Social Networking Sites growing in Singapore.

Just looking at the new media.. and because of web2.0, they are now marching into the hearts of
Singaporeans as reported by Channel News Asia...

" Social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, have been around for less than five years, but they are already very much part of the Web 2.0 revolution taking place right now.

Not only are they changing the way people socialise, they are also making traditional businesses sit up and take notice.

It is estimated that about 194 million people around the world are managing at least one profile on a social networking site.

And with 800 million internet users still not registered with such sites, the potential for growth is overwhelming.

A recent study showed Friendster leading the race in the Asia Pacific region, followed by Facebook, Orkut and MySpace.

As proof of its popularity, 14 per cent of Friendster's global traffic comes from Singapore compared with only 3 per cent from the United States.

One key point for its success in attracting advertising is: The various applications on such sites also allow for better advertising.

Google's Open Social platform, for example, is being used by developers to create one-size-fits-all applications or widgets."

I actually have opened many accounts too, on Friendster, Facebook and My Space being the main one, but there are others too, much smaller ones such as Tagged, Linkedin, etc

On advertising, a friend has tried to use this social networking method to do his marketing of t-shirt, it is in the early days, I think there is a great promise in this new phenomenon.

For the details of the part on CNA report... click this link

There is an easy way to create your own website

Blogs is the easiest... Look at Blogspot, Wordpress and many others in the market. Now there is another way to do it. It's through a hosted and there is a host of templates. Even if you do not know HTML, you can get it done.. just like blogspot but looks more like the real mccoy. However, its easily done in 3 hours. Check it out.. at http://www.websplanet.com and the samples are: http://www.berean.websplanet.com and a host of others. If you like to try it out, just fill in the form and you will be on the way to have your business online straightaway! c. u. cheers.

Trying to build your website?

Hi, Today, there are over millions of internet subscribers and there would great opportunities for the small guys to make the Long Tail works for you, if you know how. Here is a short article I wrote...

Internet is becoming an all important sales and marketing tools of the marketing mix, especially for small companies with great ambition.
However, it is to be used whereby the internet usage level is high. In the year 2007, there are already 1.256 billion users as follows:

WORLD INTERNET USAGE AND POPULATION STATISTICS
WORLD TOTAL
6,608,626,128
100.0 %
1,256,495,383
19.0 %
100.0 %
248.1 %

Internet Usage and World Population Statistics are for November 30, 2007. Information in this site may be cited, giving the due credit to http://www.internetworldstats.com/.

There are many ways one can sell over the Internet, by using websites, blogs to provide the latest information which is the pull factor and the push factors are using the emails through opt-in for newsletters, RSS etc.
In the web2.0 and its long tail effect through the innovative changes such as social networking and popularity of search engines such as Google etc, the use of purpose built websites internet marketing will be very useful to reach out to the niches on a worldwide basis.

Communications using a sleuth of multi-media products such as audio, video and an opt-in email, customers are no longer confined to the shores of your country.

Using of the Internet as a sales tool depends very much on the company’s strategy. Some of them use Internet is to maintain their presence and to entice local and foreign firms to check their products and services anytime anywhere. Some companies are internet based operations "virtual" such as Amazon.com; some are brick and mortal with virtual presence such as Barnes and Nobles, a book seller.

How to sell over the Internet?

More and more companies are turning to internet as their primary source of operations and therefore they have to rely on the virtual community to buy, sell or trade. With importance of e-Commerce, many firms have devised automated ways; like auto-responder to reply to the customers. As there are many websites and if should you like to rank better than your competitors, it’s good to engage companies that can assist you rank better in search through the search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and other smaller ones. There are companies that can help you rank higher with better website creation tools and utilization of the knowledge of Search Engine Optimization. (SEO) is http://www.aquarius.com

Soliciting for business over the internet is both an art and science. After getting the list with one of their very persuasive letter, one has to absolutely guarantee that the integrity of the firm in not allowing/sharing the name list with 3rd party is maintained. (http://www.masterlistbuilders.com/ will teach you that)

Telecommunications technologies have been perfected that nowadays, prospects can call using internet phones to landlines. Thus using Skype or some other equivalent, one can be in touch and usually these prospects will be very hot leads.

Another form where self served model is done well is in hotels and airlines bookings, supplemented by in bound telemarketing staff to take care of phone bookings.

The way sales are done is very persuasive nowadays but still the human touch is still very much in the game. Don’t ever lose sight of that. Its not that when one buys online, the human touch is thrown out of the window, all the more, its needed because the online buyers is basing on brands and trust for the service to be delivered

C u. Hope that helps...