Mike Saunders » Internet Marketing

Does social media affect mobile marketing in South Africa?

Mike Saunders — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:00:09 +0000

There is so much to say here, but I will leave you with one of my most important observations. Social Media is the platform that companies can use to engage their mobile audience!

ALL social media websites are mobile ready and they present a product to our consumers that is so integral to their daily lives. A communication vehicle. Especially Facebook and MXIT who offer that communication with more people than any other network in South Africa.

Couple this thought with Authur Goldstucks research:

“The findings suggest, on the surface, that more than half of urban cellular users – 8.5-million – are capable of accessing e-mail on their phones, and as many as 60% – 9.5-million – are able to browse on their phones. The implications of these numbers are significant: in one fell swoop, they would turn the SA Internet user base from the 5.3-million reported by World Wide Worx at the end of 2009 to 9.6-million. Add Instant Messaging to the mix, and the total becomes 10.56-million – exactly double that of the Internet user base at the end of last year.”

Goldstuck also says ““The truth is, many people with these applications on their phones do no use them and do not even know how to use them,” says Goldstuck. “It is clear that the cellphone has the potential to take South Africans across the digital divide, but the phones themselves need to become more user-friendly, and a vast amount of consumer education is needed.”

With national mobile penetration well over 90% and the product offering (benefit) of social media, I believe that South African business will be able to speak to a larger audience in South Africa through social networks. Mobile websites seem like the obvious answer, but there is very little reason for a mobile user to visit your new mobi site. However, there is plenty of reason for them to join Facebook, or twitter or any other social network. We will then be able to engage this market through the social media platforms and “invite” them to our website.

Another interesting development is 0.facebook.com (http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=391295167130) which offer free Facebook access to people over a mobile phone. This is not available in South Africa yet but should this technology be released in SA through a participating mobile carrier it has the potential to become the most used communication vehicle in South Africa.

Once again, in my personal experience, I have developed campaigns for brands that have been able to connect with young people who do not have computer access to Facebook. They are on pay-as-you-go cell-phone contracts and therefore prefer to communicate via Facebook. One particular campaign generated R 250 000, 00 worth of business after only six weeks of starting their Facebook Page. The business was closed directly over Facebook with very little traffic being driven to the website.

A story about foursquare the next big social network

Mike Saunders — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:00:58 +0000

So the other day I sat down at a resturant about to have lunch. I decided (while I wait for the rest of my party to arrive) to check in on foursquare. On opening the app on my phone I recieved a suggestion from a friend about what to have for lunch. That was pretty cool actually because I was out of town and did not know what was good. The only problem was that the lunch suggestion from my friend was for the resturant next door.

I had just been recommended lunch by a friend who I had not spoken to in ages, at a resturant I wasn’t even at. The choice was mine! Stay where I was or get up and have the recommended meal of the day. Which would you choose?

This is a small story about the power of foursquare, a new social network making waves on the streets of South Africa. Walter Pike presents his top seven reasons to love foursquare on memeburn.com as:

The first reason that it will kick *** is that it’s fun. The competitive element, the earning of awards, and the leader board all make it a “jol”.

The big win is the location element. People know which of their mates are around, and venue owners can send out promotions and messages that relate to people on the premises or close by. So when someone checks into the coffee shop down the road, and up pops a tip to say Foursquarers who visit Doppio get free wifi, that may just swing a meal. But with like all social media, remember, no SPAM.

Foursquare works with brick and mortar businesses. Businesses that have a physical presence such as stores, events, clubs and restaurants.

Being able to identify and communicate with your real loyalists is of a huge benefit as they are your brand advocates, and Foursquare has made it very easy with Foursquare for Business. Also, remember that these are real fans, not just people who have joined a fan page.

Many developers are using the API in their apps. For example, those who have discovered Stickybits, may already be checking-in videos, photos and brands into the venue.

Foursquare is a real space to do customer research.

It is a really practical example of how social media can integrate with the real world.

I must admit that I agree with Walter, this network has great potential to rock the social media world. Definitly the next network to be on the look-out for.

How YouTube manages copyright

Mike Saunders — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:00:35 +0000

So YouTube has come under the big copyright question along with Facebook and Google. However, it seems that YouTube has finally come up with a solution to the copyright problems it experiences. What’s more interesting is that YouTube has been able to do this without simply blocking unauthorised videos.

This video for TED provides some great insight into what YouTube has done.

The good news is that if you have original content that you would like to protect on YouTube all you need to do is log it into the Content ID system.

