Blog Entries for Internet secrets

Wrong Mr Digital Guru, the online world is not free and easy

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:28:44 +0100

As a smaller business operator myself, it's essential to get out to local business events and actually meet real business operators in the flesh rather than from behind a computer screen. Particularly when a leader from your very own industry (in my case digital communication) is holding fort.

So despite a bleak eve [...]

Now there’s lead generation gold in Facebook Groups

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:24:00 +0100

Last week, this blog touched on the potential need for a professional persona (as distinct from page) within Facebook to deal with the business communication that has been taking place on what previously was thought of as more of a consumer network.

This week, I'd like to expand on the opportunities that the Groups that faci [...]

Do we now need a professional Facebook persona?

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 23:05:07 +0100

Whenever I spend too long thinking about social networking I also think of the lyric from a classic Bruce Springsteen song: "One day we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny..."

Because really, with all due respect to them, most in the social media game are pretty much making it up as they fumble along.

M [...]

The great website platform switch swindle

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 28 May 2013 14:00:00 +0100

Unfortunately, it's a fact of life. Wherever you have something vaguely technical, some unethical business operators will take advantage of your lack of knowledge by recommending something you don't really need, and therefore making you pay much more than you need to.

And the web or digital industry is no different. Take the [...]

What’s your customers’ communication medium of choice? Part 2

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:36:55 +0100

If you’ve been in business long enough, you will indeed know that timing is everything.

Because no sooner than Part 1 of this piece appeared a few weeks back, a small business client who is pretty much technology-illiterate lost a piece of business due to not communicating the way the client wanted to.

It occur [...]

Social networks consolidate as ‘opinion engines’ for your business

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:37:30 +0100

Not that long ago, this blog raised many eyebrows when it flagged the notion of Facebook being a new kind of Yellow Pages.

Not in terms of searching for suppliers. Google has that base well and truly covered.

And not even in terms of displaying targeted business advertisements – clever as their behavioural t [...]

What’s your customer’s communication medium of choice?

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:00:00 +0100

It used to be oh so simple if you wanted to target your customer with your promotional messages.

If you had a big budget, you did television, then radio, then print in that order. If you wanted more direct marketing, direct mail was definitely the go.

And for 'directory' advertising, you couldn't go past the ubiquito [...]

Are you treating the digital world too much like print?

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:34:07 +0100

As regular reader of this blog may know, I once worked for the monolith that was Sensis – Yellow Pages’ publisher some years back.

At the time I sought them out as a potential employer because I knew how easily their directory business model could adapt to an online world, and how well they could leverage their relationship [...]

Online pennies start to drop for Australian SMEs

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:00:00 +0100

Recently there's been a noticeable and important shift in the kind of work my web services business is performing for our smaller business customers.

Up until recently, the vast bulk of our business was 'project' oriented, that is, shorter term projects with a distinct start and finish date, usually websites. Occasionally th [...]

Is your business Facebook page too personal?

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 23:40:06 +0100

One of the problems of a really 'new to the world' communications development like social networking is the lack of research into, well, how to behave.

Unlike most communications media before it, the discipline is still very much on its training wheels and there simply hasn't been enough data and analysis to provide set gu [...]

The web as we know it turns 20

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 06:05:54 +0100

I remember well my very first encounter with the world wide web.

Unlike many others working in the industry in the 90s, my background wasn't in computer science or development at all. Mine was the far less explosive world of corporate communications, namely video and later print and multimedia.

So when in early 1993 I was invi [...]

The other nine commandments for cost-effective websites

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:51:00 +0100

We all know about the importance of a professionally presented website.

You might have the best, the cheapest, the most prestigious or the most popular product or service on the block, but it will count for nothing if your website doesn't speak to the increasingly discerning eye of the website visitor.

Website visitors have been recorded as judging not only the website, but the capabilities of the organisation it represents in only milliseconds.

That's right – all th [...]

Do SMEs have technology fatigue?

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:59:20 +0100

In recent weeks, this blog has explored some of the reasons that our SMEs are slow to embrace what to many of us are exciting and revolutionary new digital capabilities.

Some have questioned this and pointed to Australia's well-documented love of all things techie.

But speak to any SME operator or manager and they won't hesitate to tell you: "I just don't have time to keep up with everything that's going on with technology."

It's a stance that's reflected in all the [...]

Why social networking seems so unnatural

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:00:00 +0100

A few weeks back, this blog explored why this generation of smaller businesses were unlikely to embrace social networking.

Mirroring their glacier-speed adoption of websites, Australian small businesses with a social networking presence are well in the minority.

Depending on whose report you read, less than a third of smaller businesses have a presence in what is the biggest communications revolution since the internet itself, now nearly a decade after its introduction.

[...]

The music industry’s stunning turnaround and what SMEs can learn from it

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:19:13 +0100

If I hadn't heard it from such a reliable source, I wouldn't have believed it.

Trusted ABC and Business Spectator financial sage Alan Kohler told of a remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of an industry once thought to have gone the way of the (horse and) buggy industry 100 or so years earlier.

"The recorded music industry turns its first revenue growth (of 0.3%) since 1999 – albeit a slender one".

The music industry? Not so long previously, the content basket-case [...]

Six reasons why SMEs are so slow to embrace the digital world

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0100

There are few of us in the digital industry that haven't made the same mistake – that of overestimating the willingness of SMEs to embrace the digital world.

For those of us that had worked in the traditional media, the benefits the internet could provide smaller business for a comparatively small investment appeared to be the promised land.

For here was a medium that not only provide affordable information about your business to any prospect anywhere in the world 24/7 (web [...]

How to save a wayward webinar

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:46:46 +0100

A bizarre thing happened to me today. And it wasn't just nearly collecting fabulous Australian actor Stephen Curry as I was driving back from a meeting.

No, it was during a webinar on website conversion I was attending – not in my normal presenter role but as an audience participant – when the stranger thing happened.

Before the presentation had even got beyond the opening introduction, the host was not able to connect the guest presenter into the webinar.

This is t [...]

Why every SME operator should maintain a personal Facebook page

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 22:01:45 +0100

I think it's safe to say by now that the 'social networking for business' jury is in.

All the data backs it up – social networking can provide plenty of benefits to smaller business as a low cost and creative means of promoting your business – provided you can find the time and/or resource to learn, master and maintain it.

But for those SME operators still scratching their heads as to what's in it for them – and there are plenty of them – there's a simple and low investment [...]

Why this generation of SMEs won’t embrace social networking

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0100

The benefits of social networking as a marketing tool for small business are well documented.

It costs nothing to start and grow your own social media presence and following to which you can broadcast all kinds of engaging and promotional information.

Unfortunately smaller business is proving slow to convince, with still relatively few SMEs providing an active social networking presence.

And there are very good reasons for this social reticence.

An eye opene [...]

Outdated websites create customer chaos

creardon@smartcompany.com.au — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:50:06 +0100

One of the themes we often revisit in these pages is the difficulty smaller businesses have adapting to the 'always on' world we now inhabit.

Few businesses have grasped the notion of providing online information about their business which is fresh and current, instead continuing the 'set and forget' practices of a now past print-only world.

And this slowness to grasp this new reality is starting to negatively impact their customers.

Case studies in website mainten [...]