Simple Social Media Advertising Tips

We often get asked during our social media training sessions about advertising, particularly on Facebook and Twitter. It's clearly something people are confused about so we wanted to share with you some frequent questions and a few key tips on getting the most from advertising on social.

Why pay for adverts through social media?

From our experience, the brands we've worked with have really benefited from social media advertising, not only achieving objectives (like more Facebook likes or engagement) but have been able to use feedback from adverts in real-time to direct social activity and help plan future initiatives.

We particularly find social media advertising effective as you can reach a mass audience of targeted people very simply and quickly. You can see exactly who is engaging with each advert and what posts are more responsive than others, almost instantly making it more effective for managing budgets too. Also, the great thing is you control the adverts (and budget!) and your audience growth and objectives are based on real data.

It's no surprise that by 2017, social media advertising revenue is set to grow to 11 billion dollars becoming a massive part of advertising buying efforts! 

What's the difference between advertising on Facebook and Twitter?

The obvious difference is you'll probably be targeting different people and you will have different advertising objectives for each platform although the creation of the adverts itself is pretty similar.

Set your objectives...

On Facebook there are a number of types of adverts you can run to meet different objectives. You can optimize adverts for website conversions, page likes, website clicks, post engagement, app installs, app engagement, offer claims and for event replies.

On Twitter it's more simple - you can advertise a specific key message through Promoted Tweets or gain more followers through Promoted Accounts.

Selecting where the advert will appear...

With Facebook adverts can appear in News Feeds or on the right-hand side of the page. Facebook will give you the best option according to the objectives set.

The creative element should be taken into account here as this is where you can upload images (on Facebook) and create different forms of copy (see tips below).

Targeting...

Targeting people by demographics such as location, gender, interests, language or workplace, etc is easy on Facebook so go in with a set target audience in mind.

Over on Twitter there are two types of targeting; keyword and interests & followers. Keyword means you can target those who tweet about, search or engage with a particular term. Interests and followers allows you to target by broad interest categories (like beauty for example) or target those who follow accounts that tweet about categories.

Budgets...

Finally on Facebook you can pick a daily or lifetime budget and decide how you want to pay for actions. For example, you can pay for likes or for impressions. This all depends on your objectives but don't worry, Facebook will help with selection.

On Twitter again, you can set lifetime or daily maximum budgets. If you go down the Promoted Tweet route you set an amount you are willing to pay for every reply, retweet, favourite, click or follow. For Promoted Account adverts you pay per follower.

Do I need to pay someone to create adverts for me?

In a word, no! If you have large budgets to play with and are unsure about creating your adverts of course we'd say to talk to an expert but by no means do you have to. Facebook and Twitter have made it very simple to create your own advertisements and even give you lots of tips and feedback. The process is very straightforward and once you've done one test (maybe with a very small budget) you'll have lots of fun creating and managing your own adverts.

A note here... we've seen some brands allow 'experts' to manage their adverts on social media (there's really no need!) and get exploited in some way, whether it's taking a big percent of the budget for 'fees' (not if you create ads yourself!) or by not understanding the target market or objectives and getting hundreds of likes from Portugal when the company only trades in the UK! Remember, setting up the adverts in one way means every new like the page receives will be paid for so targeting is important, paying for likes in Portugal was very frustrating for the brand!

Key Tips...

• Set objectives before you create the adverts whether that's on Facebook or Twitter. Create a purpose for promoting your content maybe it's to increase Facebook likes, encourage more users to visit your website or to increase awareness - objectives are key and will help you when setting up the adverts
• If possible, create adverts around campaigns, even if it's a small-scale Facebook competition - this will give users even more reason to engage with your advert and give them something to invest their time in online
• Include Facebook advertising in your marketing budget but remember you don't need to spend thousands a month to see results. We've worked with brands before who have moved a very small percentage of their budget into Facebook advertising and gained a lot of traction
• Use a number of creatives... try to use around four different images in one advertising campaign (Facebook will rotate these automatically for you) and use a number of copy alternatives even if it's changing a few words around. This will help you to test what your audience responds to better

Hope that's helped in the seen-to-be confusing world of social media advertising but we promise... it's simple! If you have any questions just email us at smile@katieandjane.com

Visit Facebook Ads and Twitter Ads to find out more.

