The weekend went by exceptionally quick this time as I participated in a badminton tournament on Saturday. A fruitful weekend, that’s for sure. How about you? Did you manage to accomplish the task you set out to do last week? Focus is a difficult thing to do and often comes along with necessary sacrifices one way or another.
Some may sacrifice time spent on games, watching TV and for some, even sleep (which is, not good)! Sacrifices can be painful to some and perhaps the best thing could ever happen to another. Like it or not, sacrifice is often part of the package of being an entrepreneur.
“Sacrificial – the willingness and the inner defense of an entrepreneur. To sacrifice breeds success. Sacrifice also demonstrates ownership and keeps one humble. Sacrifices may take time, effort and money with the potential for long term returns. Without sacrifice, an entrepreneur may end up with nothing.”
Think about it, many entrepreneurs first started out with ZERO. You may have heard stories of how they went on zero payroll, going through a series of trials, tribulations and challengesbeforethey actually took off and became what they are today.
Yes, their stories are inspiring. The truth is – you CAN, too!
It is simple: If you don’t work for your own success, who will?
32% indicated that they decided to abandon your page because your brand does not excite them anymore. Perhaps your competitor became more appealing, or they have simply outgrown your brand, or you’ve lost your ‘spark’ that drew them to you on Day 1.
Whatever the reason is, 32% sure is a figure to watch out for and you may want to consider monitoring the growth / decline of your fan base. If it is increasing day-by-day, identify what interests them and what keeps them and keep at it. If it is declining, it’s time to examine what went wrong. Throw a survey or hold a discussion – find out what are your fans looking for and improve on it.
It is also interesting to note that fans are also turned off if a page is updated with new posts too often. Too much information may be seen as spamming and you definitely do not want your fans to perceive it that way. The general rule of thumb is 2-3 updates, spaced out throughout the day (e.g. 1 morning, 1 afternoon, 1 night) and ensure that it is quality content (related articles, updates, reports, etc). Of course, it still comes down to how your fans respond to your updates and each page differs from another. Take sometime to spot trends among your fans – you won’t go wrong that way.
“You may want to watch out for this one as fans can also opt to hide your notifications / updates on their news feed apart from unsubscribing if they are unhappy.”
Now you know what drives your fans to unsubscribe from your page. Want to know what drives them to subscribe to your page?That will be next!
Happy Monday! Mondays always seem to be the toughest day to get started for the week, huh? Focus is all you need! That’s right, and to focus requires a lot of dedication.
“Focus – the single-mindedness and the mental strength of an entrepreneur. Focus keeps one on-track. Focus shuts out distractions. Focus sets things into motion. With focus come quantified plans, objectives and goals. With focus come an increase in productivity, accomplishments of plans, objectives and goals. Focus gives a clear head and helps in decision making. Focus also helps in identifying good business plans. Focus plans with a purpose. Focus allows calculated risks. Focus knows when to move on. Focus leads people. Without focus, an entrepreneur may end up taking a long detour to the intended success… that is if he/she even makes it there.”
Interestingly enough, I’ve heard from many that entrepreneurs in general, lacks focus. Why? It is said that entrepreneurs have so many ideas and at times, don’t know how to or which to first execute. Focus goes beyond just entrepreneurs – everyone needs focus, especially when there are so many distractions around us these days.
Think about it – emails, phone calls, Facebook games and the list goes on. How many of these can actually be put on hold? How much can be accomplished if those were cut down?
It’s time to get rid of distractions and move towards your goal. Do you have a focus? What is your focus?
Good morning! How was 10-10-10 for you? For me, it’s a reminder that we are already in October, just about 2 months more before 2010 ends. How time flies and how have we kept up to it? How many of us are keeping up with our new year’s resolution for 2010? How many have already gave up in achieving them?
For one, it is never an easy task to achieve goals – especially big ones. The higher the goal is, chances are, the greater the challenge is; and what makes an entrepreneur differ from another is perseverance.
Perseverance?
Thats right! Perseverance is the shield, the willpower, the spirit and the first line-of-defense of an entrepreneur. Perseverance keeps an entrepreneur in-the-game. Perseverance often is the key difference between a winner and a loser. Perseverance accepts defeat only to become stronger. To persevere takes courage. Persevering opens opportunities to strike-back. Perseverance makes success sweeter. Without perseverance, an entrepreneur accepts defeat only to be fully defeated without finishing the race.
