Hi everyone ! As the flower blossom and squirels rolling out on the glass, it is spring time; and it mean our classses are wrapping up once in for all in 1 week time.

As for this last post, I would still discuss of the impact of e-Marketing, specifically evaluate on the use of Social Media.

First, I have been following our classmate’s Daniela  blog – “Discover Facebook Fan Page” on the methods of professionally using Social Media as B2C marketing. The best tips are :

What not to do on Facebook

 (click here for FULL presentation)

• Important lesson learnt : it is easy to set up the social media site, but it is more difficult to create a “engagement”. It is necessary to keep customers interested in your sites so that you will have a true engagement !
• My thoughts: Maintaining facebook is like maintaining a relationship. You always have to be up to date, sometimes playful, sometimes serious, pay details to detains; it is a two way communication,  input and efforts from both parties to make it happen. Do you agree with me ? Let me know what you think of. 

From STUDY: The Richest Companies Get The Least Media Attention

• Apple is the brand with the most publicity and media attention aevery time it releases a new iPad or iPhone. Apple was the lone company to buck the trend, ranking second in the cash department, with 14 percent of 2011’s total revenue, and first in media attention, with 32 percent.
  HOWEVER,  the 10 wealthiest public companies, HighBeam Research discovered that many of the businesses that generate the most revenue receive the least amount of media attention E.g. General Electric, JP Morgan in terms of publicity.

• On the opposite end, Google ranked second in terms of media exposure, at 24 percent, even though it was near the bottom of the revenue list with just 5 percent of the Top 10’s revenue.  In addition, Microsoft garnered 16 percent of the media spotlight while accounting for just 9 percent of the revenue.

In conclusion; I’ve presented the methods for you to market well in terms of utilizing Social Media Marketing; however, social media does NOT necessary means social media marketing must be the “it” for you or the “must take” path. For a company to have successful marketing, you must understand the YOUR business

1. STRATEGY : Mission, Long term, Environment (flexibility to changes)
2. 3Es : Engage (clicks), Enable (convert), Evaluate (report).

Remember the functionality of Online Marketing – Brand Awareness or Value Exchange.

So, Remember SMART and SEO.

[Smart – Specific, Measurable, Accesible, Reliable, Time Based.  SEO – choose the right keyword, optimised keyword, condense keyword]

Above concludes the key tips for my E-MARKETING blog.

Jing Hui, Cheah 🙂

March 27th, 2012.

I was on Google and their Google Doodle captivated my eyes, so I had a click on it.

It lead me to Google search page: (http://www.google.ca/#q=Mies+van+der+Rohe+architecture&ct=Mies_Van_der_Rohe-2012-hp&oi=ddle&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=f9e1f396f262242a&biw=890&bih=695)

So it is to celebrate the German – American architecture Ludwig Mies van der Rohe whom started with sharp, angular, glasses design of many city, downtown buildings. It was his 126th birthday. 

I clicked on Images to look for more of the design:

3D car show? Connection with Ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe?

and then, I randomly selected an image and I was brought to this website: http://3d-car-shows.com/2012/ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe/.

How did I ended up on this car show page? When my intention was to look at the architecture’s images

Well, what I realised from what I’ve learned in class was Page Index and Keyword Search Engine Optimization. This 3D car page is an great example in demonstrating how they were able to make themselves IDENTIFIED-ABLE, SEARCH-ABLE, VIEW-ABLE for Google search engine spider (Crawler).

1. Include keyword “ludwig-mies-vanpder-rohe” and “2012” in the Title Tag

2. Repeat “ludwig-mies-vanpder-rohe”

3. Positioning website itself by including “Google Doodle” and “ludwig-mies-vanpder-rohe”

4. Create Meta Tag with keyword searchable for crawler

5. Links, links, links !! 

So, after all, the SEO table Ivan requested us to work on is very applicable. The true value behind more a popular, visibility, searchable, and accessible of the website lies within the Search Engine Optimization. With the right KEYWORD, TIME (Google’s platform), LOCATION and PUBLICITY (External links), SEO will definitely help with increasing website’s popularity.

