Collective Blog

Phone chats with the MD of a major social network - Cliff Rosenberg - Linkedin

Mon, 14 May 2012 14:07:00 GMT

It's not every day that the Managing Director of a major social network gets in touch to set up a phone call with you. But that’s what happened to me a couple of weeks ago when Cliff Rosenberg, Managing Director for Linkedin South East Asia, Australia & New Zealand let my team know he was keen to chat with me.

I didn’t really know what to expect, or where the conversation would go, but Cliff was such an easy-going guy the conversation flowed freely. Cliff showed genuine interest in our business asking me first about how business was going, what our current focuses are, and what our future plans are.

I also made the most of the opportunity asking about Linkedin's most recent roll outs and future plans, and I was glad I did, because Linkedin are doing some really cool stuff!

Cliff proudly shared that Linkedin has now reached 135 million members globally. Sure, it's not the 901 million users that Facebook has globally, but considering that Linkedin is strictly a global network of professionals, and that 2 new members are being added to the global network every second, it’s still mind boggling growth levels and figures you're dealing with.

To cope with the exponential growth, Cliff’s team, which is currently at 60 persons is expected to increase to 100 persons by the end of this year. Could be a good idea to go and follow Linkedin’s Company Page and click on the Careers Tab if you are in the market for a job in this field???

Personally I’ve been using Linkedin since 17 May 2007 (which means it’s my 5 year Linkedin ‘birthday’ this week - nice!) but as I mention in regular training sessions I run on the topic of Linkedin, my hunch that momentum has really been gaining in Australia in the past 2 years, was confirmed by Cliff who shared that the network has gone up from 1 million Australian users, to 3 million Australia users IN THE PAST TWO YEARS. No wonder there is a need for more staff!

With that 3 million users, Linkedin now represents 60% of working professionals in Australia. In America, Linkedin is already the number 1 recruitment tool, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it heads that way Down Under too. Cliff and his team would certainly like to think so.

As if Australia and New Zealand wasn’t enough to handle, a Hong Kong office was opened just a few days before I spoke with Cliff and the iPad/android app had been launched the day before I spoke to him and was going gangbusters.

Personally I felt the release of an iPad/android app was long overdue, but better late than never as they say.

Cliff also let me know that Linkedin are in the process of rolling out the ability to post a status update on Linkedin’s company pages (different to a Linkedin Profile), with the ability to update all your followers, an individual or a group.

Linkedin plan to continue to develop the functionality of the Company Page which will be very welcome by the Linkedin community as it is currently somewhat restrictive. If you haven’t already got a Linkedin Company Page I strongly encourage you to establish one. See tour Linkedin training solutions here to find out how you can use Linkedin to its full capacity.

For those of you not aware, apart from listing your product range on a Company Page, you can also now list your services. We had a direct sale of 5 products from America the moment we listed our product range on Linkedin some time ago, so despite the fact its not ecommerce enabled, I’d encourage businesses to take the time to do this.

Probably the biggest take home from our half hour or so conversation was Cliff’s undying commitment to a simple five letter word – ‘focus’. Cliff and I agreed that in the fast moving internet industry there are opportunities GALORE!

But the trick in capitalizing on those opportunities is getting really clear on what it is you want to achieve, and focusing strictly on that. This includes saying no, and sometimes to exceptional business opportunities (a business lesson I am still trying to come to grips with).

In Linkedin’s case their focus is on their three main revenue streams namely:

Marketing Solutions
Recruitment Solutions
Subscriptions

There is loads of stuff Linkedin could choose to have a crack at and which they may do at some stage in the future. But for now they will continue expanding their Asia-Pacific empire. Thanks Cliff for the lovely chat! It was a pleasure!

Have you downloaded the Linkedin iPad or Android app? What do you think of it?

Did you watch the one hour Linkedin webinar? What did you think?

Do you currently have a Linkedin Company page or will you be going to set on up? Please share your comments below.

The Digital Wave is Already Here

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:37:00 GMT

PICTURE CREDIT: M Pics

Recently we’ve had the privilege of going around Queensland on behalf of the Queensland Government to speak at Digital Economy Forums about how businesses can embrace the digital age.

My main message has been that the digital wave is not coming. It’s already here and in fact, it’s been here a while.

Just consider some of the every day tasks you now do online. When was the last time you went into the bank to get cash out? Have or someone you know bought anything online in the past month? Do you happen to socialize online from time to time? Booked a holiday? What about where you go looking for information? I doubt you’re popping into your local library or pulling out the Encyclopaedia Brittanica’s gathering dust on the book shelves (if they haven’t already been donated to the local Salvos).

Across the country, the National Broadband Network (NBN) is being rolled out, presenting a massive opportunity for businesses, and indeed, the every day Australia. Many people bemoan the large amount the Government are spending on the roll out. At $40bn, it is the largest single spend on infrastructure by any Australian Government. They also argue that they already have fast enough internet, an email, a website. Why on earth therefore do they need the NBN?

The NBN in fact represents an incredible opportunity to completely review, and potentially revise the way you currently do business and live. It’s not just about doing the things you’ve always done. With faster internet you can reconsider your current business systems and processes, and maybe even completely change your business model as a result.

There have already been a number of high profile casualties from the digital age. Kodak, Blockbuster, Wow Sight & Sound, many printed publications (including the Queensland Business Review last week) just to name a few.

These stories should be a wake up call for businesses who are choosing to bury their heads in the sand claiming that they are ‘too busy’ trying to keep their businesses afloat to take a look at some of the new technologies and online trends.

The harsh reality is that if you don’t take a look at these things, you might not have a business to worry about for much longer.

Thankfully the Government has committed a significant amount of funding towards programs and other initiatives to provide information and the opportunity to gain insights and training into some of the technologies and trends you need to be taking a look at. Many of these are free or heavily subsidized to get involved in.

To get started, check out getuptospeed.com.au, ichoose.org.au and business.qld.gov.au.

How do you win Government tenders and grants?

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:30:00 GMT

Recently we’ve won another Government tender bringing our total tally to 4 tender wins and 1 major grant. We’re not saying this to brag, but the win has certainly brought more interest from people looking to us as something of an ‘expert’ on securing government funding who are keen to tap into our knowledge and experience in this area.

Personally I still feel relatively new to it all as I know there are stalwarts in the industry who have been applying for tenders for much longer than I have, and probably secured much larger ones too.

However as you’ll know if you’ve ever read previous blog posts of mine, or you keep up to date with our social networks, we’re pretty open, honest people and if we can shed some light on the matter to help another business person, we're happy to share our journey and a few take homes to help out….

How it all started

Our first ever tender win was a collaboration in 2009 with another local company. They had a good track record of securing Government money and they were applying for AusIndustry funds as part of the SBO or Small business Online project.

Because we had the smarts on the subject matter in question, and they had the track record of securing and winning Government tenders, it was a logical step for both parties to collaborate. We were lucky enough to be informed we had won our first tender (albeit in collaboration) right before Christmas 2009. You could say it was a nice Christmas present!

Take away #1: If you haven’t applied for, or won a tender before, look to collaborate with someone who has to increase the credibility of your application. Government agencies are risk-averse and love to deal with ‘tested and proven’ business. In my experience you can’t generally win tenders without having previously won tenders, so if this is your first one, be creative about how you get started.

Check out a short video about this win here (though please note, I have never used and do not necessarily endorse the company who produced the video):

The second win

In early 2010 an opportunity came up to apply for a tender being offered by the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI) to develop and deliver webinars to small businesses across Australia. We offered another company the opportunity to collaborate, but they never got back to us in time to meet the deadline, so we backed ourselves and threw our hat in of our own accord.

And what do you know, but we won it! I can tell you, your first independent tender win feels pretty sweet and is something you should certainly feel proud of yourself for. I’ll certainly never forget pulling into a petrol station as I took a call that day to tell us we had been successful. I wanted to skip in and out of the petrol pumps (but restrained myself and turned the mobile off for obvious safety reasons!)

Take away #2: Back yourself to have a crack on your own. You may be pleasantly surprised!

Our first major grant win

Each year, most local councils give out minor and major grants for a wide range of initiatives. In our area there are 4 rounds of funding each year in a range of categories: Community Development, Cultural Development, Economic Development, Environment, Festive Season Activities, Heritage and History and Sport, Recreation and Healthy Living.

We applied for funding towards our Web Wednesday events, which are our professional development and networking events which we have been running since 2008 for little to no profit – more of a community service because we believe in providing quality education and connecting people in the industry and students to jobs.

Given we let students come for free, and continue to keep the entry to these events at an extremely affordable $35 per ticket, it was excellent to get recognized for all our hard work to this point in time (end 2010) with a helping hand in the form of a Major Grant under the economic development category of our local Sunshine Coast Council.

Take away #3: Councils generally won’t fund new projects. They’re more likely to be successful if you have a proven track record i.e. you have already launched/developed/been delivering the program/project in question and have achieved good success with it. This proves you are committed and have the smarts and where-with-all to continue to successfully deliver the initiative, should you be successful.

Being re-contracted

Now this is something if you want to get into tenders and grants you really have to know – just because you’ve won a tender one time, does not in any way mean you will continue to be re-contracted.

Government organisations have an obligation to be equitable at all times, so even if you have built up the best rapport in the world, if projects are worth over a certain amount (generally around $10,000) you’ll have to re-tender for them.

However if you successfully re-tender, this is when things start getting really sweet. You have a much better feel for what project costs are likely to be and are therefore in a position to quote more accurately. Having run the project before you are also much better positioned to anticipate any issues and deliver an even higher quality service.

Take away #4: Just because you’ve won a tender one time, does not in any way mean you will continue to be re-contracted. Don’t get too used to the regular money – ensure you have diverse income streams that will provide good cash flow in between tenders.

The latest win

Our latest win is securing the Skills Queensland funded, Broadband Today presented Get Up To Speed program, which is for all Queensland businesses to raise their skills and knowledge surrounding current and emerging digital technologies and digital skills. This 12 week program features a live event, webinars, elessons, an extensive resource portal, access to mentors & more.

I believe key to this win is that we not only listened to what they requested in the tender submission, but we also tried to add value at every stage and under every criteria too. In short they asked for something, but we promised even more and in some cases we even provided alternative ways of doing things if what they were suggesting didn’t seem right to us.

It can sometimes be hard to do this but just know that behind the scenes of tender requests are often busy people who are trying to appease multiple stakeholders, and to understand the need by the organization offering the funding and/or the demand in the marketplace and to bring all this together in a document, but who may not necessarily know the subject matter in question. If you can respond with a submission that clearly suggests that you know your stuff and can play a confident and capable lead role in managing the project, you’ll help alleviate the tendering organisations anxieties about what are sometimes significantly sized projects and up your chances of winning the project.

Take away #5: Don’t be afraid to include some opinion in your submission. If you don’t think a project can or should be run in a certain way, tell them, but provide alternative solutions. The very fact you demonstrate this initiative could make you all the more desirable as a tendering candidate.

More FAQs related to applying for tenders and grants

What’s involved in applying for Government tenders?

I won’t lie to you, applying for tenders is generally a mammoth effort. The shortest application I’ve made was probably 15 pages and a typical application is probably around 80 A4 pages.

Some tender submissions will require you to pull together some basic items you are more than likely to have on hand in business i.e. ABNs, trading names etc; while others are far more strenuous requiring you to have extensive insurances in place and to insure for extremely high amounts, which can hit the wallet hard when you’re getting these things in place in the HOPE of winning the tender.

Some will require very in-depth answers to key questions which are well researched, well written and well structured. This is certainly not just a case of finding a student who has a way with their words! It’s quite a highly refined skill and one I would recommend you definitely seek some demonstrated
experience in.

I’ve seen sites promoting the fact that you can pay them and they’ll find you tenders to enter. Are they any good?
I can’t say I’ve ever used any, so I’m sorry I can’t vouch for any. I do mine the long, hard, slow way – myself!

Any secrets to creating a top class tender submission or grant application?

Our tender submissions and grant applications (and business award submissions for that matter) are generally highly visual and professional designed documents. Besides investing masses of time in writing them, we also invest masses of time in designing them. We do this because we feel sorry for the poor sods who have to wade through reams of paper in their evaluation of each and every tender submission they receive (and they generally receive quite a few), so we try and make their job a little easier!

So what about if I have a great idea I want the Government to fund, they do that don’t they?

A lot of people think it’s a case of just coming up with a good idea, approaching the right person in a Government department and saying ‘Hey guys, I’ve got a great idea and you should give me a wad of cash so I can implement it.’ I can tell you right now from working in Government in various capacities over my career, things just don’t work like that.

In contrast, Governments usually discuss and then commit to an entire year’s budget between April
and end June each year. Within this budget there will be consideration given to the types of initiatives they will spend this budget on to achieve the desired outcomes and there will also generally be associated time frames.

When a Government agency decides they are ready to go with a project, they will ‘put it out to tender’ on one of several websites, a list of which can be found below. You can set up to receive alerts from relevant Government agencys and on relevant topics that you regard yourself as a specialist in to narrow down the many opportunities. If you don’t, it can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

How can I find out about tenders/grants/and generally accessing Government money?

Here is a helpful list of tender and grant websites you could check out to find out what your company good go for which I’m more than happy to share:

• Sunshine Coast Council
• Qld Govt tenders
• Local Government tenders
• National Government tenders
• Find government grants and assistance for individuals, businesses and communities

Happy tender and grant submission writing, and if you need some help with your submission give us a holler. Yes, we do offer these services!

Have you had success with applying for grants? Do you have any top tips to share? Did you find this blog post helpful? We'd love to know what you think? Comment in the box below and please feel free to share and re-tweet it!

How we’re helping Queensland businesses ‘Get Up To Speed’

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:12:00 GMT

We’re super excited because this week we hit the road with the first in a series of seven information evenings around Queensland to tell people about the new Government funded program called Get Up To Speed. First cab off the rank is the Sunshine Coast, and we’ll then travel between now and end April to Logan, Cairns, Townsville, Ipswich, Gold Coast and finally end up in Moreton Bay.

These events are totally free and no obligation so we hope many Queensland business people will make the most of the opportunity to come along and hear about the incredible opportunity the digital age presents.

Unfortunately, many business people are so time poor, and often struggling so much financially at the moment that they aren’t always taking time out to find out about these new technologies which could save them the very money and time that they are so lacking in.

The fact is there are sweeping changes going on throughout the Australian business environment (and indeed globally) and if you don't make finding out about what technology may exist to save you, you may not even have a business soon!

Whilst it may sound brutal, that’s exactly what we’ll be talking about at these events. In short, it's high time you Get Up To Speed! to find out what your business is really capable of.

Many business people do have a sense that technology is moving very fast, but they're simply not making learning more about it, and actually implementing some changes a priority.

The thing is, the digital age is not coming, it’s already here, and it’s not going away. It really is high time to start taking a serious look at not just your website, or your marketing strategies, but indeed your entire business model.

You may have heard of the saying ‘From Bricks to Clicks’?

There is a massive migration going on right now from offline shopping to online shopping and this is just one of the many trends businesses are facing.

You may even be contributing to this change by the way you research or shop for whatever it is you want. I know I much prefer getting even something as basic as my supermarket shopping online as opposed to dragging two mischievous kids around for an hour as they try and sneak unwanted items into the already overflowing trolley.

Probably the most recent and high profile casualty in the move from Bricks to Clicks is the electronic chain WOW Sight and Sound. Clever man Dick Smith in the contrary sold out some time ago to Woolworths Limited, as he had the foresight to anticipate rather than react to rapid changes. He is however jumping up and down that plans are afoot for Woolworths to sell the chain of 200 stores which still bare his name to oversea investors. [See: http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/news/story/dont-sell-out-my-brand/]

Another high profile example of major retailers who are struggling with the bricks to clicks phenomenon is Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman who vowed to never sell online and who within 12 months has done a complete ‘about face’ and ended up selling online. Unfortunately for him the company’s projections of being able to do 5% of all their sales online in 2012 have now been scaled back to 1-2%.

But it's no wonder that the very traditional and multi-chain stores struggle with the move from bricks to clicks when you look at the employee ratios. Consider this: Catch of the Day is a $200 million business and reportedly only has 200 staff. Dick Smith is a $1.8 billion business but has over 5,300 employees. Harvey Norman with its $2.7billion business hires over 5500 employees through its bricks and mortar consumer electronics business. [Read more about this here: https://www.womeninfocus.com.au/docs/DOC-1545].

In the contrary, supermarkets are powering along by keeping a foot in both camps (i.e. bricks and clicks). In August last year Coles reported that revenues from its e-commerce channel were the equivalent of five bricks and mortar supermarkets. [See: http://www.powerretail.com.au/news/coles-sees-major-surge-in-online-sales/].

It’s issues like these that we will be discussing at the information sessions so if it sounds interesting come along.

innovate or die…

A lot of people argue that when it comes to the NBN, they already have email, a website and internet that is fast enough to do what they want to do thank you very much. But they don’t realize that the NBN and the Digital Age in general represents a massive opportunity to do things differently. What kind of things? Well just about everything actually....

Think about it. Just about every aspect of our lives has changed dramatically in a short space of years. The way we bank (when was the last time you deposited a cheque?), the way we shop (as per above), the way we socialize (800 million people now on Facebook - I rest my case), the way we meet potential partners (1 in 8 people of married couples in America met online).

If you are ‘over’ email like I am, have you considered implementing ‘live chat’ on your website which will allow people to communicate with you in real time and probably save a bunch of emails?

If you are as time poor as so many of you say you are, have you thought about employing a virtual assistant so you can start working on the business and not in it?

If you spend half your week issuing bills and chasing bills, have you thought about automating some of your systems so a computer issues your invoices and follows them up, thus freeing you up to grow your business?

If you spend way too much time looking for emails or electronic files you've misplaced and are skating on thin ice without any real back up system in place, have you thought about finding out more about cloud computing which can also buy you a fair chunk of lifestyle as in many cases it allows you to work from your phone anytime, anywhere.

These are just a few things we’ll be exploring at the information sessions for the Get Up To Speed Program and throughout the duration of this 12 week program which features webinars, elessons, a private facebook group, an online resource portal, access to mentors plus much more.

Come along to one of the following information sessions in an area near you to find out more (see list below) and if you're not in one of these areas, but you are in Queensland and you'd like to participate, watch our Facebook page for an update on when a free no obligation webinar will be taking place. http://www.facebook.com/getuptospeedprogram.

Tuesday 27 March - Sunshine Coast - Maroochydore Library, 44 Sixth Avenue, Cotton Tree, QLD 4558 - Reserve your place now.

Tuesday 10 April - Logan - Eagle Room 2 , Springwood Tower Hotel, Level 1, 9 Murrajong Road, Springwood - Reserve your place now.

Thursday 12 April - Cairns - Council Civic Room's, Cairns Regional Council, Ground Floor, 119 - 145 Spence Street, Cairns, QLD 4870 - Reserve your place now.

Wednesday 18 April - Townsville - Venue TBC - Reserve your place now.

Monday 23 April - Gold Coast - Venue TBC - Reserve your place now.

Tuesday 24 April - Ipswich - The Barry Jones Auditorium, Ipswich City Council, Ground Floor IGIC Building, 40 South Street, Ipswich, QLD 4305 - Reserve your place now.

Thursday 26 April - Moreton - Tom Petrie Room, Strathpine Community Centre, 199 Gympie Road, Strathpine, QLD 4500 - Reserve your place now.

Representatives from the Get Up To Speed Program will also be available at the following events should you wish to connect and find out more about the program.

Tuesday 17 April - Gladstone - Digital Economy Forum - Grand Hotel, Goondoon St, Gladstone, QLD. Free to attend. Register here.

The social network that came out of nowhere – Pinterest

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:20:00 GMT

If I’d said to you just six months ago that yet another social media network was on its way which would take the world by storm, you’d probably have laughed. I mean, we have enough social networks to contend with at the moment right? And not only that, but the ones we do have update the interface and features enough to make us feel like we’re on a completely new network half the time anyway!!! (Side note – Facebook has just released time line for Facebook business pages. More here.)

So like many, I was initially skeptical about checking out this new player, but curiosity got the better of me when Pinterest kept popping up in conversations. I asked a friend to invite me (essential to gain access to the network - new users must receive an invitation from a friend already registered on Pinterest or request an invitation directly from the Pinterest website) and jumped on in.

Like many social networks initial impressions were ‘not sure how you make this work for you business wise’. Then I observed. Then I played. Then I marveled. And it seems I’m not alone.

So what the hell is it?

Pinterest is a pinboard-styled social photo sharing website. The service allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections. The site's mission statement is to "connect everyone in the world through the 'things' they find interesting." [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinterest, accessed 29/2/12].

Like many of the great tech starts ups, they’re based out of Silicon Valley. Palo Alto, California to be exact (consequently very near where my brother lived for 2 years on a water polo scholarship, so an area I know fairly well).

So how big is it? Well, last month, comScore reported the site had 11.7 million unique users, making it the fastest site in history to break through the 1I0 million unique visitor mark. [Source: "Pinterest Hits 10 Million U.S. Monthly Uniques Faster Than Any Standalone Site Ever -comScore". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 15, 2012.] Yet rumours have it that they’re only operating with 16 staff.

Who’s using it?

In short, females. Given the interface is something like a shop window, the best analogy I can give you is that Pinterest is like one big online window shopping experience. You can choose to ‘just look’ at the ‘pretty things’ in the window or you can choose to click on them and go right into the shop, and if you like what you see purchase. And it is exactly this that is making people sit up and take notice about the newest social network on the block.

In January 2012, Pinterest drove more referral traffic to retailers than LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+ combined. ["Source: Pinterest Drives More Traffic Than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn" - Mashable. Retrieved February 7, 2012. + "Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers". Mashable].

The staggering thing about all of this is how new this network is. Development of Pinterest only began in December 2009, the site launched as a closed beta, or testing site, in March 2010 yet by August 16, 2011, Time magazine was listing it in its "50 Best Websites of 2011" column.

Unsurprisingly, investors are swooning to get a slice of the action as valuations of the company continue to skyrocket. Like many of the social networks who have gone before it, it appears you don’t have to be profitable (which Pinterest are reportedly not) to be valued at US $200m and enjoy rounds of investment money if you have a large and rapidly growing community. In short, it’s a numbers game.

The interesting thing about their business model is that it is deriving revenue by replacing the original affiliate tracking code from pins to sites, with Pinterest's tracking code, any affiliate payment is passed to Pinterest instead of the original affiliate.

It’s a highly intuitive site meaning its simple, clean and you can follow your way around it fairly easily. Apart from what it is doing on its site, what is really interesting to me is the impact it is having on the industry in general.

Some articles have stated that it is driving trends in web design [see http://mashable.com/2012/02/07/pinterest-web-design/ or http://www.ivoryshorewebsite.com/the-pinterest-ification-of-web-site-design] and just today I received an email from a start-up company who have developed a facebook application that converts your facebook wall to a pinterest pinboard. I’m currently playing with it and I must say, I’m quite impressed and can see some good potential for it.

What does all this mean to your business?

Pinterest is definitely worth taking a look at, particularly if your market are female, like pretty things and like buying online. As share buttons for Pinterest become available add them to your site and keep an eye on the spin-offs in the form of apps, or get involved in being an early innovator in this space. It could pay off big dividends.

Are you using Pinterest? What do you think of it? Have any Pinterest success stories to share? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

Win 30 days of personal social media mentoring!

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:19:00 GMT

How valuable is your website...and how you can make it worth more!

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:11:00 GMT

It’s something of an ideal that many people buy into – set up an online business, put your feet up on the desk and wait for the dollars to roll in. It’s that easy right? Wrong!

Having created online businesses for myself and hundreds of business owners in New Zealand, the UK and Australia since 2000, it still amazes me how many people I meet who are trying to ‘re-create the wheel’ by establishing a website or online business from scratch, often without doing effective research on what is already out there, or giving any consideration to whether they could simply ‘buy’ a similar online business.

Yes, just like other assets such as a house, so to can you buy a website or online business. And just like property, you can sometimes snaffle yourself a deal, or through hard work and determination ‘renovate’ the online business to be worth more than you ever dreamed possible.

Take Richard Eastes for instance, a young lad from Brisbane who will be speaking at our next Web Wednesday event on 22 February. Richard Eastes is an entrepreneur who spent his life savings on adopting a struggling start-up in 2002. At that point, the start-up was generating a mere 5 sales a day, until Richard grew it to around 700 sales a day within a few years. The company’s name is VroomVroomVroom and it now dominates the car rental comparison market in Australia. VroomVroomVroom has won dozens of awards for its fast growth, and innovations. Annual sales now exceed $40m. Yes, you read it correctly.

Or how about Liz Raad who will also be speaking at our next Web Wednesday event. Her husband joked to me during a phone call to confirm her involvement at the event how lucky he was that he had a wife who would rather shop for domains and websites than shoes or handbags and all the money she had made in doing so over the years! These days she teaches people how to buy well, renovate a website and sell them again, a process known in the industry as ‘flipping’.

On the topic of flipping, I’m presuming you’ll have all heard of high-flying Australian online success story Flippa.com which is now the world’s biggest marketplace for buying and selling websites? (By the way I tried to confirm them for Web Wednesday too by the way, but they weren’t up for travelling from Melbourne and probably had bigger ‘fish to fry’…and flip!)

Over 90,000 users have registered to buy or sell websites on Flippa and more than 1,000 buyers and sellers are online every minute of the day. Over 150,000 bids were placed and nearly 20,000 websites were sold on Flippa in 2010—valued at almost $21m! Yes in case you haven’t got the idea yet, it’s fair to say the buying and selling businesses online is a pretty big and growing business. [Source of stats: https://flippa.com/about]

Interestingly though, despite their name, fewer than 5% of Flippa’s website buyers and sellers are actively “flipping” websites. Rather, users appear to be ‘just buying’ or ‘just selling’.
The moral of the story? If you play your cards right, you too can create a website or online business that is worth something, or buy to ‘renovate’. The only thing holding most people back is their lack of awareness that this strategy is even possible!

Just recently I was speaking to a personal trainer friend who was looking at winding up her business to focus on other pursuits. I asked her what she was planning to sell her business for, and she said after trying to sell it via a variety of business brokers (including expensive offline advertising campaigns) she thought she’d just wind it up.

Horrified, I suggested that if she’d invested so much time, money and effort into the business, particularly the online component which I knew she had, she should at least try and recover some of that value by selling the online component.

So what makes a website valuable? Here are a few quick tips:

1. When the site was established – In short, the older it is, the better.

2. Traffic – specifically ‘Page Views Per Month’ and ‘uniques’ or unique users per month – the higher the page views and the higher the unique users per month, the higher your websites value. The trick is in keeping these stats high during the process of selling your online business, even if your heart isn’t in it any more. Consider it like continuing to keep your house clean and tidy for regular open days to improve your chance of getting a sale and getting a good price!

3. Google PageRank – Google gives each website a score out of 10 with 1 being low and 10 being high. Naturally it gives itself a 10. To find out your PageRank (also know as PR) download http://toolbar.google.com. The higher your PageRank the more valuable your website.

4. Alexa Rank – For a long time now, Alexa.com has ranked websites across the world. In this case, the lower your score, the higher up you are on the international scale.

5. Links in Google – The more links you have on Google, the more valuable your website.

6. Inbound Links – The more links you have pointing to your site, the more valuable your website.

7. Compete – Compete.com monitors web traffic via user toolbars much like Alexa does. Compete provides information on traffic history, how sites compare against the competition, trust scores, ranked lists etc. The better your Compete Ranking, the more valuable your business.

8. SEMRush Rank - SEMrush.com shows you which keywords that your websites rank for and the number of searches done for those keywords per month as well as a bunch of other useful stats. The basis of all search engine rankings is keywords so if a site is well optimized for certain keywords, it may be more valuable.

9. Keywords in Google – It is possible to measure the number of keywords you currently rank on Google for. Obviously, the more the better!

10. Financial details – The more passive income your website generates per month, the more valuable it is.

11. Database size – The bigger your database size, (ideally verified opted in people) the more valuable your online business is.

There are a bunch of other factors that make a website or online business valuable like the number of competitors, market positioning, branding, other marketing activities plus more, but I hope this blog post gets you thinking about how valuable (or not) your online business currently is, and what you might be able to do to improve the situation. I welcome your feedback and ideas in the comments area below.

