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Small business using Social Media

There is not doubt that social media had benefited the business sectors to a great extent especially in online marketing. I came across some articles featuring small businesses that are experiencing success by using social media as part of their marketing strategy. Here are two small companies and how they did it.

The James Store is a 63-year old women's and children's clothing boutique in the historic downtown of Granville, Ohio. The store set up its online store a couple of years ago and only started using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to attract new customers locally and internationally. The store captured a wide range of loyal customers who became fans and the store gives out coupons that are only available on its Facebook fan page. Twitter is also used to send updates to customers and to alert them of sales, specials and store events. This was found to be more effective than sending emails. The store now enjoys popularity especially among women who are fond of distinctive brands like Vera Bradley, Vanilia, French Dressing and NYDJ.

Another small business, Wiggly Wigglers, a natural gardening company based in the rural part of England, used social media tools such as Facebook, blogs, and podcasts instead of traditional marketing tools. This saved the company 80 percent in advertising costs. Moreover, getting into social media gained the company hundreds of fans on Facebook and involved them in 170 different discussion topics. Wiggly Wigglers weekly podcasts from "Wiggly Sofa", covering the environment, gardening, farming, biodiversity have thousands of listeners from all around the world. This small gardening business use to serve 100 locals in the Lower Blakemere Farm in Herefordshire, but now serves 90,000 customers worldwide and delivers its products across Europe. In 2008, Wiggly Wigglers won the inaugural Global Dell Small Business Award.

Based on the experiences of the two small businesses, the James Store and Wiggly Wigglers, we could say that social media is indeed a powerful digital marketing tool. It's not just a fad anymore. How businesses, big or small, and social media will blend in the future would be interesting to find out.

By: Jenette Chiong

Social Networking: big opportunity for small businesses

The social networking phenomenon is growing dramatically in the recent years. An upsurge in the use of social networking websites is no longer limited to personal web pages alone. It has also become a digital marketing tool for businesses here and around the globe. Although, there are still companies who are adamant in engaging in social networking, not realizing the benefits one can reap from this technology, especially small businesses which do not have a lot of resources to fund a sophisticated advertising and marketing of their products or services.

Social networking is an easy and inexpensive way to create your presence in the online world, informing people that your business exists. It's a good opportunity to establish relationships, business contacts, making new friends with similar interests and finding old friends as well. It can also attract prospective customers and retain loyal ones. Facebook and Twitter are examples of networking sites that small businesses can use for free. These sites may be used to offer "deals of the day" and other promotions, company events and product information. The best thing about these sites is that it's the fastest way of getting the word out (call it word of mouth). If one customer is happy about your product, he will tell his friends about it, and chances are these friends of his will spread the news to several other friends in their group, thus providing positive endorsement. Also, these sites provide for interactive communication between your company and your customers. You just have to be genuinely responsive to what they say. Allowing customers to leave feedback or suggestions will make them feel that they are a part of the business, fostering better company-customer relationship. Feedback and suggestions in turn may give insights to improve your products and services.

This technology may sound too simple but engaging in social networking is not an effortless task. One must be willing to devote a lot of time nurturing his or her business community. Some companies even hire people just to maintain their company's social networking visibility. When Dell announced that they earned $3 million from using Twitter, it didn't happen overnight. It took Dell eighteen months to earn their first million and another six months to earn their last million dollar. For those small companies who are just starting out, experts say that spending two hours a day is enough and at least three months to see the result of their hard work. So what are you waiting for? Make friends in Facebook or join Twitter now.

By: Jenette Chiong

Social Media: What's it all about?

Social media has been making a buzz in every part of the globe. People consider it as the next big thing to hit the online world. It is utilized as a powerful tool in online digital marketing, as well as in media, and communications. Those in the know-how would easily pick up what's the buzz all about. But to a newbie or a non-IT person, it can be a bit difficult to grasp.

So what really is Social Media?
Social media, as defined by Wikipedia, is an online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. This technology takes in different forms with a common purpose. And that is to bring people together to create a unique community that allows its members to share and publish information about themselves or their common interests, and to connect or communicate with people outside their communities.

Basically, all activities are centered on people generating relationships online with other human beings. There are diverse tools and applications of social media that users can utilize, depending on the type of information they want to share and the manner users want to interact with others.

So if a user wants to make a personal web page, wants to meet friends and keep up on what they are doing he can go to social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Xing, Hi5, and Bebo. Some users would like to join forums like phpBB and Phorum for online discussions on specific topics and interests. Others join content communities where users share particular kinds of content like bookmarked links (del.icio.us), photos (Flickr, Zoomr, Photobucket), and videos (YouTube), or subscribe to audios and videos thru podcasts like Apple iTunes. There is also another form of social media, the wiki, which allows the users to create or edit the actual site contents. One best known example is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.

Another form of social media are online journals called blogs (Blogger, Live Journal, OpenDiary, TypePad, WordPress), with entries displayed in reverse-chronological order. A blog may contain a photo, video, commentaries, events, or it's more like a personal online diary of an individual, with links to other blogs or web pages that are related to its topic. Also, blog pages give readers the ability to leave comments in an interactive format. Twitter, a combination of a micro-blogging service and a social networking website, enables its users to send updates and read messages or tweets through SMS.

