Current market conditions for Entrepreneurs in South Africa

What happened last year in South Africa:

Its no secret that I started my business 3 days before the first bank went under in September 2008. GREAT timing to be going on your own! The struggle (and believe me it has been a struggle) has been tough but I’ve seen a major change in the past few months! I’ve always claimed that if I can build a business through those times then getting it humming in ‘normal’ times shouldn’t be that much of a challenge.

 Economic changes felt early this year:

The market conditions, well the ones I’m operating under anyway, are at worst good. The consideration and feedback from clients has taken on a completely different form. From a position where engaging clients was difficult only a mere 4/5 months ago to now where clients are actively seeking me out, FANTASITC is a word that doesn’t give enough expression to the difference this has made in my business life. Granted “Internet Marketing” is a huge growth field currently in South Africa but this business decision was made based on that premise 2 years ago and it didn’t help during the past year. The only factor that has changed significantly is the market environment.

Positives to be taken out of last year:

I think a number of the “weaker” companies (and a few strong ones) got burnt (some even died) during the economic slowdown. Sometimes that’s a good thing and makes the market stronger but now the time is right for all South African businesses but particularly the fast moving and dynamic Entrepreneurs to shake a leg and make a move. Its all positive if you’re still up and running, if you’re not either try again or join someone that’s making it work and LEARN!

The impact the soccer world cup is having on entrepreneurship in South Africa

The World Cup Soccer I believe sheltered us from some of the impact of the world wide economic slowdown and is a bit of a launching pad into the next few months so why not use it? Who knows for sure what will happen post the Soccer world cup but I for one believe that business sentiment has change and that people are getting tired of hiding from world recession and have realized its time to get out there and do something. Why not join them, I have!

Post by: Ian Thomas

www.wsims.co.za

Internet Marketing South Africa

The trends around Social Media…

As the online community grows so does the use of Social Media. As a marketing tool businesses are increasingly using social media as it is an extremely cost effective and efficient means of targeting a very specific market segment. Going along with this is the statistic that well over 45% of companies plan in increasing their spend on marketing via social media while another 35% plan on maintaining their current spend in this media. That’s pretty powerful!

Video in websites

A very interesting increase is the rise in use of video. This is growing rapidly and despite fairly popular sentiment the statistics reveal that 55% of people use video for professional reasons while only 33% use it for personal reasons. It has been widely proven (in my business as well) that the use of video in a website increases the conversion rate dramatically.

Social media marketing is the Internet vesion of ‘Word of mouth marketing’

It is important to note that Social media is seen as the ‘word of mouth’ advertising section of the Internet which I whole heartedly agree with. 77% of top executives said they would increase their spending in this media segment with around 12% saying they would maintain current spending. Tell me that’s not significant!

Growth of Blogging and Twitter

Facebook is still the most commonly used social media for advertising but it is being caught at a rapid rate by Twitter, I think this can be seen as partly because of the emergence of Blogging as a means of communicating with clients and getting a message out there. Its  important to note that the traditional methods of ‘push’ advertising are being increasingly filtered by markets and companies are being judged by what they actually do rather than by a fancy payoff line. Blogging is now a means of communicating with your target market, no longer only informing them but now also allowing feedback for a healthy relationship.

Monitor social media

The above has led to companies utilising skills like social media monitoring, wouldn’t you like to know what is being said about you on the web? This can be used as a lead generation tool or it may allow you the opportunity to enter the conversation, give yourself a voice and rectify situations by taking a negative comment and turning it into a lead generation opportunity as customers see you handle a situation well and trust you for their future transactions. What did I say about companies being judged by what they do rather than what they say??? CLASSIC example of how this could be valuable to you!

21% of best‐in‐class companies are increasing their social media marketing spending by 25% or more in the coming year! Why wouldn’t you?

