Tag Archives: business owners

Should Companies Ban Social Media Among Employees?

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should companies ban social media?

Recently I’ve been noticing more and more companies here in Malaysia putting a barrier around their employees, preventing them from accessing social media tools within the premise. While some go about a complete ban, some left room for the marketing department to roam about freely.

Is that a good move?

It is fully understandable that social media tools especially Facebook, Twitter and blogging can be a huge time waster at work. Employees may be playing games, chatting away or busy updating their personal blogs instead of being ‘productive’ at the workplace. It’s no wonder why companies have to resort to a complete ban.

However, it is also interesting to note that some of these companies are supposedly customer centric, saying that they listen to their customers and etc but at the same time, staying out of social media. Strange indeed.

Blogs (social media) doesn’t get people fired, people get people fired. – Deb Schultz, Altimeter Group

To me, social media should not be banned in a company at all. Instead, companies should establish clear guidelines on how social media can be used. Companies such as Dell takes social media very seriously and goes to the extend of training their employees in this area and they have been utmost successful.

IBM takes a different approach by allowing their employees to write their social media policy for them. Sounds absurd? Not really, considering the fact that since the employees will be the ones using social media, they should be the ones setting the guidelines. In fact, they are more likely to keep to it if they formed it themselves. Plus giving your employees this liberty may cultivate an innovative culture in your company.

Some companies don’t even have rules to regulate social media usage. They simply let their employees do what they like, as long they perform in the end.

So.. What’s the Conclusion?

There is really no hard and fast rule in implementing / regulating social media in a company. I really do prefer both Dell and IBM’s way of doing it but it also depends on your comfort level as a business owner in the industry. Remember, social media can act as both an asset and a liability to your brand. Experiment with techniques and find out what’s best for your environment – social media only works when you try.

How to: Integrate Social Media in Business Using Blogs (Part 2)

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Now that you’ve understood why blogs are vital to your business instead of having a traditional website, you may have in mind to make full use of them to sell your products and services, perhaps even going to the extend of writing 1-page sales pitches that may have worked for you in the past.

Unfortunately, sales pitches does not work on blogs – especially when you’re just getting started.

Why Don’t Sales Pitches Work?

Blogging, or rather, social media is not about sales. It’s about customer engagement, it’s about relating and listening to your target audience and to have a human presence. Customers today do not want to be sold to – they want to be heard. Writing a full fledge sales pitch will only drive people away than to convert them.

Err.. But Isn’t It All About Making Sales?

That may be true for your business but on social media, I personally believe that sales is secondary. Yes, you would ultimately want to convert customers and make sales but upright sales pitches would do more harm than good. There are, after all, various ways and techniques of conversions on social media.

leading the pack with your blog

How to Make Sales With My Blog? Here are 3 Steps to Get You Started!

#1: Give and you shall receive

“What? I thought we’re talking about making sales!?”

Yes, we are – the long term yet effective way and blogs are just the right medium to do it. Provide value to your readers consistently to establish your own presence first. Write about what you do best, industry updates and share your experiences with past clients.

During this stage, you’re actually creating a platform for your business to reach out in the future – take time in doing this as it is your biggest asset!

#2: Create exposure

“Oh come on, get on with the sales already!”

Blogs can give your business an exposure beyond traditional means. With the amount of blog syndication tools out there and with search engine optimization (SEO), the amount of exposure is massive. Now, all you need to do is to create opportunities (or window opportunities) for sales to happen.

Some use exclusive offers, contests, VIP passes, weekend giveaways and more to gain more exposure AND create an opportunity for your audience to get to know you better through your products. In other words, you’re creating leads for sales!

#3: Promotion

“Are we there yet?”

There are various ways of promoting your products / services through your blog and one of the common ways of doing so is by producing an e-book. An e-book allows you to pack more of your expertise to your audience, benefiting them and at the same time, creates an opportunity for you to upsell your products. It can be a seminar, workshop, demo sessions, trials and more.

So, What About Sales?

As you can see, social media is an excellent tool to drive sales and increase conversions, especially with blogs. If you’re STILL looking to make plain sales out of thin air for your business, then perhaps you may want to consider other alternatives :)

Are You Watching or Participating?

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Are you someone who watches or someone who participates? Someone who observes or someone who gets their hands dirty?

Why not BOTH?

