Leading Archives - TODAY INDIA

Autocar India – The Leading Automotive News Magazine in the Country

Autocar is clearly the established world leader when it comes to automotive news media. With a history of over 100 years, it easily bears the legacy of the world’s oldest automobile magazine. Autocar was first introduced in 1895, as a weekly British automobile magazine published by Haymarket Motoring Publications Ltd. Today, along with the UK, there are other editions including India, China and South Africa.

Launched in September 1999, Autocar India is the country’s leading authority for motorbike and car owners; always seeking to be a forerunner. The magazine is known for pioneering road testing in India, and is the last word on new cars and bikes because of its authentic road test verdicts. It was also the first magazine to explore the Tata Nano, and showcase its interiors. Other magazines are envious of its reputation for exemplary editorial content, as well as high production standards with the magazine receiving accolades from both the industry and consumers alike.

The Autocar India editorial team ranks among the most experienced editorial teams in India, producing daily news and reviews on the latest cars and motorbikes. Hormazd Sorabjee is the Editor, with an experience of over 25 years in writing about cars; from a 65-ton battle tank to a Formula 1 car, he has driven it all. Shapur Kotwal is Deputy Editor and a part of each of the magazine’s extensive road testing activities. He also supervises test instrumentation, data acquisition and has commanded the most experience as a road tester in India. Akbar Merchant leads the staff writers, who cover all the latest scoops, launches, developments, and breaking news in the Indian automotive industry.

Autocar India’s monthly content includes exclusive news, features, and fascinating automobile stories. The magazine was the first to pioneer the concept of advertorials in India. Incidentally, it contains the largest and liveliest classified services section among any other monthly automobile magazine.

Autocar India promises to- “Get you the perfect fix of heady automobiles and dish out thorough reviews of the latest cars and bikes on Indian streets.” The world of cars is exciting to so many of us and Autocar brings alive its piquant stories and engaging features; making it the must-read magazine for everyone interested in cars.

Autocar India has always remained true to its heritage with its exhaustive and authoritative road tests. The best in the business, they have grown from being just a car magazine to becoming the expert on any car brand. The magazine boasts of a readership of more than twice the readership available for the closest rival, making it, by far, India’s best-selling car magazine. But more than the numbers, it is the content that makes it India’s best car magazine.

Autocar is known for being the only magazine to provide content towards leading dailies like The Telegraph, The Hindu, The Hindustan Times and more. Editor Hormazd Sorabjee also hosts the popular show on UTVi on cars and bikes.

According to a report, the Indian vehicle manufacturing industry has increased its growth by 13% over 10 years now, and contributes 6% to India’s GDP. Autocar India had joined hands with Bloomberg TV to present the awards praising the role of the automotive industry for increasing the growth rate of the Indian economy. Awards include: Renault Duster for “Car of the Year (Jury’s Choice)”, “Viewer’s Choice Car of the Year”, and “SUV of the Year”. Mahindra and Mahindra won the ‘Manufacturer of the Year’ award. “Bajaj KTM 200 Duke” won “Bike of the Year (Jury’s Choice)” and “Viewer’s Choice Bike of the Year” awards.

With India being the third largest internet user in the world, there is little doubt that at least a quarter of them will be hooked onto digital reading, which gives them access to an Autocar India digital subscription. Going by the population of the world and the number of internet users, there is no doubt that digital magazines are the future. Also with the access to mobiles and tablets that can be used as readers, the development of apps for publishing and reading has taken the market by storm; to announce that the future is here! Publishers that have made the switch have already realized the benefits and profits.

Autocar being the oldest automobile magazine has also been the first to switch to the digital version of the magazine. With an Autocar e-magazine you can do much more than you would with a paper magazine. As the magazine is always in the cloud, you can access it at any point in time from practically anywhere; get interactive content on the go and within the app too. Consumers who are unable to carry their favorite magazines around during travel can switch to the digital format of the magazine with ease.

Leading Diversity: A Comparative Analysis

Grounds for Diversity

Creating successful, diverse and dynamic learning organizations involves developing processes to ensure that the differences of employees, customers, and community are taken into account. Diversity management is an active process that requires an investment in time and resources. It is a paradigm shift from intentional exclusion to an intentional full utilization of resources. Valuing and managing diversity requires policies, relationships, procedures, and practices that will ensure fairness and equity.

It means more than increasing awareness, but also changing the system to support differences for the benefit of all. This comparative analysis compares the diversity strategy of the Monitor Company and IBM. It identifies how individuals are motivated to become change agents for diversity by evaluating how the individuals in each case defined diversity and discern conflicts that arise from the varying definitions. Finally, I outlines how the Monitor and IBM cases accommodate diverse learning styles.

