Practicing Safe Online Business Networking

With the rise of the biggest social network websites, it was only logical that businesses would take advantage of the benefits that these type of websites offer.

I don't believe that social networking offers small business the key for success, BUT it can definitely help to spread the word about your business online and encourage brand loyalty. 

A while back, Facebook came up with a new "profile" type, called Fan Page, for either public persons or businesses, that allows people to "like" or "follow" your Facebook page to be part of your network and be able to see your posts and comment them as well. The good thing about this is that is making a separation between "fans" and "friends" and the amount of information flow between the two accounts.

For example, if a Facebook user "likes" the "Glee" fan page, the fan can have access to the whole content of the Glee fan page and interact with comments and posts, but in the other hand, the fan page administrator can't access the profile of the fans for privacy reasons.

Now, this takes me to another business networking dilemma: Are your followers your friends? ...and the answer is...NO, you should always remember that your followers or fans are your current or prospect CLIENTS not your friends! 

And you need to keep that in mind  at all times and maintain a very professional image while administrating a social networking business account, because being in the public eye could go either way... very good or VERY BAD.

Administrating a business or celebrity social networking account is no joke. Some people think that creating a Facebook or Tweeter fan page is enough and people would come out of the way to like or follow the page and they will create their own content and interaction...and this could not be further from the truth. A fan page needs attention, ideally a professional person to handle it and demands time and effort.

A good advise would be to have the PR department or agency or at least a person with some public relations skills administrating all the business social networking accounts. 

As the administrator of the fan page, part of the job is to advertise the page to gather more fans or followers, update status to inform, entertain, create buzz about your products or services and engage interaction with the users.  

Your followers or fans are your commodity, as many as you have the better and the more connections you will create from them, for this reason the administrator needs to push this numbers constantly even with some targeted advertising such as the one that Facebook offers. 

Working on the Fan page, It is very important that the administrator maintains always a neutral and objective position, and tackle any criticism with professionalism and use that situation to learn about the products, services and clients. But always try to handle any uncomfortable situation as privately as you can.

A business networking account is free publicity for your company making it a great tool, but it could go either way.. it could be really good or really, reaaallly bad, so it is important that the administrator knows exactly how to handle the account because your Fan page offers your clients, fans or followers a platform to discuss about your company, products or services, making it an open door inside your business.

So here is my advise... if you do it...do it safely 

RESEARCH:


http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post.html

http://www.foureyessquad.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/online-social-networking-2.jpg

                                                                                                                                                                          

Neuromarketing is the beginning of a new science?

Neuromarketing is not a new science but it is a new trend in the  marketing world, and some say it is the future in marketing research ...but I believe the future is now.

In the past, marketers had to rely on their instincts to create effective marketing campaigns for the targeted markets and wait for the results, but now, Neuromarketing can change it all forever. 

Now, marketers can measure the physiological responses  of a person to different advertising elements, without even asking questions, using technology such as EEG and MRI to measure pupil dilatation, body temperature, respiration, heart rate, brain electric pulses and blood flow.  These tests take away a lot of the guessing  part of the marketer's research job description and offer unfiltered and real data right from the person's body and even measure emotions.

In my opinion, I believe that there is nothing wrong with using technology to measure effectiveness of a product or marketing campaign. A lot of these technologies were already available for a long time, but now some smart Marketing companies came up with a good name "Neuromarketing" and a good strategy to sell the same old marketing services but with the new added value of the technological support which is a great marketing idea!

Even though, Neuromarketing offers a great tool to research the target market's response about a new product, marketing campaign or other advertising element,  I think the best part of  Marketing is that is not a science and marketers should still rely on their instincts at the end of the day when analyzing the data.

RESEARCH:


http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/2010/11/theyre-inside-my-computer-now-they-want.html


http://www.fastcompany.com/1700207/campaign-ads-and-neuromarketing?partner=homepage_newsletter


http://www.mindovermedia.org/images/neuromarketing.jpg

Virtual Governing

I believe the internet offers amazing tools for government and citizens to stay now more connected than ever before. Being able to file for taxes online or attend to a city hall meeting from our computer desks.

I don't really see a negative effect of being able to process information instantaneously or being able to be places far away from our physical location.

I feel in the future government will keep using the internet to reach citizens and encourage them to be informed and participate. Also, the internet allows to simplify processes that used to take much longer and cost a lot of money making the internet a very effective tool to get feedback from political campaigns, etc.

I particularly like the Obama's Facebook page because keeps me informed of what's going on in the country and I feel closer to the government since I can also interact and post my comments.

I am happy that finally the government joined the XXI century and takes advantage of the tools that the internet offers to connect with the people.

E-commerce is still a business people!