However, perseverance does not mean that one should just sit still and accept failure over and over again. It has a goal, a desire to improve, to perform, and to succeed.
Persevere!
Each entrepreneur has a different measure of perseverance and can only be developed / trained through experience, guided with his / her own passion. One can also start training their level of perseverance by setting goals with a DATELINE and make sure it is accomplished by then. Track your progress throughout and celebrate when a milestone is achieved! It takes a great deal of discipline to develop perseverance but it pays off in the end especially for an entrepreneur.
Interestingly enough, the Chinese character for ‘perseverance’ or ‘patience’ portrays the very essence of perseverance in an entrepreneur – to persevere even when the heart is under the blade / knife – to keep pressing forward despite the circumstances to obtain success.
“Perseverance helps you to keep your focus and not be distracted by failures, effectively learn from mistakes, a better team player and helps you maintain your composure even during time of crisis.”
Already have a passion? Want to make it a reality? It’s time for some perseverance and action today!
As promised, this post reveals some real-life implementation and integrationof Facebook into brands and businesses worldwide along with tips on how you can implement them yourself! If you missed out our discussion and tips in using the infamous Facebook as part of your business, you definitely need to look up Part 1 here.
To set the pace of integrating your business in social media, take a look at the video below first (yes, even if you’ve seen it before)!
1. Customer Attraction: Getting the “Likes”
Everyone goes through this humbling phase of starting up. You’ve just created your very first Facebook fan page for your brand / business with only you being a fan of yourself. You turn to your friends in your personal profile and have invited them to “like” you.. and it stops there. Why is that so? You are NOT commanding attention.
Let’s take a look at Redbull. Instead of showing off wall posts, company information and whatnot to non-fans, Redbull implemented a very simple strategy to their page to command attention from the prospect as seen to the left – a simple, straight forward “call-to-action” image, and they are not the only ones doing it: Levi’s is also seen applying a similar strategy as well!
This, is what they call a Fan-only Facebook content – exclusive contents using Facebook’s ‘Tabs’ functionality. It can be inside scoops, special discounts, participate in discussions, take part in contests and more!
The key to a powerful landing page on Facebook is: Less. Yes, less is more! Do not confuse prospects with too many things going on. Consider being like Redbull – You definitely can’t miss what they want you to do; or like Levi’s – indicating the exclusive benefits you receive by ‘liking’ their page!
Writing a sales pitch on the landing page is a big no-no. Do you really want to advertise your product / services to a prospect on Facebook? It doesn’t work that way on social media. How so? People come to you for a reason – to learn / to browse / to connect / to question / to feedback / to suggest / to complain / to win / to receive and NOT to be sold to.
“Understanding the needs and wants of your potential fans is vital. If unsure, start by asking existing followers what would interest them and take it from there. Remember, that’s co-creation.”
Taking a look at an example closer to home, Project One & Only is an online pageant competition in Malaysia using Facebook as their primary platform to screen through participants, communicating with them and the fans that are eager to know of the results. Incepted in June 2010, they managed to break the 5-figure mark within mere 18 days, now close to 30,000 fans and still growing!
The secret behind this campaign? Attraction. Project O&O’s target are college / university students and they created something that would appeal to them by “making them famous” through this ongoing search in which the winner will undergo makeover sessions, participate in fashion shoots, special features on magazines and more.
In short, they hit the spot among their target market and results were generated instantly.
Not to forget, the Malaysia’s Online Fashion Entrepreneurs’ Weekend, a first-time offline event with over 90% of marketing done through social media alone, utilizing Facebook as their primary engagement platform. MOFEW recognized a niche and a need among the local online fashion scene and proceeded to put together an occasion for like minded individuals to gather and to highlight their entrepreneurial insights to the mass public starting on Facebook, then to an on-ground event. With over 10,000 fans gathered within less than 6 weeks, MOFEW manage to draw 0.5 million hits on the official site, ranked #1 on Google and successfully ran a 3-day offline event with 40,000 attendees from Malaysia and beyond (see official report here).
