Aug/Sept issue of Muchmor Canada Magazine now available

The latest issue (Aug/Sept 2010) of Muchmor Canada Magazine is now available. This issue is now also available as a print-on-demand with worldwide delivery for the first time. Previously it was only available in printed form in the USA, UK and Canada.

Contents in this issue include: The Apple Route, Summer in Smiths Falls, Top Canadian, Ontario’s Wine Country, Greater Sudbury, HST in Ontario & British Columbia, Average Canadian incomes, Test Drive BMW 5 Series GT, Weird & Wacky Resumes, September is hiring Month, Would you Hire Yourself?, Living Together – Same-sex and heterosexual couples, Nova Scotia Welcoming events, Big Changes to Canadian Immigration Explained, How Canadians Feel About Immigrants, Military Wives talk about relocation, Real Estate News, Colour 101 for Your Home

CLICK HERE TO READ ONLINE (Flash Flipbook Version)

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Background Information:

Muchmor Canada Magazine features articles and information about living in, travelling around and relocating to Canada. Every issue is jammed packed with great articles and loads of information about this great country of ours. Best of all it’s totally free to download and read.

Results from business are rarely achieved easily.

Results from business are rarely achieved easily. And as much as we’d like to use case studies as a template for what *we* should do, the truth is that someone else’s approach is often not going to line up with our business. We have different people, culture, infrastructure, customers, processes, challenges, priorities. But we want to look to case studies as the way to reduce the variables and decrease the likelihood - at least in our head - that we might fail.

That doesn’t work, either. At least in terms of delivering to us the nuts and bolts of how to create a strategy, set goals, and measure impact. That, my friends, is all on us.

If there is no road map handed to you for how to measure your social media efforts (and there won’t be), you must create it. That means:

1. Setting goals that are measurable in the first place.

2. Understanding that impact doesn’t always mean something goes up (like sales or eyeballs). Sometimes it can be that something goes down (like costs of customer service or traditional marketing costs).

3. Benchmarking, which means measuring where you are now relative to your goals so you can track future progress and impact. This takes time, but you can’t ever determine results if you don’t know where you started.

4. Understanding that social media may not be the sales channel itself, but that there are a pile of ways it impacts sales, and measuring those is key.

5. Knowing that determining ROI is ultimately about doing the math between dollars in and dollars out.

6. Learning the art and science of correlation of data, so you can tie your efforts in one area of the business to the results and impacts they have elsewhere.

7. Realizing that software can give you the data and even help you crunch numbers, but you need to engage your brain to make it valuable to your work. There is no substitute for human analysis, ever.

If you’re still saying that it’s too hard, that means that you don’t have the mechanisms in place to measure well, or you don’t have a handle on what you should be measuring because your goals aren’t clear, or you don’t know where that information lives inside your company. All of those are not an indication that measurement is hard. They’re an indication that you have some work to do to build the foundation for measurement.

And here’s my harsh statement for the day: If you aren’t willing to expend the time, effort, and resources to do this properly and comprehensively, you have no room to complain to anyone when you’re unsuccessful. You cannot blame the medium for your failure to execute.

Ask 100 people who should know: “what is a brand?” You will get 100 different answers such as: “A logo?”,   “the name of the business?”,  “a slogan?”,  “A graphic design or color scheme?”, “The logo brochure, business cards and letter head?”

They are all right, but they get no credit for their answers because they are wrong.

Your brand is the entire experience your prospects and customers have with your company.  It’s what you stand for, a promise you make, the personality you convey, and your visible point of differentiation.

While the concept of brand includes every answer above, those are only some of the creative elements that convey your brand.  Instead, your brand lives in every day-to-day interaction you have with your market:

• The images and ideas you convey
• The messages you deliver on your website, proposals, sales materials, brochures and the like
• The way your employees interact with customers over the phone and in-person
• A customer’s opinion of you versus your competition before the sale and after the sale

Branding is crucial for all businesses because it helps you actively communicate your competitive advantage.

Branding brings your point of differentiation and value proposition to life; it positions you as “different and special” in the minds of your prospects and customers.

When your brand is optimized, it consistently and repeatedly tells your prospects and customers why they should buy from you.

Think about successful consumer brands like Apple, Starbucks or Wal-Mart. You probably either know or have a good idea what each brand represents. If you opened a business competing against one of them, the only way you could capture significant market share is with a strong and unique brand identity.

In your industry, if there is not a strong brand, you have an opportunity. 100% of the time, the company that stands for something valuable will easily reach, engage, close and retain customers.

The important thing to note is that we are describing branding as it actually should be and not as everyone else describes it. In our model, branding is a by-product of a point of differentiation or competitive advantage. In other experts opinion, a brand is the logo, sales materials, and look and feel of a company. We believe it's all of it, but since the brand lives in the mind of the consumer, all you can really do is: optimize every customer facing experience and make sales. The brand will sort itself out as you grow your business. That's the only way you will have control over your brand - through contact with the consumer.

