Social Media Isn’t Free to Entrepreneurs or Anyone

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 By Martin Zwilling

If you are an entrepreneur today, and not using social media to promote your business, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. But, contrary to what most people preach, it isn’t entirely free. Most social media outlets don’t require a subscription charge, but they certainly require an investment – in people, in technology, your reputation, and your time.

There are hundreds of consultants out there who will take your money for guidance in this area, but I recommend that you start with some free resources on the Internet, or one of the many recent books on this topic. One I just read, “How to Make Money with Social Media” by Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah, Ph.D., hits all the right points from my perspective:

• There are risks as well as benefits. As with many startup activities, you only have one chance for a great first impression. You can jump into social media with a poor brand definition, poorly focused content, unrealistic expectations of customer service, or be killed by malware or viruses.

• Assess social media relevance to your product or service. If your business is industrial B2B products, social media should be low on your list. Spend your time and money on other platforms. If you are selling to consumers, especially younger ones, your business won’t survive without an effective social media presence.

• Attracting key stakeholders requires sensitivity. For some customers and many investors, a heavy focus on social networks and viral marketing may be a negative, rather than a positive. A balance of conventional and social communication and marketing is always advised.

• Pick the right platform for your business. Within each of the platform categories defined above, there is a right one and a wrong one for your audience. For example, LinkedIn is attuned to business professionals, Facebook is dominated by the social and upwardly mobile crowd, and MySpace is for tweens and creative types.

• Communication and writing skills are required. Heavy texting experience is not a qualification for communicating via social media. In additional to strong journalistic writing and storytelling, you need business acumen, strategic thinking and planning, and the ability to do the right research. These days, video production is also a useful skill.

• Make social media an integrated part of an overall strategy. An integrated marketing strategy starts with an overall brand management strategy, delivered through online and offline communications, promotions, and customer engagement vehicles. Your Twitter YouTube messages better match your print advertising message.

• Find the right tools to analyze the ROI. Return-On-Investment metrics are not new, but the tools are different. Get familiar with current social media tools, such as Google Analytics, Omniture, and HootSuite analytics. Over time, put together the data you need to measure your progress on a weekly/monthly/yearly basis.

The key social media platforms today include communications (WordPress blogs, Twitter), collaboration (Wikipedia, StumbleUpon), and multimedia (YouTube, Flickr). In looking ahead, don’t forget the mobile platforms (iPhone, Android), and location-based services (Foursquare, Gowalla).
As with any resource or tool, you need to optimize your social media costs against a targeted return. That means first setting a strategy and plan for what you want to achieve, then executing the plan efficiently, and measuring results. It’s not free, but it’s an investment that you can’t afford not to make.

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Life’s an ocean of possibilities

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WHEN I was young, I had always thought that everything was possible. Perhaps, many may feel that such (blind) optimism is a characteristic of a child, and come adulthood we grow out of it after experiencing first hand many downfalls.

I am an adult now, and although I may not agree that everything is possible (I can’t possibly grow wings now and fly to the moon, right?), I do still very much believe that many great things are definitely possible.

Born to a father who was a factory worker, with a Form 5 education and a housewife mother, whose highest education was Form 3, perhaps not much would have been expected of the child.

Living and growing up with two other siblings in Kampung Ujung Batu in Butterworth, a kampong now notorious for gangsterism and illegal drug activities, what could society expect of its residents?

Against all these odds, for inexplicable reasons and turn of circumstances, after performing well in my primary school studies, I ended up in a premier school, St. George’s Girls’ School (SGGS).

Travelling daily to school on board the ferry and taking the bus for the first two years, and then carpooling for the subsequent years was nothing less than a great learning curve as well as wholesome fun.

SGGS taught me the importance of wholesome education by providing not only academic pursuits, but also character and moral formation, teaching me respect for individuals irrespective of race or creed.

At this stage, my father had already stopped working due to a defective heart valve and a major open heart surgery that sapped his strength and affected his performance.



Mother now took up a job in a sardine factory to help contribute to the monthly income of the family.
Our family of five survived comfortably on RM1,600 a month.

Never did I feel the pinch of not having enough. Perhaps, my parents never allowed us to feel that way.

Much to the surprise of my parents and some of my teachers, I did well in the SPM and, eventually, STPM, which led me to the University of Malaya to pursue a degree in Biomedical Science.

There, again to my surprise, I graduated with a distinction, and won the award for best oral presenter for my final year research project.

That was two years ago. Right now, I am a tutor in my faculty and have been working on research projects.

Graduating with a CGPA of 3.77 provided me with the opportunity to pursue my PhD directly without having to complete my Masters.

I was blessed with the opportunity to pursue my PhD and work with a world-reknown researcher in the University of Sydney, Prof Dr Nicholas Hunt, whose research work is in the field of malaria, and who is also credited with the groundbreaking find of a new human enzyme.

It’s been two years since I started applying for scholarships. I’ve been to a number of interviews that puzzlingly found me and my research project not worth funding.

Yet, I believe that great things are still possible. Not because of who I am but because of who God is in our midst. After almost two years, various applications and countless email, I was finally offered a scholarship by the University of Malaya to pursue my PhD last March.