SOPA away from reality

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:23:00 GMT

In case you hadn’t noticed yesterday (18 January) in America represented a veritable fiasco online, with some of the world’s most popular websites going black to voice their opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA in a day of protest.

What is it?

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith and a group of 12 initial co-sponsors.

The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites.

The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement. [Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=33629639.]

This could have serious impacts on sites which host user-generated content such as YouTube, Etsy, Flickr and Vimeo i.e. they could be shut down if the bill becomes law.

Additional concerns include the impact on common Internet functions such as linking or access data from the cloud. Some say the bill would ban linking to sites deemed offending, even in search results and on services such as Twitter.

The motive? According to Rep. Goodlatte:

"Intellectual property is one of America's chief job creators and competitive advantages in the global marketplace, yet American inventors, authors, and entrepreneurs have been forced to stand by and watch as their works are stolen by foreign infringers beyond the reach of current U.S. laws. This legislation will update the laws to ensure that the economic incentives our Framers enshrined in the Constitution over 220 years ago—to encourage new writings, research, products and services— remain effective in the 21st century's global marketplace, which will create more American jobs."

What the ‘big boys’ are doing about it

• Google - Have blacked out their logo but this is only viewable in the United States.
• Wikipedia - Blacked out their entire website for 24 hours.
• Mashable - Have dedicated high prominence to the issue on their site and are generating multiple articles to increase awareness and understanding of the issue.
• Reddit - Blacked out their entire site in protest
• Mozilla - Blacked out their logo and Google landing page
• WordPress.org - Wordpress Protests The Protect IP Act and has dedicated their front page to a statement and information video about the issue.
• Facebook – Mark Zuckerburg made a post on the social network, some say a little belated, saying:

"The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can't let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet's development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.
The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet. We have been working with many of
these folks for months on better alternatives to these current proposals. I encourage you to learn more about these issues and tell your congressmen that you want them to be pro-internet."

You can read more about facebooks views here — The post is blowing up: it has 250,000 Likes at time of writing, and 100,000 of those were gained in the past hour. He has not at this time taken any action on the site.

Other opponents include Yahoo!, YouTube, Twitter, AOL, LinkedIn, eBay, Roblox, and human rights organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the ACLU, and Human Rights Watch.

The ‘dark list’ of sites who have displayed a visual protest to SOPA that is being updated regularly.

What we think about it:

As a digital media agency that regularly develops content both for ourselves and our clients and empowers communities we are opposed to SOPA and what it could spell for the broader internet industry. It is clear the bill has been drafted by people who do not intrinsically understand the internet, its history, its players and how it is used by the day to day user.

Specifically the proposed bill is vague, could see some sites we know and love shut down, and would disable us from carrying on our day to day operations in a way we have been accustomed to for a long period of time.

We believe internet users should have the right to freely source uncensored material on the internet, but of course that we should all take responsibility for taking necessary precautions to protect our children and other vunerable members of our society from inappropriate content. There are softwares and other solutions to achieve this, without SOPA. People should take responsibility for their own self-education, and tap into some of the excellent resources made available by the Government to achieve this.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo

What YOU can do

Do you disagree with SOPA like us? Here’s what you can do:

Sign the petition!

What do you think of SOPA? Leave your comments below…

The most common reasons for not using social networking sites in 2011

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:19:00 GMT

In my travels throughout Australia this year, I’ve heard it all. Well maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but believe me when I say I’ve talked to a LOT of business owners about social media and there are so many common threads as to why people are resisting social media, it’s just un-canny.

The crazy thing is, as they talk to me, they often don’t realise that their problems; their confusion, their frustration, their fears are actually shared by many – that is, I’ve often already spoken to 10 people that week who have told me the EXACT SAME THING.

Don’t worry, I’m patient (well my partner might argue with that), and I’ll happily lend an ear to the person who gives me an excuse as to why they don’t want to get involved with social media.

In May 2011 Sensis released a report developed in association with the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association outlining the main reasons people in Australia cite for not using social networking sites. See an interesting graph sourced straight from the report below or Download the full report click here.

As a fun way to end the year, I thought I would provide my blunt (but informed) response to some of the common excuses I've heard along the way in 2011.

I hope you enjoy reading them and if I’ve forgotten one you’ve heard often as a social media professional, or that you feel particularly applies to you that you’d like to elaborate on, I’d love you to share in the comments below.

EXCUSE #1: I’m too old/too young

FACT: Sunshine Coast resident Eva Woodrow turns 101 on December 10 and is the oldest Australian on Facebook. Read more about Eva here.

FACT: The fastest growing Facebook demographic is 55 years+.

FACT: Many of the best-selling Twitter books are written by people in their 50s.

And if you are under 13, yes you are too young. Facebook requires individuals to be at least 13 years old before they can create an account. In some jurisdictions, the age limit may be higher. Similarly Twitter's privacy policy states that you should be 13 years old to have an account. You'll need to be 13 or older to have a YouTube account. You'll need to be 18 or older to be a YouTube partner, otherwise you'll need to ask your parent/ guardian to apply for you.

EXCUSE #2: People may say bad things about me/my company!

Do you not think that the guy down the street who just happened to take a dislike to you might not decide to say bad things about you?

But as Scott Stratten of Unmarketing put it, "In a world where every consumer is a reporter, every business owner and employee should be a marketer". Because if you’re not, the conversation will quite simply go on without you, and you have no control and no knowledge of who said what. That's what tools like Google Alerts, Hootsuite and other monitoring tools are for. You can and must get these into place in 2012 if you want to maintain any control over your brand.

EXCUSE #3: My employees will spend all day on social media if I let them on it

You’re not alone if you’ve ensured your firewalls will prevent. Many companies have. But do your employees have people to build relationships with and targets to hit? If they could build the relationships faster and hit the targets easier if they used social media would this be a good thing?

Lay down some ground rules by establishing a social media policy, give them some training (essential) and then give it a trial and see what they can do with the thing. You might just be surprised.

EXCUSE #4: I don’t have the time!

I know you’re busy dear business owner, so am I, but if you don’t allocate a small portion of your time to checking out this global phenomenon, I’m sorry to say but soon you may not have a business. Yes that’s harsh, but it’s true. If you thought those things called websites that came along changed the playing field in business, you should see what’s going on with social media right now.

EXCUSE #5: I Don’t Like Spending So Much Time in Front of Computers

Ha! I have so got you on this one – have you got a smart phone, that is, an internet-enabled phone like 50% of Australians and x% of global population also do? Then you have a gateway to social media. In fact my FAVOURITE place to do social media is when I am waiting in a public place – airports, supermarket queues, for my coffee to be ready ON MY PHONE. It doesn’t have to be a case of sitting in front of computers at all.

EXCUSE #6. I’m Overwhelmed and Don’t Know Where to Start!!!

Ahhh, some real honesty. I like that in a person. Well just like the saying ‘How do you eat an elephant?’ (answer: ‘One bite at a time’) that is exactly the approach I suggest for you when it comes to social media. Check out my list of ways to get started featured at the end of this blog post.

Your options for getting started with social media:

Option 1: Join our Social Media Success Squad (we have a special offer on until Friday 23 December where you could save $270 off the regular annual price)
Option 2: Come along to one of our BYO laptop sessions – dates will be announced in early 2012, but make sure you join our database in the meantime.
Option 3: Watch this free social media webinar our director Yvette Adams developed and delivered on behalf of the Queensland Government’s Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation. It'll give you a good overview of what social media is and where you might like to get started.
Option 4: Contact us! We’d love to assist you.

Driving your business in the Digital Economy

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:31:00 GMT

There is a new online buzz word that keeps cropping up lately, and it is one I suggest it is one you get yourself familiar with real quick: Digital Economy.

There has been plenty of talk about a ‘two-speed economy’ in Australia, that is, an economy that is both booming thanks to the mining and resources sector, and struggling across many other sectors.

But if we consider the two-speed economy a veritable ‘economic highway’, which for the sake of familiarity we’ll call ‘The Bruce Highway’ in homage to the 1700km of Queensland roadway which commences in Brisbane and finishes in Cairns, (and which is particularly apt given most boom traffic on the whole IS heading north whilst downturn traffic is generally heading south); then the Digital Economy is a veritable Autobahn.

I refer to it as such because the Digital Economy is being aided in part by the rollout of the NBN which will bring broadband to 90% of Australian households and internet speeds of 100 megabits per second - 100 times faster than those currently used by most people living in a town with a population of around 1,000 or more people. [Source: Click Here]

In my mind, while there are many businesses attempting to merge onto this ‘Digital Economy Autobahn’ with extreme trepidation, there are many more that are still travelling on the ‘Two-Speed Bruce Highway’, often completely unaware that the ‘Autobahn Digital Economy’ is even there and that their current and emerging competitors are taking a faster route to business nirvana.

The fact is, the internet has changed the way businesses and consumers interact and transact forever yet according to research, as a nation we’re painfully slow in redirecting our course.
Research from Sensis reveals that in the digital marketing stakes only 17% of Australian Small Businesses have a digital strategy and more surprisingly 40% don’t have a website. Only 14% have a social media presence, compared to 50% of larger businesses. Compared to bigger businesses, 74% of which employ a marketing department to manage their social media presence, SMEs view it as a luxury that only one in 10 small businesses invest in.

Whether businesses are currently travelling on the ‘Two Speed Bruce’ or the ‘Digital Economy Autobahn’ the good news is that there are ‘billboards’ informing ‘drivers’ that help is available in the form of online solutions, if they’d only slow down a moment and be present enough to take in the actual name of the solution and commit to doing something about it, rather than driving past yet another great business opportunity.

In yet another metaphor, on both veritable highways, there are is also plenty of ‘roadside assistance’ and ‘service stations’ in the form of Federal and State Government Departments, free and subsidised professional development and networking events, industry bodies and knowledgeable private sector specialists where you can fuel up on knowledge, pick up a co-driver or get some general directions in the form of a roadmap to help you navigate this new terrain.

Without this support, and an effective vehicle and crew (your business and staff) you may never actually get to your destination due to a terrible ‘accident’, more stream-lined vehicles continually overtaking you, or simply conking out along the way.

Just like you would engage an accountant to provide you with financial advice, a lawyer for legal advice, a HR consultant for your HR affairs and a PR or Marketing specialist for your marketing affairs; these days a digital strategist/expert/specialist should definitely be ‘on board’ and form part of your core advisory team. This stuff is just too important to get wrong.

The biggest mistake Aussies often make is we are a nation of ‘she’ll be rights!’ and ‘do it yourselves’. But beware, whilst many of the online solutions on offer may appear ‘free’, or be low cost enough to lure you in to have a crack at it yourself, it is important to ask yourself what the cost to your business could be if you get this stuff wrong, OR don’t get around to strategizing and executing.

To put it quite bluntly, it could be the end of your business as you know it.

This is no time to be complacent. The internet, the NBN, smart phones, tablets and a whole lot of other technology is here to stay, and if your business plans to stay too, it’s best you get a motor on!

Which 'highway' are you/your business currently traveling on? Are you ready to merge? What do you think of the NBN rollout? Do you see the benefit of engaging a digital specialist? We'd love you to comment on these points, or others in the area below.

NOTE: The Creative Collective runs or is involved in a wide range of live events, programs and online training aimed at assisting business owners to achieve online success. Check out a list of our upcoming events here.

To accept the new social network friend, or not. THAT is the question!

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:50:00 GMT

I don’t know about you but these days I’m finding there is no getting away from an increasing number of requests from people wanting to connect to me on my various social networks when I have absolutely no idea who they are.

Knowing whether to accept a new connection on social media networks is something I admit I’ve taken some time to get my head around, and from speaking with many business people I know it is an area they also often struggle with too. So I thought a blog post on the subject was well overdue!

Personally, I prefer to keep some level of control over who I connect with on social networks, that is I don’t, and won’t, connect with just ANYONE. My general criteria is as follows:

1) I know their name and face immediately – we’ve spent time together at some stage of our lives, or at least met in person once (in which case I would generally connect to them) and I genuinely would like to keep in touch with them.

2) We have an OBVIOUS or POTENTIAL business or personal synergy – that is they have explained to me via a personalised message when requesting to connect with me who they are and their reason for wanting to connect which makes complete sense to me.

The reason I have adopted a policy of this nature is that I realise if I don’t, I run the risk of amassing a huge social network of people I may never communicate with, and who may end up spamming me with material I am not at all interested in. When it comes to social media, I’m much more into quality than quantity.

Now I’m not saying my way is the right way or the only way by any means. The social media experience can and should by shaped by the person using it, to suit their personality, and their personal and business needs and objectives.

There are plenty of people out there who will actively accept ALL new contacts in the HOPE that these will transpire over time into quality contacts, but for me that is all a bit hit and miss and quite frankly exhausting. I’d rather build a relationship with someone first, and when I know and trust them, THEN let them into my social network as a known and trusted quantity. Yes I am saying I know each and every one of my 1000+ Facebook friends!!

There are others on the social networks who will actively go out and ‘recruit’ new followers, connections and friends and who aren’t too fussy about who they are, where they are or what they do. Social media can eat up hours of your working week if you let it, and connecting with too many of the wrong types of people can take up a large part of this if you let it.

Each network is different and your strategy as to who you will, and won’t let into that particular network, should be considered.

Here’s my personal strategy for each of the main networks I operate within which I hope may get you thinking about how you currently connect with people on social networks and to consider whether a new approach is needed:

My Linkedin Profile policy? Restricted.

Generally I will only accept Linkedin connection requests if I know the person i.e. I have met them before and if there is an obvious or potential business synergy. This is a business network after all!

Linkedin is essentially a social network for professionals and runs on the theory of six degrees of separation. Based on this I will only connect to business people I know, or those who have an obvious or potential synergy with. Otherwise I send them along to my company Facebook page or Twitter profile (see the templates below for my polite response which you may find useful to copy for your own purposes).

So include a personalised message in your next Linkedin connection request to me okay?

My Facebook Profile policy? Restricted.

Generally I will only accept Facebook friend requests if I know them i.e. met them before. I then add them to lists and customise settings restricting what they can see and do on my profile, depending who they are.

It really depends what sort of person you are and what sort of stuff you tend to post on your Facebook profile as to who you accept as a friend. Personally I have kids, I crack jokes, and occasionally I’ll mention business stuff too (though I try to not do it too often, as a large amount of my friends on my Facebook Profile are personal friends that I’ve amassed from years of travelling, many of whom live all over the globe and who are really not interested in my next business event or business deal).

It is important to note that even when you have accepted people as friends of your Facebook profile, you can significantly customise what they see once they are on your ‘inner circle’ by creating lists and customizing the settings. Come along to one of our social media events if you want to learn how to do this! If you don’t want to let them into your ‘inner circle’, send them along to your company Facebook page or Twitter profile (see the templates below for my polite response which you may find useful to copy for your own purposes).

So make sure you let me know how we met if you want me to accept you into my Facebook friends okay?

My Company Facebook Page policy? Wide open!

People ‘like’ your Facebook page, which is what you should use to promote your business of their own free will. They can also stop ‘liking’ and therefore receiving your news feeds/updates at any time. This is where I post on the whole business information. By ‘liking’ us they are accepting to receive this sort of information’.

If however someone began spamming our page, that is posting to it without our permission, we may take action by removing their post, and sending them a private message asking them to refrain from doing so in the future.

Note – it is always best to ask the person to post your message on your behalf, unless you have an excellent relationship with the business in question and you know they would not mind you posting something which is highly relevant to their audience.

Like away baby: facebook.com/thecreativecollective.

Twitter - MY POLICY? Wide open!

People ‘follow’ your Twitter profile which you may use as an individual or a business. Some people have a profile for both. They can also stop ‘following’ you and therefore receiving your status updates or ‘tweets’ at any time. This is where I post a mixture of business information, much of it including a link with more information, or where I communicate openly with people on Twitter I follow or who follow me. The more followers you have, and the more interactions you are having with your followers on Twitter, the better.

Useful social media templates to decline friend requests and linkedin connections

Here are some of the templates I use to politely turn people down that I am not sure about connecting with. Please feel free to amend these to suit you. I encourage you to save them as a word doc on your desktop or somewhere easily accessible so you can quickly copy and paste a response to people where appropriate and therefore keep on top of the inboxes of your social networks!

SCENARIO 1 – Response to people who try and connect with you via a friend request on Facebook, and you have no idea who they are:

Hi there

Thanks for the friend request! I’m afraid your face and name are not familiar to me and I have a strict policy of only friending people on Facebook I know. If we have met, I’d appreciate it if you could jog my memory of how we know each other.

Alternatively you may like to connect to me by following either one of my company pages: facebook.com/thecreativecollective or facebook.com/awardshub or over on Twitter: twitter.com/creativecollect where I have a much more ‘open’ policy.

I look forward to staying in touch.

Yvette

SCENARIO 2 - Response to people who try and connect with you via Linkedin, and you have no idea who they are and upon checking out their profile can see no obvious or potential business synergy:

Hi there

Thanks for the connection request. I pride myself on only connecting to people I either know or those who I have an immediate or potential synergy with. Could you explain how we know each other or your reason for requesting to connect?

Alternatively you may like to connect on twitter twitter.com/creativecollect or my facebook page facebook.com/thecreativecollective. I have a much more open policy on these. :)

Cheers

Yvette

SCENARIO 3: (and my pet hate) – Response to people who try and connect with you via a friend request, using a Facebook profile for a business name i.e. they send you a 'friend request' yet they feature a business name i.e. ACME Company (BTW I regularly pick up clients through this!)

Hi there

Thanks for the friend request! I hope you don't mind me saying but I noticed that you are set up as a Profile rather than a Business Page and by the look of your name you really should have a business page.

Facebook’s rules forbid the use of personal profiles for business use and they can and will shut your account down if this is detected – I’ve seen it happen! And I’m sure you’d hate to lose all the contacts you are amassing in one hit. Move them on over to a page now!

Given my company teaches people social media regularly through live events, webinars and in one on one consults, I encourage you to set up a Business Page immediately, and then send me a new invite to like you on there which I’d be more than happy to do.

If you’d like to learn more about this and more on how to really get Facebook or other social media networks working for you, check out our extensive list of upcoming training: thecreativecollective.com.au/events.

We have several events coming up soon which may be helpful to you.

Alternatively feel free to call my office on 07 545 11315 during working hours and speak to any of my highly trained team.

I also encourage you to follow either one of my company pages: facebook.com/thecreativecollective or facebook.com/awardshub.

I look forward to staying in touch.

Yvette

What is your personal social media policy when it comes to receiving connection requests and friend requests?

Let them all in or be discerning?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this blog post and your approach to social media in the comments section below….

Also was this blog post helpful? Why?

What’s all the Tweet About?

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 04:21:00 GMT

Of all the social media networks around, although people I meet know of Twitter, it is probably the social network that many people just don’t seem to ‘get’. Most people know it is a micro-blogging service that enables you to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, otherwise known as "tweets," yet they can’t seem to get their head around how a service like this could actually be useful.

Twitter has been used for a variety of purposes in many different industries and scenarios. It has been used to promote upcoming events, announce product releases (Dell computers reports to have made in excess of $2m in one year alone from its Twitter activities), build individual profiles and company brands awareness and reputation, release news, special offers or discounts, plus much more.

From a user perspective you can instantly connect to what's most important to you such as follow your friends, experts, favourite celebrities, and breaking news. Whether you tweet 100 times a day or never, you still have access to the people and information surrounding what interests you. You can contribute, or just listen in and retrieve up to the second information. Some people never tweet, they simply use Twitter as a way to get the latest information on their interests, or monitor sentiment on their brand, product or general industry.

The service has also been used in emergencies (most recently in the wake of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, Christchurch earthquake, Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi) and political campaigning and protests such as the 2011 Egyptian protests, 2010–2011 Tunisian protests and 2009–2010 Iranian election protests.

It has also been used successfully to encourage people to watch live TV events, such as the Oscars, the Rugby World Cup, the MTV Video Music Awards; and you’ll even note TV shows such as X Factor using it to encourage interaction and voting amongst its viewers.

But whilst all this is great, is Twitter something you or your business should be using and if so, how do you get started, and most importantly, get results? Like any marketing activity, it depends on the business objectives you set out to achieve as to how you approach using Twitter, so my first advice would be to seriously consider what business needs you have and whether Twitter is the best medium to utilise. In an era where many businesses are looking for more cost effective and time effective ways to market, and to connect with their desired target market however, Twitter is indeed a clear winner.

Just remember to keep it short: posts are limited to 140 characters, and whilst this may not seem like a lot to work with, if you think of Twitter posts as headlines where you need to come up with something attention grabbing, informative yet intriguing, thus encouraging the viewer to see more, you’re well on your way to understanding the power of Twitter.

The Creative Collective’s next Web Wednesday event will be on the topic of Twitter and feature three Twitter experts in the form of a panel discussion who will share their secrets to success. The event will be held on Wednesday 5 October, 5:15pm for networking for a 6pm start at the Sunshine Coast Institute of TAFE, Lady Musgrave Drive, Mountain Creek.

A half day Twitter workshop will also be held on Thursday 20 October, 9am -12pm in Maroochydore. For more details see: http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/events.

How to start an online business - part 4

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:21:00 GMT

There has been some late nights since I last wrote and I’ve also hired some more help! Basically I’ve been up to my elbows in content. You see this is the labour intensive part of the online start-up, but it’s also where you start to see things ‘take shape’. I'm proud to now have a launch date for you too: Friday 16 September which is when I will take my team to Sydney to see Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki and Anthony Robbins live at the National Achievers Congress. I see this three day event as an ideal opportunity to take some marketing material and announce my new online start up to the world!

So if I want to go live in just five days, what needs to happen? Well basically like anything you need to size the job up and work out what you can and can’t do within the time frames you've set yourself....

STEP 19: Tracking the content upload

To get a feel for how much content I had completed and had to go, I created a spreadsheet to track each of the actions I needed to take on any given web page. In the case of this website for each page I needed to set up to:

• Create the category page
• Add it to the dynamic menu
• Give it a page title
• Ensure at least one awards item was added to the page so on launch there was content for the users to browse.

By taking the time to consider this, and then creating a spreadsheet with each task in a column and each category in a row, I was able to tackle the content at different times of the day and night and know each time I came back to it exactly where I was up to. It also meant my progress was recorded so that I could delegate to another person should I run out of time and decide this was the way I wanted to go.

STEP 20– Hired a VA

Realising my deadline was looming, and feeling overwhelmed by how much there was still to do (yes it happens to the best of us!), I decided to look into hiring a VA (virtual assistant).

A VA is an entrepreneur who provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients from a home office. Because virtual assistants are independent contractors rather than employees, clients are not responsible for any employee-related taxes, insurance or benefits.

Whilst I am aware of multiple online sites that you can hire a VA on, I was concerned about the time it may take me to write and ad and screen potential candidates, so my first port of call was to my friend Aaron who runs outsourceassault.com.au who provide a service connecting business owners with suitable VAs. I also contacted a colleague of mine who I knew had a current VA who was potentially keen for more hours.

To cut a long story short, I’ve ended up working with my colleague’s VA, who is based in Atlanta, America. She speaks great English, is extremely prompt and efficient, and so far I am loving working with her!

So how do I work with her if she is in America? Well if you consider how you do business these days (depending on what it is you do of course) email and other online communications such as Skype may be a big part of it. To help matters more, all of my systems are accessible online. To get started with my VA, I’ve simply created a spreadsheet, and shared it with her via Dropbox, provided her instructions via Gmail and provided further information and to do’s via Basecamp.

STEP 21: Liaising with my web developer

Apart from my VA there are other tasks which I don’t have the technical expertise to handle but which I am continuing to regularly liaise with my web developer about to ensure everything comes together beautifully come launch day.

The type of stuff I am following him up on at the moment are making sure the advertising page is linked up to my gateway so we can accept funds on the site, making sure the web forms which will allow users to post content are up and running and displaying in a way I want them to etc. Trust me when I say, you need a good web developer on your site. I am blessed to have an excellent one!

STEP 22: Encouraging user-generated content

A good online business will feature a few traits including encouraging user-generating content, rewarding users who provide content in some way and automating as many of the functions as possible. In this vein, I’ve been preparing email broadcasts and compiling lists of industry professionals that I know who will know of the most prestigious business awards in their location or industry. As soon as the web forms my web developer is preparing are ready, I’ll insert the link direct to that page and be encouraging my VA to send out multiple emails on my behalf asking these industry professionals for their help in suggesting business awards live on the site. This will happen before I go live, and will also double as a good referral system as they’ll get a sneak peak of the website and will hopefully tell others! In this way, my contacts will be building my site - it's not all on me!

STEP 23: Preparing marketing material

In anticipation of launch day, I’ve had my team prepare some business cards and a simple DL, double sided flyer.

Thank goodness for digital print runs because my focus has been on all these other items and I’ll probably need to get these printed in Sydney and pick them up ready for my event using a service like Snap Printing or CopyWizz. A simple search on Google Maps should show me where the closest one to my hotel down there will be.

STEP 24: Keep the anticipation and conversation going

An important part of building up to the launch is also keeping in touch with people who are potential users or potential referrers. Social media is naturally a great location to connect with these people (and to get encouragement and ideas) I am a member of a number of private business groups on things like Facebook as I have mentioned in previous posts. This week I put up this post on one of these private groups:

“Love your input people. later this week i hope to go live with my new business awardshub.com which features lists of business awards around the globe. how many business awards do you think is the minimum i could go live with and not disappoint? or put another way, if you were to come to the site, how many business awards would you expect to see in your country - australia? (note, users of the site will be able to contribute awards not listed. it will be in constant development). i'd appreciate your thoughts...”

As you’ll note I’m letting them know what I am doing, but also asking a question I’d really like feedback on, as I’m not sure how far I should keep pushing it in the next 5 days before launch. So how many items do you think I should go live with? I welcome your comments below.

Until next time!

How to start an online business - part 3

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 04:42:00 GMT

Ok I’ll level with you. Creating an online business can be a bit of a roller coaster ride – even with all the experience I’ve got on board. I’ve promised you I’d share my journey so to be honest with you, since I last wrote I've bottomed out, but don’t worry, I’m now back on the up! To share with me in the highs and lows since I last wrote....

STEP 13 - Create a site map

With the design off being integrated (see Part 2 of the journey to catch up on this) it’s important to get a handle on how big your website will be and how various pages will flow into one another, so at this point, I created a site map. It’s amazing how many people we deal with who ask us for a simple 5 or 15 page website, but if you actually sit down and map it out, it inevitably turns into a much bigger monster than you may have earlier anticipated. For your convenience, you can download a Site map template to suit the next website you develop.

STEP 14 – Liaise with web developer

At this point of the journey my web developer showed me how the integration was going and got me to check it to make sure he was understanding my vision (a very wise idea indeed before all the work is done and you’ve gone off on the right path).

I was super excited to see that ‘yes’ if you clicked on a set category, it pulled in a couple of ‘dummy’ listings of business awards and it all displayed (well almost) exactly how I wanted it. He suggested however that in terms of the back end, it would require entering each category in as a new listing – a lot of additional work I wasn’t anticipating. My heart sunk at the thought of this and his indication that he couldn’t think of a less labour intensive work around and this was the ‘bottoming out’ I referred to in the intro.

You see my earlier vision was that you could provide criteria and then be presented with a list of exact categories in specific business awards you could enter. After some serious thinking, I confirmed with the developer that I wished to pursue the idea of getting the listings to display at a category level, I provided him with a few possible work arounds and he proceeded with some amends. This meant more time and therefore more money but if you are 100% committed to seeing your vision come to life, then you have to be determined!

To be perfectly honest, at this point I found myself dizzied by the complexity of what I was creating (so if you've ever suffered a headache when getting a website built, rest assured you are not alone!) On several occasions I had to take myself away from the computer and do some serious thinking to connect with what both my intuition and my sensibility were telling me with how to proceed with the project. I put pen to paper and kept on ‘mapping’ out possible ‘paths’ of the user-journey (had I a glass wall this could have been like a scene from A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe).

The revised option came back with caution from my developer that it would now require entering the data at two points – one point for the awards program itself and another for the categories, and that each category would need to be entered individually and that you would have to get the awards program name exactly right so the two listings would effectively ‘talk’ to each other. This still didn’t gel with me and seemed like too much room for error.