There are still a lot of social media applications that users can avail of that are free. It can be through emailing, instant messaging, wall-postings, or file-sharing, the list can go on... Social media has been here for quite some time and it's not going away. As long as there are human beings in this world, social media will continue to exist. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand what social media is. It is simply about people...

By: Jenette Chiong

Should you blog or not?: Blogging as a means of digital marketing

The term blog or weblog was brought to life in the late nineties and onwards the new millennium. And as we all know, it began as something fun and personal. There's no restriction. You could write about anything and everything under the sun. You could be as carefree as you feel or as scholarly as you prefer. As long as you know you have something on your mind, your blog page is one click away.

We all know how blogging has eventually grown. It became a very powerful tool that people held credibility in its words. Some reporters even base their quotes on the personality's blog page.




Bottom line is, the internet has been highly regarded by just about anybody and anything it says creates an impact on people. Especially blogging.

Blogging as a Strategic Marketing Device

Along with the growth of internet users, businesses have immediately ventured on this medium. That doesn't discount blogging.

And why not? It has created an emporium so undeniably strong, you can't help but concede.

Blogging, as said earlier, started off as something personal like a means to expression or a public diary. It primarily functioned as a social media which eventually led to networking and relationship building.

But what actually makes blogging so influential is its editorialized notion. The "human" approach of these 250-500 words articles gives the reader a feeling of being informed instead of being advertised. The marketing campaign is well buried in simple keywords and seemingly drives you to drag that pointer on top of it and click.

You could write about the specification of a certain product of this brand and still get away with advertising. Even the servers tighten up their belts regarding free ads, blogging has a technique of guising up everything into a simple informative piece of text.

Plus, there are those who highly respects the opinionated-ness of some individuals. A communication theory suggests that peers, or anybody a person perceives as their opinion leader, holds more influential power compared to anything.

So why shouldn't you blog? At the end of the day, who knows where the internet would drive us down in the next few years. As printed literacy approaches death, blogging becomes an emporium that's foreseen to take over your conventional newspaper.

BY:Maria Espie Vidal (Lozatech Asia SEO-SMO Director)

Digital Marketing in the Philippines: Success or Not?

A CLASSIC SCENARIO OF JUAN DELA CRUZ AND DIGITAL MARKETING

John: Hi i'm John. I've noticed you've got a great business right there and I think you needed our service.

Juan: Oh nice. What do you offer?

John: We offer a superb marketing strategy sir. We offer digital marketing.

Juan: Impressive. But we already have a website.

John: Good. Then you badly needed our services.

Juan: I think you didn't hear me I said we already have a website.

John: Yes I heard. But I'll say it again, you must have our services.

Face it. In a "developing country" like the Philippines, the web remains a newly discovered virgin forest; explored but not yet tapped. Like the short dialogue above, most Filipinos think that going digital is just a matter of launching a great / functional website. Well although it really does include such, it's but phase one of the entire process. I myself is still at a lost trying to define what are the scopes and limitation of digital marketing.

According to the all knowing Wikipedia, this "is the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner". In short, advertising using digital medium which now pertains to the internet.

As the web grows into a bigger dome almost every second, it drags more and more "friends", "followers", "bloggers", "gamers", "uploaders" and the latest hit, "twitts", along the way. It caters to a variety of audience more generally specified compared to conventional media. There's no "actual" filter that will sort its viewers.

Its convenience and amazing swiftness in posting information is incredible. One click and your entry can be seen even in Antartica, if Wi-Fi has already penetrated those ice burgs.

The vastness of people joining this cyber community has pushed businesses to relocate their emporium online. And what a success it is! At least for the westeners.

Many are saying our country is still not ready to incorporate digital marketing, e-commerce, or e-marketing. They say, with a quotation of the 2006 survey on internet users, there's but less than 20% of the whole population who's computer literate. Wait. Hello. The internet blossoms by quantum leaps every minute, how could you say that stats applies to now, 2009, in this hour, in this minute?

Facebook, Friendster and Multiply statistics don't lie when they said their membership population has boosted to millions and most of them are Asians. In every rental shops I've been in, even before gamers start their session, they all check / sign up for e-mail addresses, social networking sites, communities and forums.

Most OFW-families admit to have been using instant messengers and e-mails to contact their loved ones abroad. Of course, our kababayans were influenced by the westner fancies and so they got addicted to the latest "twitting" trend tagging along their friends and families. Now tell me this stuff won't work.

If you'll look deeper into this strategy, it is not as simple as having a well graphic-ed, flash-filled, and functional site. The web is a frenzied tub of information and data. How would the people know you exist? That's easy. You need a marketer.

Your marketer's job is to make sure you get found by your prospective clients. In one click of the search button whether it is in Google, Yahoo, or Ask, your website / company / business will float within the first two pages of their list. If you have a good promoter, your site will probably hit 1st or 2nd rank.

Actually, the test lies when your business uses a very contested keywords. For e.g., a fastfood restaurant. Without a digital marketer, it is tough to penetrate even the top 100.

Going back to the question, will digital marketing work in the Philippines? Hell yeah! It may be a small community now but hey, everything starts at the bottom right?

By: Maria Espie Vidal (LOZATECH ASIA SEO-SMO DIRECTOR)