It’s interesting, every day we learn something new, consciously or subconsciously. Sometimes someone says something to you and it really sticks in your head. I had a university lecturer, who was a bit of a strange character, I always remember him because he used to sit on the desk in tutorials and wrap his white handkerchief around the end of his pencil and then proceed to clean the inside of his ear with it. Not the most pleasant site to see when you’re a 19 year old student. Anyway, one particular lecture he said to the class, no matter what you do in life or where life takes you…….’you must read widely and you must read well!’, I found it strange at the time, but he was right. The world, the economy, society, trends, fads, fashions…..our surroundings and the drivers of them are constantly changing. Unless we read widely and read well (take it in), how do we cope with these changes? How do we plan for the future? And how do we take advantage of the opportunities that are surrounding us each day? This thought process is one of the reasons that I try to read as widely as time permits, but as a minimum I am an avid fan and enjoy the BRW (Business Review Weekly) and the new NETT magazine (centred around business and online). We can learn so much from each other and that is what I believe adds value and meaning and purpose to our lives. Its one of the reasons that I discipline myself to send out a monthly newsletter to as many Clubs in NSW as possible with some tit bits of information either marketing or online that I think they can benefit from.
Clubsational is an online business that will continue to grow and I believe will continue to add more and more value to Clubs of all sizes in NSW. The great thing about online, and a big benefit to Clubs, is that having a hub for Clubs online can really take advantage of the most powerful form of marketing….word-of-mouth recommendations. I think this is something that Clubs could leverage really well within their individual communities. Go the word of mouth, create the ‘noise’ in your local market. Some Clubs are not getting the number of people into their Club that they would usually do……create some noise, some excitement and have an offer that is attractive and affordable. I think ClubsNSW does a good job of telling the state in general that ‘Clubs are Good and Do a Lot for the Community’ but does your Club tell your local community how good you are and what you do and offer the community??? Editorial in your local newspaper is a great way of doing this…and for goodness sake…..with the amount of money that most Clubs have spent in the past on local press…most papers should provide this opportunity. As Australians, I think we are relatively humble and don’t like to big note ourselves, but face facts, now is the time when you need to be beating your own drum and telling people….we are sensational, we need the communities support, we support the community, we have great facilities…..come and utilize our facilities and enjoy your next meal in our Club. Other Clubs are saying that people are still coming into clubs…but just not spending what they would in the past. Well if they are coming in, but not spending…….why wouldn’t you promote online discount vouchers such as Clubsational, a cleverly developed discount voucher offer may be exactly what they need!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Social Media Big Wigs......
I attended an AIMIA (Australian Interactive Media Industry Association) forum on ‘Social Media & User Generated Content’ during the week.
AIMIA did a great job at getting some highly credible speakers including; Francisco Cordero, General Manager, Australian and NZ at Bebo Inc, Michela Ledwidge, Managing Director, MOD Films, Dominique Hind, General Manager, Mark. And Andrew Cordwell, Director of Sales, Fox Interactive Media, myspace.com.
The discussion included existing social media, trends of where social media & user generated content could go and the benefit to organisations from a marketing perspective.
Many of the companies utilizing these facilities well and linking to successful marketing campaigns are the multimedia FMCG companies, although there are many opportunities for smaller business too if executed well.
I think one of the things that stood out for me though, was the word ‘community’.
More and more, being online and creating a sense of belonging when promoting our businesses and the products or services that we have on offer, is all about creating a community where people can hold two way conversations. Which is interesting, because, essentially, the NSW Club Industry is already a ‘community’. The meaning of this community, though, would be different depending on whom you speak to. There is the community of ‘managers’, the community of ‘suppliers’, the community of ‘employees’, the community of ‘directors’, the community of ‘clubs’ themselves. Never has there been a better time to pull these already built tangible & physical ‘communities’ within the NSW Club Industry online than through Clubsational. And what I find personally very exciting, is the not too distant future possibilities in technology to provide real value to these communities! But more about that later....