Many people think that marketing and advertising are one in the same but they are not. Although they are similar, advertising is merely part of the bigger picture which is Marketing. Advertising involves marketing but basically is a promotion of the product. Marketing encompasses the entire process from research, to designing and finalizing with advertising to sales.

A little more about Advertising:

• the most important component of a marketing strategy
• the most expensive part of marketing
• includes saturating your target market with ads, media outlets including but not limited to television, radio, magazines as well as snail mail, emails, flyers and so much more
• most popular medium for larger brands is television although the internet comes in a close second (first for small business owners)

There are many ways to differentiate advertising from marketing but this analogy may help clear the confusion. Think of marketing as a pie, and a slice of pie as the advertising. The other slices are the market research of the particular product, the design of the product, the pricing, the media planning, the PR, customer support and satisfaction, sales and so much more. All of these separate pieces of the pie can work and should work independently but together can achieve the bigger goal which is ultimately selling the product.

To break it down, Marketing consists of:

• hours and days of research
• design of the product
• development of advertising strategy
• ultimately the medium between the consumers and the company

So, what does this all mean? Basically we must not get advertising and marketing confused with each other. One simply cannot work without the other. Don’t get caught up in the advertising process, logo development, etc without keeping in mind the entire marketing process.

The first thing to consider when starting a business or developing a product is the communication process to the consumers. You must build a reputation before people will trust and purchase from your company. The money that should be spent in the beginning should be spent on the marketing and not on the branding. The branding will come, but without a product or service, there is no need for a brand. Educating the consumers also helps as it will give them an understanding that you know what you do and are best at doing that.

Smart marketers are aggressive in approach rather than passive. They provoke reader’s minds by prompting them to do something rather than just making them knowledgeable of the product. Smart marketers also bring home the names, addresses and contact numbers of people who are really interested in hiring your company by employing aggressive marketing. Thus having a good marketing campaign speaks a lot about the company and their products and advertising gives that finishing touch to the hard work done by the marketing people in selling a product.

Small businesses using social media need to provide value

Social Media Marketing can and does help many small businesses indirectly by increasing client/customer relationships. Understanding that social media marketing serves users for communication, collaboration, and entertainment is the first step to considering how to strategically implement the multitude of social media marketing tools and choose the ones that work best for your unique organization.

The key thing that small businesses need to remember when using social media is that it must provide value. There has to be value to your content, community, and execution to get people to engage with you or your organization. Social media doesn't sell things -- people sell things. Engaging in social media marketing starts the relationship-building process.

Start small and snowball. Social media takes understanding, passion, effort, and commitment to make it work. Give your small business an authentic voice with social media and commit to providing value and you will be off to a smart start.

Think like a consumer to develop a business mindset

It might sound a little crazy, but you can get some of the best information about how to run a business by thinking like a consumer. When you become a business owner, you have to become a completely different person, at last as far as your way of thinking is concerned. Creating and developing your own business mindset can seem like a daunting task, but it's not as difficult as it sounds. You don't need a master's degree in business to understand that you need to make a profit to succeed. You just need to find a way of thinking that works for you in your business ownership so that you can make the most of it.

For example, your business caters to a specific consumer type. Focus on those consumers, and imagine what would make them want to invest in your product and/or service. Then, use that information to market your business, which will be a large part of your success. You cannot have a successful business without successful marketing, after all. Proper marketing policies come from having a good business mindset. It's all inter-connected, and if you fail to make those connections, you won't do well in business. Don't stress about it, though. That's the first key to having a business mindset. It is knowing what is important and what's not when it comes to your thought process.

If your business is slow, either in start up or well after opening, don't worry about failure. Instead, focus on what tools you can use to be successful. By thinking like a consumer, you can figure out what they're looking for, and appeal to their needs, which will strengthen and grow your business. What would a good business be without a proper business mindset, after all? You need to take the time to learn the things about your specific business that are most important, and use them to your advantage.

If you believe in you, they'll believe in you, too. No matter what type of business you have, you need to focus on changing your way of thinking and adopt a business mindset that works. Sometimes the best way to do that is by educating yourself about consumer habits rather than business practices.

Once companies clearly know why they want to incorporate social media into their strategies, quantifying gain becomes a much easier task

Let’s face it, with all the buzzwords, consultants and fluffy lingo flying around, it can be difficult to identify what social media can do for a business. Well, the answer to that is: what do you want it to do?

When we’ve had discussions with people about the uses of social media for business, there is one recurring problem; measuring results. We are at a stage now where many companies that have online operations are aware of social media. Yes, many companies we’ve come across are aware of the need to establish themselves on it; bookmarking icons have been placed and websites have become buzzword compliant. This is all well and good, but they haven’t asked themselves why they want to become involved.

Once companies clearly know why they want to incorporate social media into their strategies, quantifying gain becomes a much easier task. Let’s look at some of the reasons a company might use social media and how the approach is different:

Increase Conversions

Do not expect traffic from social networks to behave the same way as search engines. Users that visit your site organically through search engines are looking for you, or something that you have.

