BT Tradespace awareness

[360forecourt]

I have recently signed up to BT Tradespace. First of all I think this is an excellent B2B networking service. It seems to be doing very well in mainland UK, I think the video business profiling is key to its success!

I am based in Northern Ireland and am setting up a new business.

I love the concept of BT Tradespace, however, the service is practically unusable as there are very few members from Northern Ireland. The members who are there seem to have simply registered and left their account, without updating their profile and interacting with other Businesses. Many have no fans or even become fans!

To me as a business man this service is one which I will merely check up on now and again! I have very little use for it!

I think BT are missing a trick here. The video feature is invaluable these days! Demand for video content is high in the UK!

Northern Ireland (as part of the UK) is an excellent market to target for social networking!

I guess I would like to know why there has not been a bigger push from BT to exploit N Ireland and its business networking industry!

In terms of ideas, I do have one to help promote all of BTs services in Northern Ireland, especially BTTradespace.

At the minute I am putting together a proposal for them.

For now I would like to know your thoughts on the idea subject, "BT Tradespace awareness in Northern Ireland."

Thanks in advance, Pete

[WilliamA]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the post..  I contacted my colleagues at BT Tradespace and received the  following response :-

"Thanks for sharing your experiences of BT Tradespace. We’re really pleased to hear you like it.

 We are keen to promote BT Tradespace across the whole of UK and NI and we’re very open to suggestions on how we can do that. We look forward to hearing more on the ideas you’ve mentioned.  

By using BT Tradespace regularly rather than just creating a basic profile (as you mentioned above) you can get your business noticed online, meet potential customers and build relationships with other small businesses.

Keeping your Tradespace updated with new content, news, video, images, services & products etc can help to get your site ranking well with search engines and these days many people will go direct to a search engine to search for a product or service, so the more you do with your Tradespace, the better results you can get. We often hear from BT Tradespace members that have their Tradespace site ranking higher than their own website! 

Rather than checking up on it now and again, we’d recommend keeping your site updated on a weekly basis with new content, which all helps to increase your visibility. As you said, video content is hugely important these days, so the more you can do with that, the better. We have some guides with tips on using video for business:

We recently wrote an article giving some tips for Tradespace sites: 

Video for Business Webinar 

How to Market your business with video 

Tips for Tradespace sites

 If you have any questions, please do get in touch. Either via the communities: http://www.bttradespace.com/profile/personal/amycutbill 

or through twitter: www.twitter.com/bttradespace 

Best wishes,

Amy Cutbill

Communities Manager

BT Tradespace"

[360forecourt]

Hi,

Thanks! Great to get a response, it shows you guys care!

I will definitely continue to check in on and update my Tradespace.

In terms of site rankings, that is not the sole purpose of my presence on Tradespace.

I want to interact and network with businesses in my area/community.

I think the point I was raising was that as a B2B networking tool, it is not "yet" an effective medium within the Northern Irish market.

For it to be useful to consumers and businesses in Northern Ireland, we need to be aware of BT Tradespaces' service.

I really do love it and had considered developing a similar service about a year ago.

It needs to be a portal for people to search services that interest them, and view video footage of these services, encouraging a more interactive business relationship!

At present, there is no benefit to me in regularly checking into Tradespace because I know there are very few businesses on there from Northern  Ireland.

A large proportion of the ones on there clearly feel the same, as they have no profile information at all.

There is definitely a market here for Tradespace and it is a shame that the majority of businesses are unaware of it.

I recently met a guy from NI on twitter who has started up a business producing video profiles for N Irish websites. He is not the only one. I'm sure his productivity would improve if he had Tradespace users.

Tradespace have the opportunity to tap into this growing market and compete against standard business directories.

Like I say, a service in Northern Ireland such as BT Tradespace needs members to operate as an effective tool.

I would like to benefit from the service but until people/businesses are aware of it, I don't think its possible.

Sorry to be negative, its just a little frustrating when there is so much potential in targeting the NI community/market.

Please up your marketing efforts over here and thanks for your promp reply!

Pete

[WilliamA]

Further response from my colleagues at BT Tradespace:

"Hi Pete,

Thank you for your reply.

We’re looking at a number of ways to get the message about BT Tradespace out there and as mentioned before, we are really happy to take a look at any ideas you have on this. I’ve passed all your comments on to the Marketing Team so they are aware of the issues you’ve raised.

We also use Twitter (www.twitter.com/bttradespace) and have found it a great way to make new contacts and inform more people about BT Tradespace. 

 Thanks again for your comments and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes,

Amy Cutbill

Communities Manager"