Below is a great example of both.

Jess3 has brilliantly put together the lastest statistics on the internet growth, including internet usage and social media.  Put this research in to an amazing presentation and then shared it for us all to enjoy.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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It seems every decade creates its on characteristic trendy items that later become synonmous with the decade.

So what are the prediction trends for events and party – starting with 2010.

Well here are a couple of starters -

• 57 Predictions for 2010 via BizBash | 57 Predictions for 2010: Event Pros on Budgets, Social Media, Catering, Decor Trends, and More.
• Moreton Hire Reveals 2010 Special Event Trends At NYE Event
• Bubbles may be all the range with the new party craze from Bubblemedia.org

And One Special Mention

When we first posted this article we received a great reply on our Twitter Account from the Wheelie Keg Man.  Given they showed great social marketing ettiquette and they are also a local company – we will have to give them a definite mention.

If anyone else has any thoughts please share them with us!

on Twitter @makinglifeezy

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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And the problem is not social media that has just brought it to a head

There has been lots of traffic over recent months how junior staff are struggling to convince older managers of the benefits of Social Media.

The are stuggle has to come to a head because of Social Media

The C Level Managers today were junior staff in the 1980′s.  A time when the whole western world got so wrapped up in down-sizing, right sizing – productivity improvements.

They think, and I should know I went through it too, all about lean and mean – minimum staff to do a job – its all about the productivity per person.  To most of them Social Media is idle chatter in fact all chatter is idle.

All Customer Conversations are Idle Chatter

To the C Level Managers today whose careers started in the late 1970′s and 1980′s – any customer conversation is idle chatter.  Think about it, have you heard things like this.

Telephone Calls:  You spent too long on the customer account call! And by the way what were you talking to them about their kids playing basketball for?

Counter Service:  Stop talking to the customers just serve them and move on, time is money.

Now Bring on Social Media

Social media is about engaging with people, actually chatting to them.  That is most definitely not going to fly with a productivity mindset manager, especially when the results are hard to prove.

So as BenYoskovitz puts it

Unfortunately, too many mid-level and junior-level employees are forced to spend a disproportionate amount of their time figuring out how to justify things to their bosses ….

Marketing Will Tell Customers

Its not up to YOU  to create a relationship with customers – marketing will TELL our customers we want a relationship with them.

Probably a bit harsh that line, but I spent twenty years in Corporate life before joining the excellent world of a Small to Medium business.

But there is an element of truth to it.  Corporate marketing departments “control” the public message, including defining the companies relationship with clients.  Depending on the value of the client that is.

Measurement is the Key

The 1980′s crop of managers are not dumb, ( well I hope I am not) our careers have been built around measurement.  Measuring results is needed to justify decisions. That is just the way we were taught to think.   However we all struggle to measure the intangible value of customer conversations (relationship building conversations).

Social media will in time develop the metrics to prove it works.  Once it proves it and allowing for some time to change mindsets it will be adopted.  And it does work, for example

We dumped google adwords and just use Social Media and our leads went up 83%.

True Customer Relation Building May Become in Vogue

And this may even flow on to the broader area of customer conversations.  May be Dale Carnegie‘s principals for enhancing relationships may become in vogue again.

• Become Genuinely Interested In Other People.
• Be A Good Listener. Encourage Others To Talk About Themselves.
• Talk In Terms Of The Other Person’s Interests.
• Make The Other Person Feel Important — And Do It Sincerely.

Ultimately we will get back to talking to customers either on the phone, in the aisle, at the counter or on facebook etc.  Because the proof will emerge that it pays to do so.

For example more companies like us will be able to show themselves and others that Social Media infact time anytime spent on customer conversations works.

Please add your comments!

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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Its great as they take the time to interview and canvass the opinions of some of the World’s best social media thought leaders.

Our Prediction for Equipment, Party, Event Rental / Hire

Our prediction is that in 2010, the hire and rental industry will begin to actively start to use Social Media.  At present analysis shows that most are only putting a toe into the water.  However there are some real social market leaders out there in the industry.  As their success becomes more apparent, we believe others will begin to follow.

Social media aligns naturally party rental and party hire as well as event rental and event hire sectors.
We offer a free advisory service to hire and rental companies considering social media marketing, simply email us.

Now for the Social Trends of 2010 by TrendSpotter

This was a surprising finding given that it is an natural marketing channel, in particular for party rental and event hire companies.

