What’s a Twitterer worth?

How business can put a value on social media

$2.50 per month is what Phone Dog think a Twitter follower is worth in their lawsuit against a former employee.

As nebulous and ambiguous as Phone Dog’s claim seems to be it appears some price is being created on the business value of social media users.

To date we’ve seen services like Empire Avenue, Klout and Kred try to measure social media users’ real influence on the different web platforms which in turn allows businesses to allocate some sort of value.

As social media and the web mature, we’ll see businesses spend more time understand where the value lies online.

Each platform is going to have a different value to a business. Depending on the market, one person may be worth more on Twitter than on Facebook and similarly a business may put more value on members of a specific LinkedIn group or industry forum.

What we shouldn’t confuse “value” with is how the services themselves make money. For Facebook, the value comes from the marketing opportunities presented by people sharing their lives while for LinkedIn it’s largely coming from employment related advertising and search.

Other social media platforms are finding other ways to make money and each will have a different attraction to users, businesses and advertisers. All of which will affect their perceived value.

That perceived value is the most important part of social media. If users don’t think a site adds something to their lives, then that service has no value to anyone.

It’s tempting to think that people will object to having a “value” placed on their heads as users, but most folk understand the commercial TV and radio that does pretty much the same thing.

The real question of how much people are prepared to share online will come when they understand the value of the data they are giving the social media platforms. When users start to understand this, they may ask for more service from these companies.

What a Twitter user is worth right now is probably different to what they will be worth this time next year, but there’s no doubt we’ll all have a better idea.

The social maze

What are the risks in business social media?

Towards the end of 2011 we saw a surge of stories about companies and employees fighting over the ownership of corporate social media accounts like LinkedIn contacts and Twitter feeds.

For the social media community this is encouraging as it shows that businesses are beginning understand there the value in online networks. It also illustrates the risks for both businesses and employees when these tools aren’t properly understood in the workplace.

The employer’s risks

As social media sites are one of ways businesses communicate with the public, managers have to understand these services are an asset too important to be left to the intern or youngest staff member in the office.

Should that intern move on – possibly at the next college semester – the business may find they are locked out of the account or it is even deleted.

Business pages and accounts should be set up in the name of senior people in the organisation and, where possible, administration should be shared by the relevant unit in the organisation (customer support, marketing or whatever).

The nominal owner and administrators should understand that the account is the property of the business and all posts on it will be work related and not personal.

When one of the administrators or owners leave the organisation, login details should be handed over and passwords need to be changed. Where possible, the ownership should be changed to another employee – this is one of the current problems with Google+ accounts at the moment.

Employers need to understand that the professional contacts individuals make during the course of their work isn’t their property, so trying to claim the personal LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers of an employee’s private account probably will not be successful.

Similarly social media services like LinkedIn are not Customer Relationship Management programs (CRMs) and using them that way, as a company called Edcomm did, will almost certainly end up with problems and a possible dispute.

Traps for employees

When given a work social media account to maintain, it’s best to consider it as being like your work email – it’s best to use it for business related purposes only and you’ll have to give it up when you leave the organisation.

If you’re being held out as a representative of the business, as we see in the Phonedog_Noah dispute over a business Twitter account, then it’s best to set up a private account for your own use and not use the business account after leaving the organisation, even if they don’t ask for it when you leave.

On sites like LinkedIn and Facebook you should change your employment status as soon as you leave an organisation to make it clear you’re no longer working there. If you’ve left on bad terms, resist the temptation to insult your former employer when you change your details.

Staff using social media have to be aware that can be held accountable in the workplace for things they do on their personal online accounts; sexual harassment, abusing customers and workplace bullying through a Facebook or Twitter account can all result in disciplinary action.

In many ways the disputes we’re seeing on social media services reflect what we’ve seen in many other fields over the years – the ownership of intellectual property, professional contacts and even access to websites have all been thoroughly covered by the courts over the years and there’s little in these disagreements that would surprise a good lawyer.

With all business disputes though, it’s best to resolve them before lawyers and writs start being involved. Clearly defining and understanding what is expected of both employers and staff can save a lot of cost and stress.

Strategic lessons from a security breach

What businesses can learn from Stratfor’s data lapse

2011 has been the year of the IT security breach. Big and small organisations around the world ranging from major corporations like Sony through to smaller businesses such as security analysts Stratfor found their customer data released onto the web.