There are too many people living on extreme ends of this world – some observing, busy over analyzing and criticizing things; while some too indulged in the execution of things, neither of which is better than the other.

Perhaps today is a good time to ask yourself, what have you been in 2010? And what do you want to become in 2011?

If you’ve been looking from the sidelines, it is time for you to put your analytical skills to good use and execute your plans.

If you’ve been getting your hands dirty all day long, it is time for you to start strategizing and formulating plans to increase productivity or the effectiveness of what you’re doing.

2011 is going to be an exciting and challenging year for many and you definitely do not want to just LOOK at passing opportunities or just JUMP into every passing one without a strategy.

It’s time to take on the new year with a bang!

Don’t Criticize – You Don’t Learn from Someone You Criticize

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Criticism is a funny thing. We can joke about things, people and situations but when we criticize, it tends to affect your being more than you actually know.

When we criticize a person, we are subconsciously labeling that person as unimportant or not-worth-my-time and when that happens, chances are even when he / she comes up with a good idea in the future, you won’t take it in.

Now bear in mind that constructive criticism is valid as it is but many find it difficult to really be constructive in their criticism to others, especially in an competitive environment.

What to do in situations such as these? Don’t criticize – as much as you want to, don’t. Give some time for yourself to look from different angles before passing a comment. If you absolutely have to say something, be objective and do not draw a conclusion on that person.

Easier said than done, but remember: if you go about criticizing everyone that comes into your way, you’ll end up with no one on your side – and you definitely do not want that to happen.

How to: Integrate Social Media in Business Using Blogs (Part 1)

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If I had to pick which social media tool is the most beneficial for businesses, I would say BLOGS will come first. Nevermind whether it is Blogger, WordPress or the likes – blogs, in general is perhaps one of the most important social media tool for businesses today.

Why Should Your Business Blog

Your business may have an active Facebook or Twitter page going but like it or not, Facebook and Twitter are great engagement tools and not necessarily the best tool in disseminating information and content, especially chunky ones to your customers.

3 Reasons on Why Your Business Should Blog:

1. It is your HOME BASE

Traditional websites are slowly moving into a blog environment because businesses see the value in providing consistent updates and additional value to their customers instead of having a well designed, static information website.

Having a blog (or in this case, the centre of content) can act as the primary place of information for your business where you can share what’s happening behind the scenes, updates on upcoming plans, interesting news and even insights in the industry your business is in – basically content that adds value to your prospects and customers.

Are you driving your customers home?

Combine this with your engagement tools such as Facebook and Twitter, now your fans and followers will be able to find out and benefit more from you. This can easily be done by including a link to your blog on tweets and status updates.

Find out more about having a home base here!

2. Expert in the field

Now you may think that you can also establish a home base with a traditional website. True, but one thing blogs triumphs is that through your sharing of content, you are able to change the perception of your prospects and customers towards your business.

How so? A traditional website focuses on designs to create an impression. A blog focuses on content to create an impression. Which lasts longer? Blogs. The more valuable content you put out, the more your target audience will be able to know you and that builds a relationship that your competitor may not have with them.

Everyone is an expert - all you need to do is shareIf you are in business, chances are, you have tons of knowledge and experience in you. If you’re able to share them, that alone will make you an expert in the field – especially in the eyes of your customers. Customers value valuable content and transparency as it also influences buying decisions.

For consumers that are new to your business, a blog will be able to reflect your knowledge and experience in a particular field and in some cases, how active your business is by looking at when was your last update.

3. Low Cost

Guess what, you may already have been blogging and you just do not know about it. You may have been ‘blogging’ on advertorials, press releases, media write ups, newspaper columns, magazine columns and etc to position yourself in the market.

If you’ve been there, you should know that chances like that do not come by very often and sometimes it may cost you. If you’ve haven’t been there, you should also know that such opportunities may not be easy to find and that it will also cost you.

By having a blog, you have these opportunities every single day, at no cost! The only evident cost is your time. Your time to put together your thoughts, research, pen it down and to publish it online. Other than that, it’s literally free!

So, Why Blog?

Given the benefits, why NOT blog? I strongly believe that every industry will be able to benefit from having their very own blog. After all, wherever there is knowledge to something, there is definitely something to share from it, and blogs are the place to share them.

