Advice From Some Leading American Social Media Practitioners

Some good tips in this Techcrunch video that ties in with what we preach at Bua Consulting. Start with the business, its strategy and objectives before you even think of the tools....

This short video introduction provides as overview of how Bua Consulting helps clients understand our strategy and our approach to adding value to business by the correct adoption of technology.


 

According to research done by Nielsen in October 2009, Australians spend the most time on social networks.

This was reported on in detail in Economist 30 January 2010.



For an interview with the Economist reporter Martin Giles click below.
 

Bricks and Mortar retailers are building new strategies and tactics to take on e-tailers.
Report from the Economist, 26th November 2009.
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14973087

SHOPPERS on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in America, which falls on November 27th this year, are notoriously aggressive. Some even start queuing outside stores before dawn to be the first to lay their hands on heavily discounted merchandise. Last year berserk bargain-hunters in the suburbs of New York City trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death. Despite the frenzy at many stores, however, the recession appears to have accelerated the pace at which shoppers are abandoning bricks and mortar in favour of online retailers—e-tailers, in the jargon. So this year Black Friday (so named because it is supposed to put shops into profit for the year) also marks the start of many conventional retailers’ attempts to regain the initiative.

E-commerce holds particular appeal in straitened times as it enables people to compare prices across retailers quickly and easily. Buyers can sometimes avoid local sales taxes online, and shipping is often free. No wonder, then, that online shopping continues to grow even as the offline sort shrinks. In 2008 retail sales grew by a feeble 1% in America and are expected to decline by more than 3% this year, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade body. In contrast, online sales grew by 13% in 2008 to over $141 billion and are predicted to grow by 11% in 2009, according to Forrester, a consultancy.

Online sales now account for 6% of all retail sales in America (up from 5% in 2008) and that figure is expected to reach 8% by 2013. E-commerce is also growing in Europe and Asia, where online sales in 2008 totalled $60 billion and $40 billion, respectively. In Britain, internet shopping now accounts for nearly 4% of total retail sales, according to Planet Retail, a research firm.

Online-only shopping sites such as Amazon and eBay, two e-commerce giants, have thrived in the downturn. Amazon’s sales rose to around $5.5 billion in the third quarter of the year, up by almost 30% from a year before. Listings, chiefly from commercial vendors, have surged so rapidly on eBay that its website briefly crashed on November 21st.

The range of items available online is also growing. Amazon has started selling groceries. Consumer-goods companies such as Procter & Gamble (P&G) are encouraging the sale of things like nappies (diapers) and laundry detergent online. At the opposite extreme, the internet is also being used to sell luxury goods. Fabergé, a defunct jewellery-maker known for its gem-encrusted eggs, relaunched in September. It will not open any shops but will instead operate only online.

The shift in spending to the internet is good news for companies like P&G that lack retail outlets of their own. But it is a big concern for brick-and-mortar retailers, whose prices are often higher than those of e-tailers, since they must bear the extra expense of running stores. Happily, however, conventional retailers are in a better position to fight back than last year, when overstocking forced them to resort to ruinous discounting. Inventories are about 15% lower this year. Some big retailers, such as Saks and Target, have recently reported rising revenues and margins.

The most obvious response to the growth of e-tailing is for conventional retailers to redouble their own efforts online. The online arms of big retailers are performing well, on the whole. Saks, for example, saw online sales rise 9% in the nine months to the end of October while sales in its stores fell by 19%. The company expects online growth to outpace sales in stores for the “foreseeable future”, says Stephen Sadove, its boss.

The concept of “multichannel” shopping, where people can buy the same items from the same retailer in several different ways—online, via their mobile phones and in shops—is gaining ground, and retailers are trying to encourage users of one channel to try another. Growing online traffic may actually increase sales in stores too. According to a spokesman for Macy’s, a department-store chain, every dollar a consumer spends online with Macy’s leads to $5.70 in spending at a Macy’s store within ten days, because consumers learn about other products online and come into stores to look them over before buying them. Many online retailers offer tools that let people locate the nearest outlet that has a given item in stock.

Retailers are also trying make shopping seem fun and exciting to counteract the economic gloom. One common tactic is to set up “pop-up” stores, which appear for a short time before vanishing again, to foster a sense of novelty and urgency. Following the lead of many bricks-and-mortar outfits, eBay recently launched a pop-up in New York where customers could inspect items before ordering them from kiosks.