2. Customer Engagement: From “Likes” to Action
“Your fans are with you for a reason. Keep your focus on them, show them some brand love!“
You may have a very big fan base but with a low engagement rate, your fans may just be sitting there and some may have even forgot about your existence. Apart from feeding them with contents and getting to respond, here are some businesses did to ‘kick’ their fans into action:
Starbucks in the US launched a “Free Pastry Day” campaign, an event page on Facebook and there were more than 600,000 confirmed ‘attendees’ to the event! The news were spread all over Facebook through sharing and automatically triggered co-promotion for the brand / event. How did that happen? They started with their fans – Since the “Free Pastry Day” was first made known through Facebook, their immediate fans were the first to know about the news. At that time, Starbucks had about 3.6 million fans and the news were automatically shared across the network, because the fans were excited.
“Starbucks gave their fans a reason to follow them. The reward? In this case, free pastries for those that came by. How’s that for customer engagement?“
Another F&B brand in the US – Dunkin Donuts is often seen throwing co-creation opportunities to it’s fans. Dunkin Donuts launched the “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut” competition in 2009 and managed to generate more than 130,000 donut submissions at 174,000 votes! Fans were asked to create their own virtual donut with the available ingredients, complete with a donut name and story behind the creation. The grand prize winner will have their donut sold in stores for a limited time! What did Dunkin Donuts achieve? An avenue for their brand to get their fans involved; and from the business aspect, they saw positive response in donut sales during the promotion period.
The competition was so successful that they did it again in 2010 and here is the winner:
“Having freebies and contests are one of the simplest form of customer engagement with a huge response potential. In fact, Dunkin Donuts continues to get fans involved as we speak through a video contest here. How’s THAT for customer engagement?“
This is NOT the end!
The above examples are just some of the many out there that has made it on Facebook on different levels. Not everyone can make it to the Starbucks level, but one can definitely make it somewhere. Once again, remember Co-Creation and Co-Promotion – strategize your Facebook presence around that with some effort and commitment, and you’ll be on your way to a good start.
What’s Next?
We will continue to look at more integrations of social media into your business / brand BUT BEFORE THAT, stay tuned to Part 3, the final yet VERY IMPORTANT bit of integrating Facebook in your business!
We will be looking at:
The risk of having your fan page shut down by Facebook
Therules and regulations you may not have read that prohibits promotions(e.g. contests and promotions) on Facebook
Most people today have a personal Facebook account and spend loads of time on it, be it on games or merely page / profile hopping, engaging with other users online. Millions of users access Facebook on a daily basis and this also means that Facebook has a potential ready market of millions to be accessed by your brand and you just need to be a part of this huge global network. What you need to do is to merely find ways to tap into it.
The good news? Facebook is nowhere near in pulling their brakes. They are here to stay, continually innovating their services and recently seen wanting to integrate deeper into the mobile devices, tying in with Android operating systems. Just so you know, Facebook’s actual value is reported to be a whooping $23 billion (Forbes) and $33 billion by The Financial Times! The bad news?Having a Facebook page alone isn’t going to get you anywhere – it is only the beginning.
To start things off, take a look at the video below:
1. You’ll need a plan.
Yes, social media IS business thus requiring a strategy to truly succeed. Start by setting goals for your Facebook page followed by specific tasks on how to achieve them. You may want to look at:
1. How many ‘likes’ to gain by end of the year?
2. How often will you be able to contribute to the page? (e.g. at least 3 days a week / videos / images)
3. How would you want your followers to interact with you? (e.g. share your contents / provide feedback)
4. What is the final outcome for your page? (e.g. to drive traffic to your site / to receive suggestions)
5. Do you need a team to manage the page or an individual?
6. What do you need to do to achieve your goals?
2. Command attention.
Like it or not, in most situations, even the most valuable content you can ever provide will be ignored – yes, despite the traffic. How so? Simple:they are NOT paying attention to you. There are so many things happening on the screen: instant messaging, emails, Skype, daily news and if that’s nothing, do not forget the various happenings inside Facebook itself (e.g. wall posts, photos, videos, games and etc)!
Already sounding impossible? Not quite.
