Understanding place sentiment - December webinar for the High Street Task Force

Foreign, Everybody. Great to see so many people booked into this webinar today. I'm Polly Barnfield, I'm the CEO of maybe, and I'm joined today by Sarah, our head of growth. Hello, Sarah, how are you?

Hello. Extremely well, actually. It's been rather a beautiful, crisp morning. Got a little bit dark now, but I thought, oh, the frozen cobwebs, they're just so magical, aren't they? It's making me feel festive, aren't they?

Indeed. So we're here on this sparkling December afternoon. It's great to see so many people booked in today. And just while everybody's joining today, we've got the Q A function up and running for everybody. So it'd be great to make sure that you can access it. So somewhere on your screen you'll find a nice black bar. Please, in the Q and A, introduce yourself, say which local authority you're from. Gosh, there's so many people coming in. It's fantastic to see today. Please let us know we've got a hand raised as well. There's a wave. Hi, Diane. Are you waving at me? Would you like to say something? Please pop it in the Q and A. Use the Q and A. And we won't invite you into that, we won't invite you into session, we won't embarrass anybody, but please talk to us in the Q and A and we will answer questions as we go through. If anybody's watching this on Catch up, there's also a blue chat button to the right of the recording if you're looking at our maybe platform. And we will answer those questions live as well. So I can already see the chat lighting up. Sarah will be answering questions as we go through, but there's a very active user participation piece of this webinar with some very exciting things and we really do want you to have your fingers on the buzzers to ask us to do things. I promise you I won't invite anybody and embarrass anybody, but we've got real value for you by being on that Q and A. So thank you very much. Without further ado, we're here representing High Street Taskforce, talking about understanding, place, sentiment and all things digital. So, as I said, I'm Polly Barnfield, I'm CEO of Maby and Sarah's the Head of Growth. Sarah, what do you do at mabie?

Well, yes, Head of Growth. Well, I work with local authorities, growth hubs, bids, membership organizations to help them with digital communication. Digital. I can't speak today. Digital Communications and also to help them support their businesses through local business support around digital communications. So quite a wide remit, really.

Excellent. So Sarah's there answering your Q and A's. Please, please feel free to ask again those, they're not public, you can ask her questions about all sorts of things. If we think they're a great question to answer for everybody else, we'll do it publicly, but we won't invite you onto the call, so please don't be shy. So what you're going to see today, our highlights are what has worked well in 2023. As Sarah mentioned, we've done a lot of work with local authorities and I think over the, over the last 18 months we supported about 25,000 businesses through our local business support programs and we've really seen why community engagement via digital channels matters and we believe it has a huge, huge part to play in 2024 and beyond. And we're going to talk today a lot and do some really good live demos about how our AI and digital communication support are critical for local business strategies going forward. So quite a hands on session today. Firstly, why are we here? Well, part of our remit is for the High Street Task Force. We deliver data to the High Street Task Force Dashboard that gives you a summary view of what's going on in your place. It lets you see the combined conversation across all of your businesses and the digital participation. Now, this is what's really led us to the local support piece because the graph on the top right shows the percentage of businesses that are active, which those are nationals and the green bit are the local ones. It's quite staggering when you think of it. There are sort of close to 4 million SMEs across the UK and only less than 19%. We'll come up to this in a minute. Are actually active on a daily basis. So the reason our support exists is because there's a huge problem, which is that local businesses don't have a digital voice. And one of the key things we've done over the last 18 months is really track very closely how digital footfall and digital activities align. So I've got video to play for you, which really demonstrates how the impact that digital can have on physical football and we all know that football is the lifeblood blood of place. So we also break that data down by Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And actually within the maybe platform, we've also got TikTok and LinkedIn as well because there are more channels all the time. And why, you could say, well, why does this matter what's. Why is this so relevant to place and place sentiment? We just stop and think for a minute. If you're sat in a council building, look out the window and look at people walking down the street and tell me what percentage of people are on their phones. Now I know and you know that the vast majority will be and just think for a moment, what are they doing? They're probably googling, they're probably on social, they're flitting from. They've maybe read a review and so they've gone from Google my business to a review. Then maybe they checked out the social, they gone to Instagram, then maybe they flipped across to Facebook, they've had a message from a friend say, hey, come meet me somewhere. They've gone look to review, review again. So as an, as a consumer, in 30 seconds you can make a huge judgment about are you going to have a beer in the town you're in? You're going to go meet them in the, in the, in the town next door? Because actually you make guess. Well, the reviews are better here. You know, think about how our lives work, how you just decide what to do. And this is what's driving people's football. It. What is your place saying? What is collectively all the businesses in your place saying? Because that is so closely linked to football. So it's a really hard concept to grasp, isn't it? But the phone is now the signpost.

Oh, absolutely. And it's, it's, it's not just social, is it? It's, it's digital. I, but I'm so tongue tied today. It's digital communications across the board. You know, I used to check my email, check my slack, check my, I know where my kids are, I know my husband's turned up at school to collect my daughter because I've had a little notification. You know, we use it in every different possible way. But as a business, digital is just such a vital tool in today's society.

