Web Design, Digital & Social Media Marketing in Singapore

Social Media explained

// June 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

A simple-to-understand video on what’s social media all about.

To me, the emergence of Social Media, globally and in Singapore, allow consumers to influence decisions of fellow consumers. At the same time, it shifted the way businesses are managed and forces people like the ‘Big Ice Cream Factory’ to rethink on their marketing strategies.

The video did not really touch on how the ‘Big Ice Cream Factory’ be affected by groundswell. Although it benefited directly from the increased sale of vanila flavoured ice cream, there are other more crucial effects that may result from this.

First, social media flattens the playing field. Small start-ups that has a ‘better idea’ can now compete on a level playing field with the big boys. They focus on a niche market, has a smaller but more loyal customer base. They are nimble and if they are listening to their customers, they will be able to change product offerings based on consumers’ demand. The ‘Big Ice Cream Factory’ now faces the risk of losing market-share, when more and more such start-ups emerge. What the ‘Big Ice Cream Factory’ can do is to then flex their ‘$ muscle’, invest heavily in traditional advertising and attempt to influence buying decisions. That increases cost of sales and diminishes margins. Even if the market share is maintained, profits are reduced. How long can that last?

It is natural that companies will start looking at this powerful medium eventually (if they have yet to). That will change the way they market their products, engage their consumers, develop new products and even the way their organize their teams. The effect of social media to businesses is deep.

Chris Brogan: Listening in Social Media

// June 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

Social Media is not merely for marketing. It is a space where meaningful conversations on brands are taking place. It is beneficial for companies to filter these conversations from chatters and derive insights on information pertaining to their brands and products. I found a tool call SPY by Ben Hedrington. It is a search engine that sniffs out conversations on blogs, flickr, twitter & more.

Chris Brogan – Don’t be that guy!

// June 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

Excellent way in articulating the ‘wrong way’. We cannot further emphasize that social media is not a place or peddling your wares. You don’t do it in real life too. I was doing a presentation couple of days ago and was emphasizing that to the client. Imagine going into a social gathering for the first time and you whipped out your products and started pushing them to everyone you meet. We just don’t do that in real life. People that do these things are usually ‘excluded’ from the community immediately. In social media, it is the same.

Listen to Chris – don’t be that guy. please.

Why a Facebook username?

// June 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

Facebook Username

The debate among the facebook community over the need to have a vanity URL, similar to what Twitter and MySpace, has been around for some time. It is until 87 mins ago that Facebook allows us to ‘land-grab’ our own piece of digital property. I got mine – http://www.facebook.com/jason.lim. I was excited. I email blasted all my colleagues at Oasis Interactive, my family and my buddies. Some asked me the need to have that URL?

Shareability

Less than 2 hours ago from this blog post, you need to tell your friend “search for Jason Lim on Facebook” and “I am somewhere on the 2nd page”. At this exact moment, I will say – “Find me at http://www.facebook.com/jason.lim“.

Branding

Having a vanity URL allows more ways to incorporate facebook as part of one’s personal branding strategy. Your links are now more meaningful and may even be useful in some aspect of SEO too.

Have you gotten yours?

LinkedIn made easy

// June 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

photo credits : Binkiexxx

One of the most asked questions from my clients – What’s LinkedIn and how it can benefit my business?

If you use Facebook to connect to friends, you can use LinkedIn to connect to business associates. LinkedIn is a social networking site where an individual creates an online profile of his/her professional resume. With that profile, he/she then connects to someone in LinkedIn and through that network, establish new job opportunities or business opportunities.

Within your network of business contacts, you can recommend or as to be introduced to other contacts. LinkedIn allows users to also create and join groups. Within these groups, users can discuss and share ideas on the specific topics.

Here are some ways that you can use LinkedIn to leverage on your career or business:-

Join groups and get involved in discussions

Participate in discussion within groups that are related to a your industry. It is through this participation that you inherit new ideas and also made yourself known. In your discussion, you have the opportunity to be heard, make relevant references to your blog posts and even use case studies in your business to reinforce a point you are making. If you are doing it right, you will be able to increase the visibility of your business and brand, generate sales leads, drive traffic to your websites and even enhance your SEO efforts.

Set up a company profile

A properly crafted company profile page will open your company to attract potential candidates. Add links to your company’s blog, facebook group, twitter account, etc. Your digital footprint is something that you can leverage on to attract talents, at the same time, give your potential clients a feel of your corporate culture.

You may want to know before jumping in…

There are a few issues you may want to keep in mind before launching a campaign on LinkedIn.

Confidential corporate information – Similar to any online social media networks, the risk corporate information leaking is real. That risk is multiplied if there is a huge number of employees in LinkedIn. You may want to communicate some simple house rules for employees to aid them in understanding what’s considered ‘confidential’.

Poaching – It is known that recruiters use LinkedIn and other professional networking sites to headhunt potential candidates for their assignments. You may also want to know even without LinkedIn, poaching and headhunting still exists.

You are want you posted - Again, like any social networking, you are what you post. Your corporate culture is also reflected based on how you ‘behave’ on LinkedIn. Be mindful that you are being watched by potential employers, clients and more importantly, your BOSS!

Have fun!

Is having a huge number of twitter followers that important?

// May 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

photo credits : brajeswhwar
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If you are a twitter user, you probably will have a couple of people following you every week. You visit their twitter page, realized that these ’social media celebrities’ has tens of thousands of followers. You think to yourself, I should reciprocate and follow back. You are not alone.

Many marketers believe that it is important  to have many twitter followers – as many as possible. It helps them create a channel to broadcast, to establish their online reputation as “I am important” or it simply makes they credible. I beg to differ.

The method of mass following is common. Many ‘twitter gurus’ make a business out of this by teaching others how to increase the number of followers in a very short time. Their tools include softwares that automatically follows people, hoping that they will reciprocate. I am not saying it is wrong. I just don’t agree.

It is about your content

In my earlier post in Social Media Optimization, I talk about quality and not quantity. I also talk about social media as 2-way communications and it is about establishing a relationship. The number of followers is irrelevant if most of them don’t even know who you are, what you do and what you are saying. Would they care a sxxt what you are trying to ‘push’ them when you have a product to sell? I don’t think so.

We heard about the success of dell using twitter to market its products, reaping in a million dollars.  They did not do mass following. They offered twitter exclusive offers instead. Dell creates a reason for followers to follow them. In this sense, it is 2-way. There are ‘contents’ that the followers are interested.

It is about commitment (time & resources)

Social media marketing requires commitment. It is time, money and manpower. It requires sustained efforts. I relate that to real-life socialization where you need to dedicate time and money to get out there and know more people, and be known at the same time. If all these sounds a lot to you or your boss, social media marketing may not be your cup of tea.

New to Twitter?

// May 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

Twitter don’t seem to have picked up in this region, compared to US & UK. nevertheless, if you are keen to know more, here’s a video which you may first useful.

It is the ultimate guide to twitter

I have also found an excellent guide to twitter from Design Depot. After you are done with these, read on how your business can benefit from using twitter as a marketing tool.

Enjoy.