Social Networking and Blogging Outstrips E-Mail use

A study just published by Neilson Co. shows that social networking and blogging are now more popular online activities than e-mail. In the 90’s it was e-mail. In the 200’s it is all about social networking since it is a more efficient means of communication for one to many people. It’s also become a great marketing tool and a way for companies to communicate with their users and indeed, to obtain feedback from the market place. According to Neilson, Facebook is the most popular network and is visited by approximately 30% of people online every month. Globally, social networks and Blogs account for one in every 11 minutes spent online. Nielsen also found that the social network and blogging audience is becoming more diverse, with the biggest increase in visitors during 2008 occurring among 35- to 49-year-olds. And this doesn’t take into account mobile communications, which is growing faster in Europe. In the UK, 23% of those visiting a social network are doing so via a mobile phone, that is 2 million people! In the US, the figures are 19% and 10.6 million people respectively or 156% increase over the previous year in the US. E-mail has its place for corporate communications but it’s time for companies to seriously incorporate social networking as part of their marketing mix. Post your comments or e-mail me at businessissuestoday@gmail.com

Maintaining a Web Presence in a Recession

According to research from Webvisible and Nielsen, 63% of consumers and small business owners turn to the internet first for information about local companies and 82% use search engines to do so, only 44% of small businesses have a website and half spend less than 10% of their marketing budget online. Small business owners behave like consumers - they use the net to research products and to search for the best price, however there is a significant disconnect between the way small business owners act as consumers vs. the way they market their businesses online. Why is this? Perhaps because there’s a misconception that it requires large marketing budgets to create a website. Not these days. You can get domain and hosting packages for under $10 a month from GoDaddy. For a basic site, most systems will have an easy to use template. If you want something a little more professional, there are tons of website designers you can negotiate a good rate in this economy. (Check out Craigslist.) And then there’s video uploads, blogging and social networking to create a buzz for your business. Twitter and Facebook cost you nothing. The survey also found that search engines are the most popular source for finding local information: 50% said search engines were the first place they looked when seeking a local business, while 24% chose the Yellow Pages directories. As the recession continues to hit marketing budgets, it is even more important to not make the knee jerk reaction and cut Internet advertising. Maintaining a web presence is key to survival. Post a comment or contact me on businessissuestoday.com

The Economic Stimulus ('Stinker') Bill

Senator Lindsey Graham called it what it is, a "stinker" Bill. Earlier on Fox news he said: "This Bill is not an economic stimulus package. It's an orgy of congressional spending unrelated to creating jobs." Also today, President Obama called it what is: "a spending Bill". Well I'm glad we actually got to the truth! Everyone by now knows it is loaded with 'pork' but did you know that only 17% of the $920 BN Bill is intended to be spent in the first year? Most of the expenditure happens in the 4 th year..... yeah election year. Isn't that coincidental? And what if the economy picks up by the 4th year and we don't need all this spending and all this debt? The Democrats have ensured they get to spend it anyway. Senator McCain has at least introduced a sensible amendment: that when we reach 2 Quarters of positive GDP growth, the spending allocation in that Bill stops and cannot be re-appropriated. People need to ask deep deep questions here and take action by calling their congressional leaders. This Bill does little to create the jobs we so desperately need now. And since when was government any good at creating jobs? We've seen the mess at the SEC and the USCIS and no doubt countless other government departments wasting tax payers' money. The original House Bill has spending allocations for just about every department you can think of, but with no breakdown of expenditure or reason. How does this stimulate job growth in the private sector? " In addition to funds otherwise made available in this Act, there are hereby appropriated the following sums to the specified Offices of Inspector General, to remain available until September 30, 2013, for oversight and audit of programs, grants, and projects funded under this Act:"

• Dept. of Agriculture - $22.5 M
• Dept. of Commerce - $10 M
• Dept. of Education $14 M
• Dept. of Energy $15 M
• Dept. of Health $19 M
• Homeland Security $2 M
• Dept. of Housing & Urban Development $15 M
• Dept. of Interior $15 M
• Dept. of Justice $2 M
• Dept. of Labor $6 M (that's an ironic one if this is supposed to be a stimulus)
• EPA $20 M ( you can only wonder about that one)
• NASA $2M
• SBA $10 M (for what? They never lend money to small business anyway.)
• Corporation of National Community Service $1 M (What exactly is this for......ACORN?

And then the Government Accountability Office gets $20 M to oversee the above. This Bill is nothing more than an appropriations wish list by the Democrats - a boon dongle! In the process, they will increase government departments that will have lasting effects since government never downsizes like businesses do when needed. It's time for people to wake up. It's our money after all! Call you Senator and stop this 'pork'! (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1) Comment or e-mail me at businessissuestoday@gmail.com

Apple in Good Health Despite the Economy

We've almost got used to turning on the TV or reading the headlines to hear the latest doom and gloom. While Intel is to layoff 6000 employees worldwide and Microsoft 5000, you'd think the entire tech industry is coming to an end. Sure, the economic downturn has had an effect on PC and consumer demand, but you have to dig deeper to see what is going on with some of these ailing companies. If it were all about the economic downturn, then why is Apple immune to this recession? Perhaps because they remain innovative and competitive and in touch with the consumer. Firstly, Microsoft's Vista has been a dismal failure in itself and that in turn has probably affected the lack of demand for new PC's in order to run Vista. Note the recent announcement of Windows 7 which apparently won't require such a massive hardware upgrade, (we'll believe it when we see it) and the fact that Microsoft is abandoning Vista. In the meantime, the Apple Mac environment is still years ahead technologically speaking and the Company continues to deliver products that consumers actually find exciting and usable. Sales of iPods, iMacs and iPhones remain healthy.