Organizational Dimensions of Diversity

Diversity is a simple word that contains many human variables. As simple as it is, it represents the distinctions that exist between individuals that sometimes include culture, race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomics, age, physical and mental abilities, sexual orientation, religion, language, appearance, personality, learning and thinking styles, communication and conflict styles, family status, geography, military status, education, life and work experiences, functional responsibility in a given organization. Diversity management in organizations involves understanding and leveraging similarities and differences of all people involved in accomplishing the organization’s mission. The individuals in both the Monitor Company and IBM defined diversity based on their differences and uniqueness. According to Lieberman (2003), “Diversity looks at the differences that shape people’s thinking and behavior.” (p. 24).

Jonathan Rotenberg, who happens to be Jewish consultant at Monitor, began to realize that “he held an educationally strategic position bridging the gulf between the often misunderstood gay world and the corporate world.” Nick Basden, an African-American consultant at Monitor, stated “I feel black [at Monitor]. I feel different because I am black.” (Gentile and Gant, p. 3-4). The initiative created by IBM was designed to improve the understanding of the differences. “Rather than attempt to eliminate discrimination by deliberately ignoring differences among employees, IBM created eight task forces, each focused on different groups such as Asians, gays and lesbians, and women.” (Thomas, 2004, p. 1).

The Learning Organization

Though the individual reasons for diversity were similar, the organizational motivations that drove the change were slightly different. The Monitor Company was concerned with how inclusion affected the individual’s growth, development and quality of life. Monitor wanted to learn how the company might be different “if the workforce were more diverse, and what barriers might exist to the success of nonwhite and female consultants.” (Gentile and Gant, 1994, p. 2). IBM’s driving force behind their diversity initiative was an extension of Monitor’s inclusion for individual growth. IBM, according to Thomas (2004), believed that “…greater diversity in the workplace could help IBM attract a more diverse customer set.” (p. 4).

While Monitor was concerned about the human factor and IBM was concerned about the bottom line. It is possible that diversity influences both. Many organizations have come to realize that diversity is a resource that should be leveraged to increase performance as well as improve human relations. Lieberman (2003) identified three capital resources of diversity that every business must manage successfully: financial capital, human capital, and material capital. Financial Capital, profit, “keeps an organization in existence, motivates its stakeholders, and enables it to invest in its future.” Human Capital, people, “makes an organization live and work, no matter how technical or automated it may be. People are our managers, our employees, our customers, and our communities.” Material capital, physical resources, “provides the energy and resources to produce goods and services.” (p. 3). Diversity management is a process that allows groups of people to maximize productivity, creativity, and enjoyment to reach their full potentials.

Accommodating Diversity Styles

Monitor and IBM cultures and value systems can accommodate diverse styles without sacrificing their distinctive identity. Values drive beliefs, attitudes, actions, and are culturally derived. Therefore a leader who understands others’ cultural background is better able to understand why those people act, think, and speak the way they do, and is better able to predict how those people will react to his or her own words and actions. “Understanding diversity means moving into the box all these ideas and the ones that others make you aware of, so that you start thinking of diversity as many differences, not just the most apparent ones.” (Lieberman, 2003. p 25). When working with people of different cultures, leaders are “able to apply common sense and good will to act and respond accordingly when they understand the forces driving behavior.” (Scarborough, 1998, p. 11). In both cases, the diversity initiative was about more than just education or awareness but rather an understanding of the differences of the stakeholders.

The Impact of Culture

High-performing organizations consciously create their desired corporate culture, rather than simply letting one develop. Unfortunately, organizational culture change efforts often attempt to “abolish” differences by imposing a pre-defined culture while ignoring the existing values, beliefs, visions, and behaviors. Diversity management is the process of creating a culture that is flexible enough to promote, support, respect, and value the multiple differences that exist in the organization as an asset to be valued and sought after. “The impact of culture is omnipresent; it has both a conscious and an unconscious influence on human behavior.” (Zachary, 2005, p. 15). It is recognized that group intelligence and performance is higher when systems and skills are in place that create an environment of inclusion, trust, collaboration, and respect and the ability for each to reach full potential.

Leading Diversity

Diversity is rapidly gaining ground as an asset of businesses as a means of widen their market. This dramatic shift to a highly diverse work force is part of the organizations’ efforts to understand, accept, and capitalize on differences. “The demand for new customer-focused products, the desire to reach global markets, and the need to tap a diverse workforce for talented employees drives this trend.” (Lieberman, 2003, p. 13). However, the primary objective of diversity is to unify the entire organization and deepen the cultural change within the institution so that processes, communication and actions align with institutional beliefs, values and priorities. In his letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul reminds us that the distinctions that separate us are no longer significant. “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free…” (Colossians 3:11). Organizations that desire to reach their full potential must transcend all barriers and engage all people, from all cultures, races, and backgrounds.

References

Gentile, Mary and Gant, Sara B. (1994). Monitor Co.: Personal Leadership on Diversity. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press Case 395049.

Lieberman, Simma. (2003). Putting Diversity to Work: How to Successful Lead a Diverse Workforce. Menlo Park, CA: Course Technology Crisp.