This is like the moment of epiphany ! * !! I hope you all will try out, do a random search and see what page you end up in. But most importantly, learn from the other website about how a website can be more searchable with the specific SEO!!

Its Angry Bird. Space !

Angry Bird is a strategy puzzle game first developed by Apple iOS. The most famous and 2011’s Most Trendy Bird. In 2012, it is coming back with Angry Bird Space!  It is the largest mobile app success the world has seen so far.

In relation to Angry Bird, I have never played the game before, but I know it through Facebook. I presume the success comes from the social media, people sharing among Facebook especially.

Now, take a leap to discuss the Social Media influence. I was just reading some tech news and discovered this :

• Twitter Index
• Google+ Trends
• Facebook learning
• Pinterest

As mentioned : you can do trend analysis easily on these social media. Off one trend springs business opportunities, and making this trend into reality.

Angry Bird Theme Park in China (http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/play/chinese-gamers-playing-real-life-%E2%80%98angry-birds%E2%80%99-733133)

Angry Bird Theme Park in Europe (http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2012/03/22/angry-birds-activity-park-to-open-in-europe/)

In conclusion, for a door opening business, social media is your best analytical tools for you to discover the most current trend  with facebook studies, twitter trends, google+ trends, pinterest).

The first thing that crosses my mind when I saw this picture was : wow, e-marketing campaign in one picture.Lets have a guess they are advertising for?

It is actually a mobile food cart truck in Manila, Phillippines by way of the Guactruck, a modern mobile eatery full of sustainable initiatives. The truck itself is a used delivery truck that has been outfitted locally with LED and energy-saving lighting.

The design for the packaging is a creative solution to the wastefulness that most containers are today with it’s single cardboard, origami-inspired design. It’s made of biodegradable paperboard that is easy to recycle. Customers are encouraged to bring their used packaging back and will receive a free meal once they’ve returned 10. The packaging will then be sent for recycling. All of the cutlery used is made from cornstarch and biodegrades within 90 days.

A great innovative idea. As I know there’s alot of upcoming food cart around in Vancouver downtown such as Re’UP well known for their pull-pork burger, and Summer Richmond Night market carts, mobile food cart is sitting on a raising trend.

Social media is key as to increase exposure and for branding. Thus, these small mobile business are heavy reliance on instantaneous social media as they must make themselves easily communicable and minutes to minutes updated location, using Twitter(or RSS) and Facebook.

However, due to food business is high competition in nature. Presuming that their competitors restaurants also have website, reservation features, plus indoor seating areas, the small on-the-go food cart business are faced with tremendous challenges to attain customers. They are sustainable in short run, but perhaps with more aggressive marketing strategy, they will eventually turn our dining habit “on-the-go”.

BTW, give yourself a chance when u r nearby Vancouver Downtown Robson Square-Art Gallery with Re’Up Pulled pork https://twitter.com/#!/reupbbq  !!

Part of sub-projects is to sign up for Twitter. I was excited joining Twitter as I can get offers and promotions updates instantly, but it is not as effective as I thought so far. Reasons are: some posts are like spam, I lose track of what i m reading or what I want to read. All the tweets I follow are offering almost the similar news updates (except restaurants).

While I was reading the article on Business Insider McDonald global strategies on how McDonalds plan to take over the world. It begs the questions in my mind on how Twitter should take over the world. 

 “McDonald is a powerful brand and sheer size are two big, dependable advantages that if can always lean on. But just being McDonald’s isn’t enough — it’s doing a lot, domestically and globally, to stay ahead.” 