Post by: Ian Thomas

www.wsims.co.za

Internet Marketing South Africa

Top tips for business Tweeters

A large number of users of Twitter have heard its a great business tool but don’t know how to use it as such. Some don’t get started, this should help you on your way, some jump straight in and make mistakes, hopefully it’s not too late and the below tips can help you salvage some of the mess you’ve created!

1: Don’t sell!

Most important!!! PLEASE!!! A lot of people get confused here, using Twitter as a marketing tool is not about trying to sell to all the users of Twitter.

2: Add VALUE!

If you want people to follow you, talk to you, interact with you and potentially buy from you then add value to them. That’s the way to get them interested in what you’re talking about and ultimately to get what you want from them.

3: Engage in conversation

Talk to people, get to know them and have a chat. That’s what social media is all about, its like a massive dinner party where people chat and interact. Don’t act any differently to what you would in a normal social environment.

4: Add links in your tweets

Twitter is all about fast, quick and easy communication, that’s why its limited to 140 characters. So add links that substantiate what you’re talking about. Even better (from a business perspective) if those links go to your company blog / website / Facebook profile or wherever it is that your tweet is  substantiated.

5: Answer questions

Get involved with people talking about topics you have knowledge on. Look for questions people are asking so you can answer them and add value. Engage with these people and help, that’s the only way you’re going to build credibility and create brand awareness through twitter.

Written by: Ian Thomas an Internet marketing specialist in South Africa

Twitter: www.twitter.com/IanThomas_

Twitter Tips… the next step (III)

Twitter is about interacting with a community of interested individuals. A number of people see it as a great broadcast medium, which it can be if you are an interesting, interested and active member of a community, get the difference?

How to add value:

Twitter is about giving its about adding value to a community, 2000 active, caring and engaged followers is way better than 40 000 spambot and random followers.

Ways to get genuine followers are:

ü  Be interesting

ü  Engage in conversation

ü  Follow the influencers and genuine people in the community you take interest in

v  Reply to @messages its just plain old good practice (read: manners).

v  Retweet relevant and good information giving the original author credit. (when you scroll over the message a box pops up, use the retweet button for an easy way to get it right!)

v  If you want to send a message on but alter it in some way then, instead of using RT@username in the beginning of the message use via@username at the end of the message

Questions are a great way to participate:

Ask questions, twitter is the perfect platform to do this. You are interacting with your community and getting answers at the same time, perfect!

Answer questions…. It’s the same as the above but you get to look clever as well, power! Providing good information on twitter will give you a good and knowledgeable reputation.

A common question: How often should I Tweet?

Novices and experienced Twitterers ask the same question, the average number is 4.22 tweets per day. Try different alternatives and see what works for you, just be mindful that too many tweets may irritate followers.

Get to know new followers, this will allow you to decide who to follow back. Don’t auto-DM (this automatically sends new followers a direct message) most reasonably experienced followers will possibly be insulted by this. Rather if you must send all followers a message wait, go to their profile and write a thoughtful direct message, the impact will be far greater!

Spam – DON’T do it and what to do if it happens to you!

Don’t do ANYTHING that people might consider spam!!! This includes:

• @messages to people you don’t know
• DMing people with the goal of selling something
• If any of your messages are slightly iffy and contain a link, people will think of it as spam

Ways to fight spam:

• Follow www.twitter.com/spam after they’ve followed you back (instant) send them a message with the spammers name and they will investigate
• Go to the spammers page and look on the right hand side, there will be a block link, this will stop the person from sending you messages again
• Simply unfollow the spammer…

Written by: Ian Thomas an Internet marketing specialist in South Africa

Twitter: www.twitter.com/IanThomas_

SEO specialists…. what to watch out for!

Internet marketing is a complex and varied field. I find a number of clients coming to me with stories of having been ‘led down the garden path’ by individuals who have promised the world and not really delivered in any meaningful way.

SEO in South Africa at the moment is an interesting area to work in with some results relatively easy to achieve and others that much more difficult.

Some points to conceder when looking into a SEO consultant.

