The number of new businesses being established across the UK is soaring as more and more of us look to fulfil our entrepreneurial ambitions. While this is great news for our economy, the rise in competition means businesses have to work much harder to stand out from the crowd.

 PR can play a pivotal role in helping businesses to grow. PR goes way beyond publicity and should be about making sure you are communicating with your potential customers in a way that clearly demonstrates the benefits you can bring to their business.

 Ben Pindar shares his insights on how to tell a compelling story, raise the profile of your business and, most importantly, build valuable relationships with targets and existing customers in this blog.

 To help ensure every business can benefit from the expertise of Northern Lights, we have also launched a new SME PR Package which delivers professional advice and guidance at an affordable price. For more details on how Northern Lights can help to grow your business, click here.

 With 350 million users divning the globe, LinkedIn presents massive opportunities for entrepreneurs eager to grow their customer base both at home and abroad. In this blog, we look at how businesses should be using LinkedIn to promote their offer, target customers and build relationships. It also offers an insight into what lies ahead for the burgeoning social media platform.

 If you want to learn how to make better use of LinkedIn and develop a strategy for using it to grow your business, join the next Northern Lights workshop on Monday, September 22, at Northern Ballet in Leeds. The workshop costs just £65 and will guide you through everything you need to know for marketing your business through LinkedIn.

Your profile plays a hugely important role in securing success on LinkedIn and Northern Lights can also provide advice and guidance on maximising its potential. To discuss how we can help improve your profile, speak to Victoria Tomlinson.

Today every one of us lives our lives in the full glare of the social media spotlight and success and failure can often come down to 140 characters or less. One Tweet can potentially destroy your brand or help your business grow to the next level.

 The internet has a long memory and negative reviews, comments or photos can have far-reaching consequences. Online reputation management is something that every individual and business has to carefully manage and, done properly, can have huge benefits. To help everyone get to grips with their own Google profile, Ben Pindar has shared his ten top tips for online reputation management. Read part one here and part two here.

 Northern Lights is also running an online reputation management workshop at Northern Ballet in Leeds on Thursday, November 20. Costing just £65, the three-hour workshop will help delegates to understand how they can overcome the negative content online, respond and embrace any criticism and develop a strategy for controlling what content appears on page one of Google.