Apple sold nearly 23 million iPod digital music players, up 3 percent over the year-ago quarter, and 4.3 million iPhones. Apple also sold 2.5 million Macs during the quarter (ending Dec. 08), representing 9 percent growth over the year-ago period. The company had $7.2 billion in cash at the end of the quarter.

Staying ahead of the competition is obviously a strategy that helps in a recession. For those companies who were or are complacent, such economic times only serves to accentuate their already existing problems. Innovation in technology continues and we'll likely see more success stories as the year progresses. Watch out for the new and much awaited Palm Pre with new operating system and Google's Android is still in its early days.

Perhaps if the general media gave more time to good news, we might actually get out of this recession sooner!

Post your comments or e-mail me at businessissuestoday.com

2009 - The Year of Social Media Marketing

While the general media continue to focus on the doom and gloom of the economy, exciting things are happening online and online advertising continues to trend up. However, if companies continue to use the Internet just as a static place, they are unlikely to make their goals, achieve traffic growth and ultimately increase revenues. The Internet is now a dynamic and socially driven medium of communities. For example, video social networks is positioned to replace television as the dominant medium for influencing consumers, voters and the public in general; Twitter may well displace Blogs in 2009 as shown by the News media in the 08 elections. But don’t expect social media marketing to produce immediate results. Just as getting picked up by search engines takes about three months, expect social network marketing to take about six months to grow. You can expect about a 10% conversion rate so for every 10,000 people invited to your network, about 1000 will actually join. That’s a much higher conversion rate than the old days of direct mail and even email and, at a fraction of the cost. Dell computers says Twitter has helped it bring in $1 million in revenue over the past 18 months via sales Tweets and other promotions. Can you afford to ignore social media marketing in 2009? Post your comments or email me at businessissuestoday.com for a private consultation.

Why Obama’s Infrastructure Spending Plan Won’t Work

In 2008 the U.S. actually spent $114 billion on infrastructure, following $102 billion in 2007. Infrastructure spending over the past five years for non-defense comes to nearly $500 billion. Did that do much for jobs and the economy? Did it prevent our recession? Therefore why should we believe that Obama’s proposed $500 Billion infrastructure plan will do anymore than history already shows. If the bailout mismanagement is anything to go by, we can only anticipate more of the same, since government has no clue as to how to run business. As Amity Shlaes documents in her book "The Forgotten Man," the economy limped along under FDR's stewardship in the 1930s. Many of the era's public-works projects were undertaken for political reasons as well as economic ones. Government crowded out private initiative and neglected policies to promote the private sector. Net private investment declined at times during the 1930s. If less people are going to work, what use are more bridges and trains? Government infrastructure spending doesn’t create new jobs for very long (mostly temporary jobs), takes time to implement (approvals, planning permits etc.) and is fraught with abuse, waste and mismanagement. And by the time the money is spent, the recession will have passed. Entrepreneurs and businesses will create jobs and bring back our economy. This holds true for the other economies of the Western World; the principles are the same. We should be looking to find creative ways to encourage investment. By slashing the corporate rate tax, means a business might indeed be able to save jobs and entrepreneurs and VC’s will jump back in and invest in start-ups. This is what has fueled our growth in the past. Potentially, billions of dollars could pour back into funding start-ups. Furthermore, cut tax rates for everyone and the consumer will be back. Raising tax rates on the higher income bracket is exactly the way to prolong and deepen this recession. So why should we believe Obama’s plan of change is anything more than growing government and increasing our national debt? Post your comments here or e-mail me at businessissuestoday@gmail.com

A Permanent Shift Between Old Media and New Media

While advertising spend is generally affected by a recession, the new digital economy is surprisingly holding up. Web companies are offering cheaper and more accountable ways for local companies to advertise to a local audience. These web companies are thriving at a time when the longtime dominators of that market - newspapers, radio stations and television outlets - are reeling from the stagnating economy. The radio industry which for long time was an affordable medium for local advertising, continues a downward slide in Ad sales For the second year running, it will have experienced negative growth by tripling station revenue losses to -7 percent, according to the estimates of BIA Advisory Services. Radio’s future relies heavily on its ability to embrace new media and mobile technologies and local advertisers. CitySearch for example is an international website but it offers the ability to search locally for restaurants, theatre etc. Citysearch CEO, Jay Herrati said the local online market has been growing at 17% to 20% annually, and he expects that to increase as advertisers become more comfortable with the complexities of digital media. Local advertisers are also turning to Google Inc.'s AdSense service, which can place their text ads on Web sites that specifically cater to their target audience. The cost to advertise online can be as little as $25 per month. Budgets are spent on a pay-for-performance basis. Only when a user clicks on that Ad, is the merchant charged roughly 25 cents per click. And never before has it been so easy to track consumer behavior and recognize trends. MySpace Ads (just launched in beta) offers this minimum pricing and can target your Ads by social network groups – not exactly local advertising, but yet another way for affordable and highly targeted advertising in an increasing digital age. Traditional media companies in print and broadcast have struggled for years with the rise of the Internet. Their future is viewed as increasingly uncertain as they have been unable to renew growth prospects with revenue generated online. The economic situation could actually be creating a permanent shift between old media and new media. Under increasing pressure to cut costs, retailers and small businesses are discovering the value of the Internet as a marketing tool for reaching a highly targeted audience while closely tracking their return on investment. On average, 60% of people now check out product reviews and pricing online before making a purchase. Businesses can no longer afford to not embrace digital advertising or be a part of the new digital world. Got a specific business question? Email me at businessissuestoday@gmail.com or comment on your experience.