5 Quick Tips on Corporate Blogging

Some quick tips on corporate blogging:

1. Know your role

The CEO of a company should not blog like a mid-level manager, and a blogging staff should not blog like he owns the company.

Depending on one's position, the tone and theme of each post has to be carefully thought out. Blogging for your personal amusement is different from blogging for the company.


2. Blogs aren't press releases

The idea of a blog is to create a platform to informally speak to your audience, listen out for feedback and for interaction.

Creating another press release-like post would result in a weak following as readers would much rather prefer to get such articles from news sites. People like blogs because they provide the much needed human voice to a company.


3. Respond fast and acknowledge mistakes

Before a crisis happens and negative comments come flooding in on your product or service, use the blog to speak up immediately on the issue. Dare to admit mistakes and always respond with a positive vibe that you've heard the feedback and that you'd be working on improving things.


4. Speak up on other blogs

Leave comments on other blogs for exposure but remember not to oversell yourself.


5. Show your passion for your company/products

Be the number one fan of your products and the number one source of info on your products. Be the first to share news on the latest developments - there shouldn't be a blog out there that is more knowledgeable about your products than yours.

ad:tech Singapore: the Real Conversation

So you've been to ad:tech Singapore and you've heard the panelists speak.

Now listen to the real conversation taking place right before their noses.

Click here for the buzz.

Why is it Such a BIg Deal for Traditional Companies to Go Online?

Are traditional companies, in the Asian context, finally getting excited by and open to the idea of taking the big step to bring their marketing efforts online? I guess it is the realization that the internet is not any ordinary "hype" that goes away and since so many companies have jumped on the bandwagon already, the fear of investing in the "unknown" is also diminishing.

This switch in mentally is the general trend I'm seeing among clients of this sort that I deal with these days. And I am just as cautious and nervous (if not more!) to help them take this next big step.

You may ask, so why is it such a big deal? Why are companies hesitant to do it already? How difficult is it to get a website up, hook it up to a payment gateway provider, get started on search engine optimization and search engine marketing, set up a blog, etc.?

Going online calls for the whole act of re-looking at their original business plan which never had space for this new stream of online business. Budgets need to be re-calculated, a competent team needs to be set up to be in charge of the online operations for it to be successful, the operations flow has to get re-organized... you are generally causing a big commotion that shakes right down to the core of their business!

It isn't merely the act of going online -- traditional companies are forced to re-look and re-analyse the business plan they have always been following for decades.

You'd need a dedicated team to spearhead the remodeling of the business plan. More importantly, you'd need a team that firmly believes that going online is essential, unavoidable and worth the investment to help the company stay current and competitive.

So keep a look out for these companies, they are in my opinion the next big thing. The potential for growth is unimaginable and in the next couple of years, many exciting things will happen in Asia. We just need to give them a little bit more time.

Going Digital - Some Key Considerations

It's the digital age (no sh#t). But as you plan where you put your bulk of your marketing budget in the coming quarter, it's probably going to be on the digital domain.

Good choice.

But, going digital (or expanding your digital strategy) needs to be planned for.

It's always easy to say I'll put 20% into search, 20% into online advertising, 20% to social media, 20% to content strategy, 10% to digital PR, 10% mobile.

You certainly can, but keep in mind what your objectives really are and the underlying items supporting it. It's a long term plan. Never short term.

1. Set targets individually and overall, KPIs
2. Align with your overall marketing/branding strategy. The message has to be one!
3. Consider your digital operations structure - internal or with agencies, are you really set up?
4. Where are you now?
5. What you want to do?
6. How do you want to do it with the digital marketing mix?
7. Measurement Matrices
8. Long term goals

Food for thought... I'll leave it as this for now.

Twitter, Twitter - everyone's talking about it but how do you use it for your business?

So ... half the folks around you are on Twitter already. As we all know, the number of Twitter registrations has exploded in recent months. Last we heard - 5 million worldwide. One year ago roughly this time, it was only 700-800k worldwide.

A key question being asked between marketing professionals is - 'how do we use Twitter for our business?'

Without any fluff, here are the 5 tips that you should always remember when carving out your strategy. Twitter can help you to

1. Do research
2. Talk to people
3. Energize your brand advocates
4. Support your customers
5. Embrace customer feedback

Here's more facts and examples in the original piece written by Josh Bernoff that appeared in www.adage.com recently on how to execute these 5 points effectively for your company.

