Although I’m a huge advocate for Social Media, but at the end of the day, it’s merely a marketing platform, and just like you, as a business, don’t visit every business networking event, your business also doesn’t need to be on every social networking site, so here’s a few tips to help you be as productive as possible in your online ventures:
- Have a reason. Sit down and ask yourself: what do I hope to achieve through social media? Is it to drive traffic to my site? Or will I get more business by sharing articles and links that will be useful to my potential clients and become a trustworthy brand by being an information hub?
- Do your research. Numbers are available everywhere – as a business, take a look at the social media sites that attract your demographic, and use those. If you’re a business selling office chairs to large corporates, your primary audience won’t be found on Bebo, which is made up of the Gen Y & Z audience with a passion for socializing with their age group.
- Find time. Social Media can become daunting if you get stuck on checking your profile every time a new alert comes into your inbox. Set aside, say, half an hour every Monday morning to reply to messages and update your personal/business page and stick to it.
- Automate it. A couple of useful tools our clients love are ping.fm and futuretweets.com. Ping lets you update all your social networks at once with the same message. Say you’ve done your half an hour of updating on Monday but come Tuesday and an important press release just appeared in a local paper about your company. You can log onto Ping and send a link to update all your profiles without logging onto each one individually. FutureTweets is a great partner for businesses on Twitter - you can schedule a series of tweets to go out to your Twitter audience at different days and times. Free, quick and easy!
And if you need any extra consulting, or a full-time person to do everything to get your business social-mediazed for success, let us know – our team of Social-Media savvy youth are ready to add success to your business exposure and profits.
Catch you soon,
Eva-Maria
eva@socialnetworkingnz.co.nz
www.socialnetworkingnz.co.nz
....WOW technology's gone far! For the video version of this blog post, watch it here:
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Get your Business Social-Mediazed!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Parenting Teenagers of Today...my latest two cents...
Cell phones, laptops...today’s teens seem to have it all! But in reality, even though our environment has changed over the years, relationship dynamics haven’t. Even in the 21st century, a baby, child, or even teenager needs the same amount of care and support as they always have, but for some reason parents tend to think their parenting needs to somehow mould into today’s PC society.
How many parents are guilty of creating a Facebook account not to actually use it but take advantage of the opportunity to see what their kids are up to? Don’t get me wrong – there are situations when parents want to know what their kids are up to if they’re living on the other side of the world, but when youth are in their teen years, they just want to be left alone. Remember yourself – didn’t you want the world to leave you alone when you were that age?
Sure, today’s technology has given parents more ways of protecting their kids from harm, but there’s a fine line between spying and protecting, so going back to some good old fashioned tips of building a solid relationship with your kids, here’s some advice and proven methods to refer to when you’re just not sure what to do...
You Shut Up
Everyone loves to be heard.
Next time you’re talking to your teen, or even if there is an argument or misunderstanding, no matter how badly you want to speak over them, yell, scream or add your 2 cents worth, take a breath and hear them out first. One of the following things may happen:
a) You may hear a story that’ll change your mind about what you were about to say
b) They may blurt out some silly heat-of-the moment comment that you can share at dinner tonight
c) You would have prepared your teen to let them listen to you, by psychologically respecting their right to speak. This means they will subconsciously make a note of this, so when they’ve finished, they will be more inclined to listen to you without interruption.
Be the Parent – Communicate your Values in full
Of course, no one can hold their kids’ hands for the rest of their lives, but you can teach them make rational choices, especially as they enter into the teen years...
Every adult is likely to have been on both ends of this scenario which didn’t leave anyone happy:
“Mum, Dad can I go to that party tonight?”
“No!”
“But why??”
“Because we said so”
The moral is: next time you have an opinion or make a decision, explain and back these up with reasons behind it to your teen! Humans are curious by nature, and youth aren’t exempt from it, so feed this curiosity – voice your reasons.
This not only provides solid ground for your point, but when done enough times will instil those decision-making skills in your teen, so next time they make a decision, they’ll have an automatic reaction to question it and think “Is this a good enough reason/choice for my actions?”
Trust and give MORE responsibility
Next time there is an opportunity to give your teen a responsibility, from cooking dinner for the family to leaving them the house for the night while you’re out, give it to them! Nothing does it for youth quite like having ownership over a situation, and you may find yourself surprised at how much they rise to the challenge of a responsibility. Explain what’s expected of them, and leave the rest to trust. Trust CAN be a scary thing, but hey, everyone makes mistakes and if that happens to be the case, rinse and repeat – as long as your teen knows where you stand, what’s expected of them, and have your support to try better next time, that’s a winning combination!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
27 Degrees With Rain
Lovely Australia, never lets us down - the weather was close to perfect, even when it was raining - the hottest it got to was 27 degrees which was heaven on Earth, on the count of me missing out on the full on Kiwi summer, due to my absence in the cold wintery Russia in December and January this year!
