Tag Archives: next generation

Social Media for Entrepreneurs: An Introduction

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About two weeks ago I was invited to speak to 120 aspiring entrepreneurs at a workshop hosted by Prudential Malaysia under the RU Ready campaign, specifically targeted towards college / university students and young adults. It was an exciting opportunity as I always enjoy sharing with young people but yet a humbling experience to be speaking alongside two well established entrepreneurs, Candice Lee (Sales Director of Capital Asia Group) and Timothy Tiah (Co-founder of Nuffnang).

Speaking to young entrepreneurs always reminds me of the excitement of being an entrepreneur, especially when you’ve a new idea in mind. You just can’t stop thinking and talking about it with the intention to grow the idea and eventually commercializing it. However, any entrepreneur would tell you that the journey won’t be easy. It’ll be tough. That’s because…

Entrepreneurship isn’t science

One of the key attributes of an entrepreneur is to not fear failure, so much so that if you’re afraid of failing, you won’t cut it as an entrepreneur. It is a never ending journey of trial and error and what worked for Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs may not work for you, simply because there’s no one fixed formula to success in entrepreneurship.

Similarly, there is no fixed formula to social media success

In the excitement of establishing a new business as an entrepreneur, many approach social media as if it is the cure to business problems or the formula to a successful business. The thing is, entrepreneurs must remember that building your social media presence is similar to building a business. It takes time, commitment and dedication that grows through time.

Social media can be part of the cure or formula, but never THE cure or formula

Social networks are a gift to entrepreneurs. It is only until the introduction of social networks that entrepreneurs are able to start at a faster pace. Think about it – you’ve resources on blogs, video content on YouTube, and a whole world to explore and to be in contact with potential investors, partners or buyers via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Is there more?

This is the introduction to a 4-part series on social media for entrepreneurs so stay tuned for more!

[ Introduction | Part 1: The Basics | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ]

Here are the slides to my sharing session at the workshop if you’re interested:

Social Media for Entrepreneurs

Quick access to the series:
[ Introduction | Part 1: The Basics | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ]

The Lelong.my E-Commerce Fair 2011 and A Social Media Experiment

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The last couple of weeks has been nothing but busy, followed by a major downtime of my site caused by some rather irritating server problems but I’m glad that they are all sorted out now and I can finally go back to my blogging routine.

team managing the e-commerce fair

I recently launched an event for a client (Lelong.my) which is also Malaysia’s first E-Commerce Fair held at one of the busiest exhibition centres in Malaysia – the Mid Valley Exhibition Centre. The event lasted for 3 days over the weekend with the main objective to highlight the E-Commerce industry in Malaysia and to educate consumers on the convenience of E-Commerce.

Before you go about wondering why an event of such nature is required, consumers in Malaysia generally are not very comfortable with online purchases and the limitation of payment services makes things worse. However the E-Commerce scene in Malaysia is slowly picking up over the recent years which led to Lelong.my’s decision in bringing the online experience offline for all to see.

paypal at lelong e-commerce fair

The event brought online retail businesses from electronics, books, gadgets, fashion apparels, home appliances and etc together along with various support industries such as payment gateway giant – PayPal, web hosting providers, shopping cart solutions and more. By doing so, consumers are now able to find out more about such services and get started right there and then, ultimately mass educating many who were clueless about e-commerce.

e commerce talks at e commerce fair

As a whole, the event attracted over 60,000 visitors throughout the 3-day event with over a million impressions online across various platforms including blogs, Facebook updates and tweets plus complementary press write-ups on several local newspapers.

A Social Experiment at the Event

Being myself, I thought it would be great to put to see if social media is effective for a corporate consumer event in Malaysia. A part from the usual online promotional campaigns using Facebook (which was well received), I tested the usage of Twitter and Foursquare, two platforms that aren’t as big as Facebook in Malaysia.