Follow me at www.twitter.com/digitalmkting and www.twitter.com/djkeishi

How to get your music on Beatport

For Fun! :)


How to get your music on Beatport from marc wren on Vimeo.

Rising above social media

Everyone is on social media today and leveraging from the huge target audience and regular visits by people.

Intersting as it sounds, I always believe that once a government agency in Singapore attempts to do this, it is time to move on to the next level. They are usually three year behind the industry.

So yes. We all know Facebook, Twitter, creating a group or fan page on a social media platform. Now, how do we make it work and most importantly how would you claim success?

Launching something is easy. I can give a ten year old kid 20 bucks and he'll probably be able to sell lemonade round the neighbourhood and even think of crazy ideas on promoting it.

Here's my take on how you can make social media marketing work for you:

1. Research - Understand your target audience. Build a business case. Get the stats and act on them.

2. Content Strategy - If we don't have content that is relevant or at all engaging, it's no different from building a website that stays just simply exists. Remember its a content strategy you need to build. Not a site map.

3. Grow database - Without customers, or regular visits to your social media page, it's a white elephant. So, build a database through a proper strategy that is mid to long term. Stort term can be done by any ten year old kid selling lemonade.

4. Engage and re-engage - A social media site is no different from a regular website, except we have opened it up to interactivity, user generated content through tools. Get the tools to work for you though reaching the right people, identifying opinion leaders and reach out further.

5. Measurement - With all that, site visits and unique visitors are a staple. Measure what counts. Opinions and sentiments. JamiQ is a company that has just started looking at such matrices and you all should get in touch with them.

Let me know what you think...

10 Marketing Tips to Ride the Recession

1. Be relevant to your target audience; else they will not listen


2. Streamline your current processes; eliminate waste and consolidate costs


3. Be creative and stand out in the process


4. Raise your profile - be in through clever advertising, digital mkting, PR or speaking opportunities


5. 360 degree communications - ensure your messages go out via different channels, so the messages reinforce one another


6. Reassess the big picture - and this may involve taking a step back to realign business or revenue targets


7. Identify niches and priotise your expertise - allowing you to channel your (limited) resouces into developing a strong proposition


8. Focus on customer retention - and keeping them happy with you. Trying to get new customers in these times are even more expensive exercise.


9. Review relationships and discuss costs with your vendors or suppliers - and this could mean a bulk discount contract or longer payment terms


10. Do not stop your marketing - most firms fall into the trap of cutting down on marketing during recession because it is preceived as the 'most obvious' thing to do since marketing is an 'expense'.

What other tips do you have for your fellow marketeers? Leave a comment!

Media Development Authority of Singapore - Social Media Rap Video

Really wonder what objectives were the folks at MDA (Media Development Authority of Singapore) were trying to achieve. Viral? Positioning as a new and ever changing agency of adopting new media perhaps?

Well, it is an attempt at something...

What are your thoughts?

Marketeers say economy to improve in 2010

Happy New Year to all our Pop Marketing readers!

With the global economy taking a massive hit during the last few months, you as a marketeer must be wondering how it's going to impact you in 2009. Research and surveys have shown that budgets for traditional advertising and marcoms activities such as TV, radio, outdoor advertising are likely to be cut this year while budgets for digital marketing such as pay-per-click, viral, search engine optimisation and affiliate marketing remain largely the same or even increase. 

This comes as no surprise because digital marketing has proven to be far more efficient is delivering return on investment (ROI)!

Marketing Sherpa has released the 'Chart of the Week' discussing the current market sentiments. It's interesting to see how and when marketing professionals, in general, are expecting the economy to improve. This is surely of utmost importance because this determines how much they can spend for their campaigns!

Chart: When Marketers Expect the Economy to Improve

Click here for the full article - available till Feb 6th unless you're a subscriber of Marketing Sherpa

Key insights:

1. 35% of Small Biz (under 500 employees) expects things to improve during H1 2009.
   
2. Overwhelming 55% of large biz (501+ employees) say the economy will improve either in H1 or H2 2009.
   
3. A fairly small percentage of the biz interviewed said that things will only pick up in 2012.

Good luck for your budget planning!