Scarborough, Jack. (1998). Origins of Cultural Differences and Their Impact on Management. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated.

Thomas, David A. (2004). Diversity As Strategy. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review.

Zachary, Lois J. (2005). Creating a Mentoring Culture: The Organization’s Guide. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Could Celebrities Be Cutting-Edge Marketers – Leading Online Business Entrepreneurs?

“Where is The Future of Online Business –

Could Celebrities be showing mainstream business the way?”

Have Your Competitors ‘Caught On” and already Talking to Your Customers in this latest marketing evolution for Web Success? (And are they doing it Auto-matically and VERY Cheaply!) SO MANY Crucial Questions to answer… please read on.

The following Report is the Cover Story for “Australian Business Solutions” magazine“

YOU WILL DISCOVER HOW CELEBRITY MARKETING STYLES ONLINE LEAD ‘AUDIENCES’ TO WANT TO BUY RATHER THAN THE CONVENTIONAL BUSINESS APPROACH OF SELLING AND CLOSING. YOU WILL DISCOVER VALUABE, IN FACT ESSENTIAL INSIGHTS AND IDEAS THAT EVERY MARKETER, ENTREPRENEUR AND BUSINESS OWNER MUST NOW EMBRACE!”

(WARNING: THIS REPORT MAY FRIGHTEN YOU… IT WILL DEFINITELY ENLIGHTEN YOU!)

There is a buzz around on the television news, radio, in the print media, at business networking groups and meetings and especially on the internet right now. There seems to be a shift of focus for how people look for products and services and then decide how they spend their money.

In terms of influence and power, the new way people search for products and services and make their buying decisions online could even rival the search engines. And it’s been said that this buzz could be the single biggest thing to happen in business since the industrial revolution!

Sounds over the top, but is there enough evidence (for you) to be a part of it too? And is this buzz a fad or could it be here to stay?

If you’ve watched TV news or listened to radio or brought a newspaper in the past 2-3 years, you will have noticed references to websites in both stories and advertising, where you can find out more – including how to get more information about a product or service and/or how to buy instructions. In more recent times nearly every news presenter, TV show host, journalist and celebrity are also promoting how you can ‘follow’ their lives, interests and activities online too – and it all seems to be centred around websites such as Facebook.com, Twitter.com, YouTube.com, Digg.com and more, collectively known as Social Engines.

Celebrities are using these sites to raise their profile, build their brand and most importantly, solidify their popularity and [hopefully] longevity in their profession and industry. AND, these sites enable their audience (loyal army of fans) to talk directly back to them. And this is at the heart of the buzz and current shift – and why it’s so very important you read on and learn more.

On the Social Engine Twitter.com, Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more followers (fans) than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama. Their brand awareness and popularity building is personal, although as that increases, so too does their value to corporations looking for product endorsements to drive their market penetration and increase their market share.

Sporting stars like celebrities have broadened their talent base too, becoming more entrepreneurial and business savvy, seeing their name, brand and product value increase, in many cases, to a higher income level than the actual core sporting talent. In other words, acting, playing a sport, being a comedienne or whatever is their core talent is no longer their only talent. They have embraced the concept of brand building (and protection), marketplace communications and conversations – opting for direct contact via sources like online Social Engines. Here they can touch far more people quicker and easier than say a traditional autograph signing exercise.

A true business woman, leader and entrepreneur, celebrity Oprah Winfrey instantly connects and updates a loyal army of over 2 million+ people that follow her on Twitter. Her power and influence is no surprise or revolution in itself, but her army of followers are able to directly provide instant feedback and ideas to her too -and marketplace feedback is a life blood to your business growth and long term sustainability. (Try ignoring it and see where your business goes.) Everyone wants to be heard and Social Engines give you, your business and your customers a voice.

A loyal army of followers can also provide a viral effect to disseminate information quickly too, meaning they can ‘spread the word for you’ if you ask them to – this can be particularly useful if you want to spread good news and conversely if your brand comes under attack via other mainstream media mechanisms or on the Social Engines themself.

Although it might be hard to fathom, could celebrity entrepreneurs like these be showing more traditional businesses how to connect, behave, build our brand, increase our marketplace value and build our business too using these Social Engines?

Is this a valid idea and model for mainstream business or not?

Firstly, the power of Social Engines extends far beyond Twitter.com alone. Some of the other leading Social Engine sites sprout some pretty impressive visitor and member statistics, as well as services.

Facebook.com – If it was a country rather than a website, it would be the world’s 3rd largest after China and India.

On Facebook there are more than 250 million active users and more than 120 million of them log on to Facebook at least once each day and more than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide). The fastest growing demographic is 35 years old and older and within that, the fastest growing segment is 55-65 year-old females. Do people 35+ and women influence the buying decision for your products and services? This is worthy of your attention.