The frustrating this is most of these breaches are avoidable and “hacking” is often giving too much credit for the security used by the targeted companies.

While the ‘hackers’ themselves may be skilled, the compromised organisations are often easy targets as they don’t follow the basic rules of protecting their data.

Standards matter

Customer payment account details are covered by the Payment Cards Industry -Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) operated by the PCI Security Standards Council.

The PCI Security Standards Council helpfully has a range of information sheets for merchants of all sizes and if you are taking payments off the web you should make yourself aware of the basic requirements.

For most businesses, the cardinal rule is not to save customer’s card details. Once the payment is approved, you have no business retaining the client’s credit card or bank account numbers.

In Stratfor’s case, they were almost certainly processing payments manually and credit card details were being saved on customers’ records in case of errors or to make renewals easier.

Call in the professionals

There’s no shortage of payment companies, ranging from PayPal through specialist services like eWay to your own bank’s services. Choose the one that works best for you. If you have no idea, call in someone who does.

One of the arguments for using outsourced services, particularly cloud computing, is how data security is a complex field that requires professional and qualified expertise. The internal systems of Sony, Telstra and Stratfor were not up to the demands placed upon. A professional service is better equipped to deal with these issues.

Size doesn’t matter

A major lesson from the last year’s security breaches is that it’s not just the local shop or garage e-commerce business that is careless with data. Some of the world’s biggest companies and government agencies have been compromised.

If anything, Sony’s experience has shown the double standards at work in the application of security rules; there’s no doubt that had a local computer shop been as thoroughly compromised as Sony were, they would have been shut down on the second breach and the management would have been carted off to jail well before the twelfth.

For the management of Sony, there seems to have been little in the way of sanctions of the people nominally responsible for this incompetence. This has to change both within organisations and by those charged with enforcing the rules.

The lesson for customers is you can’t trust anyone with your data; don’t assume the big corporation is any more secure than the serving staff at your local sandwich shop.

Passwords matter

Every time one of these breaches happen we hear about password security, with “experts” pointing out that some of the subscribers were using passwords like ‘statfor’ or ‘password’.

For customers, this actually makes sense if you can’t trust third parties with your details so specific, disposable passwords for each site should be used. There’s little point in having a complex password if some script kiddie is going to post your login details onto 4Chan.

Naturally your passwords for banking and other critical websites should be very different and far more secure than those you use for sites like Stratfor and the Sony Playstation Network.

Will 2012 be any different?

Given the data embarrassments of 2012 for businesses and government agencies, can we expect lessons to be learned in 2012?

While many businesses are going to learn specific lessons from these breaches, there’s a management cultural problem where any spending on information systems is seen as a cost that has to be minimised.

This cost cutting mentality lies at the core at many organisations’ failure to secure their systems properly and until a more responsible culture develops we’ll continue to see these lapses.

Good managers and business owners who understand the importance of guarding their organisation’s and customer’s data are those who are ahead of their competition. Over time, these folk who will have the competitive advantage.

For customers, the sad lesson is we can’t trust anyone and a layered approach to security along with keeping a close eye on our bank accounts and credit card statements is necessary.

It’s you, not them

Sometimes management are the problem, not the staff

An article in Bloomberg on The Three Types of People To Fire Immediately is a classic example of mistaking symptoms for the cause of an organisation’s problems.

G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Louis Vitón write that the biggest blockers to innovation in a business are the employees who can be roughly divided into four groups; the ones who welcome innovation and the three groups who block it – “the victims”, “the non-believers” and “the know it alls.”

Vitón’s and Maddock’s advice is to sack those in the three groups of blockers.

If anything sacking the “know it alls” means you will lose valuable corporate memory, the “non-believers” maybe the dissenters who are critical in keeping visions in contact with reality and the “victims” may actually be the most passionate people in your organisation.

Those “victims” are often the people who’ve tried to make a difference early in their careers, their attempts failed and they found themselves sidelined and embittered within the organisation.

I came across many of these when I was working with the state government, they’d had good ideas and continuously found themselves belittled when they’d tried to implement them.

To add insult to injury, many of those ideas would be adopted some years later to great fanfare with credit given to the same managers who’d stifled the earlier suggestio

Rather than giving those “victims” a pink slip, it might be worthwhile talking to those staff and finding why they are negative and where the system can be improved.