Here are ten strategies that are keeping McDonald’s barreling forward:

1. Focus heavily on emerging market (africa, middle east, china)
2. McCafe, the brand extension
3. Offering wider variety of food to attract more segments i.e. oatmeal breakfast instead of high calorie breakfast, salad instead of fries.
4. Delivery food to customers in places that demand it.
5. Making store more attractive – they are on the edge of trying out “Less is More” concept design, and offer free-wifi.
6. Increase on snack items menu (dessert, wraps, cheaper ala carte)
7. Shortening menu cycle – seasonal food menus i.e St.Patricks mint shakes, or McRibs, Caramel McFlurry
8. Importing successful niche products global. Fancy having McDeluxe Sandwich, or Chicken Nuggets with Curry sauce dips. This is potentially risky and ROI can be low, yet they are adapting with the smaller-one-global-world trend which could lead to success.
9. Making a dollar menu by adapting to consumer marketing habits in the low economic environment.
10. Direct competing with their competitor (Starbucks vs. McCoffee, Dairy Queen vs. McFlurry) .

The differences between Twitter and McDonalds lies in their product, as Twitter is an online service for a community and McD is offering tangible products. Twitter has gained strong foundation by having thousands of Followers all around the world.Twitter is currently in the position which McD would like to achieve, while McD is leading in branding which Twitter should aim to achieve. It needs to make itself attractive. It needs to CONVERT netizens into “buying” Twitter. How?

I recommend Twitter to adopting strategies in reversal of McD’s successful branding strategies. Twitter should be “all over the corner”, “recongnised by everyone” like McDonalds. Thus, Twitter should really deploy on marketing on Branding with more beneficiary features to attract and convert netizens.

Further readings on How Twitter Can Make Money can be read @Mary’s blog:  https://blogs.ubc.ca/myzhangg/2012/02/28/how-to-earn-money-on-twitter/

I have previously read an article about how to achieve High Quality Customer service. SMILE, as apparent as the human nature, is one BIG TIME SELLING tactic to lure customers in a physical market place.  It is studied and that every human being, consumers, buy into smiles (in real physical life). Because Smiling made us feel good, feel healthy, and feel positivite.

However, the question arise : How do we effectively CREATE this personal contact  and deliver “SMILE” in terms of customer service in this virtual, lack of physical contact viral world ? 

Though it is an difficult challenge to translate a physical real life smile in the virtual environment, there’s creative measures to conquer the lack of real life interaction online.

It boils down the the 7Cs’ : Context*, Content, Community, Commerce, Communication, Connection, Customisation.

• Context* :  Everything online is about APPEARANCE. 
• Visual appellation is the most important ! COLOURS & Pictures , minimal words(clear & informative) are best website to surf.

• SMILES creation : The Positive combo of carefully selected WORDS, COLOURS, PICTURES and interactive materials (Videos).
• Tip: Videos will be your closest to establishing real life interaction, thus SMILE alot in your video.  

• Remember “3 clicks – 8 seconds rule”. I find this rule true. Visitors are especially annoyed if there’s broken links and takes long time to load. Best maintained website WILL capture visitor attention if this rule is followed. 

Your new eyes to see things

I’ve recently encountered this advert image on a blogger’s website . This advertisement is captivating in the following ways:

1. Not your average shopping advertisement showing all the females with shopping bags. Instead, its a cloth hanger as a bow.

Pictures says a thousand words. Audiences will understand this advert straight away thus is successful in promoting the message. It is provoking an some kind of (dangerous, risky, fun, yet rewarding) adventure that a young adult would like to from this shopping experience .

2. Gender bender. The shopping experience becomes is instead, a hunting experience. This strips down the male-female stereotypes regarding shopping. Thus, reaching broader target markets.

The connection with e-marketing is that

i. the advertisement used online communication medium in one page format that we’ll see on newspaper. Somehow, the message is amplified vastly through the online medium. It is effective method for marketers to spread message using online mediums, if given the time and location is right.
ii. The power of online medium is spreading (linking from one to another -clouds). You can start with little or many channels, videos, tweets, facebook pages, and blog.  Thus, for marketers, it depends on your business and WHO your target audiences are, and HOW you’d like to reach to your target.
I’ve recently read an article that small business ie. on campus pizza is most effective with Twitter if their target market is student. Promotional methods can be more flexible than ever as you can use tweets to capture trends and behaviors (and sales of course). You can post : 10% off  after 8pm, or 3 slices + free drink on weekend etc. giving you all the chances to test your promotional methods at a very very minimal costs.
I’d suggest business to keep up with Twitter for quick, informative, instantaneous impact to influence their business, as Twitter is the quickest way to reach the audience. Remember to link the promotion with one EFFECTIVE, IMPRESSIVE image that leaves your customers to hunt you down.

p.s. please follow my twitter if you have one, https://twitter.com/#!/AiyoJHui

Thank you !