After some more serious thinking and a 3 day retreat in Byron Bay (which has been so incredibly powerful for clarity and inspiration) I've reverted back to option 1 remembering the important adage that I teach people – simple is often best and remembering I can always further develop the site in future phases. The key objective for the time being is getting live in the time frame I have set myself (yes we have a launch date – 15 September is d-day!) with a quality product.

STEP 15 - Set up page structure in the ‘back end’

As I have access to the ‘back end’ of my website, also known as the cms or content management system, in the next step in my journey I am rolling up my sleeves as part of the website development and starting to create the pages I identified in the process of creating the site map in step 13.

In addition to basic pages which come with most websites i.e. about us, contact us, home etc, in my case I also need to create a page for each of the categories my users will be able to navigate to and/or query to arrive at. I am planning to launch with around 60 categories in all (very ambitious) but I want new users to arrive and feel like there is ‘something for them’.

It also dawned on me at this point how I must encourage user generated content where possible, so I started adding in a simple sentence to each heading ‘Want to suggest an award which should be in here? Click here to submit your suggestion’ linking to a page with a simple web form on it which will sit awaiting moderation but has the ability to be ‘published’ should we think the awards program submitted is a worthy candidate.

Encouraging interactivity on your website and user-generated content is something I highly recommend. There are many ways you can achieve this, and this is just one way I will be achieving it on this site.

NOTE: This step is something your web designer/developer will normally do as part of your website build. However check your quote/scope carefully as sometimes you will be required to do this and it should outline which is the case.

STEP 16 - Connect the pages internally – hyperlinks/menus

This is the fairly labour intensive leg of the journey so I roll my sleeves up and get stuck in! Essentially once all the pages have been set up as per step x, I then need to ensure that they connect to one another where required i.e. if you click on the navigation bar or a link it takes you to the page it says it does! Nothing more frustrating then clicking on a link in a website and discovering it’s broken is there?

With 70 categories, this phase involved for me adding the category to the dynamic menu, linking it to the category page and then ensuring the actual page it refered to was also linked. To keep track of my progress, I set up an excel spreadsheet, carefully marking off where I was up to each step of the way so if I stopped to do something else, or even came back to it after a day or two, I knew exactly what had been done and what hadn’t.

NOTE: This step is something your web designer/developer will normally do as part of your website build. However check your quote/scope carefully as sometimes you will be required to do this and it should outline which is the case.

STEP 17 - Preparing website content

Knowing my website is fast shaping up, it’s time to get writing! One of the biggest hold ups in working with clients in the development of their websites is waiting for them to provide ‘content’ that is words and images to go on the website pages. Whilst we can assist clients to write suitable copy or words for their website, there does need to be a certain level of involvement from the clients, whether it be an interview to extract the key information or the provision of key company documents from which we can draw the necessary information.

In the case of my business start up, there are no clients holding up the content, just me to put finger to keyboard and write. And that I have done. When you’re passionate and knowledgable about a topic I find it just flows. Writing engaging website copy is a real knack and one which I don’t encourage you to do yourself if you don’t have the time (as it takes a fair bit) or skills (as it will impact on how well your website performs both from an SEO perspective and a conversion perspective).

Note carefully whether your web designer/developer will do this as part of your website build – it should outline it on the quote/scope carefully – many won’t. If they won’t you may consider asking them to quote for this, or seeking assistance elsewhere. Or to make it super easy, just talk to us!

STEP 18: Set up and integrated Launchrock to drive interest

With the website fast shaping up, our boy Jag Quimby suggested we use some cool software which one of our other clients, and a business advisor have been having some success with – launchrock.com. LaunchRock is a slick web app that allows you to create a simple, clean launch page to gather email addresses, share your message, and prepare for launch day. Their system not only allows people to sign up for your project/service, but also has powerful referral abilities that incentivize subscribers to share your message with their friends.

With over one million signups through their platform since January, it’s clear that the Launchrock has used their own tool - a platform for user acquisition and engagement which is best known for its beta signup form - to great success. Check it out. You’ll love it.

Until next time!

Have you got your head around Cyber Safety?

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 01:48:00 GMT

As I am sure you will agree, cyber space is a vast and fast paced online world which business owners, parents, teachers and children the world over are struggling to keep up with.

Even as ‘techie’ as I am, I know my 4 year old and 7 year old seem to be wanting to 'get online' more and more lately and I'm not 100% confident when they do.

My 4 year old is obsessed with looking up her favorite music on YouTube (think Katie Perry and Rihanna) as well as working her way through some free and very cool educational tools I’ve recently found (which I’ll tell you more about in a future blog post).

My 7 year old is absolutely smitten with the power of the internet and online retail after today receiving a free, autographed, Melbourne Demonds Guernsey in the post after signing up on an AFL website. To him it’s as good as Father Christmas.

But with all that said and done, I am only too aware that there are risks involved with letting them get online.

And, as diligent as I am at maintaining my own computer in terms of virus and malware protection as well as other general updates, I haven’t yet got my head around how I should be changing the security settings so that the content rendered is suitably age appropriate for my two.

The recent discovery of the remains of Daniel Morcombe only further highlights the need to take an active interest in the safety of our children – and not just offline but online too!

I therefore cant wait to sit down and speak with three incredible panelists we have been fortunate enough to confirm for our next Web Wednesday event taking place on Wednesday 7 September on the Sunshine Coast (that's just 10 days away!!)

At it I'll ask (as usual) all the tough questions, but if you come along you'll have the opportunity to ask questions too. :)

Whilst we’re well aware some initiatives on this topic have already been offered in schools, short of receiving a flyer in my son’s lunch box which was soiled with the remnants of his lunch that day, they haven’t been particularly helpful or impacting on me.

Instead this event should provide an ideal opportunity for Sunshine Coast based parents, teachers and business owners to come together and hear from three great panelists on topics very much related to cyber safety – cyber bullying, tips to be safe online and identity fraud/online crime. We'll also be showing a short film on cyber bullying at the event which should be a real eye opener.

I hope you will join me and come along to find out how to protect yourself and your family and what to do if you ever do have an issue including who to report the issue to and other courses of action.

As the event is live-streamed via our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/thecreativecollective even if you are not located on the Sunshine Coast you can still jump on and participate - we hope you will.

Students are free, and we encourage them to attend with their parent to get important discussions and awareness going on this important topic. Others are just $35. Come to the Sunshine Coast TAFE, Lady Musgrave Drive, Mountain Creek on Wednesday 7 September - 5:30pm doors open for networking – the event officially starts at 6pm and will run until 8pm.

This is a great opportunity to connect with other parents and business owners also struggling to get their heads around things and share ideas!

For more information or to grab your ticket click here or invite your friends via Facebook here.

If you have any questions please call Vanessa Webster on 07 545 11315 or email admin@thecreativecollective.com.au

MEDIA CALL | Web Wednesday 5 Sept - GET CYBER SAFE!

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 05:07:00 GMT

Award winning creative agency The Creative Collective have confirmed another exciting line up of guests for their next Web Wednesday event to be held on Wednesday 7 September which will explore the important topic of CyberSafety.

Director of The Creative Collective, Yvette Adams says that whilst most of their Web Wednesday events target mainly business people, they have identified a need in the community for more information on topics such as cyber-bullying, identity fraud, and just generally accessing the internet securely and confidently. Adams hopes that business owners, parents, students, teachers and other internet users will take the opportunity to come along to the event and get some good information on board.

“Cyber space is a vast and fast paced online world which business owners, parents, teachers and children not only on the Sunshine Coast, but all over the world are struggling to keep up with. As fast as users get online, unscrupulous types are discovering ways to take advantage of them. It is really important that people get more information on board so they can continue to access the internet safely and confidently.”

The event will feature guest panellists in the form of Linda Barron, the Client Learning Coordinator at the State Library of Queensland who has designed and delivered a number of programs for the public about cyber safety, an online crime prevention expert and local film producer Evette Henderson who has produced a short film called Cyber Sin about cyber-bullying which will also be screened at the event and at World Youth Day in Madrid next month. The nine minute film stars legendary actor John Jarratt (Wolf Creek, MacLeods Daughters) and is endorsed by Australian Suicide Prevention Foundation, ACT for Kids, Beacon Foundation and The CorriLee Foundation.

Adams says that whilst some information on CyberSafety is distributed through the schools and there have been other events offered locally on similar topics, she hopes that the Web Wednesday event will offer an ideal opportunity for parents to attend with their kids, and to meet other parents and business owners to discuss their concerns and issues during the networking component of the event, as well as be enlightened by the expert panel. This is also a great opportunity for students (with valid ID) to register online and attend this event totally free of charge. A range of key resources will also be distributed on the night for attendees and parents to take home and work through of their own accord.

The event will take place on Wednesday 7 September in Lecture Theatre 1 at Sunshine Coast TAFE, Mooloolaba Campus, 5.30pm doors open for a 6pm event start. Tickets can be purchased from: http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/webwednesday.

>ENDS<

Social photographers and journalists are welcome to the event.
To arrange entry, contact Vanessa Webster on 07 545 11315 or 0410 777 732 or pr@thecreativecollective.com.au.

PANELIST BIOS

Evette Henderson – Film Producer – Cyber Sin

Evette Henderson is an actor, writer and producer. She starred in award-winning film Unearthed and has interviewed some of the most prolific names in showbiz after founding Ozemag – an online industry magazine – so she could ask all the questions she didn’t feel were being asked! She wrote and produced the highly acclaimed film, Cyber Sin, which addresses cyber bullying among youth. Stars John Jarratt (Wolf Creek) and his wife Cody Jarrett (Writer Savages Crossing) and is endorsed by The CorriLee Foundation, Australian Suicide Prevention Foundation, ACT for Kids and Beacon Foundation. With the aim to tackle the issue head on, Cyber Sin is being distributed by The CorriLee Foundation to all schools nationally as part of an online campaign called 'Cyber Conscience'.

Linda Barron - Client Learning Coordinator at the State Library of Queensland

Linda Barron is the Client Learning Coordinator at the State Library of Queensland. She has a Bachelor of Adult and Community Learning and is currently studying her Masters of Training and Development. Linda is the Project Manager of Looking @ 2.0 the online learning program intended to familiarise participants web 2.0 technologies as well as providing information about privacy and security relating to the tools and programs included. Linda has also designed and delivered a number of programs for the public about cyber safety. Linda is passionate about education, Web 2.0, food and wine and libraries.

> Online Crime Prevention Expert - To be confirmed.

How to start an online business - Part 2

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 01:00:00 GMT

So in a recent blog post titled 'How to start an online business over a weekend' I let you know that I am starting a new business and all the first steps I took to get the ball rolling.

Three weeks on, here’s what else I have been doing as I start a new business so you can follow my new start-ups journey and hopefully pick up some tips along the way.

STEP 8: Search for available social media usernames at namechk.com

Whether you are using multiple social networks or just one (or even none!) it is a good idea to secure all the usernames associated with your brand. To find out whether my desired usernames were available I went to namechk.com and searched. It’s free, quick and easy to do. Given the huge number of businesses and usernames already snapped up, to be honest I was somewhat shocked that the exact username I wanted (awardshub) for my new start-up were readily available across all the networks I wanted. Knowing they were available I set off to nab them...

STEP 9: Grab an email account at gmail

If you are starting an online business, you need an email address. Plain and simple. In fact if you’re starting just about any business these days, you need an email address. I would advise anyone to go for a gmail address first up. Why? Because even if you don’t have your domain name purchased, even if you do and haven’t purchased the email hosting yet, you can still keep things progressing with your dedicated @gmail address. You will need to be providing an email address that is up and running and able to receive emails to verify items in the next steps, so gmail is the way to go. No hold ups. Perfect. To get your gmail account go to www.gmail.com. By the way, they're FREE. No gimmicks. No ifs. No buts.

STEP 10: Set up Twitter

So does a start-up business really need Twitter you ask? I’d have to answer with an emphatic YES! I know that Twitter will be my easiest way to build a community, and fast. It will also be my way to encourage people to come back to my site by posting enticing micro-blogs aka tweets and more meaningfully headlines so people know what is going on the site.

If you want to better understand Twitter's capabilities and practical applications for business, check out this range of free videos on Twitter for business produced by The Creative Collective's social media specialist, Zoe deLuca here.

To ensure I am putting my best foot forward on twitter here are my top tips:

1) Change the profile picture from an ‘egg head’ to an image related to your business (in my case, my logo) as soon as possible. Otherwise you will continue to look just as that – an egg head!
2) Write a short, meaningful profile so people can check out your Twitter presence and have a really good idea of who you are and why they should follow you. I’m giving a little away here but my well crafted bio is: “Free global online resource which allows you to identify what business awards you might be eligible for. Great for business awards organisers & businesses.”
3) Careful selection of your location. Personally I don’t want people to know which suburb I am in, the general area is fine, hence my reason for choosing ‘Sunshine Coast, Queensland’ as my location.
4) Background – whilst you can choose a generic twitter background, you will look so much more professional if you can create and upload something that is professional looking and brand consistent. I'll admit I had a little help from my team on this one (specifically cudos to Jag Quimby). You can see what he came up with here: twitter.com/awardshub.
Note, my intention is to amend this to use the background real estate effectively by including contact details and more info at a later date, but I don’t want these to be public until I am ready to launch, so for now its just generic and brand consistent.
5) Follow a few people – I’ll go on a wild ‘following’ mission when I’m ready to launch, but for now I followed just a few people/organisations on Twitter that are really relevant to my business, in this case, business awards organisers!

STEP 10: Set up Youtube

For now, this was more a case of securing the username than anything. I can see big potential for using YouTube for this business to encourage people to submit their business awards speeches and testimonials however in my mind there are other more pressing business priorities right now, so with the username successfully secured, I’ll leave that project for another day. :)

STEP 11: Set up Facebook

I predict Facebook will also be hugely important to this business start-up, so naturally I went to the front page of facebook.com and clicked on the ‘Create a page’ link featured under the sign up form. Please note this point if you are setting up a business page on Facebook – a business is not a person and should not be set up as a profile. If you do set it up in this way, Facebook can and will shut you down. Save yourself the heart ache and loss of friends on Facebook by getting it right from the outset.

See this great post from The Creative Collective’s social media specialist Zoe DeLuca with more details on why this is so important.

Given my business is set to be global and did not fit any of the industries listed in the drop down options as I progressed through the Facebook wizard for setting up a business page, I’ve opted for a Company/Organisation out of the options and as a sub category Company/Organsiation. Careful selection of these is key.

Just as in Twitter, here are some more top tips to getting a good start on Facebook:

1) Change the profile picture to utilise the real estate. You have 180x540px (as of February 2011) to play with so use it! Whilst I have a brand (created in step 2 on the first blog post on this topic here), I’m in a hurry to do other stuff so for the time being have set up profile picture that says ‘coming soon’ thus building anticipation. Note, I still don’t even really have ‘a business yet’ – there is no website live. Note how I am building anticipation and getting my foundations laid for a good launch before I open my doors for business.
2) Write a short, meaningful ‘about’ piece so people visiting the page have a really good idea of who you are and why they should follow you. My Facebook bio is the same as my Twitter (important to be consistent here too):
3) Info – the more you can give here the better! Note I’ve included contact details, a mission statement, a company overview + more.
4) Photos – as I don’t have any yet, we’ve installed a clever (jag)
5) Get likes – As I’m keeping this launch on the passive down low, I’ve hand picked some of my nearest and dearest to ‘like’ me as a first priority, with a target of 25 likers so I can secure my Facebook vanity url i.e. http://www.facebook.com/awardshub by clicking on the link invite friends featured on the right hand side as a link (see image). When likers weren’t coming through as fast as I hoped, I called on a Facebook Group I belong to, Queensland business who have a policy to assist one another get to 25 likers so we can secure vanity URLs. See the group here. Thanks to them I secured my 25 likers in no time and then move on to secure my vanity URl from facebook.com/username. Important note: you can only choose and apply a vanity URL ONCE so be careful in your selection!

STEP 12 - Brief to developer

With all my social media affairs taken care of (note how early in the piece I've done this and the exact steps I've taken - it is HUGELY important), I’ve refocused my attention on the build of my website. With the design having been completed at step 3, I wrote a page long brief to my developer providing him with a layered psd file which he will now integrate with my nominated CMS content management system). I’ve chosen to go with Business Catalyst, the world's leading multi-function Content Management System (CMS) from Adobe. As a company, we've been a partner of Business Catalyst since 2009 because Business Catalyst websites include everything most people need to run a successful online business including content management system (CMS), email marketing, customer database (CRM), ecommerce features, FAQs, members areas, forums, affiliate programs and more, all in the one system!
We are however well equipped to provide website design and development services on a wide range of other website platforms including Drupal, Wordpress, and Joomla and choosing which system to build it on was a big decision. I made my decision by getting super clear on what I wanted the site to look like, function like etc and discussing this with our web developer before I committed to anything.

Choosing a web developer is a hugely important part of the process, and I am blessed to have several to call on as part of my team. I meet so many business owners who opt to get friends and family build them a website, or who opt for the cheapest company they can find, only to discover that if you pay peanuts you generally get monkeys. Time and time again, we have hard luck stories come to us where the cheap website they paid for ended up taking 12 months to build, or never produced any traffic or leads or sales, or for whom they can't contact the company any longer as they're no longer in business. Buyers - beware!

If you are looking to work with someone who can deliver you a website on brief, on time and on budget, talk to us! We have stacks of experience in building quality websites, just check out our portfolio here.

Conclusion

Now that my social networks are secured and my developer is briefed, I expect my integration (the combining of my website design with the website platform) to take around a week. In the mean time I'm busy writing pages of content for the website, so there is no delays once the developer lets me know that he is done, something I strongly advise you to do if you are building a website. One of our biggest road blocks is waiting for clients to supply content and images when it comes to the development of websites.

I hope you’re enjoying following my journey. I’d love to know what bits you are finding useful/what you are learning from what I am sharing (and anything else you'd like to know about what I am doing and why I am doing it!) Just drop me a line in the comments section below. Until next time...

How to incorporate your social media into your marketing and promotions

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:24:00 GMT

Whilst you may be on the social media networks, you could be missing out on legions of new followers and likers if you don’t incorporate your social networks on all your print media and marketing collateral. Here are a few pointers on how to do so:

Secure your username across networks

Whether you are using multiple social networks or just one (or even none!) it is a good idea to secure all the usernames associated with your brand…before someone else does. To find out whether your desired username (which should be short, sharp and memorable and closely, if not exactly in line with your business name) is available, go to www.namechk.com and search. It’s free, quick and easy to do. Identify any networks you think you will use, or would prefer someone else not to use, and go ahead and secure them by going to the individual networks and creating an account. Even if you don’t use it immediately, its good brand protection for future purposes.

When it comes to social media, I would highly recommend securing your username on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Linkedin currently only lets you secure your desired username for your own public profile URL (i.e. I have au.linkedin.com/in/yvetteadams) but not for Linkedin Companies or Linkedin groups. But watch this space as I think it could be (and should be) coming.

Secure your vanity URL

A vanity URL is incorporating your username in the URL of your social media page Facebook, Myspace, Twiter & Youtube offer vanity URLs to their users. Twitter lets you have your desired URL from the moment you sign up. Facebook on the other hand requires your company page to get to 25 likes before you can apply for a vanity URL.

To achieve the 25 likes required, there are a number of business groups on Facebook and other networks such as www.facebook.com/groups/queenslandbusiness (a group for Queensland business owners) where you can become a member and ask for likes (it’s actually one of the core benefits of the group). At least then they won’t all be family and friends!

Once you have your lucky 25 likers, you can then hop over to www.facebook.com/username and type in the username you require and link it to the business page you wish. Beware: you will not be able to edit or transfer this username once you set it so type carefully!

Once you have your desired vanity URLs, you are ready to promote your social networks via the media and your marketing collateral....

TV Ads

Over the years I have seen an evolution in TV advertising. We have gone from seeing commercials which feature just an address (where businesses had shop fronts and wanted walk ins – remember those golden days? J) to an address and phone number (remember we were told to ‘let our fingers do the walking) to a phone number (usually landline) and later 1300 numbers. Finally websites came about and businesses began to feature 1300 numbers and websites.

Pity the poor person who isn’t yet using the internet (I met one last week!) as many businesses now only feature their website. More recently businesses have got even savvier and started including their Facebook pages, sometimes in conjunction with their website, and other times instead of.

One of the first instances I saw this was an ad I saw run on Sunrise morning show. Sunny Eggs did a clever ‘vote for Sunny the Egg’ Facebook campaign in the lead up to the 2007 election where they promoted all politicians were ‘eggs’ anyway so why not vote for Sunny?! All promotions and traffic were driven back through their Facebook page – very clever, very interactive and very ‘community’ orientated if you ask me.

So is your Facebook vanity URL on your TV ad? Do you think you should add it? Tell me what you think in the comments below.

Radio Ads

Radio I feel is experiencing something of a renaissance ever since the advent of social media. Clever stations are harnessing the power of social media by driving their listeners to their Facebook pages for promotions and competitions, thus capturing their details and staying connected. As a result, many are achieving quite large numbers of likers on their Facebook pages without too much effort at all.

Whether they are a talkback station or not, Facebook also provides the perfect platform for radio station listeners to ‘voice’ their opinion. And voice it they will and do! Even if they would not feel comfortable being ‘live on air’ to share a story or provide an opinion, many people are happy to sit behind their screen in the comfort of their safe home or workplace and enter competitions, tell the station what music and announcers they like, interact with other listeners and so on.

Despite all the opportunity, I don’t think many stations or networks truly understand the power of social media or have even scratched the surface of how they can be using it to get better results for their clients….yet.

I think perhaps the biggest opportunity for radio show stations is in integrating radio campaigns with local search marketing campaigns, that is encouraging people to check in via Foursquare or Facebook Places to clients who have physical shop fronts– which is often the mainstay of radio advertisers - so the results of the radio campaign can be tracked

So it is up to you dear business owner to have the nous to ask your radio account exec to include your social media networks and/or location based marketing shout outs into your next radio campaign. It’s highly unlikely they’ll suggest it to you, they’re just doing what they’ve always done.

Print Ads

I currently work quite closely with a print magazine, providing them advice and strategies on online related matters. They’ve come a long way with their online strategy which they agree is definitely contributing to the success of the magazine which has almost doubled in page count in 12 months because of interested advertisers. Having worked in newspapers and print for a long time, I believe a strong online strategy is crucial to the success of anyone working in print these days. Whilst many a printed publication is going out of business, there are an army of new publications being established online too.

Some of my suggestions for this company over time have included establishing on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, including addthis.com or sharing links on each of their online pages and more recently, ensuring the company Facebook and Twitter links are featured on the front of the printed magazine, thus growing their potential for effective engagement with their readers in between issues.

When you are next putting together a print advertisement or proofing one, ask to see your social media networks incorporated along with your other key contacts. Even trial it as your main call to action and see if you get better results.

Business cards

This week we got new business cards. Whilst it had been a while since we did a print run for ourselves and the business card design certainly needed a refresh, the main reason to get a new run was to ensure our social media networks were clearly outlined on our cards.

You’ll note in the image we’ve chosen to list all traditional media down one side and all our social networks down the other, giving them equal prominence. You’ll also note we’ve written out the /social media usernames, not presuming that people will be able to just find us, and besides, not all of our social media networks are blatantly obvious i.e. www.youtube.com/dacreativecollective.

Website

Whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of including iddy bitty social media icons in the footer of your website page, unless you don’t really want anyone to visit your social networks.

Feature them as prominently as you can manage, without compromising the priority of other elements of your overall website design. Where possible (and relevant) look to incorporate social media feeds. You’ll note our website features a suite of our social media networks top right (top real estate on any website) and our twitter feed just under this, providing regular quick headlines/digests of what we are doing, successes, inspiration etc. It helps keep the website fresh and keeps people coming back for more. Similarly you’ll note we choose to include a Facebook Like box. This clever piece of technology (available from www.developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins
) recognises web users if they are already logged into Facebook and displays faces and names of people the user knows, instatnyl inducing trust and encouraging the user to ‘like’ your Facebook page too.

If you want help with which social media plug in might be best for your website and where to put it in the scheme of things, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Signage

I love this picture of a pizza joint in New Orleans that actively promotes its Twitter profile and often use it in my social media training sessions. In short, this quaint but clever pizza joint set up in Twitter and quickly sought to follow as many people in New Orleans as they could find. In no time at all they had a large number of followers (up to 13,492 as of today) whom they can now quickly and easily send ‘Twitter Only’ specials to. No need for marketing companies, ad execs and expensive campaigns here. Just direct marketing to their customer base at its finest. I can’t say I’ve seen anyone in Australia take the lead on incorporating social media into their signage in such a big way yet, but prove me wrong and send me a picture of someone you’ve seen doing it on either our Twitter account or our Facebook page

Send us YOUR samples!

I hope this post has given you some food for thought and a few ground rules on how you could be incorporating your social media networks with your media and marketing collateral.

We’d love to see some examples of what you’ve done differently as a result of reading this post.

Upload your samples of media or collateral which features your social networks in a prominent way to our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/thecreativecollective.

How to start an online business over a weekend

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 01:02:00 GMT

I now know that I am a true entrepreneur. No matter how busy I am, no matter how much good stuff I have going on, if I have a business idea bursting to come out, I have to unleash it.

A weekend a few months back was no different. I came up with a new business which I intend to launch in the next month or two (but don't worry existing clients, The Creative Collective is still very much open for business!)

Now I have to admit, this idea has been brewing for quite a while and I did spend a couple of hours the weekend prior writing a basic business plan just to get my ideas onto paper. But everything else I needed to get this business well and truly underway was achieved in a single weekend, and only a few hours within the weekend too (mostly when the kids had gone to bed!)

So how did I do it and could you also get a new business well underway over just a weekend or are you just curious as to the steps you should take if you do want to start a business? Read on to find out…

STEP 1 – Business plan

The first thing I did to get my business started was download a business plan template from the internet. There are plenty lolling around for free and I can’t say I have any favourite sites or formats. I simply downloaded a few and checked them out for something I thought I could work with. I’ve written 80 page business plans as part of business courses in the past, but I think you can over do the planning too. At some point you do need to stop writing the business plan and actually develop the business! These days when markets move so fast, timing is a big part of your success too. It’s better to get this first step done and get to market first, or in a better way, then have someone beat you to it. Having said this, it does really depend on what kind of business and business environment you are getting into. If it is a defined niche without too much competition (as I believe mine is) you can get away with doing less work in this area. FORMAT: 15 pages of A4 in Microsoft Word
TIME TAKEN: 2 hours

STEP 2 – Logo/brand

A huge part of the value of any business is its brand. That is the colour, style and logo associated with a business. Just think of any successful and well known companies and what images come to mind? Most probably their defined house style i.e. colour palette and logo. Think of the Coca Cola cursive flowing writing and their trademark red and white or the black and yellow diamond for Commonwealth Bank.
Now when it comes to developing a logo you have 2 choices – a font based logo meaning you are using a certain type face or lettering and no symbol; or a combination of fonts and a symbol. In some cases as brands reach uber status they become recognised with just the symbol (think the Nike swoosh and the golden M arches for McDonalds).

I am in the fortunate position of having some intermediate level graphic design skills under my belt so I choose to prepare some mock ups myself. If you don’t have these skills, working with a quality graphic design (we offer these services) is a great investment. It can be the difference between a dodgy home-job looking logo and a professional logo that can grow with you as your business does.

Given my design skills, my first point of call was working in Adobe Photoshop and playing around with some font choices. I knew I wanted something strong, some easily read, yet with a little bit of design flair. I settled on a font called Harabara after experimenting with a few. I absolutely love the colour turquoise and I felt against a solid colour such as black would work well. I then experimented with different symbols and the final result is below.

Do you like it? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

FORMAT: 3 mocks in Adobe Photoshop
TIME TAKEN: 2 hours (note - design finals generally take much longer than 2 hours to prepare!)

STEP 3 – Website design

When people ask me how to start a business, I say ‘short answer: create a website and a business card and away you go’. Longer answer is of course market research, business plan, logo and more. It can be hard to start with a completely blank palette so when I am needing inspiration to build my next website I often go to design template sites such as www.templatemonster.com or www.dreamtemplate.com. I may also consider websites I have seen in my travels and return to them to consider what it is I like about them and whether certain elements could work i.e. a navigation bar, the column layout etc.