You’ll need a PULL, something that draws their attention to you. No, definitely not advertising because consumers today are immune to advertising. They know when to turn away when an ad starts playing and even the most annoying popups can deliberately be ignored without being seen! It has to be something that RELATES to them. This PULL can be exclusive contents, benefits, giveaways, outrageous offers and more!
Think of ways that will excite them. Some marketeers cleverly pack information into video presentations and aesthetically pleasing images – why? They know what relates and excites their followers: Videos and images definitely captures attention better than text. When it excites them, consumers are likely to share it across the social media. Once again, this is Co-Promotion through WORLD-of-mouth.
“Know what your customers are looking for. In social media, your followers comes first! Forget about getting new prospects – you’ll get stronger conversions with your followers on your side”
3. Stick to it!
Consistency is the key and this is perhaps the difficult part and determines the initial make or break. Most brand pages fail because they are unable to stick with what they have in mind. Either the management team is too bogged up with other work or they’ve given up after weeks of trying to no avail.
“Pages fail due to lack of commitment. Lack of commitment to the page is simply telling your customers – We don’t care“
Social media takes time, just like traditional businesses. You may hear stories of people making big money with social media over night but the truth is, most businesses can’t. This is where you may want to utilize your contacts, publicize your page on your official site, name cards, pamphlets, brochures, ads and etc to make use of your Facebook presence. You can hold discussions, get feedback, throw special promotions, contests and more to drive interest, traffic and participation to your page.
What’s in Part 2?
Real life implementation and integration examples of Facebook in businesses worldwide! You do not want to miss this! Stay tuned!
Good morning! The weekend came and went so quickly – and a new week has just begun! There’ll be new challenges and new obstacles but this also means opportunity for more learning and greater winnings; and only you can determine how your week will be. One can choose to do all the right things, do it well, but yet find no joy in what they are doing. Some may be doing what they thought they’d like doing but it fizzled along the way.
How is that so? Something is lacking within them – Passion; and passion is one of the key components that makes an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur.
What is Passion?
Passion is the sword, the constant drive and the offense of an entrepreneur. Passion differentiates an entrepreneur from a business owner. Passion can be seen and felt by others. It is also contagious. Passion drives situations, people, and success. Passion motivates, instills confidence and enthusiasm. Passion picks one up and propels another further. With passion come a desire, a vision and actions for a better future even when the odds are against you. Without passion, an entrepreneur loses its main weapon of offense, the double-edged sword to succeed.
“One cannot fake passion. A leader can never ask his followers to be passionate about something he / herself isn’t passionate about.”
However, having passion alone isn’t enough – especially as an entrepreneur. Sure, passion is the primary weapon of offense but it will be useless if you don’t swing it towards the enemy. Merely holding it in your hands, bragging to your friends on how sharp your sword is doesn’t make it what it is. Action – to put your passion to the field – that’s where and when you’ll begin to see results.
“Passion without Action is dead.”
Get Started with your Passion!
Don’t let that passion get away! Pen down where your passion lies and do something this week about it! If your passion is in design, start working on your very first masterpiece! If you passion is to be your own boss, it’s about time to put together a business plan! Do you really want to go through life having that passion but not doing anything about it?
The trick to pursue your passion is simple – get it started!
What do you enjoy doing? What do you want to achieve? What’s your passion? Have you put it to action?
About a week ago we looked at what social media means to businesses and why social media is the way forward for businesses and perhaps right now you are wondering how social media can benefit you and your business. In a nutshell, your relationship with your customers will never be the same again and it is for the better! I managed to stumble upon this simple yet comprehensive image depicting the evolution of CRM into Social CRM when a business truly integrates social media into their operations.
Social CRM sure looks good and it is important in today’s social media world because businesses are moving towards a collaborative business model. This also means that businesses that has a closed door concept, shutting off customer input will eventually lose out from the market as they only see business through transaction and not interaction / engagement. Little did they know that customers really do have the upper hand in today’s world where a single complain or dissatisfaction can evolve to a global scale within minutes – again, through social media.
Collaborative?
Yes, we are talking about Co-Creation and Co-Promotion of products and it can only be achieved by a collaborative effort, through engaging with your customers. Gone were the days customers will simply buy a product without research and comparison with your competitors.
