Crowdfunding: how can your business make the most of social media?

Miranda Wadham
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Crowdfunding: how can your business make the most of social media?
Businesses utilising social media to market and grow themselves is not a new concept; many companies now employ a specialist social media team to monitor their social media channels. Not only is a strong social media presence helpful, it’s now essential. But do we really know how to extract the most from the wealth of data out there? Whilst using social media such as Twitter used to be about watching, listening and monitoring the conversation to seek out what the public think about your business, it now delves much deeper. To truly utilise social media for the benefit of your business, you need to be responding and integrating with the conversation.

Similarly, when it comes to raising investment for your business, whether you choose the crowdfunding or angel funding route your business needs to have a solid social media presence. The bigger your online presence is, the easier you’ll reach your funding target; engaging with potential investors and sharing your campaign as far as possible are both key elements to securing your goal.

London’s Social Media Week is currently in full swing, and this morning’s talk by Sysomos covered this topic in full. Their social media monitoring programme delivers the insight you need to develop new strategies, uncover opportunities and make smarter decisions. Sysomos market themselves as the ultimate social media solution for businesses. With their platform, you get instant and unlimited access to all social media conversations. The ability to see what’s happening, why it’s happening, and who’s driving the conversations. And the power to uncover meaning in the data – not only from the tone of conversations, but from advanced sentiment analysis by gender, age and location. During the talk, Sysomos explained the three most important ways that their service can help businesses tap into social intelligence. Firstly, their programme offers an authority score, which analyses those who are tweeting about your subject area or business and differentiates tweeters who are influential in your field from those that aren’t. Through this, you can easily choose which individuals and brands to communicate with and targets to get your message out there, rather than wasting time sending your message out to hundreds of people that aren’t relevant to you. Their service also offers the ability to benchmark events. Through this, you can analyse how well your recent promotion has been received, compared to your last one, as well as comparing your social media presence to others in a similar industry. The most important point that the speakers were intent on the audience taking home was the importance of using social media intelligence to gauge and monitor consumer happiness; essentially, it’s all about responding, rather than just listening. A recent, well documented case of companies going the extra mile through social media was between Three and 02. The tweets that followed show just how easy it is for companies to connect with customers on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/O2/status/628244580102742016

In an age where businesses can network and engage with clients with just a few clicks of a mouse and consumers use Twitter as their first port of call for a complaint, social media is an indispensable tool; a slow response can make or break a company’s reputation. Twitter is a global platform with 304 million monthly active users; harnessing that data is essential for any business in the 21st century. Even for small businesses, using a service such as Sysomos can cut time and costs and connect you with the people that will enhance your network, and in terms of investment, help you reach your goal and grow your business in the right direction. 

Miranda Wadham on 15/09/2015

Kingfisher adjusts profit downwards, shares fall 3 percent

Miranda Wadham
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0
Kingfisher adjusts profit downwards, shares fall 3 percent

Retail giant Kingfisher plc (LON:KGF) are trading down nearly 3 percent this morning after releasing their interim results.

Whilst sales were up 3.5% and retail profit up 5.0% in constant currencies, the company adjusted their pre-tax profit downwards £384m, a decline of 2.3%. In a statement, Karen Witts, Chief Financial Officer, highlighted Kingfisher’s strong prospects in the medium to long term:

“Our balance sheet remains strong, enabling us to continue investing for growth and to return so far this year, GBP160 million via share buyback. We are also today announcing growth in the interim dividend, ahead of earnings, reflecting our confidence in our medium term prospects.”

The company also disclosed intentions to open another 200 Screwfix stores in the UK. The Screwfix arm of the company remains strong; in the first half like-for-like sales at the chain rose 16.5% to £494m.

Kingfisher shares dropped 2.5 percent at market open. They are currently trading down 3 percent at 349.30 pence per share (1230GMT)

UK inflation falls back to 0%

Miranda Wadham
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UK inflation falls back to 0%
The UK rate of inflation has dropped back down to 0% in August, as oil prices continue to affect price growth in England. The rate has fallen from 0.1% in July, according to figures released today by the Office for National Statistics. Oil prices hit a six-and-a-half year low of around $42.50 per barrel in late August, causing speculation that price pressures will remain low over the next six months. The figures are the latest in a series of disappointing economic data releases, which means the Bank of England is likely to push back a rate rise. “With consumer price inflation flat in August and core inflation easing back to 1.0%, there is little immediate pressure on the Bank of England to start raising interest rates,” Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight told the BBC. “Further reason for Bank of England caution on interest rates is the recent evidence that the economy has hit a soft patch during the third quarter,” he said. Consumer prices rose 0.2 percent on the month but were unchanged from a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said, in line with economists’ expectations for a slight fall in annual inflation from 0.1 percent. Core inflation, which ignores volatile moves in the price of energy, food, alcoholic drinks and tobacco, rose by an annual 1.0 percent in August.