Again, I am in the fortunate position of having some intermediate level graphic design skills under so again I worked with Adobe Photoshop to create a multi-layered mock up, so the design could easily be sliced up and used in whatever website program I decide to use in the next stage. The final result is below. Do you like it? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

FORMAT: Adobe Photoshop – multi-layered file
TIME TAKEN: 4 hours

STEP 4 – Business cards

Although a lot of my promotions will be performed online for this business, I figured business cards will still come in handy, and as I can design them myself and get them printed at one of the many trade printers I deal with for next to nothing, it’s no skin off my nose to get x500 or x1000 printed. If you need a quality but affordable business card run, talk to us!

FORMAT: Adobe Photoshop – multi-layered file
TIME TAKEN: 1 hour

STEP 5 – Sales letters

A well written sales letter can open up all sorts of doors. I thought hard about who my target market are, what their pain points are, and wrote a sales letter for each of the two defined groups accordingly. If you’re not a good copywriter, getting someone professional to do this for you (it’s also a service we offer) could make a massive difference to your start up. If you need some help with your sales copy, talk to us!

STEP 6 – Rate cards

An important part of starting a business is considering how you will make money. Having multiple streams of revenue from the start is a good idea. In that way if one of the revenue streams does not work, hopefully you will still have others to depend upon. Many people have websites which enjoy quite good traffic right from the start but do not necessarily consider different ways of commercialising the ‘real estate’ that is the space on your website.
My business plan includes commanding money for display ads in the form of banners and buttons on the site, as well as in the e-newsletters, whilst also offering unpaid options to get people interested in the offerings to start with. A sales funnel with a free offering, a low cost offering, and higher packages is a good idea as it can get people interested in your business and offers them an entry point no matter what their budget. Hopefully as their trust in your business builds, and you provide them with a quality service, they will feel inclined to spend more money with you.

If you want some help with ways to commercialise your website (because there are many options!), talk to us!

FORMAT: Adobe Photoshop (mainly because I understand it – but preferable to a job like this would be Adobe InDesign)
TIME TAKEN: 2 hours

STEP 7 – Website integration/development

Choosing which website platform to build your website on is probably one of the most important decisions you will make in the start-up of your online business. Without going into each of your options here, (as you can read another blog post I’ve written on this here) in the case of this business I have to consider how I will be able to allow people to upload information singularly and in bulk, and also hosting costs, as I am forecasting lots of traffic.
I’ve ended up deciding on going with the system which I probably know the best and which I am in the process of building the website now.

Stay Tuned

I'm not going to tell you what this new business is all about....yet, but I'll post another blog post as the site progresses so you can follow my new start-ups journey and hopefully pick up some tips along the way.
If you need help choosing which website platform to build your website on, or help in actually building your website, talk to us!
Did you get some tips from this post? Let me know in the comments below.

Workplace health and safety – reducing costs and raising productivity in your business

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 01:03:00 GMT

As business owners and operators, there are laws governing workplace health and safety that you are required to comply with in order to provide a safe environment for your staff, customers and the general public.

But did you know that implementing effective health and safety systems in your business can also:

• improve workplace productivity?
• protect your most valuable assets, your staff, from injury?
• reduce potential costs associated with a workplace injury?

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland (WHSQ) is working with the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI) to offer a free webinar to help business operators to better manage safety in their workplace.

Date: Tuesday 24 May 2011
Time: 7.30 pm
Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/194856801

Designed for business owners with limited or no current health and safety processes, the webinar will highlight useful tools, templates and techniques for effectively managing workplace safety in today's changing world. It will provide an introduction to implementing the elements of a simple safety management system and build skills to:

• assess your safety system
• show management commitment to safety
• consult with your employees about safety issues
• understand and implement safe work procedures
• have effective training and supervision
• report safety issues, which is the responsibility of all staff
• understand workers’ compensation and return to work processes.

To get the most of out the webinar, download and read WHSQ’s Serious about Safe Business pack prior to attending.

Don’t miss out on the benefits effective health and safety systems can provide for your business! This session is free however bookings are essential. Reserve your webinar seat now!!

For full details on upcoming FREE webinars provided by DEEDI for small business owners, go to: http://www2.business.qld.gov.au/tools-resources/399.htm. To view past topics as recordings via YouTube go to: http://www.youtube.com/dacreativecollective.

Queensland Government offers free financial management webinars in lead up to end of financial year

Tue, 10 May 2011 02:01:00 GMT

In the lead up to the end of the 2010/11 financial year the Queensland Government’s Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI) has announced a series of free webinars intended to help Queensland businesses better understand the financial affairs of their business and plan towards a successful 2011/12 financial year.

Two free webinars on financial related topics are scheduled, with one due to take place on 30 May and another on 15 June.

DEEDI have contracted the award winning business, The Creative Collective to develop and deliver the webinars which will also feature a qualified and experienced Chartered Accountant who will be available to answer any financial or accounting queries business owners may have.

“We know Queensland’s small business owners financial positions have been under strain from the natural disasters, not to mention the impact other global disasters continue to have on our international trade and supply chains. The best they can do is to equip themselves with some knowledge to ensure they are in a position to take responsibility for their finances and know some of the key metrics they should be keeping a careful eye on,” says Katrina Watson, Senior Business Development Officer of DEEDI.

In addition to the two upcoming financial topics scheduled, a range of other topics which can assist businesses are scheduled including local search marketing, search engine optimisation, workplace health and safety and business planning. A range of additional business topics have already been held and recordings and workbooks are available for business owners to download and work through in their own time.

Director of The Creative Collective, Yvette Adams says that she applauds the Department for recognising the need to offer crucial financial education to small business owners.

“We know many business people are time-poor which is why it is great DEEDI are delivering this information in a webinar format, and at a time we hope they can engage in the learning – either lunch time or after hours.”

Each webinar runs for less than an hour. They are scheduled during either lunch times (12.30pm) or in the evening (7.30pm).

While there is no cost to attend, numbers are limited and bookings are essential. Information is available now at: http://www2.business.qld.gov.au/tools-resources/399.htm, via the Queensland Government’s recently launched social media networks found at:
http://www.facebook.com/businessqldgov, or http://www.twitter.com/businessqldgov or by telephoning the hotline on 1300 363 711. Past recordings of webinar sessions on other topics which have already been completed are available on http://www.youtube.com/dacreativecollective.

To arrange interviews or photos contact Jess Coates on 07 545 11315 or 0401 468 011, pr@thecreativecollective.com.au.

Upcoming Office of Small Business Webinars

Financial management: back to basics - Monday 30 May - 7:30pm - Register now
Financial management: the how to - Wednesday 15 June - 7:30pm - Register now
Planning your successful business - Wednesday 22 June - 12:30pm - Register now
Local Search Marketing - Monday 6 June - 7:30pm - Register now
Search engine optimisation - Wednesday 11 May - 12:30pm Register now
Workplace Health & Safety - Tuesday 24 May - 7:30pm - Register now

Time to get your website seen - find out more about SEO

Fri, 06 May 2011 14:32:00 GMT

Is your website the best kept secret on the internet?

We build websites on a daily basis but I am often surprised by how little planning some businesses put into their Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO) strategy.

What? I hear you say – SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation is a detailed process to improve your website’s “visibility” to Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. With the intent being to gain valuable first page placements on these search engines so that your website appears in the free or ‘organic’ listings when potential clients search for keywords related to your products, service or brand.
No matter how fancy your website looks to the human eye, unless it appeals to the search engines, nobody is going to find your site. So where do you start?

Begin by finding out how your website is currently ‘ranked’ by the search engines and for which keywords. Then it is critically important that you research the words and phrases that your target market are using when searching for your business, products or services online.
Only after you have done this ground work should you start with the actual process of SEO on your website. There are many factors to consider and optimise if you want to attract the search engines like a magnet to your website. These include both onsite and offsite tactics such as tagging, headline formatting, keyword inclusion and linking.
If this all sounds like a foreign language, then we recommend you join us on this free webinar on the 11th of May, 2011 brought to you by the Queensland Government. You’ll learn not only how to optimise your website for the search engines but also off page SEO tactics, how to measure your results and tips to engaging an SEO contractor.

Search Engine Optimisation techniques are vital to the success of your website but, remember, SEO will help to get more visitors to your site but the content on your site must then be high enough quality to convert them into customers.

Local company named in Top 50 at StartupSmart Awards

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 06:28:00 GMT

Sunshine Coast creative services agency The Creative Collective this week was notified that they had placed in the StartupSmart Fastest 50 start-ups for 2011.

The national award recognises the most innovative and fastest-growing new businesses in Australia. Featuring exciting start-ups from an array of industries drawn from across the country, the winners represent the emerging generation of business leaders in Australia. Entrants had to be up and running for under four years and have revenue over $250,000 to be eligible for the top 50.

The awards were dished out at a dazzling ceremony at Crown in Melbourne on March 30 by StartupSmart publisher Amanda Gome and editor Oliver Milman however The Creative Collective were unable to attend due to prior commitments to the Sunshine Coast Business Expo and the running of their monthly professional development and networking event, Web Wednesday held on the same day/night.

With only eight of the top 50 businesses based in Queensland, this latest accolade has been another great achievement for the company who last year won three major business awards; the Home Based Business of the Year at the Marketing & Communications Executives International Awards; the Creative & Knowledge Based Industries Category for a Large Business at the Sunshine Coast Business Excellence Awards and the Commonwealth Bank Business Owners category at the Telstra Business Women’s Awards, Queensland.

The Creative Collective was started out of the study nook of a Maroochydore home by Yvette Adams after she had her second child in 2007. Today the company employs 6 staff, 25 contractors and 1 franchisee and apart from it’s wide range of creative services such as marketing, PR, SEO, website design and development, graphic design and social media has also diversified into developing and delivering training on behalf of organisations such as the Sunshine Coast Regional Council, DEEDI (Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation) and large corporate organisations.

The Facebook Updates You Need to Know About

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:25:00 GMT

If you are struggling to keep up with all the recent changes on Facebook (or aren't even on there yet), we thought a blog post was in order to give you a quick download on what the key changes are, what they mean to you, and any action you need to take.

Changes to Facebook Pages

Facebook has recently made major changes to the design and functionality of its Pages - that is those generally used for businesses - bringing them closer to individual user profiles in look and functionality. One great update is that if you are creating a new Facebook page, it's now a lot clearer what your options are and hopefully easier for businesses to chose the right option!

If you do already have a page - which is what you should have for your business (and for the difference between a Profile and a Page read this definition) the updates to Facebook Pages has been a generally well received update, as they improve the ability of people who manage pages to connect with their audiences.

The changes allow the admin of a page to operate more like the way individual users do; and also allow you to build richer application experiences using iFrames. In addition to having applications that perform better, brands will also have greater flexibility in the way they name them.

The changes will go into effect for ALL Facebook Pages on March 10, so if you haven't switched over before then, you'll log in to find a different looking page after March 10 US time.

New Facebook Pages features

1-Photo strip above the Wall (with most recent photos you posted or tagged) - we're loving using this feature on our website to showcase our most recent works i.e. logos and websites we have designed. If you have something visual to share, perhaps projects you have completed if you are a builder; floral arrangements you have made if you are a florist etc, this is a way you can keep your Facebook page looking updated and show people who you are and what you do in a visual way.
2-Tabs move over to the left panel, in the form of a list (maximum of 6 above the fold) - Can't find that 'events' tab you installed or that 'blog box' you referred to? Then look to the left. No more tabs, but these are still able to be customised using the FBML application.
3-Profile picture reduced from 200 x 600 pixels to 180 x 540 - You may or may not be aware that you can maximise your Facebook page presence by preparing an image to the maximum dimensions (now revised as outlined above) to convey even more to your Facebook page users in a short visit. Take a look at some of our customised design work at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brandy-Creek-Wines-View-Cafe/193547030656633 and http://www.facebook.com/pages/Seaview-Resort-Mooloolaba-Apartments/154372407941950 for examples.
4-Blurb box that was below the Page picture moved to info tab - Wondering where your info has gone? Don't worry. It's still there! Check out the info link to the left.
5-Pages can Like other Pages, not just favorite them - Show your support for your contacts businesses by liking them and they may 'like' you back!
6 -Featured Pages and Admins -
7-Page category -
8-Choice for Wall posts between “Everyone” and Page posts only
9-Mutual Friends and Interests section
10-Ability to interact on Facebook as your Page
11-Ability for admins to post and comment around the site under their Page’s alias
12-News feed of updates from Liked Pages
13-Pages can now feature iFrame tab applications
14-Email notifications when users post or comment - Personally I find this a little annoying (as there is a fair bit of posting and commenting going on our pages) so I turn it off (which is no biggie), however if you are new to Facebook and keeping close tabs on the activity on there, this could be a good feature for you to monitor who's saying what on your page, and respond accordingly/.

Roll out of Messages on Facebook

In a recent blog post I introduced the new Facebook Messaging system. On Friday, February 11, 2011 they began the rollout of Messages to everyone on Facebook. This will happen gradually over the next few weeks. Learn more about using Messages in this tour put together by Facebook.

Finally, you should review the new policies. While many applications like Flash will now function better on your Page, Facebook’s restrictions require you to limit their functionality until a user interacts with it. As always, should you have any concerns about these changes, please do not hesitate to contact us.

New Photo Viewer

On February 10, 2011 Facebook announced that they are rolling out the new Photo Viewer to everyone over the course of the next few weeks. Now, you can browse more photos faster without having to lose your place in Facebook. It takes a bit of getting used to but overall it's pretty good.

New Profile Viewer

On 11 January 2011 the new profile was released making it even easier for you to tell your story and learn about your friends. The new profile (which you have probably been using) key updates:

A quick summary of who you are (like where you live, work and grew up), right at the top of your profile
A row of recently tagged photos so friends can see what you've been up to lately
Room to highlight meaningful friendships (like teammates, co-workers or roommates)
More of your favorite activities and interests
The ability to tag your friends in important life experiences

Security features

Finally Facebook has upgraded its security once again. While on Facebook, look at your URL; if you see http: instead of https: then you don't have a secure session and you can be hacked. Go to Account|Account Settings|Account Security and click Change. Check the box for Secure Browsing (https). Pass it on!

And if you need any help with your social media check out our awesome social media packages or come along to our exciting Social Media Super Hero one day workshops taking place at locations throughout Australia and even New Zealand over the coming weeks.

Or of course get in touch.

So what do you think of these changes? Drop us a line by commenting below...

Event to ‘breathe life’ into local community

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 05:47:00 GMT

North Coast Aboriginal Corporation for Community Health (NCACCH) will host a free family fun day called “Ngaiya – Breathe Life” on Saturday 12 March at Kawana, to highlight the high smoking rates amongst the Sunshine Coast’s indigenous communities as part of their Indigenous Smoking Cessation Pilot Program ‘No Durri for this Murri’ campaign, and provide much needed education and support.
With over 4000 Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders living on the Sunshine Coast, smoking rates among Australia's indigenous population are around 50% - double the national rate. In 2008 nearly half (47%) of indigenous Australians over the age of 15 smoked cigarettes daily. This means that indigenous people are almost three times more likely to smoke than other Australians.

“Indigenous Australians make fewer quitting attempts and are less successful in quitting than other Australian smokers which is why we have not only a dedicated smoking cessation program to do everything we can for them, but also events such as this to raise general awareness in the community,” says Kim Helmore, Operations Manager, of the NCACCH.

Helmore says indigenous Australians die at a younger age compared to non-indigenous Australians and a large percentage of these will be tobacco related. On average in Australia Indigenous men only live to 67.2 years compared to 78.7 for non-indigenous men and Indigenous women live to the age of 72.9 years compared to 82.6 years for non-indigenous women. “These are unacceptable statistics that we must work together as a community to change. This why the Australian Government’s Department of Health & Ageing (DoHA) has funded NCACCH to develop and pilot an Indigenous Smoking Cessation program which if successful may be run out across the nation.

“We hope that the event will provide a fun day for both indigenous local people and the wider community alike to come together and enjoy free food, free health checks and information stalls whilst raising the awareness of our local culture and health issues,” says Helmore.

Ngaiya ‘Breathe Life’ will also feature a diverse range of entertainment, workshops and stalls. Local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders including the Black Swans; an Indigenous program for youth aged 12 to 25 that assists with nutrition, self-esteem, cultural awareness and sexual health; with breathe life into the event through story-telling, traditional games and touch football workshops. Kids and active types can enjoy basketball, hip hop and zumba dance sessions and drumming workshops.

Live music from popular multi-cultural group The Chocolate Strings, a Dub/Funk/Reggae band heralding from Brisbane, who have shared stages with artists such as Fat Freddy’s Drop, Charli Tuna and Katchafire as well as being billed on such festivals as Shine On Festival, Woodford Folk Festival and Kuranda Roots will also be enjoyed.

The event will take place on Saturday 12 March from 11am until 5pm, Coopers Lookout Park, Pacific Blvd, Buddina (next to Kawana Surf Club). Some transport is available for indigenous people who want to travel down from Gympie. Contact NCAACH on 07 5443 3599 to book the bus and for more information about the event or see: http://www.budurl.com/ngaiya

>ENDS<

Social photographers and journalists are welcome to the event.
To announce your intention to attend, contact Jessica Coates on 07 545 11315 or 0401 469 011 or pr@thecreativecollective.com.au.

Motodefy Defies our Expectations

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:42:00 GMT

Welcome to our first blog post reviewing a new mobile handset out kindly supplied by Telstra.

The decision of purchasing a mobile these days is a total minefield. Not only are you deciding what handset and functionality you need, there’s also what operating system and type of plan you may need, not only now, but into the future. There’s no doubt mobiles available on the market today are mini computers. So we hope in upcoming blog posts we can give you an objective view on how we found giving one of them a test run so you can work out what may suit you rather than relying on the advice of a slick salesman who’s out for a quick sale.

As the youngest and quite possibly geekiest team member of The Creative Collective, I was honored to have the job of reviewing this first mobile – a MotoDefy put out by Motorola.

Let me first tell you that I am an avid iPhone user and was immediately skeptical about what this thing could do. Surely it couldn’t compete with my beloved iPhone?

Initial impressions

One of the first things I was surprised to discover was its claim to be 'life proof' and specifically detailed on the back of the box ‘dust proof, water-resistant and scratch resistant because accidents happen'. This got my attention immediately as have the TV ads I’ve since seen claiming it’s 'party proof'. I love my iPhone but I certainly can’t drop it in a glass of water, let alone smash it around (like unfortunately I have) or be loose with it at a party.

The next big feature is the fact it’s an Android device. Android is a platform that burst onto the scene in 2010, sky rocketing past Apple and its flag ship iPhone to take almost 10% more market share. The platform – bought out by search engine juggernaut Google in 2005 - shipped 20 million units within the past 12 months making it the second highest selling smartphone operating system in the world to close out the decade.

For many of you that are reading this, I’m assuming you are shocked that there are alternatives to your iPhone, Blackberry or if you are unfortunate enough to own a Nokia device running Symbian. Let me tell you, there is another option out there.

When it comes to smart phones in 2011, I predict Android will dominate the market. While Apple will release the fifth iteration of its trademark product the iPhone; Blackberry will likely release a handful of outdated business handsets while other companies will try to innovate – such as the newly Palm webOS by HP, the trend started by Android in 2010 is set to continue.

The difference between Android and other operating systems is the flexibility and openness of the software. Hardware makers such as Apple and RIM (Blackberry) have developed their own software for their own hardware, while Android can operate on multiple handsets such as LG, Samsung, Acer, HTC, Lenovo, Sony, Dell, Toshiba and Motorola.

Out of the box

But back to the phone. Fresh on the market here in Australia, the MotoDefy is a rugged and practical phone with more of a potential market here than most places in the world given the active and outdoors Aussie lifestyle, penchant for partying and do we even mention the floods???

The touch screen display, measuring 3.7-inch is high resolution and is, as we mentioned earlier, scratch resistant. This display provides a great view of all of your favorite media, websites and apps from the Android marketplace. For those of you looking for a decent camera built in to the phone, the MotoDefy will match the best camera on the market – the iPhone 4.

The software on the MotoDefy is called Motoblur, a ‘skin’ which runs over the top of the Android allowing the handset providers (Motorola) to brand and sponsor applications. Service providers (i.e. Telstra) have also been known to put specific visual items and dedicated apps capable of such things as Internet TV and News.

In playing with it, I loved the way Motoblur handles notifications. While it’s not perfect it’s definitely better (dare I say it!) than the iPhone. I love the notification LED that flashes when you receive a message, email, etc. or when your battery is running low. This function keeps your screen nice and clear of clutter, while with just a swipe of the top menu bar, an entire list of alerts drops down. Motoblur is relatively unique in the way it displays this information.

It also allows for an extremely social experience by integrating your Facebook, twitter, Last FM, Photobucket, Google and Bigpond accounts, just to name a few, with the operating system and place widgets on your home screen. Linking up with Google services such as Docs, Calendar and of course Gmail is also an extreme advantage of choosing Android, as it’s all under the Google umbrella. Another cool feature comes with contacts: it will literally suck all of your friends out of Facebook and place them in your address book. This includes their phone numbers, emails, the whole deal. No download, import and general stuffing around.

But the real story here is the durability of the device. With the back of the device covered in a soft grip like rubber which has a rubber seal underneath to protect the battery, the Telstra Next G Sim Card, 2GB microSD and other internal components will remain water tight.

On the case of water resistance, the back cover is a little hard to put back on if removed. You really need to make sure that the phone is sealed up tight when the plastic slider is used to lock it down or else you could find yourself in a position bragging to your friends that your phone is water resistant and end up red-faced.

What it looks like

The sides have seven torque screws which wrap the edges; holding the phone together, giving the phone a slightly industrial design look, which we like. The version we reviewed came in jet black.
On the top of the phone is a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and on the left, a mini USB port which doubles as the charging port. To keep water out of these ports, Motorola has added covers, which at times can be a bit annoying; but importantly, they will keep your phone alive. In particular the headphone jack is covered by a rubber plug that pops up. If you’re a music listener this could be a bit annoying as it dangles there when something is inserted.

Other than that, the only physical buttons on the device are a volume rocker and a lock button which are positioned in the logical places. However, when we first got our hands on it, we did have trouble finding the lock button among all the black next to the headphone jack. The MotoDefy also has four standard Android LED touch buttons for options such as home, back and search.

The screen is made out of Gorilla glass, which makes it even more durable; as if water proof and drop resistant wasn't enough. It's a fairly crisp screen, although nothing to write home about as I might be spoiled by my iPhone 4's retina display. It does look better than most other phones I’ve handled and is for the most part, extremely responsive. Although it does lag slightly in certain situations such as scrolling through applications or sending a text; the lag does appear to be quite random. Since I have been a dedicated iPhone user since 2008, I have become accustomed to such things as scrolling with Inertia, meaning if you swipe a list, it should theoretically stop where you think it would stop. Scrolling on the MotoDefy seems to be rather jumpy and unpolished.

Possibly the coolest feature I have seen on any phone in a long time might just be the Moto Phone Portal. This is a feature that allows you to access your entire phone settings, contacts, messages, call records, photos, documents and files on any local computer via web browser. Through this service you can do anything from change your ringtone to send a text message, all through USB or WiFi. This very cool feature also lets you know your signal strength, battery level and available storage. Very handy if you have to send that long text message or want to retrieve photos wireless.

This paired with other stock features such as a built in QR code reader, Quickoffice and a Cardock - the MotoDefy comes jam packed with great hardware and software.

The Verdict

Whilst I may sound harsh in some parts of this review, all in all, this phone does perform really well. It has great software, it looks good, and it’s tougher than Chopper Read.

Unlike other phones made of plastic and rubber, it doesn't feel cheap. It feels extremely sturdy and the weight feels good in your hand.

So who would it suit? The MotoDefy is without a doubt the best option currently available on the market for a tradie looking to get a smart phone in his tool belt; anyone working in or near water (fisherman, life saver, Mums at home with curious kids) and generally active outdoorsy people. Inevitably it's going to be dropped, scratched or get wet; but this phone can definitely take a beating. The reception was outstanding, far surpassing my iPhone in bars where ever I went.
All of that is pretty impressive for a relatively cheap smartphone (a mobile which can access the internet and collect emails) which you can pick up for $600 outright or on a Telstra cap plan starting at $49.

To find out more contact:
Telstra Business Centre Sunshine Coast
144 Horton Parade, Maroochydore
Phone: 1300 881 800
http://www.telstra.com.au

View Larger Map
Quick specifications:
• Water and dust resistant
• 3.7” scratch resistant touch screen, with pinch to zoom
• Powered by Android™ 2.1 with MOTOBLUR® and access to the Android Market™
• 5 mega-pixel camera with flash

Queensland Government releases flood assistance for small businesses

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 13:49:00 GMT

The Queensland Government has a range of financial assistance, support services and advice available to assist those affected by the floods.

Learn more about the help available for:

Flood assistance for individuals and families

If you have been personally affected by the floods, the Queensland Government can provide support, referrals and advice to help you recover. You may be eligible for financial assistance such as a personal hardship allowance, essential household contents grant or structural assistance grant.

Visit the Centrelink website to find out if you are eligible for the Disaster Income Recovery Subsidy or an Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment of $1000 per adult and $400 per child.

Red Cross has established evacuation centres in flood-affected areas and is distributing funds donated through the Premier's Appeal. It has also established an online register where people can record their name and current whereabouts so that friends and relatives can locate them.

For more information about the help available to you, please phone the Disaster Recovery Hotline on 1800 173 349.

Emergency alerts

Visit the State Disaster Management Group website for emergency alerts that may affect your local area.

Traffic and travel information

For your own safety, find out about danger zones, road closures and re-openings and view flood maps before you travel. This information is available from the Queensland Government's travel and traffic information 13 19 40 website.

You can help

Help the families and communities devastated by the floods by donating to the Premier's Flood Relief Appeal.

Factsheets

How to Plan and Promote Your Events Using Social Media Tools

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 06:41:00 GMT

If you plan to run events in 2011, whether they are virtual events such as webinars or tele-seminars or good old fashioned live events, you’ll be pleased to know that if you tap into some of the excellent social media tools on offer, things will come together a whole lot easier, and you’ll more than likely experience better results in terms of 'bums on seats'.

Here’s my top tips for planning and promoting events using the best of social media technology based on lots of experience:

Phase 1: Plan It!

Skype is an excellent tool to get the conversations started. Use Skype's conference call and chat technology (free) to speak to key stake holders about the proposed event.

Once key details like date, time, venue, topic and speakers are sorted, I’m a big fan of using an online project management system where you can add notes, edit information, and organize content related to the one event - especially if you are running multiple large scale events and/or projects at the one time.

We use PBworks (formerly PBwiki) as our intranet, recording all procedures related to a project and also Google Apps, specifically Google Calendar and Google Docs to schedule meetings, and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets and presentations relating to the event. We also couldn’t live without Basecamp, a business project management solution, and the to do lists and milestones we set up within this system to manage any given project.

Phase 2: Organise It!

Forget preparing hard copy invites and emails and then managing the onslaught of RSVPs thereafter via phone and email - this is WAY TOO HARD!!! Cut yourself some slack and use a solution such as Eventbrite to invite guests and manage RSVPs WHILE YOU SLEEP.

It’s super easy to use and offers lots of features including the ability to run affiliate programs so you reward people for selling tickets to your event, quickly shooting a message off to those who haven’t RSVPed (or those who have), printing name tags on the day and even downloading an iPhone app which will allow you to seamlessly process people who have brought their QR code or bar coded ticket, auto-generated upon confirmation.

Phase 3: Promote it!

Let’s face it, if you don’t promote the event properly you won’t have an event. I would always seek ‘strategic alliances’ or affiliates as they will be your best source of big numbers. If you’re using Eventbrite, offer them a cut for every ticket they sell to incentivize them. Apart from that, I’d make sure you set up a Facebook Event, a http://tweetvite.com/ and for business events, a LinkedIn event.

All of these should point back to your previously set up page on your website to bring your site traffic and perhaps other business benefits!

Phase 4: Share it!