Myth: The internet is a virtual magical land where all businesses are successful, money grows in urls and live happily ever after. Well, this couldn't be more wrong.
E-commerce business are no different than any other business off the internet. Just like a great idea still needs some planning to become reality, online business still needs to have a business model behind to offer structure and a clear map to achieve the ultimately goal which is always (at least in the business cyber world) MONEY.
Most people get confuse because, of course, internet businesses always offer a more flexible platform to build a business from zero with a comparable low initial investment than traditional business, but even though this is true, e-commerce businesses still need a business model or they can fail just like any other business.
There are millions of websites online that fail every single day because people just don't understand how to manage they online business, they believe all they have to do is buy a domain, set up an e-commerce system and sit down and wait for the money to pour out of the screen. These people just don't know how much money it will cost them to run their business and how much would be the estimated return or how to find costumers...and this is major mistake either online or offline.
So, before you decide to start your online business you must be committed to dedicate enough time to it and you must have a business plan, as well as a marketing strategy to reach potential customers and last but not least, know how to build value and create loyalty to bring customers back to your store again and again which could be the most critical and expensive part of your business.
First, to achieve these goals, you need to learn about your online environment (the always changing "world wide web") otherwise, you will be like a fish out of water and die trying. Also, you have to now who is your target market from the beginning in order to find those prospect clients and to use the specific techniques to draw them to your website and make sure you have an effective marketing plan,  because it's not about them finding you online or needing you, but quite the opposite..it's about YOU reaching them and keeping them as clients.

Marketing "Karma" ??

For this week's free post I wanted to write about a very interesting subject that I came across a couple of weeks ago that made me realize that the common phase "what goes around comes around" can also be applied to Marketing in a social scale.


The Greek philosopher Epicurus's  theory about "Ethic of Reciprocity" which basically explains "Do not treat others in ways you would not like to be treated" was used as a base for John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham to develop the Utilitarianism's theory  which explains that the most ethical behavior is "the behavior that produces the greatest good", in other words is saying that, the good for everybody is always the good for one self too. 


For example, if I take my dog out for a walk, and the dog decides to poo in the middle of the sidewalk while nobody is watching but I still pick it up anyway, not only because is the correct thing to do, but also out of respect for everybody else walking that sidewalk later, this ethical behavior will actually benefit me directly since I am helping to the common good of having a city with clean sidewalks and because I expect everybody else to also pick up their dog's poop so I don't step in one later.


Now, the philosopher Immanuel Kant even went further with the idea that overall good is also the individual good, and created the famous "categorical imperative" theory that applies to marketing ethics, and describes the social and catastrophic impact of the unethical use of marketing campaigns in societies and economies.


Is well known that marketers often need to make ethical decisions about  their work in daily bases, and can easily come across the question "is something still bad if everyone is doing it?", so this theory explains why is beneficial for the marketers itselves to act ethically.


The theory explains that, is not ok to do something ethically wrong even if everyone is doing it because that would create "Tragedy of the Commons effect", meaning that (taking the dog's poop example), if everyone is letting their dogs' poop on the sidewalk, is still not correct to leave my dog's poop in the sidewalk because I will be part of the problem and contributing to the chaos and not the solution. In other words, the streets will be mined with dogs' poop all over and I will also be stepping into others dogs' poop every time I would go out.


Now, you might ask, what has this to do with marketing, right? 
Well for example, if most the marketing companies in America would start creating unethical promotional campaigns that would falsely advertise products or services with untruthful expectations or results, it might bust sales for a short term, but ultimately it would hurt all marketers (even the ones that acted ethically) because "the advertising would lose its credibility, its integrity, and end up destroying the usefulness of this major diffusion of innovation tool". In other words advertising campaigns would lose effectiveness and the efficiency of the markets, since the consumers would lose belief in the advertising campaigns for all products or services and would think twice before spending their money. 


Ultimately, the unethical use of marketing campaigns would hurt not only the companies that sell the products or services, but also the advertising companies in general and even the economy of the whole country! 
In fact, this subject really touched me because I am from Argentina and consumers have a big disbelief, specially in companies that offer services, such as telecommunication companies, insurance, banks, investment, electricity among so many others, and people have a really bad presumption in the whole market because they know these companies would always try to rip them off, and consequently they buy less, spend less and take twice time to decide weather they want to spend money to buy something or not, because they don't know if the product or service will fulfill their expectations since they don't trust advertising campaigns in general, which contributes to lower the consumer confidence level to spend money in the market, hitting directly the economy of the country.


So, we could just say that if marketers or advertisers act unethically, "Karma" would get back at them by the universal law of "Reciprocity" and hurt them back in the long run. 


So, be fair ...or you know what they say... "Karmatic Marketing is a B***" 




Paula C.




REFERENCED WEBSITES


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus#Prefiguring_science_and_ethics


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_Reciprocity


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism


http://www.howimademyfirstdollar.com/blogger/karmic-marketing-the-laws-of-reciprocity/


http://www.marketingprinciplesandprocesses.com/





 

The Advertising Option Icon protecting or profiting ??