Reviews, feedbacks and complains can be freely obtained online on blogs, forums, Facebook and Twitter statuses and more therefore making competition greater than before! Think of it this way though, if you’re able to get into their good books, your competitor will be the one struggling instead!
Still have your doubts? Check out the video below!
Start by opening up your doors to listen to what your customers are saying.
What is it that they really want from you?
What is it that makes them your customer?
Is it your product? Or your services?
What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?
Who do your customer perceive as your competitors?
These questions are best to be answered by your customers.
“Your customers are in someway, your existing followers and fans. Spend more time with them to understand their needs instead of trying to catch the attention of the mass public! Keep the fans, let the rest go. They’ll come when they’re ready”
A traditional business would probably think that the above is crazy.. but it’s not. With social media, businesses today gain direct communication with customers which they do not have 10 years before. A continuous relationship / collaboration with existing customers will in fact draw MORE customers, through them – Co-Promotion.
Find out what excites them as a customer and continue to spark that excitement in them and news will spread among your customers automatically through WORLD-of-mouth, without additional marketing expense. How cool is that?
Imagine creating a new product or service which has guaranteed sales / response – it can happen, with social media. Why? This is the power of Co-Creation. Businesses can use social media to co-create products and services that caters to their needs directly without making wild guesses. Customers know what they want and fans can give you the input you need to produce a killer product / service. It is also an avenue to truly say “we hear you”.
This way, you’ll know whether your product will be widely accepted / rejected even before producing it. Even better if you’re able to get your fans to create on your behalf – you may be on your way to discovering great talents for your business expansion and it’s a good way of getting your fans involved!
Want to know more?
Watch out for upcoming posts on real life social media implementation examples worldwide!
How often have you wanted to harness the potential of social media but been too unwilling to commit to the changes required (i.e. still holding on to your previous mindset)? I managed to come across this Dilbert comic strip that somewhat resembles what we looked at previously about the mindset of today’s business owners and entrepreneurs in Malaysia regarding social media:
Although the comic strip may seem to have exaggerated things a little (especially when we now know most people associate social media with Facebook and Twitter) but it does carry some truth in it. Perhaps it may happen like this instead in Malaysia (adapted from above):
True, isn’t it? Most traditional businesses sees social media as merely a trend that they wish to participate in but yet unwilling to accept it fully. Little did they know that social media has grown beyond just a trend or a technology – but a lifestyle, an integral part in consumer engagement, extension of networks, and it is here to stay.
Still skeptical? Apart from just pumping you up with the potential reach of people you can be connected with, here are 5 simple reasons on why you should get started with social media for your business if you haven’t already:
1. Public Engagement
Now before you turn around click away saying that you’ve heard of this a million times already, listen to this once more: engagement builds trust, a bridge towards your brand, it creates a perception and an emotion towards it. This can become your brand’s distinguishing factor against your competitors. Like it or not, people already have perceptions towards your brand regardless.
If they’ve never heard of you before, chances are, you have to give it double the effort to convince them as compared to a brand that is already well engaged with the public and this is something traditional marketing (or advertising) can’t do.
“Traditional advertising is a 1-to-many, one-way relationship while social media is a 1-to-[1]-to-many, two-way relationship. It takes two hands for a brand to clap and that [1] makes a difference. That [1] is your tie to the mass, and also your brand advocate, your key for an applause.”
2. Earned Media vs Paid Media
Which do you prefer? People talking about you or paid to talk about you. Don’t get me wrong, paid media isn’t wrong by all means as advertorials, reviews and the likes DO WORK, even better if you have a strong influencer on your side but some business owners or entrepreneurs do have their hands tied when it comes to budgets, especially for a startup and earned media is well, free!
A little bit of time and effort will get you a long way. Think about it, where else do you have the opportunity to share your knowledge, thoughts and expertise in articles or in any other media form at no cost, with a huge base of potential non-geographically constrained readers? That’s the World Wide Web for you and all you need is just a little dedication to maintain and to promote your masterpieces!
“It is beyond just a ‘following’ online, but the credibility you build for yourself / brand / business along with it.”
3. Social Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Apart from just communicating with consumers, receiving feedbacks, support, sales and promotions, social media can also be used as an avenue for your customers to tell their story i.e. testimonials. Nothing beats a first-hand story, whether good or bad that comes from your existing customers as it will be able to attract new customers along the way!