If you have a workplace full of negativity then the blame for a dysfunctional culture usually lies in the management suite.

Perhaps it’s the managers who need to be fired for creating a nay-sayer business culture of victims and non-believers.

My concern with Vitón’s and Maddock’s advice is that it seems to play to the conceit of executives who think they, and their organisations, are something they are not. That’s nice for management consultants stoking corporate egos but a lousy deal for shareholders, staff and customers.

Sometimes it’s better to understand what your business is and where the organisation’s strengths lie – both in management in and staff – before jumping on the innovation bandwagon.

Channel Conflict

How does a small business compete with a big supplier?

I first became aware of the term “Channel Conflict” in the late 1990s when running an IT business that was a Microsoft reseller.

A channel conflict is where a supplier starts competing with the merchants they supply, or promoting one group of their customers against another. A good example is Google’s Travel Search that is upsetting many of Google’s own advertising customers.

As a local IT support business my channel conflict came from Microsoft advertising their own direct sales and consulting services as well as promoting their premium “gold” partners.

Conflict with such a big channel partner was frustrating and unavoidable given Microsoft’s position in the market. We couldn’t do anything about it except work towards Gold Partner status and differentiate ourselves from the competitors who had the advantages of Microsoft’s marketing.

The web – in particular online commerce – is increasing these channel conflicts as the Internet sweeps away existing middlemen and allows others to develop.

A good example of how e-commerce is changing things was a tweet from Australian business broadcaster Brooke Corte where she found a swimsuits retailer’s prices were 40% cheaper through her shopping mall’s website.

Essentially the swimsuit retailer is being undercut by their own landlord’s e-commerce service – an incredibly difficult channel conflict.

For the retailer, they are up against Westfield; a big, multinational player with substantial market share and deep pockets who also happens to be their landlord in many high traffic locations.

It isn’t all bad news for the small retailer facing a channel conflict; Seth Godin has a good perspective of what happens when the big boys decide to play in your sandpit.

Seth’s situation was in 2008 Google launched a competitor – Knol – to his Squidoo businesses. This appeared to be the death knell, or Knol, for Squidoo.

Three years later, Google killed Knol.

In many cases channel conflict turns out not to be such a problem for the specialist retailer – big companies like Google, Microsoft and Westfield are good at what they do and dealing with the minutiae of retailing is not necessarily one of them.

Small businesses also have an advantage in the very online tools that are disrupting retail and other fields. TechCrunch recently looked at some of the mobile and price comparison tools and how local retailers can use them to compete with Amazon.

Coupling technology with service and focus – two factors that large companies usually struggle with – can define the battlefield for smaller businesses struggling with channel conflict.

As declining margins and new technologies tempt big suppliers into dabbling in areas they previously avoided channel conflict is only going to increase, though for the creative and confident businesses it isn’t the threat it first seems to be.

The death of the netbook

Is the cheap, ultra portable computer a dead product line?

“You don’t want to buy one of those of things,” said the electronics store assistant, “they don’t have much memory and the CPUs in the notebooks and ultra books are better.”

I was shopping for a cheap netbook for the kids, each of which had been saving up to buy one as they are sick of me yelling at them for playing Minecraft on my work system, and the consensus from the store staff was to do everything to steer folk away from the cheap systems.

This is understandable as most electronic store staff are on commissions, and these are lean on cheap computers. It’s much better to sell a thousand dollar unit – with upgraded warranties and accessories – than a low margin, one off unit.

For manufacturers, similar problems exists; these cheap unit cannibilised their higher priced products with better margins. Dell recently announced they are getting out the netbook market and others are following.

Netbooks themselves are in trouble as the market they addressed for cheap, portable, Internet connected devices is now largely covered by smart phones and tablets which offer better battery life and usability.

Interestingly, the battery life argument was even used by the computer store salesfolk who pointed out – correctly – that the newer laptops have better power management than their cheaper netbook cousins.

While the netbook as a category is dead; the concept itself isn’t. As the uptake of tablet computers like the iPad show, Internet connected portable devices are becoming the computer of choice for many people and the advantages of a laptop form factor; a proper tactile keyboard, USB ports and other external connectors are still attractive.

Probably the worse thing for the manufacturers and retailers is the price points are now established in customers’ minds – $400 is what people want to pay for laptops, which doesn’t bode well for those higher priced systems.

