)%20(1).png)
Have you read Story of STOMP Part 1?
To understand where we are in my Story of STOMP, please read The Story of STOMP: The Background and Beginning Pt 1 first.
In the first year of my business I had changed what I offered, my business name and my business plan!
So where I left us off was on my first day of trading, which at the time was as STOMP Marketing and PR and this was on Thursday 7th of November 2013. I remember thinking the best way to get going was to initially post daily on my social pages - which at that time were Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Like most new businesses, my first few Likes on my Facebook business page was friends and family. Here’s one of my first few posts. Two days later I got my first 30 Likes and by the 20th of November I was talking about my first “giveaway” in a post, which was Social Media Reviews or Showcases.
I suggested in this post that I was going to start doing a giveaway of a free social media review for a Facebook Page every month and then I started it in January 2014. My very first winner was a company called "Baby Massage Wicklow". Once the winner was announced, I would then arrange to meet them face to face and review and provide feedback for any recommendations that I had and then help them implement them. I ended up doing this for about 15 months!
It was a pretty impressive offer of help as well:
That lucky winner will have their social media check and then remain on my books for another year having any events or offers they have mentioned in my feed on all outlets and I will do an article if required and place it on my website to drive more traffic to theirs.
It was around the first couple of months of my business trading that it became clear to me that I couldn’t and shouldn't need to do this alone, I wanted and needed to surround myself with more knowledgeable people to help me improve my business chances. I had previously been recommended several in-person networks, namely NEW (Network of Enterprising Women) and START Network in Dun Laoghaire. I was living in Newtownmountkennedy when I first started my business, so this made a lot of sense!
I also started to take part in some online networks as well. At this time that I came across Barbara Gordon of Whatswhat.ie and she is based out of Bray, Co Wicklow and then a few months later I found an online Twitter Party using the hashtag #IrishBizParty and came across a woman called Samantha Kelly AKA TweetingGoddess. I then finally came across Business Action Group, or BAG as they were known. I am still connected to the first two named and remain a member of both to this day. Sadly BAG was stopped a couple of years later but I met some lovely people in that group and they gave me the opportunity to go to the Ploughing Championships with my own stand!
What about the Name Change Melanie?
Now back to why I changed my business name! You'll have likely known me as STOMP Social Media Training Ltd but this was changed all the way back in January 2016. Prior to that I was known as STOMP Marketing and PR.
When I first set up my business I wanted to offer a lot more than just social media training. I also wanted to offer Marketing Strategies and help with Press Releases as well. To this end, I attended and received training on Media HQ and got a paid subscription for it as well. In my excessive passion - but horrible naivete - I thought I would know enough about marketing strategies but in fairness I didn’t at this time, so I quickly stopped offering that. That meant that I was only really offering social media training and press releases. However, not one person in that year that I held the Media HQ subscription approached me for press release help. It just made sense to stop offering this service.
As you can see, I was pushing this free monthly review a lot, so I suppose it made a lot of sense that social media was what I was getting best known for?
Like most of you reading this blog, I wrote out a business plan and like you I had also done this for the 3 products I have previously mentioned, so after a year and a bit, I tore that up and started again. I actually considered changing my name completely at this stage, however after doing a bit of research and a couple of surveys – that idea was also thrown out. I wanted to go with Social Media Genie. Wow that was an unpopular name! My audience told me to stay with STOMP as it was more memorable. Which I do have to agree with, even when people forgot my personal name, they rarely, ever forgot the name STOMP.
In some ways its a lot better to niche down as well. When you try to be everything to everybody its very hard to maintain that well. By isolating what I wanted to offer it made it easier for people to understand what I did and made my messaging so much easier. I never truly niched down though, where my peers would. In some way this is to my detriment as I'm a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. I do hope to change that some time in the future though!
It was then that I amended my business title to what I was better recognised for and that is what they say - is history! Please come back next month for more of the story of STOMP.
Now read Story of STOMP Part 3
Working with clients Nationwide from base in Mullingar.
