When Social Media Works

My opinion is that clearly social media works for certain businesses. Anyone who is in the leisure industry including the drinks industry, hobbies based businesses, sports, or entertainment should include social media as part of their strategy. Whilst on Facebook or Twitter they are targeting people who are in leisure mode or on downtime. Someone who is on downtime is open to interacting with a business that they perceive as being part of their community – i.e. a sports team, radio station, or local pub.

The nature of social also lends itself well to entertainment based business in that when your friend on Facebook is interacting with a business that is providing an entertainment or leisure function you will be able to see that interaction and you will want to get involved. Rapid growth of the companies fan base takes place almost organically and with minimum cost.
Social media also can (if handled well and strategically planned) be useful for businesses that have a easily defined and narrow target market. This would include a business that sells to a defined group such as vegetarians, new mothers, or tourists intending to visit Kilkenny. In this case the cost of the social media marketing campaign may prove to have a good return on investment as it is very targeted and precise.

I would argue that for almost every other business in Ireland social media may be a total waste of time and money.

When Social Media Doesn’t Work

For the vast majority of companies social media is a complete waste of time. Whether it be accountants, solicitors, transport companies, shops, shopping centres, cinemas, trades people, business to business providers, or almost any non-leisure business I feel that social media is a large expense with little return on investment.

The Message is Uncontrolled

Your business should be tightly controlled and managed so as you are pitching the right message at the right people. Social media takes away this control and allows people unknown to you create posts or comments on your Facebook page, blog, or Twitter stream. Your brand can be damaged by activities of people who are engaged in leisure activities and who don’t respect or value the worth of your business.

Branding is Not Marketing

People talk about promoting your brand on Facebook or Twitter. That is fine but for most small business owners the brand is not that important as in the world of SME and business to business people buy from people rather than brands. Branding is not marketing and branding is not about making sales. How important is it to promote your brand and how much time and money is it worth to you? Would it be easier to just sponsor a local GAA team?

Quality of Interaction

Someone who does a Google search for “accountant bundoran” is looking for an accountant in Bundoran. Therefore it can be safely assumed that any money or time spent on Google adwords, or search engine optimisation by an accountant in bundoran that targets people looking for an accountant in bundoran is going to be spot on target. However a Facebook page for an Accountant in Bundoran is going
to have 68 of his friends, 15 random people, and a few existing clients who is can only risk losing. What steps can that accountant take to make extra sales on Facebook?

Time Wasted

Creating a brilliant Facebook page or an interesting Twitter feed, or even a good blog is very very time consuming. Facebook can also be very addictive and you can easily find playing with your Facebook page makes a good excuse for avoiding real work. If you value your time you need to seriously consider the impact social media is having on it.

Scaling Up

Social Media is very difficult to scale up. If a radio campaign is bringing in 10 extra customers a week then doubling the advertising rate or putting the advert on a competing station may double this figure to 20. However if you spend 5 hours a week on social media are you willing to double it to 10 hours per week for 1 extra customers? Will doubling the time you spend on it really double the impact anyway?

If I was stopped by a Garda enquiring as to whether I was driving my van for social or business purposes I would probably have difficulty avoiding the urge to tell him to f**k off and catch some rapists, murderers, or child molesters. However for those of you who are more gentle souls than I and who would rather sweet talk your way out of the proposed €1200 fine may I suggest the following devious plan…

Put sign writing on your van. Whether it be a humble €9.99 Vistaprint magnetic sign, or a more elaborate piece of artwork selling your wares, either way you are now promoting your business. And when are you promoting your business? Every time you drive your van is when. Promoting your business is using your van for business purposes. QED

We asked Ken Bolger who owns Specialist Cars to offer our blog and Facebook readers something special. So he is giving us a free minor service for a Porsche 911, 944, 964, 968, 993, 996, Boxster, Cayenne, 997, or Cayman worth €275.

The winner will be the first person to call Kro IT Solutions on 01 4800 550 and tell Thérèse or Aisling what country the first Porsche 356 was produced in. Leave details of your car, your location, and your phone number and we will pass your details to Ken who will call you back to arrange a date. We probably don’t have hundreds of Porsche owning people reading our blog so if you know anyone with a porker it is worth passing this on to them.