Those manufacturers can’t even get into the tablet computer market as Apple now own that sector that the PC vendors and Microsoft squandered a decade’s lead with substandard equipment and badly designed software.

Despite the best efforts of the electronic store’s salesfolk, my kids ended up buying cheap, low specced netbooks out of their savings and those systems run Minecraft quite nicely. Which is another problem for shops and manufacturers stuck with a 1990s business model.

Why governments fail in building Silicon Valleys

Can governments build entrepreneurial hubs?

Don’t Give the Arnon Kohavis Your Money warns Sarah Lacy in her cautionary tale of what happens when an economic messiah comes to town promising to create the next Silicon Valley.

“Hopefully this story finds a way to circulate out to the wider audience of government officials and old money elites who have good intentions of wanting to make their city a beacon for entrepreneurship.” Writes Sarah. “Hopefully it reaches them before they get bamboozled into giving the wrong people money to make it happen.”

Bamboozled Bureaucrats

For 19 months I was one of those government officials and saw those good intentions up close while developing what became the Digital Sydney project, that bamboozlement is real and a lot of money does go to the wrong people.

Sarah’s points are well made, Silicon Valley wasn’t built quickly with its roots based in the 1930s electronic industry and the 1960s developments in semiconductors – all underpinned by massive US defence spending from World War II onwards.

In many ways Silicon Valley was a happy and prosperous accident where various economic, political and technological forces came together without any planning. Neither the Californian or US Governments decreed they would make the region an entrepreneurial hotbed and sent out legions of public servants armed with subsidies and incentives to build a global business centre.

This is the mistake governments – and a lot of entrepreneurs or business leaders – make when they talk about “building the next Silicon Valley”; they assume that tax free zones, incentive schemes and subsidies are going to attract the investors and inventors necessary to build the next entrepreneurial hotspot.

For governments, the results are discouraging; usually ending in failed incubators and accelerator programs all conceived by public servants who, with the best will in the world, don’t have the skills, incentives or decades long timelines to make these schemes work.

New England’s failure

At worst, we end up with the corporate welfare model that sees governments and communities exploited like the tragic story of New London, Connecticut, where the local government spent $160 million and cleared an entire suburb for drug company Pfizer to establish their research headquarters, which they closed a few years later and left a waste dump behind.

While the New London story is one of the worst examples, this sort of corporate welfare is the standard role for most government economic agencies. The department I worked for gave subsidies to supermarket chains to open distribution centres and stores that they were going to build anyway.

One of the notable things with development agencies and the provincial politicians who oversee them is how they are easy victims for the economic messiah – it could be a pharmaceutical giant like in New London, a property developer promising Sydney will become a financial hub or a US venture capital guru flying in and promising Santiago will be the next San Francisco.

The truth is there are no short cuts; building a technology centre like Silicon Valley, a financial hub like London or a manufacturing cluster like Italy’s Leather Triangle take decades, some luck and little intervention by government agencies or outside messiahs.

Silicon Valley and most other successful industry centres are the result of a happy intersection of economics and history. The best governments can do is create the stable financial, tax and legal frameworks that let inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs build new industries.

All government support isn’t bad as well thought out, long term programs that help new businesses and technologies grow being the very effective – we should keep in mind though taht Silicon Valley couldn’t have happened without massive US military and space program spending.

Like a parent with a baby, the best governments can do is create the right environment and hope for the best. Interfering rarely works well.

ABC Christmas Computers

What are the festive technology questions?

For Christmas 2011 Paul joined Nikolai Beilharz to discuss dealing with problems with your Christmas tech gifts.

We had a number of callers with problems including setting up a wireless network, what to do if a drink is spilled on your keyboard and how older people can get useful computer training.

Seniors Computer Assistance

John from Hobart asked about where he could get instructions on using his computer.

The Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association is a volunteer group bringing together local computer clubs that cater for older folk.

ASCCA’s national members directory lists local clubs by state and contacting the nearest group should help you find the right assistance from your peers.

Oh no! I’ve spilled a drink on my computer?!?

Watching a freshly spilled cup of coffee, glass of wine or can of softdrink pour into your keyboard makes for one half panic and the other half despair.

If you move quickly and you turn the keyboard upside down then you have a chance of rescuing a laptop computer before too much damage is done. The important thing is to stop liquid getting onto important circuits.