Once you have set up the social networks and told your own networks, get your networks sharing the news! Get busy, and encourage others to retweet and use hashtags: be sure to have an event hashtag and promote it, and ask for retweets of the most important information. Schedule regular reminders to people about the event and to share the event using social tools such as Hootsuite, Ping.fm and Social Oomph.

On the day of the event, continue the sharing. Consider giving someone the task of constantly updating tweets live from the event or even setting up a live stream using video services like Ustream and Livestream.

Step 5. Wrap it!

Don’t forget the post event activities too which are hugely important. This might be where you seal a business deal, solidify a relationship, or sort a niggle that could have gone viral. Suggested wrap activities include uploading event photos to a Facebook photo album, Twitpic (for Twitter), a Flickr account as well as posting videos on YouTube, Vimeo or Viddler, not to mention the numerous conversations you should start and participate in. Thank people for attending, encourage them to share their positive experiences of the event, and tell those who missed it what a great event they missed.

Then when it's all over, start promoting the next event! :)

Is this article helpful? Do you already use some of this software? Tell us what you think. And if we can help you set up on the social media tools mentioned above, let us know!

What you need to know about Webinars

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 03:36:00 GMT

In the past 12 months, webinars have become something of a business ‘buzz word’. How many invites to them have you received in your inbox lately?

In case you’re not sure exactly what they are, a webinar is essentially a seminar conducted online – take ‘web’ + ‘seminar’ and you’ve got webinar!

To participate in one, all you need is a PC with an internet connection (preferably not dial up), and either a headset with mic or an inbuilt mic and speaker facilities. To run one, all you will need is the same list, plus suitable webinar software. Talk to us about what software might suit your needs.

I predict that in 2011, webinars will continue to grow massively in popularity because they allow the presenter to reach a wider audience at a lower cost not to mention the considerable advantages over traditional on site seminars such as interactive Q&A, real-time collaboration, and the ability to digitally archive for playback from a company website.

Web-based technology also can help streamline the administration involved with running an event. Choose the right software and set it up well and it will automatically facilitate registration, attendance management and post event reporting – just what we want as busy business owners!

There are two main ways to run a webinar – either with sound and images in the form of a presentation, or, with sound, images in the form of a presentation AND a streaming video of the presenter. The presenter may choose to deliver a PowerPoint presentation or similar, to talk as they navigate through a website or piece of software to give a live demonstration or simply talk straight into the web cam.

Like any new business activity, it’s important you first determine the reason for your webinar before you run one.

Possible objectives include educating clients and prospects, generating sales leads, promoting a product/service/software and more.

You’ll then have to put together some good marketing material with a compelling topic that will make the right people want to attend and get the message out there.

In future articles, I’ll give you some ideas on how you can promote your events in innovative ways using social networks. Stay tuned!

Want to run a webinar? Let us help you? Inquire now about our new webinar services which include everything from helping you choose the right webinar software, setting up your first webinar, providing you with training or technical service during a webinar session.

10 Top Webinar Hosting Tips

1. Leading up to the webinar, send a reminder to confirm registration, and 2 reminder emails – 1 a week before, once 1 day before the webinar and once 1 hour before the webinar.

2. Turn off any un-necessary applications, particularly Outlook, instant messaging/chat/skype systems so no embarrassing message pop up while you’re in lecture mode.

3. Similarly turn all mobiles to silent, or even better off. It is advisable however to keep one line open and have a technical support person ready to answer calls of people who may be experiencing issues getting on the session.

4. Set expectations at the start – provide the audience with an agenda so they know what the proceedings for the event will be, and when you will be dealing with questions (whether you'll respond to select questions at the end, try to take them during the session, etc.).

5. Try not to move too quickly whilst showing screens as sometimes there is a lag between when you demonstrate something and when it displays at the users end, depending on their bandwidth. Plan on it taking about 5 seconds every time you change your screen for everyone to see the change.

6. Call into the meeting at least 15 minutes early and as people log in leading up until start time, un-mute yourself at intermittent periods to welcome them and to let people know it will start soon and their audio is working.

7. Use pre-webinar slides & announcements. Put up a slide that says something like "the webinar will begin in 10 minutes" so when people log in they know it is working OK, and then update it to show the actual time until the webinar. You should also make an announcement on the call every few minutes

8. Send out a recording and the slides to people within 24-48 hours, and tell them during the webinar you will do this. About 10-20% of your attendees will email you looking for the info anyway, so just send it out. Fast follow-up helps you motivate people to take a next step while the webinar is still on their mind.

Will Facebook’s next-generation in messaging revolutionise the way we communicate?

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 12:52:00 GMT

Last week Facebook announced that it will roll out a new service that will wrap together email, SMS and instant messaging all from the one location – nice! Now everyone’s wondering whether the new technology, will revolutionise the way we communicate.

Mark Zuckerburg the Facebook founder naturally thinks so but he is also firm in maintaining that it’s not Facebook’s version of email – it’s a solution to the issues surrounding email and other current forms of communication. At a special event to launch the product held in San Francisco he said:

"We don't think a modern messaging system is going to be email.”

He also emphasized that the new service is: "… not email."

If you’re tired of communicating with the various people in your life using different mediums i.e. sms for Granny and some friends, then emailing some colleague and clients, then facebooking other clients, friends and family, this will bring your various communication channels together in the one convenient location.

The new service will involve Facebook handing out @facebook.com e-mail addresses to those who want one - mostly to make it easier to communicate with people who aren't on Facebook.

Naturally, some experts are sceptical as to whether the system, code-named "Project Titan", will take off among users and there is also the issue of putting even more eggs into Facebook’s basket security wise. But with over 500 million users globally, there’s no doubt that Facebook has an existing and captive audience.

Of course it is unlikely people are going to make a clean break i.e. close their Yahoo Mail or Gmail account to go all in on the new Facebook service. But I truly believe curiosity will get the better of most and if they play with it and find it easy, useful and time saving; over time they may gravitate towards Facebook more, and their traditional use of email will evolve into a new generation of communication.

This is welcome news to someone like me who has been ‘over’ email for the past two years (around the time Facebook came into play for me)! Personally I much prefer communicating dynamically with people via Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and in the process checking out their profiles, associations and recent posts so I can pick up and where relevant, capitalise on conversations.

I also prefer communicating in ‘real time’ via live chat services like Skype, Google Chat and Facebook chat where an issue can easily be resolved with a quick answer. For example ‘where’s the accounts file?’ can be answered with an immediate and one line ‘in the black filing cabinet’. There’s certainly no need for email here yet people are now seriously in the habit of ‘dropping an email’ every time the moment takes them.

I even coach my staff, and where appropriate clients and other contacts, to communicate with me where ever possible using alternative means to email. It cuts straight to the chase and negates the need for formalities such as introducing yourself, addressing them correctly, superfluous lines such as ‘further to our recent discussions’ and the choice of sign off i.e ‘with warm regards’. And this is said by an ex journalist who can type as fast as she thinks, actually knows how to spell, and does have good manners. Even with the ability to communicate appropriately and at speed, email communication is just too labour intensive and slow for me.

I encourage you to start challenging yourself (and it will take discipline) to educate those around you to opt for different communication forms where possible to minimise the inbox clutter. And to check out the new Facebook service.

Currently the feature is available to those who get an invitation from the Facebook. To get an invitation visit this page and just click on “Request” button after logging in. You will receive an invitation to the new system.
Once you get the invitation the process is the same as any other Email service. Just accept the invitation and write your desired username@facebook.com and verify your SMS number.

For more info on the new service see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdzuFG6q63k

Why I’m addicted to Foursquare (and you should be too)

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:46:00 GMT

If you travel a lot like me and you find you have time on your hands at random moments on the road and at airports, you might have a tendency to muck around on your smart phone. If you're like me you may like to check your Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin but lately I have also found myself logging in and mucking around with Foursquare.

For those of you not on the same page, Foursquare is a social network where you log in to locations and tell people what they’re like. Whilst this may seem as futile as Facebook was originally perceived, let me give you some practical examples of why I’m gradually becoming addicted to Foursquare and why you should give it some serious consideration too:

1) Put your retail outlet ‘on the map’

If you work from home and don't want people to know where you are this is not for you. But if you want people to come and visit, then get yourself on the Foursquare map. Whilst Google Maps and Google Places are great places to list your business, placing it on Foursquare, and as of last week in Australia, Facebook Places will also put your place ‘on the map’. Don’t underestimate it – people ARE LOOKING FOR YOU, so you might as well make it as easy as possible to find you by making sure you’re listed! after all do you really want them finding your competitors before you?

2) The cheapest loyalty program out
Have you thought about loyalty cards? Discussed them at team meetings, meant to have rolled them out...and never got around to them? Well now you don’t know to! Simply list your business onfoursquare and then encourage people to check in each time they visit your venue and reward them for doing so. Foursquare will automatically tabulate who is your venue's 'mayor' (which is rewarded with the most check-ins in the last 60 days) and how many people have unlocked youroffers. This area of Foursquare is being constantly developed and well worth keeping an eye on.

3) Make your business as transperant as possible
If you don’t want to hear the honest truth about what people think of your business then don’t do this....but if you do then you could be just about to discover the best ongoing focus group you ever had!! Is the service out of this world, or half rate? Are your 'signature oysters' 'up to scratch' or a little 'bit under-done'? Don’t worry your Foursquare users will let you know and will help you and your team to keep trying to be the best you can. Even better, act on their comments in way that is seen to be responsive and you could take yourbusiness to a whole new level.

4) Go viral

Each time you check into a location on Foursquare, the other friends of the user are notified, encouraging the viral effect of your location on Foursquare. Whilst the average number of Foursquarefriends per user is not yet as high as Facebook, give it some time andwatch the leveraging effect.

5) Promote specials and bring people in your doors
Looking for a way to target tourists? A special to entice locals? Offer specials and you increase your chances of people searching for offers in your area visiting you.

6) Tip people off
Let’s face it. Users like tip offs. They like to feel like they are getting the best deal at the place they are at. The inside, the deal of the century. And users trust other people's opinions. In fact much more than what a travel guide may say. So encourage the tip offs, encourage the buzz and you will have new customers galore.

7) Get used to push marketing and look out for Facebook Places
Launched in Australia in October 2010, Facebook Places is Facebook’s answer to Foursquare. At this point in time you can only use Facebook Places on an iPhone but watch this space as it is likely to come to Blackberry's soon.

For more tips on setting up on Foursquare or Facebook Places, advice on how get the most out of your social media, contact The Creative Collective on 07 545 11315 or email admin@thecreativecollective.com.au.

Get more IMPACT from your email marketing

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 22:58:00 GMT

It would be no surprise to my clients, colleagues or industry peers that email marketing is one of my favourite strategies for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) to get their message out.

Why? Because email marketing is direct, low cost, timely, quickly implemented and solicits immediate action. It’s a strategy that ticks most of the boxes for small to medium business owners. Below are my tips for getting more impact from email marketing and in turn generating more leads for your business.

Which came first: the chicken or the egg?

Before you begin your email marketing, you’ll need subscribers. Build a database using customer information sourced from your website or purchase lists, or record your customers' details when they make a purchase. A good customer relationship manager (CRM) and/or email marketing program can help you manage this process. Having a healthy list of opted in recipients is your first step to successful email marketing, so make sure your subscription process is easy and takes no more than a few seconds.

Frequency vs. value

While it's always good to keep the flow of communication alive, it's also important that you endeavour to provide high value content to your readers.

By all means send a weekly email to your customers, but ensure that it doesn't cross the line into ‘spam’ territory. Too many sales-like emails can become ‘spam’ in the eyes of your readers so balance these with emails that simply provide your readers with something of value; be it information, giveaways or something they are genuinely interested in. For example, you might giveaway a free eBook, free tickets to an event, or simply impart on some information that you know they're going to value.

The best way to test this is to ask yourself a simple question: "As a reader, why does this matter to me?" If you're stuck for an answer, then maybe you should go back to the drawing board and rethink your content strategy.

Don’t underestimate the power of a killer subject line

At the end of the day, without a subject line line that provides a clear indication of what the email contains, it's unlikely that your readers will even open the email, let alone read your carefully crafted content.

‘September Newsletter’ as a subject line does nothing but lead me to believe that the content of the email is going to be as boring as the subject line.

The solution? Keep your subject line to-the-point and make sure that even on face value, it's easy to understand what your email is all about. Alternatively, and depending on your content, you might also consider a ‘hook’ subject line that creates curiosity to encourage your reader to open your email. For example, ‘Just a reminder about the invitation I sent you last week’.

If your campaign is part of a series, it's a good idea to include the series name and issue number in the subject line as well, so the reader has an idea of its context.

Every email campaign should have a call to action

Every email marketing campaign that you send out, no matter what the content, should have a call to action; an action that you would like the reader to take. This might be downloading an eBook, visiting your website, registering for an event or simply contacting you. An email without a call to action is a potential lost lead!

Split test campaigns to see which content works best

If you have a customer database of a reasonable size, you may like to try your hand at ‘split testing’. Simply slice your list down the middle, then send one version of your campaign to half of your customers, and another version of your campaign to the other half. Experiment with subject lines, content layout or calls to action to help determine what’s more effective.

Monitor, review, repeat

Your best friend in improving the effectiveness of your email campaigns is performance monitoring. Watch your click-through rate, open rate and ‘unsubscribe’ figures.

If you're aiming for increased visits to a page on your website, but are seeing poor click-through rates, perhaps rethink the placing of your calls to action. Again, split testing is a great way to test what works and what doesn't.

For more tips on your email marketing, advice on how to get started with email marketing or a complimentary email marketing analysis, contact Katrina Lees from The Creative Collective Newcastle on 02 4957 3238 or email newcastle@thecreativecollective.com.au.

Setting up Google alerts – what are people saying about you?

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 00:16:00 GMT

If you discovered somebody in your neighbourhood was spreading bad rumours about you, your company, your products or services you would most likely want to do something about it. Managing your online profile these days is just as important as managing your ‘offline’ reputation or profile – perhaps even more so. After all, there are a lot more potential customers and people, in general online than in your neighbourhood.

Google Alerts can help you keep up with the ‘buzz’ about you, your company, your products or services online; as well as your competitors.

Once you set up Google Alerts, every time your specified search terms appear you will automatically receive an email notifying you. You can also choose to have your alerts delivered via feed to the feedreader of your choice (e.g., Google Reader or add the feed to your iGoogle page).

To set up alerts for your business go to http://www.google.com/alerts.

TIP – We recommend you specify, "as it happens," for frequency and ‘comprehensive’ as the parameters.

We also recommend you put quotes around searches with multiple keywords to avoid being sent irrelevant alerts i.e. instead of ‘orange juice’ which will likely feature you may prefer to specify ‘ted’s orange juice’ as this is more specific & relevant to your business.

You can create up to 1000 alerts. See this page for FAQs related to alerts - http://www.google.com/support/alerts/

Google Maps – Put yourself ‘on the map’

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 06:28:00 GMT

Google Maps is a Google service offering powerful, user-friendly mapping technology and local business information - including business locations, contact information and driving directions. By placing your business place, be that home or an actual location (or even multiple locations) you are increasing your online visibility and hence the chance of people being aware of your business, or better still, making an inquiry with you.

To put your business on Google Maps go to http://www.google.com/maps, and click on ‘Put your business on Google Maps’, then click ‘Add New Listing’ . Now enter your business information. After this has been completed, you will be able to upload photos and videos, specify categories, payment options and business hours and much more.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In some cases you may discover you are already on Google Maps because Google collects its’ data from different sources: Yellow Pages, for example, as well as other third-party providers. However, the basic information you submit through the Local Business Centre is the information they trust the most. It is well worth revising your listing and making it as comprehensive as possible. We also encourage you to update it regularly.

Watch a video on Google Maps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq7UA_Y5bsI&feature=player_embedded.

Setting up your Google Account and Google Profile

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:13:00 GMT

Most people use Google on a daily basis to search for products, services, businesses and answers to all life’s questions!

But what many people don’t realize is that Google boasts a growing suite of free applications which can help most business owners save a significant amount of time and money.

This week I want to introduce you to just a few of the Google Tools I think you simply must know about and use if you wish to succeed online.

But best of all, these Google tools and applications are FREE!

In my next few blog posts I will introduce you to some of them and hopefully inspire you to go and experiment...

Setting up your dedicated Google Account - your 'passport' to Google World

Before you get started you need to get yourself a Google Account. To do this simply go to https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount and fill in the quick and easy form. If you already have a google account, skip this step.

*TIP* - You can use any email address to set up a Google Account but we recommend using a business email that will not change should staff change. We also recommend you note your username (email) and password in the login/passwords sheet we handed you at the beginning of the program.

Set up your Google Profile – Tell Google a little about yourself

A Google profile allows you to control how you appear on Google and tell others a bit more about who you are. With a Google profile, you can easily share your web content on one central location. You can include, for example, links to your blog, online photos, and other profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. You have control over what others see. Your profile won't display any private information unless you've explicitly added it.

You can also allow people to find you more easily by enabling your profile to be searched by your name. Simply set your existing profile to show your full name publicly. This may be useful if your name is part of your ‘business profile’ i.e. a real estate agent or a masseuse.

If you've been writing reviews on Google Maps, creating articles on Google Knol, sharing Google Reader items, or adding books to your Google Book Search library, you may already have a profile.
If you don’t already have a profile, create one here now: http://www.google.com/profiles/.

Go play with those and we'll be back with more soon...

Ten tips to top the search engines (Search Engine Optimisation)

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:38:00 GMT

Simply having a website doesn’t mean you’ll automatically get traffic. Recent research indicates that 87% of all Australians are looking to the internet for information about products and services (Sensis e-Business Report 2009). Are you capitalising on this trend and focusing more of your marketing online? In today’s highly competitive web environment, having a site that is not optimised for search engines is like having a shop front with no signage! Poor rankings could be costing your business hundreds, if not thousands of leads.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an art which most experts take years to master. While there are no quick solutions (results may not appear for up to three months), here are our top 10 tips to top the search engines:

Tip 1: Add metadata to your individual pages

Meta elements provide information about the contents of your web page, most often to help search engines categorise them correctly and match a user’s search with your website.

A good content managed system (CMS), which is a system that allows you to edit your own website, should allow you to add metadata to your individual pages. You can add things such as a search description and a variety of search phrases or keywords that relate to the page.

Tip 2: Sprinkle your keywords

Once you add metadata to a page, you need to also build keyword density in the contents of that page. For example, if you’re targeting an audience looking for anti-ageing skincare, the idea is to use anti-ageing related phrases in your metadata and then use these phrases a number of times within the copy of your page.

Be warned, there is a fine line between keyword optimising and keyword spamming - search engines can actually punish you for the latter.

Tip 3: Beautifully animated sites suck!

More often than not, we see websites out there that are heavily animated with flash and slide shows on the home page. While these look beautiful, they don’t do you any favours in the ranking world. The rule of thumb is, if you can’t highlight it, search engine spiders can’t read it. And if search engine spiders can’t read it, you’re not going to rank for it!

Tip 4: Use links and design hierarchy to prioritise information

Within your page, use formatting such as heading styles, hyperlinks and bolding to prioritise information. By no means should you go nuts; however, use headings, subheadings and crosslinks to other pages within your site to help search engines better classify your information.

Tip 5: Be cool by association with backlinks

A good site will encourage other sites to link to it. Reputable links from other sites will enhance your rankings. Search engines, such as Google, reward sites on factors such as popularity, age and content. Encourage your clients, business alliances and other business peers to backlink to your site from theirs. Backlink to their site too and then everyone wins!

Tip 6: Make your URLs relevant

Carrying on with our ‘anti-ageing example’, use keywords when naming your page to ensure that the keyword appears in your URL.

For example, www.yourdomain.com.au/1234%fjxyz won’t assist at all in capturing the anti-ageing seeking market. Instead, try calling your page something like www.yourdomain.com.au/anti-ageing.

Tip 7: Submit your URL to major search engines

Most major search engines such as Google do allow you to submit your URL. You can do this for any page on your site. Just Google ‘submit URL’ and you should get a search result linking to Google’s ‘Submit URL’ page, or click here.

Tip 8: Optimise your images

Optimising your images within the site will help search engine spiders to index your images too. This also helps readers who use ‘text only’ web browsers. Make your image file names relevant and then add a description of the image by using alt-tags. Again, a good CMS will allow you to add alt-tags.

Tip 9: Turn a top ranking site into a top converting site

There is so much emphasis on having a top ranking site. However, what happens when people get to your site?

The key to converting leads is to build a user-focused site. Make it easy for your visitors to find what they want. Make the content relevant, concise and enticing.

Once a user is on your site, use strong calls to action and web forms to capture that lead. A good CMS will also mean that once a user fills in a form with their inquiry, their details remain in your database for future marketing.

Tip 10: Conduct an in-depth SEO audit and market research report

The online environment is forever changing, evolving and becoming more complex. It is important that you engage in online market research with an expert at least every 6-12 months. This will identify the most popular keywords your market is searching for, industry trends and tactics to put you ahead of your ranking competitors. If you are already engaging in SEO, you can have an SEO audit to identify areas of improvement.

The Creative Collective has an impressive team of SEO experts who consistently achieve top ranking results for clients. If you'd like a free, no-obligation chat about how search engine optimisation could assist your business, simply contact Katrina Lees of The Creative Collective Newcastle on 0423 211 922 or email newcastle@thecreativecollective.com.au.

Reclaim your inbox!

Sat, 01 May 2010 12:54:00 GMT

Let’s face it. We all get a lot of email these days. If you feel like your email has become something of a gate crashed party what with all the viagara, enlarged penises and over-friendly Nigerians, you may well benefit from a few tips on how to get on top of your inbox again. So here’s some top tips…

Rules

When I discovered rules they became my best friend, yet I am still astounded by how few people know about them or use them (yet they’ll happily bemoan how many emails they get and how they just can’t seem to get on top of them!).

A rule is an action that Microsoft Office Outlook takes automatically on an arriving or sent message that meets the conditions that you specify in the rule. You can choose many conditions and actions by using the Rules and Alerts Wizard. Rules do not operate on message that have been read, only on those that are unread.

To get started with rules, simply right click on any email you would like to start categorising because perhaps you regularly get newsletters from that person which you will read…but later!!! Or because you work across several jobs or projects and you want to dedicate chunks of your time to one job or project. Filing them off them coming back to them in one hit later is effective time management.

Once you right click you will see an option called ‘Create Rule’. The rest is simple. Set your conditions i.e. whether if the message comes from a certain person, or with a certain header, what action you would like to take. I usually opt to move them to a specified folder so I can come back, as I suggested and chunk my time.

Rules fall into one of two general categories: organization and notification. The Rules and Alerts Wizard contains templates for the most commonly used rules.

Junk email filter

The Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook is designed to catch the most obvious spam and send it to your Junk E-mail folder. But you can adjust it to suit your needs (and adjusting it will certainly help reclaim your inbox too). The Junk E-mail Filter evaluates each incoming message based on several factors, including the time when the message was sent and the content of the message. The filter does not single out any particular sender or message type, but instead analyzes each message based on its content and structure to discover whether or not it is probably spam. The Junk E-mail Filter is turned on by default, and the protection level is set to low. This level is designed to catch the most obvious spam. You can make the filter more aggressive by changing the level of protection. Also, the Junk E-mail Filter can be updated periodically to protect against the latest techniques that spammers use to spam your Inbox. Any message that is caught by the Junk E-mail Filter is moved to a special Junk E-mailfolder. It is a good idea to review the messages in the Junk E-mail folder from time to time to make sure that they are not legitimate messages that you want to see. If they are legitimate, you can move them back to the Inbox by

* Safe Senders List
* Safe Recipients List
* Blocked Senders List
* International - Blocked Top-Level Domains List
* International - Blocked Encodings List function go(url)

Sort by email size - Another top trick of mine is to click on the top bar above ‘email size’ and sort all your emails by file size. Locate the biggest sized emails and then if they are no longer required, delete them as they are taking up valuable space and quite possibly slowing your email system’s perform down.Sort by name - Similarly to above, sort by name. It may be that you had a lot of communication with a particular person some time ago, but that this project/dialogue has long since passed. You could choose to either delete all emails here and again buy back some valuable space in your inbox OR, file it to a folder.

Delete the deleted items + junk regularly - a lot of people presume that once they hit delete, their email is permanently deleted forever. Not so! You also need to regularly locate the folder called ‘deleted items’ and the ‘junk mail’ and highlight and delete all unwanted items in there. I have known clients to have 1400 emails sitting in their deleted items and then wonder why their email system was no longer working!

Unsubscribe! - Finally it’s such an obvious one, and something we’re all guilty of, but if you have signed up willy nilly to websites that you no longer find benefit in hearing from, be diligent and unsubscribe. In line with CAN SPAM laws, they MUST COMPLY with your request to unsubscribe. If they do not, you have every right to report them.

Happy spring cleaning on your inbox!

Web Wednesday- Put Your Money Where Your Market Is!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:46:00 GMT

What would you say if we were to tell you that rather than throwing valuable marketing and advertising dollars out there month after month in the hope that the right people will see your advertisement or marketing and take some action, that THERE IS A WAY TO KNOW the right people will see your advertisement for sure, and that you won’t pay a dime unless they actually notice and click on your ad? Sound good? Welcome to the world of pay per click advertising!

At our next inspiring Web Wednesday event, another exciting line up of knowledgeable panellists will take you through the ins and outs of pay per click advertising as it applies to Google Adwords and Facebook.

Web Wednesday - Harness the power of social media!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:45:00 GMT

Through Social Media sites such as Twitter and Facebook you can reach literally millions of potential clients and retain your existing ones. It’s still a relatively new phenomenon but it is one as a business owner you definitely need to be aware of, and ideally get stuck into!

Even if the very thought of setting up and managing a Twitter account gives you the willys, come along to our next Web Wednesday event so you can at least gain a working understanding of how it works and how it may potentially apply to your business so you can delegate to a staff member, agency, friend or family member!

In a tough economy, low cost and no cost marketing strategies are financially responsible options. But not only this, done right they can really work!!!

In another one of our power packed Web Wednesday evenings come along and learn:

What Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other key social sites are if they are totally new, or still quite an anomaly to you.

How to get started – step by step tips on setting up your personal/professional/business pages and important considerations in doing so depending on who you are and what you’re trying to achieve
How to flesh out your profiles quickly and easily
How to start your following/fans or members off
How to leap frog off those who do sign up and well on your way to healthy communities
How to market yourself on the two biggest of these social sites
Twitterisms, saving Facebook face, being likeable on Linkedin and other etiquette considerations
How to use Facebook and Twitter without getting banned
The difference between marketing and advertising
Cool Twitter tools, Facebook applications and more
What other Twitter sites are helpful and how to use them
The power of Twitter and Facebook directories

AND ONE LUCKY WINNER WILL GET A LIVE CONSULT OF THEIR TWITTER OR FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS AND LOTS OF TIPS TO TAKE HOME!

What you get:

Yet another enjoyable evening featuring an incredible panel of ‘experts’
A cash bar to enjoy an alcoholic or non alcoholic drink of your choice after work
Spectacular views over Mooloolaba beach and surf breaks
The opportunity to network with other start-ups, business owners, marketing professionals, techs and more.
‘Free consults’ – talk to the panelists and other techs and professionals before the event, in the break and afterwards!
Inspiration, information and innovative techniques to take home and try

Cost

Still an incredibly affordable $30! Other local events have charged near $200 for similar events with only a couple of extra hours tagged on. You can’t beat this for value!

Get your ticket now!
Time

Doors open 5:30pm for a 6pm start. We break around 7:15pm for 15 minutes and end around 8pm.

It’s not what you spend, it’s HOW you spend

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:46:00 GMT

Recently I was chuffed that a client who is an accomplished marketing manager in her own right emailed me to ask me for my opinion on how her company should allocate their marketing budget in the year ahead. Interestingly she gave me four possible budgets and asked for my professional expertise on how I would allocate them if I were her.

I thought I’d share my response with you, as I believe the issue of how much to spend and where to allocate it is something that is an issue for many businesses, particularly in the economic climate we find ourselves.

Ideally in doing this for any given client I would ask what objectives they had in mind, as this is key, but for this scenario I am presuming that the objective is to drive inquiries, leads and sales which is what the majority of businesses I deal with want.

