Tag: marketing

Exposure exposed

Giving away freebies in return for exposure rarely works

A few years back a client of mine was delighted to receive a phone call from a television producer offering exposure for his business on a national TV program.

The offer was Jeff, who is a builder, would donate his company’s work to a television home improvement show and in return Jeff’s business would get a mention in the credits as well as some coverage in the program.

Jeff agreed, had new t-shirts for his labourers printed and they did three days work helping celebrity gardeners refurbish a backyard.

The guys had a ball, the labourers chatted up the presenter and the pretty production assistants and for a day or so Jeff felt like he was in Hollywood.

A few weeks later the show went to air – there were a couple of glimpses of Jeff’s guys doing stuff and if you were quick with the freeze button you could pick out part of Jeff’s business name and phone number.

When the show finished, Jeff’s business appeared for a split second which was difficult to read if you were lightning fast with the remote control. Not a great return for several thousand dollars of labour and materials.

That was an expensive lesson for Jeff.

Recently I heard of a business that was asked to contribute some of products to a newspaper – they wanted an ongoing commitment that would cost the business quite a bit of money.

For the newspaper this is a great deal – they tie in a promotion for their readers that costs them nothing. The business is left out of pocket with little upside except for some “exposure” of dubious value.

We see this repeated every day by dozens of businesses being seduced into offering fat discounts for group buying sites. The salesman’s spiel is that a prominent offer will get exposure on their email that goes out to thousands of people.

Most of these promises are nonsense; giving away your time or work for free is the most expensive thing a business can do and if it’s going to work it has to be part of a strategic plan.

It’s been said all publicity is good publicity, but that’s not really true if there’s no return on a substantial effort.

Blindly giving things away in the hope of getting some free publicity isn’t a good business practice and those who urge you to do so aren’t acting your best interests as Jeff learned.

Successful Sources Will Not Be Paid

The free myth is biting us in many ways

The whole world wants a freebie, and many of us are giving our ideas, intellectual capital and service away to online magazines in the hope of getting a link or a little bit of publicity.

Bringing the idea undone is the unfortunate reality that web is awash with free pointless material that adds little value. Your contribution, however valuable, gets lost in the static of PR driven articles and SEO optimised fluff.

This is why Google are trying to tie social recommendations into their search results, although it’s hard to see how your cousin’s LOLCat posts are going to add any more value than the generic garbage served from services like eHow.

Yet every day there’s more callouts for  free content – desperate journalists and publishers beg for our ideas or labor in return for some ‘exposure’.

And that ‘exposure’ floats away into the ocean of noise and irrelevance filled with the rest of the ‘free’ content.

Giving stuff away for free isn’t working well anymore and for those of us who are trying to build a business around that model, we’re struggling to get found or heard in the morass.

Along with the wasted time, the danger is we start giving away our best, most valuable work in order to get attention and then we have nothing left to sell.

Consumers are waking up to this and beginning to focus about what they read online. We should too.

The business of baffling choices

Why do computer and phone companies offer so many plans and models?

In his Daring Fireball blog, John Gruber’s takes to task the view that Apple suffers through not having a wide product range.

John makes the valid point that Samsung seems to stealing market share from HTC rather than Apple but the whole theory of offering too many choices strikes to the heart of two industry’s business models.

Those two industries are the mobile telco business and the Windows personal computer sector.

In the PC world, the wide range of models has been both an advantage and a weakness; it’s allowed Dell and others to create custom machines to meet customer needs but also leaves consumers – both corporate and home buyers – confused and suspicious they many have been taken advantage of.

All too often customer were being had; frequently buyers found they’d bought an underpowered system stuffed with software that either was irrelevant to their needs or an upgrade was necessary to get the features they hoped for.

The entire PC industry was guilty of this and Microsoft were the most obvious – the confusing range of operating systems and associated software like the dozen version of Microsoft Office was deliberately designed to confuse customers and increase revenue.

For the PC industry, the “baffle the customer” model reached its zenith, or nadir, with Windows Vista where Microsoft deliberately put out an underspecced ‘Home’ edition designed to push sales up the value chain.