Having turned the keyboard or laptop upside down, leave it for a day for the liquid to dry out. Then its a good idea to take it to the local computer store to see if it the residue can be cleaned up as usually the keyboard becomes sticky and some keys may not work.

Should the liquid damage a desktop computer’s keyboard that’s usually easily fixed by buying a new keyboard but if you’re using a laptop, then the motherboard – the key part of a computer’s circuits – may be affected and that’s usually time to start shopping for a new system.

Setting up a wireless network

Most of the tech devices we’re getting for our households require some sort of wireless connection.

If you have a wireless network, it’s important you get the security right as you don’t want neighbours and passers-by using your connection. The IT Queries site has instructions on securing these networks.

Once have a secured network, preferably using the WPA2 encryption standard and a strong password, you can then connect each device. You’ll need the name of the network and the WPA2 password to make it work.

Sometimes some devices want older, inferior security settings and occasionally they just won’t work at all. It may take several attempts to get them to work and it’s worthwhile re-reading our ten tips for setting up technology.

Our next national ABC spot will be on February 9 next year. We will probably have some more spots over the summer break and we’ll let newsletter subscribers know about them as soon as we do. We also post them to the events page.

10 ways to setting up a tech gift properly

Don’t let a dodgy gizmo wreck your holidays

Setting up a new device

Christmas is a great time for presents and computer and other tech equipment are great gifts.

But technology being what it is, doesn’t always work as it should. Here’s a quick Christmas check list to help avoid letting technology ruin your Christmas;

1. Read the box before opening

Is it compatible with your system? If you have an older Windows or Mac computer the device might not work with your computer. Similarly if your hard drive or memory doesn’t have the capacity required, the whole process might be a struggle.

2. Update your system
Before plugging in new equipment make sure any computers have had the latest security updates and virus definitions installed. Sometimes brand new equipment does come from the shop with nasties installed.

3. Backup anything important
While most of the time things will seamlessly, it’s worthwhile backing up anything important on your computer before installing new equipment.

4. Are all the parts included?

Does it appear to have been opened or used previously? If parts are missing or there’s signs someone else has used the product, you might have been sold something that was previously returned. If so, it’s best to take it back to the store rather than struggling with a possibly defective product.

5. Take your time

It’s Christmas! Chill out and relax, take your time have a mince pie. Don’t rush to set things up, just take it easy. Doing things too fast means you make mistakes.

6. Be careful opening the box

Manufacturers make it very difficult to open boxes; this is not entirely an accident. It’s also common with tech stuff to have little components and gizmos which are easily lost in the box. So be careful removing all the packaging and keep it to one side.

7. Read the manual!

Once again, it’s time for another mince pie while you read the manual. In there you will find all sorts of useful information. Including how not to mess up your system. Usually, you’ll also find a description of the parts in the box, check you haven’t left something small but critical in the box.

8. Eliminate the obvious

Sometimes something simple is wrong, it could something as basic as a disk or plug is in the wrong way. Take it easy and relax.

9. Don’t panic

If things don’t work, relax and have another mince pie. It’s often something simple. Don’t do anything drastic, if you’ve had a few drinks or it’s getting late, leave it for tomorrow morning.

10. Relax

If it doesn’t work, don’t worry. You can return it or call a tech later.

Remember Christmas is a time for sharing and relaxing. Don’t let your computers and technology upset your holiday.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

The year of the cloud

2011 was the year cloud computing took off.

This post originally appeared in Smart Company on December 23, 2011.

I was asked last week to join Stilgherrian and Jeff Waugh on ZDNet’s Patch Monday reviewing the year that was in technology. One of the things that came out of the session was much of what happened in the tech world over the last year was really a continuation of 2010’s trends.

That’s certainly true and the biggest buzzword in business tech for the last two years has been “the cloud”.

Over the last year we’ve seen a lot more providers getting on the cloud bandwagon with Microsoft responding to the Google Docs threat with their Office 365 product, MYOB launching Live Accounts, to respond to threats like Xero Accounting Software and Saasu and a whole range of vendors proclaiming they are ditching the desktop and moving onto the web.

Despite the hype businesses are slow to respond as they evaluate the various risks with moving to web-based services. Partly this is due to suspicion of the more outrageous claims such as “saving 80% of your costs by going onto the cloud” that have been peddled by some vendors.