In a recent report by Small Business Success Index,

small businesses are steadily increasing their adoption of social media to attract and retain customers at a relatively low cost.

Despite this slow start- Growth Has Doubled

Nearly One in 4 small businesses now use social media.

The main reason cited is that they believe it will help attract and retain customers.

The full article with detailed discussions can be found by clicking the link below.

Small Businesses Use Social Media to Pursue Customers.

Caution Needed

Too often many small companies leap into social media without having a plan in place.  Social media like any marketing endeavour needs to be thought out and a plan devised.

If your not sure where to start and you are a hire or rental business.  Then please contact us for an obligation free discussion.  We are happy to share our experiences.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

Why because they need to manage:

Equipment inventory, availability and maintenance

Staff talent and availability

Customers and prospects contact details, business inquiries and communications

Sites and location details and restrictions etc

The business financials and accounting

On top of this they need to market their business.  Increasingly most of this marketing is web, digital and/or social media based.

Problem Solved

Camera Equipment rental or camera equipment hire, depending on where in the English speaking world you come from now have a single business software solution to manage all of these requirements – HireEzy.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

Growth of Social Media is staggering but are the returns worth the effort?

We trailed just using Social Media Marketing for three months.  We dropped Adwords all together and found that our sales leads increased by over 80% and our Alexa Web Site ranking went up 1000% in the same period.

But It Does Takes Effort

Effective Social Media marketing does take effort.  Why because it involves engaging people, its not about SELL SELL SELL.  Its about engagement with interesting content, discussions and even etiquette.

Social Media is just that its social!

Content

People find interesting and informative content appealing.  Rarely do they find 100% sales literature appealing.  Rather they would rather read or view material that informs, explains or entertains.

Generally blogs provide the interesting content and web sites the more specific sales information.  However producing interesting and engaging content articles for your blog does take time and effort.  Allowing 3- 4 hours a week to write articles for the blog is reasonable planning guide.

The type of blog articles you write you should be informative, engaging or entertaining not in your face sales.  For example, if you are a Party Rental/  Hire Company, write articles about how to plan an event , eg a backyard wedding etc.  Or in this case we are writing about social media marketing, not selling our hire and rental business management software that has integrated social media marketing.

One of key point to remember to seed in your key words in to the article.  Blogs are also good for using less frequently used words associated with your business as well.

Let People Know About Your Blog Article

This is the social part of social media marketing.

Having written an engaging article you need to let people know about it.  This is where Twitter and Facebook really come in to play. However you need to invest time and effort in building up your Twitter and Facebook following.  More relevant followers means more people likely to read your post.

However communities take time to build, you need to invest time in listening and responding to what they are saying.  That is being a good community member.  This can take more than a couple of hours per week probably longer realistically if you are serious.

Effort Versus Return

So let us say you spend four to five hours per week on writing blog content and building your social media following then you need to have a return.

Interestingly Nielson cited that around 17% of time on the internet is now spent on social media.

Cost. The cost of your time is not just the salary on-cost it is also the opportunity cost.  That is what else could you have been doing.  Also a consideration is your Ad-words spend.  Social media may enable you to save this money or at least reduce your spend per month.

Return. The return is dependent on what you objective.  For most small to medium sized businesses the primary objective will most often be sales leads.  For us it worked, but for your business it may differ.

Our Returns.  We found that through this process our Blog (content focused) Unique Visitor rate increased from not much to a few hundred per day.  Our web site (product sales focused) increased proportionally leading to an 80% increase in sales leads through the web site.

Key Lessons Learnt

We learnt some critical lessons through our trial, which were:

• Have a Plan;
• Be Disciplined and above and beyond all else; and
• Be Sincere.

We were lucky in that we approached the trial with genuine sincerity in our engagements with our social media community.  We went in with the view of genuinely learning from others in our social media community and we have – it has been brilliant.

For us, yes there is a real effort needed but the returns are greater than just an excellent growth in sales leads – we have gained far more from what we have learnt from others.

If you have any similar experiences or even different views please take the time to add your comments – they are most welcome!

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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Easier because there are more channels available to communicate with customers / prospects such as Social Media.

Yet more difficult because customers or prospects have more choices from which to receive communications and more selective in who they invite to send information.

Note: In this article the term customer is used to cover both existing customers and prospects.

Why Is It More Difficult!

Communicating with customers even five years ago was fairly straight forward.   You could communicate directly through email, mail or even the telephone.  Or you could advertise in the newspaper, yellow pages or if you could afford it Television or Radio.