And there’s more… more than 1 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared each week on Facebook alone and more than 2.5 million events are created and advertised each month. More than 45 million active user groups exist on the site and more than 50 language translations of that content are available on the site. The people supplying all this content include business owners and professionals, some of whom are surely in your industry and probably your competitors. And if you think because you’re a localised business that this doesn’t count, you’ll find this statistic most enlightening- 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States.

All of those statistics are just for Facebook alone (source Facebook.com/press/statistics).

You can also purchase Pay Per Click and Pay Per Impression advertising on Facebook (and other Social Engines). They take your spend to a whole new level of value and ROI with their member data allowing you to display your adverts for keywords AND additional, specific demographics of the member base. For example you can display your advertising message to women, 55+ in Melbourne who are single. You can even target people specifically on their birthday with a relevant offer.

YouTube.com – take a look at YouTube (which is owned by Google for good reason) – People are watching hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, ten hours of video is uploaded to YouTube -including promotional videos, education, product consumption/direction videos and client testimonials for business. Plus every video you add to YouTube includes a spot on the webpage where you can put a link back to your website. PLUS you can add these videos to your blog posts, making them more interesting to your blog readers on other Social Engines too (more about blogs in a moment).

YouTube’s user base is broad in age range, 18-55, evenly divided between males and females, and spanning all geographies. Fifty-one percent of users go to YouTube weekly or more often, and 52 percent of 18-34 year-olds share videos often with friends and colleagues.

And could this be the good reason Google brought YouTube? It’s the 2nd largest search engine in the world today, 2nd only to Google.com. If you want to connect with your marketplace on volume, this is worthy of your attention.

Twitter.com – let’s take a statistical look at that quickly too. Twitter’s footprint has expanded impressively in the first half of 2009, reaching 10.7 percent of all active Internet users in June with 83.1% of users over the age of 25. In July 2009, the Twitter website recorded 23,284,395 unique visitors – who else wants to be ‘front-of-mind’ to an audience of that size? Does your target market include people 25+? This is worthy of your attention.

Twitter has been described as the “Pulse of the Planet” given its instant, viral spread-the-word-to-the-world-instantly nature. It has boosted box office numbers and it’s killed them too, just ask the makers of the movie “Bruno” – overnight ticket sales dropped by more than half thanks to the frank and instant feedback from those that had just seen it. It was so quick too because 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, anytime – imagine what that means for bad customer experiences and you!

Do you let your customers walk away with a bad experience, only to stand out the front of your store or hang up the phone and blast their frustration and disappointment to hundreds, thousands maybe millions of people -in the ‘heat of the moment’?

The true power of Social Engines is not to be feared, it is to be embraced and when done well, you can influence large numbers of people in the ways you want them to know and represent you. This is worthy of your attention.

Understanding the nature of Social Engine participation is important and the question to answer is – What are people doing on these Social Engines? They are looking for ideas, insights, invites, offers, information, inspiration and conversation.

Savvy business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals are providing it all to them and at the same time, in a more passive or softer way than conventional advertising, promoting their business, building their reputation and ultimately getting more leads and customers to their web sites. These business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals are using resources within services like Facebook that include a Personal Profile Page, Business and Product Pages, Fan Clubs, Groups, Time-sensitive Events/Promotions, Classified Advertising (PPC) and more… and the really smart ones are sharing content direct from their website blog feed too (more about that in a moment).

Then there are sites like LinkedIn, a professional social network and directory of business owners and professionals who can communicate quickly and easily with one another. In a 2009 survey, 80% of businesses and companies who are members were using LinkedIn as a primary recruitment tool to find new employees. This is worthy of your attention.

On these Social Engines, people can say what they want about you and it’s uncensored. What do you do about it? Ignore it and hope the customers and prospects that really matter to you don’t see it? Should you take a proactive approach and start by monitoring what’s been said about you and then start providing your brand of information, insights, ideas and inspiration to your marketplace and control the information flow you want through them?

We are living in an era now where what happens in Vegas goes ON and STAYS ON YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and more.

“Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, WORD of mouth has become WORLD of mouth.”

Love them or hate them, social engines are here to stay simply because ‘the people’ love them and trust others on them. Facebook and MySpace are among the most popular destinations on the web. And even though they can be extremely annoying, there is one inescapable fact: the most irritating thing about Facebook is the 200m-strong army of people who use it.

And here’s the final enlightening point- Social Engine participation has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the Web.

SO Do you get involved or not? And if so, how do you do it easily and cheaply but still ‘play the game’ like a Celebrity with a 2m+ loyal army of followers?

The reality is that even if you’re not involved, your customers and prospects AND competitors probably are – and they’re talking to one another, perhaps about you and without you so the sooner you start, the better chance you have to becoming both a part of the conversation and then lead it.

The answer for businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals is automation – this is the single biggest break-through strategy and tactic that very few people have worked out, including many larger corporations who are successfully using Social Engines but they are not leveraged with automation, also known as things happening ‘auto-magically‘.