A lot of that suspicion is fair enough, too. Many business owners – along with CEOs and government ministers – have been burned over the years by IT salespeople claiming big savings available if the gadget or software of the day is purchased.

Unlike corporate leaders and government minsters, the managers and owners of smaller businesses tend to learn from their mistakes and so they are waiting to see if the cloud services really deliver.

Eventually businesses will move a lot of their computing applications to the cloud as the cost-benefit equation is better for most services than running it in your own office as it eliminates the overheads of buying computer hardware and hiring some geeks to look after the things.

Given the real advantages of cloud services – not just in terms of cost savings but also in business flexibility, productivity, security and reliability – it’s worthwhile using the quiet January period to have a look at where your organisation can benefit from moving online.

Some of the other buzzwords like social media, collaboration and site optimisation are worth having a look at too. The holidays are an opportunity to see where these can be used better in your business.

One thing is for sure – next year you’ll be hearing more about cloud computing as vendors are gearing up for some big marketing campaigns next year. So knowing what you want for your business may well pay dividends.

How group buying can work for a business

Online vouchers can be good for a business when planned well

Online deal finding site The Dealmix has an excellent blog post analysing how daily deals can work for a business.

As the Dealmix points out, “daily deals can either hurt or help small businesses, depending on how they’re structured.”

In figuring out whether a deal will work, Dealmix breaks a group buying deal into four elements; expiration, quantity, terms and price;

Pricing the deal

Of all the areas, the pricing is the most critical. Get this wrong and you won’t achieve your objectives and it could be very quickly drive you out of business.

The Dealmix recommends two ways of pricing an offer – by making a net profit on the deal or structuring it a way that the customer’s total spend offsets the cost of the offer.

Using Average Customer Spend, or ACS, to estimate how much a customer will spend is problematic with specials and group buying deals as the takers are not going to be your average customers.

It’s likely group buying customers are going to be far less open with their wallets than your regulars. Trying to upsell price conscious is probably what brings cafes and restaurants unstuck with many of these deals.

Both methods rely on knowing the Cost Of Goods Sold and the Average Customer Spend. Notable in the stories of group buying disasters is just how many business owners don’t understand these basics.

If you don’t know what the total cost is to your business in providing the goods or services, you should be talking to an accountant before going near these deals.

Also keep in mind the group buying service is going to take their cut which will be between 15 and 100% depending on the size and nature of the deal. For many businesses the commission is a deal breaker.

Quantity

The biggest complaint from customers about group buying offers is the deals are booked out for months – it’s also how service businesses find themselves overwhelmed by the response to a keenly priced offer.

Again, before launching a group buying offer, understand the spare capacity of your business and ensure there is a maximum limit to the number of deals available – as The Dealmix points out, a sold out deal is a great marketing tool.

Terms

Conditions are probably the trickiest; put in too many gotchas and you’ll scare customers away or find yourself fighting with the 90% of clients who buy the deal without reading the T&Cs.

You can guarantee some of those fights will end up being public and it’s unlikely your business will win the public relations battle. This is not your business objective.

Make sure key terms like what days the deal is available on, maximum limits, types of service are reasonable and clearly defined at the time of the offer.

Expiration

When the deal expires is the key condition, it’s madness offering deals that never expires as they can come back to haunt you for years and it may even affect the resale value of your business.

The Dealmix suggests not restricting it to a month as you’ll be overwhelmed with customers while leaving it too long will dilute the value and any measurements.

Ideally the deal will last three to six months, which is another reason for understanding your business’ capacity at various times of the year.

Timing the expiry is important to, as The Dealmix suggests, the deal shouldn’t finish on a busy day and equally you should consider when your business is the quietest. If things are slow during school holidays, summer or Christmas then that might be the time you want to have the last minute rush of redemptions happening.

Business Planning

Probably the most important aspect of a group buying deal is how does it fit into your business objectives. Are you intending to build a customer base, contact list, pubicise your business, clear stock or give sales a boost? Those objectives are going to determine how you structure the offer.

As The Dealmix’s diagram shows, group buying deals are complex and the merchant has to give some thought on getting the offer right. Those business who do get the mix right can do very well from a well thought out online offer.

Like all business tools, group buying sites can be really useful when done well. The key is understanding what you’re doing with that tool.

We discuss group buying and building your own campaign in e-business, Seven Steps to Online Success. If you need help or advice in building an offer, Netsmarts can help you.