Compounding the problem, most of the manufacturers followed Microsoft’s lead and put out horribly underpowered systems in the hope that customers would upgrade with more memory, better graphics card and bigger, faster hard drives.

Most customers didn’t upgrade and as a result the Vista operating system – which was horrible anyway – enhanced its well deserved reputation for poor performance.

In the telco sector, consumer confusion lies at the heart of their profitable business model; a bewildering range of phones and plans often leaves the customer spending too much, either through an overpriced plan or paying punative charges for ‘excess’ use.

Having a hundred different types of Android phone adds to the confusion and, by restricting updates, they can cajole customers into ‘upgrading’ to a new phone and another restrictive plan every year or so. This is why you get phone calls from your mobile phone company offering a new handset deal 18 months into a two year plan.

Apple’s model has been different; in their computer range there has never been a wide choice, just a few configurations that meet certain price points. The same model has used for their phones and iPads.

For Apple, this means a predictable business model and a loyal customer base. They don’t have to compete on price and they don’t have to fight resellers and telcos who want to ‘own’ the customer. It’s one of the reasons mobile phone companies desperately want an alternative to the iPhone.

Companies using the baffling choices business model – Microsoft, HP, Dell and your local mobile telco – may well continue to do okay, but that business model is coming under challenge as new entrants are finding new niches.

For all of us as consumers all we can do is make the choices that are simple are reject complexity. Warren Buffett has always maintained he doesn’t invest in businesses he doesn’t understand, perhaps we should have the same philosophy with the purchases we make.

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.

The world of smaller margins

Many of us are going to have become used to a less profitable market.

“We never get expensive trips anymore,” lamented the IT journalist, “every year we used to get a trip to Las Vegas, London or Singapore.”

The decline of journalist freebies is one symptom of the world of declining margins. In the case of the IT industry, most vendors have seen their profits shaved and the days of flying the press around the world to product launches and parties is an unaffordable luxury.

A recent Time story, When Whenzhou Sneezes, illustrates the problem on a broader scale.

In Wenzhou, a provincial Chinese city, factory owners found their margins were being squeezed and they could make better money in property speculation, which of course rarely ends well.

For the IT industry, we saw the rise of “crapware”, where computer manufacturers started added trial programs that slowed their systems and detracted from the customer’s experience.

That’s madness but Micheal Dell, the founder of Dell Computer, pointed out adding this rubbish allows them to sell computers $50 cheaper.

Assuming margins will always be fat, and then fighting market trends when those profits start to erode, are two serious management mistakes that are being repeated across industries and by entire nations.

Right now the world is changing and there are few sectors that have been profitable for the last twenty years that won’t be affected in the post-consumer society.

It might be worthwhile considering where your margins are and how they are changing, then resisting the temptation to do silly things. Although cutting back on journo junkets might not be a bad idea.

What business can learn from Groupon

How can businesses use the web to grow like the group buying companies?

Groupon, pioneer of group buying and one the fastest growing companies in history, will have its launch on the stock markets today with an initial public offering (IPO) that’s values the business at thirteen billion dollars, more double the $6bn that Google offered for the three year old company last year.

A recent Business Insider profile of Groupon had some fascinating insights on this unique company and its growth, there’s a number of lessons that most business owners, entrepreneurs and managers can take from this company’s dramatic growth and market leadership regardless of the sector they operate in.

Apply tech to your business

Many people make the mistake that Groupon is tech startup when it’s actually a sales operation.

Groupon’s business model isn’t really new, what they have done is applied various web technologies to the directory and voucher shopping industries and come up with a 21st Century way of doing things.

Bringing together different modern tools like social media, cloud computing, local search and the mobile web makes businesses more flexible and quick to develop new market opportunities.

Prepare for quick changes

Groupon was born out of another business – The Point. As The Point steadily died, Andrew Mason and his mentor Eric Lefkofsky decided to try something different and Groupon was born.

This ability to change focus quickly – often called “pivoting” – is essential in changing markets. In volatile times like today where today’s business conditions can’t be taken for granted we have to be prepared for rapid changes.

Fortunately the cost and time to changes your business focus has dropped dramatically with digital and online tools, which is another reason to embrace tech.