I am promising myself that I will make up for the lack of Vitamin D in my body by spending the next New Zealand winter somewhere warm....France maybe?
So to keep everyone in the loop, a couple of pics I took while over there...
Beautiful Melbourne...
Relaxing in the Sun...
Author Talks at the Brisbane Libraries...
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Social Media in New Zealand
http://www.eva-maria.co.nz/page/snstart/default.asp
Get on it.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Lost Generation...?
The AARP (American Association of Retired People) wanted to know what young people were thinking about their future.
They ran a video competition called "U @ 50"
The second place winner was "Lost Generation"
It is brilliant in its simplicity. When it was shown to an AARP audience, they broke into spontaneous applause.
What are your thoughts...?
Monday, February 22, 2010
Un-Impressed by Social Networking
Dear Eva-Maria
I'd like to know your views on the latest scandals about social networks and how this is negatively impacting schools. We all know with new age comes change, and this generations' it's unfortunately the opportunity to hide behind a computer screen and write anything they want about the people who truly care about them - their teachers. You've grown up in this age Eva-Maria - what do you think - is it fair our students are allowed to post such public and hurtful comments for the entire world to see?
Un-impressed
*
*
*
Dear Un-impressed
Do you remember a teacher you didn't like, and you felt you may have to tell your friends about your frustrations too?
Social networking = same thing, except online.
Whether there is a social network or 'group' dedicated to something bad about a school or teacher, it does NOT make any more or less students feel this way. There are always different
people, different teachers, different students. The internet has given people all over the world an environment and an opportunity to voice their opinions, but this doesn't necessarily convert
people. It may bond together the like-minded, but that could happen in real life too if the internet didn't exist. I find the same mind-boggling thing with adults who won't put their photo up on the internet because they're scared someone will steal their identity or something. Realistically, these people leave their house, and any person passing them, if they wanted to, could take a photo of them and steal their identity. Putting a photo up online is just as dangerous as leaving your house!
The main point is to use the internet for positive purposes. If you're annoyed at all the hate groups online, make an 'I Love My School' group! Like-minded people will join you, and you will be making a positive impact in the internet world - impacts will be made through the internet - it's up to you if you're going to contribute to them in a good or bad way! "Be the change you want
to see in the world" - famous words of Mahatma Gandhi, and I cannot agree more.
But bottom line, no; I'm not impressed either because students should respect their teachers. Perhaps this whole social networking business is a point you can raise at your next class - what are their views on this? You both have alot to learn, and a different point of view to see from each other - they may just surprise you!
Trust Your Future - it depends on you too!
Eva-Maria
To see more Agony Aunt Columns, or perhaps ask your own question
you'd like answered, click here!
So what are your thoughts on Social Networking?
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Professional Speakers Ignite Wellington!
I am very, very pleased to say that the third-time-lucky Wellington NSANZ Chapter has officially started up with a bang on the last Thursday of January! And this time, I am sure it will stay this way!
I must say, this time, I truly understood the power of networking - it truly brought us all together, and we had so many different ages and people working on inviting people to the night, and let me tell you – the power of networking is the same, whether you’re 19 or 99! We had a successful amount of over 60 people come along to enjoy our very first evening of 2010!
MC-ed by well-known Toastmaster Dave Stonyer, opening the night was Mark Blumsky. Being heavily involved with the business community, he genuinely acknowledged the starting of this chapter, and shared some insights into the necessity and value of professional speaking from his experiences of being Mayor of Wellington – how this was a key skill to getting things done, and the huge difference between reading a speech (especially one written for you), and telling a speech (straight from the heart!).
Following Mark, we had Wellington Chapter’s NSANZ veteran John Faisandier, who shared his journey into professional speaking, and the great benefits NSANZ had in store for him, just from being a member which gave guests a fantastic insight into an association, some of them, had never heard of before!
And wrapping up the evening, we had the lively Billy Graham. As said in one of the feedback forms: “It’s been said before ‘He’s in a league of his own’” and it was absolutely true. Billy is one of those people who are truly ‘On Platform, On Purpose and On Fire’ absolutely 500% of their time, and it was an absolute pleasure seeing him in action, but to learn about the entertaining tips to be the best speaker (one of them is actually to always believe you’re an entertainer, no matter what your subject!)
We had a fantastic response and an overwhelming amount of feedback (over and week onwards and I’m still receiving e-mails every day), so with more people excited about the future of the chapter, our next meeting will concentrate on branding. Which we figured will be the perfect starting point for our current and future members in Wellington (I’m sure you’ll tell all your friends in Wellington about this one!), presented by NSANZ member Mike Handcock, called ‘Rock Your Personal Brand’ on the 24th February, and the only way to find more information about it, will be HERE!
See you there!
