Tony Eades » Tony’s Blog

Social Media for Business: YouTube

Tony — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:38:25 +0000

In part three of our series to uncover the digital fabric that is social media and look at each platform from a business perspective to help you get a measurable result for your brand, we take a look at YouTube.

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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Social Media for Business: Twitter

Tony — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:32:17 +0000

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. In part two of our series to uncover the digital fabric that is social media and look at each platform from a business perspective, we look at Twitter.

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.

> Click here to read the full article

Social Media for Business: Facebook

Tony — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:22:18 +0000

One of the most impressive campaigns of recent times is Queensland’s ‘Best Job in the world’ where the winning “applicant” was flown first class to the Great Barrier Reef from anywhere in the world to ‘care-take’ an island paradise. While traditional advertising and public relations supported the campaign, the real success was won in social media.

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.

> Click here to read the full article

Retail VS Online

Tony — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 05:07:25 +0000

The 131-year-old film pioneer Eastman Kodak recently filed for bankruptcy protection as the company struggled to adapt to an increasingly digital world. Kodak has become the latest giant to fall in the face of advancing technology. Last year, the Borders Group liquidated after failing to gain a stronghold in e-books, while Blockbuster, the video-store network, sold itself to Dish Network in 2011 as its retail outlets lost ground to online competitors like Netflix. Australia’s retail environment has to change or face
imminent extinction.

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.

> click here to read the full article

Building Brand Loyalty

Tony — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 01:25:19 +0000

Vodafone recently claimed that ‘network brand damage’ was the reason for a $500 million revenue drop in 2012 and Hyundai Australia announced recently a recall of 227,000 cars with a faulty brake light issue that they had known about for 15 months prior. So why aren’t iconic Australian brands investing more in their brand loyalty?

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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‘SoLoMo’ and the CEO

Tony — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:53:14 +0000

“SoLoMo” is an amalgam for social, local and mobile. SoLoMo combines the best of both the virtual, digital and real worlds to deliver an experience that’s as natural to do on a mobile device as it would be in real life finally bridging the gap between user and the web.

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!

> click here to read the full article

The Power Of The Humble Business Card

Tony — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 22:12:31 +0000

Have you ever attended a business networking event, met someone of interest and then been handed a poorly designed, digitally printed business card? At event I attended recently someone came flying in, thrusting pieces of trimmed paper with their handwritten name on it to everyone and anyone they could get in front of.

The humble business card is probably the most underrated form of marketing on the planet. Business professionals spend thousands on glossy marketing and well crafted brands only to cut corners on the design and print of the introduction cards they hand out to prospective customers.

How ever dynamic you are at a networking the only reminder of you left in the hands of the people you meet is your calling card. How will they remember your encounter a day or so later when they come across your low cost, low impact business card?

So let’s recognise and embrace the power of the humble business card and look at five ways to enhance it’s impact on everyone you meet…

>click here to read the full article

Create a web presence with more ‘byte’

Tony — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:50:22 +0000

Accurately measuring the size of the ever-changing world wide web is an impossible task. In 2008 it is estimated that some five exabytes of unique information was created – that’s about one billion DVD’s in the real world. Fast forward three years and we are creating 1.2 zettabytes – one zettabyte is equal to 1,024 exabytes or 2 to the 70th power or, now take a breath – 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bytes.

So with this kind of activity you would think most businesses would want to be a part of it yet in Australia a recent MYOB survey found that nearly two thirds (64 percent) of small to medium businesses don’t even have their own website.

Add to this the fact that three quarters (75 percent) don’t use social media for business purposes and we have to wonder if Australia is getting a little left behind in the digital age.

Creating an effective online presence isn’t rocket science nor is it expensive. Getting online is a key strategy for any business to attract new customers, build customer loyalty, create new revenue streams and increase visibility, credibility and above all a competitive edge.