Get a good business mentor

Eric Lefkofsky bought maturity and a perspective to Groupon’s young leadership, having a different and more experienced view of the business helped it develop and grab the opportunity.

An experienced business mentor can be worth their weight in gold.

Back a good idea

In Nicholas Carson’s Business Insider profile he describes Andrew Mason role at Eric Lefkofski’s business before The Point as “an intern, ‘kind of squatting in their offices'”. Lefkofski was prepared to back the geeky kid camping on his premises.

Putting your prejudices and judgements on the shelf to back good ideas, particularly those that don’t cost much to execute, is one way to find where the opportunities lie.

Tell your business story

Regardless of what you think of Groupon’s claims, they tell a very good story which has lead to their amazing growth and the development of the group buying industry.

Being able to tell your story, in your terms, is one of the great advantages the web, local search and social media deliver. There’s no reason why your business shouldn’t be dominating the local market in whatever field you work in.

Regardless of what your business does, it can benefit from applying the online tools that are available to all of us.

We may not be the next Groupon but the web gives us the opportunity to build our business to take advantage of the 21st Century. It’s worthwhile understanding the new tools at our fingertips.

Technology’s magic pills

How a social media or cloud computing ointment won’t solve your business problems

As railways rolled out across the US in the mid 19th Century, the snake oil merchants selling dubious medicines weren’t far behind.

Communities that had never before seen things that were taken for granted in the big cities were easily fooled by miracle treatments that would fix all their ills. By the time the locals discovered the scam, the snake oil salesman and his shills would be well out of town.

Technological change always brings out hype and over the last few decades we’ve seen a similar thing happen with the tech industries, as products and services were sold on the back of claims that could be described as ambitious, if not outrageous.

The Y2K bug was a good example of this as planes were going to fall from the sky and dams collapse if we didn’t hire an expensive consulting firm or buy a widget that would remind our computers they were now in the 21st Century.

A similar thing is at work with Internet names, where the current push to sell Top Level Domains – a bargain with their $385,000 application fee – is being touted as the fix to everything that is wrong with web addresses.

With digital snake oil it’s interesting how often big organisations sometimes act like 19th Century American sharecroppers – all too often we seen ministers and CEOs announce an outsourcing deal that will save taxpayers or shareholders millions only to later find the only winner was the consulting firm that sold the idea.

A similar trend is at work in the PR industry, Sky News presenter John Kerrison has an entertaining look on his personal website on how social media is being sold as an easy fix for a business with far more fundamental problems.

The sad thing is that there are real benefits behind the grandiose claims; Y2K was a real problem, money can be saved through intelligent outsourcing and social media is a great PR tool.

Eventually hype backfires, consumers are rightly dubious about anything that has the slightest hint of PR spin while the IT sector is viewed with well-earned suspicion by business proprietors, executives and managers.

A good example of this was last week’s Digital Readiness report from Optus that found businesses aren’t particularly interested in cloud services. This mirrors similar studies by Sensis, MYOB and MelbourneIT which all find organisations aren’t too fussed about the online world in general.

The danger with this is there is fundamental shift happening in society and technologies like websites, social media and cloud computing  – just like the railroads in the 19th Century – are part of those changes which businesses need to understand.

In an era where snake oil is a commodity there are two challenges for business people; the first is not to be perceived as one of the charlatans and the second is to see the miracle cures for what they are.

Probably the best tool for dealing with the digital snake oil merchants is turn on your own, old-fashioned bullshit detector and treat the shills with the suspicion they deserve.

The reverse ambush

Ambush marketing isn’t always a good idea

As the Apple faithful starting queuing outside stores to buy the latest version of the iPhone, in Sydney electronics manufacturer Samsung set up an outlet a few doors up the street and offering $2 Samsung Galaxy phones.

Some in the press portrayed this as “ambush marketing” by Samsung, claiming that the Korean company has stolen coverage from Apple.

In reality, all the stunt has done is emphasise the different market positions of the companies; Samsung have people camping out for $2 phones while a few doors up the street there’s a bigger line for an $800 Apple product.

The message is clear; Apple’s products are more desirable than Samsung’s at even 400 times the price.