Another interesting discussion, was the recent AC Nielsen Social Media Research Study (which I am going to try to get my hands on a copy of, if I succeed in this mission, I will post it here later…). Apparently, this shows that 50% of Australians are currently participating in social networking in some capacity with an online ‘profile’. And what’s more important, it is not ALL about the 16 -18 and 18 – 21 year olds. In fact, it is shifting very quickly, the Director of Sales of myspace.com, Andrew Cordwell, noted that there has been a recent significant movement towards a growth in the 40 -55 age bracket in myspace.com, which was previously skewed towards the youth market.
Not surprisingly…..in fact myspace.com and facebook.com started filtering into Australia, in the first instance, through the younger Australian generation travelling overseas and being able to communicate with emails, news streams, images, video etc back home to parents who, with a passion for their children and keeping abreast of what they were doing and their adventures, decided that technology was not THAT scary after all. Well, when you consider the rewards that were waiting at the end of the pilgrimage! Sort of like taking a nasty tasting spoon of medicine, you know it’s not going to taste nice, but you can’t wait to start feeling better – so you know its got to be done!
The one thing that all members of the panel agreed upon, was that online technology/software and applications was exploding, and over the next 10 years, say if defined in terms of how a 10 year old would be utilising technology as a 20 year old in the future, is difficult to predict (over and above the fact that it will all be 'mobile').....just look at what the last 10 years have delivered!
AIMIA did a great job at getting some highly credible speakers including; Francisco Cordero, General Manager, Australian and NZ at Bebo Inc, Michela Ledwidge, Managing Director, MOD Films, Dominique Hind, General Manager, Mark. And Andrew Cordwell, Director of Sales, Fox Interactive Media, myspace.com.
The discussion included existing social media, trends of where social media & user generated content could go and the benefit to organisations from a marketing perspective.
Many of the companies utilizing these facilities well and linking to successful marketing campaigns are the multimedia FMCG companies, although there are many opportunities for smaller business too if executed well.
I think one of the things that stood out for me though, was the word ‘community’.
More and more, being online and creating a sense of belonging when promoting our businesses and the products or services that we have on offer, is all about creating a community where people can hold two way conversations. Which is interesting, because, essentially, the NSW Club Industry is already a ‘community’. The meaning of this community, though, would be different depending on whom you speak to. There is the community of ‘managers’, the community of ‘suppliers’, the community of ‘employees’, the community of ‘directors’, the community of ‘clubs’ themselves. Never has there been a better time to pull these already built tangible & physical ‘communities’ within the NSW Club Industry online than through Clubsational. And what I find personally very exciting, is the not too distant future possibilities in technology to provide real value to these communities! But more about that later....
Another interesting discussion, was the recent AC Nielsen Social Media Research Study (which I am going to try to get my hands on a copy of, if I succeed in this mission, I will post it here later…). Apparently, this shows that 50% of Australians are currently participating in social networking in some capacity with an online ‘profile’. And what’s more important, it is not ALL about the 16 -18 and 18 – 21 year olds. In fact, it is shifting very quickly, the Director of Sales of myspace.com, Andrew Cordwell, noted that there has been a recent significant movement towards a growth in the 40 -55 age bracket in myspace.com, which was previously skewed towards the youth market.
Not surprisingly…..in fact myspace.com and facebook.com started filtering into Australia, in the first instance, through the younger Australian generation travelling overseas and being able to communicate with emails, news streams, images, video etc back home to parents who, with a passion for their children and keeping abreast of what they were doing and their adventures, decided that technology was not THAT scary after all. Well, when you consider the rewards that were waiting at the end of the pilgrimage! Sort of like taking a nasty tasting spoon of medicine, you know it’s not going to taste nice, but you can’t wait to start feeling better – so you know its got to be done!
The one thing that all members of the panel agreed upon, was that online technology/software and applications was exploding, and over the next 10 years, say if defined in terms of how a 10 year old would be utilising technology as a 20 year old in the future, is difficult to predict (over and above the fact that it will all be 'mobile').....just look at what the last 10 years have delivered!
Facebook – do you Become a Friend or a Fan and what about a Group?
I have had a few questions around facebook from a couple of Club Managers so I thought it worthwhile to provide a quick summary in lamens terms.
