Paul Wallbank – Communications Professional
Comms, journalism and writing
This Thursday, August 13 from 10pm Tony Delroy and I will have a look at whats on offer for computer buyers.
This Thursday, August 13 from 10pm Tony Delroy and I will have a look at whats on offer for computer buyers.
We’ll be looking at the best deals, whether it’s worth waiting for Windows 7, the pros and cons of netbooks and how to get the most from cashback schemes.
If you’d like to listen, tune in your local ABC station or listen online at the Nightlife website.
We love listeners comments, questions and opinions so call in on 1300 800 222 and have your say.
At last night’s Mobile Monday Sydney, I was a chatting to a serial entrepreneur about business success and failure. One thing we both commented on was just how important failure has been in the process.
At last night’s Mobile Monday Sydney, I was a chatting to a serial entrepreneur about business success and failure.
One thing we both commented on was just how important failure has been in the process.
The main thing we’d both taken from the stress and heartache of being in a failing business you learn who your real friends are and how they can be trusted in a crisis.
Some of your friends turn out to be totally rock solid while others go to water. A few surprise you with unexpected talent and genius while some disappoint you at critical moments.
Whatever happens, it’s a great test that help you select the right people for future ventures.
I have to admit it must be nice to hit a home run on your first business venture and be lauded as a genius for the rest of your life, but for most of us mortals failure is part of the learning process and often it’s a painful but essential lesson.
To help businesses establish themselves on Twitter, the service has released a free guide to show companies how to use it, to help them build relationships, along with some of the best practice tips and case studies.
Twitter 101 opens with a basic description of the service and illustrates how Twitter can be used by businesses, most of which we’ve discussed previously. There are also a few cute stories, such as ice-cream-deprived workers in the empire State Building sending out tweets to a delivery service.
Having established what Twitter can do for your business, the next page goes through the set up process.
One important flag they raise is how they don’t support name squatting and supply a contact link to report people who are trying to hog names, so if you find your business or trade name has been pinched by someone who doesn’t have a valid claim to the name, you can take action.
Once online, Twitter 101 takes you to the basic terminology. If you wanted to know what a hashtag, trending topic or Tweetup is, this is the page to visit. Probably the most valuable page is the Best Practices section, which details the good, the bad and the spammy. It also provides a link to report spammers and other dills who abuse the service.
If you are going to only read one section, Best Practices is the bit to read. You’ll avoid many mistakes and get more from the service, both as an individual and a business.
Finally, the site finishes up with some case studies. Along with the well-known Dell and JetBlue stories, is the description of how Dave Brookes of Teusner Wines in the Barossa Valley started using Twitter after watching Lance Armstrong in the Tour Down Under.
Finally, there’s some links to useful resources on using Twitter. The guide continually emphasises how it is all about building relationships. Twitter may not be the right tool for you or your business, but the Twitter 101 guide will certainly help you decide one way or the other.
I’m no fan of cashback schemes. Having dealt with them on behalf of customers in my old IT support business, I’ve seen too many people messed around by them.
So the news that the Officeworks chain will stop offering them is welcome and hopefully will see the industry move away from these often unethical and unfair practices.
The main reason for offering cashback schemes is to keep commisions up for salespeople. If a TV or laptop vendor simply cut prices by $200 they would find the salespeople steering customers to more expensive competitors.
So it’s no surprise to see which stores aren’t following Officework’s lead.
If you are offered a cashback, ignore it while negotiating a price as it’s none of the store’s business what you do with it and most certainly won’t help you if there’s a problem down the track. Treat any cashbacks as a bonus and don’t factor it into your purchase.
Or better still, avoid electronics stores staffed by commission driven sharks.
You know you’re addicted to the Internet when you’re having a root canal drilled and you think “I wish I could use my iPhone”.
You know you’re addicted to the Internet when you’re having a root canal drilled and you think “I wish I could use my iPhone”.
I’m not sure what I’d have Twittered about while under anasthetic, but I know it would have been interesting.