And so this is all about saying what do you say and what do your local businesses say? So we're going to look a little bit about how, what we've learned from supporting these 25,000 different businesses and the challenge that they, and we, and you as a council as well face by connecting with our digital customers. Because if you don't check out here, people are more likely to go somewhere else. And that is what digital sentiment's about. That's, you know, one, one message, one wrong one. You've given it to me there, Sarah. Catching. We're not in the same room. One wrong review can have a massive impact on how people perceive your place or the businesses within it. But it can really feel like being on a hamster wheel. For any of you on the call who manage the digital communications for your council or are responsible for ensuring that communication gets pushed out and has to work with the digital communications team, you know, just how many plates there are to spin. But as a local business, my word, Sarah, you know, you've been on webinars with all of them, they've got questions from everything, from where do I even connect to Google, my business through to, you know, how do I create a local audience on Facebook? The spread of the art is so big, isn't it?

It's huge. Absolutely huge. You know, even how do I set up an email campaign or what's a CRM? You know, those of us that are in sort of perhaps more corporate business, we know what a customer relationship management system is. You know, a small business doesn't necessarily know and doesn't necessarily understand the value of their social media activity and creating leads to drive them sales. Because actually that's why businesses need to be digital. We want them to help grow their bottom line.

Exactly. And I think what's fascinating, Sarah, is that in the world that we've, you know, we've all rapidly sort of found ourselves in where social media is so important, connecting it back to, as you say, the business impact it creates, has it created a customer is really rare that people let people think of it in silos as opposed to holistically, what's it going to achieve my business? What's it going to achieve my organization? And so we're very passionate about making sure that you can see the impact of your digital activity on your business, whether that's you as a council or whether it's you as a, an independent business or importantly, whether it's the whole output of the place.

Yeah, from a council point of view, of course, it's more of a reputational management tool and it's an information, you know, it's a broadcasting tool to make sure that, you know, businesses and residents and communities understand what's going on locally and, you know, within all the remix of everything from, I don't know, adoption services to waste management, you know, we all know there's just so many different messages to get that in different ways and sometimes pitching that and understanding how to create content that is going to achieve your gay, your, your, your goal and at the same time not be disruptive in any way. And it's a difficult balance, isn't it? Not. It's not everybody's first skill.

And, yeah, hold that thought because we're going to show you something using AI that I think addresses that pain point in the most extraordinary way. And we're. Yeah, so don't go away. Hold onto your seats. We're about to show you something very exciting. So, yeah. Is this a problem? I believe it is. Five billion people use social media globally. 82% of consumers. This is actually. That's five billion people use social media globally. Out of the eight million businesses that maybe has tracked, we know that 82% of consumers are driven by what they see to decide what they're going to buy. And that's online or offline. Very interesting data from Salesforce, actually, that backs up as well. So what we do is determined by what we see online. Now, the number at the top, that 19%. This is where our challenge lies, I think, for us as a business and for you as local authorities, which is that only 19% of local businesses or organizations as a whole are active on digital channels daily. Now, when you consider how much information consumers are taking in, those that do this well have a significant advantage. And these sessions are all about helping. Look at ways to move the dial, because we've got some case studies for you today that look at how some independent businesses who've moved the dial have had extraordinary results. And these are not isolated examples. So Salesforce data. This is last year's data. We're looking for this year's data in 2023. Holiday shopping gets more social shoppers shifting their search for the perfect gift. Social media platforms as they get more socially savvy. We know that's happening. Traffic referrals from social channels are up by 27%. This was last year. I would have a little bet with you right now, Sarah. Where do you think it would be this year?

Oh, it's got to be in the 30s, maybe even higher.

Yeah, I was going to say 55%. Well, we will. We will give this to you in January. But it's. It's moving so fast, isn't it, Sarah?

Yeah. This is Q1 data for 2023. So, yeah, we'll be tracking the end of this quarter and then early next year as well. But it really is interesting and I think one of the key things that I took from this was that in the past three months, so, as in Q1, more than half of consumers reported going to a physical store to see or buy products they discovered on their social feeds. So it's of takes away that feeling of, oh well, you know, social media is just about selling online. It's not, it really does drive footfall and we've done some serious CRF projects, haven't we, where we've actually measured that as part of the projects and we saw a significant uplift in footfall around the shop fronts of those businesses that took part in some training with us.

Absolutely. We're going to play some news footage on that actually, because I think it's, it's well worth seeing. It's really important. So, you know, without the problem that every businesses face is they have to feed the information in the, in the rocket ship of a computer that we've all walking around with in our hands. But it's, it's, it's a challenge because they have to do so much and many, many businesses don't know where to start. Many businesses don't have a whole team of people. So where we fit in is that we've worked and we work really hard at this over the last five years actually to create a platform that make, that puts everything in one place and it takes the guesswork out of connecting with customers digitally. We've put Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, now called X TikTok, LinkedIn, Snap, YouTube, Google, my business, Google Advertising. We're integrating WhatsApp at the moment. We've got email in there and as Sarah says, because social is one part of the journey, but once you've got somebody to connect with, you then need to work out who they are and how you follow up with them. So we're really all about making sure there's a fully holistic solution that enables businesses to do better business online. And this year we've worked really hard with a number of providers to make AI available to local business as well. Our vision as a company is to help people do their best work faster. I don't think AI is going to take away people's jobs, but I think, you know, knowing what we do and because we've worked so closely with so many businesses that they're struggling right now to manage digital if they don't embrace AI as well, the gap between those that do and those that don't is going to get so big and the cash will go to those that do, consumers will go to those that do. And so your businesses locally who don't embrace digital and don't use AI to start to accelerate how they use it, I think are disadvantaged. And I think when you see the newsreel, we're going to Play in a minute, you'll agree the same. But Sarah, am I being inflammatory by saying that?