Asian trade mixed on Monday, mainland China takes a hit

Miranda Wadham
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Asian trade mixed on Monday, mainland China takes a hit

Shares in Asia were choppy on Monday, with disappointing economic data released on Sunday causing mainland Chinese shares to fall.

Figures released showed that growth in both fixed-asset investment and factory output – at 6.1% – were below analysts’ expectations.

The Shanghai Composite index closed down 2.67% at 3,114.80, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was flat, up just 0.16% at 21,538.97. The Shanghai index has lost nearly 40% since its peak in mid-June. The Chinese government also announced plans to restructure its state-owned enterprises, including partial privatisation, as the Prime Minister makes further moves to bring the rapidly spiralling Chinese economy under control. Further details on the plans were sparse, with guidelines issued by the Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council announcing that there were plans ‘clean up and integrate some state firms’. Arguably, reform of state-owned enterprises is one of China’s most pressing needs. “China’s economy faces relatively big downward pressure, so investor sentiment remains weak,” said Gu Yongtao, strategist at Cinda Securities told Reuters. Elsewhere in Asia, investors remain cautious in advance of the Federal Reserve meeting this week. Economists are split on whether the US is likely to raise rates for the first time in ten years on Thursday.      

India and Britain to strengthen ties with ‘FinTech bridge’

Miranda Wadham
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India and Britain to strengthen ties with ‘FinTech bridge’
Britain’s Minister of State for Trade & Investment Francis Maude has announced an agreement with India which will strengthen commercial ties between India and the UK. India and Britain will collaborate to create a ‘FinTech bridge’ between the two countries. Led by Alok Vajpeyi and Britain’s Startupbootcamp, it will encourage close partnership and investments in Britain and Indian FinTech companies, and help them expand globally. Britain and India have always had strong business links; in 2014-15 India emerged as Britain’s third biggest job creator, creating 7,730 new jobs. Opportunity for investment in India is blossoming, with its economic growth rate at 6.4 percent – well above the global rate of 3 percent. Many UK firms in this sector are already well established in India, including Standard Chartered and HSBC. In the announcement, made to over 200 students at the IIT Bombay, Francis Maude said: “Our Government is committed to an enhanced partnership with India. I will be meeting Indian Government and business leaders to discuss how we can support Indian PM Modi’s aspirations for India’s economy. “It will encourage close collaboration and investment in UK and Indian Fintech companies and help them expand globally. Whether their focus is financial inclusion or access to lending, Fintech companies are creating global solutions.” The initiative will be called ‘FinTech20 India’, in close partnership with FinTechCity of the UK, and will search for the twenty best FinTech innovators in India. Companies will be selected by a panel of experts from the UK and India and will be promoted in the FinTech50 2016 when it is released to a world-wide audience next year. Prime Minister Modi, whose goal is to elevate India’s status globally as a country for investment, has described India’s engagement with the UK as an “unbeatable combination”. UK Investor have partnered with Charles Hanover Investments to offer a free report detailing further the investment opportunity in Asia. To download it, click here.

Wetherspoons pubs disclose 2% profit drop

Miranda Wadham
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Wetherspoons pubs disclose 2% profit drop
Pub chain JD Wetherspoons (LON:JDW) disclosed a 2 percent drop in full year profit before tax on Friday, citing higher costs and new cut price food and drink offers as reasons for the added pressure. Underlying sales grew 3.3 percent and total sales rose by 7.4 percent to 1.5 billion pounds. The group’s profit before tax was£77.8m, down from £79.4 last year. Chairman Tim Martin highlighted the excessive taxes placed on pub food in comparison to supermarkets and restaurants, and the negative effects of the disparity; citing the fact that pubs have lost 50 percent of their alcohol sales to supermarkets over the last 35 years due to this. He said in a statement:
“As previously stated, a number of factors likely to influence our trading performance this financial year are difficult to quantify at this early stage. Positive aspects include an increase in pub numbers, a better economy and slightly lower interest rates; less favourable aspects include heightened competition from supermarkets and restaurant groups and increased staff, repairs, bar and food costs. We continue to anticipate a trading performance similar to, or slightly above, that achieved in the last financial year.” Wetherspoons is currently trading up 1.78 percent at 732.78 pence per share (0910GMT).