In many cases, businesses are employing specialist online staff on top of web masters and advertising/SEO experts. With automation, you can do a whole lot for very little extra time and virtually no money.

HOW DOES IT ALL WORK?

At its essence or core are six words that will transform the way you generate leads and make repeat sales online – those words are YOUR WEBLOG FEED PLUS SOCIAL ENGINES.

A Weblog or blog as it’s more commonly known is a type of website or part of an existing website that allows you to add content as blog posts or articles and display them on your website – content like information, ideas, insights, offers, news, invites, images and more and you can create blog posts quickly and easily without ever needing to get a webmaster to do it for you.

There are over 200,000,000 Blogs online today and that number grows every day. Again, not all blogs and blog owners are equal, many are neglecting to include automation and leverage and integration with Social Engines so there are many nay-sayers about blogging, but that attitude is changing as more people are enlightened.

A Feed or RSS Feed as it’s more commonly known will distribute your blog posts well beyond just displaying them on your website. Feeds permit subscription to regular updates of your blog posts, delivered ‘auto-magically‘ via a web portal, news reader, or in some cases good old email. Feeds also make it possible for your content (information) to be packaged into “widgets,” “gadgets,” mobile devices, and other technologies as shortened or full length messages, which Social Engines happen to LOVE. Your Feed makes it possible to display blog posts just about anywhere on the web or web connected device and most importantly directly to the millions of people online every day.

That means a Blog with an RSS Feed can ‘auto-magically‘ distribute information you create about you, your business, your products and your services quickly and easily across thousands of sites on the web. And you only have to create your pieces of content once!

A blog is a powerful code (invisible to the human, non-techie eye) and every time you add content to an existing or new blog post, like you would add content to a word document, it is distributed around the web in seconds and is fed directly into the biggest marketplaces and communities of people online every day.

What makes a blog with a feed even more powerful is that it reaches the biggest sources of people (leads) online – who by the way are not just using Search Engines anymore to find out about products and services, they are also using the “Social Engines”. PLUS your Blog Feed can also ‘auto-magically‘ update Google and Yahoo about your site too, so you still stay connected with the Search Engines for no more extra work, or money.

Now if you’re anything like me, when I first heard about these Social Engines, I dismissed them as not being a viable business and marketing channel because they appeared to be for personal networking and friendship (and they are indeed used for those reasons). Whilst many businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals are using these engines and winning new business – only a handful are doing it easily and quickly, because most of them do not know about the power of connecting your Weblog RSS Feed and how it fits in with using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg and hundreds more Social Engines.

In my own experience, I was wrong to not get involved with Blogs and Social Engines sooner (like many business owners and professional managers still are) as my competitors began to build an edge I did not have with my marketplace, simply because I did not understand and connect these two key points about connecting your blog directly to Social Engines. If you want to find new customers quickly and easily and build better sales from existing customers:

Your website must be a Blog with a Feed and/or include one as part of your website
Your online marketing mix and strategy must include sharing your blog post information with people on Social Engines like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg etc.

And here’s why…

Your competitors have possibly already figured out that social engines are where they can connect with people who include your customers and potential customers because the Social Engines are where your customers and potential customers are going online – and they’re going to these Engines regularly and for long periods of time. And people are making buying decisions based on the conversation they are having and the feedback they are hearing.

Even if you [believe you] have no competition, you’re not connecting with your marketplace as directly and as easily as you can, if you are not using the true power of Social Engines. These online sources or marketplaces attract people 24/7/365, who stay for a while each time. How could you NOT promote you, your business and your products and services there?

Every time you add content to your blog, it is circulated out to many Social Engines, once you set up a FREE account with them… people at these Engines who have an interest in what your business offers then come to your website to find out more.

Here’s an example of how your website Blog, its Feed and these Social Engines work together. (Note this diagram also includes the two largest Search engines -let’s not forget them. Using your Blog and RSS Feed, you can ‘auto-magically’ update them too.)

At the centre of this relationship are your website blog and its RSS Feed. Every time you add content to your blog, the Feed distributes it out to the Social and Search Engines with a link back to your website. People on the Social Engines instantly see a summary of your blog post and a link back to your blog/website. If they are interested in you, they click on the link and follow it back to your website to find out more about you and move forward with you.

“Although we like to feed information to the Search Engines for free listings, the Social Engines outperform them in providing INSTANT, FREE traffic (people) to your website… meaning Social Engines host millions of people live online at any given time who are exposed to your blog post instantly… and not only will they follow your link back to your blog/website if they are interested, they also have the power to make your Feed ‘viral’ – voluntarily passing it on to their friends who in turn pass it on… and so on.

The Social Engines and the people on them help you grow your prospect and customer base quickly, easily and cheaply – you can’t get any cheaper than free!”

