Thoughts on Building a Business

Sensis undertakes a quarterly Questionnaire on business confidence for Small Business, called the Business Index. The June 2009 questionnaire focussed on how Small Business was utilising technology and the Internet. It had some very interesting results that I thought I would share with you.

Business Computer Ownership

• 97% of all businesses used a Computer
• The highest usage is Communications & Business Services, Finance & Insurance and Health & Community at 100%
• The lowest usage is Building & Construction at 90%

Business Internet Connections

• 95% of all businesses use the Internet (up from 34% in 1998)
• Finance & Insurance the highest users at 100%
• Building & Construction the lowest at 87%

Business Internet Usage

• The main use for Internet in Small Business (97% of connected businesses) was email and communication
• 92% use it to look for information on Products and Services
• 83% use it to access Online Directories (such as Yellow Pages)
• 78% to place orders for Products and Services
• 78% to pay for Products and Services

Consumer Internet Usage

• 90% of Households have a Computer with 85% having Internet
• 78% of all Australians used the internet to research Products and Services
• 61% ordered Goods and Services
• 41% used a Social Networking Site
• 41% read a Blog
• 27% belonged to an Online Community
• The biggest increase in usage for the last 12 months was the number belonging to an online community (up 7%)

So what does this all mean. Well to be blunt, it means that if you don’t have an Internet Presence, than you are not being serious about growing your business. But don’t worry if you don’t have a website, only 56% of Small Business have a website.

Now forgive me as I get onto my Soapbox, but I find this astounding. The Internet is arguably the fastest growing area in our life. More and more people are using the Internet for not only research, but connecting with other people and businesses. This is only going to grow as Gen Y becomes more influential in Society. Yet there are still a large number of businesses out there refusing to get on board.

Recently we’ve seen businesses seize opportunities with Government funding in Water tanks, Solar Panels and Insulation and develop their businesses to take advantage of these. Yet many of these same businesses are still resisting the Internet.

So as Professor Julius Sumner Miller asked – Why is it so?

This is the million dollar question, but I believe that it boils down to 3 main reasons:

1. Don’t really understand the Internet and what it takes to develop an Online Marketing Strategy
2. Believe that it’s expensive
3. Or just refuse to embrace technology

So if you don’t have a web Presence, I ask you – which one are you?

Download the full Sensis eBusiness Report

I came across this amazing video on Youtube with interesting Stats on Social Media. It reinforces my opinion that any Business that is serious about growing into the future should focus on their online presence. The Internet (and Social Media) is here to stay, so don't get left behind.

 

If you don't have time to watch the video, some of the key points to come out of it are:

• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers
• 96% of Gen Y have joined a social network 
• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
• The years taken to Reach 50 millions Users: 
  • Radio - 38 Years
  • TV - 13 Years
  • Internet - 4 Years
  • iPod - 3 Years
  • Facebook - 100 million users in less than 9 months
  • iPhone applications - 1 billion in 9 months.
• If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
• China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services
• 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
• 80% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees
• The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
• Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
• 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
• Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé
• What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook
• The 2nd largest search engine in the world is YouTube
• Wikipedia has over 13 million articles. Some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica and 78% of these articles are non-English
• There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
• 54% of bloggers post content or tweet daily
• Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
• People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations 
  • Only 14% trust advertisements
  • Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
  • 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
• Hulu (a TV Show Download site in the US) has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
• 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
• According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are in Downloadable format
• 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
• In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media
• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
• Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
• Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

For sometime I have been a fan of David Blain and have probably referred him to some of you. He is Scottish (we won't hold that against him) and has a really good take on Internet marketing.

Anyway, he has just released his latest version of "The 13 Pillars of Internet Marketing". This covers what he considers are 13 key strategies to maximise your internet marketing and is a really easy read as well as being incredibly informative. He has released it on a site called scribd.com, which is a really interesting site. It is essentially a Youtube site for Articles.

So I thought the best way to show you both, would be to embed David's article in my blog and you can then see both. So here it is - enjoy!

The 13 Pillars of Internet Marketing

In a previous blog post about how Twitter can help market your business, I mentioned that it was originally designed to keep Gen Y up to date with their friends. Now I personally find this concept incredibly strange and way over the top. Which is why I loved the video below when I stumbled onto it on Youtube. Now as much as I laugh at the original concept of Twitter, I do believe that it has potential in a business sense (see my previous post).

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Afterall, Business isn't always about being serious.

 

Twitter is the latest thing in the Online Social Media Networking field. In the Neilson’s Media Service in October 2008, Twitter was the fastest growing Social Media Application and grew a staggering 343%. It was also heavily used by Barack Obama in his Election Campaign.

But what is Twitter?

Twitter is often known as "micro-blogging". In other words, it is like a BLOG, except the posts have to be under 140 characters. This means that you can't be long winded (like some of my Posts can be). It was originally set up for Gen-Y so that they could keep each other informed of what they were up to throughout the day. Now why you would want to do that is beyond me, but then I'm only just starting to try and use SMS more.

So what does that have to do with Business?

As I mentioned earlier, Twitter was used extensively by Barack Obama in the recent US elections. In fact, at this point in time, he has 279 521 people following his Twitter Posts. Now Barack wasn't using this to let his mates know what he was up to throughout the day. He was using this to keep prospective voters informed of where he was and what he was working on.

This is how you use Twitter in your business. You build yourself a list of Followers (think database) and then keep them informed of what's happening in your business. You might let them know when you have a particular special or workshop date. Or maybe you use it purely to help build loyalty by providing them with useful information and links to useful information.

The key thing here is that this is relatively new (it's been going for 2 years). Now is the time to get on board and start working on building that following. That way, as it grows (and all indications are that it will), you will be in at the beginning. Some of the improvements that I see coming our way, will be the ability for your followers to get your posts on their Mobile Phones. So forget about signing up for that SMS package that allows you to SMS your database.

The best bit is it's FREE!

If you would like to view a good video on how to set up Twitter and start building a following, go to http://www.becomeablogger.com/blog/x-factor-twitter/.

So get twittering by tweeting to your tweople! (Sad I know).