Created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.

YouTube is about rich, interesting content rather than rich video productions.

This makes it an ideal medium for small to medium-sized business, according to Sydney-based social media consultant Laurel Papworth. Although Australia in general is behind the US in using Web 2.0 applications, small businesses are warming to idea of affordably-made YouTube clips.

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Twitter began back in 2006, created by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone and is now one of the world’s fastest growing social networks with around 11 new accounts created every second – that’s over 1 million new accounts a day. It seems the world

has gone tweet crazy – on a busy day Twitter sees around 175 million Tweets from 140 million active users – 62% of whom are aged 18 to 34.

According to socialbakers.com the most impressive Twitter profile is Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) with over 37 million followers.

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Some 34,680 job applications were received from all over the globe, $390 million generated in publicity, Queensland tourism jumped 20% whilst the rest of Australia was down and today 50% of Australian trips include a Queensland component.

The campaign reached a global audience of some 3,000,000,000 people and generated over 8,000,000 unique visitors to the campaign website.

Social media is a powerful tool but like anything you really need to know how to make it work to get a measurable result for your brand.

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A magical night of memories and connections marked the 2oth anniversary dinner of the Sydney Hills Business Chamber of Commerce at Castle Hill RSL.

Radio 2UE’s Jason Morrison was MC for the night, which was attended by Hills businesses large and small.

Members and guests were welcomed by business relationships co-ordinator Amanda Rose, commercial general manager Chris Highett, football general manager John Tsatsimas and head coach Tony Popovic.

Chamber chairman Tony Eades said the event included an in-depth question and answer session with Highett and Popovic, which provided an “excellent message around culture and building a team on a mission”.

The creative director of BrandManager took over from Tony Moran who had finished his five-year term.

Tony joined the Syndey Hills Business Chamber after 2009 after moving his business from the city to Norwest Business Park and closer to his Hills home.

He joined the chamber in 2009 and has been a MyBoard member, a support partner, a board member and vice-chairman.

“My immediate goal in the next 12 months is to engage with people and have more bisinesses benefiting from being members of the chamber,” Tony said.

“I have always been very passionate about small business and being a member of the chamber you can learn form others…you are not alone.”

The internet, and in particular social media, can pack a pretty powerful punch – four billion views per day on YouTube, the average Twitter user boasts 126 followers, most of whom they’ve never met, and more than 10 million Australians claim to use Facebook each month.

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A Readers Digest poll of the most trusted brands found that the number one reason people supported a business was if it ‘remained true to its brand’.

On a recent interstate trip my Qantas flight was delayed two hours on the tarmac due to minor maintenance issues with nothing but a mere PA apology to passengers. Interestingly the new brand tagline for Qantas is – ‘you’re the reason we fly’.

Looking after the customers you have is more important in today’s digitally connected world than it has ever been. With the average person in Australia having at least one social media connection, if not two or three, one negative experience can be…

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The web offers a great resource with around 7.51 billion indexed pages as of June 2012 and 32.7 percent of the world population connected – a growth of over 500 percent since the year 2000 – but what if you just want as many of us do to find something locally? That’s where SoLoMo comes in basically allowing people to interact (social), find (local) and access (mobile) your brand easily.

specialisation so that people will be reminded of what you can offer them long after they’ve met you. There is nothing worse than a future customer telling you that they went to your competitor because they didn’t know you offered that product or service – list it on your card and
you’ll never miss a sale again.
The best news is that printing on two sides of a card instead of one will generally cost only an additional 20 to 30% not double, so it makes great economic sense too!

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