The Social Engines are places where people go to and stay at; whereas Search Engines are places people only pass through ‘in search of’ a final site destination. This is the major difference and the significant extra power you’re missing out on if you are not involving your business in the Social Engines. Remember though, the Blog Feed is vital to ensuring your participation is mostly ‘auto-magic’ otherwise participating in them could over run your day, your week and your life!

The Blog Feed allows you to ‘auto-magically‘ update the Social Engines, minimizing the ‘air time’ you personally allocate to this.

So, who’s already taking this seriously and using Social Engines as a powerful, quick, cheap and easy tool and media to generate free leads quickly too?

Firstly, no matter your business, products and services, you’ll find prospects and possibly existing clients already participating in these sites on a regular basis. You are bound to find your competitors there too, it makes good business sense to be present on an Engine where millions of people congregate, converse and seek out people with the products and services they require – someone in your industry is probably joining them and being ‘front-of-mind’ and it should be you.

Everyone that gets it commits to it. These world-wide companies, brands and industry leaders have dedicated resources to connect and cultivate relationships with prospects and clients on the Social Engines with reportable, measurable results:

Motor Vehicle Industry: Chevrolet, Ford, General Motors, Honda

Travel and Tourism Industry: JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, Luxor Las Vegas, Marriott International Hotels and Resorts, Carnival Cruise Lines, Hertz Car Hire

Sporting Teams: Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons, Portland Trail Blazers, San Diego Chargers

Entertainment: 92Y, The Travel Channel, ComCast, Marvel Entertainment, Direct TV, Pop Caps, TV Guide

Finance: Wachovia, H&R Block, Intuit

Retail: Best Buy, The Home Depot, American Apparel, Rubbermaid, Whole Foods, Zappos.com

Food and Beverage: Starbucks, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Popeye’s Chicken, Tastidlite, Kraft Foods (see Vegemite Case Study below)

Other Global brands: Dell Computers, EMC and Kodak – all benefitting by directly connecting with their target marketplace – whether that’s existing customers and/or potential customers.

Case Study:

Kraft Foods have taken an interesting Corporation-Consumer collaborative approach to product promotion and development using Social Engines. Here’s what they say about their social engine strategy:

For many of our strong brands such as Vegemite – we acknowledged that we are simply (proud) brand custodians and that the brand is owned by ‘the people’. We focused our first two years of social engine participation on simply listening and asking questions.

Two of these questions were:

How do you individually like your Vegemite?
If there ever was to be a Vegemite variation what would this be?

Recently Kraft launched their latest product “Name me” a vegemite plus cream cheese experience. Here’s how they are using Social Engines to develop it.

“This is a work in progress; we spent two years listening and now with the product on shelves the Kraft Communications team is engaging with Vegemite loyalists and cynics alike on the 12 top social engines. They are engaging and getting samples out on and off line- and encouraging debate on the new products. There are a number of Facebook groups sitting in the following camps: pro original, pro new flavour and anti new flavour.”

This is just one way Social Engines are helping businesses already to grow brand, product and corporate awareness. There are many other ways to use it too that can and do lead to direct and immediate sales. No matter the size of your business and marketplace, Social Engines, like the internet at large give you a level playing field with industry leaders like Kraft Foods and the others mentioned here.

Your website with a blog and feed will provide regular content to the Social Engines ‘auto-magically’. You need to support that by also visiting the main Social Engines and engaging people on a weekly basis, as it forms part of your marketing, CRM and all the other pay-offs mentioned previously.

Adding content regularly to your Blog Feed, ‘auto-magically‘ keeps you in touch and front of mind to millions of people around the world, on the Social Engines (and Search Engines) so they can access your business, products and services quickly and easily.

The buzz appears to be more than a fad so for your business it becomes not a question of ‘if’ these Social Engines are going to be a valuable marketing tool for business. Rather, the question now is:

“How quickly will you get your business on the Social Engines

… to Capture Your Competitors Clients too?”

HOW TO GET STARTED

Here’s a checklist to help you get started with your new, exciting and FREE Social Engine Strategy:

1) Get a Blog website with a domain name of your choice OR if you already have a website, get a new sub domain or folder added called blog

2) Open an account with at Google, Feedburner, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, and LinkedIn.

3) Install an RSS Blog Feed and set up a Pinging list on it then add your Blog feed to the Search and Social Engine accounts you created in the step above.

4) Create content-rich education videos that can be added to your YouTube account and your Blog – that is then ‘auto-magically‘ added to your Search and Social Engine accounts.

5) Actively participate in or create new Facebook Groups, Events and Pages.

6) Make promotional videos about you, your business, your products, how you help and support people and upload them to your YouTube Channel then add them to your blog posts.

To really make this all work well for you, you need to know there is a big secret in succeeding with growing your business using Social Engines. You’ve read this far, so here it is: Social Engine success rest largely with you getting to grips with:

Being a ‘face’ of your business and allowing people to connect with your ‘authenticity’ as a person ahead of a product, and
the need to ‘listen’ to your marketplace, innovate with change to meet their ever-changing needs and then share information that will help them, rather than push product.