Jane x

Sharing Our Social Media Skills with Everyone, Our First eCourse is Now Live!

When we launched Katie & Jane, we had one aim and that was to deliver social media training simply, honestly and in a bespoke way to ensure it was meaningful and added true value. We wanted to throw out the jargon and buzzwords, and instead find a way of imparting our social media knowledge in a simple way that inspires confidence and achieves goals.

We also wanted to make our training accessible to as many people as possible, and are big believers in the idea that learning is as much about ‘doing’ and taking action as it is about education. SkillShare was founded on one principle; anyone can learn anything, at any age, at an affordable cost, anywhere in the world.

We are very proud to announce that we have launched our first eCourse with SkillShare; Create An Effective Facebook Strategy and it is now available to sign up to!

“The Future Belongs To the Curious” - Skillshare

To celebrate the launch we have ten free places to give away worth $23/£14

Facebook is one of the most powerful social networks in the world connecting people with brands instantly and creating a successful Facebook presence is not rocket science - it's all about organisation. You need the knowledge, a clear strategy and the tools to go ahead and make an impact on the platform and this is exactly what you'll get from our course with simple step-by-step projects that you can complete in your own time.

We have packed 12 video lessons and 22 project steps into six lessons which result in you creating a tailored Facebook strategy for your brand. Alongside the lessons are additional resources to help you complete the project steps and enable you to create a really effective Facebook presence.

Our course gives you experienced knowledge of exactly how powerful Facebook can be for your brand and how to utilise the platform to its full potential to achieve brand goals and objectives. Key units include; the power of social media, the features of Facebook and evaluating your presence.

On completing the course you’ll have created your very own social media strategy tailored to your business after gaining the knowledge needed to understand the platform and the guidelines behind a successful strategy. You'll also be able to evaluate your ongoing Facebook presence with our free tool recommendations and carry out an audit of your own or a competitor’s Facebook activity.

Our class is designed for business owners, brand managers, marketers and entrepreneurs who would like to use Facebook to further increase awareness of their brand in the most effective way. If you want to create a Facebook strategy, our course is for you.

To find out more about the course details or to register, click here. Be one of the first ten people to sign up and use the code KJFB10 to access the course for free!

Watch SkillShare’s Manifesto video to find out more about their incredible work here.

Katie x

Facebook & Twitter? I’m not Pinterested!

Pinterest is my favourite go-to place when I’ve read my weight in books and newspapers and to me it signifies some time for some feel-good inspiration. It’s easy to use, it’s not full of negative comments or shameless brags, and it adds value to my life in a creative, inspiring and positive way.

At a recent networking event with Red Magazine, Jo Malone told us that she was debating the future of using Facebook for her new brand Jo Loves, and potentially focusing significantly more time and effort on Pinterest because of the value it has for luxury brands. This inspired us to question whether Pinterest was in fact the only platform needed for luxury brands? You can read the blog post in full here.

With that in mind, we thought we’d give you some simple tips to help you use the Pinterest to its full potential, and answer the common questions we get asked many times from our trainees. If you are not familiar with Pinterest, head to our earlier blog post here first which gives you a quick introduction and some interesting stats.

Pinterest for Business

Businesses can use Pinterest to inspire customers and increase brand awareness. The innovative platform allows brands to strengthen the personality and ethos behind the brand through inspirational pins alongside product or service pins. Pinterest is best used to create the character behind the brand with, for example, lifestyle pins that show users the inspiration behind products. These types of pins greatly increase reach and in turn, changing consumers to passionate brand advocates.