Firstly, no matter what the budget, prior to going out and spending money on anything, I would invest in conducting some online market research to ascertain how many people are searching online for any given keywords and combinations of keywords with any of these. Whilst this may seem a strange suggestion, the results the research can give you can seriously drive your business direction and therefore marketing options. For instance let’s say you sell coffee. And from your searches you deduce that ‘vanilla coffee’ has a high number of searches and low competition. You may then say to yourself, ‘I can source vanilla coffee – that’s easy!’ And there is a business direction you would never have known to pursue, had you not done this initial research. In addition, the research will give you better insights into what spend will be appropriate and where, for instance in locations like Google Adwords or Facebook advertising, which are two very targeted marketing options which you can set defined budgets and get great results.

Using professional software, agencies such as us will tell you specifically what the search volumes are for any given keyword or combination of keywords (that is how many people are searching for it), versus how many competing websites there are. What we are looking for in this research is a high number of searches with a low number of competing sites.

Another thing to bare in mind when reviewing the possible scenarios below, is a lot of my suggestions have a strong focus on online mediums, simply because, across all the clients I work with, they consistently offer the best return on investment, are trackable and generally produce good results, if done right.

Note there is NO MENTION of display ads or Yellow Pages below purposely UNLESS the client can demonstrate a really good return on investment here. To do this, I would recommend tracking your inquiries for a set period, just as you do a log book for tax time (a minimum of a week period, ideally a month – 3 months) so you can see just where the inquiries are coming from. If they ARE coming from the display ads and yellow pages in significant numbers, don’t change a thing. But more often than not, they’re not performing well at all.

Anyway without further adieu, here are four very different budgets, and how, given the chance I would recommend spending your hard earned cash (!)

1. $2500-3500

· Online market research report - $750
· Initial on page search engine optimisation - $100 per page – allocate minimum of 10 pages - $1000
· Relevant online directories (paid) – approx $200 - $300 each. From Yahoo to trade specific ones you could research.
· You could also engage in a range of free marketing activities in addition to this that will just cost your time (article writing, submitting to article directories, brokering back links to the site, social media, emarketing, pr, awards submissions etc)

2. $5000-$7000
· Online market research report - $750
· Initial on page search engine optimisation - $100 per page – allocate minimum of 10 pages - $1000 (or maybe more)
· Relevant online directories (paid) – approx $200 - $300 each. From Yahoo to trade specific ones you could research.
· Google Adwords campaigns – budget for this could only be ascertained once the market research report had been completed. Could be from $200 per month net to google upwards, not factoring in campaign management if we assisted here (this also includes regular reporting on performance). Range - $2400 - $5000
· Facebook advertising – love it cause it’s so targeted. You could run geo-targetted campaigns to areas you know need this - budget for this could only be ascertained once the market research report had been completed. Could be from $5 a day net to facebook upwards, not factoring in campaign management if we assisted here (this also includes regular reporting on performance). Range - $1200 - $2500+
· Meet with us on regular basis (suggest monthly) at $150 per time x 10 months (figuring some months for holidays) = $1500 to analyse what’s working, get ideas, tips, links etc
· Database drops – sourcing relevant databases of target market and getting mentions in their email outs. This may be a free contra arrangement or require payment. Would have to be analysed on case by case basis. But if they had a good relevant database and numbers added up, that would be a good strategy i.e. if they charged $1000 to target 100,000 names, that’s good maths!
· You could also engage in a range of free marketing activities in addition to this that will just cost your time (article writing, submitting to article directories, brokering back links to the site, social media, emarketing, pr, awards submissions etc)

3. $10,000-15,000 (i’m starting to breathe in this bracket – others would be seriously stifling but we do say we work in any budgets!)
· Online market research report - $750
· Initial on page search engine optimisation - $100 per page – allocate minimum of 10 pages - $1000 (or maybe more)
· Relevant online directories (paid) – approx $200 - $300 each. From Yahoo to trade specific ones you could research.
· Google Adwords campaigns – budget for this could only be ascertained once the market research report had been completed. Could be from $200 per month net to google upwards, not factoring in campaign management if we assisted here (this also includes regular reporting on performance). Range – could increase from above
· Facebook advertising – love it cause it’s so targeted. You could run geo-targetted campaigns to areas you know need this - budget for this could only be ascertained once the market research report had been completed. Could be from $5 a day net to facebook upwards, not factoring in campaign management if we assisted here (this also includes regular reporting on performance). Range - $1200 - $2500+
· Database drops – sourcing relevant databases of target market and getting mentions in their email outs. This may be a free contra arrangement or require payment. Would have to be analysed on case by case basis. But if they had a good relevant database and numbers added up, that would be a good strategy i.e. if they charged $1000 to target 100,000 names, that’s good maths!
· Online advertising – there may be some money to play with for this in this bracket too.
· Meet with us on regular basis (suggest monthly) at $150 per time x 10 months (figuring some months for holidays) = $1500 to analyse what’s working, get ideas, tips, links etc
· You may have some left over to continue with relevant trade events IF (and big IF) you can demonstrate that these work well for you historically
· You could also engage in a range of free marketing activities in addition to this that will just cost your time (article writing, submitting to article directories, brokering back links to the site, social media, emarketing, pr, awards submissions etc)

4. $50k

All of the above but more budget allocation, more assistance from consultants i.e. us to make this work (i.e. we might help out on operational aspects rather than just consultancy so the stuff ACTUALLY GETS DONE. As you know it’s one thing to intend to do it, and another to actually do it, and do it effectively.

Yvette Adams is the director of The Creative Collective http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au, an award winning creative services agency based in Queensland, Australia offering the full range of creative services including PR, awards applications, websites, internet marketing, seo, graphic design, print production, photography and more. They won the 2008 Queensland Small Business Champions Specialised Small Business award and Yvette won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year and has been a finalist in numerous other local, state, national and international business awards.

Come to our next Web Wednesday event on E-marketing - What you Need to Know Before You Hit Send!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:48:00 GMT

When we first started these Wed Wednesday events we surveyed you on what topics you wanted covered and this was as always a hot one.

In this session we’ll have an exciting panel line up featuring everything from techs to everyday business owners who regularly enjoy great success from their e-marketing activities.

The event will be held on Wednesday 22 July at the Mooloolaba Surf Club at 5.30pm. Tickets are just $30 and can be purchased online at: http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/events/cms/13/web-wednesday—emarketing prior to the event. Students with ID can attend free by calling ahead!

Phone: (07) 5451 1315

or Email: admin@thecreativecollective.com.au

To Twitter or Not to Twitter – that is the question!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:49:00 GMT

If you haven’t noticed that the word Twitter is somewhat of a ‘buzz word’ at the moment, you must have been living under a rock. But the question is, should you be doing it and what are the tangible results it can return?

Worldwide traffic to Twitter.com reached 10 million visitors in February 2009, up a whopping 700 percent from the same time last year, according to comScore.

As a creative agency we’re expected to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’ so of course when Twitter reared it’s birdy head last year, we made a point of climbing the tree to check out what all the tweet was about (sorry it’s hard to write a piece about Twitter without having some fun with the ‘twitterisms’.)

So perhaps firstly a how to set up a Twitter account would be a useful piece of information to some of you who have not yet got on the bandwagon. If you’re well into twittering and want some real tips, skip ahead to the next star set now.

*****

Like setting up a web-based email account such as gmail, yahoo or hotmail, it’s pretty easy and of course free. Simply go to http://www.twitter.com and click on the big green button the front page (at least it was green the day we went there) which says ‘get started –Join!’

The rest we’re sure you’ll navigate your way through no dramas – enter full name, username (just like domain names people are snapping up twitter territory with good usernames that reflect the niche they would like to dominate the market they are trying to target or something else suitably witty so choose something with this in mind), password, email and a code to copy. All pretty straight forward.

If you like to display yourself as a unique individual you may like to click on the settings tab and customize the look of your profile. You may also like to find what other friends from any given email address (that is an online one i.e. gmail, yahoo or hotmail) is already on twitter. You may search to find new friends in the form of celebrities, business people or groups in line with what you do. Once you’ve faffed about with the menu options, you’re now the proud owner of a twitter account.

*****

But here’s the crazy thing: after examining some 300,000 Twitter accounts, a Harvard Business School professor reported earlier this month that 10 percent of the service’s users account for more than 90 percent of tweets. The study dovetails with recent analysis by the media research firm Nielsen asserting that 60 percent of Twitter users do not return from one month to the next.

And we’ve got a pretty good hunch why this is. It’s because people don’t know what to do with a twitter once they have one. They haven’t yet worked out how potentially powerful their twitter account can be.

Essentially with twitter you have 140 characters to tell people what you are doing. Which whilst it may sound like a mindless and timewasting past time can actually produce real commercial returns. The key to getting the return is, like any other marketing, setting out with a specific objective in mind. Before you write another ‘Tweet’ to your Twitter account ask yourself what it is you want to achieve from Twitter? Is it (and all of these things are possible with Twitter):

• Building Community—creating a strong community of followers that ultimately help drive business objectives and bring in new customers

• Customer Service—using Twitter to successfully engage with customers needing help and showing a personal side to your company

• Selling—driving online and offline sales by using Twitter to post promotions, discounts and offers

• Prospecting—creating demand and pinpointing potential customers needing the type of solution your product/service/event offers

• Branding & Awareness—employing Twitter in creative ways to increase awareness around a product, person (celebrity) or business

• Fundraising—using Twitter to spread the word about important causes i.e. events, deadlines to help someone etc.

Well Twitter can do all of these things.

To put these in context here are five case studies of businesses we’ve uncovered online who have used twitter for real commercial success.

1. Twittering for Local business

A New Orleans local pizza shop ‘Naked Pizzas’ got onto twitter and signed up anybody and everybody it could find in its local area. With his first concerted effort at a Twitter-only promotion, the owner was able to drive 15% of daily revenues with Twitter. And of those 15%, 90% were new customers! Not bad for a guy who didn’t even have an account 5 weeks prior. And, here’s the crazy part, it’s all him. No expensive PR firm. No “Social Media Expert”, just a guy on a mission to change the world one pizza at a time. Now you know what they can do when things are quiet? Run a special! Within minutes of twittering an irresistible deal, their pizza sales can go crazy.

2. Well known brand tries to invigorate itself

Skittles, the lolly brand started a twitter conversation about the brand in the hopes of bringing the product top of mind and getting exposure through viral means. Skittles posted a live, uncensored feed of any tweets talking about Skittles on their website as a brand like Skittles can only be helped by more exposure and it’s not exactly something that people are going to moan about! Skittles was in a position to benefit from the publicity largely without taking a hit to its brand.

3. Twittering for a good cause

Bonnie Sayers, a mother of children with autism, decided to use Twitter to promote awareness of autism and to allow those who live with it to share their experiences and knowledge with others. Dubbed “Twitter Autism Day” and connected with the #ASD hashtag, this was a HUGE success both by the standards of the benefits it created for those who participated as well as the number of tweets it generated. It became a “trending topic” on more than one occaission during the day. Parents and care givers sharing their experiences over Twitter was a great way to connect with others who had experience with autism, and it gave those who wanted to help the opportunity to help spread that awareness through following along and retweeting.

4. Big Dollar Dell figures

In a blog post this week, Dell the computer giant revealed that it has generated more than $2 million in revenue from @DellOutlet, one of its many Twitter sites. Not bad for a little twittering! The secret formula for Dell has been to use Twitter as a way to extend exclusive offers, discounts and other forms of savings. Everyone loves a bargain, right? Before you knew it, thousands of people were following @DellOutlet -and it’s numbers are now in excess of 600,000.

5. I’ll have that to go

When J.R. Cohen, Operations Manager for CoffeeGroundz (@coffeegroundz) Cafe in Houston, Texas first heard about Twitter from one of his customers, he was puzzled but intrigued. Today, he credits Twitter with almost doubling his clientele and with opening his eyes to a whole new way to build Community. Seeing an opportunity, Cohen started taking to-go orders via direct message from any of his Twitter Clientele.

Cool Twitter Tools / Twitter links you have to know about

On a final note I’ll leave you with some fun links to check out. They’re some of the coolest twitter tools we’ve found in our travels. Feel free to share others via comments.

http://twitterholic.com/ - Check out the current leaderboard of the most followed people on twitter. Celebs such as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, lily allen, Britney spears and Martha Stewart feature as to smart media outlets such as Time.com, The New York Times, Good Morning America and Nightline (also American) to politicians scuh as Barrack Obama.
Search.twitter.com works well for finding your friends, celebrities, or organizations, or for searching for specific topics you’re interested in.
http://twitgoo.com/ or www.twitpic.com - Make your twitter account more visually engaging by adding pictures. These could be product images, social pics of you or your colleagues at an event, your work, attendees to an event or just inspirational/arty things.
http://www.tweetlater.com — You don’t have to tweet on a daily or weekly basis. Get smart and tweet ahead of time. This system allows you to post tweets to be sent later as well as to send automatic messages every time someone new follows you. Users can set up Tweets to happen later on the day, week, or month. Also allows you to set up Twitter alerts for any keywords, people, companies, etc. that you want to track. Alerts are sent to you via email. Also allows you to auto follow those who follow you and send them a welcome message.
Twtvite - Send invitations and track RSVPs online. Example: http://twtvite.com/wlsvw
Twtqpon - Create coupons for distribution on twitter or anywhere online. Example: http://twtqpon.com/7uz1
Twitterfeed - Have a blog? Automatically tweet (send a message) each new blog post.
http://www.tweepler.com/ - Evaluate new followers & decide if you want to follow them back.

We’d love to hear of any other top twitter tips or tools you’d like to share. Send them through via a comment!

Yvette Adams is the director of The Creative Collective http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au, an award winning creative services agency based in Queensland, Australia offering the full range of creative services including PR, awards applications, websites, internet marketing, seo, graphic design, print production, photography and more. They won the 2008 Queensland Small Business Champions Specialised Small Business award and Yvette won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year and has been a finalist in numerous other local, state, national and international business awards.

A picture paints a thousand words

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:01:00 GMT

Are you trying to upload images to your website and having a few dramas? Time and time again we see our clients and others on the world wide web who are having a crack at updating images on their website upload HUMUNGOUS pictures. This is not a good idea for several reasons:

1) You’ll take up valuable bandwidth and potentially pay more money for your hosting bill

2) Your website download speed will slow and cause mega frustration to the user causing higher bounce rates (or people who click on and straight back off on arrival), and decrease the chance of repeat visits.

3) It can throw a page’s alignment and overall look completely out making your website/brand and hence your company seriously devalued.

Other times we see pictures that are uploaded which are stretched/skewed, pooly lit or constructed or just generally with no love or care applied. It brings the site and hence your brand and professional image DOWN.

So what’s the solution?

In-house we tend to use Adobe Photoshop but with a retail price tag of around $1400AUD we realise this is serious overkill for people with basic computing skills who simply need to edit pictures to be suitable for upload to their website.

Your options apart from the professional and costly programs include those that you download to your hard drive and those that are online. So here’s a few suggestions (all f’ree!). Four of the best are Paint.NET, Photoscape, Gimp and Picasa But you can choose from many more, including Photofiltre, PhotoPlus, Vicman (ugly interface) and Pixia (very Japanese).

Free downloadable options:

http://www.getpaint.net - Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins. Paint.NET features layers, painting and drawing tools, special effects, unlimited undo history, and levels adjustments. If you want something that’s near professional class, download it.

http://picasa.google.com/ - Geez it’s hard to provide tips of the week without mentioning a Google tool - they have so many cool ones on offer! Picasa is a software download from Google that helps you organize, edit, and share your photos. It is designed to make it easy for you to download pictures from a digital camera, organise them and edit and share them. Picasa offers you some basic editing and attractive enhancement tools which are very easy to use. It can also turn out posters and collages. However, Picasa is primarily photo organising software, and if you are not careful from the start, it will take over your photos and organise them the way it likes. Of course you can over-ride it – I think!

http://www.picnik.com/ - Picnik is very popular and it’s no wonder because it can make your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools whether you know anything about photo editing or not. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames. Even better it integrates with other Web2.0 services.

Photoscape - It doesn’t look the prettiest on loading the page and it’s functionality doesn’t include layers (which are kind of handy). However its features do include:

• Editor: resizing, brightness and colour adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal, blooming. It also has some very funny filters.

• Page: Make one photo by merging multiple photos at the page frame

• Combine: Make one photo by attaching multiple photos vertically or horizontally

• Print: Print portrait shot, visiting card, passport photo • Splitter: Divide a photo into multiple parts

• Rename: Change photo file names in batch mode

GIMP for Windows - Whilst the name is remninscent of Pulp Fiction, GIMP for Windows is a popular open-source image editor. It has been called the “free Photoshop,” and does have an interface and features similar to Photoshop, but like Photoshop it’s not the easiest of programmes to learn.

Online solutions:

Your other choice when it comes to image editing is to upload your photos and work on them in cyberspace, using free online programmes. Of course if you do a lot of editing online your internet usage will skyrocket. So be aware you may need a more generous – i.e. expensive - broadband plan. If you would like to try an online editor, here’s a few of the best:

http://www.Picture2life.com -In some ways it’s just another online image editor. But it’s interface is kind of different with a descriptive side panel stacked into four vertical tabs and the ability to see how the picture will look if the effect is applied before you commit.

http://www.pixlr.com - Advanced online image and photo editing tools, just choose your flavor, jump in and start creating!

http://www.splashup.com - Splashup is a web based photo editor that looks like a desktop application. Open files from your computer or from most popular photo sharing sites. Splashup also has the ability to import images from your webcam. Nice.

What image editing programs have you found useful? Let us know.

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Cool software that can help you track your accounts in 2009/10

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:05:00 GMT

With only a few weeks left in the Australian financial year, it’s a good time to analyse how we maintain our accounts and whether our current procedures and processes are working for us. Here’s some cool technology to check out that you might find handy in the new financial year:

1. Freshbooks

Last year we discovered a fantastic online accounts system called Freshbook s and fell in love.

The average business owner in Australia will opt for MYOB or Quickbooks who have massive market shares. There’s no denying that these are good programs and tick most boxes, but if you’d like further features such as:

The ability for your clients to log in and check their live statement at any one time saving you numerous phone and email inquiries
The ability to set auto-reminders to clients who owe you money! This saves you hours in follow up and you have a written record of all communications - they go out automatically!
The ability to program in any recurring invoices which will go out automatically without you having to manually enter them or send them.
The ability for your clients to pay online via credit card via paypal (no online merchant facility required)
The ability for staff or contractors to log their hours live in the system and then convert them into invoices so you know at any one time
The ability to customise the look and feel of estimates and templates a lot easier than you can in MYOB to make your stuff pretty + much more, this is definitely worth checking out.
Quick and easy reporting on a variety of levels

Check out Freshbooks now: https://www.freshbooks.com/?ref=5738b25382878-1

2. Shoeboxed

How good does this sound? Shoeboxed will transform your piles of paper receipts into professional-looking invoices in FreshBooks. Shoeboxed also Shoeboxed scans and turns your business cards into contact lists? They can digitize your contacts into Outlook, Apple Address Book, Gmail, Blackberry, Salesforce, Act, and many other programs! Cool huh?

Check out Shoeboxed now: http://www.shoeboxed.com.

3. Xpenser

Record expenses via whatever means are available to you quickly and painlessly. Send them in via Email, SMS, Twitter, IM, or voice (call a number and say your expense). From your Blackberry, email “Lunch 78.50 with BigClient” and it’s recorded. From your phone, SMS “exp groceries 27.13″. From your computer, IM “Equipment 889.19 backup server”. From your phone, call and say “taxi 39 office to airport”. Use the Web interface to edit and finalize them or export them to your favorite financial management software. No more forgetting your cash expenses, no more half-day expense entry sessions.

If you track expenses or do expense reports, give it a try. We’re pretty sure you’ll like it. It’s currently free which is even better.

Check out Xpenser now: http://www.xpenser.com.

Happy accounting!

Entries Now Open for International Women in Business Awards

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:51:00 GMT

Entries are now open for the 2009 International Women in Business Awards, also known as ‘The Stevies’. The awards are open to all women executives, entrepreneurs, and the organizations they run - worldwide. The Stevie Awards are the world’s premier business awards competitions and feature four major awards programs in all – the American Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, The International Business Awards (the deadline for which is June 12) and the Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

For the first time ever, the awards have a dedicated regional coordinator for the Australia and New Zealand region, a previous International Women in Business Awards finalist, Yvette Adams who is based in Queensland.

Adams who runs her own creative agency says being involved with the awards as a finalist in 2008 has provided an exceptional lift to her business.

“Going to New York was a magical experience and has definitely been beneficial to my business in numerous ways. I’m now very proud to be assisting other enterprising Australians and New Zealanders go through the process I did last year,” says Adams, 32-year-old who is also a mother of two.
All organizations and individuals worldwide may participate – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. There’s an early-bird entry deadline of July 31 where entry fees are discounted. The final entry deadline is August 31. Late entries will be accepted through September 30 with payment of a $35 late fee. Entry details are available at http://www.stevieawards.com/women/.

Entries may be submitted in more than 54 categories including Best Entrepreneur, with categories recoginising entrepreneurs operating in different company sizes, best new product and best new service, as well as media and marketing categories honouring creative output such as Website of the Year, Blog of the Year, Advertising Campaign of the Year, marketing campaign of the year and more. For a full list of categories visit: http://www.stevieawards.com/pubs/women/awards/282_1448_8468.cfm.

“In challenging economic times like these, there isn’t a more cost-effective way to reward and honor your valued employees than to nominate them for a Stevie Award,” said Stevies president Michael Gallagher. “And there isn’t a more cost-effective way to build or burnish your organization’s brand than to win one.”
Further information can be seen at www.stevieawards.com or by calling Yvette Adams on 07 545 11315 or 0405 022 977.
EDITOR NOTES
About The Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, The Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more at www.stevieawards.com.

Why Enter?
There’s no more cost-effective way to reward and honor your valued employees or yourself than to nominate them for a Stevie® Award. And there’s no more cost-effective way to build or burnish your organization’s brand than to win one.

Who’s Eligible?
Any organization anywhere in the world may submit entries: large or small, public or private, for-profit or non-profit. The 2009 awards will honor achievements since the beginning of 2008.

How Do We Enter?
First choose your categories – in the Womens program there are 54 categories to choose from, from Executive of the Year, CSR Program of the Year, and Best New Product or Service of the Year to categories for ad campaigns, annual reports, and more than a dozen categories for web sites.
Write your entries according to the instructions in the online entry kit, then submit them through the web site at www.stevieawards.com/iba - it’s very easy to do. You can even pay your entry fees online.

You Can’t Win If You Don’t Enter
Results will be announced at the end of June, and this year’s honorees will be celebrated at an awards dinner in September.

Sponsorship opportunities

Sponsorship opportunities exist for The 5th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business.
To discuss any of the following sponsorships, contact Yvette Adams at 0405 0... or info@thecreativecollective.com.au or fill in a no obligation expression of interest form at:
http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/html/cms/170/international-stevie-business-awards

Close encounters with online grocery shopping

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:52:00 GMT

Like many out there, I’m a busy working mother. And with a 2 year old and a 5 year, getting to the supermarket is a veritable nightmare between the ‘I wants’ and the ‘no you can’t haves’, the embarrassing potty training incidents in the aisles (think puddles) and the attempts at innocent stealing.

So I was soooo excited when someone told me that shopping for groceries online was FINALLY available in the regional area where we live. I’d used online shopping in England for 2-3 years before I left and came to Australia in 2004 and had been missing it ever since.

Signing up was as easy as getting an email account and to keep things easy, I repeated the use of usual username and passwords so I could easily jump in and shop again next time.

I started off ‘browsing by aisle’ but that was a little cumbersome. Then I discovered ‘quick lists’ which was very clever in that it emulated your traditional offline shopping list, where you could literally write down items you needed i.e. ‘rice’, ‘bananas’ and so on and it would quickly pull up a list of all available brands and sizes of rice.

All in all my first online grocery shopping experience via Coles took me around 45 minutes to complete which still bettern than the 1 – 2 hours it would take me with 2 kids in tow. Naturally the first time was always going to be longer than the second or the third time when you have the ability to remember previous orders, delete items, add items and potentially check out inside 10 – 15 minutes.

Perhaps one of the best features (which was also there when I used to shop in the UK) is the ability to keep a running tally of your spend, which in economic times like these can be a pretty useful thing. No more being tempted by the items on sale at the end of an aisle which just happen to be your favourite chocolate biscuit!

On Coles you have the option to get the order delivered inside 3 delivery brackets – a 4 hour block (for a $9 delivery charge), a 3 hour block (for a $11 delivery charge) and a 2 hour block (for a $9 delivery charge). I opted for the 4 hour block on a Friday afternoon – 4pm – 8pm when I knew I’d be in.

Sure enough, right on 6pm the next day, my supermarket messiah (otherwise known as the delivery man) arrived.

Not only did he bring them up the drive, but inside the door and onto my bench. Pure heaven. No lugging of cans, heavy drink bottles, bags and babies any more for me.

All bags were knotted and as I eagerly unveiled each package I was pleasantly relieved to discover that no goods were damaged and everything I ordered was there. There was a nervous moment when I moaned to my partner that they’d given me the baby baked beans can instead of the normal size…until I realized that I must have selected the wrong size; the yoghurts I’d ordered had been replaced by yoghurt ice-blocks (another stuff up by me) and I’d mistakenly clicked on some Uncle Bens fried rice instant packet mix stuff by accident whilst browsing for normal rice. But all in all, 3 mistakes for a first timer – not too bad and besides stuff the kids would eat anyhow. Not like I’d ordered pet food when we don’t even have a pet.

I’ve been raving about the option to anyone who would listen since. So far I’m getting no where with my retired mother who is in her 50s. Although she is quite capable on the computer and admits it might be a good option for her when she’s older and less mobile, for now she says she prefers to pop in as she needs things to get ‘out of the house’.

My sister on the other hand has no kids, but works and likes as much free time for fitness and time with her partner and dogs outside of working hours. She ordered online last week too, and also swears it will now be a regular method of nourishing her cupboards and fridge each week.

Next week I think I’ll try out Woolworths, or maybe the lure of a pre-written shopping list from last week that should take moments to amend will prove too tempting…

Using Online Video Marketing to Build Your Business

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:45:00 GMT

Our next Web Wednesday event is one HOT topic – Marketing your Business online via Video!

Posting videos online is a huge growth area on the Net. Come along and discover:

The market – how it all started, how it’s grown and the opportunities now available
Why should you consider video marketing to benefit your product/service/business
What types of people are already using it
Format options and their applications
Hard copy versus electronic copies
Ideal Durations for different mediums
Key considerations before you get started
Packaging considerations if creating hard copies – people do judge a book by it’s cover!
Distribution options
Project sequence
Marketing your Video on online using video networks such as: You Tube, Vimeo, Yahoo!, MySpace and many more!

Book now: http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/events/cms/11/using-online-video-marketing-to-build-your-business

Plus hear specific case studies from Bruce Levick who has managed large scale video production projects for Australia Zoo and had amazing success with it!

Bruce Levick

After graduating with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in the early 90’s, Bruce spent 2 years in pre press design while studying/self training in website design and development.

In the mid 90’s, he started experimenting with the online medium and eventually moved into full time online commercial design and development by late 1997.

Bruce has worked for many clients over 10+ years on various projects, from the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, Cairns Taipans, Jupiters Casino to the Queensland Governor and recently finishing up a four year stint managing the Australia Zoo stable of websites but continuing to contract to them.

With a broad range of skills from design, development, multimedia integration and rich internet applications, Bruce is a specialist in taking projects from concept through to completion.

Bruce has been published in the Design Graphics Portfolio edition for website design and has also been a runner up in the Asia Pacific IT Awards.

Don’t delay registering – we expect this event to be extremely popular, especially with a hot topic like this:

http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/events/cms/11/using-online-video-marketing-to-build-your-business

International business awards now represented by Queensland woman

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:59:00 GMT

MEDIA RELEASE

24 March 2009

Yvette Adams, director of award winning local creative agency, The Creative Collective on the Sunshine Coast has been announced as the recently appointed position of the International Stevie Awards Australia/New Zealand representative having attended the Stevie Awards for Women in Business as a finalist in New York last November and acquainting the CEO, Michael Gallagher.

The Stevie Awards are the world’s premier business awards competitions and feature four major awards in all – the American Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and The International Business Awards.