One of the problems with the field of SEO is that there are a lot of people who have small pieces of information. They use this and spread it far and wide without the proper context needed to evaluate the potential risks and rewards of any given strategy. New SEOs “specialists” often end up thinking topic “x” is the most important, then they jump to topic “y” and equally as randomly to topic “z”, then someone debunks one of those and they start again. Many false facts are taken as truths when the people with a nugget of information (that they found from some or other source) and spread it as fact. Google’s search algorithms are closely guarded secrets in fact they are so complex that even leading search engineers do not know how they work it can be quite hard piecing together a cohesive strategy from the disparate chunks.

WSI’s competitive advantage.

This is why you need an experienced Internet marking specialist to work with you and your business. WSI provides the perfect platform for this as the franchise based company as inculcated a system of sharing amongst its 1600 consultants, as such we can learn from each other far faster and better than any other specialist team. This gives a WSI Internet Marketing consultant.

Post by: Ian Thomas

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/IanThomas_

Web address for more information: www.wsims.co.za

How do you know if you can trust a Search Engine Optimisation “expert”?

People claiming to be Search Engine Optimisation experts are on the rise, the scary thing is not all of them know what they’re doing.

Things to watch out for!

1. 1. The “guarantee” of first place listings

The first sign to watch out for is if they ‘guarantee’ first place listings, especially on the organic or natural search sections. No one can guarantee first place rankings in the organic section as Google changes its algorithm on a daily basis. (I think the stat was 680 changes last year, that’s almost twice a day!) Other search engines do the same as they constantly try outdoing each other in providing the best most up to date and correct information for their clients.

1. 2. Saying pay per click is as good as organic rankings

The second is if they’re trying to talk you into taking Pay-per-click (PPC) alone and saying it’s as good as natural search, the fact is it’s not. It is however a lot harder to get rankings here and takes a lot more work from the consultants’ side.

1. 3. Their own site rankings

Thirdly check their rankings if they can’t rank their own site how are they going to rank yours? Now the cobblers children not having shoes is a common phenomenon but in this day and age its not really an excuse anymore!

Post by: Ian Thomas

Website: www.wsims.co.za

Twitter: Ian Thomas

Marketing on the Web, whats changed from Traditional Marketing?

The internet has changed the way in which we communicate with our market ….

The Internet has changed the marketing landscape with the advent of the digital market place. It has created an environment where the client can now talk back and communicate with you. More importantly however it has created a landscape where clients can talk to each other. Possibly the most important conversation going on on the Internet right now is the conversation between your current client and your potential future client. How we participate in that conversation is now becoming vitally important.

Engage with ‘Influencers’ in your marketplace and let them spread the message.

With the Internet we try create conversations with the “influencers” in the market and engage with them in a positive manner as opposed to traditional methods of advertising where we try to interrupt users and get their attention.

In the Internet space we give influencers the information to be able to influence those around them; ‘Internet Marketing’ is a complete about turn in the way we communicate with our clients and potential clients. We thus interact with the space around our client’s everyday lives rather than interrupting them to get their attention.

Listening is key with customer interaction.

The Internet allows us to talk to clients, while listening at the same time, listening being the key to this engagement. This is one of the few mediums that allow this engagement and let’s be honest it’s the way the world is going. If you’re not communicating with your clients you’re dying, whether you see it now or not is not important really.

Scan the environment to maintain your reputation.

There are a few tools which allow you to see what is being said about you or your company on the Internet, use them. This creates natural  interaction between you and your clients. Not to mention it being one of the best PR tools you can possibly hope for!

By: Ian Thomas

www.wsims.co.za

Twitter: IanThomas_

How to tell how your website is performing….

How do I see / know how my website is performing?

Without knowledge of what is happening on your site how can it be a useful tool to you or your business. There is little point using an Internet marketing strategy you can track and follow what the resulting impact on your website and ultimately your revenue is.

