Which Social Media Sites Are Hot, and Which Not?

Which Social Media Sites Are Hot, and Which Not?
Greek Tragedy Needs Entrepreneurial Heroes
“Playing to Win” Explains the 5 Strategy Mistakes Businesses Make

Posted: 03 Mar 2013 02:57 PM PST

You only have so much time for social media sites, to create a business presence on them. So it’s important to pick and choose where to spend your limited time and resources. That said, where should you spend your time? Exactly which social media sites are hot?

Will the beautifully redesigned MySpace make a comeback with a mainstream business audience? Will Pinterest keep growing? Will Foursquare decline? What about Google+ and LinkedIn?

Recently a group of social media pros and marketers weighed in with their thoughts for the Dell Social Media Predictions eBook. Included were predictions from Ann Handley of Marketing Profs, Lee Odden of TopRank, Michael Brito of Edelman, Toby Bloomberg of Cox Media Group, and consultant-authors Rohit Bhargava and Shel Israel, to name a few.

I’m happy to report that Small Business Trends had a presence there, as my predictions made it into the ebook, on slide 4. I embed the entire ebook from Slideshare below. Beneath that, I include the full text of my own predictions. See what you think, and leave a comment with YOUR thoughts. How would you have answered the questions?

Social Media Predictions for 2013 from Dell Social Media

Text of Slide 4 with the predictions of Anita Campbell, Founder of Small Business Trends (@smallbiztrends):

Q: What social media channel do you feel is primed to grow its audience base the most in 2013 and which one may disappear?

A: Google+ is primed to grow the most, simply because you can’t afford to ignore it. With Google tying it to other products such as local search, and using it as a signal (however nebulously they de?ne it) in search results, its not just another social network. It’s shaping up to be much much more.

We won’t see any major social channel completely disappear, but I will predict that MySpace’s recent redesign won’t broaden its relevance. It’s pretty much been relegated to bands and artists, and brands distinctly seeking the teen market.

Q: Can you share your best advice for a brand to connect with their audience on a one-on-one level?

A: Make yourself and/or your team visible, with names attached. That way the public, customers and prospects know there are real people behind the social accounts. For example, on Twitter, if you have a company account, identify who exactly is doing the tweeting. On a company blog, identify the writers by name (I don’t know about your company but I don’t have anyone in my company named “admin”!).

Use photos of your people too. Our engagement on one site I own increased 20% after we put up a rotating Featured Moderators box and a Moderators page listing them all.

The post Which Social Media Sites Are Hot, and Which Not? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Greek Tragedy Needs Entrepreneurial Heroes

Posted: 03 Mar 2013 09:00 AM PST

greek entrepreneurs Anyone tracking world news knows that of the European countries currently felled by economic unrest, Greece is the worst hit. Beginning with the worldwide financial crisis of 2008 and following the infamous riots of that same year, output in Greece is down and continues to fall. Debts stand unpaid while unemployment grows.

The Greek economy alone is experiencing a Great Depression.

But there remains a measure of hope in Greek national news with a slowly growing contingent of Grecian entrepreneurs. One such individual is Stathis Katinas, co-founder of online franchise Car Rental Bookers.

A veteran of the travel industry, Stathis first transitioned into car rental and online travel booking in 1996 after managing a family-run holiday complex in his hometown of Rhodes. Through outreach to local car rental companies, he found a common need for increased Internet presence to address international bookings.

Together with software architect Tristan Mcvean, Stathis developed CarGDS, a global distribution software to support small and mid-sized car rental operators, in 2004. Through a pilot site, the software was first implemented locally in both Greece and Cyprus. They targeted car rental operators without an online presence or with basic sites. Providing the industry's first deliveries platform, the service increases revenues of suppliers by expanding their market reach.

Car Rental Bookers provides software to suppliers to maximize car rentals through online booking, as well as distribution software for the bookings. Website owners can also add the CarGDS software to their consumer-facing site and become affiliates through the shared technology.

CarGDS even provides a customizable supplier SaaS, with a back-end administration that includes fleet, locations, insurance and reporting. This technology expands the supplier's market to include not just cities and towns, but airports, railways stations, resorts, hotels and ports.

The pre-crash market proved noncompetitive for Car Rental Bookers, as similar technologies have only grown in recent years. Now in 2012, harsh austerity measures have increased VAT, homeowner levies and especially fuel prices. Thus it becomes all the more impressive that Car Rental Bookers has negotiated supply deals with several hundred local suppliers. The company holds deals with leading brands including Alamo, Enterprise and Hertz, among others.

According to CNN, registered unemployment of 364,000 in 2008 grew to 1.26 million in 2012, an incredible of 25.1%. With four times the original unemployed population on their hands, many in Greece argue that the stringent austerity cuts being implemented are stifling economic growth. The argument is fair, as despite tax levies, the country still owes more than it makes with a national debt of 161% GDP.

This makes the Car Rental Bookers lean approach to business all the more refreshing. Initial product development was primarily handled independently, with low-cost outsourcing for any additional needs. The company is entirely bootstrapped to date and is housed in Stathis' family offices to keep a low monthly overhead.

And although the CarGDS system was developed with limited resources and was completed as recently as 2012, business continues to grow. The service now covers approximately 70 countries with the most customers in Greece, Spain, Malta, Cyprus, and South Africa, in addition to U.S. based business. As tourism remains one of few contributors to economic survival in Greece, it stands to reason that car rentals will continue to grow in popularity.