Yes, this also means that your existing customers will be ‘selling’ your brand to their networks on your behalf, without having you to spend extra time and money to try convince everyone on the street on how good you are. It will now be customer-get-customer rather than brand-get-customer. Sharing – that’s how information travel on the social media, and it happens with just a click.
“They say sharing is caring. On social media, sharing is business.”
[PAUSE:] If at this point you’ve still been wondering:
1. On how this social media ‘thingy’ can actually do ALL of the above, or
2. Is the social media ‘idea’ too confusing? or
3. You find that I’m no longer speaking in English, then:
Check out this video I found on YouTube – explaining social media in plain, simple English and how social media can benefit you, your brand, your customers AND your prospects!
Hopefully that cleared things up better!
Okay, back to business: On to the fourth!
4. Measurable
Unlike traditional advertising, results can easily be measured on social media. With the availability and free access to various tools such as Google Analytics, Feed Burner, number of fans / followers / friends / likes and more, one can generate a detailed report about their reach as compared to traditional means.
For example, Google Analytics (to the left) will be able to indicate the amount of page views, average time spent on your site, where they are from, how did they managed to land on your site and other information that helps you understand your readers more. This is definitely one thing you’ll never be able to obtain out of traditional means. In other words, ‘success’ is now determined based on your influence rather than reach, quality over quantity (but then again, quantity is also achievable on social media).
5. It Works
Yes. It works! Businesses all over the world have implemented and integrated social media into their business modal do have results to show! Whether it is sales, higher traffic, enquiries or feedback, it worked for them. No reason for it to fail, if you’re committed in making it happen. And no, they did not pump cash to make it work. Social media made it work for them.
Want to know how others implemented social media in their business? Hang in there as I’ll be revealing some of them right here, at janwong.my in the coming days! You may be surprised to see how these brands and businesses used social media to drive results up their doorstep – powerful yet simple. Chances are, you may just be able to replicate their success in your business!
Conclusion..
There you go, 5 simple reasons on why social media should be implemented in business operations and marketing efforts. There are of course, even more reasons on implementing social media but in the end, the key is your mindset, perception and how far a brand is willing to go with it.
Remember, only you can determine whether social media makes or breaks your business… why go with the latter? :)
… many have made it, what say you?
How else do you see social media impacting your business / life?
As you may already know, the Online Social Media or the infamous Web 2.0 / 3.0 is the marketing trend of today’s business environment. Marketeers are using it to their advantage world wide and social media does not seem to be putting on brakes anytime soon as in continues to evolve.. rapidly!
Malaysia is definitely not out of the picture. This Online Social Media‘concept’ is also seen to be the IN thing for businesses and many have been (or at least, trying to) implementing this concept in their corporate strategies. As per every business execution, some made it and some didn’t.
Why, you ask? Let’s first explore the mindset of the business owners and entrepreneurs towards social media – I recently came across many business owners and entrepreneurs lately that seem to have their own interpretation of this ‘concept’ that has been reaping great results globally.
Here’s a summary of responses I manage to gather from the conversations I had with them regarding Online Social Media:
Although none of the above is entirely wrong, but as expected, terms such as ‘Facebook’, ‘Blog’ and ‘Bloggers’ came out most often and is found to be their very first reply e.g. “usage of Facebook and blogs…”. It would also seem that to some of them, social media means inviting bloggers to write about a certain happening / product / advertorial. Some says it is an additional avenue for promotion and sales, a tool to target the younger generation and the list goes on..
It is sad to see that many business owners today still have their own interpretation and mindsets, and has yet to come to realize and see the importance of Online Social Media in Malaysia, seeing it as merely a tool or an extension of their business instead of integrating social media as PARTof their business. Hence, they see it as a only a ‘concept’, a ‘good to have’ but not a ‘must have’, a ‘trend’ but not ‘real business’.
How about you? What is your interpretation of the Online Social Media?
Imagine 
True, isn’t it? Most traditional businesses sees social media as merely a trend that they wish to participate in but yet unwilling to accept it fully. Little did they know that social media has 
[PAUSE:] If at this point you’ve still been wondering:
Hopefully that cleared things up better!
Conclusion..