Its February and its the time of the year to show LOVE, AFFECTION, SINCERITY.

Do you actually know Child Slavery is part of the main ingredient for your Chocolate?

Children are trafficked, smuggled, sold across borders in West Africa to cocoa plantation owners and never to return home. They are barely fed, sleeps in storage house, work 70-100 hours per week, beaten to work, not a penny being paid, tortured if they attempt to run away. They are to carry up to 40kg of cocoa harvest – all these for YOUR Chocolate.

But big corp. use effective marketing to Conceal and Hide the truth.  Customer unknowingly consume TAINED Chocolate. No Right Human would reject their own HUMAN RIGHT. 

You dont have to eat the chocalate to feel sick

In support of Stop-the-Traffik and Child slavery (myself),this blog is to spread the voice.

Ten years ago the chocolate industry signed the “Harkin-Engel Protocol”, a promise to eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labour (including trafficking and hazardous work) in the cocoa sector of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, where two thirds of the world’s cocoa is grown.

An estimated 1.8 million children work on the small cocoa farms in these countries, growing and harvesting the core ingredient of the chocolate we eat. Many of these are working under what is know as the Worst Forms of Child Labour, which includes trafficking, slave-like conditions, and hazardous work.

In the same period as the Harkin Engel Protocol has been in effect, from 2001 to 2011, the global revenue from cocoa products was an estimated USD 1 trillion. That’s $1.000.000.000.000. The cocoa industry therefore certainly has the financial means to tackle the problem.

However, none of the Protocol’s six articles calling for action were fully implemented, and the required industry-wide change in the cocoa sector has not taken place. The promise still hasn’t been met.

10 Campaign is an informal worldwide coalition of major civil society organizations working in sustainable chocolate.

Chocolate shouldn't cost a children life

Their partners include STOP THE TRAFFIK, International Labor Rights Forum, World Vision Australia, Fairfood International, Stop Child Labour – School is the best workplace, Südwind Research Institute, Berne Declaration, FNV Bondgenoten and the Confédération Syndicale Burkinabé, as well as various individuals with extensive experience in sustainable cocoa.

Girls its time to munch up on chocolates. Guys, valentine is good reason for you to buy chocolate. But please support fair trade, and READ the description before you savour your chocalate.

Welcome to Jing Hui ‘s first blog.

e-Marketing class has been proven interesting and fun as Ivan’s provided alot of career helper tips and resourceful websites that is provide great insights. I am motivated to learn as much as I could out of the class and gaining all the careers tips.

The Web 2.0 is all about constant users content. We are all about SHARING, Faster, Easier, and hungry for information (hence, with help of Facebook amplified our Stalking skills).

The internet has made it easier than ever to improve on sharing with everyone all over the world.To us, it seems like everything in our world to have a connection to one another, which define against geographical limits, that its magically all in the “cloud”.

The idea behind this is cloud computing.

This is a great place to be because everyone is in this one cloud, which means there are lots of opportunity. I was reading on an article, and found out about the person who utilise this idea is a 25 year old young man Ben Kaufman, CEO/Founder of Quirky.com.

Quirky.com, is a place for inventors and product developers to be.

Their idea is simple. You’ve got an wonderful IDEA or DESIGN for a product?! Go on their website, tell them your design and they will Manufacture and launch the product into the market for you! At the same time other people who like your idea can help out your to improve your product, and everyone can help you out.

Quirky Video

It doesnt matter what’s your origin, Quirky is all about the process of bringing the global community together and stimuli everyone to grow on the same path / idea together.

My personal thought, Quirky is still under the radar, but this is a very well marketable idea with full of opportunity to grow. I think this is one great example of integrating the 4Ps with people and community in this Cloud.