Shoppers are increasingly looking for an “experience” when they go to stores, says Jack Anderson of Hornall Anderson, a branding and marketing firm, and are no longer interested in purely “transaction-based bricks and mortar stores”. Apple, which encourages customers to try out its devices in its stores, is considered a pioneer of this strategy, and has attracted many imitators. The Walt Disney Company, for example, is rumoured to be redesigning its stores to attract shoppers looking for entertainment, with new features such as “magic mirrors”, which will allow children to play with Disney characters.

Stores are also trying to lure customers by offering services that are not available online. Best Buy, a consumer-electronics retailer, has started selling music lessons along with its musical instruments. Lululemon athletica, which sells sports clothes, offers free yoga classes. The idea is to bring people back to its shops regularly, increasing the likelihood that they will develop the habit of shopping there.

Another great hope is that mobile phones will come to the rescue of conventional retailers. Some consumers already use internet-enabled handsets to shop online. But many analysts think a technology called near-field communication (NFC) might boost sales at stores, by allowing shoppers to scan products with their phones to learn more about them, and then to pay by swiping their phones at the till. Unfortunately, NFC will not be widely available for some time—too late to help harried retailers through Black Friday.

1. Decide “who” you want as your customers. Unlike mom and dad where you don’t get to pick, here on the Internet, you do.

2. Find everything about “who” before you start a business. Visit forums, read blogs, think hard about where they are and what they are reading (or watching).

3. What are the things that your future customers don’t do but you like to… for instance I like reading blogs, but what if my target market likes watching videos instead?

4. Who is your competition? What are they not doing? For example if you opt to their newsletter… how often are they sending it you? Do they have a blog? Do they update the blog regularly? Are they on Facebook? Do they have a phone number on the website? Where are the gaps?

5. Sit down and ask yourself honestly that if your business solves a problem that this slice of market has? If yes… move forward. If no… look again at what you are planning to sell.

6. What makes you different from everybody else out there? Is it something you sell? Is it the way you sell it? Is it your story? Is being you is the difference?

7. Here is a piece of paper & my question to you: why should your business exist in this world with so many businesses already doing what you are doing? Write the answer down. Is it the best answer you can do? Can you tell me in 30 words or less?

8. Launch a Facebook Business Page before you launch your website. Most websites languish because of no traffic, no attention. Facebook Business Fan Page gives you instant traffic, instant feedback, and instant interest.

9. Name your page wisely.

10. Point traffic to your Facebook Business Page both organically and by advertising.

11. If you are coming from the corporate world and your day job did not had anything to do with marketing & selling – you are going to have some mental queasiness about buying advertising. I can’t help you get rid of it. Nobody can. Just acknowledge and know that it will be there. Ignore it.

12. How are you going to get leads? Where are your buyers found? And how can you show up there without annoying them?

13. Avoid the temptation to scream as in going to a blog or a Facebook Page and screaming your site and running as fast as you can. People remember you for warm handshakes and hugs you gave out not for loud screams.

14. Once you know how you are going to leads – what can you offer on your blog / Facebook Page / website or where ever you are asking this traffic to go to convince them to opt in to your list?

15. What is going to happen once they are IN – they opt in to your newsletter, left you a voice mail, fill out a form requesting more information? Are they getting something from you? What are they getting? Is it ready or are you going to build it once you have 100 people waiting?

16. How are you going to sell? Is there a process or is it all random? Do you have bullets, photos of products, PowerPoint, webinar, video? A system for selling your product or service (up sell, down sell, cross sell) that exists and is repeated over and over again?

17. I am sure you have a basic version. What can you offer in a premium version that probably 20% of your customers would be happy to buy?

18. Are they getting a thank you note from you once they buy? A hug? A cookie basket? What are we going to do to bring a little happiness to them?

19. How are you going to give them a gentle nudge to remember you once the sale is done to write something about you on Yelp or recommend your restaurant to all their friends on Facebook or Fan your Page up? An email or a card or a phone request or is it all going to be left to chance and fate?

20. How are you going to keep in touch with them once the sale is done? A newsletter? Something on your Facebook Page to keep them interested? An event online to teach them something?

21. Now look at every step and ask is this the best I can do to completely to blow my customer expectations away? How far apart can I stand from my existing competition that is already online and showing up in Google when I start? Two feet, 10 miles or three light years?

Article link: http://ijlal.com/things-to-ask-before-you-launch-your-business

Bill Winter of Point North Consulting, a business partner of Bua Consulting, has launched his ebook, Essential Insights for Small To Medium Enterprises During Uncertain Times.

This ebook provides great advice to business owners and leaders, and is based on Bill's extensive experience running businesses and mentoring some of the best business owners in industry today.

