Taking your business forward!

It’s happening in Huron County…

Have you ever seen a featured news story appear in your Facebook news feed which endorses a particular commercial product?  If you endorsed the product and wanted to share it with your friends, your name will be prominently displayed.

Perhaps you have seen an article you wanted to share with your friends, and they in turn share it with their friends when they “like” it as well. It’s cool when you want to let your friends know about a great new item. However, how would you feel if you had nothing to do with the article?  Suppose the article just appeared out of the blue, and was circulated to your friends as if you had personally endorsed it? Would that be disturbing to you?

Yesterday a Facebook story appeared online that endorsed a new product offered by a  well known and reputable Huron County company. The article was also “liked” and shared by five of my Facebook friends.  The local company is awesome, no problem there.  What is disturbing though is the story was shared under my wife’s name, yet she had absolutley nothing to do with circulating the story. She was sitting beside me and verified the same, and had not even logged into Facebook that day! This curious incident prompted us to contact the other Facebook friends attached to the article. They too did not know anything about the product they supposedly had just “liked”.

The problem is not about the endorsed company.  It is about the fact that somehow a marketer somewhere has attached an endorsement without permission.  An online endorsement carries with it the weight of your personal opinion, and has economic value.  There is gold in those personal endorsements!

If this were the only incident, we could dismiss it as a glitch.  However this is not the case, as it has happened numerous times.  What makes this incident different is that this time my wife and I were in the same room so we could discuss it when it was happening.

Has this happened to you?  If so, please comment.

What do we really know about the privacy permissions we give when we “like” a large commercial entity?  Are we giving the company license to associate our names with future promotional stories?  Have any of us waded through all the privacy agreements Facebook offers?  Can your identity be legally hi-jacked and used to endorse commercial products on Facebook?  Who knows?  Has your account been hacked and used by third party marketers to generate “likes” that are not legitimate?  Again we don’t know, but we do intend to follow the incident up with the marketing department of the local company who ultimately are funding their social media marketing.  Do they know how all the “likes” are generated?

You can help.  Keep an eye on your news feed, and if you should find your name associated with a commercial enterprise, take a moment to verify the “like” actually came from you.  Keep a record of the story as we did, by doing a screen capture.  We would then like to hear about it from you.

No doubt about it, Huron County has “got talent!  So it is only fitting that youths between the ages of 14 and 19 now have a venue to show their musical talents and win valuable rewards.

Skyline Studios and the Rural Business Network have organized a joint effort to stage a talent search for young people in Huron County and adjacent communities. According to Dustin Smith of Skyline Studios in Mitchell, “…our rural areas are bursting with youth talent. The contest will reward contestants with the experience of live performance, and approximately $2800 in prizes.”

The purpose of the event is to encourage our area youth “to go for it”.  It will raise funding and community awareness for Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Huron.  This organization is well known for its good work in Goderich, Wingham, Clinton and parts in between.

Throughout the month of April, potential contestants will be auditioned in their communities.  The final competition will be centrally staged at the Holmesville Community Centre, Saturday, May 11th, 2013.

Christmas sales results are coming in, showing a remarkable growth in North American online merchandise sales, which now represents ten percent of all sales.

Online sales is shaking up how business is done. In addition to growing sales volumes, it is now the accepted shopping norm to compare product price and features before making a purchasing decision. This may present a daunting challenge to rural merchants who do not have a website, or have a site that is out of date, or perhaps cannot be found online. Few small businesses have time to maintain their store site visibility in the shifting needs of search engine optimization. As like a paper brochure that sits in a desk drawer, websites that cannot be found online are not going to help sales.

Of note to the shop local movement, is shoppers’ preference to enjoy touching and feeling product before making the purchase. Shopping after all, is a social experience many enjoy. While virtual shopping is convenient, there continues to be a comfort in experiencing the real product, serviced by people in your community. This is a powerful service advantage that local businesses need to nurture.

One of the challenges for local business stems from the number of shoppers who go into a local store, view product, interview sales staff, then walk out of the store to make their purchase online, believing they can get a better price online. This problem will grow in future, as smart phone technology will soon allow shoppers to price compare while shopping in the store. Undoubtedly, bricks and mortar sales outlets will need to reorganize their operations to allow them to continue carrying their staffing overhead.

To continue providing excellent levels of local service, successful merchandisers will need to also be selling online. Businesses large and small have to combine a mix of online and in store sales. Undoubtedly, small local merchants will be stretched to develop their online presence. However, the transition is both necessary and inevitable.

(part one)

It doesn’t matter where you turn these days, everywhere you hear about the value of social media for small business. It’s the flavour of the day for government economic development officers. As long as you consider your time has no value, social media is promoted as a “free” marketing tool. Get into social media or you will be left behind they say!

Will social media work for your small business? It turns out the answer is a qualified “maybe”, which has much to do with what kind of business you run. If you define success as popularity with plenty of online tire kickers, you might just pull it off. However, if you are hoping to ring the cash register, you should have a serious look at the amount of time involved in giving social media a fair shot.

Take “Nope, Chuck Testa” as an example. Chuck owns a taxidermy shop in the USA, and had a runaway social media success with his You Tube commercial which at the time was considered one of the most funny online. Guess how many people viewed his video? Within eight months he had eleven million views! Did that result in sales? Chuck says “nope”. (see http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nope-chuck-testa )

Social media is about developing relationships. When applied to your business, you are hoping to sell your product or service to folks you have some sort of relationship with. The problem is, everyone else is now using social media to be ‘liked,” and it is beginning to sound “like” a lot of media clutter. It’s as if all your friends, fair weather or otherwise, are in one big room talking at each other at the same time. So who is actually listening?

If you are running an actual business, dealing with real people’s needs, do you have the time to read the avalanche of “just so excited” people firing things into your in-box? The problem with social media is that your message is not targeted to specific people with a specific need. You know that sales occur only when you deliver your message to them. There is a world of difference between a marketing presence and a sales presence.

While some small businesses can make some headway using social media, most business owners complain of poor results. If you have plenty of time to experiment, you may want to give it a try. However, for the rest of us, it might be a good idea to get professional advice to see where social media could fit into your promotions budget. More on that at a later time…

by Patrick Nagle, Rural Business Network

You might be a small rural manufacturing or service provider with thoughts of expansion for the future.  If you were wondering about potential customers in the US, but don’t know where to start, help is available.

The Ontario government offers a good starting point with their “New Exporters to Border States” (NEBS) program.  This program provides a two day field trip to Buffalo intended to give a good overview of how goods and services move across today’s border.  Key topics covered include dealing with border issues such as U.S. travel and immigration requirements, currency exchange, business planning, taxation and legal considerations and U.S. Customs clearance procedures along with a site visit to a warehousing facility and the Canadian Consulate General office. You will also be introduced to provincial and federal government export programs and services to assist your business. NEBS is organized by the International Trade Branch, Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, in co-operation with the Canadian Consulate in Buffalo. Please note that in order to participate; your company must have been in business for at least one year and have a manufacturing or service base in Ontario.

Planned trips are set for 2012 in May, September, November, and also February 2013. The cost is a $150 registration fee and your meals and accommodations.

For further information, contact Alison Lobb at Huron Small Business Enterprise Centre, alobb@huroncounty.ca .