The Key Features…

Profile

As with Facebook & Twitter, you will have a profile which includes a small place for a bio piece and link to your website. Your profile also displays your follower/following count, your likes and all of your Pinterest Boards containing your pins and repins (see below!). From your profile you can search for pins, and other boards you would like to follow. It’s a good idea to make your profile picture your brand logo, and ensure you have a compelling bio with searchable keywords.

Boards

Acting as an online pin board, your boards are where you categorise your pins. Users can follow all of your boards, or individual ones, so make sure you have a purpose for each of your boards, and keep them simple, defined and regularly updated with lots of creative, inspiring images. Don't forget to set your board cover image to one of the most engaging, eye-catching pins within that board to attract more users to view it. You can also move your boards around to have them in the order of your choice so if you have a particular board which you'd like to promote at any one time, move it to the top row of your Pinterest profile.

Original Pins

Brands can upload original pins that are unique to the business. Pinning products will be the easiest way to start, however remember high quality photography is the key here, the aim is to attract potential customers to repin your product pins or in fact buy on the spot so make sure your imagery shows off the features of your products – a significant 69% of Pinterest users have found at least one item that they’ve bought or wanted to buy. If you can, include a price banner as 36% of all pins with prices get more likes. Don’t forget you can pin videos too!

 Repins

As we discussed above, you can use your boards to reflect your brand through original pins but you can also repin other users pins that relate to your brand and boards. For example, if your business is an online surf shop, along with product pins, your lifestyle boards could include the best surfing spots around the world, life on the beach, the surfing bucket list and so on. By using boards in this way on Pinterest, the lifestyle represented will start to become synonymous with the brand, keeping consumers interested. However, remember to stay true to your brand and stay in your lane, make sure any repins represent your brand ethos.

Rich Pins

Rich pins are valuable for brands with consumer products, as they present your product pins with automatically updated details including pricing, availability and importantly where to buy at that exact moment. To start the process, you’ll need to ensure your business website is 'rich pin ready' with meta tags – it’s a good idea to have a chat with your web developer as they will need to help you here if you are not familiar with the term. Find out more information on rich pins here.

Creating a Successful Pinterest Presence...

Engage, Engage, Engage!

As with every social media platform it’s so important to make sure you regularly engage with users and not just expect consumers to find you. The more you put into it, the more you will get out. Pinterest gives you the opportunity to like and comment on other pins, so use these native features to build relationships.

Launch Innovative Competitions

Competitions are great to increase reach, engagement and your follower numbers. Like any social competition, make sure it adheres to Pinterest guidelines and includes clear entry mechanics, and before you run a lazy Pin to Win competition, embrace the opportunity with creativity – Pinterest likes this! Read the guidelines in full here.

Know Your Audience

As with any marketing activity, it’s so important to research and understand your audience. Keep in mind that one of the goals here is to attract your audience to repin and share your products with their friends, so clear knowledge of what your audience also likes (apart from your products) will enhance engagement. Remember to stay on trend too, try to keep within your business niche but pin what people are talking about, and factor in national awareness days (download our helpful calendar here), holidays and seasonal celebrations too. Take a look at our recent Pinterest blog post here to discover more about the demographics of 'pinners'.

Increase Traffic to your Pinterest Boards

Don't forget you can increase traffic from outside Pinterest too using your other online networks to reach more people. Here are a few key things to do:

• Optimise your website with the 'pin it' button – this allows users to directly pin from your website onto their Pinterest boards
• Direct existing customers from other social platforms to your Pinterest boards
• Include Pinterest on your marketing activity as you would with Facebook or Twitter – but remember when promoting it, make sure you give a reason for Pinners to follow you!

To find out how we are using Pinterest, head over and be inspired by our boards here.

If you are in need of some help & advice why not register for our latest online e-course with Skillshare, How to Create An Effective Facebook Strategy for just $23 (£14) here. 