Friday proves another tricky day for Asian stocks

Miranda Wadham
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Friday proves another tricky day for Asian stocks

Friday proved another tough day for Asian markets, with Tokyo bearing the brunt of the volatility.

Japan’s Nikkei benchmark index spent most of the day in the red, closing down 0.19% at 18,264.22. Although it surged almost 8% on Wednesday, the Tokyo index closed down 2.5% on Thursday – sustaining some heavy losses. Investor sentiment is being increasingly affected by speculation that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at their meeting next week, which is affecting markets globally. However, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō is continuing to instigate policy to stimulate the economy, including the news that Japan Post is seeking to raise as much as 1.39tn yen ($11.5bn, £7.4bn) in a stock market listing. The Japan Post controls the country’s largest bank, Japan Post Bank, and Japan Post Insurance, the biggest insurer and will be be one of Japan’s largest public share sales in more than 30 years. Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said the share offering would encourage a shift of savings out of bank deposits and into the stock market.

Bank of England vote 8-1 to keep rates on hold

Miranda Wadham
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Bank of England vote 8-1 to keep rates on hold

The Bank of England voted to keep interest rates at their record low of 0.5% yesterday, with just one member voting against.

The MPC reiterated that it did not feel the volatility in China would slow down economic growth in this country, and that interest rates will still be raised in the near future. However, it lowered its estimate for the UK’s economic growth in the third quarter of this year from 0.7% down to 0.6%. The pound jumped to a two-week high against the dollar on the news. The MPC said in the minutes of its monthly policy meeting that “although the downside risks emanating from overseas had risen, it would be premature to draw strong inferences from this month’s events for the likely path of activity in the United Kingdom.” The Bank of England’s governor Mark Carney commented: “Domestic momentum is being underpinned by robust real income growth, supportive credit conditions, and elevated business and consumer confidence. “The rate of unemployment has fallen by over two percentage points since the middle of 2013, although that decline has levelled off more recently.” Analysts are speculating that the Federal Reserve will raise rates in the US next week for the first time since the financial crisis; if so, effects will be felt across markets globally and the Bank of England may be more inclined to follow suit.  

Lloyd’s insurance reports 28 percent profit drop

Miranda Wadham
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0
Lloyd’s insurance reports 28 percent profit drop
The Lloyd’s of London insurance market disclosed a pre-tax profit drop of 28 percent due to lower investment returns and a competitive market. Pre tax profit fell to £1.19 billion, with a return on capital falling to 10.7 percent from 16 percent last year. Lloyd’s Chief Executive, Inga Beale, said: “These results demonstrate Lloyd’s success and resilience despite challenging underwriting and investment conditions. This sizable profit is in large part due to the market’s expert underwriting and our deep commitment to rigorous oversight.. In a statement, the company said that the results were a solid achievement in the light of the challenging conditions faced by the industry. Lloyd’s cited several expensive claims as the reason for the slower performance, including the Pemex oil rig in Mexico, the Germanwings flight 9525 crash and aircraft bombings during conflict in Yemen. However, Lloyd’s continues to be highly rated with an A rating from A.M.Best, A+ from Standard & Poor’s and AA- from Fitch. According to the company, this demonstrates “Lloyd’s excellent underwriting oversight, and continued investment in risk and exposure management practices.”  

House prices rise nearly 9% in three months to August

Miranda Wadham
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0
House prices rise nearly 9% in three months to August
British house prices have increased 9 percent in the three months to August, according to mortgage lender Halifax. Prices have jumped 2.7 percent in the last month, with the average price of a home across the UK now at £204,674, acording to the Halifax measure.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) also released figures today, warning that house price inflation across the UK is ikely to hit 6% this year. At the start of 2015, Rics expected that prices would rise by just 3%.

Halifax economist Martin Ellis told the BBC that “strengthening demand, and highly constrained supply, are likely to mean that house price growth continues to be robust in the short-term.”
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