Have blogging been beneficial to you or your business? Do share them by commenting below! :)

Strategy is Everything

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A strategy determines which path you'll take

Proper planning is essential to success. Strategic planning is vital to success. One can plan for everything but without a STRATEGY, the plans are nothing.

You see, once you have clearly identified what your goals are it is important to carefully plan how you will achieve them – that’s planning, by putting down what you need to do. Strategy on the other hand, adds an edge and the “how-to” to your plans. For example, your plan may be to “move my blog to a .com by end 2010”. But how can you achieve it? That’s the strategy!

Many people skip this step in their excitement to pursue their goals and sad to say, failure to strategize will lead to failure and disappointment… leading to the abandonment of goals. What’s the problem over here? You did not have a success strategy.

It is true that no matter how carefully we lay out our plans, reality will require us to change and adapt through various circumstances. This is where your strategy shines – the adaptation of plans and the last minute improvisations that will push you towards your goal.

“The process of planning prepares you to take the steps necessary to realize your goals and aspirations.“

THIS is strategy

Take for example the picture above. The fish may have planned to join the other side but it takes strategy for that to happen – how much air to hold, how much strength to jump, how high to jump, how much momentum to build, how should it land – that’s STRATEGY!

Planning alone is not a success factor. You plan your game but it takes strategy to manage resources, coordinate and manage factors, changes and the environment. Planning is important, but strategy is crucial. A solid plan also makes room for a winning strategy.

Do you have a plan for 2011? Do you have a strategy for 2011? We’re only about 20+ days away from 2011. Take some time off today to plan and strategize!

Strategy is everything.

Doing Customer Service the Wrong Way

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are you doing customer service the wrong way

Recently I wrote a post on how beneficial social media can be when integrated into customer service operations and I have to share what happened to me –

Some time last week I was intending to purchase a new laptop to replace my old faithful and I landed on the Facebook page of one of Malaysia’s latest I.T. concept stores to drop them an enquiry, making sure that they have what I wanted at hand before I dropped by.

They replied within a couple of hours (11am) and was very helpful by indicating that they only have one particular model left (the one I wanted) and that I can drop by the store and their sales personnel will be able to assist me. I was very happy at this point and decided to head over to their store after lunch.

I arrived at the store at about 3pm and asked about the laptop:

Me: Hi, do you have this particular laptop in stock? (just to double check)
Sales: Yes we do but we are down to the last unit for this model (he pointed to the brochure without me asking – it was what I wanted)
Me: Okay, great, I’ll take it now then.
Sales: (paused for a while) This unit is already reserved by my friend a couple of days back.
Me: Oh? But you mentioned that there is stock. It’s also mentioned to me on Facebook this morning.
Sales: Facebook? I don’t know.. I never check the Facebook page.
Me: Is there anyone I can talk to regarding the post on Facebook?
Sales: I’ve got no idea.

I was shocked and left with no other options by the sales personnel – I left the store and decided to post on their wall again reiterating the situation just to see what will their response be. A reply came about 3 hours later that read, “…our remaining units were reserved moments before your arrival…Much apologies again for the inconvenience caused.”

Well, I could only come up with 3 reasons at that point of time:

1. I was out of luck, having the remaining unitS reserved within the span of 3-4 hours (when the sales personnel said that there was only 1 unit available all along)

2. The sales personnel reported falsely on the availability of stocks to the social media personnel (in which he mentioned that he does not know who manages the Facebook page)

3. Communication breakdown (clearly the case)

The Conclusion

Apart from the major disappointment I experienced, I managed to discover a potential flaw in social media integrations within companies.

“You may have the best social media managers on the job but without proper communication and information, they’re as good as none.”

Remember, social media is all about providing an experience to your customers.

Is It Possible to Hire a PR / Young Person to Manage Your Social Media Presence?

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I’ve been noticing this as a trend lately that’s happening in many companies and businesses within Malaysia. Young grads are being hired for a specific job to find that they are given an additional job description – to manage the company’s social media accounts.

Is this really a smart thing to do?

A young person usually spends their entire day on Facebook, Twitter and blogs therefore they are great candidates to manage the accounts, isn’t it? WRONG. Though it may be true that they are technologically savvy, this does not automatically makes him or her a social media expert with the required capabilities to take on your company’s social media presence.