No. Well, I'm. I'm just as passionate about it as you are, you know that.

But.

And there are lots of people on this call that know that. There's many of you. I know, and it's so lovely to see you all, but, you know. Yeah. AI, even I, the beginning of the year just thought, Polly, what are you talking about?

And you really did, didn't we?

We had a team. We had a team get together and there was about 15 blank faces, Polly wildly animated at the end of the table, say, we're doing this and it's the best thing we ever did. It has transformed the lives of our customers and our own teams and I'm really looking forward to showing you some of how it works. And we've done something very special with it. So rather than it being generic, it's nicely personalized to you. But there's lots of new exciting AI tools on the way as well. And this makes us very proud, doesn't it Polly? You know, at all these businesses we've got a mass of very, very happy customers ranging from, you know, big corporate clients, a big shopping center manager, they've got 30 odd shopping centers, they run all of their digital commun. Maybe and then you've got solicitors, but you've got, you know, nice retail shops, you've got cafes, you've got everything you can. Every business you can think of we've worked with and we just keep getting lovely reviews and you can find these on our testimonials page. But also you can just head straight into trustpilot. There's. There's lots of really nice feedback there, isn't there?

Yeah, but I think, and I think, Sarah, it's great to have the reviews, but I think, I think what I'm. You learn from reviews and I think for anybody thinking about how they do local support, I think what I take from this is that a enormous problem. We know that from all the questions we get coming in. We'll show you what we've done to fix that. But that everybody starts this from a different point. So no, actually no testimonial is about the same thing, except there's one very consistent thread which is thank you and thank you to the team. So we focus and obsess about building great technology and I think the AI, which we're about to show you has, is a huge leap forward because actually what people want is they want help, they want to know how do I do a thing? But the thing that they want to do is always different from each person and even each person within the team. And I think where AI is so important is that it helps that knowledge transfer. This is all about local business support and even to be efficient in a world where we've got to watch our pennies so carefully to deliver efficient local business support, to deliver efficient communication. As a council, if you don't embrace AI, you won't achieve it. Because what we have learned is that everybody's got a different question and they don't want to come to a webinar to watch it, they want it now. And I think what for me, my prediction for 2024 is serve me faster, serve me more relevant information and do it now. Because I'm on my phone and I want it right now. And I think whether it is about bin collections or whether it is about roadblocks or whether it is about delivering local business support, it's about giving me the information now. And I think our demand will be to I want the right information right now. Gone are the times where you can expect something to come back to you. And I think, Sarah, we're seeing that with our own support. But that is my prediction of 2,024 people will expect better, faster.

I agree. And I think AI, where AI is already seeing transformative results in communities that we're working in currently, is that it takes away very often the language barrier. The translation tools that we're building and that will soon be available are extraordinary and we'll be able to deliver, deliver support in pretty much any language and users will be able to create content in pretty much any language. I mean, we live in such diverse communities now. I don't know how many hundreds of languages are spoken, but yeah, it's accessibility I think is key.

So holding that thought whilst we're talking high tech, I also want to talk low tech because what's really interesting about the future of place sentiment is this blend of hue of the human story with using the tools that are available to make it really great. Now we know that when you start training a business first, often the first thing they say, well, what do I post now? AI when we come to that part, AI fixes that problem because AI can help you come up with content. But I've got three very quick case studies of businesses that we've helped over. These are all businesses have been with us for a couple of years now and joined us at different times, but they're very different and I think there's something from each of them that you can take away as a local authority, whether it's just for your content, but also if you're running local business support programs, I think it really helps to give some substance behind the people. This is a cafe in Delhi in Putney. It's run by two lovely Italian couple who are in their 60s and when we first started working with them they hadn't even got a smartphone between them and they wanted more customers come to the store and but they didn't, they'd never use social media. Now they now use Instagram, they don't use any other channel but when they post a story on their Instagram they sell out of that product. So they now know how to do that and make sure that they sell through. Now the way they do that is that it's got with this beautiful pasta and oh my word, it is the best pasta you can ever possibly wish to eat in the world. It is out of this world. Wouldn't you agree, Sarah?

Yeah. Every time I show this slide I want to go back to see Isabella for a cuddle and a, and a big bowl of risotto.