To find out more about us head to www.bykatieandjane.com or sign up to our monthly newsletter here for regular social media tips, advice and news of our latest App release! 

Katie x

Lady Geeks Unite: Putting the Her in Hero

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day to not only celebrate Ada, the very first computer programmer, but a day celebrate the technology industry, an industry that features a balanced ratio of male and female creators of technology as well as consumers of it, women are celebrated as tech pioneers just as much as their male counterparts, and females sit beside men at the forefront of technological advances in the UK.

Well not yet, rewind to 2013 and what Jamie Oliver did forschool dinners is now on the uprising in the form of a brilliant but fierce campaigning agency called Lady Geek and its mission to inspire girls to change the world through technology. Lady Geek is the creation of Belinda Parmar an author, professor and campaigner who's mission is to enable women to live in a world where anything is possible and no career, including one in tech, is off limits.

It's astounding that just 17% of the tech workforce in the UK is female, 22% in US and it is declining each year by 0.5%, meaning that in 30 years only 1% of tech creators will be female.

Lady Geek’s campaign Little Miss Geek aims to communicate with teachers, schools and parents to break the tech taboo and inspire young girls to embrace it and not write it off as a subject they wouldn’t be suited to, and it’s working. 

Having spent two years working in inner city schools, trialing a series of programmes supporting girls through primary, secondary and university education and creating tech clubs and one-off events designed to inspire, Little Miss Geek has increased the number of girls taking GCSE Computing by 52%.

Today marks the first Her in Hero Day, celebrating not only Ada Lovelace but all female tech pioneers such as Mary Anderson, the inventor of windshield wipers, and thanks to Little Miss Geek and all involved who have pledged their support, schools across the county will be hosting a Her in Hero assembly bringing together females working in the tech industry to take part in encouraging young children that they can have build a career in technology if they want to.

If you would like to find out more about Lady Geek visit www.ladygeek.com and head to www.littlemissgeek.com to find out all about the campaign. 

Help celebrate tech superwomen everywhere today with Lady Geek on Facebook and join us in supporting the campaign on Twitter too by using the hashtag #HerInHero

Happy Ada Lovelace day!

Katie x

Pinterest - The Only Social Network Needed for Luxury Brands?

Katie suggested I write this blog post after we listened to Jo Malone at a recent Red Network Event talk about how her brand, Jo Loves, uses social media. When Jo told us that she was debating the future of the Jo Loves Facebook page, the audience gasped! Pinterest is the social network of choice for the future of her luxury brand.

What is Pinterest?

'Pinterest is a tool for collecting and organising the things that inspire you' according to the Pinterest team and I think the word 'inspire' sums up what Pinterest is perfectly... a place to gain inspiration from, whether it be for your next adventure, wedding or interior design - there's a pin for nearly everything!

Going back to basics, Pinterest is a pinboard-style photo-sharing social network. Users can create 'boards' containing theme-based photos or videos (pins). Pins can be uploaded by the user, repinned (similar to retweeted) from other people's boards or taken directly from a website. Users can also like and comment on their favourite pins and follow other people's (and brand's) boards.

Although development of Pinterest began in only 2009, it's now the third most popular social networking site in the world. It gains 104 million hits per week but still a lot less than Facebook's seven billion! 

Take a look at Pinterest's 'Pinning 101' for the basics here. 

Who Uses Pinterest?

Ok, we know how popular Pinterest is but who actually uses it? If I tell you the most popular Pinterest boards are DIY/Crafts, Recipes then Quotes and the most popular pin source is handmade and vintage online store Etsy... would it surprise you to know that 80% of Pinterest users are female!?

The average female users are aged between 23 and 34 (Facebook's is 18 to 24) with an increased disposable income than those on other social networking sites, plus users follow 2.4 more brands on Pinterest than they do on Facebook. If we go back to the title of this blog post, we can start to build an understanding of why luxury brands often choose to focus their efforts on Pinterest.

