PR Brainstorming

I always do what I do with passion and dedication and when I realize that the work I am doing does not represent me (anymore) I give up very easily. It is not the cowardice of facing the difficulties straight away, but the realization of the simple fact that I live only once and if it is to spend part of my life working, I better do something enjoyable.

However, the diversity of my options allows me to juggle with different passions - paid differently. For instance, I loved to do PR and communication in the domain of international relations but for the moment, I limit my passion for this domain to the writing of a couple of articles and reading information about what is going on around the world.

On the other hand, there it is always enough time to put your mind at work. For instance, try to imagine how you will solve certain communication crisis or what solution will you offer in terms of communication plans. I turn some of my ideas into articles, book projects as I do not like at all to miss any opportunity for sharing my standpoints. There are two-fold advantages of such an attitude: on the one hand, it is the idea of keeping updated with the latest news and challenges pertaining your domain. But there it is a psychological advantage too: by writing and brainstorming and discussing eventually with other people involved, there are high chances that the frustration will be kept away. You may be unhappy for not following your passions, because not extremely well paid, but at least you can make this deprivation temporarily, as you continue keeping your feet into another of your professional ground.

Book review: The $100 Startup

Isn't it that one of the most serious deterrents for setting up your own business is related to money, or rather the lack thereof? Well, if you are brave enough to have $100 available, do something smart and get a business licence or buy the supplies for delivering your first order.

The first thought of someone helping and consulting and writing about smart startups: 'If I needed money, I learned to think in terms of how I could get what I needed by making something and selling it, not by creating costs elsewhere or working for someone else'. Let's the party begin! It is a part of smart people, not only in love with what they are doing, but ready to share their experience with the community and to add value to the community. Even if you do your work with passion, you should not forget that this passion may offer a source of revenue for you, and eventually for your family. Hence, do not forget to evaluate the right price for your service. (This one of my mistakes when working as a freelancer, as I did not asked always for the right price for my work and sooner or later I accumulated a lot of frustration, despite making my employer happy due to the wonderful balance between quality and price). 

What you will learn while reading the $100 Startup is that you should never give up the dedication and the hard work, but that you can do it only for you. As we are living in the best time for businesses, thanks to the amazing development of mobile communications and Internet, it is easier to reach a decent - or more than decent - financial level, while on the road, portioning the time spent between family and the administration of a business. The book offers a lot of practical examples and thoughts by people on the startup boat for years and still on the right track. We can be happy easier than decades ago - the Internet as we know it is less than 20 years old - and it is a pitty not to use our full potential to be one of the happy members of the global startup nation. 

As someone working both as a freelancer and as a full time employee, this book was the perfect boost for a new start. I have a lot of ideas in my hectic mind and the desire for financial freedom and full enjoyment of my time was always there, but the more you read about other people in a similar situation succeeding, the more you would like to emulate them. 

No wonder why in the next days I will be not so active blogging. My brain is boiling startup ideas!

Keep the Java out of your computer

Apparently, the system present serious shortages and should be almost permanently disabled. Most probably, this is not the solution to the problem and tomorrow another system may endanger your computer. But prevention is a careful mother and you better learn how to disable it. 

News from Facebook

Did anyone notice the smart innovation introduced by Facebook: when you start commenting to a post, you have the possibility to reply to a specific post. Gone are the days when you comment once and you lost the counts of the replies addressed specifically to you. Now, you answer and get answered almost as personally as during a normal conversation!

Happy commenting Friday everyone!

Reconsidering Google+

Shortly after Google+ was launched I jumped into setting up my account, but I must recognize that shortly after I lost my interest and nowadays I use it only by accident and curiosity twice the year. Not without regrets, though, as I am one of the biggest fans of Google and its products. But somehow, for me it seems that Google+ was not one of the best ideas. 

However, looking around in Germany, I discovered that many journalists are using it regularly and I still belive in the lucky star of G+ for advertising and communications. Maybe I thought that Facebook and Twitter are already enough and I better try to focus my time and energies for better offline causes.