So yummy. So this is scratches is scratchy. So this is scratch and sniff social media. Right. So can I say that probably not but literally they'll a beautiful Italian voice talking through the ingredients in it, stirring it. And what this lady learned to do through is, is to take, is to basically showcase, create, extend her shop window, stir her pasta, talk about it and post beautiful pictures of her food. Now tiny following, but she doesn't need a massive, massive amount of people but she sells through because of it. Not only that, she inspired the other businesses and partners to start engaging with each other and selling, cross selling their own products. So you come and get a password you remember. Actually I want to go pop in and book my nails. So really simple skills that have a massive impact on a business. Other two case studies are more high tech. This lady was, it was actually the first time I met her, she threw me out of a shop, said never ever going to use social media, don't have a website, it's the devil. Why would I do that? When I sell high end boots, my ladies come in, come in and try them on. Wouldn't work online. Her best ever day with us, she spent £250 and got £50,000 back in one session. She's now so successful she goes and pops up in John Lewis. Her online business has exploded. She won't appear on camera either. So she gets her team to do it. But the way she does business has changed and what's important here is that she now brings people into Cheltenham. They're coming to her boots. So while she has herself become enormously successful when she pops up in John Lewis she increases the footfall in John Lewis. Now just think about that for a moment. She is a tiny pop up but because she can use digital so well she has an impact on the traffic in a major John Lewis store. Now think about that multiplied across all of your independent businesses in your local authority area. That's what your local business support needs to do for you. You need to be able to get businesses to invite customers in. It drives football. John Lewis knows that and that's why they run their Laura company. Now actually interestingly all of these businesses were sponsored by various local authorities. This one was Cotswold little business in Stonewall in Cirencester. This lady loves being on film. She's next model and when we met her she was doing dress ups whenever she had content, when she, whenever she had products arrive she would do a dress up on her stories and put all other clothes on. Talk about what it is, talk about sizing, talk about fitness. Beautiful, amazing. Creating content. We said to do you, do you run the ads and shit? Oh no, no, I just run it to my followers. So you know she was doing this an hour try on for maybe three or four people and they were buying and she was delighted. Now when she does that she runs it to, she runs ads and she is doing six figures of sales online every month. It's also had a massive impact on her physical stores as well. It has changed her business beyond recognition. Now all of these businesses have had access to tools and training. They've all put in a massive amount of their own work. We use them as case studies for businesses that we talk to but they are all business. This lady is not digitally savvy but she's understood that it can drive her business therefore she's invested in it. And our job when we do local, when we do local business support is about getting other businesses together. I could do that, I could be in Isabella and stand my pastor and do that. Because the benefit of businesses learning to do this has a massive impact on the local economy. Sarah, have you got anything to add to that?

Well yes, I mean obviously you know Isabella isn't doing mail outs in response to but this is another tool that we've shown Laura and co and Keith Scarrett, Sophie how to do is to, to understand okay, you're doing Your outreach, you're building your audiences now. You want them to do a thing, you need to know who they are and then perhaps, you know, are you doing any mail shots? Are you following up all this wonderful engagement that you're getting on your social media and are you taking through various stages of that follow up? How often are you communicating with them? Do you know what they're like and their interests are, are you sharing the right type of content with them? And you know, it's about building that whole customer journey from popping your nose against the window and having a little look to actually buying a thing and then becoming a brand ambassador by somebody who, who buys lots of things and tells all their friends all about it and you know, engaging with other complementary local businesses so that the hairdressers down the road or the equestrian center or the, the local wi. I mean there could be so many different channels that businesses can go and chat in and engage in and just be themselves in and they become discoverable and then it works really well for a whole place. Well, yeah, you've started me now, Polly, I shan't rant any further.

She's a bit passionate about this. But key thing is if you can light their touch paper, if you teach them how to fish, you'll feed them forever. And that's what this is about basically is teach them how to fish and they will not only do good business for themselves, but they will bring people to your place. Just on that, I'd like to jump across to a. So we both stopped talking for a second. Two minutes precisely. This is a UKCRF funded project that we ran in Herefordshire. And what happened here is that we trained hundreds of businesses and measured, did a great project where we measured the footfall through the threshold of the businesses that we trained versus the businesses that we didn't train. And what we discovered was a significant uplift in football across the trained businesses. This is a clip from a new channel and I will let Ben do the talking.

Increase in the cost of living and flexible working continues. Less people are visiting their high streets. Businesses like the Ledbury in Herefordshire are attempting to use social media to bring customers in. But is it working?

It's absolutely helped us and I think the opportunities for small business, especially on social media, Instagram, Facebook, all, all of them really is, is endless. If you are constant and have the knowledge and know how, which maybe have given us to explore all the different services they have to offer and to reach the maximum audience, whether you want.

A drink or something new to wear you can find it here under one roof. They are one of more than 1,700 businesses in the county. He took part in a government funded social media pilot. During that time, businesses taking part had a 15% increase in footfall, whereas those who didn't take part had 7.4%. Social media specialists argue more companies need to invest in their online presence.

Only 400 businesses post something on a daily basis on social media. It's a challenging market, right? So you've got to really look to be able to expand your business today. I think there's a big misunderstanding that social media is sometimes seen as a digital channel, but actually as consumers we've got a phone in our hand all the time and it's what you see on your feed determines what you do.

Could this shake up in approach be the answer?

We have quite a big following that we're trying to grow and part of a service that maybe offers is to grow an audience that reflect other people who have been interested and enjoy the business. So that way we get to kind of maximize our reach and let everyone know what we're doing and that we'd love to welcome them to the library.