But all of these are now less effective than five years ago

You may well have your customers address, email or phone number

 but are you actually reaching them?

Traditional Mail

This is not new we have all known this for years. Companies are increasingly using electronic means to communicate and invoice and pay bills.  For example according to the Washington Post, the US Postal Service has ..

That downward trend is only accelerating. The Postal Service projects a decline of about 10 billion pieces of mail in each of the next two years, going from a high of 213 billion pieces of mail in 2006 to 170 billion projected for 2010.

And nearly half of this is junk mail!

the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) delivered 153.8 billion pieces of mail, of which 43 percent, or 66.4 billion pieces, were junk mail.

Decline of Email

Email is beginning to decline in popularity, as more communication options become available.

In 2003, people spent 46% of their time online using sites which fall into the “communications” category – that is, sites whose core capabilities are email and instant messaging. By 2009, that usage dropped to 27% or a 41% decline in overall use.

May be spam has contributed to the decline in people’s focus on email as a primary source of communication.

In Microsoft’s latest biannual report on the state of computer security, the company says that in the second half of 2008, a full 97.3 percent of email traffic was unwanted spam (or malicious email like phishing attacks and outright viruses).

Tele-Sales Now Seen As Least Effective

Business to Business tele-marketing or sales is also in decline for a number of reasons, not the least of which are changes in the legislation’s around the world governing tele-marketing practises.  Many now view out bound tele-marketing as the least effective option.

90% view Telemarketing as at least as effective as their other marketing mediums.

Decline of Yellow Pages/ NewsPapers/ Television

Even these – the stalwarts of advertising for decades are in decline, see previous post Advertising media types

So Where Are Customers Going

Well it appears they are becoming more interested in Social Media.  However social media whilst opening up new channels also poses some interesting problems.

It is Discretionary

Yes you can communicate with customers now by using Twitter or Facebook etc.  However it is at the customers discretion as to whether they allow you to communicate with them.  Either by adding as a Friend on Facebook or Following You on Twitter.

Facebook and Twitter are arguably direct communication social media type but there are more indirect channels.

Common Interest

Many years ago I read the Dale Carnegie Classic – “How to Win Friends and Influence People” .  In that book, I remember reading the story of how he (or someone) had tried to make an appointment with a prospect for years – but failed.  He then found that they both had a common interest in something.  From this he was able to develop a friendship which led to sales.

This can be the same with Social Media!

For example through say Social Book marking sites (eg Digg, Stumble on) you may find that you have common interests in similar articles.  Developing relationships this way can lead to either direct sales or them even referring you on to their community or contacts.    It also provides a means to commence a discussion leading potentially to being invited to join their discretionary social media sites.

Social Media provides opportunities to engage prospects and customers indirectly, by finding things of common interest.

It Works!

For example, our software is developed for hire and rental companies.  One of our major points of difference is integration with the Web and Social Media.  We therefore are genuinely interested in both subjects.  We write about it (blog posts), we read about it  and we comment about it.  Through this process we have found similar like minded companies and individuals and built really good communities on Facebook (>350 friends), Twitter (>3000 followers) and also on Digg and Stumble On.  It does deliver results for us:

We trailed just using Social Media Marketing for three months.  We dropped Adwords all together and found that our sales leads increased by over 80% and our Alex Web Site ranking went up 1000% in the same period.  See full post – “Is Social Media Marketing Worth The Effort”

Summary

So yes on one hand their are more ways to communicate with your customers yet at the same time it is more difficult.  We are entering a period where increasingly customers are gaining control over who, what, when and how they are communicated with.  This will pose a both challenges and opportunities to marketing people for in the future.

 

Interested in more articles on Social Media and Marketing?

Then follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Networked Blogs or Stumble On

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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Why

Should your company have a Social Media Policy

Resources

Social Mashable has put together a list of 80 + different Social Media policies from different companies.  Social Media Policies of Over 80 Companies

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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• 45% of Employers Now Screen Social Media Profiles (jonggunlee.tistory.com)

In fact at last count we had some 125 articles focused on this very business improvement ideas subject.

One particular area we have concentrated on is the opportunities offered by Social Media!

Not just in improving hire rental sales leads but also in how it can be applied to reduce operating costs and business risk. As many of our regular readers state the application of social media to hire and rental can be both broad and extremely effective.

We so passionately believe in the application benefits of Social Media to the hire rental industry we decided to provide a free advisory service to hire and rental companies.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au