Method acting & Social Media

I was telling my friend about the social media arm of The Business Lounge. We have a few accounts on board now and my friend, who I shall call Pamela, - it's not her real name but I've always liked it because my mum had a very glamorous friend called Pamela. She wore short dresses, false eyelashes and had a beehive but that's another story.. Anyway Pamela asked me about the social media accounts we manage:
Pamela - 'So do you just tweet the same stuff out for everyone'?
Me - 'No, each brand is different so you have wear that brand for every comment or blog'.
Pamela (bored by now and looking at her nails) - 'So it's a bit like being an actor then'.
Me - 'Exactly'!

I hadn't thought about it in that way before but Pamela is right. Managing other people's social media is like being in a film and playing all the parts yourself! (Oscar winning performances of course). Meryl Streep has nothing on me. Today I have been an accountant - very professional and smiley with a twist.  He only has to look at your business figures and the tiger will be unleashed in him. He will single handedly rescue your company and make it flourish to it's maximum potential. Raaaaaaah! Hear him roar!

Just after lunch I became a car salesman. Oh but this was no ordinary car salesman - this was a car agent! Yeah that's right... only the BEST car agent in the land. They are swish! They are super cool! They will sell your car and source another without you even having to leave your office. They are also young and very good looking and like to have a cheeky convo now and again on Twitter and Facebook - I like that account, it's fun to manage.
After my Bafta winning performance as a car agent, I had a cup of Earl Grey to get me into character for Lady of the Manor, another account. It's funny but I type with a straighter spine than for the others, like I have a book balanced on the top of my head a la Lucy Clayton. A beautiful manor house just 2 hours outside of London that speaks for itself with its grandeur and history. As I stroll though the grounds of Facebook, Google+ etc, stopping to sniff the roses and marvel at the fountains in my head, I feel peace and calm enter my body. Ahhhhh,what a wonderful place for a divine wedding or a business retreat....

Cut to the stage where my old friend Rob De Niro is about to announce the best actress award. 'And the winner is...  Meryl Streep'! Oh well, maybe next year.

Of course, it's a bit like being a builder as well. You spend so much time on other people's social media that it's easy to neglect your own. It's the brand hat that often changes style or doesn't quite fit properly so you try this and that until that eureka moment when you say by Jove, I think I've got it! Other people's brands and social media persona's are sometimes much easier and straightforward.

"Please accept my resignation....

I do not want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member". So said Grouch Marx in his wire to an elite club of which he was a member. Much misquoted through the years. However the Groucho club was named in the spirit of this quote.

The modern food buff would barely recognise the London of the late seventies and early eighties. There were a few bistros serving 'foreign food' but modern British cooking and the Gastropub were light years away. Most pubs were smokey dives with a jar of pickled eggs on the bar and bags of pork scratchings behind it. Private clubs were classified by class.The working class had working men's clubs and the upper class had gentlemen's clubs. The latter were often fine but fading buildings stained with generations of cigars, port and discrimination. 'The winds of sexual equality could only eddy around Pall Mall, but things were about to change'....
In 1984 a large stucco fronted townhouse at 45 Dean Street Soho, and it's now famous dining room with vaulted roof and glass ceiling (hidden as a store room)  became the Groucho Club. It had previously been a restaurant since 1880 and was most famously known as Gennaro's, a favourite of Dame Nellie Melba. Gennaro, the proprietor would often greet guests at the door and present each female guest with a red rose... This appeals to me and for some reason I have a picture in my head of the large annoying opera singer from the Go Compare adverts waiting at the door with a red rose between his teeth.

I am very much looking forward to TheBusinessLounge making its own small piece of history at the club this Thursday March 8th. The dinner will be in The Mackintosh Room overlooking Dean Street on the 2nd floor and hosted by the irrepressible and inspirational Jonathan Macdonald. This dinner is sold out and has been for some time but we have another booked in the diary for 10th April (selling fast). In this wonderful building where tales of murders and shootings occurred in what is now the supposedly haunted Gennaro's Room, we will be discussing business war battles and developing business relationships that will hopefully continue and thrive. Deals will be made alongside much conversation, food and beverages. If those walls could talk.. well our dinner probably wouldn't be as dramatic but it could be one of the most profitable for those in attendance.
We are very excited!