The website is mostly informative with some interactive and dynamic aspects such as the ability to send a greeting card to a patient, a database of clinics, and an interactive map by Google. On the backend all the content is stored in our home cooked content management system (EazyEdit) which allows the staff of St. Michael’s to make changes and alterations to the site without any fear of upsetting the design and layout.

A project like this is rarely a one man job and in this case the following contributed their professional expertise at various stages…

Helena Duggan from Held Design came up with a number of design proposals for the website. The hospital were impressed with all the designs and chose the one you see live today.

William Hamilton was highly recommended by Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design & Technology to take photos for the website. It was a good recommendation and both St. Michael’s Hospital and Kro IT Solutions would very strongly recommend William for similar projects.

Ross Kelly (a Kro employee) did most of the data collection and worked with the staff of St. Michael’s Hospital to collate and format the site content as you see it today.

Finally a big thanks to St. Michael’s Hospital, and especially the IT Department for making this project happen. The website can be seen at StMichaels.ie

Below are screenshots of the website, a screenshot of EazyEdit, and some of William’s photographs (click on any to enlarge). Please contact Kro IT Solutions if you would like a similar quality website at a very manageable price.

St. Michael's Hospital Website

EazyEdit by Kro IT Solutions

X-Ray Machine in St. Michael's Hospital

Medical Records in St. Michael's Hospital

Outpatients in St. Micheal's Hospital

Library of St. Michael's Hospital

Dun Laoghaire

Staff of St. Michael's Hospital

X-Ray in St. Michael's Hospital

Exterior of St. Michael's Hospital

Corridor in St. Michael's Hospital

Working in C# .Net 3.5 or 4.0 you produce neat code that can be very quickly read by other developers and is suitable for reuse in future projects. We don’t want a developer who depends heavily on third party frameworks or generated code (except perhaps ORM frameworks). You must work in Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 and you must be very proficient with all the usual concepts such as connecting to databases, security, AJAX, web services, etc. You must work using a very strong OOP paradigm.

As a web developer we expect you to be able to take an image presented in PDF by a designer and hand code that design to the latest CSS and HTML standards producing exceptionally neat HTML that is standards compliant and will integrate beautifully with your .Net code. We expect you’ll to be able to hand code HTML as well as you can code C#. JQuery is a nice to have for us, but not essential.

You should be very proficient with MySQL and SQLServer to the level of producing complex stored procedures and views if required.

We are looking or someone smart, who writes good solid code, and can be very profitable by turning out reliable work at a fast pace. You will definitely need to be able to work entirely alone as you will not be part of a development team for this contract.

For this role we don’t want CVs from telecommuters, recruitment agencies, outsource providers, or junior developers. Also due to the short nature of the contract we will be favouring applicants with contracting experience who have a track record on giving good value. You need to demonstrate that you are a good solid business focused developer who can communicate well (in very fluent English) and who understands the pressure a small company is under to turn a profit. You must be available to work a standard 39 hour week in Docklands, Dublin 3 (beside IFSC). The contract will initially be for two months with a chance of extension.

Interviews will take place on Wednesday 1st September 2010. To apply please send your CV by email and specify that you are applying for the contract position. Include if possible an example of your work and outline in the email how you believe that you meet the criteria outlined above. Please include your rate, possible start date, and details of any holidays or time off you have booked over the next couple of months. Please confirm if you will be invoicing through a limited company or if you require PAYE status. There is a chance that we will not respond to CVs until a few days before interview so please keep Wednesday 1st free if possible and we will accommodate early morning/late evening/lunchtime interviews.

See my previous post for full details.

If you can’t make it here I have uploaded the presentation to our website in PDF and HTML format…

Blogging using Wordpress (PDF)
Blogging using Wordpress (HTML)

VW Spares in Kildare is a dealer in classic VW parts and restorations. The owner Jon is taking on the world with a fully fledged e-commerce site that will allow him to sell parts to Ireland, the UK, and beyond. We will be providing him with a customised version of our in-house “K-Commerce” application partnered with a beautiful website design by our main man Trevor Dunne.

Simply Wild also in Kildare are also getting a custom designed high end website with e-commerce and other functionality. Design again is by Trevor, and the site will be hand built in-house by Kro IT Solutions.

Biologix in Sandyford are updating their website to a nice new neat and easy to update website using the Kro IT Solutions “EasyEdit” software. The site will be a simple brochure site with good SEO.

