By reading some posts from the TopRank Online Marketing Blog, Lee Odden’s post has caught my attention. Lee Odden provides some thoughts about “How Entrepreneurs Can Use Social Media to Launch New Products.” He believes that when entrepreneurs want to communicate to a market about a new product or service, there are three ways they can use social media to gain insight, increase brand awareness and optimize their online marketing. I am going to discuss about some of his ideas and add some comments.

Firstly, He discusses about “Listen for insight”. The company has to monitor and assess the online interest trends – what customers like and what they don’t like. I total agree with him. Nowadays, social media becomes increasingly important. With social media, many companies are able to interact with their customers directly. There are various forms of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. It allows that companies are able to interact with customers, gain important feedback, and build stronger relations with its customers. Furthermore, the companies are able to understand want kinds of products or service their  customers are looking for.

Moreover, Lee says, “content is the engine of marketing.” With the blog, companies are able to communicate with their customers to promote their products. Blog can actually serve as  a channel with the consumer. That is correct.

For example, Lululemon’s blog does a great job to associate its brand image with healthy lifestyle, such as yoga and running (examiner.com). Thereby, lululemon is able to reach more potential customers who desire a healthy lifestyle, and also it has enhanced its brand awareness.

Nowadays, People spend more time on social media. 30% of the world’s entire population is now online, and the global time spend online per month is equivalent to 3,995,444 years. The average time spend by users is 16 hours per month (32 hours for US residents).(MindJumpers) Therefore, it is a great opportunity for companies to exploit social media to interact and promote their products, and enhanced brand awareness.

(blog.nielsen.com)

Deceptive advertising is the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. As advertising has the potential to persuade people into commercial transactions that they might otherwise avoid, many governments around the world use regulations to control false, deceptive or misleading advertising. “Truth” refers to essentially the same concept, that customers have the right to know what they are buying, and that all necessary information should be on the label（WIKI）.

Nowadays, deceptive advertising is a big issue. Many companies, even big companies, have been engaging in Deceptive advertising.

According to BBC news, Nokia apologises for ‘faked’ Lumia smartphone advertisement.

Nokia has apologised after it emerged that an advert featuring video footage which appeared to have been filmed with its new flagship smartphone had in fact been created using different equipment. (BBC)

Nokia is not the only company that engages in deceptive advertising.According to ABC news:

[In many of Apple’s television advertisements, individuals are shown using Siri to make appointments, find restaurants, and even learn the guitar chords to classic rock songs or how to tie a tie. In the commercials, all of these tasks are done with ease with the assistance of the iPhone 4S’s Siri feature, a represented functionality contrary to the actual operating results and performance of Siri (ABCNEWS.COM).

Personally, I believe engaging in deceptive advertising hurts businesses in a long term. Actually, many marketers and advertisers engage in deceptive advertising because they only pay attention to short term and do not really think about the long term consequences and  legal sanction.

Engaging in deceptive advertising has a major effect on customer loyalty. Customer is a key for the most companies. Word of mouth is the one of best types of advertising,To be successful, a business has to build a reasonable  level of trust with their customers. If a customer feels cheated, she/he is going to spread negative reviews. Consequently, people both new customers and existing customers may feel betrayed and are going to find other substitutes.

On Jin Cui’s Blog, She discusses about the e-business. She believes e-tailing is getting increasingly popular nowadays, and that is a great opportunity to develop e-tailing to reduce costs and increase sales. I totally agree with her, and I want to add some comments about the e-business and explore it in depth.

E-tailing refers to the practice of selling goods and services over an electronic medium, such as Internet. Amazon.com, one of the well-known e-tailers, relies solely on the Web to conduct business. While books, CDs, and computer software and hardware are the most common goods sold by e-tailers, clothes, cosmetics, perfume, plants, toys, and other types of merchandise also made their way to the Web in the late 1990s (wiki)

There are many advantages regarding E-business. One of the biggest benefits is worldwide presence. Companies use the term e-business to refer to servicing customers and cooperating with business partners from all over the world.

