Blog Post

GDPR - What is it and how does it effect me?

Frances Clifford • Mar 08, 2018

GDPR - What is it?! How does it effect me and my company?

GDPR - What is it?! How does it effect me and my company?

General Data Protection Regulations. That’s what it is, and as of the 25th May... Data Protection as we know it, is changing!

How does it effect me and my company? Does it affect me and my company?! Good questions... It almost certainly does.

Seriously, in one way or another it does effect everyone’s company and everyone's day to day running of their businesses. From what we can see, unless you are a lady/gent at a craft fair, selling wares for cash (no card) then you are probably fine… Read no further craft fair boss!

Let’s be real here, 'the time has come the walrus said’ or the ICO said in this case!!

We constantly get bombarded by spam email, where did they get our information from?!

Why does my phone ring with people offering me help for an ‘accident’ I haven’t had. “Have you been in an accident that wasn’t your fault!?”

NO! Where did you get my number from?! And the phone cuts off…. “Hi do you need double glazing?” No, but you now need my permission to hold my number in your records. Touché GDPR, we can see the benefits in the long term that is for sure.

Now see here is the thing, I am sure you aren’t selling your customer/client emails to any old Tom, Dick or Harry, or passing on their addresses to your friends for fun. But the days of auto tick opt ins are gone. And good!

People are worried about their email data bases, as they haven’t kept the proof of their customers opt ins. By sending out an email asking for opt ins, they will lose lots of clients…. but will they? Or will they get an accurate amount of interested clients who want to hear what they have to say and are likely to purchase from them? We are trying to think of it like spring cleaning!

As these people aren’t interested they will probably not opt in… What have you lost? Where they going to buy from you if they aren’t interested? What will happen is, your open rate will increase as a result of targeting only people who want to hear about what you sell, and your CTR (click through rate for you non anagrammers) will increase. These are all goos things... Better 4 decent leads that 400 dead ends.

The facts are, you will need a GDPR policy. If you read the news and watch some of the videos about GDPR you will start to understand that a lot of it is just good practice and in the very near future it compliance could save you and your companies a fortune!

Get compliant, save yourself the aggro. Do it sooner rather than later. Don’t be frightened, it’s the nature of the beast, get in the know, and as someone wiser than me once said, ‘knowledge is power’.

We have seen the scary questions being asked, and have partnered with Olive in a simple online course, which explains to how to become GDPR compliant, the ins and outs that you should be cluing yourselves up with. >>>>CLICK HERE<<<<

Lots of companies cold call, local companies, window cleaners etc. This is no longer an option!

People are getting confused about article 30.

This simply means you do not need to employ a separate GDPR Data Officer if you have less than 250 employees. Then, the water becomes murky. Do you hold personal data? Yes? For business use? Yes? Then it absolutely does apply to you. Do you know what the ‘right to be forgotten’ is? No? Time to take the course.


Need help with your GDPR policy?

Need help with your mailing list ‘opt in’ email?

Need more information?


As always we are here to help, no stuffy words, there are no stupid questions… just ask.


F x

LinkedIn Logo
by Frances Clifford 29 Feb, 2020
LinkedIn is just for jobs? ThinkIN again. Ok so terrible joke, but seriously, LinkedIn is the single only platform where professionals go, to do business. And that is it. That does of course involve job seeking and employment. But that is not its sole use. If I Google your name, what’s the first thing that shows up? 80% of the time it will be your LinkedIn profile. Is it up to date? Is it relevant? This is not intended to be a CV, much more of an insight into you, your business and your experience. Remember, this can show your personality. LinkedIn are said to be upping their stakes this year with their video sharing content. Additionally their algorithm is said to reward comments by pushing the content further afield. An interesting fact from Social Media Today “Research has also shown that LinkedIn users are 20x more likely to share a video on the platform than any other type of post. Combine that with the fact that LinkedIn members spend almost 3x more time watching video ads compared to time spent with static Sponsored Content, and it’s fairly safe to assume that LinkedIn is going to make video a key focus heading into 2020.” What if you don’t have videos? What should these be about? Think of what would happen with a potential client/customer in front of you now. Well why not start by aiming at brand awareness, who is your brand and what is it all about? Then aim for what products you offer and why yours stand out from the crowd. If you were lucky enough the attend the #SBSEvent2020 you would have seen Sara Davis inspiring speech on pitching. Sell the problem first, product last… your product or service, is the solution. Let's get back to the question in hand. As a small business why should I dedicate time to something with no guaranteed return. The answers are simple. Firstly its a free brand awareness platform. We always like free! What harm is there adding your company. Plus over time, Google will pick up on the LinkedIn company profile and chuck it conveniently into your company name search results. LinkedIn keep alluding to the fact they will be working on changes to their company pages. Jump on the band wagon before it is fully running! Rumour has it that LinkedIn will reward these companies through algorithm who set up before the trend is well established. Don’t ever doubt the value of social proof . That is inherently why social media is so invaluable. Get those followers up! Everyone is talking about themselves on LinkedIn. At the moment business posts are rarer. Go against the grain. Remember LinkedIn is still offering organic reach. Did you know when you accept a connection invite you immediately get offered to follow that company page? Did you know you can use Hootsuite and other social media management apps and platforms to schedule your content? Do you have enthusiastic employees? Why not add them into the mix. Share their work based content. They are a great asset in the LinkedIn world. Again, it is FREE. If you are already pushing all of your social media channels, what’s another to add to the mix?? Right, I’m off to rework our LinkedIn page. Want to follow suit? Click here I hope this was helpful, Fran
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