The book is free and available for download from Bua Consulting or at  http://www.pointnorth.com.au/Essential_Insights_Ebook

interesting article written by  Chris Poley at 

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=705&doc_id=170113&


 
With a slumping economy and rising unemployment, consumers have dramatically cut back on discretionary spending, making it even clearer that some industries are just not accepting their business models as broken and in disrepair.

Indeed, revenues from Internet sales continue to grow, while those of some traditional brick-and-mortar companies continue to contract.

Who's most in denial? Let’s take a look at three industries for which the Internet has put the traditional way of doing business in particularly obvious jeopardy:

Apparel retailers became 2008’s poster child for insolvency. Clothing accounts for 8 percent of all retail bankruptcies, with a 50 percent rise in the July-through-October quarter, up from first-quarter figures, according to The Economic Times. In a poll released December 30, the Top 40 Retail Satisfaction Index showed further evidence of clothing retailers’ absence from the Internet jackpot. Only Victoria’s Secret (#14) and The Gap ( #35) made that list.

The evidence indicates that the faster clothing retailers move online, the better off they’ll be. Traditional stores have suffered with low inventories and shrinking profit margins. Brick-and-mortar companies must pay rent, employee wages, insurance, real estate taxes, and utilities, among other expenses.

Publishing is suffering from both cost and content issues. The newpaper business is in disarray, and book publishing giants are cutting jobs and costs to remain in business.

Is it possible that the publishing industry needs to be restructured for a completely new business model, or can online and offline publishing coexist?

Sort of, says Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: How Digital Networks Transform Our Ability to Gather and Cooperate.

“I don't think there are completely new business models,” Shirky says. “The models are what they always were. One axis is ‘producer pays, reader pays, or third-party pays,’ and the other axis is ‘payment is mandatory, or payment is voluntary,’ and all six possible combinations will work for some pubs.”

The music industry has been challenged for years by peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing among networked computers. Pirating music for private consumption still hangs in the balance of a Supreme Court ruling. Digital downloading is at an all-time high but cannot offset the 20 percent annual decline in CD sales.

“The music industry has and will continue to become more dependent on revenues from downloadable content... and the industry has been scrambling to find new ways to capture revenues from the market,” says Alex Reese, an intellectual property attorney out of San Diego who has represented recording artists.

So far, traditional record firms haven’t found the balance of copyright, royalty, consumer payout, and quality that will make Internet downloading a true alternative to CDs. Like publishing, they continue to cling to old models.

But none of the above industries can afford to look back. Instead of longing wistfully for times before the Internet’s challenge, they must focus on their core businesses more than ever and avoid associating their products with the ways in which their products are delivered.

It can be a major challenge. Newspaper publishers, for example, may harbor visions of a resurgence in delivery methods that drove news delivery for over 200 years. For them, Clay Shirky warns: “Remember, all that's going away is newsprint, which is already a minority form relative to the Web. Don't let the nostalgists bend your ear.”

There is a common thread that seems pervasive among these struggling industries: the inability to adapt to the changing socio-economic environment. But they must embrace the Internet, instead of competing with it. There is a better mouse trap, plain and simple. Deal with it!

A recent statistice was recently presented to me out of BRW (thanks Bill!) about small businesses with websites.

Of 774,000 small businesses with 10 or more people, 40% have no website. That is quite an astounding number in this daya age. One wonders of the other  60% what number are actually getting any value from them.

If a company doesn't have a website or has one that adds no value one can imagine how many other activities in their businesses are either on old software or are being performed manually. Clearly those that are embracing new internet technology in their business can gain enormous competitive advantage on over 40% of their industry.

Food for thought in the current climate where every advantage counts.

The December 2008 edition of the Harvard Business Review leads with an article  on Business Models entitled:

"Reinventing Your Business Model"

The article argues that:

• Breakthrough, game-changing products rarely emerge from established businesses
• That radically new products need a new business model
• You can transcend the problem if you can:
  • Understand your existing model at a granular level, so that you are in a position to reinvent it.
  • Come up with a great way to help people get an important job done.

The article uses examples from Tata Group, Apple, Hilti and Dow Corning.

From the point of view of technology and emerging technology the last paragraph makesinteresting reading with which Bua concurs.

"Bob Higgins, the founder and general partner of Highland Capital Partners, has seen his share of venture success and failure in his 20 years in the industry. He sums up the importance and power of business model innovation this way: 'I think historically where we (venture capitalists) fail is when we back technology. Where we succeed is when we back new business models.' "

Watch an interview with Clayton Christensen (Harvard Business School professor) at the link below http://video.hbsp.com/?plid=1075481&showID=1075480

A simple explanation of the business models on the web at present.

http://www.digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html