Ricky’s Online Business Blog

Recently I reconnected with a friend who came from a family of feng shui (风水) business.  He shared to me about his business. I’m not familiar with his industry.  But I know some real estate agents and interior designers are very much into feng shui in order to serve their customers better.

But according to my friend, the real feng shui masters in Malaysia are few and far between.  Yes, we have heard of some big names who tout their expertise in feng shui.  But although their marketing is excellent, some of them may not be real experts in feng shui and may not have respect among feng shui masters.

On the other hand, there are those who are real masters but are not good in marketing themselves.  But after all, why need to market so much?  Their daily schedule is already packed up and they are already earning good money.

I myself don’t believe and don’t practise feng shui.  But here I’m writing from a business perspective only and nothing else.  I asked my friend who is computer-savvy why he doesn’t use the Internet and even blogging to promote his business.  Perhaps the web site will not generate many leads.  But he can use it to build his reputation.

But he said those who promote on the Internet expose themselves for challenges from the real masters in feng shui.  If one is not yet ready, better not have a web site, much less a blog.  Ok, sounds reasonable to me.

There are web developers and Internet marketers who think that EVERY business should go online.  But I think there are businesses which should not have an Internet presence, perhaps because the Internet does not fit into their business model, or they are not yet ready for Internet presence.

So perhaps a feng shui business is one such example?

According to the blue ocean strategy, one way to find your blue ocean is by targeting and turning current non-customers of your products into your customers.  It is interesting to observe how non-users of a product can be turned into users by innovative offers and technologies.

Looking at the development of Internet in the past one and half decade, we can see the role of Internet users changing, from mere consumers of information in the 90′s, to producers and publishers of information on the Internet nowadays!

Just think about it.  In the good old days, we surfed the World Wide Web to read up what the site owner wrote. Then with the development of web authoring tools, the more technical people among us learned to design and publish web pages on the Internet.  Around the turn of the millennium, any IT student (including me) could do up a web page!

With the flourishing of social networking web sites in past few years, even non-technical people got to express themselves on the Internet.  Nowadays, more than 9 out of 10 college students own a piece of virtual property on Facebook or Friendster!

When blogs were popularized in more recent years, we change from owning a member page on Friendster to owning a blog!  Now virtually any Internet user can express themselves and shout on the Internet by blogging.  Even those who used to consider Internet as a scary place started to speak up!  Think about it.  It’s easier to learn WordPress than Microsoft Word!

So the Internet population has been transformed from content consumers to content “prosumers” (producer-consumer).  The technologies have turned non-users of the Internet to voice our thoughts, to using the Internet to rave about anything!

But many people in this country are still not using the Internet yet.  But watch and see.  When mobile Internet becomes so pervasive in our mobile phones, there will be more people surfing the Internet on mobile than through PC.

If most mobile users know how to send an SMS message now, they will know how to “micro-blog” in the future.  Microblogging tools such as Twitter may not be so popular and useful now.  But it will be in the future as more non-Internet users become Internet users via mobile phones.  At that time, even more people will publish content on the cyberspace!

Recently I found an interesting mission statement of a newspaper. It reads “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind”.

I don’t know why they have such a mission. Perhaps they aspire not to hurt others, but to bring goodness to the world through its existence. Unlike some other newspapers who are used to criticize and hurt others, this is indeed a noble mission for such a media company.

How about a blog? Blogs are transforming from being “alternative media” to being a “main media” on the Internet. Should we not aspire to bring some goodness to people also through the existence of our blogs?

We can see some blogs being used to criticize and hurt others. Some point fingers, complain and even swear against company, service provider, government, college and even lecturers. Of course there is freedom of speech. But do we really need to do so?

I understand that everything is permissible under the sun. We can do anything we like. But not everything is beneficial. We will need to be prepared for the consequences of our words and actions.

The mission “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind” sounds attractive to me. I might have to reflect and even repent on how I wrote against some people in the past, though I kept to my policy never to mention names.

I’ve been receiving enquiries from customers and visitors on building blogs for their business, products and services.  Some even ask me to blog for them.  Good that you believe in business blogging!

I’m not a professional blogger and don’t have too much time to blog for you.  Normally I suggest you get a domain name and hosting service, install WordPress on their domain name (can be done easily from web-based control panel called cPanel) and start to blog.

Believe me, it’s good to learn how to blog yourself (or your staff).  Unless you really don’t have the time to blog, blogging yourself is the best option because you are the one who is most knowledgeable on your business, and more importantly, you are the one who is most passionate about what you offer, not any paid professional blogger!

Another way is to team up with me in blogging.  I can get your hosting and/or domain name free of charge, install the blog for you and maintain the blog platform.  All you need to do is just login and blog.

But it depends on what you are selling, your business model, and your commitment to blog.  Contact me if you are interested in further discussion.

Either way, you still need to blog yourself (or get a knowledgeable and passionate staff to do it).  It’s quite easy actually.  But as your provider and friend, I’ll be glad to pass on what I have learned to you out when you need help!