Google Analytics – The easiest to use and most common tool for this is Google Analytics. The best part about it is that its also free. I’ve had many clients with other paid solutions which can also be good but I still haven’t found one which I prefer and is more comprehensive than good old Google’s analytics.

It gives a nice overall view or dashboard if you like as well as the opportunity to drill down into numerous categories to get more accurate and definite information on the happenings on your site.

Segmentation – You can segment your results to be shown by area, keyword (which can be further segmented into paid or non-paid ie. Adwords (Pay-per-click) or Organic., browser, connection speed and numerous others.

Goal funnels – One of the most useful tools is the ability to create goal funnels. This shows the number of people following the logical path through your website to whatever goals you want ie. Actions you want them to take like contacting you, purchasing something or downloading something. It also shows where they came from and if they left where they went. This is invaluable information as you can see what they were looking for if the didn’t continue. You can give this to them and this should increase your number of conversions. Thus through spending no more money you are making more money… makes sense to me.

Find me on Twitter: IanThomas_

Post by: Ian Thomas

Specialty: Internet marketing South Africa

Web: www.wsims.co.za

Email: enquiries@wsims.co.za

How do I get better rankings on Google?

How do I get better rankings on Google?

Well the easy answer to “How do I get better rankings on Google / search engines)  is hire someone who knows what they’re doing to get it done for you, but since you’re reading this I’m guessing you don’t fit into that category (for whatever reason!). Therefore I’ll try helping you with a bit of direction.

There are two major categories when it comes to ‘optimisation’; onpage and offpage optimisation…

Onpage search engine optimization  (structure)

This is fairly basic and comes down to structure. Google was written by a human so think how you would analyze what a page is about and simply do the same. Headings, titles, words in bold or italics are all important!

OffPage optimisation (external linking strategy)

This becomes a little more difficult to do without the necessary knowledge and knowhow.

In simple terms Google sees incoming links into a website as ‘votes’ for that web page. It makes sense; why else would I place a link on my website to your website unless I valued the content on your site? Thus Google sees these as valuable. As to just how valuable the various links are that could be another entire blog post worth but for now just think of them as ‘votes’.

The link must be placed on keyword terms, this way Google knows that the linking page values your page for “X” information.

Internal linking strategy

The links within your website are also noted by Google and these can also lend weight to a certain keyword strategy.

Find me on Twitter: IanThomas_

Post by: Ian Thomas

Specialty: Internet marketing South Africa

Web: www.wsims.co.za

Email: enquiries@wsims.co.za

How to use Social media for Internet Marketing

Social media – Internet marketing

 
“Social Media” is currently making its way into the list of ‘buzz words’ people like to use when talking about the Internet in general and Internet marketing in particular. A number of people aren’t really sure what social media is though. I’ll give you my definition.

My Definition:

Social media is all the different programs or platforms that allow people to communicate on a social level on the Internet today. Some are more popular than others and others not even worth talking about at the moment. Some are huge in other area’s but most of us haven’t heard of them (eg. Qzone, China, it has more people on it than Facebook). Lets concentrate on the ones we know. Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Blogs, Twitter and the like.

Social media, interact with your audience

Social media marketing is a mystery to most as it is a very subtle means of creating brand and product awareness, the same way you would in an social situation. Purely by engaging and being interesting, creating a ‘bond’ and if the person is interested they might ask what you do!  Social media is the ‘word of mouth’ section of Internet marketing. Its about interacting and advising Just as you would in any other social environment. Its not about selling, please understand this. Social media is not a sales tool and will not work for you if you try to use it as one! You can create a very effective network with which you can communicate and inform, but please don’t sell everything you can think of to them!

Social media as a ‘sounding board’

Social media can be a very good sounding board for concepts and idea’s. You can also gauge the public’s opinion and pick up on sentiments quite easily and in these area’s it can be hugely useful.

Find me on Twitter: Ian_Ximungwe

Post by: Ian Thomas

Specialty: Internet marketing South Africa

Web: www.wsims.co.za

Email: enquiries@wsims.co.za