Klaxon Marketing Andy Bargery an interview

Tell me about your Klaxon Marketing?

My company is called Klaxon Marketing which I setup in Jan 2006. I essentially provide marketing strategy consultancy and communications services to companies, whether big or small. In some cases I operate as an outsourced marketing department, covering everything from social media to direct mail and print strategy development, to the other end of the spectrum where I run event marketing programmes for some of the world’s largest software brands.

Alongside this I run the very successful London Bloggers Meetup community, which you can read more about here, or sign up for here.

My overriding goal is to build a team of marketers and business transformation experts who have a passion for driving business success and change. We are in interesting times right now as businesses begin to show signs of pulling through the recession and marketing budgets start to pick up again.  

What was your first experience of social media?

I stumbled into social media in 2006 when I met Stowe Boyd and Hugh Macleod at a conference about using blogs for business. I was hugely inspired by the two and quickly setup my own blog on marketing. I intended to use my blog as a method of finding out more about how to use blogging as a communications vehicle for my clients. This led me to the London Bloggers Meetup and a journey through the maze of other social media tools like Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Ning, Reddit, Xing and many more.

What is the biggest tip you would give to a newbie in social media?

Don’t try and do too much. It’s better to work on fewer platforms and use them well, them to spread yourself too thinly and have a weak profile on lots of social media apps.

What do bloggers do that you wish they wouldn’t?

I don’t think bloggers do anything they shouldn’t. It’s an open platform to express your opinions,  air your thoughts and feelings and to become citizen journalists. With that in mind, it’s pretty hard to do anything wrong.

Where do you see growth in the social media field? 

I think we’ll see more of big business taking advantage of social media and other web 2.0 technologies, particularly as we move more towards the trend of cloud computing. As the big players move in, social media providers, like Twitter, will have to improve service levels and reliability in order to thrive, or even survive.

What do you do to improve the world?

Not a great deal at the moment as I’m working too hard. But that’s about to change. I’ve just signed up for a youth mentoring programme in my local city to help school children understand entrepreneurship. Hopefully this will help me to put something back. I’ve also been involved in helping a client engage with the Habitat for Humanity scheme for the last few years, which is part of their overall Corporate Social Responsibility programme we setup.

What do you do that is green?

 I take the train instead of driving, although to be fair this is mostly through necessity than choice. Oh and we recycle quite a lot.  

What is one thing about you that not many people know?

I am currently taking ballroom dancing lessons – strictly come dancing, here we come!

What is on your iPod?

An eclectic mix, everything from the Killers and Kings of Leon, to Lionel Richie, Miles Davis and ABBA.

What are your contact details (email, company, blog, facebook, myspace, forums, etc)?

You can reach me at andybargery at klaxonmarketing.co.uk, http://londonbloggers.net or via meetup at http://blog.meetup.com/395

What events do you go to?

The London bloggers Meetup group, I’ve been to a few Twestivals and the excellent Aperitweats and plenty of other great events via Meetup.com.

How do you prefer to communicate?

Email, by mobile or Twitter.

Who would you recommend, and why?

A tough questions, particularly given how many fine folks I’ve met and grown to respect through the London Bloggers Meetups. Well, here’s a list of ten fine people to get started with…

Julius Solaris – founder of Spicy Networking and Blur Marketing and generally an extremely talented fellow. Great blog for event marketers too.

Lolly – her blog is great for social media PRs and marketers

Alex aka Epicurienne – generally a nice bod who writes a fantastic blog. She is also the Clog Blogger..

Bernie Mitchell – I’m just getting to know Bernie so this recommendation is purely based on his energy and fantastic attitude. I’m hoping to work more with Bernie in the future.

Chris Osburn – generally a nice chap, takes great photography and loves his food as Food Editor at Londonist.

Mike Litman – great blog and great blog name – which always makes me think he should be on TV. A good guy to know.

Jazz Cummins – organises Twestivals, works for Amnesty, generally an all round nice bod

Matt Churchill – simply because he’s always the last person to leave at the end of an #LBM.

Godwyns – someone with the confidence to express his feelings via erotic poetry is alright in my books. Always a pleasure chatting to Godwyns.

Mauricio – another person I’m just getting to know, but someone I suspect is on an interesting career journey. Great preswentation recently on social media measurement too.

What is one thing people can do for you?

 If someone could work out how to make the day 25 hours long, that would be very helpful.

Thank you Klaxon Marketing’s Andy Bargery