And it's that strategy many in this area are taking on in order to drive footfall from online into physical stores. As increasing footfall in high streets remains a challenge for businesses across the country. Theo Chikomba, GB News.

So we know, and this isn't an isolated event, in endless, endless places where we have delivered programs, you get the same result. You increase digital output of businesses, you get more footfall locally. And I think it's really a really important message. We are a platform that's available commercially and what we have is a set of tools. Now if you want to work with us to do local business support, that's fantastic. But I'd love to share with you what it takes to make that happen. If you're thinking about running this yourself, brilliant. But what needs to happen is you need to combine the tools and the support. And what I want to do is show you the range of tools we provide and then also how the AI makes, I believe this totally transformative. So every business that we're working with gets access to a social media planner. They get access to posting that has AI linked within it. This is, this, this AI is brand new and we're going to show you how it writes and it does images and we're just releasing at the moment another one that's got your brand voice within it. This is where all our efforts are going right now and we are unbelievably excited about the output. Stick about. You can have a live demo, you can ask me to. You can ask me to write a post for you or not. You can get the ad. I do it because I'm a dyslexic idiot, aren't I, Sarah? We've also got tools for all businesses to use. So for example, one of the problems we found, which Sarah mentioned earlier on, which is businesses can run social media but then it gets the website. Nothing happens. There's no way for businesses to respond or ask. So we provide every business we work with with a chat widget that can live on their website so they can collect leads and get back to people and say, hey, can we help you? We provide video training on every subject. I think about 500 videos now, but they're all about five minutes long. Because what we've learned is that businesses want support 24, 7, they want it now and they want it on any topic whenever they need it. So we've broken all the training down in little bite sized chunks and with that we fed it, we've transcribed everything and we've put it into an AI support engine, which means that you can either go and find it and watch it or you can ask a question. We find it and serve it to you and you can keep asking questions and literally you get an answer 24, 7 within 10 seconds. I think it's probably close to 5, but we say 10 and it is absolutely spot on. You can do some testing in a minute. That's always very scary. But what we do is look at the questions that people ask and keep building out the answers from there. So the more questions we get asked, the best the AI gets. But our review says it's pretty good. Now at the end of every article we deliver there's a link that says if that's not helped, please book in and you can come and talk to us every day at 11 o'. Clock. And what we do is put people into rooms and so they can have a one on one session for 15 minutes and this model works. I would defy anybody to find a better local business support model. And we're really keen to see this deployed through growth hubs because I think from a cost perspective, the amount of value this can deliver for the cost required to do it, the cost and reward benefit is way out of whack because you can serve so many businesses so effectively with this through AI and a chat button. Sarah, is this. We're going to do a Live demo, isn't it, showing how we can help remove businesses pain.

It is. And I've. I've. Here's a couple I prepared earlier for you, Polly. Polly, you're not ashamed of the fact that you're wildly dyslexic and actually just typing off the cuff is never easy, is it?

Here we go. I've cheated. Sarah's given me some preset questions, so here we go. Thank you, Sarah, for letting on. Idiot. Here we go, We've got some preset questions, but while I'm doing this, what I'd like you to do is if anybody's got any, anything they'd like, if they got something they'd like to test us on. So you can see this is the stage. It's. It's the real deal. Please pop it into the chat now. So I'm going to do. I'm just spinning this down. We do one example for a council and one example for a local business. I'm going to use AI to create a post and then we're going to go on to do AI support as well. So, Sarah, you said we're going to generate content for a council about a delay. So content title, bin in delay and bin collections, I've typed in apologies today and bin collections, I've added the keywords, I've said writing tone, respectful, length of content, medium, and we've got three here, so we hit generate.

So I've basically come up with an idea that bins collection has been delayed because of the recent flooding and that full service will be resumed but delayed collections will be serviced on Thursday. But it's taken this and written a beautiful piece of content and in a respectful tone, which is so important it's even created hashtags, it's got emojis in there. But we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. If we just scroll back, Polly, for the disruption in delay in bin collections over the past few days. We understand the inconvenience this must have caused and we appreciate the patience and understanding during this challenging time. Beautiful. The unexpected road closures resulting from severe weather and recent flooding have unfortunately impacted our usual collection schedule and so on. So you've got this beautiful content. You don't actually have to use it all in one post. You could do it over a series of posts. You might want to tweak it slightly. You know, it's. You've got a length here that's probably suitable for Facebook or Instagram, but you might want to make it a bit shorter for. For Twitter and So on which you can do, but it's just this really, really nice, intuitive content creation that can just help you do your best work faster. I mean, curating posts like this can take quite considerable amounts of time, especially when you're working to a very specific tone of voice and you have to make sure that you're not leaving yourself open for misinterpretation or for, you know, reputational damage or, you know, there's just so many different, especially with, with local authority communications. I know because I speak to comms teams all the time about the challenges they have, but I just thought this, this came up with really nice content. So if you want to challenge a piece of content around something council related that you think is particularly tricky, pop it in the Q A and we'll challenge the AI to come up with something. Should we try? Oh no, go on.

So thanks for that, Sarah. Should I go? So unsaved this. So we, we will, yeah, just go, continue.

Choose which one you want. You've got which one. That's it. It's dropped in for you.

