There are two types of people I meet when training companies how to use the Internet and social media marketing to brand their business in Thailand:
Those who have the company names as profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn, they shun any kind of direct access to their personality and covet their privacy like an NSA/CIA operative, in fact you can only get to see what their real name is when the war cabinets open the war files in 40 years from now!
The other kind; are those of us who ‘get Social Media,’ we are proud to put our name to our businesses, and people are essentially buying our trust.
Oh not forgetting one other kind , the dissafected:
I shiver every time I get a LinkedIn request from ‘Bob’s burgers’ is that your real name? Seriously, your family name is Burgers?? Or are you so frightened people will know who the guy is who flips the burgers, puts them on your plate and takes your hard earned cash home to his family? We get it people have to earn a living, but if you can’t even endorse your own products by putting your own name to them, there is something very wrong there.
I would love to see the scenario: You have arranged to meet the company:
“Hi Bob I’m Alan”
“Actually it’s Frank”
“Oh sorry,… Hi Frank Burgers”
“No Frank Smith!”
“Oh well, where’s Mr Burgers?”
“Nooo Bob’s Burgers is the name of the shop!!”
“So you called all your children after the shop?”
“AAAARRRGGGHHHH”
“I’ll make my own way out shall I “
One wonderful thing about the internet is it’s making big business moguls who used to hide behind massive corporate echelons more open to public scrutiny, and these businesses have got their PR teams scrambling around trying to make the big boss seem more wholesome, because they cannot hide anymore. They also understand what effect a viral campaign can have on their business, so they have started to get to grips with how to manage and utilise social media for a good effect.
When I get to the part of my social media training in Bangkok where we speak about how to blog, this is when you really come to terms with how much ‘love’ people have for what they do, and whether this line of business was thrust upon them, it was given to them, or they just fell into it, because the people who hate sharing their personality and putting their name to a product are the same types of people that cannot write about why they are in business.
Google and search engines are not looking for the next Mark Twain or Shakespeare, so worry not that you are a gifted writer, if you have passion you will write something people can relate to I guarantee it, and now with spell and grammar checks it’s not as difficult to write blogs for your business. It is however nigh on possible to write about something you have ‘no gut feeling for.’
The ideal blog reaches out and tells a personal story that the reader relates to, and finds interesting. For example:
Rather than write:
‘Adding your business to a business directory is very important to your search engine optimisation’, <yawn>
Write: ‘We added our business to biz-find and within a couple of days we got a potential client call us, they said they saw our business listed on biz find, to say we were happy is an understatement.’
Same message, but one describes a feeling and the other is as just dull crap written for a search engines and has the same emotion as a Google bot, so if you want to subliminally get someone to visit your main selling website, you must create feeling, because nothing is sold without feeling!
Hub Spot recently reported that only 25% of companies have a content marketing strategy, now those of you with some business accumen will see a massive opportunity here!
For an online content marketing strategy with real emotion and feeling; contact Netmedia We have been teaching this stuff to business for over 5 years and in a one day workshop you can learn everything you need to know to brand yourself effectively online and you get your own blog website in the process!