The experiment is simple and it comes in 2 different parts:

Part 1: Using Foursquare to target existing Foursquare users.

A new venue is created on Foursquare prior to the event (without any specials) just to test the popularity of checking in. The results?

simple foursquare experimentIt didn’t cook up a storm but the results are rather interesting. The newly created venue managed to bring in 24 check-ins (with a mayor crowned) and 1 tip from a visitor within the 3-days as compared to the venue’s other check-ins (Hall 1, Hall 2 and Hall 3) which have been created at least a year ago.

This suggests that visitors are more inclined to check-in to an event compared to a location (like the exhibition centre) even when there are no specials to be given away.

Part 2: Using Twitter’s location based search to target tweeps within the area.

We closely monitored users that were checking in to the Mid Valley Megamall and those that are tweeting within the vicinity of the venue and sent them an invitation to check out the e-commerce fair at the exhibition centre.

tweeting at the e commerce fair

While the temporary Twitter handle only received a handful of followers, the invitation sparked conversations among interested tweeps and we were able to share the event with many others.

What does this mean for other corporate consumer events in Malaysia?

  1. Facebook reaches the consumers at a larger scale in Malaysia as compared to other social platforms
  2. Foursquare specials have the potential to be an attraction or incentive for visitors to come by (or just to check-in)
  3. Twitter is a good tool to create conversations, create interest and responding to feedbacks
  4. Twitter’s location based search allows you to capitalize on the crowd that is already in the vicinity. You just need to give them a reason to come by.
  5. You should not rely on one social platform alone. Consider other platforms to reach out to other pockets of consumers as each tool have their individual strengths and audiences.

What are your thoughts on utilizing social media as part of an event’s marketing mix? Any ideas to spice things up?

Note that the experiments were done on an as-it-is basis with its conclusions drawn from a personal perspective only.

Citibank with Card 2.0

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If you’ve read my previous post about an innovation about the next generation of credit cards (Card 2.0), I mentioned two things:
1. Some banks in the US have been running tests and prototypes on Card 2.0
2. I personally think that this concept would not go too far as the next generation payment may go beyond cards (mobile, maybe?)

Well, Citibank is seen to be the first heading into the Card 2.0 world with two buttons – giving cardholders to have the option to pay either via credit or Citi Reward Points anywhere the card is accepted. Introducing to you the Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard and PremierPass Elite cards from Citibank! It is said that these cards will officially launch in May 2011.

Citibank Card 2.0

Pretty interesting, huh? Instead of sticking to the concept of having 2 different cards represented in 1 Card 2.0, they made it simpler for their cardholders to make different modes of payment. Simple, yet smart.

Do you have a better idea for Card 2.0? I’d love to hear them :)

The Next Generation of Cards: Credit Card 2.0

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You’ve heard about Web 2.0. How about a Credit Card 2.0? That’s the evolution of credit cards – really cool features, secured, water and scratch proof. Imagine a card that can tie in multiple accounts into one card, password protected, hide certain digits of your card number with a push of a button (yes, a button), but yet retain it’s card-like plastic features and remains just as thin!

All in all, it is definitely what credit cards should be like right now!

According to the creators of Card 2.0 (Dynamics Inc.), several banks in the States are already undergoing stealth testing with prototype cards and may be launching soon, although an exact date is still unavailable at this moment.

My description of Card 2.0 does not do justice to this awesome innovation. Hear it from them directly in the video below, thanks to Mashable (note: it is pretty noisy so you may want to jack up your volume a little lot!

So, what do you think? I can so imagine myself carrying one of these right away!

“However, the video does not tell us where the battery will come from and it may be really costly for them to produce these in the mass. Plus, security may still be a problem since passwords aren’t exactly safe as well. Let’s see how far this innovation will be able to travel as Cards may not be THE next generation for payment! For all we know, Google may just come up with a Google Bank that allows you to use your Google Account sign-in at banks and transactions… scary much”