Then I'm going to add an image. Yeah, yeah, we need an image. So image. I haven't got an image to hand. You know, let's say I don't want to. I could upload one for the media library. So if you had a relevant image, you could do that or you can actually go, let's do, let's create one using AI. So I'm sad like some cars stuck on a flooded road with rain and you can have some real fun with this. So I'm going to choose and I said let's have three variations. I'm going to choose it. Water. I love the watercolor. I'm actually stuck on the watercolor at the moment. No, it's my favorite too and it's going to spit me out some images. We've done some lovely ones for parties, haven't we, for launch events. That'd be really lovely. Isn't that great? So continue. That'll do. That'll do. Boom. Gotta post. So as you can see, it's really simple. I've done it. I've created this for four different feeds. So I've done this for Google, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. And I, if I hit go now, it would post it or I could save it for later and schedule it. Should we do another one, Sarah? Should we do a business one? So it's like a. Have you got some lining up for me? Have you got another council one to do before I go across anybody Come up with a. I have.

I've got a great one and I've put it in your chat on direct.

Somebody asked for this. Yeah, it's.

It's. It's the hellish one that beith justifying a rise in council tax. So I'll. We'll. Are we doing the business one first or do you want to do that one first?

Business has gone business. So you want to. Why has council tax charges gone up? Select. Let's put this up. Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. Let is add a. I want to get AI. So I've done it wrong. Generate with AI. There we go. So content theme. Why counter tax Child charge has gone up. Justify reasons. Contact rises recently. Okay, so this is something that your social team have to deal with all the time. They're going to come up with quite a lot of stuff and so we're doing this long way. Pressure's on, pressure's on. Pressure's on. Pressure's on.

Hang on you. Yeah. Copying the wrong things. So you should have the. The main content was justify the reasons for council tax rises recently. Yeah. And then you've got keywords, you've got cost of living crisis. Oh yeah, Community. That'll do nice.

That'll do. Won't it? Cross the lynch crisis. One more in. Put one more in.

As in. Because it gave really nice response to this when I played with it earlier. National living wage.

There we go. Writing stone. Persuasive. We're going to be persuasive about the council tax. Here we go. Number of variations, length, medium, generate. So totally unscripted. Didn't know what was coming. I certainly didn't know what was coming. Imagine this is your social team, your comms team, having to deal with, you know, a new policy that's come out, a new problem that's arrived. So where we have it. Attention community members. We need to have an important conversation about the recent Counter Attack Bureau visit. It's time to understand the reasons behind the increases and how they impact our daily lives. Now, you can edit all of this, but it's so much easier to edit than create. And just imagine the time that you have just saved your organization. Quite. Quite extraordinary. I like this one in the middle. So I'm going to copy that one now. Shoot an image of that one. Sarah.

Oh, yes. Oh, hadn't come as far as an image. Let's have a think. So without using AI.

What part of the world we are. Are we in.

This? Yeah. This is a come from somebody from Liverpool, but it's no, you need to go down to the image to generate the image. Polly. No, not at all. There you go. So click the. Generate new content. That's it.

So we want to do. Why don't we do Liverpool? Why don't we do Iconic Liverpool? Iconic Liverpool, Yep. Now you might all be watching this thinking what is the relevance of this? The relevance of this for anybody that has to do this on a regular basis it is really hard to constantly have fresh content is now a demand of our modern world and if you've got a way to create it without having to go and get a designer have to go and talk to somebody else. Boom. There you go. Extraordinary. That's Liverpool. Amazing.

Is that the sketch?

Yeah.

I've not used that before.

Nice.

Really?

You don't have a post now? That's. I'm going to hit save for later for that. Now let's do. Let's do. Let's take. Have we got anybody? Have we got a Santa? Have we got a small business? How are we doing for time? Everybody. Would everybody like us to do one for a small business and see how we have.

I haven't done the business post yet, have we? So let's do the business post I suggested earlier. Countdown to Christmas.

Okay. Is everybody left us? Are they. Is everybody still here? They haven't run away?

No, everybody's still here. In fact we've got more in than we started with. That's nice.

How is anybody. Is anybody got any more suggestions coming in? So what we're doing right now for anybody just recently joined us is we're creating social posts with AI. I'm selecting. We're doing on our account. We're pretending someone creating it in Twitter, Facebook and in Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. I'm going to say I'd like post. I'd like it to customize for each channel. I'd like AI to write it and generate it with AI. I'm going to create the post Countdown to Christmas. I'm copying and pasting it because I've told everybody I'm picked for typing. Typing Never get any better. Put that, pop that in there. Keywords. Santa stocking and elves and Rudolph. Add keywords. Here we go. Add keywords. Now I think what's really exciting about this is the thing that businesses struggle with most is what do I create and how do I create it. Now this is creating it for you. We are about to release something that helps them with what do I create as well. So if you come here and you don't know what to type, which is often a problem. We have a solution for that, too. So, writing time. We're going to use funny here. Three versions. And we'd like a. Let's go larger. Let's see how you have a monster post. Right. Ready? Go. So I know that I want some fun things for a fun. A fun. A fun post Christmas. Then we'll start. We're doing this live while streaming. I've now made it large and let's see what it's given us. Remember everything. It gives us sometimes a little bit of an American slant on that. We've sworn in the AI not to do that, but look at what it's written. Think of the time it is just saved that poor business owner.

