Help us shape the future of BT Tradespace

Posted 9 May 2008 at 10:46AM by Derek Hemphill in Announcements

As a member of BT Tradespace you will be aware that we are constantly improving and evolving the site based on feedback from our users. Usually this feedback comes from emails, customer satisfaction surveys and telephone calls. In addition, from time to time we also invite some of our members in person to a focus session with the Tradespace team to help us get a deeper understanding of how people are using the site and what improvements they think can be made.

Our next focus sessions are being held in central London on Thursday 15th May and I would like to invite you to come along and take part. If you are in the London area on that day and can spare one hour of your time to chat with us in person please send me a message or drop me an email. Please include your name and a telephone number where we can contact you.

In return for your time, we will pay you a fixed fee of £60 to cover any out of pocket expenses. Places at our focus sessions are limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

This is a fantastic opportunity for you to help shape the future of one of the fastest growing online communities. I really hope you can join us.

Derek Hemphill
Community Manager

Tags: bt tradespace

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Help customers to find you on BT Tradespace

Posted 7 May 2008 at 2:04PM by Beverley Gaynor in Promoting your site

We have improved the search facility in BT Tradespace to help you find new contacts and make sure your customers can find you!

Now you can search for someone's real name in addition to their display name - particularly helpful when they have presented themselves as their alter-ego (Chief Disco Dancer - you know who you are!).

In order to make this possible, we would like you to review your Privacy settings.

Please log in and go to privacy settings, and check the 'Allow other members to search for me using my real first and last name' box if you are happy to do so.

Tags: bt, bt tradespace, communities, search

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Building trust on Tradespace

Posted 6 May 2008 at 12:51PM by Derek Hemphill in Managing your site

One of the neat things about BT Tradespace is that it helps your potential customers get to know you better. Every piece of content you publish from your contact details to blog posts, podcasts and videos all help to shape a visitor's view of your business. Getting people acquainted with your business helps to build trust and in turn increases the likelihood of generating sales.

Here are a few ideas you can implement on your site to help you build trust on your site. Some of these may seem fairly obvious but are often overlooked...

- Make sure you have full contact details for your business including address and contact numbers. A fixed landline number is always better than a mobile number as it indicates a fixed location.

- Add your company information such as full name, company registration number, VAT number etc. This helps show that you are a legally registered company.

- Complete the 'About us' section with a short overview about your company and the services you provide. Visitors will make quick decisions to continue or leave your site based on this information so put some serious thought into it.

- Write a 'Welcome' blog post introducing yourself in a more personal way to your potential customers. Writing about you as an individual lets visitors see that there are indeed real people behind your company. Writing regular blog posts will help to demonstrate that your business is proactive and interested in finding new business.

- Upload a short podcast or video featuring you or a member of your team. This could simply be to talk about your business or demonstrate products and services. This does not have to be anything fancy or highly polished as a DIY production can often come across more natural.

- Add plenty of photographs. Photos of products and services are an obvious benefit but why not consider adding photos of yourself, your staff and your premises? Again this will help give visitors more of an insight into your business.

- Finally, consider upgrading to BT Tradespace Contact which, amongst many other benefits, gives you the 'Click to call' facility on your Tradespace site. As well as being a very convenient way of allowing customers and potential customers to call you free, it also adds an extra level of professionalism to your site.

Tags: blogs, BT Tradespace, podcasts, trust, video

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Get up close and personal

Posted 29 April 2008 at 1:41PM by Beverley Gaynor in Tips & tricks

Have you noticed that businesses are advertising their events on this site? Running an event is a great way to promote your product or service and you get to meet your customers!

If you think it's about time you improved relationships with your customers then why not host an event?

You can use our event application to promote any kind of occasion, be it a sale or the launching of a new product or service. Maybe you have a social event as part of a community group that you would like to promote or even a fundraising event that you need support for.

Go to Create event and follow the simple steps. You can then send invitations to members and non-members and write about it on your Tradespace and mention it in "The Lounge"
Why not have a think about how you could promote your business or community?

As always, help is at hand with the Help with Tradespace community if you need us!

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Get the BT Business Experience

Posted 11 April 2008 at 9:57AM by Derek Hemphill in Announcements

BT Business is hosting a special showcase event which runs from Wednesday, April 23 to Thursday, April 24, at Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square, London WC1.

BT Business Experience 2008 is tailored specifically for small and medium sized businesses to give you an insight into the many new and innovative ways that technology can help your business to succeed - whether you're working from home, on the move or in the office.

The event will address key issues facing entrepreneurs and small businesses and will demonstrate how BT Business is supporting and enabling businesses to do what they do best.

Visitors to the event will see an exciting showcase of the latest technology and services from BT Business and will have the opportunity to speak to Bill Murphy, managing director of BT Business, Mick Hegarty, director of BT Marketing and Jennifer Mowat, director of BT Tradespace.