Pepsi steals 2010 from Coke with Social Media

RANT! Why you need to invest in Social Media

Mike Saunders — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 06:00:17 +0000

It has become abundantly clear over the last week that business needs to get proactive in understanding human engagement on the Internet.

It is too late to simply respond to criticism or appraisal. There is a massive need to take the initiative in creating your online presence. I specifically haven’t used the word control because that would contradict the nature of web 2.0 and the future of the Internet in web 3.0.

There is much that business can do to take the initiative and encourage and create a positive online experience for their customers. The shift in the way we build reputations and brands online has meant that our customers now build our reputation and brand for us. The power of word of mouth on the internet has put the power in the consumers hand/mobile/tablet.

Business needs to find ways to meet their consumers online in a very real and personal way. This will mean a fundamental change in the way our organizations are run, our marketing plans are structured, our products are developed and our departments are structured.

This is a part of business that I hope to guide people through by educating staff of the values of the internet, activating campaigns to learn and challenge how value is reinforced online and researching human interaction on the internet.

Although the information above is not all that new, I believe that the need to evolve business and marketing strategy online is paramount because we are running out of time.

As Web 3.0, semantic web and augmented reality makes it’s swift appearance on the internet those who do not have a good understanding of Web 2.0 and the new way of consumer engagement will be left behind in a technology curve that will be too difficult to hurdle.

The importance is on understanding rather than doing right now. Those that do implement the cultural shifts into the organisations will benefit from the wide variety of business and personal tools that the future of the internet will offer.

GivenGain for Non Profit Organisation internet marketing

Mike Saunders — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 06:01:57 +0000

GivenGain offers you the opportunity to act, connect and communicate your passions and missions with your world. Your actions give the world the opportunity to see you, talk to you and donate money to your cause.

This network is basically a network of philanthropists who would like to support worthy causes in any way they can. The network allows you to setup a profile with details of your organisation. Once the organisation is setup you are able to create projects that you need funding for. GivenGain members are able to promote your projects for you by becoming activists. Activists essentially take ownership of generating interest and funding for the project. The good news is that you can have multiple activists for a project.

The biggest benefit for South African Non-Profit Organisations

GivenGain opens up a credit card payment gateway for your organisation. You are then able to take donations from almost anywhere in the world through your GivenGain profile. Even non-GivenGain members can donate via credit card using the facility.

I would easliy suggest that all South African non-profit organisations make use of this new social network, even if it is just for the payment facility. At just under $70 a month it almost seems a no-brainer.

To find out more about how to implement GivenGain and other social media platforms into a complete Non Profit Organisation internet marketing strategy please take a look at our presentation Social Media for Social Good.

Internet Marketing for Non-Profit Organisations

Mike Saunders — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:00:07 +0000

Here’s the dilemma, people don’t use google to search for non-profit organisations to donate money to.

The solution: Online marketing for Non-Profit Organisations needs to revolve around community. Enter social media!!

Social media offers an opportunity for organisations to promote their cause to a wide variety of people on a technological platform that speeds up the process of “word of mouth.” This technology (facebook, twitter etc) has made it easier to spread your message wider and garner support from groups of people that are not in your physical network.

The real power of social media comes in when your support base is no longer geographically constrained and you are able to promote your message across borders. Further to this, as your support base grows it does so with an atmosphere of excitement because it is spread organically and naturally. In other words, people love the work you do and they love to tell everyone else.

So how do you market your non-profit organisation online.

Build a social media platform and strategy to distribute your message to the public
Invite like-minded people to the platform and encourage them to spread the message to their networks
Create actionable elements to your campaigns that achieve the results you’re looking for
Repeat steps 1-3

The best way I can describe what you are doing when marketing your non-profit in social media is with this analogy.

It’s like giving your message to the people in your world, neatly gift-wrapped, so that they can tear it open, listen to your authenticity and your credibitly. Over time they begin to adopt your message as their message, they take action as it stirs their heart and soon they are making their own gift boxes, wrapping up your message, and sharing it with the people in their world.

The process above is definitely easier said than done so we have designed a morning course to help you to with your internet marketing campaign. Social Media for Social Good is a presentation that looks into the tools available across a multitude of social media platforms that will help to achieve online communication success. The presentation will also help you start building an online communications strategy for your organisation. We don’t only look at Social Media but take an integrated approach to online payment, search engine marketing, email, blog and social media marketing.

Social Media can’t fix everything

Mike Saunders — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:00:32 +0000

I read an interesting article on Groundswell which highlights a very important aspect of BP’s current social media nightmare and what they should do about it.

Basically the suggestion is to do nothing and actually fix the problem of the spill. In fact all BP’s resources should be focused on this one problem.