Who's Doing it Well?

Mashable reported that the most popular branded boards are surrounding food, fashion, home and weddings - topics already popular with Pinterest's female users.

The rundown of the three most popular boards by followers...
1. L.L. Bean – Woodland Creatures
2. Jetsetter – Daily Moment of Zen
3. Nordstrom – Garden Wedding Ideas

Two brands that I follow and admire on Pinterest are Sephora and Jetsetter, with Jetsetter being featured in the top three above.

I first stumbled upon beauty brand Sephora when I visited Paris with my mum and best friend for my thirteenth birthday and automatically fell in love with the place so I suppose I am a little biased, but I love their activity on Pinterest. The brand really engages and gives something back to their followers through their design inspiration boards (Nailspotting), how-to boards (Get the Look and PRO Tips), shopping inspiration boards and also 'Sephora Sweepstakes'. Interestingly, according to Sephora, their Pinterest followers spend 15 times more than their Facebook fans.

Onto Jetsetter which fits in perfectly with Pinterest's aim of being a tool to inspire... it is an online travel site that gives members great offers on everything related to travel including hotels and tours along with sharing expert knowledge on the world's best destinations. Pinterest users love their inspirational travel images, insider tips and travel quotes. They have 4.5 million followers!

Why Luxury Brands?

Pinterest is an inspirational, visual and positive and, above all, aspirational social network. The reason luxury brands work so well on the platform is that users pin things they aspire to have and create a visual map through Pinterest of going ahead and achieving it, whether it's booking that five star hotel or treating themselves to luxury products.

Luxury brands aren't missing a trick when it comes to Pinterest as the network generates 27% more revenue per click than Facebook and drives more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined! Plus, Pinterest users are 10% more likely to make a purchase than if they were referred from Facebook and spend 10% more!

 As I've said before, along with Instagram, Pinterest is my favourite social network due to the positive and inspirational elements of the platform. It is addictive though due to its simple design, the minimal effort needed to use the site and the separation from all the personal (and often very boring!) status updates and picture uploads you will find on Facebook. Due to its addictive nature, I'd recommend you, like me, limit yourself to pinning a number of pins in any one session (mine is five!) this stops you getting carried away with endless pinning into the early hours!

I'm off to pin just five pins now... find me on Pinterest here and our 'Katie & Jane' Pinterest boards here - have fun!

Jane x

Instagram App Review - Beware it's Addictive!

I am not ashamed to admit I am slightly addicted to Instagram which actually makes a nice change for me as in the past it was all about Facebook, followed closely by Twitter and Pinterest. I feel, along with Pinterest, Instagram is one of the more positive social media platforms, or it is at least when you follow the type of people I do (lifestyle, wellbeing, dogs!) so I don't mind being an addict!

I wanted to write a review of the app, I know Instagram (owned by Facebook) isn't new, it's been around since 2010 and there are 150 million active users all over the world, but, it's relatively new for me and will be unknown to many others!

Instagram allows you to create a profile and follow users in a similar way to Twitter. You can then upload or take images which are editable through the app with photography features such as filters, blurs and changeable light gradients. You can add a caption to sit with the photo, similar to the way you would on Facebook with hashtags being important on Instagram to categorise your images and make them easily searchable. The photography features make any photo look a million times better (trust me, I know!) and once posted it gets added to your profile and will appear in your followers feeds.

It's a really simple app to use and I think it's because of that simplicity, people love it. The interface has a handy menu at the bottom with five options; home (similar to a newsfeed), explore, upload, see notifications and view and edit your profile.

Explore allows you to search for other users to follow and discover new images from a feed that is automatically updated by Instagram.

Upload is exactly what you expect but what's nice is if you haven't got the photo you want to upload on your camera roll, you can easily take a snapshot and edit it straight from the app without losing any quality. It's also the place you can then go on to edit and caption your images.