Beginning with The American Business Awards in 2002, The International Business Awards in 2003, The Stevie Awards for Women in Business in 2004, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service in 2006 the organisation aims to raise the profile of exemplary companies and individuals among the press, the business community, and the general public.

“Going to New York was a magical experience and I made sure I networked my little heart out, both prior to going online using mediums such as Facebook and Linkedin.com and of course while I was there. This included introducing myself to the CEO of the awards, Michael Gallagher where we discussed the possibility of me assisting him to grow the profile of the awards in the the Australia/New Zealand region. After a few emails on my return we worked things out and I’m now very proud to be assisting other enterprising Australians and New Zealanders go through the process I did last year,” says Adams, 32-year-old who is also a mother of two.

A variety of sponsorship packages are available for the first time to Australian and New Zealand companies who may be interested in having their brand associated with these prestigious awards. Interested parties should fill in an online form here: http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/html/cms/170/international-stevie-business-awards where a downloadable sponsorship package is available for download.

Entries for the 2009 International Business Awards are now being accepted. Interested business owners or entrepreneurs can request an entry kit on this link now: http://www.stevieawards.com/pubs/iba/general/173_704_3149.cfm and it will be emailed out to them. The entry deadline is 15 May 2009.

Further information can be seen at www.stevieawards.com or by calling Yvette Adams on 07 ....

Is your website working? How would you know?

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:00:00 GMT

Award winning creative agency The Creative Collective has announced its latest topic for its monthly Web Wednesday event – How to Self-Diagnose Your Website.

The agency’s director and event organiser Yvette Adams says that although many businesses now have a website, very few even know that they often have free in-built web statistics, or have the access codes or the know how to log in and see what is going on with the performance of their website.

“Sadly too many business owners still get live with their website and tick that job off the list. But the reality is that once you are live you need to not only conduct quite a lot of pro active marketing both online and offline to get the thing working, but you also need to keep a close eye on how it is performing so you can make the necessary changes until you start meeting your business objectives,” says Adams.

Adams says most websites do come with an in-built statistical program but that there are many free or cheap other resources that business owners or those responsible for the company website should be familiar with.

“Tools such as Google’s free Google Analytics system, Google Webmaster Tools and other free or cheap resources we will share with attendees on the night can give you phenomenal insights into how users find your website, what they do once they are there and what niche you are intentionally, or accidentally, carving out for yourself on the World Wide Web. This information is essential for you to know, particularly in a market where things may be on the decline so that you can identify any problem areas and quickly and easily make the necessary changes to get things moving in the right direction.”

Adams says that whilst professionals can of course be engaged to conduct website analyses or audits, she believes it is far more effective for the business owner or person responsible to take at least an interest in the affairs of their website so that if they need to, they can direct others as to what outcomes they are seeking, or even look to make any necessary changes themselves which she hopes the event will assist in achieving for the attendees.

The next Web Wednesday event is the second to be held this year and The Creative Collective continue to regularly attract sizeable numbers to their informal monthly events. The next event will be held on Wednesday 22 April at the Mooloolaba Surf Club at 5:30pm. Tickets are just $30 and can be purchased online at http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/events/cms/9 prior to the event.

ENDS

For more information contact 07 545 11315 or email webwednesdays@thecreativecollective.com.au.

Proud owner of a brand new Blackberry Storm

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:11:00 GMT

Recently I became the proud new owner of a Blackberry Storm– my first foray into the world of 3G phones. Despite the fact that it makes complete sense for me as a business owner and power internet and email user to combine phone technology with electronic communication, I still waited until my two year contract was up before I eagerly jumped ship from a terrible Optus subsidary service provider (Soul Communications - do not GO there!!!) over to Vodafone.

To get my Blackberry Storm for free (otherwise retailing at approx $800) I’ve gone onto another contract but with unlimited emails, text and internet access and a geneous phone cap plan I’m pretty confident it’s the plan for me. Features such as * Wireless Email, *Organizer, * Wireless Internet, * Phone, * Camera, * Video Recording, * Media player, * Built-in GPS, * Corporate Data Access, * SMS, * MMS also have me pretty sorted.

Anyway I was excited as can be to get my hands on my new Blackberry which I did around 10 days ago now. It made complete sense to get it right before I took a 10 day business/pleasure trip to New Zealand. In that way I could send emails to keep wheels turning and balls up in the air while I was away and also get a little used to it while I was away without the pressures of manic deadlines.

My first Blackberry experience was quite laughable and I don’t mind sharing. Perhaps if you or a person you know has had similar novice experiences with new technologies it’ll make you feel better.

So here I was, LOVING the fact I can get on Facebook and either check out what others are up to or update my own status via the new Blackberry phone, and I went to make a simple status update: ‘Yvette is…playing with her new Blackberry’.

The first attempt read:

“Yvette is…”

Eek – Yvette is nothing! That’s highly unlikely to EVER happen!

The next read:

“Yvette is O”

No, not ‘Om’; not ‘OhMiGod’ – just ‘O’. Bloody muppet. Not at all intentional of course (bloody fat figners on the intuitive keys built into the LCD screen I was cursing to my self)

The final:

“Yvette is loving her new Blackberry’ Whew!

And a couple of quick deletions of the prior two posts and my online reputation was ceremoniously redeemed with me cursing my fingers that suddenly seemed very fat when it came to dealings with the SurePress™ touch screen.

But that wasn’t the end of the struggle with the new technology. And all of this may come as a surprise to those of you who may consider me as very techie. The funny thing is that while I am very technical minded on some levels, when it comes to a few gadgets, including phones I really do struggle sometimes.

My theory on it is that it’s because I’m a Gen X/ Gen Y cusper. You see if I were purely a Gen X I may not have even bothered with the Blackberry. A nice looking, functional handheld phone with perhaps a few bells and whistles in the form of say a camera and Bluetooth might have been more than enough for me to handle. Sound familiar?

And if I were a Gen Y I probably would have been in the iPhone queue when they were realised in Australia or switching plans well before the expired just to get my hands on the Blackberry and playing with my phone non stop ever since I got it to get it all totally ’souped up’.

Instead I sit somewhere in the middle as a true cusper would. You see I’m techie enough to have taken the leap of faith into going 3G but I’m also phobic enough to have stalled a number of standard procedures like synching the phone with my Outlook (one of it’s main features), and getting all my old contacts off my old sim and on to my new phone which the sales rep in the phone shop was unable to complete for me and encouraged me to seek more help on (with hundreds of names, even with a bit of a cull the re-entering manually of them is totally out of the question).

I’m also struggling with blue tooth (never had a phone that offers this before) and getting my ring tone to be suitably ‘cool’ and ‘me’ and ‘non standard’ (never been one for common!) I hope to have a fav tune ringing out every time my phone goes within the next 24 hours.

I’m also planning to up the anti on my twittering regularity and figure my new piece of equipment will assist me in making this happen (as will my PA!)

On a TOTAL sideline, ever wondered how a mobile phone like mine ends up with the name of a wild berry fruit??

Like any product or service, it’s not just about creating the thing or conceiving the concept, there’s a LOT in a name. A previous blog post I wrote about why we love blank canvasses when it comes to branding goes into my spin on this in more detail. If you’re looking at creating a new product or product line, offering a new service, re-branding or establishing a brand, READ THIS BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING!!!!

But in essence the name has to be cool (but not too cool or exclusionary), marketable to both early adopters and a broader audience and catchy/memorable. The name also has to be protectable and by that I mean be able to be protected by various trademarks and copyright laws . The combination of these factors can present a challenge to say the least. I know. Just recently I’ve tried and I’m still on the brain storm buzz for a new company I’m looking at starting (stay tuned on that one).

But just in case you’re the type that doesn’t mind a little mindless trivia from time to time here’s a couple of interesting insights into names I’ve mentioned in this little ditty and how they came to be (taken from http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/267197/how_10_famous_technology_products_got_their_names?pp=3&fp=39&fpid=26195)

BlackBerry

Canada’s Research in Motion called on Lexicon Branding to help name its new wireless e-mail device in 2001. The consultancy pushed RIM founders away from the word “e-mail,” which research shows can raise blood pressure. Instead, they looked for a name that would evoke joy and somehow give feelings of peace. After someone made the connection that the small buttons on the device resembled a bunch of seeds, Lexicon’s team explored names like strawberry, melon and various vegetables before settling on blackberry - a word both pleasing and which evoked the black color of the device.

Twitter

When cofounder Biz Stone saw the application that Jack Dorsey created in 2006 he was reminded of the way birds communicate: “Short bursts of information…Everyone is chirping, having a good time.” In response, Stone came up with “twttr,” and the group eventually added some vowels. It’s hard to think of a more evocative name in the tech world than twitter, but what began as what Stone described as “trivial” bursts of communication developed into a powerful means of networking, breaking news, and forum for the 44th US president’s campaign.

The importance of SEO (search engine optimisation)

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:11:00 GMT

Want to know why search engine optimisation is so important? Check out this video and listen to an exciting line-up of search engine optimisation (SEO) experts who attended a Web Wednesday event, a monthly internet and marketing related event run by award winning local creative agency, The Creative Collective.

At the event, these search engine optimisation specialists unguardedly shared their top tips and tricks on how they achieve top search engine rankings for their clients through SEO (search engine optimisation).

Edmund Pelgen of Market Reach, Bipul Kafley of OrganicwithSeo , Andrew Plimmer of SunCoast Internet and Lisa Evett of The Creative Collective featured on what was possibly the first ever panel to be held on the Sunshine Coast on the extremely popular topic of search engine optimisation.

In this clip they discuss the importance of search engine optimisation (seo) and how it has to be one of the most powerful marketing strategies currently available to business owners in any industry, in any location.

With what is going on in the current economic climate, it is absolutely critical that local businesses get super smart and super quick with securing leads and sales, particularly online.

Your website should really be the main source of your inquiries and sales. If it’s not, you need to ask yourself why and find out (among other things) whether it is featuring prominently on the first page of major search engines, such as Google. If it is, then you should notice an increase in the number of inquiries and or sales.

Since launching the Web Wednesday events in October 2008, The Creative Collective have regularly attracted sizeable numbers to their informal yet informative monthly internet related events, generally held in the middle of each month on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia.

A full copy of the SEO (search engine optimisation) event will be available on the Creative Collective website shortly. See www.thecreativecollective.com.au.

Stevie Awards Best Asian Entrepreneur finalist Yvette Adams

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:10:00 GMT

Yvette Adams director of the Creative Collective, a creative agency from Queensland, Australia gives her speech at the Stevie Awards for Women in Business held in New York City, November 2009.

Yvette was a finalist in the Best Asian Entrepreneur category. She is now regional coordinator for the Stevie awards in Australia and New Zealand. These are a great opportunity for any Australian or New Zealand business owner wanting to enter business awards.

Yvette was a finalist in the Asian Entrepreneur category.

Welcome to my Blog!

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:10:00 GMT

This is my first blog post on this website - this online business to be exact!

Feel free to grab a cup of tea and a cookie, put your feet up and take a look around. You'll find heaps of great content and information about my business, and there's plenty of goodies.

I hope you enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think!

10 things that you must do this year to stay in business

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:14:00 GMT

With all the scare-mongering that is going on in the media at the moment surrounding the downturn, recession, depression or basically badly blown out economy (or at least as they would have you believe), you could be forgiven for pulling down your blinds and hanging up the ‘out of business’ sign in your shop front. That is if you’ve even managed to hang on to your premises for this long or even have a physical store front since the advent of the internet.

But just like when I am running a business or marketing consult session with a client, I tend to encourage people to stop focusing on the negative or problems at hand and start coming up with possible solutions. A simple brain storm BEFORE the pressure really hits or even in the midst of a crisis is a good way to remain optimistic about the year ahead (and to bring out my inner hippie, a little positive energy all around never hurt anyone).

By focusing on some specific tasks that will put you in a better position, or give you a position in the first place if you are a new businesss on the block, you should begin to see real results.

My first posting this year is therefore 10 possible ‘solutions’ or suggested marketing activities/strategies that will suit most businesses that I encourage you to consider implementing in the interest of battening down the hatches.

And whilst it is certainly better to do something rather than nothing, I would strongly encourage you to employ multiple strategies so that if you find one doesn’t work, you can put more into the strategies that you are finding ARE working for you. Like everything in marketing, to some degree it’s a little bit of test, measure, refine then repeat.

So without further adieu, here’s what I recommend you get busy with in 2009:

1. Have a website that has been created post 2005, which you can quickly and easily updates yourself and that is search engine friendly. If your site is all of these things but has not yet been search engine optimized, get this into play pronto too.

2. Have a blog that syndicates content in multiple locations every time you make a new posting be it audio, video or word content. There are whispers that audio and video will increase in their level of importance when it comes to performance online in 2009.

3. Have a company Facebook page and depending on what you do, be exploring the capability of running demographically targeted ad campaigns through Facebook.

4. Get key company documents i.e. templates, forms, contacts, procedures and policies ONLINE utilizing technology such as wikis, Google Docs or otherwise where you can share and collaborate online and mobilize your business. If things are quieter than usual, there is no better time to get this key documentation for your business in place.

5. Explore other social media realms and possibilities i.e. digg, LinkedIn, twitter, You Tube etc

6. Make sure that in all your marketing material it is explicitly clear what you offer and what action you want them to take. If it’s not, change your marketing to something that is powerful and effective.

7. Know down to the lead and the last dollar what marketing activities out there are generating you in terms of inquiries and sales and stop or decrease all marketing activities that are not providing you with a good return on your investment.

8. Have a bullet proof data capture system for all incoming inquiries be they walk ins, fax, phone, email or otherwise whereby you ask for their name, contact number, email and how they heard about you. Ensure you have a system in place that you follow them up systematically until they convert into a paying customer.

9. Revive your de-activated clients – that is people who have not spent money with you in some time. Most businesses are sitting on a gold mine of information and ‘warm’ leads from people who have done business with them in the past, but who they have never since contacted to see if they can get an upsell or cross-sell from a re-contact or even a referral.

10. Set up a Google Alert so you are the first to know when mentions of your company, product or service are made online, be it good or bad coverage. You may also like to careful eye on your competitors through Google Alerts and other tools online to see how they are weathering the potentially rocky economic storm.

There are potentially way more than 10 things that could be on this list. I’d be interested to hear what items you think should have made a top 10 list when considering best practices for businesses of all sizes and across industries. Tell me what you think should make the list or comment on any of the suggestions in the list.

Yvette Adams is the director of the Creative Collective, a creative services company based in Queensland, Australia offering the full range of creative services including PR, awards applications, websites, internet marketing, seo, graphic design, print production, photography and more. They won the 2008 Queensland Small Business Champions Specialised Small Business award and Yvette won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year and has been a finalist in numerous other local, state, national and international business awards. For more info see: http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au

Why I threw my Local Directory straight out with the trash this week

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:17:00 GMT

Today I ceremoniously placed my brand new 2008/09 Local Directory (equivalent local version of The Yellow Pages) into my wheelie bin (trash can/rubbish) much to my father-in-laws horror. Damn it felt good!

It had already sat for two weeks, unopened, on my door step previous to my outlandish action and it felt good to finally dispose of the rain-sodden thing (though I do pity the poor person who had to lug the things around and deliver them facing rabid dogs, over-curious kids and lonely grannies like I once did as a Girl Guide many moons ago).

But I truly believe my ‘First Ever Dumping of The Local Directory’ is quite justified. As I explained to my father-in-law (aged 60 +) as he followed me to the bin stating reasons why I should reconsider (‘but you might need to look something up!’) anything I need to find out now days I can find out online.

I mean literally, if I need a doctor, a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker, they’re all bound to be online. And to be really blunt (and perhaps even risking offending some who haven’t quite their heads around the power of the internet yet) if they’re not online, with a website that gives me the information I need about them (and hopefully the ability to interact with them i.e. make an appointment, place an order, make an inquiry), I don’t really want to deal with them. Harsh but true.

You see given my age I fall right on the Generation X/Y cusp. Some of my traits tend to be more Gen X in nature – others more Y. I think my ceremonious dumping of the Local Directory is definitely displaying qualities of a true Gen Y.

Quite simply I can’t be bothered with a big heavy thick and ugly designed book (yes aesthetics are all important when it comes to Y’s view of the world) taking up valuable space in my home. I mean where would I put the thing? There’s the few kitchen drawers, but they’re overflowing already with utensils, cutlery, plastic bags and tea towels.

There’s the pantry, but that’s full of food, large size trays, cook books and more, and we have cordless phones and there is no real ‘possie’ where I have the luxury of gas-bagging for hours on the phone to family or mates who live inter-state or internationally. If I want to speak to them, I dial them up on Skype or web cam them through Facebook.

I can’t be bothered with the ‘letting my fingers do the walking’, I might get the person if I call them or I might not. Phone tag is not a game I enjoy (and I know I can be extremely difficult at times to ‘tag’ back).

And, quite simply, I know I can get the same information (and oh so much more!) from specific internet searches. Even better, I control the search, so I can get nice and relevant results coming up in priority order, not just some local cowboy company who happened to take out a full page in this year’s Yellow Pages or Local Directory. I’m all into supporting local by the way, I just don’t think the Local Directory or Yellow Pages is the only way to connect with the locals to do business with.

I know for sure that I’m not alone when it comes to the pendulum swing that is finally happening in regards to both Yellow Page and Local Directory advertising spend.

On average I do 3-5 paid consults a week with people who are seeking sometimes general and sometimes specific marketing advice. Usually the question of the allocation of marketing budgets comes up. The topic of whether Yellow Pages is worth spending the money has been coming up more and more frequently, I’d say just about every consult.

As the saying goes ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t teach it how to drink’ and that’s definitely a principle I try and live by when I meet with prospective or existing marketing consult clients. Rather than outright say ‘it’s a waste of money’ (because for a rare few it does work satisfactorily) I let them come to their own conclusions by asking them a few key questions about where their leads and sales are currently coming from, where they have come from previously, what spend they have made to acquire those leads and sales and whether there has been any movement there.

What I’m hearing is that all of them are experiencing a significant decline in the number of leads (if any) they are getting via the Local Directory or Yellow Pages and all are more than ready to re-allocate that spend elsewhere (which is great news for my company and any one else in the game looking to assist them spend their money wisely J). Many of them are particularly interested in re-allocating it to the online medium.

And this isn’t just with a specific industry or size company I’m talking about. This goes for companies of all shapes and sizes (in recent times a beauty salon, a tile cleaning company and a gym).

The clever ones who are actually tracking their leads on a weekly or monthly basis (I strongly encourage you to do this if you are not already) can see that the figures don’t lie – if they compare their spend with their return, it becomes very simple to work out which promotional/advertising/marketing activities are working and which are not.

Despite these figures, I’ve seen clients see the figures, understand the figures but still not be prepared to give up the Yellow Pages or Local Directory spending just yet. Because WHAT IF THEY MISS OUT ON SOME CUSTOMERS? I’ll answer that question with a question: ‘How many more customers could you have if you tried some new marketing mediums?’

I personally as a company do not feature in the Local Directory or Yellow Pages at all (and if I do, it’s a free listing that some body else has organized for me). I don’t mind divulging however that I have been tempted.

They’re slick sales people after all, and they play on all the usual feelings associated with fear to get you to feel like you would be mad not to throw some money at them. They make you believe that you could not possibly survive as a business without featuring in their ‘book’. I do totally understand how convincing they can be.

But as a marketing professional I would like to challenge you today by getting you to ask yourself two REALLY important questions when it comes to your Local Directory or Yellow Pages marketing whether you’re doing it now or are considering doing it in the future:

1) Do you track the leads/sales you are getting from their marketing mediums (both the online and the offline version if you feature in both) right down to the dollar and the cent?
2) Have you sat down and worked out your cost per lead and your cost per sale generated from these mediums, and others to see which ones are providing the most leads and/or sales for the lowest cost? Could you make it a priority to do so?

The Christmas break is a great time to do this sort of analysis on your company’s marketing spend so you can look to make any changes you think are required in the New Year. Crunch your numbers and if you’re feeling really brave, choose to dispose of your copy (perhaps you could even use them for a bon fire, Christmas paper or otherwise – let me know your innovative disposal methods).

Trust me, it feels great!

Really Simple Syndication….RSS and you!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:23:00 GMT

Yvette Adams, Director of The Creative Collective explores RSS feeds on her regular Tuesday afternoon slot on ABC Coast FM.

RSS stands for really simple syndication, and as the name suggests, it is a convenient way for you to receive information/content feeds from a variety of different online sources.

The US is 2-3 years ahead when it comes to online marketing? I don’t think so…

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:43:00 GMT

So I’m fresh back from my first ever business trip to New York (with a little time for pleasure of course) who I had been reminded on several occasions prior to departure were ‘2-3 years ahead of Australia when it comes to online marketing’. But from my few days experience with the few people I did come into contact with, I was pleasantly surprised and reassured…

Technorati Profile

My first opportunity to delve into the mind of US business owners was at the International Stevie awards for Women held at the Marriott Marquis on Broadway. I was a finalist in the Asian entrepreneur category and made sure I arrived at the event in time for the one hour networking session prior to the ceremony.

Rather than beating around with small talk I cut to the chase by asking ‘what are you currently focusing on from a marketing perspective and what are your plans for 2009?” They were more than happy to share…

A yoga instructor from Santa Barbara confessed that she is currently making a fitness series of short vlogs (or videos blogs) for download to allow busy mums and others who prefer to work out from home for whatever reason, the opportunity to do so.

The corporate fitness instructor standing at the lean to also confessed she is getting big into video – hers on the contrary however are live events where she fitness instructs and with just a few dumbbells in hand (I guess canned food would even do) you can join in with her via a live video stream, also from the comfort of your own home. Can’t make the time? No problem. It’ll be recorded.

Common theme going on here you think? Yes definitely.

PREDICITON NO 1: Everybody will continue to get on to the online video bandwagon.

Just like ebooks, conference calls and audios are not out of the reach of anybody now given the free or cheap technology we can access to become veritable video producers. See my previous blog on how you can create and edit your own video, and another on how you can promote your videos and amass an online following. You’re only letting yourself down if you are putting any pie in the sky dream of creating content like this into the ‘too hard basket’

***

Another opportunity I had to tap into the brains of business people was a whirlwind side line trip I took to see one of my international clients in Greensboro, North Carolina, Kindermusik International.

They’ve been focusing on social media of late, as we are too in Australia and New Zealand on their behalf. In just 2 months of having a Facebook page, they’ve amassed ‘fans’ of 500. Difficult to achieve? No. As easy as listing your page and making a mention once in fact. The effect and possibilities? MASSIVE. With partners in many countries and 100,000 active parents on their books, I bet they’ll have a large community of music loving parents and kids in no time. And we’ll be right there driving the Australia/New Zealand region for them.

PREDICITION NO 2: Having a company Facebook page will become a mandatory requirement if you want to succeed online. If you haven’t got one, check out this blog post on how you can do so.

*****

My final interaction with a business owner in the States was the general manager of a recording studio in North Carolina. As I shook her hand for the first time she announced ‘I’ve just checked out your blog and signed up for your newsletter’.

‘What did you think?’ I asked back excited about building my community in America.

‘Very good,” she said. ‘I enjoyed reading your latest post about online video – that’s where we’re at.’

‘Post a comment,’ I encouraged her. ‘I’d love to know more about what you think as I continue to write more.’

Now I’ll let you in on a little secret here. I actually wrote that post a week ago before I left, knowing I’d possibly be too busy in New York to throw one up while away. I set it on a timer and it only went live yesterday. Cool huh? The power of word press.

PREDICITION NO 3: Having a company blog that you regularly update will become a mandatory requirement if you want to succeed online. If you haven’t got one, check out this blog post on how you can do so.

All in all, just as my experiences travelling over 40 countries in a 7 year period before I finally settled down in 2004 in Australia (let me tell you though, this New York rendevous has left my feet super itchy) again I experienced the fact that as diverse as the world and it’s people truly are, and as mind-boggling fast and vast the internet and technology is, through the connectivity now available to us, the more on par we become. I know it sounds like the HSBC bank ads every world traveler is subjected to at the airports (I love those ads by the way – great intellect and creative behind them), but in my eyes, it’s true.

As cliché as it sounds, the world is definitely getting smaller and we’re definitely getting more similar – like it or lump it.

Where once the fashion world was years, maybe decades ahead in New York, it’s now a season ahead or maybe not definably even behind or ahead, just varied. The fashion buyer from Melbourne I met on my flight home who cruises to New York, LA, London and Paris each season was testament to that. She’s regularly charged with buying up two suitcase loads of clothes from all the top stores in those location to modify, manufacture in Asia and have in store for our next down under winter next season (nice job huh girls?)

Where once the food was dramatically different, sometimes unidentifiable by taste, smell and sight, it’s now often something we’ve had before, or a modern take on a traditional meal. The pastrami on rye with mustard I was treated to at Katz deli was testament to that. Akin to my grandmother’s corn beef sandwiches, or the 24 hour sandwich joint in Brick Lane, London, it was however most definitely a New York experience, and some of the most tender meat I’ve ever had, apart from maybe Argentinian steaks. (Thanks Howie J)

Where once the music was cutting edge and a new sound, with the advent of the MP3 playing DJs (yes in downtown New York – no vinyl to be seen anywhere) the mix of tunes are familiar and dance inducing rather than completely unknown and intimidating. And even if we don’t know them, we could have them downloaded within minutes of getting a name to enjoy many times over.

On a more profound note, as fellow human beings, we all continue to have the inate need to share our stories, to feel loved, to ‘make it’ in this fast changing world, and we all have to deal with our dreams, fears and obstacles along the way.

From what I saw, the gap in technology, like everything else, has narrowed dramatically. 2-3 years? I’d say more like 6 months – a year. Maximum.

Getting traffic to your website using video clips

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:45:00 GMT

In my continual quest as an internet guinea pig (read about last week’s social experiment with social networking here), this week my social experiment on myself was to see just how powerful placing video online can be for views of the actual footage and thereafter traffic to your website.

So here’s what I did. Back in April I was contacted by a production company in Sydney asking me if I would like to be on a new business/lifestyle show called Business Sense being produced on Sky Business. Naturally I said ‘YES!’ They’d come into contact with me in the first place because of my placing as Queensland Small Business Champions Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2007 (for more information on how much I believe in the power of entering business awards, see a previous blog entry here)

Any-hoo (purposeful Canadian eloquency), apart from the FANTASTIC media coverage on not only Sky Business Channel in October 2008 but also on the Vodafone Australia website and Qantas Inflight TV (and at some stage Channel 9 too I believe) they sent all participants both a high definition copy of their clips to show of course the eager friends and family and also a low res, ready to go version for the online medium. Whew – no foray into video production for me to do!

Now that’s a little bit lucky and I know not all of you reading this blog will have access to something as professional as this delivered to your letterbox ready to go BUT I bet that many of you do possibly have television media coverage of your advertisement, an interview you’ve done or even some kind of sales tool you had cut (if you don’t see this blog entry with some tips on how to cut a video clip really easily and really cheaply).

Anyways, I decided first to have a dabble with the almighty YouTube. If you’re under the age of 25 years, you’ve probably more than likely visited this website once or twice. If you’re like my 16 year old exchange student from Brazil you probably live on the thing preferring it to television (in fact he downloads and watches all his favourite shows from home in Portguese that he can’t obviously get here). If you’re a Gen X or older, chances are you’ve heard of it in the media, but probably never dabbled.

Whether you’ve visited it or not, the first thing you need to do before you place a video online is register for an account. It’s a quick, easy and painless process and it won’t cost you a single cent. The process is much the same as applying for a free email account on one of the free online email services such as hotmail, yahoo, gmail and so on (interesting side bar – multiple account names I tried to get had all been taken. I ended up having to go for a ‘gangsta’ version of my company name ‘dacreativecollective’ rather than my preferred ‘thecreativecollective’. My younger staff think it’s hysterical.

In just 5 days I’ve had 45 views. That’s right, 45 different people have logged into and somehow found me on YouTube and checked out what I had to say. That’s pretty cheap marketing right?

Now I don’t know who these people are, where they came from or what part of my title, description or tags (essential key words you place when you upload the file for people to find your clip on) but they’re viewers non the less and I have definitely noticed my web stats have taken a nice little spike too.