Guy Kawasaki's systematic book about Google+ restored my hope in the creativity of this service. And the goals of the book - 'My goals are to help you derive as much joy and value from Google+ as I do (...)' - are reached, at least in my case. For a commercial and social media cause, this service offers a lot of incomparable opportunities compared with Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. For instance, you can use more pictures from profile, the limit of posts is of 100,000 characters, you can set up - for the moment, but the situation will probably improve in the next months - video conerencing for 10, there are chances for a high post visibility, the pics can be displayed in the posts. A service mentioned as an advantage - the possibility of editing - was introduced by Facebook as well lately. 

With such good character treats, why is Google+ so much criticized, when not ignored completely? It started later, says Kawasaki, but for a good professional the advantages are obvious. Take for example the possibility of being included on the list of integrated search results, the extensive use of hashtags - without the limit of 140-character as in the case of Twitter - the possibility to share various information and your passion only with those interested in such information and passions. Your posts can be shared further by those with the same interests, or you can prevent it by setting the status to 'lock'. Compared with other social media profiles, you can set up an interesting profile that will tell everything should be said about your interests. 

Guy Kawasaki explains step by step how to set up the account, what the 'circles' are, how to edit the pictures, the rules of comments and sharing posts, achieving trustworthiness and optimization of the social search. 

One may think that everyone can write such a book. Maybe. But Kawasaki offered all you need to know for understanding Google+ and he did it with the passion of a daily user of Google+. 

Learning about business e-mail marketing

I spent a lot of time at the end of 2012 reading many interesting and useful books, trying to improve my marketing and communication knowledge. Now, I will need to apply many of the lessons in practice and when the time will allow me, I will try to share more experiences on this blog.

For a long time, I thought e-mail marketing is quite outfashioned, especially when you have so many fast and interesting social media tools. However, after reading Jacqueline Biggs' book, Business e-mail marketing, I changed my opinion. As in many other situations, it is important to evaluate the potential of your market and check what are the main requirements and demands, but in most cases, this marketing tool is very much appreciated and used. For instance, over 60% of the UK businesses and customers questioned answered that they are responsive at this way of marketing.

What are the objectives that you can reach through it, according to Biggs? You can drive loyalty and customer satisfaction, creating brand awareness, driving sales and improving customer retention. Practically, everything a business will need in terms of achievement. The e-mail marketing can be used either by a service provider or by a specialized department if the company. In both cases, it is important to have a good coordination of the messages and a permanent evaluation of the ways in which the objectives were implemented. In fact, the regular evaluation - weekly, monthly - is  very important for being able to adapt your strategy to the needs of the market. Of course that in time of crisis, there are different parameters to be considered, but the book focus on the regular e-mail marketing. 

There are a couple of interesting tips that should be considered when you want to avoid to be considered a spammer. According to my own experience in e-mail and online marketing, there are many situations when your mail risk to reach the Spam section, without a specific reason. Hence, the lack of response from the people that you eventually want to network or do business with. Some of the suggestions presented by Biggs are: avoid capitalization, don't create an e-mail that is one large image file, avoid to use in your sentences words such as 'free', 'no risk' or 'low risk'.

The strategy for any case of e-mail marketing activity should have: clear objectives, an established content strategy, consider a segmentation of the data base, integrate the e-mail marketing with other marketing strategies and again, regularly test and evaluate the results. 

The segmentation of the data base should be done up to the location, area of activity, size of the business, demographics, buying behavior, the type of product or service. 

A creative suggestion that I would love to use one day is to permanently keep your customers interested. For example, after someone purchased one of your products, within one week - the books mention 3 days - send an automated e-mail that will recommend an accessory or a discount for an incoming production. This tip works extremely well to charitable causes, educational products, book marketing and many other products. In my opinion, if you want to keep your customers involved you should to invest considerably in offering them permanently interesting information. 

Writing original content is very important, and many companies are using experienced copywriters for valuable content creation. The texts should be short, gramatically correct, written in consideration of the grammar rules. The majority of people do not have time and thus, you rather include a smart Call-To-Action from the first lines: create a sense of urgency, while offering something to the reader/customer. 

Time for some more practice now!