Hey there, all you merry elves and Santa's little helpers. It's time to get your festive groove on because we've got some ultimate stocking fillers that will make Rudolph's nose glow with envy. That wonderful. Looking for a laugh. Our joke books are so hilarious. They'll have you rolling like a snowball down the hill. If you're in the mood for some squishy, gooey fun. Our Silly Putty is guaranteed to bring out the child in everyone. I mean, it's just. It's just done creative so beautifully.

The stuff that dreams are made of for an SME. Because to write that yourself when you're busy dealing with customers, all the rest of it, I've been there. It's really hard. So we hit continue. And then we're going to ask the AI image writer to create an image using AI. We're going to generate new content. We're going to say, describe your image. Merry elves and Santa helpers. See how it does that. We asked for three variations. I'm going to do that in watercolor and I'm going to hit generate. And now again, you are an overworked, stressed SME owner trying to do a million other things at once, and you suddenly get that, I'm going to take that guy there and boom, you're a post that is going to catch people's attention. And it's extraordinary. The amount of time that has just saved you is unbelievable. Now, the impact that that has on an SME is huge. And the confidence it gives them is amazing. You've even got. You've chosen two images. You've got Carousel. All the stuff that is really hard to do is done for you. Right, Sarah?

Good question here being asked. So this is amazing. By the way, how do we find out more about the Business support package.

All right, brilliant. Stay to the end and we'll give you a link to Sarah's diary and she will talk you through it because, yeah, I'm. We want to get this, this facility into the hands of every business and every SME in the country. Because this, what's important here is it combines about. I think we've combined about, oh, 20 different AIs that you can go off and buy individually. But what SME can use 20 different AIs to do this? They can't. It's about making it incredibly simple. Now back to that simple thing. We're gonna. The bit that I think is the killer, the killer part of this is that. And number one, all of the, all the questions and the images you, you create are saved here so your, your, your work isn't lost. But number two, it's. This is, this is the thing that with local business for, we all have to sort. This is what we have to fight. This is what we have to fix, which is the majority of businesses spend too much time like this. They're stuck. So, Sarah, without further ado, let's go and ask some questions. So I've done, I've taken some. This is our support center. And let's say, for example, how do I create a story on Instagram? How do I do that? I don't, I just don't know how to do that. So I'm going to put in here, how do I create a store on Instagram? And this is our help center that any of you can access. Now, again, bringing this back to place, the relevance is this. If somebody can't create a story, this is the thing that's seen most on all channels. If they can't do that, they can't spread that digital word. They're not appearing on somebody's phone. So typed it in, got an answer in about 5 seconds flat. Here's the article that tells you how to do it. Here's a video explains how to do it. Here's a little box that pops up and says, have you got all you need? I then want to know what is the best way to create more engagement on social media. And please, in the Q A, fire out your questions. Sarah, have you got any new questions popping up? And we'll demonstrate this is not a fix that literally whatever question you're answering you can get answered on the hoof. So best way to create engagement social media. Consider the following. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. How to do Facebook ads. Here you go.

I've got one. I've Got one. Which is funny, of course. I brought up a CRM earlier about what is a CRM?

Good question, Sarah. What is a CRM? What is a CRM? So you don't use acronyms. There are. People don't like that because they don't know what it means. Okay, so what's a CRM? And this is a really, this really good one because on the videos we've said to everybody, use, use the language, use the terms as they are. But we say in the videos, if you need some help, use chat. So you could be watching the video saying, what's CRM? And there you go, get it. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Manager, Technology Manager. We come to these relationship things to know and it takes you, and it takes you to exactly what a CRM is, how you do it. And if you think, I still don't.

Know, and you've got the book now, and this is the thing that people really engage with, isn't it, that live daily support. You know, they might read an article. Not everybody is, is as, you know, literate as everybody else. Some people actually just want a person to help them and so they can do that any day they like.

So one final question, just to demonstrate how fast it works, someone said, how do I set up Google my business account? Absolutely critical. Every business in your town, university, has a Google my business account. And we've got, we've done a really big piece of work here actually, with some experts and we've documented it all, we've transcribed it all, we've created videos for it. So you've got all the details here and then you've got more detailed instructions on how to do it. And in there you've got the video again. If you watch the video and you think halfway through it, what do they mean? You can come back here and ask a question. And that is how AI makes that, that support get answered now. And that is why we get all those rare reviews. If you want to do local business support, I think to get the best bang for your buck, you've got to deliver it in this kind of format because businesses need it now. That's what I've learned in 2023 and we're going to keep working on making that even better in 2024. Get rid of this moment, help people get the job done faster, help them do their best work faster is the key to doing local business support. We're a team based mainly in the uk. We hire great people that are great with people because that's what makes support Work. So if you're hiring for local business support, make sure you've got people, people. One thing that we are so passionate about this, that we match fund all local business support contracts. I think, Sarah, we match funded about 25 million this year. So if you want some advice over that again, please book a call with Sarah at the end because I think any provider should be match money with you, make sure that they're delivering awesome, awesome support to the businesses and the businesses giving positive feedback because that's. If the businesses don't buy into it, you're not going to get the results. To get that uplifting footfall, to get that economic growth, the businesses have got to buy into the support that's being delivered. And getting that magic right is really, really important. I'm sorry, have we got any more questions popping up that I need to answer to go, Are we good?

