This week, 8fold were involved with new style of business networking event at co-working space THECUBE. Partnering with East London Business Place, THECUBE gathered members of the space with different skill sets together to network and provide advice to local businesses. The event was called CUBEAGENCY and I was thrilled to be asked to participate along with fellow Cubers such as Alison Coward from Bracket Creative, film and video producer Edward Schlesinger and Kate Warwick from PR Savvy.

In a Dragon’s Den style format (except we were nice!), business owners had the opportunity to pitch the 'agency' a problem or business idea that they needed feedback on. The diversity of the expertise of THECUBE panel resulted in real out of the box thinking and tangible ideas for the owners to take away and digest.

Although the businesses were extremely diverse in terms of sector and scale, a few common issues arose again and again; how best to market your company and win new business, especially using the web and social media was a shared concern.

In my experience, companies may be already using social media but are not seeing any benefits in terms of lead generation or sales. Much has been written on the Return of Investment of social media but it remains a difficult thing to quantify. A recent article by entitled Down with Social by Carbonmade founder Spencer Fry controversially proposed that social media is immeasurable and a waste of time. While I do not agree fully with his proposition, I do think that most small businesses can be much more targeted about how they allocate their time and spending a large part of your day on Twitter and Facebook may not be the most strategic move.

I will be examining all these issues and more in my From Apps to Zen mentoring group which starts at the end of the month. There are a few places left so do check it out if you are interested.

Well done to Araceli, THECUBE team and Alex and Mel from ELBP for a great and innovative event. If you are interested getting involved in events like this in the future, do have a look at THECUBE’s competitive membership rates.