Likewise for PR Managers, they may be really good at what they do but this does not automatically makes them a social butterfly online. Plus, PR Managers generally have extrovert personalities so keeping them behind a screen to socialize may not work as well as you think it would.

Insisting on using them?

I would not go down this path but if that’s the only choice you have, consider looking up their backgrounds or throwing them a test before adding it to their job description. Check out their Facebook, Twitter and blog accounts to see what they usually talk about (you may even find that they are active only on Facebook games).

If you find that they are actively participating in chats, sharing informative contents, retweeting, creating content and etc – Congratulations! You’ve found your man (or woman)!

If you find that they are actively chatting casually, sharing random contents, talking about the bits and pieces of their life, mostly participating in games and etc – You may not want to bestow them your company’s social media accounts.

What should be done then?

The best for the job is definitely a social media manager or consultant that specializes in social media. One that does not only have the knowledge, but also with the experience to generate ideas, execute and creatively engage with his / her network.

There are tons of articles out there listing the various areas to look for in a social media manager so I won’t go into the details but most of them concur that he / she must have some past experience in the field. It can be personal experiences, various projects / campaigns or past / present clients.

Also, do not hesitate to probe questions to test their knowledge in the field as knowing these can give you an ease of mind and somewhat gauge the potential results thus evaluating whether he or she is worth your money.

So, is it really a ‘no’ to hire a young person / PR to do the job for me?

Never :)

How Are You Keeping Up With 2010?

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We’ve already come to the end of November and it will soon be Christmas, then 2011. How has 2010 been treating you? Has it been difficult? Challenging? Disappointing?

Recently I was reminded with the old days where I used to train under my coach for badminton. I remember that it is at the time when I’m facing a stronger opponent, physically drained, worn out and out of breathe, my coach will always tell me:

“Keep your focus! If 100% isn’t enough, go 200%! If 200% still isn’t enough, go 300%! You’re here to win it, else you’re going home!”

Today when I look back, wow, there is so much truth in that. When life gets challenging and tough, that’s your opportunity to shine – to accomplish something you’ve never done before. Successful entrepreneurs take on challenges because they know their skills will be refined and failures will only make them stronger.

Are you on the verge of giving up? Now is the time to focus upon the goal – to win it – giving it 200%, 300% or more.

Let’s end 2010 with a bang!

How to: Create Customer Loyalty with 10 cents

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“Do you believe that 10 cents is all it takes to lose a potential loyal customer over your competitor?“

10 cents

I can’t help but to realize how important 10 cent is to both the consumer and the business. No, I’m not talking about price wars between similar products but how far 10 cents can determine whether a customer returns to you.

Have you been into a situation in a restaurant and the bill summed up to say, RM12.10 and the thought comes – “can’t you even give a 10 cent discount?“

If you haven’t, great! But if you have, you’re probably one of the many out there like myself and I have been doing some observation and testing to see how people have been reacting in this situation.

Situation 1

Customer: It’s only 10 cents, do you have really have to charge that?
Business A: Nah, I’ll round it up to RM12 for you. Please come again!

Situation 2

Customer: It’s only 10 cents, do you have really have to charge that?
Business B: Of course! 10 cents go a long way. Please come again! (I actually received this response for word)

Situation 3

Business C: (brings the bill of RM12.10) Hi sir, that will be RM12.00
Customer: (surprised) Oh, here you go.
Business C: Thank you, Please come again!

Looking at these 3 situations, which situation would you like to be in? How would you like going back to the Business B in Situation 2? Sure, 10 cents isn’t a lot and it will indeed go a long way for a business but from the viewpoint of a customer, that is no customer service and creates a negative impression that may determine the buying behavior of that customer – to not come back to you again.

Even worst if that customer decides to use social media as his / her arsenal to vent – more like minded customers will catch the message and perhaps skip you altogether (ouch).

Now before you shove this away and think that it’s no big deal, you may have to think again as customers such of these are not rare. Be prepared for situations such as these and you may just win yourself a loyal customer.

What Can We Learn From 10 cents?

Every cent counts. Every deed you do for your customer counts – whether it is a personalized service, special discounts, freebies, a listening ear, priority service, engaging in small talks or even remembering their names.. it makes a difference and that difference may just be THAT differentiating factor that sets you apart from your competitor.

Have you been in similar situations? I would love to hear them! :)