I just had to share what’s happening on the new virgin website. It’s re-design and re-build is spot on! Why, because Virgin has truly personalised its web space, made it interactive, easy to use and built this around the community and fans they have. It’s all social media-ed up! Instead of focusing solely on the Virgin brand,  they are focusing on the credibility and personal brand of Richard Branson – building up that feeling of trust and a stronger relationship with the brand. The whole site is as much about Virgin as it is about us!

Why I love the new site:

The website is a portal to visit all the virgin websites from all around the world and get familiar with what Virgin has to offer. There’s so much more to Virgin than I originally thought!

Virgin have made it super easy for us to comment, post suggestions, share ideas, interact, gain opportunities in the business world that we could never have made before. Virgin have been extremely smart here. They have created a social networking site..plus more… all underneath the banner of their brand!

In the words of Richard Branson ” It’s your space to build and incubate ideas, help each other, get advice, talk to people and be inspired by other entrepreneurs. If your ideas can make money and benefit the world we’d love to hear from you”.

There is a section where you can pitch your entrepreneurial ideas on video, upload your films and if enough people in the community vote for you then you can be part of a pitch TV show – shown on all Virgin planes. Again, Virgin are extremely clever here as they are making the opportunity a WIN WIN. They get more exposure and credibility plus hits to their site/facebook fanpage thanks to us and we get the opportunity to possibly get our ideas put into action.

The site enables us to link up our facebook account with our Virgin.com account. So we can post our virgin.com activity right into our news feed. Hmm..wonder why they have done this

Virgin have utilised the facebook connect facility which has enabled them and us  to seamlessly hook up online – Virgin are among the biggest brands in the world to use it. I love Virgin because they are reactional to what’s going on right now and they have harnessed an extremely powerful way to market and connect with their target market. There are so many other brands..small and large that all have the same opportunity yet hold back, due to fear and perceived constraints. Go Virgin I say!

There’s an Ask Richard section: where you can ask Richard anything you like and he answers the communities’ most popular question every month. You’ll find a “Quick talk section” on the landing page – where you can write about what’s on your mind and interact with the virgin community. They also have their latest blog titles and some comments are displayed on the landing page enticing you to move further into the site.

You can check the site out here – http://virgin.com

In a nutshell, Virgin are leaders, they are willing to give new sources of media a chance and they are extremely community focused, they always have been. That’s why their new site is going nuts!!!

The purpose of this post is to highlight a big brand utilising social media extremely well and to show you how they are capturing millions of people and community members to the site. It’s also to inspire you and to get you thinking on a whole new level. Are you loving this…or what??? I wanna know – pop your comments below

We all know, as successful business owners, that networking is crucial for business growth and life!

Why? It’s a way to form tight nit relationships, trustworthy referrals, expose your personal brand ,a strong support network, a feeling of belonging, being surrounded around like minded people….the list goes on!

I have spoken to a few people of late who are saying Twitter is for the anti-social – people that are too scared or too lazy to hook up face to face! What a load of bull crap! I have been on Twitter for quite some time now AND my social fixes on Twitter are like injecting myself with 20 cans of Redbull!

 The relationships I have built up on Twitter are strong, powerful and true. Twitter is another form of networking and it can be done from the comfort of your own home to hit a global audience, I believe the people that say it’s anti – social just totally don’t get this space…YET!

A few weeks back I had a brain surge-and I nearly had to go into hospital!

I found that I was engaging in conversations with many people from Melbourne (where I live) on Twitter.  I don’t know about you, but when I tweet with people,  I picture in my mind the type of person they are, what they look like and also what their office/house looks like too? Random I know!

As a social media enthusiast and people lover who has a zest for life, I just had to fizz with these extraordinary twitterers.  They all gave me something on twitter – whether it was support, exposure, a belly full of laughs, referrals, business ….. I JUST HAD TO MEET THEM, face to face!

It was an absolute no brainer to take powerful relationships that I had made on twitter to a whole new level! We all know the power of twitter in lead gen, personal branding and networking. Combine this with an offline networking meet up and shaaazam – add another power marketing strategy to the business model!

@tweetupmellers was born – and for the first meet up,  22 of twitters top talent showed up ! If you are curious to see the  strength of this space then click on this !

My point? Online networking is gold. Combine this with offline networking then you have just hit the jackpot my friends!

Were any of the people that showed up lazy or anti social? Quite the contrary! They get this space and got straight in! They showed up, put in the time and by the end of the night our twitter network was stronger than ever. They all know, as you do that you have to put in the time, care about your network, give great content and be real! When you do THAT then the opportunities are endless.

Twitter is a social networking tool and it’s strength has now lead to an offline networking group too! Both are crucial to any business and both generate powerful results.

Twitter for the anti-social –ppppphffffft – check out @tweetupmellers and the group, then get back to me, wouldn’t you agree?