Profile gives you a live preview of your Instagram profile and it's the area you can make amends to your profile too. You have a handle on Instagram, mine is janelw171, your real name (should you wish), a small bio, profile picture and one external link.

In terms of the social aspect of Instagram, I enjoy keeping up with my friends but also love getting inspired every day by those Instagrammers I have never met and choose to follow. I do find the following aspect could be improved as it's very easy to 'like' a photo but a longer process to follow someone. Although, it's great to find likes from people who have discovered your photo through one of the hashtags you've used in your caption rather than following you.

A little tip - follow people with caution as, unlike Twitter where skimming through the newsfeed sometimes without even taking any of the tweets in is easy, the newsfeed on Instagram is much more overpowering so I only want people I have a real interest in filling it!

Obviously Instagram is very visual which means, if you follow the right people, it's nice to check into the app to see some fun, inspiring images to brighten up your day! I do see it more as a place for mobile snapshots so use my Pinterest account for sharing less original or personal images.

Here's a few of my favourite Instagram photos...

   

Score: 8/10

I love... the simplicity of the app, the app icon and the filters (especially useful if you are no David Bailey like me!)

I'd like to... see it be easier for people to follow people as, although liking a photo is simple, to follow someone it's a longer process

Hope to see you on Instagram soon but be warned, it's addictive! In the meantime check out my 'A Beautiful Mess' photo challenges here - I'm having so much fun completing them!

Jane x

Twitter Lists and How to Use Them

I was compelled to write a post about Twitter, one of my favourite social networks, and its feature 'lists' after talking to many tweeters and discovering they don't utilise this simple feature at all! The 140-character micro-blogging site updated their list feature back in May so it's interesting to see that people still aren't fully using them.

What are Twitter Lists?

According to Twitter 'a list is a curated group of Twitter users.' Lists enable you to categorise your followers into lists that you create so you can easily see tweets from specific groups, meaning less scrolling through thousands of tweets on your feed!

For example, if you jump onto Twitter in the morning and want to catch up on the news rather than reading what your friends are having for breakfast, simply flick to your 'news' list! Organising friends from topical tweeters is a basic (but useful!) way to use Twitter lists.

You can also follow other people's Twitter lists which is great for building relationships online and it makes it easier to search tweets around topics you love on the platform.

How to Use Lists

Lists are easy to create... all you need to do is go onto your profile and click 'Lists' on the left-hand side to view, manage and create new lists. For a run-through from Twitter see their official instructions here.

There are two types of list; public and private. Just remember that if you make a list public (meaning other people can follow that list too), the users you add receives a notification that they have been placed on your list. This may make people view your profile and follow you back so, again, it's great for networking.

I Love a Good List!

I use lists as it makes my time spent on Twitter much more simple, quick and organised (and I love being organised!). I have around 15 lists organised into different subject areas I'm passionate about (social media, wellbeing, running and celebrities are my most frequented lists!). My lists mean whatever mood I'm in, I don't need to scroll through my newsfeed to find some great information whether it be for relaxing, inspiring me or finding some news for work.

TwitterCounter is a site which tracks the statistics of Twitter users and lists and has an interesting '100 most popular Twitter lists' feature which is refreshed daily so it's a good idea to take a look at that when you're starting out using lists.

Initially, get involved in lists by following a few and then creating your own. Twitter can be overwhelming at times - if you follow more than 100 people, your newsfeed can easily reach thousands of tweets a day! With all that information, it does become difficult to read the tweets that really matter to you... with Twitter's most under-used feature, it's simple!

If you'd like to get added to one of my lists (and why wouldn't you!?), follow me @janiexx

Jane x 

New Facebook Competition Guidelines - What You Need to Know

Surprisingly Facebook have changed their competition rules to 'make it easier for businesses of all sizes to create and administer promotions on Facebook'. We give you a overview of what you need to know...

