Social Media – the new way to do business

If facebook were a country, it would be the forth largest in the world. 1/3 of Amazon’s sales are for the Kindle. If a customer has a bad experience they can instantly tweet it to hundreds or thousands of followers – now that sounds like a powerful medium.

My boss is a big proponent for the power of social media and other applications for the Web. She sent me this moving video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

It’s amazing. With only 18% of TV commercials resulting in positive ROI I’m shocked companies continue spending millions on such an inferior media.

24 out of 25 major newspapers are seeing a major decline in readership. Here’s a thought for you – publish your paper to the Kindle!!!

Only a small handful of companies are even tracking what’s being said about their company on social media, much less using it to their advantage. Something needs to be done here. Use this recession to your advantage and step into the 21st century.

New Contacts Make Me Dizzy

It’s amazing what kind of lessons can apply to business. For instance I got new contacts today for the very first time in my life! That all great, but I had no idea that they would make me dizzy. In fact, I hear tell that my eyeballs won’t be used to them for about three days! Yikes. If I had been a big business person with important meetings, events, and the such, being sea sick for three day would not have been the best idea.

So with that said here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Make sure you know what you’re getting into and all that it includes (at least as much as you can)
2. Think about how it may affect your business – even if it is a physical or personal thing it can have a large impact, but don’t put off doing something that needs done, just prepare for it so there’s minimal impact
3. Try to be prepared in case something sneaks up on you

I Lost a Client :<

Apparently it hurts when you loose a client. This one was one of my freelance clients (i.e. Web Design). I guess I don’t blame her. I was slacking off, but that makes it hurt even worse. Knowing that you could have done something about it. At least we are even on the payments. So this is what I learned from this experience:

1. If you say that you are going to do something – make it a priority and get it done ASAP (i.e. before you go do much of anything else).
2. Do the very best job that you can. The client is more important than yourself (but always remember that your family has the highest priority).
3. Make sure that you don’t have to depend on your clients for anything, especially paying your bills. This means KEEP YOUR DAY JOB.
4. Have a contract! Not just what the developer will deliver and when, but what the owner’s end of the deal is too including the payments. For web site work I strongly suggest doing a check point payment method. Make steps and goals for your site (for example: the site design, design implementation, shopping cart, etc.) and then pay the site developer after the step is done and approved.

That said, I’ve been guest lecturing in a friend’s class in which I talk about hiring a Web Developer. Here is the PowerPoint I’ve created for that lecture: Hiring a Web Developer (note: this PowerPoint is in constant flux, I will occasionally be re-uploading it, last upload on Nov. 13, 2007)

Business Requires A Lot of Writing

Well, I’m sure starting out right – not! Yes business requires a ton of writing, and not just business plans and financial statements. Let’s do an example: let’s say that you are taking a class (perhaps an English class). Being a student means writing a lot of stuff, right? You have to write things like papers and other homework. Well, now imagine that you are the teacher. You have to write the tests, grade the papers, and give reports and not just to the students but also to the school and parents. (Being a teacher includes even more paperwork, but we’ll skip that part for brevity.) Well, now imagine that you own the school! Send letters to parents; city, state, and other officials; donors; the community; etc. Keep paperwork and records. And then if you are a state school there are the billions of forms and legal stuff. Yep, running a business is like that. Not can, but is.

Now for that sad part: I haven’t been doing it. (As evidenced by how recently I’ve posted to this blog.) They say that if a goal isn’t written down then it’s only a dream, so this past week I started writing down some ideas for another business venture that I dream of one day doing. No, not my comics (although I should start writing my ideas for that), but an event hall. What a minute. Where did that idea come from? Simple. I’ve always enjoyed fantasy (dragons, princesses, fairies, etc.) and it dawn on me that there was no place in Utah for fairy-tale events. In other words there wasn’t a castle. Yes folks, one day I hope to build my very own castle. Every other little girl’s dream of a lifetime. So, if anyone has any great ideas for a castle (no evil or scary stuff please) then feel free to email me. Thanks.

Now I’ve got to get writing (including being better at posting to my blog).