Whatever Steve Jobs was reincarnated as – a Bogong Moth or the next Dalai Lama – he’s laughing right now.

Do you have customers or just users?

Are subscribers, visitors and users really supporting your business?

“I was on your mailing list for general info, for spams and scams etc which were helpful. Suddenly it changed and now the business format is not useful to me” said an lady when unsubscribing from one of my newsletter mailing lists.

The lady concerned had been on one of the mailing lists for over ten years and, once upon a time, had been a paying customer for my old business, PC Rescue. Although we’d only earned a $100 off her and that was seven years ago.

While it’s sad to lose a subscriber – you don’t run a service business for twelve years without caring about those who use your services – the question is was the lady really a customer?

This is an important distinction where many of us are giving away much of our knowledge for free; are our users really customers?

For the social media and web2.0 sites, this is easy; users are the raw material for their aggregated and segmented data feeds and audience, the customers are the advertisers. This is just a modern twist on the broadcast model that sustained the radio and TV industries for most of the 20th Century.

Many of those social media platforms aren’t making much money from that data and there’s a good argument those who are have been wildly overvalued by investors.

The value of user data, whether it’s aggregated or identifiable appears to be nowhere as high as most of us think, unless you intend to rob your users’ bank accounts.

Overvaluation of your customer, or user, database is a common problem for smaller businesses too. If you’re the local plumber, computer repair guy or coffee shop then the value of any mailing list is probably way overstated – the only metric that ultimately matters to the business is how much money you’re making from the customer.

If you care about the people that you deal with, this may be a hard reality to face but those who visit your shop, subscribe to your newsletter or download your free e-book aren’t your customers, only those who are prepared to pay are.

This is something we have to understand in this era of abundant free information and online services. The challenge for most of us is how many users we can convert from being window shoppers and freebie seekers into customers.

Group buying sites explained

Are big Internet discounts right for you or your business?

Fancy half price seafood dinners, deeply discounted electrical goods or 80% off personal fitness training? Thousands of people who’ve signed up for group buying websites certainly do and hundreds of businesses are prepared to make big discounts to attract those customers.

What are these services? Are they worthwhile and how do the businesses make money from them? Should customers be wary of advertised big savings and are merchants cutting their throats when they enter the world of deep discounting?

What are group buying websites?

The idea behind group buying sites is that merchants will offer cheap deals to take advantage of bulk sales, clear inventory or as loss leaders to attract new business. The products offered can be anything from a cheap haircut through to discounted whitegoods or a cheap meal.

Customers subscribe to the group buying websites and receive a daily email detailing the deals in their areas. If they like an offer, they can choose to be part of it and if it goes ahead, their credit will be debited and they’ll receive a voucher for the deal.

The group buying websites usually approach businesses to take part. For the privilege of having their businesses featured, the website takes between 20 and 100% of the offer price as commission.

What are the consumer benefits?

Naturally the main attraction for consumers are the cheap deals on offer. Some businesses are offering 80% off their list prices for products, so there can be substantial savings to be made.

There’s also the opportunity to try out products or outlets you wouldn’t normally try for instance you might not usually be interested in Zumba classes, canoe hire or replacing your TV at normal prices but an 50% discount could tweak your attention.

Are there risks for the consumer?

There’s no such thing as a free lunch so there are a number of risks when using a group buying site.

Impulse buying is probably the biggest risk, if you’re a sucker for a deal then these sites will love you. It’s an opportunity to sign up for a lot of things you don’t really need, probably will never have used and maybe can’t even afford, but fact you saved 80% makes you feel good.

There’s also the risk you’re not really getting the full discount. A lot of canny merchants inflate the list price to make the amount off look greater. Many also reduce the size or quality of the discounted product to recover their margins.

A big risk is that you may never get to use your voucher. Either you’ll forget about the voucher you received or the merchant is so overwhelmed by the offer’s response that they can never get around to catering for all their people who took them up.

Finally there’s the spam factor. Many merchants see a group buying offer as an opportunity to build their mailing lists, so you may find yourself being spammed for fitness classes and restaurant offers for a long time after you take up a deal.