Has the journey been smooth since then? Don’t even think about it. My approval is still stuck with the Ministry of Higher Education, although I am supposed to report in Sydney in July.

Have I given up? Of course not. Do I feel like giving up? Sometimes, but rarely so. Will I have to rush through my preparations? Without a doubt. Do I wish that the system was more efficient and assisted the students better? Of course.

But none of this stops me from trying every day to move forward to the things I dream for.
Opportunities come, but never easily or smoothly. Good things worth fighting for, are worth waiting for. I see where I come from and I see where I am today.

In all of it, I see a never-ending string of surprises intricately entwined in the journey of my life. Where we come from does not determine where we will go. What we don’t have does not decide what we will end up with.

Life is an ocean of possibilities. It moves forward with the vehicle of faith.

FELICITA FEDELIS JUSOF,
Butterworth.

Tackling cyber piracy needs careful planning; Hackers mainly locals

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Friday Reflections - By B.K. Sidhu

So much has been said and written about the blocking of sites and hacking the past few days.
But one phrase that keeps popping up is “freedom of information.'' The blocking of sites is seen as going against freedom of information even though it is part of the fight against piracy.

Over the past few days some businessmen in the country have received calls from their counterparts abroad asking if Malaysia was indeed coming on strong on censorship of the Internet.

Internet has become such a powerful tool for many people, be it for work, education, play and entertainment. Sending the wrong message can of course trigger a lot of thoughts of safety to stability especially when we as a country need foreign direct investments.

The question here is not about what the Domestic Ministry or Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC) can or cannot do. It is about why they blocked the sites and why those particular sites.

When it is done without proper explanation, it only creates mayhem and doubts in people's minds. One must remember that a lot of people the world over download stuff for free and anyone who has a broadband connection can assume that free downloads is a given because he is paying for the connection.

Then the question of enforcement comes to play. If you want to fight piracy on the web then fight it on the streets too, why allow pirated DVDs to be sold but sites are blocked.

If there are roadblocks then there should be on both ends or else the question of who we are protecting - the copyright holders or someone else - will arise.

To recap - the telecoms industry regulator, MCMC, ordered ISPs to block 10 file sharing sites at the request of the Domestic Ministry in the name of fighting piracy. These sites are used for file sharing to download music, songs, games, homework, and to do business.

One ISP did as it was told by the regulator but little did they know that they would get so much flak for that action. To explain, it posted the MCMC letter. This letter was meant to be confidential to the ISPs but it landed on the net and was circulated widely.

It did not take much time for the cyber community to retaliate over the blocking of sites and to vent their frustrations they lambasted the Government via the net. To them it was a privacy intrusion and against the MSC Malaysia Bill of Guarantees which states that the Government will not censor the Internet.

So angry were they that a Facebook account - “1M Malaysians Don't Want Block File Sharing Websites'' - was created for people to air their grouses. “What they did was akin to using a mega bomb to kill one terrorist,'' someone said of the blocking of the 10 sites.

The sites were blocked because there was an element of pirated content and according to some experts, this is a lucrative business especially for certain parties as they host the free content but some do charge VPN services to “cloak'' the content.

Ironically, the IP addresses of those sites were from the same place and 40% of IP transit traffic out of Malaysia is said to land there and the blocking action could have hurt someone's rice bowl.

The whole blocking episode and all the grouses caught the eye of hackers who threatened to hack government sites in retaliation.

They did so on Wednesday night and 41 sites were compromised. This is not the first block or hack, and it would not be last in the Internet era. Internet has both good and bad sides. It is up to the policy makers to take heed of what the users want; don't brush them aside as social media has somewhat become an avenue for people to air their grouses.

Today they can block 10, 20 or even 30 sites, but there will be an equal number of proxy sites which will offer free downloads. So while an explanation is needed for the blocking of sites, there also is a need to take Internet users on an educational journey to explain what is legal and illegal, what is piracy and what is downloadable, what is cyber security and how to safeguard.

One cannot assume everyone knows all that.Also, not many are willing to pay for content because there is free content out there.

Without a well thought out plan on how to tackle piracy, any effort will be futile and users will be left frustrated.

Deputy news editor B.K. Sidhu is glued to The World Is Flat.

90% of hackers attacking govt, private websites are locals

PUTRAJAYA: Ninety per cent of the hackers who attacked 200 government and private websites in the past four days were locals, said Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili on Friday.

He said the police and the relevant agencies were now in the process of identifying them. "We have come to know that most of the hackers were locals, not from, abroad," he told a press conference here.

He said this when asked to comment on the group calling itself 'Anonymous', which claimed to be based abroad and threatened the attack the government's official portal, www.malaysia.gov.my.

Maximus said that as the head of the ministry that promoted the safe use of the Internet and handled the infrastructure that dealt with cyber security, he appealed to Malaysians to use the Internet professionally for education and the development of the country.

"Because you cannot go very far when you want to do criminal activities within cyberspace itself," he added.

Asked whether the Cabinet had made any decision to form a special task force to solve this problem, he said he could not confirm that yet. - Bernama

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