Image courtesy of Carolyn Schweitzer
We often talk about how the internet is changing marketing and distribution, but we often overlook just how fundamental the basic ways we do business are changing.
Internet tools like social networks and the web itself are forcing us to be more honest, open and ethical.
This occurred to me during the annual Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival a few weeks ago, where I was fortunate to go along and see how the advertising sector is dealing with challenges to their clients’ traditional marketing channels while a global financial downturn hits business.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer put the worst case scenario of the world economy resetting to lower debt levels with marketing spend declining faster than GDP, as newspapers and magazines vanish at the same time consumers tighten belts.
Perhaps it was to be expected that Google CEO Eric Schmidt had the opposite view that Americans were too wedded to their credit cards to do anything else but spend.
The marketing bosses of Proctor & Gamble, Kraft and McDonalds had a very different outlook to either of the CEOs. They saw online advertising growing, while print and broadcast spending stays static – the most quoted statistic was the net occupies 20% of consumer’s time while only 7% of budgets are allocated to internet marketing.
A splash of cold water was from Kofi Annan and Bob Geldof who launched the “tck tck tck”, Time for Climate Justice campaign to get real results from the UN Copenhagen Convention in December. Their speeches were compelling and a reminder that some things are bigger than how much you spend online.
Back in the online world, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone gave an entertaining talk on how Twitter came about and some of the possibilities for making money from the service (charging for richer data) but the best social media talk was from Kevin Eyres, LinkedIn’s Managing Director for Europe.
Kevin’s key point is a business’s social media profile is just as much from what employees say on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, as it is of customer’s comments and the efforts of the marketing team.
This is spot on and shows just how broad the risks and opportunities are for managers and entrepreneurs.
Modern management has to be honest and consistent – the days of hollow mission statements and empty commitments to customer service and equal opportunity are over.
If you don’t hold by your principles then your customers, staff and suppliers will rat you out to the wider world. If you do hold by them you’ll gain respect and true followers.
The final thing from the Cannes Festival was just how innovative and creative the world advertising industry is. While the prize winners were impressive there were many clever entries that changed the way you’ll look at marketing.
Luckily, most of them are online at the Cannes Lions website, so have a look at the speakers and get some inspiration from the entrants. Don’t copy them though as you’ll probably be dobbed in on Twitter.
I’ve just read the Smart Company article on uSocial’s Social Media marketing services. I find the idea of paying for followers in Twitter, or friends in Facebook or contacts in LinkedIn, bizarre.
What uSocial’s prospective clients don’t understand is social media isn’t a game to collect the most fans, it’s a way of building communities around you and your brand.
It’s far better to have twenty passsionate fans than two thousand Twitter followers who just ignore you anyway.
To build a community you need people who care about what you do, your product or your brand. If you have to pay to get the appearance of having people who care that shows you don’t have anything worth caring about.
You can’t buy friends online or offline, so save your money and focus on why you’re different and why people should love what you do.
One of the odd things about people criticising you on the Internet is how often they read the wrong things into words.
A case in point are the replies to this Smart Company column.
The funny thing is I agree with every point he makes and if he left it at that all would be sweet and the reader better informed.
But he doesn’t and he drops this little bomb;
The notion that it “cost them nothing” is also misleading as unless you think though the consequences of beginning such engagement, say through Twitter, then it can cost you a lot more than you are prepared to give.
Misleading?
Accusing a writer of misleading readers is pretty serious. It’s even more galling when the quote is taken out of context.
This is the strange thing about the Internet, people do silly things and it hurts their credibility.
Day two of Cannes Lions continued the theme of dealing with new channels with a big focus on digital and Internet possiblilites.
One old channel using new technologies is the movies.
The future of Cinema with SAWA was an entertaining session that showed how movie theatres are going to bring together various technologies to enhance the audience’s experience.
These new experiences offer great opportunities for producers, studios and marketers and while naturally the audience were more interested in the marketing angles, it’s clear that everyone involved in movies will be focussed on how they can make these features work for them.