Business Benefits

These sites wouldn’t have taken off if there weren’t businesses to advertise on them and hundreds of merchants have taken up the opportunity. So there are clear benefits for the outlets that use these services.

The most obvious one is they get to promote their businesses. All of these sites claim to have subscribers numbering in the hundreds of thousands, so it’s an opportunity to get your products in front of a large audience.

Clearing excess capacity has been one of the main drivers for these sites in the United States where many businesses have found themselves with too much inventory or staff sitting around. These sites are a great way of clearing inventory or smoothing demand cycles.

Business downsides

The first problem is that excess stock. A business can’t afford to be carrying stock that requires big discounts to clear, if these offers become a regular feature then your business is in trouble.

Even if your business isn’t in trouble, these offers risk devaluing your brand. As the major retailers have found, offering frequent discounts trains your customers to expect lower prices.

Offering these bargains may alienate existing clients. Those customers who are prepared to pay full price aren’t only going to be irritated to find they could have got your products cheaper, but may also be unhappy with your business being overwhelmed by cheaper, price conscious clients.

Those price sensitive shoppers aren’t really your customers either; they are loyal to the buying platform and cheap deals, so if your competitors have an offer later on another platform, those customers will go there. There’s a lot of work to be done converting these bargain hunters into repeat clients.

One of the most misunderstood parts of group buying sites is the commission structure, most of the services charge a commission of between 20 and 50% – with some going up to 100% – on the advertised price, so that 50% discount to the customer is actually 60 to 75% off the merchant’s selling price. This can be a massive hit to a business’ profit.

Is group buying for you?

For businesses group buying sites can be a good idea if they are used as a part of a well thought out marketing strategy or to clear occasional excess stock. But they shouldn’t be seen as a quick way to attract new customers.

Customers are the big winners from group buying sites, as it’s the opportunity to pick up some great deals. But users have to use a bit of judgement instead of just jumping for the best looking deals.

It’s an old saying, but if anything looks to be too good to be true then it probably is. In the Internet age, that saying is probably truer than ever. Group buying sites can be good for both businesses and customers, but watch the wallet.

Five free, easy and essential online business marketing tools

Your customers are now online. Here’s 5 free and easy to use tools to help reach them.

The web has become the shopping strip of the modern economy, where potential customers see what every business has to offer without leaving their home or office. According to the the Sensis e-business report over 90% of businesses and 70% of consumers now do an online search before buying a product or service.

So every opportunity to promote your business online has to be grabbed, even if you don’t have a website. Luckily there’s a range of free and easy to use services to help your business be seen online.

Five of the easiest and most important free services are listed here and it’s best to use all five to help you get the most online visibility for your business.

Google Places

The first and most essential service every business needs is Google Places. Having a Places listing puts a business in the Google search results directly below the paid spots at the top of the page.

It’s a pretty powerful location on the web real estate map and, being free, it’s hard to refuse. Given how Google is by far the most used search engine, a Places listing is essential even if you already have an extensive web site.

Google Places  allows you to upload logos, pictures, descriptions, and other details which makes it an even greater opportunity to get the message out to your customers. For many smaller business, particularly those in the trades, a Google Places page may be all the web presence they need.

Facebook Pages

The marketer’s social media tool of choice, Facebook recently celebrated reaching 500 million users. For businesses, Facebook offers the Pages service which allows you to set up a page for your business.

Facebook’s greatest advantage is it lets your customers talk directly to you and to each other. It’s an excellent way to bring your fans together and keep track of what’s happening in the marketplace.

While setting up the page is simple, there are some sophisticated ways you can improve your Facebook presence. Facebook themselves have good tutorials and sites like SEO Moz have good examples of how to get the most from Facebook pages.

Blogging platforms

Until recently blogs were used as online diaries, today they have become a flexible, free and easy way to set up a web presence.

The two biggest free blogging platforms are WordPress and Blogger. WordPress is the more flexible of the two while Blogger is quicker and easier to setup.

An advantage with using a blogging platform is they are very easy to update and offer far more flexibility and customisation than the other free tools. Keep in mind you can use WordPress on your own website or take up the paid option to use your own domain.