Last year's event was the launch platform for BT Tradespace and this year the event will highlight some of our key success stories from the past twelve months and look forward to some of the exciting new developments in the pipeline.

For more information visit btbusinessexperience2008.com and find out how you can get involved.

Tags: BT Business experience 2008, BT Tradespace

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New Communities

Posted 10 April 2008 at 10:56AM by Beverley Gaynor in Community spotlight

Hot on the heels of our technical upgrades we have made two new Communities available to all Tradespace members! The Lounge and Ideas for Tradespace Communities do 'exactly what they say on the tin' and are there for you to utilise!

The Lounge Community is a networking site to enable you to contact Tradespace members from all categories. We like to think of it as a virtual water cooler station for you to swap hints and tips on general topics such as good restaurants, or reaction to the latest business news.

Tradespace is continuing to develop and we welcome your feedback. The Ideas community is there for you to suggest any improvements you would like to see on the site. No issue is too small and we will come back to you to discuss and implement if appropriate.

We have provided these Communities to increase interaction on Tradespace so please use them freely. If you decide they are not for you then simply click on the 'leave' button on the Community page.

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Latest improvements to Tradespace Communities

Posted 8 April 2008 at 11:50AM by Derek Hemphill in New features

When you log on to Tradespace Communities this week you may notice a few improvements we have made.

Here are just two of the more notable updates...

Discussion 'tag cloud'

"What is a tag cloud?" I hear you cry! A tag cloud is simply a visual way of showing what 'tags' or topics people are chatting about most. The bigger the text, the more posts there are about that particular topic. Simple!

We have introduced this funky new feature in response to your feedback about making it easier to see what people where chatting about.

The new tag cloud can be found on the Tradespace Communities homepage under the heading 'We've got communities on..."

Import your contacts

You may be familiar with how frustrating it can be when you want to invite your entire address book to your snazzy new community but have to type in every email address individually!

Well our clever techies have solved that problem for you. Now when you create your community or want to invite your contacts to another community or event you can simply import contacts from your existing email address book.

You can import contacts from an online mail account such as Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, MSN, or Live.com. Or, if you have your contacts stored within your email application on your computer, you can upload your contacts file and hey presto!

Why don't you test drive these new features now and let us know what you think?

Tags: BT Tradespace communities, import contacts, tag cloud

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Tradespace hits 70k!

Posted 3 April 2008 at 4:02PM by Derek Hemphill in Tradespace gossip

Things at Tradespace Towers have been fairly chaotic over the last few weeks in the run up to the end of the financial year. We targeted ourselves with reaching 70,000 registrations by March 31st so it was all hands to the pump as the team pulled together to get as many new registrations as possible before the clock struck midnight.

Our resident SEO guru Nils had a bright idea by recycling this oversized thermometer that happened to be lying around the office. It certainly helped to keep our minds focussed on the goal.

Alas we just missed out as we cross the 70k line on 1st April - 24 hours too late! But this is still a huge achievement considering we started from zero just 12 months ago. And it's thanks to your help - spreading the good word about Tradespace that helped us achieve this milestone.

It's onwards and upward for us now. The next twelve months is going to be busier than ever with lots of exciting developments planned which we look forward to sharing with you very soon.

I'm off now to look for bigger thermometer to get us to the one million mark....

Tags: BT Tradespace

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Get paid to bring traffic to Tradespace

Posted 1 April 2008 at 12:26PM by Derek Hemphill in New features

I thought you might be interested to know that we have just launched an affiliate programme aimed at bringing new traffic to BT Tradespace. This is great news for all our Tradespacers as more traffic means more potential business.

Anyone that runs their own website can apply to join the Tradespace affiliate programme. If accepted, you can earn money every time someone clicks through from your site and conducts a search on BT Tradespace.

Affiliate members can earn a commission of 4p for the first search per unique visitor. As a special launch incentive, if you are one of the first 10 sites to achieve 50 searches on BT Tradespace, you could bag yourself £50!

Buy.at are the affiliate network managing the programme for us and you can find out more or sign up for the programme here.

Tags: affiliate programme, BT Tradespace

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Have you joined a Tradespace Community yet?

Posted 17 March 2008 at 11:45AM by Beverley Gaynor in Community spotlight

Communities are a great way of keeping in touch with your contacts - be it business networks, customers, friends or social groups! You can share news, ideas, and publicise your online or face to face events.

If you've already registered with Tradespace and have added your postcode to your community profile, then you will automatically be connected with other members in your local area.

Tell us your interests, and we will recommend other communities that you may find useful. If you can't find the one you're looking for, then why not start your own?

Communities can be public or private. Anyone can opt to join a public community and they are great for networking and shared interests.

You can only join private communities by invitation. This is ideal if you want to talk to a specific group of people where your comments can be kept private from the world at large!

Why not have a look for a community related to your business or join The Lounge to get going and chatter away!

Tags: bt tradespace, bt tradespace communities, communities, social networking

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