Users that visit your site from larger social networks can be compared to playing dice. Sure there are ways to engage some of these users, but depending on what services or products you offer, you should find that targeting smaller niche networks may increase your return of investment. Having 300 ultra targeted users with a credit card in their hand visit your website can lead to more conversions than 20,000 random users.

Increase traffic/Advertising Revenue

This is probably the easiest goal to obtain through social media. The key points in getting more traffic from social networks are:

1. A Social media friendly website that looks good
2. Target many social networks
3. Make your headlines beg to be read
4. Use of relevant images
5. Give users what they want
6. Limit annoying ads and popups

Improve products

You have the largest market research company at your finger tips. What better way is there to improve your products and services than to get feedback directly from your consumers? Although you will get feedback whatever you do on social networks, it can be difficult to filter out the noise and make a path for valuable insight.

Increase Brand Exposure

It has often been said that users have to see your brand a minimum of 6 times if they were to buy anything from you. Although social media platforms are probably the quickest way to increase your brand exposure, it is important to know that bad news travels just as fast as good news.

When embracing a heavy social media campaign to increase brand exposure, you should be aware of the consequences of a bad campaign. They can backfire and require even more resources to repair. Monitor response via sites like Twitter and search for conversations about your brand or campaign. You may be surprised at what you find.

Build a loyal following

Companies can have fans too. All the buzzwords aside, social media is what communication has evolved to. Why do you think bands have such loyal followings? It’s because they show a little of themselves. Not everything you produce has to be a sales pitch. Off topic can work to your advantage. Internal blogs, online events and just responding to your users are some ways to really get people to know you. Nobody will follow you if they don’t know who you are.

Everyone is doing it

Wrong answer. Look, do not get social media confused with social networks such as Facebook or social news sites such as Digg. Social media is essentially a platform for communication. Whatever the technology, or means, communication is the outcome. Every company can benefit from communicating a valuable message.

Although many companies dabble in social media, a large percentage are simple wasting their time. You must know what you want to achieve from social media to form a good strategy to achieve it.

What social media does is simply allow you to do one thing: communicate

Social media is not a way to spread your people thinner. Your people are already spread so thin that I bet they're not getting all they need done. It's not a low-budget sales force, or a way one person can do the job of three. In other words, it's not the answer to all your prayers.

Social media is a tool, just like the telephone is. It's not even marketing: in the traditional sense, marketing is dead.

What social media does is simply allow you to do one thing: communicate. That's it. Social media is not the conversation. It's the room in which you hold the conversation. It still comes down to saying, doing, or producing something valuable for your customer. Companies which forget this will simply throw money down the social media hole. Companies that get it will find social media a valuable tool -- if they they are prepared to stick it out and learn how it works.

Who says business has changed? It has not. Fundamentally, business is still all about people, products and services. It’s just now people can talk back and if you leave the phone ringing or take it off the hook so you don’t have to listen you’ll lose out to those that answer the call.

Did you hear the story about the extremely paranoid guy who can no longer go to football games because he can't stand the thought of the players talking about him in the huddle? In the new world of social media, this kind of paranoia may not be as extreme as this old joke would have you believe. That's because people are talking about you! They're talking about your business, your brands and your products too. What's more, you can't stop them. In fact, there are thousands of social media tools - and more on the way that enable conversation among the masses with internet access who may and will talk about you.

So be careful of what you do, and of what you say, and whom you say it to. Learn to live with the idea that it's nearly impossible to hide from friends, employees, customers, and others who are motivated to talk about you. People are going to talk and gossip and complain. This behavior is human nature, and in the new world of social media, you have virtually no control.

Now let's consider the bright side of social media. If you've got a great product or service in search of more customers, you want people talking about you. there's nothing like word-of-mouth to take your business to the next level. If your company has won an industry award or enjoys a reputation as a great place to work, you want people talking about you. In other words, conversation about you, your business, or your brand is not inherently a bad thing.

You may not have control over these conversations, but if you have a social media strategy and can get comfortable with some basic tools and tactics, you can use social media to your advantage. Really. You won't have total control, but you can considerable influence, and influence is the foundation of successful relationships with customers, employees, vendors, family and friends.

So there you go you've just learned the first three rules of social media for business:

• Social media is all about enabling conversations.
• You cannot control conversations, but you can influence them.
• Influence is the bedrock upon which all economically viable relationships are built.

Just as an afterthought - you could perhaps add a fourth rule: paranoia has a purpose!

Find and exploit your niche

If you make it your goal to understand social media in the context of your current business, to experiment a little, to harness its conversational power , to make it work for you, your chances of achieving success will dramatically increase. You might, however, see an opportunity to use social media to create a new kind of business.

The microwave oven was invented when scientists using MV technology in their labs discovered that it could rapidly heat and cook things. It didn't take long for someone to notice that a changing social pattern among busy families and two income households might provide a profitable marketplace for the time-saving properties of the microwave oven. Once the microwave oven became more popular other industries sprung up around it producing microwavable food, popcorn etc etc .

Well I'm sure you get the idea. Chances are there's a niche for you somewhere in the social media ecosystem - you just have to find it to be successful.