True Local

News Limited’s online listing tool is important for Australian businesses not just because it connects with News’ online and offline publishing networks but also for their content sharing agreements with Google, Navman, Yahoo!7 and some of the mobile phone companies. This means a listing on True Local goes onto all of these services.

True Local offers a number of listing levels ranging from free to $220 a year. Interestingly, News’ Premium service charges for much of what Google Places offers for free, which is one reason why Google is the preferred free site. True Local’s reach in both search, partner sites and offline channels makes it important for business to be listed on the service.

Sensis Listings

Telstra’s directory service, Sensis, offers a free Yellow Pages listing which appears in both their online and printed versions as well as Telstra’s online and mobile services. While listing here will mean you’ll get a polite but anxious call from a Sensis sales representative offering you a deal on a Yellow Pages paid ad, it’s still a very important channel given Telstra’s market share.

As Ken in the comments has noted, Sensis don’t allow you to add a website address to the free listing. While this reduces the effectiveness of a Sensis online listing, it still means your business will appear in Telstra’s online and mobile searches, so it is an important channel to be listed on.

These five tools are a great help for all businesses, regardless of their size or web presence, and each can be set up within in a hour. You could have all five working for you within a day.

Get these free tools working for your business so customers can find you on the web.

The downside of social media marketing

Social media is a great business marketing tool, but it has downsides as a Sydney jeweller learned

Until last Sunday, Facebook was working well for jeweller Victoria Buckley; the page for her store in Sydney’s upmarket Strand Arcade was generating sales and had a rapidly growing fan base from around the world.

One of the key parts of her marketing campaigns are porcelain dolls made by the Canadian designer Marina Bychkova. Her classic doll Ophelia features in the window displays, on posters in the store and on the shop’s Facebook page.

Ophelia is a little bit different to most dolls in that she’s naked and anatomically correct — she has nipples.

Last weekend Victoria received six warnings from Facebook about “inappropriate content” on her page. There was no indication of which images or text broke the rules or what would happen to her page if she took no action.

“The frustrating thing is I can’t pinpoint which images” says Victoria, who goes on to point out that over the year she’s used Ophelia in her marketing, including two large banners in the busy shopping precinct, she’s received no complaints.

“It’s all a bit arbitrary”, says Victoria “it only takes one anonymous person to click on the flag content button and there’s a problem”. Earlier this year her Flickr account was set to restricted because of Ophelia’s nudity.

To avoid problems, Victoria has blacked out any potentially inappropriate parts of Ophelia on the store’s Facebook profile and started a “Save Ophelia- exquisite doll censored by Facebook” group until she can resolve the issue.

But here lies another problem; she can’t find a way to contact Facebook. “It’s become an increasingly important part of the business” Victoria says of the Facebook page and “I just don’t know what’s going to happen to the site”.

Right now Victoria has no idea what is going to happen to her business’s profile. As she can’t talk to Facebook, she’s uncertain of the page’s future.

This uncertainty illustrates an overlooked issue with social media sites. All these services are proprietary, run by private organizations to their own rules and business objectives.

In many ways, they are like private mall owners. They are perfectly entitled to dictate what merchants and customers can do on their premises. If you don’t like it, you have no recourse but to take your business elsewhere.

As consequence these sites have a great deal of control over your online business, a lesson that’s been hard learned by many eBay and PayPal dependent Internet retailers.

A good example of what can go wrong are the Geocities websites. Ten years ago Geocities was a popular free hosting site used by many micro businesses and hobbyists. Just over a year ago the now parent company Yahoo! shut them down and all the data on them has been lost.

By relying another company’s Internet platform, you are effectively making them a partner in your business. That’s great while things go well, but you have to remember their business objectives and moral values are different to yours.

This is why a business website is essential; your traffic and all your intellectual property is too important to sit on another businesses’ website with all the risks that go along with that.

The lesson is that while using Facebook, Twitter and other Internet services are an important part of the business marketing mix, your business needs the security of its own website and all your marketing channels, both online and offline, should point to it.

Fortunately Victoria’s across that, she’s pointing her Facebook fans to her website telling them, “You can join my independent mailing list at this link, in case they get really stupid and close this group.”