Facebook.com is all about ‘connecting’ people through a community environment – and is referred to as social media.
Anyone can search people’s names online, without having their own ‘profile’ and see a pic of the person (if they have loaded one). In fact, you can even search by organization name, school name etc and it’s a great way of tracking down good friends that maybe you travelled through Europe with, but have now lost contact with for whatever reason.
To utilize the power of facebook though, you need to ‘join’ so that you can setup your own online ‘profile’. You can spend as little or as much time doing this as you please – but take it from me – it can be addictive and 5 minutes can quickly transcend into an hour. So…..your asking how can it assist my business? Here’s a quick summary of the various ways you can participate in facebook:
1. Setup a ‘profile’ for yourself (the idea of a profile is that you are an actual person, as opposed to a product or a business) – you connect with ‘friends’ who may be actual; friends, family, business collegues. Once you accept friends, they can see all of the content on your profile and vice versa, the idea being its two way communication built on trust. I have my own profile ‘Justine Turner Day’;
2. Setup a ‘group’ for your interest – can be anything eg. Save the Environment, Best Bands, Clubsational. Anyone with a facebook profile can search for a group based on keywords and ‘join’ if the group interests them ie become a ‘member’ of the group. The ‘group’ has their own profile page and can send out invitations to events and post information relating to the group directly to members;
3. Setup a ‘business’ page ie www.clubsational.com.au – so you ask how is this different to the two above. Well, again, as in ‘2’, anyone can ‘join’ (ie it is not based on being ‘accepted’) but you become a ‘fan’ (as opposed to a ‘friend’ (1) or a ‘member’(2)). From this page, the business can also run content ads across the site, similar to Adwords through Google. Of course, because the content is quite personal, the message can be targeted at the micro level.
Like anything, the power in using facebook and any social media interaction, is based on addressing:
1. Absolute relevance – to the target audience;
2. Community – feeling of ‘belonging’;
3. Involvement – engaging the audience with content;
4. Creative – making sure it doesn’t look like an ad;
5. Measurement – power of ROI.
Facebook.com is all about ‘connecting’ people through a community environment – and is referred to as social media.
Anyone can search people’s names online, without having their own ‘profile’ and see a pic of the person (if they have loaded one). In fact, you can even search by organization name, school name etc and it’s a great way of tracking down good friends that maybe you travelled through Europe with, but have now lost contact with for whatever reason.
To utilize the power of facebook though, you need to ‘join’ so that you can setup your own online ‘profile’. You can spend as little or as much time doing this as you please – but take it from me – it can be addictive and 5 minutes can quickly transcend into an hour. So…..your asking how can it assist my business? Here’s a quick summary of the various ways you can participate in facebook:
1. Setup a ‘profile’ for yourself (the idea of a profile is that you are an actual person, as opposed to a product or a business) – you connect with ‘friends’ who may be actual; friends, family, business collegues. Once you accept friends, they can see all of the content on your profile and vice versa, the idea being its two way communication built on trust. I have my own profile ‘Justine Turner Day’;
2. Setup a ‘group’ for your interest – can be anything eg. Save the Environment, Best Bands, Clubsational. Anyone with a facebook profile can search for a group based on keywords and ‘join’ if the group interests them ie become a ‘member’ of the group. The ‘group’ has their own profile page and can send out invitations to events and post information relating to the group directly to members;
3. Setup a ‘business’ page ie www.clubsational.com.au – so you ask how is this different to the two above. Well, again, as in ‘2’, anyone can ‘join’ (ie it is not based on being ‘accepted’) but you become a ‘fan’ (as opposed to a ‘friend’ (1) or a ‘member’(2)). From this page, the business can also run content ads across the site, similar to Adwords through Google. Of course, because the content is quite personal, the message can be targeted at the micro level.
Like anything, the power in using facebook and any social media interaction, is based on addressing:
1. Absolute relevance – to the target audience;
2. Community – feeling of ‘belonging’;
3. Involvement – engaging the audience with content;
4. Creative – making sure it doesn’t look like an ad;
5. Measurement – power of ROI.
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