve got assets such as cashor stocks denominated ineuros?& What does summit chair-man and outspoken authora n d e c o no m i s t D av i dMcWill iams have to sayabout that?& What insights did he pick

up from this weekend’s thinktank in Dublin Castle at-tended by luminaries such asBill Clinton?& What’s happening in theworld’s stock markets?

The key Wall St index hasoscillated between 10,400and nearly 13,000 so far thisyear. Last week alone, ittraded in a massive range of700 ^ 800 points.& Where’s it going next andshould you be buying or sell-ing?& How do you protect yourpensions and investments?& How can you take a moreactive role in your financialdestiny?& What will contrar iancommentator and columnistCharlie Fell have to say?

Last year, Fell predictedthat gold would hit newheights. It did, reaching over$1,900 an ounce, havingstarted the year at around$1,400.What’s his view now?Is there some kind of para-digm shift in the western ca-pitalist world that will havereverberating consequencesfor decades to come?

Steve McCarthy has ledthe way with shifting Irishproperty at the Allsops bar-gain auctions. Is this a goodthing or a bad thing? Peoplestill have to live, work, shopand play somewhere so is it,now, all about yield and cashgeneration on property as-sets?

Other speakers such as Pe-ter Brown, educator andpithy commentator on themarkets,will give insight intothe different habits of profes-sional traders versus those oftypical retail investors andoccasional traders.

J o h n M c G l a d e o fMarketSpreads, Ireland’sbiggest spread-trading plat-form provider, will show youhow top traders have mademoney on the markets in2011.

To book in for some or allof the day, contactMarketSpreads on

tel: 01-8630400, emailsummit@marketspreads.ie

or visitwww.marketspreads.ie

Commercial profile: Investor & Trader Summitsponsored by MarketSpreads.ie

Ask your questions ofSummit Chairman DavidMcWilliams

n22THE SUNDAY BUSINESS POST

OCTOBER 9 2011