Millions of dollars are spent monthly with pay per click advertising on these sites and more millions are paid to ‘search engine specialists’ who supposedly help you reach number 1 ranking on keywords relevant to your business. It’s a fierce fight between serious players for top spots on search engines, both free and paid listings. An entire industry is built on it and around it. But you now know how to become a leader in your industry on the most powerful Social (and Search) Engines online today and how to do it Quickly, Cheaply, Easily and Auto-Magically.

In some cases, target market demographics may not be using Social Engines; therefore it would not be worthwhile. Consider these statistics when making your evaluation:

78% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Do you rely on 3rd party endorsements to build buyer confidence? If this is not a necessary part of your marketing and sale process, you may be able to ignore Social Engine Marketing.

Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy – Listening first, selling second. Would your competitors be prepared to connect and listen to your prospects and customers directly to discover what they want, and then give it to them? If not, then you may be able to ignore Social Engine Marketing… and least for a little while.

The worst part is the first part. When you start, your ‘following’ could be small but that is far better than not monitoring what’s been said about you at all! The only way to change that is to get in the game!

Get started right now, before your competitors do -it’s the future of marketing your business online, because that is where the people you want as your customers are going online. It’s only a matter of time before someone in your industry emerges as the leader on the Social Engines – get you and your business front-of-mind first. Enjoy the experience and I’ll ‘meet and tweet you’ on the Social Engines of the World!

Leading Volunteer Projects

So, your church has identified a volunteer opportunity and you have prayerfully considered. After all, you have a lot of experience with the type of project; it fits your skills, talents, abilities and spiritual gifts. Though it may be a stretch, you are sure that you are the right person for the job. You approach the church leadership and offer your skills. You are so convincing and enthusiastic, that they select you to head the project.

Heading the project? Didn’t you volunteer just to assist in some way? What do you know about leading anything? Suddenly you lose passion, find yourself doubting the very skills, abilities and gifts that gave you confidence enough to volunteer. This is obviously new territory and leading a group of volunteers is way different than leading a team at work. This is definitely going to test your abilities. Well, where do we begin?

People volunteer for many reasons. They may have skills and love to contribute or they may enjoy being in the mix. Perhaps they step up because nobody else is volunteering. You may be suddenly in charge and maybe by yourself because of the last reason…nobody came. Rick Warren wrote in the Purpose Driven Life that the reason many churches fail is because the workers aren’t working.

Here’s another fact, 90% of businesses fail within the first five years. You think that’s

amazing, 90% of those businesses fail after the next five years. That’s sobering, and it has a lot to do with vital project management skills many leaders lack. These are basic skills that are transferable under any situation. If churches can’t successfully complete projects, they’ll never survive.

The first crucial step in good project management is to adequately identify the need and communicate it. This is your opportunity to create a vision that is in harmony with the direction your organization is headed. Ask for direction and provide feedback from the leadership or committee who assigned the job. This vision is critical to understand up front. If you can’t communicate it back in a relatively simple paragraph, then you and the leadership are not on the same sheet of music. Consequently, you will not be able to adequately motivate those who will work on your team.

Vision is critical. Unlike at the office you may not have an official position, wear a uniform or be able to command a performance with a ready made team. Dr. John Maxwell, successful pastor, author and motivational speaker said that leading a group of volunteers is the most challenging of leadership situations. You don’t pay them, they don’t have to work for you, and you don’t have authority. Though you do not provide these attributes in traditional fashion, you can supply them as you create vision and communicate. More on that later.

Once you have a grasp on the project and have created a great vision, the next step is to recruit the team. Having the right people in place will set you up for success early. Think about it, you took on the job because you knew you could do it and you had some passion for it. Why would you want anyone else on your team except those with the same desire? This doesn’t mean to turn all the volunteers down. All the different members of the body can contribute somehow. This just means focus your efforts on actively recruiting quality and qualified leaders. These you know you can count on to see their part through.

With your clear vision, break down the project into bite size parts, or something that you can manage in sub groups. For example, Mount Zion Baptist Church in Madison, Alabama is celebrating her 150th Anniversary. They wanted to have a big celebration to mark this significant milestone. The one heading the project communicated her clear vision and divided the complex project into many different sub committees who reported to her. The subcommittees met needs such as publicity, creating a portable museum, writing a book, creating events for children, cleaning the campus, and about ten others. She had the right people in place.

How do you recruit capable people? Start by identifying those who are skilled and capable of leading the subtasks. They are reliable and have influence in their inner-circles. Once identified, let them know that you truly admire their skills in the areas that you need and think that they are the people to lead. You may have to approach them several times to get a commitment. Then use them to recruit their own crew. See what you have just done? You recruited a leader who is capable of rounding up the people he or she will work with.

Follow this process until you have recruited enough leaders to handle all the major portions of your projects. Offer encouragement and continue share your vision with the leaders that you have recruited. Keep the team focused.