Moneywise in Dublin 2 are a financial advisory company who should be well known to radio listeners out there. Moneywise have lived up to their name by coming on board with Trevor Dunne and Kro IT Solutions for their new website and associated press materials, brochures, and graphics.

A well known courier and logistics company in Dublin will be relaunching with a new brand, a new name, and of course a new website from Kro IT Solutions and Trevor Dunne very shortly.

We are in final negotiations with three other large clients and if they are reading this… well come on!! We are busy and getting busier. Get in there early and secure your schedule!

In other website design and development news we have finalised the new back-end for our K-Commerce system. This allows owners of existing Kro e-commerce websites, and owners of new websites to more easily update their products, pictures, prices, offers, and categories. We will be having an official launch shortly but for now if you want to help us test the beta product please get in touch. This application blows OSCommerce out of the water, and best of all it sits behind your custom designed website – no more ugly box shaped websites for Irish retailers.

Of course we do more than websites. As we speak the custom software side of the business is also in negotiations with a number of well known companies and we hope to have some very exciting news by the end of August on that front.

Call Ruairi or Ross today on 01 4800 550 to see what we can do for your business. Our motto is “Let your business soar with Kro IT Solutions”. Call us today and we’ll see you in the sky tomorrow!

We have just sold out on our limited €1795 brochure website offer and what we thought was a loss leader has actually proved to be profitable. This was because we used smart design techniques, cutting edge Microsoft development technology, and our own in-house CMS system to turn around high end custom websites in a very short timeframe. The quality was never compromised – we just found a system that works. We are now competing with other web designers who charge €4k-€5k and we are turning out better, more modern, and more sophisticated work at half the price.

To capitalise on this success we are doing another very special offer for existing or new business owners.

COMPANY BRANDING OFFER

WEBSITE

Custom Website Design
Website Build and Hosting
Search Engine Ready Site
Content Management System
24 Hour Support Agreement
Domain Name
Hosting
Email Addresses

EXTRAS

500 x 2 Custom Designed Business Cards
500 Letterheads
500 Compliment Slips

PROMOTION

Facebook Page Creation
€75 Google Adwords Campaign
€75 Facebook Advertising Campaign

Both campaigns will be set-up by us and you can continue them yourself if you wish.

TRAINING

Half day training in Google Adwords, Facebook, CMS, and SEO.

COST

€2445 ex. VAT. 40% deposit required. Offer limited as usual to first 3 customers to apply. Call Ruairi now on 01 4800 550

Ken’s own racing colours when he is on the track are black and day-glo orange so that had to stay. The Porsche font (in the nav menu) is open to debate but I decided to leave it alone. However a sharp new logo, some simplification of the right hand column, and some high quality rotating images in my opinion finish this site off nicely. The site was originally commissioned when Kro was young and our prices were in the low 3 figure range. I think for that Ken has got himself one hell of a bargain here and I hope it brings him many new customers. I suspect the fact that it is hogging the top spots in Google for almost all relevant keywords will help.

This site was my own design. I don’t design sites anymore as we always use a professional designer. However it is one of a handful that I am happy to stick in the portfolio. Do you agree though? Is this website to your tastes or is it a bit in yer face! Leave a comment and let me know. Also drop into Ken if you have a Porsche [or any car] and tell him I sent you. Hopefully that will gain you a small discount on your next service.

Specialist Cars Ireland

A blog is by far the easiest type of website to install and get looking great. In about 20 minutes you can register a domain name, buy some hosting, use the “install a blog” feature, log-in to your new blog, upload a nice template or “skin”, and finally write your first blog post. I know - easy for me to say with 12 years experience in IT. However I’m willing to prove it.

Join me on the 9th August at 7pm in the Talbot Hotel in Carlow. I have been invited by Amanda of Spiderworking.com and KLCK to give a 20 minute tutorial on setting up a blog. If you don’t get it in the 20 minutes I’ll happily stay back and walk you through the steps required. Either way you will be blogging that night and for ever more!

It would be helpful if you had a domain name registered (or make sure to bring your credit card and we will do it on the night through local Carlow company Blacknight.com), some hosting (again we can do that on the night), and an idea of what you want to blog about so as we can pick a suitable template. There will be no additional charges and no charges at all if you already have a website we can use (make sure to bring your password etc). Of course you can just take notes and do it yourself later if you prefer.

You can find more details at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131524783551231&ref=mf