The Key Change

• You no longer need to run a competition on an external app (such as Easypromos), you can now use your brand page

You Can...

• Still use apps to make competitions look great and to enable them to be housed in one place perhaps under a 'Competitions' tab for easy viewing by users

You Cannot...

• Use people's personal Timelines to encourage entry (i.e. 'share on your Timeline to enter') - the competition must be entered on your brand page
• Ask people to tag themselves in your content so you cannot use tagging in of pictures or comments as an entry mechanism

Competition Examples

• Facebookers enter by posting on your brand page (comments or images)

'Upload a photo of you using our product and our favourite will win!'

• Facebookers enter by commenting on a page post

'Name our latest product'

• Facebookers enter by liking a page post

'Like your favourite photo in our album'

• Facebookers enter by direct messaging the page

• Facebookers use likes as a voting mechanism to enter

Remember...

• You are still responsible for the official rules and terms and conditions and for acknowledging that Facebook is not associated with your competition
• You still need to think able to frequency of competitions - although it's much easier to run them now, there's still no point posting hundreds of competitions every month. You'll find you won't get genuine brand advocates liking your page but 'competition hunters' hindering your engagement rates
• Running a competition on an app may give you better insights into the user which the new-style of competition may not give - email addresses and personal information for example

It's exciting Facebook have changed the rules but as a user of Facebook, I'm hoping my Newsfeed is not going to be filled with lots of brands running random, unrelated competitions now! This change may see many users unliking brands to prevent this happening. We would say to remember your objectives of the competition and base your entry mechanism on those objectives - and never forget about engagement rates being the key to success!

Read Facebook's full Page Terms here 

Jane x

Hanging out with Comic Relief at the World's First Online Comedy Club!

Last week I took part in a new kind of comedy show created by Comic Relief and Google+ from the comfort of my very own dining table!

The Hangout Comedy Club from Comic Relief is the world’s first online club of its kind. Using the Google+ Hangout feature, it aims to bring us the funniest comedians wherever we are, finely selected from the pick of the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

After applying for front row seats (what was I letting myself in for?!) I received a call from a lovely lady at Comic Relief who confirmed that I was one of the lucky (or brave!) nine people who were chosen to have a front row seat which meant that I would be able to interact and chat to the comedian of the evening, Stephen Bailey. After a quick test to make sure everything would run smoothly for the show, I was sent an email which included all the details of the Hangout and a link to join it online later on.

Regularly warming up the audience at ITV’s Loose Women and Let’s Do Lunch with Gino and Mel, Stephen Bailey also won the Comedy Cafe New Act Competition last year and is currently receiving outstanding reviews for his Edinburgh Fringe Festival show; Power Couple which depicts the two sides to every relationship with his very own boyfriend Gary John Senior!

If a front row seat at a comedy club is not your idea of fun, then you do have the option to apply for a back row seat which means you can join the hangout anonymously, and instead watch and laugh as the show ensues with as many friends as you like.

Before the show began and Stephen arrived, I was prompted to make smiley and unhappy faces at my laptop so that a clever Comic Relief tool called the Laughometer could accurately measure how amused I was going to be during the show. After the show the Laughometer measures participants’ highs and lows and suggests a proportionate donation for the viewer to give. This can be adjusted at the participant's discretion and whether you choose to donate or not is completely up to you -  such a feel good feature of this initiative! 

At 8pm Stephen arrived and all nine of us ‘front-rowers’ introduced ourselves to him and asked a few questions which got us all laughing together in no-time! I’ve used Hangouts before and it does take a short while to get used to it as a new way of interacting, but if you are used to using Skype and FaceTime it won’t take long before you get the hang of it!

I am really looking forward to the next line up of comedians from Comic Relief and I think this initiative has the potential to be absolutely amazing, what’s not to like, a laugh to change a life for a good cause. 

You can find out more about future Hangouts and watch past shows here.

Katie x