What I’m now playing with and am really excited about it www.TubeMogul.com. TubeMogul is a free service that provides a single point for deploying uploads to the top video sharing sites, and powerful analytics on who, what, and how videos are being viewed. So rather than uploading it to You Tube and sitting back, when you post to TubeMogul you can upload to You Tube, Viddler, Vimeo, Veoh, Google Video and a bunch of others ALL IN ONE GO.

Stay tuned for the next update on how my TubeMoguling goes and in the mean time watch the video clip I’m referring to on You Tube now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb9ky5PmaAs

Using social networking sites for international business networking

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:47:00 GMT

What do you do if you are about to go to a city on the other side of the world for a business event where you know nobody and have never been before? Network online prior to departure of course!

I’m off to New York this week to compete at the international women’s awards, The Stevie Awards where I am a finalist in the Best Asian Entrepreneur category. And guess what? Even though I travelled for seven years in over 40 countries prior to settling on the Sunshine Coast at the end of 2004 I have never made it to the east coast of America (though my brother used to live in California) and I don’t know a single soul there.

Due to my work commitments and the logistics of travelling with a young family (my kids are just 4 years and 1 years), I’ve made the tough decision to go it alone, but ever thinking ahead, the other week I decided to perform a little social experiment on myself by placing postings on various social networking websites such as Facebook, Linkedin.com and others to see just how powerful a tool they could be.

Within days I received in excess of 40 responses from people I have a close and recent personal or professional relationship with, plus those I had literally not spoken to in over 10 years, all keen to share their tips, tricks and insights into how to make the most of my time there. Whilst some were of a ‘take the subway to this place, it’s really cool’ type of thing, others were offers of formal business introductions to some really excellent contacts.

Just one offer has resulted in me being a ‘guest of honour’ at the New Zealand Trade and Enterprises Annual Networking function which will take place within hours of me getting off the plane in New York. I will literally either have to get ready in the yellow taxi on the way there (I can’t wait to hail my first for real NY yellow cab!) or do the quickest change in the world at my hotel room before shooting off to the function.

I used to be fairly heavily involved in the New Zealand expat community in London and I know from those days the incredible contacts and opportunities that can arise from events like this. So I have fore-warned them that I may be somewhat dishevelled from a long flight but that I’ll certainly be there - I feel the opportunity is too good to pass up and with my time there so limited I want to make the most of every moment!

As a result of my online networking, I’ve also got meetings lined up with a brand consultant, an advertising agency, and others relevant to her field in the hope of in forming trans-Pacfici strategic alliances. With the recent economic developments including fluctuations in the exchange rates, I’m hoping to pick up further American or international clients (we currently works with several) interested in contracting creatives in Australia at a lesser price than they would pay for local talent.

In the past week or so I’ve been running advanced searches on Linkedin.com using parameters such as ‘New York City’ and my industry and then from the lengthy list it returns, scanning through the names and positions to see what potential synergies I might have with them and whether I can tee up further meetings. I’m currently liaising with one guy whose company has been named one of top 130 fastest growing non-public companies in the US.

International clients work very well for us – we start working on things when they go to bed and by the time they’re back at their desks, the job is there waiting for them. They also seem to really appreciate the objectivity we can offer them coming at it with a fresh pair of eyes from over here.

So if you’d like to expand your horizons further afield than your own backyard when it comes to business, or if you’re going to a city and figure you may as well do some networking while you’re there, don’t forget that online networking is your friend. The world truly is a smaller place these days.

Web Wise Radio - Reclaim your inbox!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:48:00 GMT

Your inbox could be compared to a party that gets gate crashed. What with the viagara, sex toys and enlarged penises, not to mention the prospective Nigerian friends, it can all get a bit chaotic in there. Find out some great tips on how you can ‘reclaim your inbox’ from the perils of spam, junk and day to day living.

No cost or low cost business tools to help you succeed online

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:48:00 GMT

If you are in business for yourself, or if you want to be, it is quite possible that you want more clients AND that if you service your existing clients better you’ll retain more of them. What a lot of small business owners out there don’t realise, are that there are some fabulous NO COST or LOW COST services out there right now which you can get using which will save you TIME and/or MONEY. Like the sound of that? Good, well then read on…

Please do take a moment to read through these and even more importantly IMPLEMENT THEM because they could be the difference between more sales, or hours saved in any given day, week, month or year.

IF YOUR OBJECTIVE IS TO… Accept money online

Want to start accepting money online? Think it will cost you the earth to do so? Wrong! Simply follow these two quick and easy steps.

STEP 1 - Register for a paypal account – TO DO IT CLICK HERE NOW: https://www.paypal.com/nz/mrb/pal=U5ZECN29EGGAE

What is it? Think of paypal as having another online bank account. You can accept m*oney into this online account, and pay for things from this online account. You can also link this account to an offline account (i.e. your normal personal or business bank account).

What does it cost? Free if you set it up yourself, however per transaction charges do apply.

IMPORTANT NOTES ON THIS – Even if you already have a paypal account for personal use (i.e. to buy on ebay!) we strongly recommend you get a separate account for BUSINESS. Just like your normal bank accounts, if you keep business trading very seperate from personal trading, it is much easier for your accountant or book keeper (or you) to administrate your books at the end of the BAS quarter or tax year

STEP 2 - Register for Freshbooks – Raise invoices and accept money online: https://thecreativecollective.freshbooks.com/signup/

What is it: FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you time and makes you look professional . Through it you can easily create, send and manage invoices, Track time (for you and your staff), Send invoices by email or US post, Accept payment with PayPal, Authorize.Net and more, Automatically send invoices and late payment notices, Create robust reports and import/export your data.

What does it cost? You can sign up for a free no obligation account for 30 days here:
https://thecreativecollective.freshbooks.com/signup/ and have a play with it and thereafter there are a variety of packages available starting from $14.95 per month for up to 25 active clients, $27 for up to 100 active clients and $39 for up to 500 clients.

IMPORTANT NOTES ON THIS – Prices quoted are in US dollars.

Congratulations, once you have created these two quick and easy steps above, you are now in the position to create and issue invoices to your customers/clients and accept money online via credit card! How good is that?!

OBJECTIVE 2 - IF YOU GET TOO MANY DISRUPTIVE PHONE CALLS TO GET ON WITH THE JOB AT HAND… Have someone answer the phone, every time so you don’t miss out on valuable business or opportunities (live phone answering service)

Now that you have your accounts sorted out, let’s move on to getting those phone calls answered every time by a live person, even if you’re busy taking classes so you don’t miss out on any new business or opportunities. If you really want your business to grow, you need that professional front and a live answering service is the cheapest receptionist you’ll ever employ!

I have used a live answering service company in Australia called http://www.AllTel.com.au for the past 2 months and found them to be okay. Plans start from $29aud per month for 20 calls answered. Each excess call is charged at $1.50 on this plan. The number of calls you can receive within a monthly plan increase with the plan you go on, and the amount you pay for each excess call decreases. Just think though, what could missing just one call mean for you? A lost parent who could have been a registration? 3 terms of registrations? 3 years of registrations?

Calls are answer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and each call that is answered by the service will be (if you request it on set up) emailed and texted to you immediately so you can screen calls and get back to them in priority order. This allows you to ‘chunk’ your time, making you more efficient.

IF YOU WANT LIKE TO Enjoy cheaper phone calls

I know many people are on to this already, but in case you’re not, here’s a great way to enjoy free (that’s right free!) phone calls to other people who have the same service set up. All you need is a headset with a microphone (from $20 from most electronic stores)

Skype – Make free PC to PC calls from your computer – yep free calls to other people on Skype and great rates to phones and mobiles across the world. And the sound quality (well most of the time) is excellent, too – keep Skype running all day and it’s like you’re in the same room as the person you’re talking to. Download the f*ree software (yep, free!) here: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/windows/

GoogleTalk – Another free way to talk online is Google Talk (of course they’re on the bandwagon too!) Check it out or download it here: http://www.google.com/talk/

Put a human face to your sales proposition - Record and upload videos online

The video medium is one of our newest and most powerful marketing formats.

If you can make a point of recording yourself on camera interacting doing what you do best, or finding an even more creative way of displaying to viewers whether they be prospective clients or existing clients WHO YOU ARE, and WHAT YOU DO, this can become a powerful marketing resource in your marketing arsenal.

So here are your options to achieve this:

STEP 1 – Create footage

1) Record yourself on a home handycam/video cam or similar

2) Record yourself on a phone or camera with video capability – note it will be important to check that it is of a quality that will work online

3) Use your webcam with the record feature on www.Viddler.com . Try it out now!

4) Get some tips from You Tube on how to produce great footage: http://au.youtube.com/t/yt_handbook_produce

STEP 2 – Upload footage online

This depends what your goals are. Here’s our recommendations:
For posting: If you just want to get a video clip online and share it with friends via email or on your own blog, Vimeo wins for its speed, ease-of-use, and simple playback functions. It also lets users download the original file, and features some light community features (note that a new version is launching very soon). One of the few sites I used that I never had a problem with. Alternate choice: Videoegg.

For viewership: If you want to step up to more community features and get widespread viewership of your viral clip, YouTube gets the job done with a lot less hassle than vSocial or Grouper.

For editing: If you want to alter your video online in any way–through editing, remixing, or combining your clips with those from other users–then head on over to Jumpcut and don’t look back. Jumpcut really offers the first leap forward in online video sharing, and is worth a look even if you have no use for editing features (its full-fledged community is launching “very soon”). Alternate choice: none, yet, although Motionbox looks to be a potential competitor.

www.youtube.com – Founded in February 2005Youtube has quicky become the pre-eminent technology when it comes to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on www.YouTube.com and across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email.

Others you might like to see include:

• http://video.google.com
• http://www.viddler.com

Don’t worry - more help is at hand….

On a final note if you liked these tips and would like to be sent out more useful tips, upcoming events and other special offers for my services, register to be on my database here:

http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/html/cms/34/sign-up-to-our-newsletter

If you would like to receive RSS Feeds in the form of informative articles on tips and tricks related to succeeding online and your marketing strategies, sign up to my blog here and you’ll receive an email each time I, or one of my magnificent team members make a new post (on average monthly) go here: http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=2251782 .

And finally if you would like to become a fan of our company on our Facebook page click here: http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Maroochydore-Australia/The-Creative-Collective/20953928836

Happy researching and reading!

Wwwhat’s up with Aussie Businesses & the web?

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:49:00 GMT

I am confounded as to the reason why more Australian businesses aren’t utilising the power of the web. Not only am I struck daily with businesses that do not have up-to-date information on their website, the content is not well written, nor structured and many designs leave a lot to be desired.

While many may quote a lack of time/resources/know-how as to why their websites are in such a sorry state, the availability of professional designers (at reasonable prices) leaves little room for excuses.Having said that, I am also astonished that many web designers/developers are creating website that are not search-engine friendly. Perhaps people do not realise that a website not only has to be well presented (and professional i.e. so it looks like it wasn’t created in your uncle’s, cousin’s, friend’s garage), it has to have specific and considered RELEVANT content.

A website simply will not be found for keywords or phrases that do not appear in the bodytext and meta information of the site. (If you do not know what meta information is, contact me for more information).The Search Engine Optimisation services I offer clients facilitates high performing websites for the generation of sales, qualified leads, or information dissemination and list building.

Perhaps Aussie business will catch up with the rest of the world sooner rather than later - that is my hope, as websites can produce more than your highest paid salesperson at a fraction of the cost with very little ongoing investment. (A well designed and written website only needs annual reviews of static content unless your product/service offering changes significantly. This excludes Web 2.0 content).

Each week I will give one of my Wwwebsite ‘gems’ that I hope you will find helpful in the design and development of your own website(s).

Web gem 1: Content - Who you areState explicitly in the top third of your website who you are, what you do, and why the person who has found your site should stay to find out more. If you do this well (succinctly and clearly) you will reduce your website’s ‘bounce-rate’ substantially. I will talk about bounce-rates next week.

Lisa Evett “SEO Guru”
http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au

The reward of business awards

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:49:00 GMT

We think we’re still in shock but on Saturday we won another business award - Queensland Small Business Chamions Specialised Small Business!

Last year I was crowned Queensland Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the same awards but at age 31 I was ‘too old’ to compete in the Young Entrepreneur Category so it was out of the small pond and into the big ocean for little fish me.

Knowing I had my moment of glory last year I had booked my ticket to the awards dinner held in Brisbane and a night’s accommodation with my partner (and a welcome break from my little darlings - Rio (4) and Matisse (1)), to support a number of clients - Medicine on Second (a Maroochydore based medical practice), Flash Fotos (a professional photography studio also based in Maroochydore) and BuyaShed.com.au, an Ipswich based online based business selling garden sheds who were also up as finalists at the awards - no really!

So it was a real surprise to come home with a trophy again this year – I still can’t believe it!

If you receive my newsletter already (if not, sign up here http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/html/cms/34/sign-up-to-our-newsletter) you’ll have heard me go on about the benefits of entering business awards before. But in previous communications I’ve extolled the virtues of the more obvious benefits of entering awards like networking, profiling, a reason to conduct a PR campaign, defining your direction (i.e. looking back to look forwards), building trust and credibility with prospective clients and current ones plus more.

But you know, there’s more reasons why if you are in business you really should give some thought to entering business awards now or in the future:

Write it off as a tax - I truly couldn’t think of a more fun way to clock up expenses. Check with the ATO first in terms of your industry, but generally when it comes to awards nights you buy the ticket, get a really nice meal, drinks, entertainment and a good time all as a tax write off!

Meet influencers and get a chance to have your say - I spoke with Rob Messenger, Member for Burnett Shadow Minister for Tourism, Regional Development, Small Business and Industry for at least an hour after the awards and was completely impressed by his approachable and down to earth manner, and his genuine interest in what I had to say. He asked me all about what was important to me as a small business operator and what he could possibly do for others like me. Boy did I make the most of the opportunity! I suggested tax breaks for creatives as is the case in Ireland for writers, musicians, artists and the like; incentives for taking on graduates straight out of Uni who obviously still require training yet don’t fall under any of the trainee schemes and a bunch of other stuff. He gave me his email address afterwards so if any one has a suggestion on what what help you, let me know!

You get to buy a new outfit - Okay so this benefit might be more one for the girls, but between my workload and kids, it’s not often I make time for myself to hit the shops and find not only a new dress but the whole kit and kaboodle - the shoes, the jewellery, make up, and more. I may not do this often, but at least entering awards means I will look to kit myself out at least once a year!

Spend quality time with your clients - I sat with two sets of my clients on the night, and another set came over regularly to chat between breaks. One of the finalists on the night (who eventually one the New Business Category) even saw fit to take 10 of their chiropractic clients along. Now that level of friendship really says something! You know you’ve really succeeded when a client becomes a friend - something I regularly aspire to.

Check out a new city - These awards were held in Brisbane and having been born and bred in Wellington and having lived in London for 7 years I LOVE BIG CITIES! Proper shops with proper window displays, massive entrances, the big labels, the kitchy souvenir shops - I love it all. What better excuse for a weekend break than having to attend an award in a city you may not be familiar with.

I entered another award recently which is an international one. A good result could see me heading to New York. Fingers and Toes and crossed for that one. Never been but love to!

Until next time…

Yvette
http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au

Web Wise Radio - All Hail Google

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:50:00 GMT

Most of us run searches on Google, but in our first radio show we explain how Google has many other practical applications available FOR FREE that you might not otherwise have been aware of.

Download Web Wise Radio Show - All Hail Google

Why we love ‘blank canvasses’ when it comes to branding…

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:52:00 GMT

Recently an old work colleague came to me and said she was going to set up her own business. She asked me how to go about getting it set up in the fastest and most cost effective and time effective manner.

What I loved best about her approach is that she came to me as a ‘blank canvas’. Unlike many over-enthusiastic clients I often deal with, she hadn’t come up with a business name over a glass of wine with a friend on a Friday night and then rushed out and business name registered it the very next given opportunity, or jumped online and thought she was netting herself a bargain by buying the domain name herself.

Time and time again, I’ve seen businesses who spend their $200 odd dollars on company registration, only to discover after the fact that their desired domain name, company name or trademark is not in fact available. Ouch! There goes 200 bucks down the gurgler! I’ve also seen businesses pay $100 for a domain name for 1 year thinking that this must be the going rate and that by doing it themselves they’re saving a few dollars, when it reality, we can organise our clients most domain suffixes for $39 - $49 for a two year period any day of the week.

Whilst some people are just independent souls who like ‘doing things for themselves’ my preferred client is someone who let’s us guide them through the entire process, NOT because it spells dollars for us AT ALL, but rather because it means we can help navigate them through the many strategic decisions that need to be made at this crucial point in their business to set them on the best possible foot forward for the future.

I truly believe that the success of a business in today’s era is largely determined by the strength of the brand and the company’s website, and the website success is based on two equally powerful drivers; how well it is presented to the user, and how well it is written for Google.

Therefore choosing a company name, and thereafter a domain name which is ‘Google-Friendly’ is a powerful ‘leg up’ you can get from the outset, if careful consideration is given.

In the branding process we tend to take a ‘blanket approach.’

We through a creative brief out to a network of creatives who will all contribute possible company names in a fast 48 hour turn around period. By getting lots of heads ‘on it’, we are effectively looking at the proposition from all angles that you as a business owner would most probably not be able to do. We also feed off one another, with one suggesting a word or a theme or angle of a certain vein, that triggers another to contribute something else that might just end up being the winner on the day.

Once we have a wide range of names in the mix, we’ll then weed out the trash and categorise the suggested names into categories of similar themes.

We’ll then pull out our list of selected picks, opting for something that will be easily understood, easily remembered, easily repeated, and that has some overall branding strategy behind it (possible slogans, looks, thought behind the name choice) whilst encompassing the brief we extract from the client on items such as the intended target market, product range, chance of diversification, competitors currently operating in the same market, point of difference and so on.

We then throw it back to the client to get buy in, and soon enough we have a handful of names that are hot contenders. At this point we start doing our due diligence on the potential names which in Australia basically involves checking http://www.asic.gov.au for similar company names, http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au for trademarks and http://domains.thecreativecollective.com.au/DomainShop/php/register.php for available domain names.

If all of these come up available (or without substantial competition), we know we’re almost open for business when it comes to finding the right name.

So next time you’re thinking of creating a new single product, product line, company, service, campaign initiative, or naming a band, event, child or pet rock, don’t presume over a bottle of wine on a Friday night that you ’should’ve got into marketing you’re such a goddamn genius’. Run it by some professionals and you’ll end up saving yourself a lot of time, energy and money in the long run.

Cool new technology to check out

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:52:00 GMT

I have been burning the midnight oil lately (again) even though I make repeated promises to myself that I will ‘go to bed earlier’! But you see, I can’t help it, because I keep discovering the COOLEST new technologies online, then I have to have a little download, a little play and a little implementation and then what do you know, it’s after midnight again.

It’s funny how it happens though, because just the other day I was thinking, ‘you know it would be really cool if there were some technology that did this kind of thing relative to my business’.

And what do you know? The types of things I find myself wishing for often are things that are already out there, you just have to allow yourself to have those thoughts, and then go out and look for them!

We have creative contractors dotted all over Australia and even some internationally so issues facing us as an organisation is the ability to centralise data in one location online which others can tap into, edit and save again. Communication is also a biggie for us. It sometimes feels like in the time it takes putting together the brief, we might as well have just done the job ourselves.

So here’s a couple of little tip offs for this issue that I hope will save you some time, energy and money.

Welcome to the World of 2.0 where a company called 37signals, are pumping out ‘web based applications that get things done the simple way.

Their offerings include:

1) Basecamp (click on the button below to check it out)

Basecamp is their flagship product which covers off project management and collaboration. Collaborate with your team and clients. Schedules, tasks, files, messages, and more.

2) Highrise - (click on the button below to check it out)

Their newest product which is an online contact manager and simple CRM (client relationship manager). Keep track of who your business talks to, what was said, and what to do next.

3) Backpack (click on the button below to check it out)

Just updated! Intranet, group calendar, organizer. Share info, schedules, documents, and to-dos across your company, group, or organization.

Happy ‘burning the midnight oil’!

When it comes to Marketing, Follow Every Lead, Every Connection, Every Offer That Comes Your Way

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:51:00 GMT

Throughout my career I’ve landed myself some pretty cushy numbers. There was the free one year round-the-world trip ticket and digital camera gig I scored from a travel agency in London, all because I decided to do a pitch to them. I didn’t work for them. They didn’t know me from a bar of soap. But I gave them a pitch and they went for it!!

Then there was the regular gig writing restaurant reviews for a major travel magazine in London. It wasn’t exactly ‘objective’ because of the fact the restaurant in question knew you were coming and so literally waited on you ‘hand and foot’. But if you could ignore the staff’s inclination to over-do the tentativeness, there was always a free three course meal and bottle of wine thrown in so you could evaluate the experience, and these were all in restaurants that I could never have otherwise afforded to dine in.

And now there’s my home based business. Ugg boots on underneath the desk, as many coffee breaks as I feel like and if I want to turn of the phones and head to the beach, or it’s time to get the kids from day care on the three days a week they go, so be it.

Often people have asked me ‘how I do it?’ How do I snitch these seemingly golden opportunities, jobs, contacts while they struggle along, just hoping, wishing something good will come along for them too.

I’ll let you in on one of my biggest life secrets that can see things change for you in a positive way: Follow Every Lead, Every Connection and Every Offer That Comes Your Way. Sounds simple but do you actually live by this?

How many times have you received a phone call and written down the number of a scrap of paper and lost it? Or met someone at an event you really ‘clicked with’ made every promise under the sun about ‘doing stuff together’, none of which eventuated. What you need to remind yourself is that although it can be a juggle to get everything done in any given business day, week, month or year, that one item you overlook, that one person you forget to ring back or that one business card you file and never do connect with, could be have been your opportunity of a lifetime.

Now I’m a big believer the ‘opportunity of a lifetime’ comes along regularly too, so don’t despair if you think yours may have already been and gone and it’s all doom and gloom from here. But even with this philosophy, I’ve almost missed the boat before on some biggies.

Only a few months ago, I was feeling like I was fairly on top of my inbox, when a quick retrace of my steps just to double check (a practice I encourage at least once a week) revealed an email I had previously overlooked. The contents of it? Only the opportunity to feature on a new business show being produced for Sky Business channel international – that’s all!

As you can imagine, boy did I ‘jump to’ but I couldn’t help but thinking afterwards, ‘what if I hadn’t done that back track?’ ‘what if I had only stumbled over it after too much time had passed?’ The opportunity may very well have been lost.

The other key to being presented these opportunities is to position yourself as best you can to receive them, to believe they really can happen AND to be proactive about putting yourself forward for them too.

Don’t just wait for them to happen – make them happen!

Just think how many other twenty-somethings in London would have fantasized about travelling full time like I did on a free round the world ticket, but how many actually had the iniatiive to put some kind of proposal together and quite simply…ask!

Ask and you shall receive might be an old and well used adage, but there’s a lot of truth in it too. Take some time out to consider what opportunities would be just perfect at this point in time, be it for your career, business, love life, family or living arrangement and once you’ve dreamed it, write it down and commit to making the time to make it happen. You’ll be amazed at what comes to you once you make clear exactly what it is you want in your life.

When the opportunities do start rolling in (and they will!) be open minded enough to recognize the various disguises they sometimes come in to keep you on your toes, open minded enough to morph them into something that suits you better than the initial offering and pounce!

Follow Every Lead, Every Connection, Every Offer That Comes Your Way and you’ll be glad you did.

Yvette Adams is the director of the Creative Collective http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au, a creative services company based in Queensland, Australia offering the full range of creative services including PR, awards applications, websites, internet marketing, seo, graphic design, print production, photography and more. They won the 2008 Queensland Small Business Champions Specialised Small Business award and Yvette won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year and has been a finalist in numerous other local, state, national and international business awards.

Six computer maintenance tips that will keep that baby working

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:51:00 GMT

Just because I build websites, some people seem to think that I know EVERYTHING about computers. I guess in some cases I may know more than them and seeing as I always make a point of not scaring people with tech speak, I’m an easy target. I don’t mind if it’s something quick and easy I can help with. And there are a number of things that really are very quick and easy which everyone should be doing on a regular basis when it comes to general computer maintenance and best practice.

These include:

1) Deleting temporary files and cookies - The more time you spend on the Internet the more temporary Internet files you accumulate. These files can congest your Internet & put a lag on your general computer usage. You should delete these files from time to time, to do this follow these three simple steps below; Right click on your Internet Explorer icon & choose “Internet Properties”. Under the heading “temporary Internet properties” click on the “Delete files” button. You now have the option to delete all offline content which will further free up your system. Also “Delete Cookies”.

2) Defragmenting your hard drive/s - Nowadays defrag does not play such a huge role in the user communities as it used to years ago.

3) Windows Update - if you are operating on Microsoft Windows (and it is a legit copy!) you should also regularly run an update so it can check back with Microsoft as to whether there are any

4) Virus check - Viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware and malware aren’t the most lovable “insects” that can attack your PC. If by any chance your computer is already filled with one or more of the aforementioned bugs, I’d advice reading the following two articles: “How to Stop a Virus in Windows” and “How to Remove a Virus in Windows.” Most people run a full disk scan for viruses once a week. Please ensure you set your program to perform this task regularly. Any viruses found should be quarantined and/or deleted.

5) Run “chkdsk” on a frequent basis - Check out the official Microsoft documentation that explains how to use it here. I’d recommend running it with the following parameters: (Replace C: with the required drive letter.) chkdsk C: /f
In the above example “/f” stands for “fix errors.” You might also use “/r” because it represents “locates bad sectors and recovers readable information” if you have issues.

6) Remove unwanted applications/programs - Open up Task Manager (CTRL + SHIFT + ESC), navigate to the “Process” tab and check for process names that sound a little bogus. Keep in mind a lot of them can be processes that are necessary for Windows to work! So, if you think that one of them is bogus and unwanted, I’d recommend doing a quick Google search on it. Research and be amazed. Use Start -> Run -> “msconfig” -> “Startup” tab to eliminate applications that start upon booting up your system and you are absolutely sure that your system does not need them. Check out the picture below to see where exactly you disable them…

7) Keep your desktop nice and clear - Although it’s fine to save files to the desktop as a temporary measure, make sure you go back and file them or delete them at a later stage, as too many files on your desktop will slow you down.

In addition you should make sure that:

1) You have storm surge protection on any plugs relating to a computer you’d prefer not to fry in an electrical storm.
2) You switch your computer off completely after use so it gets a proper shut down and restart at least every 24 hours.3) You have some kind of back up system where you either burn your hard drive to a USB, CD or DVD (DVD’s hold more) or separate external hard drive on a regular basis. How regular is really dependent on how often you are working on your machine and how much you have to lose. Perhaps another way of looking at it is, if you were to lose everything on your machine tomorrow could you survive? If that’s the case back up daily! Copies of your back up should be stored off site in case of fire.
4) You have spyware protection as well as virus protection. A good one to get if you haven’t got it already is:
5) The area around your computer is clean. Dust and pets can cause havoc!
6) The computer isn’t situated in direct sunlight or in a damp area where it can overheat or get so damp it chokes up.

A great article with more information on this topic can be found here:

http://www.pcug.org.au/boesen/maintenance/maintenance.htm

The average Australian now spends $1900 per year online

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:51:00 GMT

The first thing I thought I’d share with you is an incredible stats I heard whilst at an internet marketing seminar last Friday.

Did you know that the average Australian now spends $1900 per year online?

Of course there are always going to be people who spend nothing and those who spend a whole lot more than $1900 a year, but as an average figure $1900 is pretty decent don’t you think?

Depending on what line of business you are in, $1900 worth of your products might represent quite a few sales for you. Or, if an amount like this represents just one sale, I’m sure you’ll agree that it would be pretty nice to pick up a few of these from all the ‘average Australian online shoppers’ out there.

Later this year, we’ll be running a workshop all about e-commerce and how you can start selling online and literally ‘making money while you sleep’.

But before you’re ready to sell online you need to make sure you’ve got a website, and not only a website but a website that works.

Our next seminar being held on Wednesday 30 May is all about how to get higher Google rankings.

We’ve just secured an AMAZING speaker from Brisbane who we’ll tell you more about shortly.

In the mean time click here for more information about this exciting event… http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/html/cms/35/site-optimisation-workshop