News | Shell LiveWIRE Reaches 200,000 Members Milestone!

Friday 17th August 2012

Shell LiveWIRE reached an important milestone in its 30yr history last night, with over 200,000 members of its website, Discussion Forum and Social Network.

Recognised as the UK's biggest online community for young entrepreneurs aged 16-30, the Shell Social Investment Programme has been providing free business advice, networking opportunities and funding for those who wish to become self-employed (or at least explore it as an option) since 1982.

The Shell LiveWIRE programme currently offers 4 x £1,000 £1,000 Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Awards to 16-30yr old entrepreneurs with a new business idea or in their first 12 months of trading, whilst the Business Library and Video Lounge are full of useful free articles, guides and top tips to help people starting out.

Screenshot showing over 200,000 Shell LiveWIRE members

Shell LiveWIRE Community

'Community' is seen as a key element of Shell LiveWIRE, and the Discussion Forum introduced over 10yrs ago (at the end of 2001) has seen hundreds of thousands of people use it to obtain free information, advice and feedback for their business, find supplies and business partners too.

Mark Pearson, multi-millionaire founder of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk had this to say about our Discussion Forum:

"In the early days of my entrepreneurial and business life I was a regular user of the Shell LiveWIRE Forum, as a reader as well as using it as a place to ask for advice, read other peoples experiences and generally connect with other like-minded people. I made many good connections, as well as finding people's service such as developers, designers and marketers. It's a great soundboard for those starting out, all those questions in your head, once answered or options given help make you more confident or able to proceed and achieve."

In 2008, Shell LiveWIRE launched the world's first international Social Network specifically for young entrepreneurs aged 16-30. Although Facebook has since been adopted by businesses everywhere as one of their main marketing tools, the LiveWIRE Social Network and Discussion Forum continue to help give their SEO a little boost and drive traffic back to their website.

Social Media

Speaking of Facebook, the Shell LiveWIRE team now uses a wide range of Social Media tools to share content and communicate with its members, partner organisations and interested parties in the UK and internationally too.

Paul Lancaster, Web Development Executive said: "We've built Social Media into everything we do which has helped widen the reach of the programme further and enabled us to share our knowledge and expertise with more people than just our core membership of 200,000+ people."

"In addition to visiting our website and Discussion Forum regularly, we therefore recommend that budding British entrepreneurs also Follow us on Twitter @ShellLiveWIREUK, 'Like' our Facebook Page www.facebook.com/ShellLiveWIREUK and subscribe to our YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/ShellLiveWIREUK to give them an advantage when starting out."

Join Shell LiveWIRE

If you're aged 16-30, based in the UK and thinking of starting your own business (or already trading) become a Shell LiveWIRE member now to make the most of this website and access a range of benefits.