Social Media and Having the Right Mindset

 SMEs, Social Media, Social Media Tips, Social Network Sites, Technology shifts  No Responses »
May 062013
 

As technology rapidly evolves history shows people struggle with the transition.  Social media is a case in point.  Completely different to traditional media having the right approach and mindset is crucial to get the best from it.

Social media centres around the user, not the product, so the established method of pushing a message in a one-way direction is not very effective.  Engagement, connection and conversation are the key to social media in the long term.

Here are some central things to remember when engaging with social media:

Social media is About People: build relationships, gain trust and have a conversation.

Experiment and Innovate: social media is a switch from a monologue to a dialogue. Businesses that best understand this will listen to their audience and interact with them

Connect with your Audience: ask questions, share thoughts and encourage conversation.  Provide information but don’t push sell your products or services.

Social Media is Difficult to Measure:  business is preoccupied with measuring social media.  But it is hard to measure conversation. This doesn’t mean the value isn’t beneficial.

Investing in social media is important, requiring new skills and approaches.  Those that don’t think outside the box will have difficultly gaining traction and those who maintain control of the message won’t succeed in getting any message across.

Experiment, share and have fun!

What have you experimented with social media for your business?  What works for you?

 

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to ‘tweet’ or ‘repost’ this article or leave your comments….

 Posted by on 6 May, 2013 at 12:13 pm

Is Technology Changing the Way we Conduct Business?

 Internet, Small Business, SMEs, Technology shifts  No Responses »
Apr 292013
 

It is argued that fundamental shifts in technology are activating massive changes in business particularly around how information is accessed, captured, managed and shared.

These changes have implications for everyone in all aspects of our lives.  We are now wired 24 hours a day with everything at our finger tips.  The Internet connects us like never before and hand held devices means we are constantly blurring the lines between personal and business.

Due to increased mobility, emails can be responded to from home or the local coffee shop.  Information travels faster and workers are expected to respond in an instant.  We are so far away yet so close as barriers of distance disappear.

More businesses are setting up online so their target audience becomes global instead of local meaning that their market share can grow.  However, competition becomes increasingly more intense with additional competitors.

What does this all mean now and for the future?  We will be learning and adapting for many years to come.

How do people think technology is changing business for them?

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to ‘tweet’ or ‘repost’ this article or leave your comments….

 Posted by on 29 April, 2013 at 10:50 am

Traditional Media Finally Moves into the 21st Century

 Internet, Newspapers, Offline Media, Online Content, Online Media, Pay Walls, Technology shifts  No Responses »
Jun 272012
 

The recent announcements of both Fairfax and News Limited about job cuts in their respective newspapers has crystallised the reality of offline/online media.

The offline media in the way of newspapers has been struggling for a long while and Fairfax in particular has been slow to react to the certainty of the Internet.  Although I don’t believe newspapers are finished, they will definitely change in many facets, in terms of delivery, format and structure.

More and more people now receive their news online and will probably increase as younger individuals consume news.  Newspapers, however, will still have a very large place in our society and therefore they need to make money from their online business ventures.  Obviously creating pay walls and moving into the paid subscription mode seems to be the apparent answer. But is it?

There are two main points here:

1)     consumers have been consuming free content on the Internet for over a decade now

and

2)     consumers have never paid for the real cost of newspapers – advertisers have

The main question is will consumers be happy to pay for content online?  The bigger question, however, is not whether consumers will pay for content but what is the business model for creators of content, producers and those who deliver it on the Internet?  The old business model no longer works and finding a replacement has to date been challenging.  But traditional media needs to find a way to survive.

Because there is a diverse and wide range of content online, simply having just a subscription model may not work.  Part of the new model probably requires finding a mix of revenue models not just one and weighing up the costs of losing readers.

Some creativity and thinking outside the box is needed as there is a huge opportunity to create online outlets outside of newspaper channels that are viable and respected, which produce quality content that the public wants to read.  It is only a matter of time until this happens!

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to ‘tweet’ or ‘repost’ this article or leave your comments….

 Posted by on 27 June, 2012 at 11:18 am

Facial Recognition: is this Total Surveillance?

 Internet, Privacy, Surveillance, Technology shifts  No Responses »
Nov 242011
 

 There was a great article in yesterday’s The Age, Facial Recognition: The Case for and against ‘Total Surveillance’.

Facial recognition technology is about to become the most significant technology that we have seen for a long time.  It is state of the art in terms of recognising and identifying people and this will be particularly useful when it comes to crime, airport security and so on.  The person being identified won’t know they are being watched as the technology doesn’t require the person looking into a camera.

This may all go well for criminal issues but how about the average person who has never done anything wrong in their life?  Unlike other forms of recognition or identifiers, the additional aspect of face recognition means that it forms a biometric identifier which cannot be undone if your face has been hacked.  This raises serious issues in terms of privacy and identity issues.

Have a read of the article which states the ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments and let me know what your thoughts are.

 Posted by on 24 November, 2011 at 4:15 pm

Is Technology Changing the Way we Conduct Business?

 Communication Technologies, Internet, Technology shifts  No Responses »
Oct 292011
 

It is argued that fundamental shifts in technology are activating massive changes in business particularly how information is accessed, captured, managed and shared.  The following article “Shifts in Technology are Driving Professional Changes” covers the issues quite well.

These changes have implications for everyone in all aspects of our lives.  We are now wired 24 hours a day with everything at our finger tips.  The Internet connects us like never before and hand held devices means we are constantly blurring the lines between personal and business.  Due to increased mobility, emails can be responded to from home or the local coffee shop.  Information travels faster and workers are expected to respond in an instant.  We are so far away yet so close as barriers of distance disappear.

Some changes for business due to technology:

–    Online bookings, surveys & other information gathering techniques

–    Outsourcing – i.e. telephone customer service

–    Databases, electronic diaries, schedules

–    Accounting practices

–    Administration – i.e filing

More businesses are setting up online so their target audience becomes global instead of local meaning that their market share can grow.  However, competition becomes increasingly more intense with additional competitors.  The rise of cloud computing (still at its early stages) has much growth and innovation to occur and will affect business in terms of IT capacity and capability.

What does this mean now and for the future?  We will be learning and adapting for many years to come.  Nothing really different than previous generations – only the technology is diverse!

I would love to hear from people about how they think technology is changing business.

Leave me your thoughts.

 Posted by on 29 October, 2011 at 5:03 pm