Yes, just one. Just literally come in on that basis. So getting the businesses to buy in, would a council have to contact the businesses or, or would you be able to do?

Depends obviously how you do it. But in our model we do all the outreach. If you're thinking about doing a program again, I would highly recommend that your provider does that outreach for you because it's a tough grind. We've created a really, really good process that blends digital outreach with physical outreach. Because one of the ironies here is that if you want to reach businesses, you actually sometimes need to do it by post or by phone because then you can't find them because they're not very digital themselves. So we have a blend of digital and physical outreach and it works incredibly well. But I would absolutely recommend, if you're looking for local business support providers, you 100% should insist they do the outreach because we do it well. But Sarah, it's been a process, working out the best way to do it, right?

It certainly has. It's been a lot of AB testing going on. And there's another acronym, not that sure I know what that means. Is it an acronym? No, probably not, but you know what I mean. We have, we have done feet on the street. It doesn't work. We've done one email doesn't work because we don't, you know, always have people's email addresses. We tried phoning people and then no follow up. We know what the process is. Don't we know it's 8 to 12 touch points to actually get a business to lean in and do the thing and yeah, we are exceptionally good at it. I think we can stand up and Say we are. We weren't. We weren't necessarily brilliant at it, but we are now.

So if you want any advice on this, Sarah will give you the honest answer on whatever you're thinking, doing. And if you'd like some help, please do book into a calendar, which you'll get the link at the end. So we, you know, we know that you haven't got hours to spare and I can guarantee you any businesses you're trying to do local business support with which you do, because let's remember at the beginning, only 19% of businesses are active on social media and on digital channels. So if you want your places to thrive, bluntly your businesses need to be better at digital. But you need to find a way to do it that doesn't take them out of their business. That is on demand. And I believe that AI is the answer to that problem. If businesses that are currently not digital don't adopt AI either, they're going to get left so far behind. Our mission is to make sure we get AI into the hands of every business in the country. Whether you want to use it to automate content creation, whether you want to use it to deliver support, whether you want to translate content. We've got local authorities using it to translate responses to questions from English to Welsh or into any other languages. We're about to build help centers in Urdu and Chinese. Is that right Sarah? Oh, Sarah told me to mute Urdu, Chinese and other languages. Hindi. Hindi. Beg pardon? Hindi. Because we appreciate that it's vital that you can do that multicultural piece really, really well. You get AI to write your ads, you can have an advertising agency basically your fingertips with AI and access all tools you and your businesses need to succeed in one place. And this is the killer bit. Ask for help 24 7. Never be lonely, never be stuck at the desk not knowing what to do, have somewhere to ask for help. And this applies to both people working within the, within the local authority, but most importantly for local businesses around your you. So about that blue button. That blue button is the magic thing that enables you to deliver support 24 7. And AI makes it possible. So we'd love to talk to you about how businesses can, can have success stories like these. These are not isolated things. They are a possible up and down country and it's all about having a formula that works. So whether you want to pick our brains about it or ask us how we could do it, either is absolutely fine with us. You all as local authorities have access to a maybe account and what we suggest you do is talk to us about sponsor packages that are worth over £950 for each business that we significantly match fund. That gives your business access to unlimited sport, access to tools and training that will literally save them tens of thousands of pounds in the long run. But there is a limit to how much we match fund, so please get in touch with us. It's not just tools, it's about our lovely people and these are a few of them and they are flipping gorgeous. Even if I set myself and knowledgeable digital activity is what fills these high streets up. We want to help ensure that they stay full. But it is a blend of people, technology and I think AI. What it's done for our business this year is extraordinary and we'd like to ensure it does the same for businesses near you. Every business now is influenced massively by what customers see on their phone and don't. Yeah, you have. You can play a big part in making sure that local businesses are found here. So as I said, whether you want to run a local business support package or talk about how to do it, talk to us because we have delivered business, local business support to about 25,000 businesses. So we know what a program can look like. You got something in mind? That's fine. We are very keen to talk to all growth cross country and see how we can deploy this AI with them because getting this into businesses hands will change.

I've got three people. Oh, there you go. Good timing. I got three people saying, can I have the link please? Because they've got to dash. I think we've gone a little bit over time but we had fun doing the AI, didn't we?

Maybe Tech.com HSTF will get you into Sarah's diary and whether it's to get your, your local authority account that you have, because we're working with High Street Task Force whether to talk about local business support. All is absolutely good. Sarah's there ready and waiting for you. So thank you very much, the HY Task Force. I'm Polly. You've been thinking to Sarah as well. Sarah's ready to talk to you as soon as you book into her diary, which is maybetech.com High Street Task Force HSTF. We'll send you that link as well with the recording of this for you to share with your colleagues or share with any of your anybody else in your team. Sorry to overrun but we were excited. We had fun. Sarah, thank you so much.

Pleasure. Bye all. Hope to see you all soon.