SOME companies understand social media and how to deal with negative comments about their businesses. But most small and medium-sized firms prefer to ignore the comments rather than deal with the problem head-on, as Mocks founder Lara Solomon has. Last year Solomon decided to swap PR for social media as the main marketing method for her business, which sells sock-like mobile phone covers in Australia, Britain and the US. She focused on a Facebook page but didn’t anticipate the full […]
Tag: Social media
Good ideas beat all comers, but keep flexibility
IN a rapidly changing market, success isn’t just about bringing the right product to market at the right time but charting the correct course through the shifting media environment. For Geoff Hunt, who spent four years working on the launch of online print-on-demand photo book service Momento, his advantage in 2004 was that he was among the first in Australia. As such he was able to capitalise on the novelty of the service in promoting it to the media. At […]
Twitter is helpful for small business
WITH sales falling and a faltering reputation caused by dirt-cheap brands, Australian wineries have a problem abroad, but small Australian wineries are fighting back. They are building their brands online using the free social networking tool of the moment, Twitter, which allows people to post frequent short messages of up to 140 characters and keep fellow users updated on their world. Many wineries and wine websites are discovering the advantages of Twitter, which is simple to use, costs nothing more […]
Google targets small to medium-sized businesses
From The Australian, Entrepreneur JULIAN Persaud, the newly appointed online head at Google Australia, is a man with a big message for small and medium-sized companies. He wants to wake them up to the opportunities online presents for growing their businesses. “They are coming on board in increasing numbers,” he says. “About 40 per cent have a website and there’s about another 20 or 30 per cent who are currently building a website. There is a big opportunity. “The reason […]
Web application driven by a need to remember
From The Australian, Entrepreneur THERE are many reasons to start a business. Some people are driven by money. Others by passion. But for Omar Kilani, of Sydney, the Remember The Milk web application came about simply because of a personal need and his passion for programming, which he has followed since he was 13. He wanted to organise himself, and his business partner and fiance Emily Boyd was an enthusiastic user of to-do lists. In 2004, Kilani relished the programming […]
Crowd-sourcing can help with content, design, feedback
From The Australian, Entrepreneur TO some extent, Web 2.0 or the read-write web as it is known, is all about crowd sourcing. The idea is that the crowd can create content for you, give feedback and even have a hand in designing products they really want. It’s a tricky concept for many companies to master but the latest generation of crowd-sourced websites such as 99designs and Gooruze are making it safe for businesses to participate. There are many definitions of […]
Content on the move: the iPhone revolution
The Australian, Entrepreneur ONCE, the only way to find a business on the move was to call a directory on a mobile phone. But the arrival on July 11 of Apple iPhone — it is 3G, has WiFi and is GPS-enabled and integrated with Google Maps — is about to change the way people use mobile devices and find businesses through map-based online listings. The big difference is that, through Google Maps on an iPhone, users can search for a […]
YouTube attracts a lot of business
The Australian, Entrepreneur MARKETING fads come and go but YouTube and the internet look as if they are here to stay. YouTube is about rich interesting content rather than rich video production companies that usually make expensive TV ads. And this makes it an ideal medium for the small to medium-sized business, according to Sydney-based Laurel Papworth, a social media consultant and evangelist. “One of the things I like about small business is that they don’t do traditional marketing with […]
Turning clicks into cash
The Australian, Entrepreneur DARREN Rowse is an accidental entrepreneur. The Melbourne-based lay preacher has earned more than $700,000 from internet advertising since 2003 simply by working out what people want to read on the internet. Now he runs the B5Media Network of 320 bloggers with co-founders Shai Coggins from Adelaide and Jeremy Wright from Toronto after 18 months ago raising $US2 million in venture capital. Mr Rowse was an internet amateur when he started blogging in 2002 after a friend […]