David Taylor has over 20 years of experience in the UK media scene garnered from a career in journalism, in-house media relations, public relations, marketing communications and social media consultancy.
He is the co-author of 'Fusion - the new way of marketing', a book which explains how businesses can increase their sales cost-effectively by using all the different marketing tools available in today's social media age.
Keeping pace with the rapid change in the social media world, in May 2013, he co-authored his second book, 'The Business of Being Social', which is focused on using social media specifically for business purposes.
And David is now starting work on his third book, which will be focused on educating parents, children and teachers about the pitfalls and opportunities of being on social media.
He also has a regular column on social media in the business section of Metro newspaper entitled Taylor’s Titbits.
Unusually, David has worked within both public and private sectors, in-house and agency, proactively and reactively, as well as in crisis communications.
His past employers have included local newspapers, the planning profession, London Transport, the Millennium Dome, national estate agents Strutt & Parker and the property marketing company Adventis Group.
Presently, David works with a range of organisations helping them to manage change and preparing them to operate effectively in our current social media age. This involves the preparation of bespoke marketing reports, in-house training and ongoing mentoring.
Over the past two years, David has social media trained well over 2,000 business owners in the UK, USA, Italy and Switzerland.
He has worked with the Hotel Booking Agents Association, the ICAEW, Business Networking International, and Business Training Made Simple, training people from various organisations in online marketing, social media and networking.
He regularly speaks at events, including the Boutique Hotel Summit and the Annual Hotel Conference. Later this year, he will be heading to Brussels and Dubai to talk to businesses about how to harness social media's power.
How and why you got started in social media?
Four years ago, I was working as a PR professional in the property industry and noticed that many of my clients’ websites were simply not up to the job.
At the same time, I was involved in trying to acquire a new online PR company for my then-employer. Not knowing anything about online marketing, I bought David Meerman Scott’s seminal work, The New Rules of Marketing & PR. I read it cover to cover and knew instinctively which direction I wanted to take my career.
As a result, I set up my consultancy business 2010media in late 2009. Early on, I was involved with helping SMEs and small charities to market themselves more effectively using all the various offline and online tools at their disposal. This included helping them to update their websites, understanding web analytics and promoting themselves through face-to-face networking.
Meanwhile, although not a social media first-adopter, I joined Facebook in 2007 after my cousin sent me a Friend request. LinkedIn followed in 2008 when a friend suggested it to me, while I signed up for Twitter in 2009 after pressure from a work colleague. As a naturally social person who had spent a career in communications, I took to the sites like a duck to water.
And over time, I discovered more and more about how these channels could be adapted to meet specific business objectives, so I started to incorporate them into the strategies I was preparing for clients.
If you could share one best practice about using social media to grow a business, what would it be?
Define exactly which specific business objectives will be met through using social media before engaging on the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Whether you are using the sites for networking, brand awareness, sales, event promotion, customer service or recruitment, you need a defined strategy and the correct channels to help you achieve these objectives.
Just signing up to the likes of Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine etc., just because they are the flavour of the month, is NOT the correct option!