The advertising option icon is the new kid on the block of the online community, it is suppose to protect online consumers from unethical adversing and data collection techniques from websites. 

This really sounds like a noble organization trying to create a better and safer internet for everyone, but researching their website I learned that this "seal" costs companies $5,000 a year! (unless your online company makes less than $ 2,000,000 of revenue per year), which, I think is genius from a marketing standpoint. 

I can see the game plan clearly, this people will populate the internet with this smart looking logo/icon in small business websites that comply with these "self regulatory principles" that they propose and also give this seal to some big companies that have certain online and offline reputation such as "The best business Bureau" and "American Advertising Federation" to give them credibility and the support they need to pursue other big companies to get the seal as well, but this time paying for it.

Basically, these companies will be paying for credibility a $5,000 fee per year with the intention to show costumers that they have an ethical use of data collection and advertising tools and as result to win over the online consumer's confidence and trust.

In other words, this seal sells a perception that a website  is safer for the user, so for example, if Walmart has the "advertising option icon" will give the perception of a safer website to the online user, while if Target doesn't have this seal because didn't want to pay the $5,000 fee, the online user may think that Target's website is unsafe and is using unethical advertising data collecting tools and may decide to leave their page and to buy in Walmart's website which does has it. Meaning that having this seal of "trust" ultimately will influence online consumers to change their shopping  behavior pushing companies, especially big (where the money is), to get the seal too.

So again, this is not about the consumers but instead about finding new sources of money in the world wide web, which is completely respectful. Now, I just can't stop thinking... Why didn't I think of this before?!

REFERENCED WEBSITES


http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/2010/10/would-you-click-this-icon-to-protect.html

http://www.aboutads.info/

"Internet Eyes" scam or social project?

In this week's post, professor Anthony Miyazaki, talks about a very interesting subject.

A UK firm called Internet Eyes, would pay YOU to catch criminals right from your home computer desk, by alerting the store administrator about suspicious activity instantaneously by instant message and a picture capture of the particular moment. 

At first I thought WOW! this is a great idea!...but then, I really started to think about all the different aspects and issues of this concept and I stared to doubt about my initial thought.

First, is not so simple, in order to become a user observer you have to subscribe to the website by filling out a registration form with all your personal information for their database and accept their privacy policy agreement, etc ...but to complete your subscription...guess this..

YOU HAVE TO PAY! Yes, pay. 

There are 3 subscription packages for the observer user starting at ￡1.99 per month (which equals to $ 3.176 USD), but it doesn't end there, this company will pay for your time watching the cameras for suspicious activities the following:      

• More than 30 hours per month - ￡0.50 – (equivalent to $ 0.798 USD)
• More than 45 hours per month - ￡1.00 (equivalent to $ 1.596 USD)
• More than 60 hours per month - ￡1.50 (equivalent to $ 2.394 USD)

On top of this, the website will not pay the observers for every time the catch a criminal, instead, they will pay only to 1 user out of  thousands users with the most points (which are gained every time you catch a criminal) the amount of a ￡1,000 (equivalent to $ 1,596 USD).

In my opinion this is ridiculous, from the user point of view,  I would feel less foolish If I would do it for free only as a public service function. 

This company wants to portrait this website's concept like is some kind of SOCIAL PROJECT, similar to the "Neighbourhood Watch", when in fact they only care of making profit from the two ends of the rope, with a membership to the subscriber observers and a membership to the affiliated business.

I do understand this is a business, and there is nothing wrong about making money with an online profitable innovative business idea, but I don't like that this company markets this site like  some kind of online community service or novel idea.

Moreover, I started to research about this website online and I ended up in their Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Internet-Eyes/108455634071 and I got surprised by the amount of angry messages and complains about this website not working properly, not paying the rewards or people calling it a SCAM and even against HUMAN RIGHTS! haha I know that person perhaps went a little too far, but the point is a lot of reviews online don't trust and don't recommend this website..bottom line this company needs to do some major online PR, if they want to gain trust and expand globally, specially because they are an ONLINE based business.  

To conclude, I believe this idea has potential and the website could be a better and bigger online community if they would reshape their current business model by offering free registration to user observers, pay a small reward every time an observer catches criminal activity (confirmed by administrator), keep the contest price for person with most points (most catches) as a bonus and keep charging affiliated businesses to receive the service of thousands of good willing anonymous observers..and why not adding some non intrusive, tailored, small advertising ads to the sides of the screen (like facebook) to get some extra income.

Do you agree?

REFERENCED WEBSITES


http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/2010/10/internet-eyes-are-watching.html
http://interneteyes.co.uk/community/index.html
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Internet-Eyes/108455634071
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/internet-eyes-will-pay-you-to-watch-security-camera-feeds-2010106/
http://www.cartoonstock.com/