Afterward, gather your team together. At this crucial meeting, develop a reverse time line. This time line begins on the absolute last date that you need to be finished with the project and ends with your next meeting. This will give structure and focus for future meetings. Agree to make the meetings count by only discussing progress and or shortfalls necessary to work out to finish the project on time.

Remember, these meetings focus only on the project. You must be the one to enforce direction and discipline. Keep in mind that the completion date that you agreed on is at least a few weeks before the date required. For example, if your church cleanup day is to be completed by the first day of fall Sunday school session on September15th, make sure you have a walk through or inspection of the area by September 7th. This allows a week to work out any contracting issues for repairs to tables, fix the playground equipment or order supplies that you may have identified as a result of the clean up.

Invite the pastor or staff members assigning the project to the first meeting. Allow them to open with prayer, share their vision and give inspiring words. This will set a positive tone and give credibility. Again, you have nothing to offer the volunteers but motivation and desire for success. So use everything you can to make the project equally valuable and exciting to every member.

As mentioned earlier, keep every meeting focused on the big picture. It’s important that everyone involved knows what success looks like and how they will benefit. As project leader, encourage the subgroup task leaders to outline their plan in relation to the project time line. Set them up for success by demonstrating how they should set up their task meetings. Their meetings are where they work the kinks out.

Again, work out the shortfalls at each meeting. Whether at task level or at the project level, resolve issues or set a separate date to work them out. Nothing deflates motivation faster than making a plan and not following up on the progress. Suppose in the meeting, the publicity committee discloses they have met a probable road block trying to get the church to budget $300 for flyers. To resolve the issue, you agree to speak with the deacons or budget committee. Suddenly it’s a month later and you haven’t made a move, toward resolution. You did not follow up and have nothing to report to the committee. This leads to disappointment as well as setting the standard that allows everyone a free ride from accountability. Always follow through with plans and solutions.

Of course, you are going to successfully meet shortfalls with a good plan that can be followed up with frequency. As a result, you provide vital feedback to the church. You are sincere about success as well as shortfalls. You also make sure the report goes to the rest of the congregation so that they will feel “in the loop”. The more people you get emotionally involved, the better support you get for the project.

Leading volunteers is a rewarding experience and definitely a challenge to anyone’s leadership abilities. Many people are counting on you, even though they are not traditionally accountable to you. However, there is no great mystery to successfully leading complex projects at any level. Start with the stated vision, picture of success, resolution management, follow-up and accountability, and you can motivate a committed team to accomplish great things.

Hire Leading eCommerce Website Design Companies for Creating Your Online Store

eCommerce is the new movement of taking part in business online. As there are many people now shopping online, it has turned into a primary financial action in different aspects of the world. Concerning this pattern, eCommerce sites have taken the lead in the online world presently. The designing of this type of website deals with unique designing needs.

These sites are uniquely intended to encourage guests to buy products and stay longer on the site so they can spend more. It incorporates a business pertinent look and feel, mirroring the vision and reasoning of the business, a sorted out format and expert configuration, including proper navigation, conveying a clear and responsive client interface, having a market friendly content, and involving a basic checkout and uncomplicated shopping cart. You can integrate many professional gateway while developing these sites to guarantee smooth and bother free online payment.

Designing an eCommerce site is an expert assignment. The creation and designing of websites is not the work of novice designers. It requires exceptionally proficient and capable website designers to design an eCommerce website that can bring huge success.

Therefore, if you want to start a new venture or want to re-design your existing eCommerce site, then you have to hire a capable website designer. In this way, you can make sure that your project is in the safe hands of an expert.

An expert eCommerce website designer will have few effectively finished ventures to his or her credit. The designer should have enough introductions to all components of eCommerce website designing. The website designer may work freely or even as a member of a company that is particularly into designing proficient stores. The outcome that you have to expect either ways is an effective website that can draw prospective clients and convey your message across.

An eCommerce website designer is able and have the professional skills to consider his or her employment seriously. Most customers usually expect that designers will take up the complete responsibility of designing the website all the way. Their sole aim should on designing a website that conveys the imperative ROI and turns into a productive try.

The designer or eCommerce website design company should capable to guide the website from the development to the last integration of the website with the payment gateway. Additionally, the buying experience for the clients should portrayed a smooth way right from arriving on the site and picking the items to continuing to the checkout for payment. Clients should have their preferred capacity to pick a product easily.

Being an owner of a business, you should pick an eCommerce designer that can understand the tasks of designing an eCommerce store. What is important for the designer is a complete set of well-developed abilities that joins an intensive aptitude for design. Besides this, you have to hire an experience designer who is aware of the new trends so that he or she can use those trends to design the store, including the preferences and the expert principles that the target audience anticipates.

To summarize the article, with the eCommerce Website Designers in hand, you will be able to develop or get better business to acquire the rich rewards on the Internet.