Furthermore, Opening online store to sell products is cost-effective, compared to bricks and mortar stores. There is no need to purchase a building or rent office space. There are minimal start-up costs to create and run a website. All you need is only domain name and a computer. Compared with TV ads, online advertisement is more affordable, and it allows business owners to get feedback immediately and easily. For example, using social media, such as blog or Facebook, advertises the products to attract new customers.

In conclusion, with the rapid development of the Internet, developing e-business is getting increasingly essential for a company to ensure survival and success.

Reference: http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/e-business

“Microsoft Surface is an upcoming series of tablets designed and marketed by Microsoft. It was announced by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a Los Angeles event on June 18, 2012, at Milk Studios. The Surface will be available in two versions, one with Windows RT and another with Windows 8 Pro. The Windows RT model will use an ARM CPU, while the Windows 8 model will use an Intel CPU. Both models will be able to install new applications via the Windows Store, however only the Windows 8 model allows the installation of traditional desktop programs (Wiki)“

Strengths

Advanced cover: compared to the IPAD smart cover, there are a keyboard and a touchpad on it. As we know, typing on a physical keyboard is the more efficient than typing on screen. the consumers who dislike the on-screen keyboard will be attracted. While it’s true that there are plenty of options for adding a keyboard to an iPad, not everyone will want to carry around these pricey add-ons.

Software: With Windows 8 Pro version, Surface will able to run the same applications as PC, especially productivity application, such as Microsoft Office Suit.

Weaknesses

Compare to New iPad, Surface provides lower pixel densitiy screen screen, 180ppi while New iPad provides over 250ppi (PhoneArena). That won’t compete with the iPad’s Retina display or even some Android tablets.

Opportunities

Pad owners have limited ability to use Office and other Microsoft applications, and Microsoft office owns 94% of the market(DailyTech). this advantage makes the Surface more competitive in the business market.

Threats

Current years, Apple has dominated the tablet market. It has occupied the most market shares, 69.6% while Android takes the rest(BGR). Besides, the iPad Mini with low price may attract more new customers and raises its market shares. It will be a big challenge for Microsoft to attract the loyal customers from Apple.

Reference:

• http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Microsoft-Surface-RT_id7181/rivals
• http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-CA
• http://ipad.about.com/od/Tablet_Computers_eReaders/a/Microsoft-Surface-Tablet-Vs-The-Ipad.htm
• http://jumpwiremedia.com/2012/06/will-microsoft-beat-apple-with-its-new-surface-tablet/
• http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33642_7-57539392-292/microsoft-surface-vs-apple-ipad-4th-gen-vs-asus-transformer-infinity/

 

The worldwide mobile phone market declined 1.9% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2012 while Samsung (PINK:SSNLF) maintained its lead over Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) as the world’s top mobile phone vendor. According to IDC’s European Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 42.1 million units during the quarter, a drop of 1.9% year-on-year.

The feature phone segment continued to decline, with shipments down 30% to 14.7 million units. The segment continues to be supported by the lowest price levels: 58% of the total feature phone shipments were under the $75 price point and the fastest growing segment is for phones at half that price.

Smartphone shipments increased 26.6% year-on-year to 27.4 million units during the quarter.

（http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/technology/articles/samsung-nokia-apple-phone-smartphone-feature/9/25/2012/id/44277）

Due to the global financial crisis, the global economy is  faltering. Most nations’ economy is still not recovering. People have no strong desire for purchasing new phones. Also, they do not have the enough budget. I think the mobile phone producers may change their strategies to aim at low-end market to win more potential customers . Apple is going to produce ipad Mini, a smaller tablet computer with the lower price. I believe that this strategy will help Apple to gain more market share.

Current years, online marketing is growing rapidly. New online methods and techniques targets become not only more efficient in reaching our consumers, but they are cost effective as well. over 74.5% of the United Status population uses the internet. This number will only continue to grow. Consumers are not only becoming more comfortable purchasing online, but many of them are starting to prefer online shopping to traditional shopping. We can use online marketing to reach these consumers in new ways. Online marketing enables us to target our marketing messages to specific consumers and the end result is better conversion and an increased return on our investment for our marketing dollars.

There are many marketing methods including website marketing, search engine marketing, social media, affiliate marketing and content marketing. It’s important that each business weighs the pros and cons of each method and then choose the method or methods that will work best for their business.