The best-performing stock market in Europe this past year was that of Greece. A rise of 33% in the Athens index outdid even Germany's DAX. Officials predict that the Greek economy will start to grow by October 2013. While it certainly doesn't override the future possibility of the Greek exit from the Euro, an upward trend in output speaks to the positive influence of local entrepreneurs like Stathis.

Needless to say, many more such heroes are needed to avoid a multi-generational tragedy in Greece.

Flying Entrepreneur Photo via Shutterstock

The post Greek Tragedy Needs Entrepreneurial Heroes appeared first on Small Business Trends.

“Playing to Win” Explains the 5 Strategy Mistakes Businesses Make

Posted: 03 Mar 2013 06:00 AM PST

strategy mistakes

In this highly competitive economy, small businesses need a strategy to flourish and grow. The question to ask yourself is: are you playing to win, not just trying to stay in the game?

With their book Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works authors Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley make the argument that delaying decisions on your strategy can have enormous consequences for your business. Martin and Lafley are both Procter and Gamble executives.

I learned about the book through a mention at Harvard Business Review and asked for a review copy. It turned out to be a thought-provoking strategy book designed for large companies. But it’s one that small business leaders interested in strategy can learn from.

Martin and Lafley assert that strategy is a young discipline — it’s “about making specific choices” in your business. Company leaders, they say, commit five kinds of mistakes when laying out their strategies:

Leaders define strategy solely as a vision. Mission and vision statements are elements of strategy, but they aren’t enough. They offer no guide to productive action and no explicit road map to the desired future.
Leaders define strategy simply as a plan.
Leaders deny that long-term (or even medium-term) strategy is possible because of a rapidly changing world.
Leaders define strategy as the optimization of what they are already doing in their current business.
Leaders define strategy as following best practices, such as benchmarking against competition, and then doing the same set of activities.

The authors explain why strategy often goes wrong. They note that making choices is hard work, and it doesn’t always fit into all the other work to be done in a business.

See if this sounds like you. You are in a rapidly evolving marketplace. Things are moving so fast that you ditch long-term strategies, believing it’s futile to decide what you will do 3 or 5 years in the future. That’s a mistake, say the authors:

“Some leaders argue that it's impossible to think about strategy in advance and that instead a firm should respond to new threats and opportunities as they emerge…. Unfortunately, such an approach places a company in a reactive mode, making it easy prey for more-strategic rivals…. Not only is strategy possible in times of tumultuous change, but it can be a competitive advantage and a source of significant value creation. Is Apple disinclined to think about strategy? Is Google? Is Microsoft?”

Small business owners may dismiss the points made by the book as academic and not for them. But small businesses need strategy, too. A delayed or non-existent strategy can lead to mediocre positioning in the marketplace, inability to compete and ultimately failure.

Oh, but you have marketing plans and other kinds of plans. Martin and Lafley say plans are not enough:

“Plans and tactics are also elements of strategy, but they aren't enough either. A detailed plan that specifies what the firm will do (and when) does not imply that the things it will do add up to sustainable competitive advantage.”

A Strategy Book With Five Steps

The authors suggest a playbook of five steps to a strategy:

Decide on a winning aspiration.
Choose "where to play" – the market for your offering.
Decide "how to win" – executing strategy.
Develop core capabilities.
Create a management system.

The first several chapters of Martin and Lafley’s book address the implications of these choices. For example, in the first few pages we are shown how deciding on a winning aspiration can address the problem of relying upon a vision alone. Winning aspirations offer a guiding purpose for your business:

“There are many ways the higher-order aspiration of a company can be expressed. As a rule of thumb, start with people rather than money. Peter Drucker argued that the purpose of an organization is to create a customer, and it's still true today…. Starbucks, Nike, and McDonald's, each massively successful in its own way, frame their ambitions around their customers.”

We then see how Nike’s, Starbucks’, and McDonald's aspirations are similar, and how we can apply this same principle in our own businesses:

“Each company does not want to serve each customer. They want to win with them. . .And that is the single most crucial dimension of a company's aspiration: a company must play to win. To play merely to participate is self-defeating…. Why is it so important? Winning is worthwhile.”

These observations help explain how strategy mistakes can muddle business decisions. Aspirations can lead teams to develop new methodologies instead of just optimizing old ones.

I liked that the authors created a way to stay on track, and with a do-it-yourself approach. The book avoids issues that are probably best addressed in books about project management or team dynamics. But those who have read such books already won't be disappointed with Playing to Win, particularly after reading Chapter 8.

Martin and Lafley use examples to illustrate the value of strategic thinking through their Procter and Gamble experience. Chapter 1 sets the scene for revitalizing Oil of Olay, a high profile product stagnating in a profitable and growing marketplace. Other large corporations are mentioned, so small business readers will need to imagine how these experiences also apply to them.

Yet the authors’ writing is clear enough to spark the reader’s imagination. You will have a clear means to improve your business strategy and make better choices, regardless of whether you are working with multiple employees and contacts or just with an army of one.

If you need to establish a clear strategy while dealing with personnel concerns, Playing to Win is certainly made to order. Martin and Lafley have unlocked valuable thoughts about what strategy should be, how it should be managed, and how businesses can win the day. This is a strategy book worth reading.

The post “Playing to Win” Explains the 5 Strategy Mistakes Businesses Make appeared first on Small Business Trends.