Jimmy Mayman from Go Viral showed some of the successes in viral marketing, including T-Mobile’s Dance and Sing clips.
I have to admit I was left cold by these examples. I’m not contrived flash mobbing events are even truly viral marketing as such.
Monday’s highlight was one of Twitter’s founders, Biz Stone, discussing the future of Twitter to a full auditorium.
The big news from the session was how Biz hopes to have a revenue based on advanced API functions for commercial users.
This is an innovative twist on the “freemium” business model. Where individual users are subsidised by the sale of aggregated data to businesses.
It will be interesting to see how Biz and his team deal with the inevitable privacy concerns that will be raised.
While the session was promoted as a tweet-up, it was limited by the lousy Wi-Fi access in the venue. In fact it’s surprising how little a role Twitter’s playing in the event given how it’s being used at Australian events like the Future Summit and CeBIT.
Wi-Fi problems illustrate just how event organisers are struggling with the demands of a modern market. It’s a theme we’re going to see continue.
With the coming of the airlines and the US interstate highway system, American railway owners misunderstood they were in the transportation business, not the railway business.
Shortly after World War II, with the coming of the airlines and the US interstate highway system, American railway owners misunderstood they were in the transportation business, not the railway business.
As a consequence, they missed the opportunities to get into the new markets and most of them died.
This is true today as new technology and changed economic circumstances batter old, established industries.
Newspapers for example are not in the newspaper business, they are in the news business and fixating on paper as the medium to deliver that news leaves them struggling to adapt in a world where the main source of news is increasingly the Internet.
We see a similar thing with telephone companies wedded to their old copper networks or car manufacturers building fuel guzzling road yachts.
Recent comments by Rupert Murdoch about charging for content along with Associated Press’ attacks on Google show how the traditional channels are struggling.
This trend is bigger than news or media organisations, the developing communication channels using mediums like Facebook and Twitter are going to challenge many organisations and change the way business is done.
Business is far more open and transparent, good and bad reviews of your organisation travels further and faster than before.
Your employees, contractors and customers are communicating in channels outside your control.
That’s just in the communication field. The changed economic environment means even more challenges to established businesses.
So the question is what exactly is your business? Which of your customers’ needs does your business fulfil?
The first day of the Cannes Lions illustrated how the advertising and marketing industries are not alone in being challenged by the rise of always on consumers and employees.
Day one of what’s going to be an extremely busy week at Cannes showed how digital technologies and the Internet are changing not just the advertising industry but all sectors of industry.
Schematic’s Dale Herigstad showed, among other things, where Microsoft’s Project Natal is pointing the direction of where computer controls are going.
Being able to remotely control equipment with body movements and facial expressions is going to be a massive change for entertainment, communications and many other sectors.
This theme was expanded upon by Andy Pimental of Razorfish who demonstrated his vision of where television is going.
In Andy’s future, the game controller and console are doomed. Movement recognition like Project Natal coupled with games being on the cloud means the game industry is going to be very different in a few years time.
An interesting aspect with Andy’s presentation is that most of the technology is already available to achieve his vision, as he put it “it’s the business constraints, not technology, that limits us”.
From a presenter’s point of view, the use of mock Tweets to illustrate points was a nice touch, too.
Kevin Eyres of LinkedIn probably had the most impact. While much of the presentation focused on how LinkedIn can be used as a marketing tool, Kevin’s comments at the beginning about every individual is now entreprenuer thanks to reduced job tenure and security really illustrated the challenges businesses and governments are going to face in the connected world.
There’s some interesting challenges for all businesses ahead, not just the advertising industry. There’s a lot more to come.
The July Nightlife will be on Thursday July 9 with Tony Delroy and we’ll be looking at whether you should worry about the upcoming Windows 7
The July Nightlife will look at whether you should worry about the upcoming Windows 7 on Wednesday July 15.
We’ll be live across Australia on ABC Local Radio. Show starts at 10pm and we’ll be taking questions from around 10.30. Call in early.
Tune in through your local ABC station or stream online through the Nightlife website