Since buzz phrases such as Web2.0 were banded about, it was closely followed by more buzz words like Social Web, Social Media, Social Networking & Social Bookmarking – Phew – That’s a whole load of “social”… As a Small Business Owner or Solo Entrepreneur, does this make your head spin? Do you know what it’s all about?  Do you know how all these Social Strategies can benefit your business?

To get clarity, take a couple of minutes to watch the following video’s  from the creative minds at CommonCraft.com where they explain each topic “in plain english.”

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Following on from Episode 1, – Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires continues:
“Riding The Bear” Episode Outline:

• Compaq’s successful reverse-engineering of the IBM PC, which led to many competitors producing IBM-clones that undercut IBM’s own offering. While IBM was one of the key companies that fostered the growth of the PC industry and initially dominated it, by 1990 it had lost its lead.

• IBM’s unsuccessful attempt to recapture a dominate share in the PC market with the PS/2 and OS/2, the latter being the successor to MS-DOS. The proprietary nature of the PS/2 and exclusivity of OS/2 was intended to drive sales of IBM’s own hardware and made it difficult for other manufacturers of PC compatibles to compete.

• Microsoft had originally profited from the initial success of the IBM PC. It did even better with the proliferation of clones as IBM’s own market share shrunk, so Microsoft saw no business sense in following IBM’s lead. Microsoft saw more potential in developing Windows, a project they pursued parallel to their cooperating with IBM on OS/2, and Windows 3.0 proved to be a great success (along with MS-DOS) bundled with new PCs. This led to the split between the two titans, with Microsoft setting the standard for PCs, while IBM concentrated on its mainframe and services businesses.

Digital marketing trends are constantly evolving. If you don’t want to get left behind, you must keep up-to-date and look forward to see what new strategies are emerging. Mobile marketing has been around for a while, but what was once only available for the big boys like Coke and American Idol is now available for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs via cost effective mobile marketing solutions.

But, if you are not yet convinced that mobile marketing is worth your time or resources it’s essential to take note of the following stats. These were mentioned at the beginning of Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at the launch of the Apple iPad.

It is obvious to see that the world is becoming well adapted to accessing the Internet while mobile. By looking at Apple’s major success in the mobile space it becomes very clear that marketing to these mobile platforms is quickly becoming a must.

Apple now considers itself a mobile devices company, as the majority of their sales are being generated by the iPhone, iPod touch and now adding the iPad to that list. Further to that, they also sell more laptops (which are mobile devices after all) than desktop Macs. Perhaps the days of the desktop computer really are numbered…

Apple reported revenues for the last Financial Quarter of 2009 of $15.6 Billion, making them an over $50 billion a year company. This gives Apple the title of largest mobile devices company in the world, by revenue. This is truly amazing considering Apple’s competitors being companies such as Sony, Samsung and Nokia.

Due to the massive demand for Apple’s mobile devices, they now have 284 retail stores. These stores received a staggering 50 000 000 visitors in the last quarter of 2009. This is ground breaking. Especially if you consider that huge retail businesses are going out of business, due to the financial climate and adding on top of that, the year-on-year growth of online shopping.

Adding to their retail success, they also have major success with their online stores, iTunes & the App Store. Since the launch of the iPhone & App Store in June 2008, there are now over 140 000 applications to choose from. These Apps make your phone an even more useful tool. Allowing you to do all sorts of fun/useful/business/social/financial/weird and wonderful tasks.  Whatever you are looking for, it’s more than likely “there’s an app for that”. In fact Apps are so popular, that just a few weeks ago the 3 billionth application was downloaded.

Apple’s virtual stores (iTune Store, App Store and iBookstore) now have over 125 million accounts with credit cards on file, all enabled for one click shopping. In fact users of these stores to-date have racked up 12 billion product sales already.

It is clear that these stores bring major opportunities for Small Businesses and Solo Entrepreneurs. These stores open up massive digital and mobile distribution channels, to easily put your expert content or products into the hands of your customers, without large overheads.

Reasons you should take advantage of Apple’s iTunes & App Store

iTunes

• Drive traffic back to your site
• Podcasts are simple to create
• Free to publish your Video or Audio Podcast
• Easy to consume on desktop computer or mobile devices such as iPhone and iPod touch
• Great for building credibility and positioning you as a leader and expert
• Effective way to build your personal brand and in return building strong relationships with your target audience

But be warned – Podcasting will only establish you as a leader or authority if you provide quality content, which brings massive value to your audience. By “value” we mean for example: Answering your audience’s most common questions about your product or service.

Don’t be scared to push the limits on your free content. The more free content you sow, the more rewards you will reap in return. Finally remember the golden rule is to make sure this is not a pitch fest as this will instantly lose you credibility.

App Store

• Drive traffic back to your site
• Create FREE Apps to build your brand and credibility
• Create PAID Apps to generate extra income streams
• Create company specific Apps to run your business in a more productive way
• Create Apps making it easier for your clients to effectively communicate and interact with you

As you will see from Apple and the other mobile device manufacturer’s success, mobile Internet is a trend quickly gaining momentum.  With more people using mobile devices to access the Internet, it makes sense to concentrate more of your marketing efforts here.

Especially if you consider the uptake of mobile phones in the third world. Research showed that Africans are buying mobile phones at a world record rate. With up take soaring to 550% in 5 years. Mobile subscriptions on the continent rose from 54 million in 2003 to almost 350 million at the end of 2008. Further, countries like South Africa (population approx. 50 million) have almost 100% mobile penetration, with the global total reaching 4 billion at the end of 2008.

With numbers like this and with the uptake of smart phones becoming the norm, it is clear to see that mobile Internet will become the connection method of choice for the majority of the world.

Finally. If you consider that almost all mobile phones can recieve text messages, mobile marketing technologies like SMS Text and Bluetooth Marketing must be a first choice way to reach these markets.

Facebook Friend Tagging  [Twitter Retweet Style]

Back in September Facebook added the ability to tag your Friends and Connections, including Groups, Events, Applications and Pages in your updates (very similar to Twitter @messages). This is a really great feature and although popular with some, not everyone seems to know about it.

Here’s the simple instructions:

To tag someone, type @ and then the Friends Name/Group/Event/Application/Fan Page name:

When posted to your profile, your status looks like this:

The name is linked to the tagged Facebook profile (a notification is sent to the tagged friend with the option to remove the tag if preferred).

I immediately saw the potential for people to endorse Friends/Fan Pages/Groups etc. You can now mention them on your wall – without leaving yours and the status update is also shown on their wall. This would also save you time if you were going to post the same info on your profile plus another Profile/Fan Page/Group etc.

Straight away I used tagging to copy and share what other people were posting – like we do on Twitter – and my friend Mari Smith sent me this tweet:

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