Ricky’s Online Business Blog

Still thinking of using search engines, email newsletter and affiliate marketing to promote your products and services on Internet?  While these are essential, let’s not be outdated.  It’s all about marketing on social media nowadays.

Yes, the Internet is getting more and more “social”, with real people using the Internet to interact and influence one another.  Much thanks to the advent of blogs, and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter (strictly speaking, blogs are not social media).  Even the older generation have jumped on the bandwagon and claimed an account on Facebook.  In fact, if you are not “in” social media nowadays, you are “out”!

Therefore, the social media now presents a natural channel for marketing your products and services on such increasingly social online networks.  After all, many people have always been looking for others’ opinions when deciding to buy (or not buy) something, used to be offline, but now online also.

In the local hosting industry, it seems hosting providers are picking up on marketing through social media.  I know one company has set up their profile on various social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Plurk!

This company is capitalizing well on social media.  They offer money for bloggers who write about them.  They give out prizes for lucky draw winners who follow them on Twitter, tweet about them, and ask others to retweet about them.  They also own a company page on Facebook and promise to offer discounts for domain names based on the number of Facebook members who become their fans.  Yeah, many social media jargons here, I know

I also had set up a Facebook group and a Twitter account for BizPartner, and tried to create some buzz in social media.  I have yet to achieve what I want, but I’m trying, and learning.

And we can expect that more and more hosting providers will soon start to use social media for innovative marketing, branding and customer relationship building.

When one comes to developing an online business, which is more important?  Profit first, or market share first?

I heard some say that market share, or “mind share”, is first and foremost important.  When many people have got to know a dotcom brand, they will visit the web site,  the “eyeballs” will be so increased, the “critical mass” will be so achieved, the “branding” will be so built up, and naturally the profit will come.

On the other hand, others think that profit should be the first to focus on, not market share.  A business can grow its market share so much that it is still not profitable.  It can command a large market share yet sacrifice the profits that could have been earned during the growth.

One typical example is a membership business online.  Shall we first focus on market share by giving out free member accounts in order to first attract the mass, and then try to sell some premium services later to them?  Or shall we start with a chargeable membership so that we can starting earning right from the first day?

Perhaps profit should be our first objective.  And as we do things the right way towards the objective, market share is a natural result.  What do you think?

I received an enquiry on email hosting. The company asked me whether my server could support mass email broadcasting. They just want to send out emails to promote their training courses to their tens of thousands of email addresses in the mailing list. Upon further probing, they just want to find an email server that allows them to spam.

Receiving spams is a reality nowadays. How many spams do you receive each day? We know most spams are about “sexual health”. But I found more and more spams related to training and education these days.

These are subject titles of some spams on training courses received in my spam folder recently. I have never subscribed to any of their mailing lists before:

• How To Sell Successfully To Corporate Customers
• Train The Trainer
• Enhancing Interpersonal Skills
• Corporate Social Responsibility For Competitive Advantage
• Public Speaking & Presentation Skills
• Planning For Strategic Marketing (do they teach us to spam for marketing?)

One of these spammers is even more “sophisticated”. They know how to use a different email address to spam each time to bypass spam filter and to hide their real identity!

But do you really need to spam in order get the words out about your products and services? Nowadays there are many ways to do Internet marketing, such as search engine marketing and blog marketing. Unless you are in fly-by-night business, sending spams will not only not work, but backfire on your reputation as well!

So I advised that company not to spam but consider other ways of promotion that could be more long-term and beneficial. Unfortunately, they said they want “fast results” and will go on shopping for another hoster who allows them to spam. But as I understand, no legitimate hosting provider allows customers to spam. So good luck!