In the same way not every single negative piece of social media press can be solved with social media. You may need to throw all your energy into fixing the problem.

An example would be a public dissatisfaction with the level of service received at retail outlets of a major brand. The dissatisfied public have chosen to ‘vent’ on their favorite social media platforms and as a result their message is spreading like wildfire. A literal PR nightmare.

You can respond to every single comment and produce all kinds of interesting media into the social realm, but if the root of the problem is not fixed then the bad social media press will continue. My advice (and Harvard Business’s Advice) is to tackle the actual problem first and train your employees to deliver greater service levels to your customers.

Once the actual problem is solved, return to your Online Reputation Management and build a campaign/message around how you have dealt with the problem and how your customers can now visit the store and experience better service. This positive experience (subsequently felt by the customer) may make it onto social media and their opinion will be heard much louder than yours!

So social media might not solve the actual problem, but it was very helpful in identifying the problem and then promoting the solution back to your customers.

How to get your company to buy into social media

Mike Saunders — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:00:34 +0000

Harvard Business Publishing has released a video that I think can be very valuable to most marketers in South Africa. The video offers seven steps that you can implement to show the value of social media to the management executives within your organisations.

Often the task at hand in business is not showing the value of social media, but rather getting people to believe you and support you.

Harvard Business offer these seven steps

Start small
Get an executive sponsor
Line up other stakeholders ahead of time
Move quickly
Seek precedence
Make friends
Measure your success

Check out the video to get the details.

Through Mike Saunders Consulting we have successfully done executive level social media coaching to help executive business people understand the value of social media. We have seen many CEO’s and MD’s making big steps forward in social media once they have spent some time in our coaching sessions.

These sessions simply outline the benefit and steps neccessary to implement a successful social media strategy within your organisation.

For more information please feel free to contact us.

SA Linkedin usage report

Mike Saunders — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:00:51 +0000

Linkedin is a great network to take part in. It aids business relationship building, employee recruitment, and idea sharing. I have found that being a part of this network has opened up opportunities to profile myself in a professional manner online and start networking with like minded people in my field of work.

I have since done some research on the usership of Linkedin by South Africans and found 600 000 South Africans were registered, 94 000 users are in management positions with 50 000 company directors and presidents. The site also has over 75 000 business owners registered along with 26 000 consultants.

So to make things easier I have put a few of the statistics into a presentation (below) and a PDF Download. Please bear in mind that the pdf download is the most detailed.

In the presentation there is mention of our latest presentation called WOZA Linkedin which is designed to explain how Linkedin works and how to use it yourself. The presentation can be done in one-on-one session’s and in team training environments.

Twitter launches Twitter Places

Mike Saunders — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 07:00:52 +0000

Twitter recently launched Twitter Places, a technology that allows users to tell Twitter where they are in the world. The benefit for the user is simple. Their tweet now has more context.

From twitter:

When turning to Twitter to keep up with the current world cup soccer game, it helps to know where a Tweet is coming from—is that person watching the game on TV or is he actually in the stadium? To help answer that question, we’re excited to announce Twitter Places on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com. Starting today, you can tag Tweets with specific places, including all World Cup stadiums in South Africa, and create new Twitter Places. You can also click a Twitter Place within a Tweet to see recent Tweets from a particular location.

This also means that Twitter will now have similar attributes to the new social media startup Foursquare. Location is becoming an important part of online socilaising, which makes it no surprise that Twitter is now entering this space.

Image courtesy of twitter.com

Most people have come to realise that I only care about adoption when it comes to social media. There is no point marketing into a social media platform unless your public are using the network. Twitter has the potential to create serious competition for Foursquare here as they have a user base of about 11 million with 64 million tweets occuring each day. The latest stats I could find on Foursquare sat at 1.4 million users. However in true social networking spirit Foursquare and Twitter have been working together to get this technology working and integrated on both platforms which seems to suggest a more symbiotic relationship between the two networks.

Although I like Foursquare and enjoy playing the game, I would suggest that people take note of Twitter Places and start tracking the tweets that surround their retail outlets, hotels, venues and stadiums. It could provide a great channel for listening to public opinion for your business.

Twitter has the following to say off their company blog:

“Over the next week, we will roll this out to users in 65 countries around the world, so keep an eye out for the “Add your location” link below the Tweet box. This is possible thanks to key data partnerships with TomTom and Localeze. We are also working to bring Twitter Places to our other mobile applications, including Twitter for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. Follow @geo for geo-specific updates, and check our Help Center to learn how to use Twitter Places.”

If you would like to know more about using twitter check out our latest twitter presentation/workshop Twit, Twitter and Tweet