Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Will the Internet change the way we shop?

From this recent holiday season, we can see the trend of more people shopping online. Online Sales More Popular Than Ever: More Convenient And More Choices At Your Fingertips. -- This and many other articles have shown a growth on online shopping.


What are the reasons?

For one, eBay and Amazon is getting more popular than before. With low prices and lesser overhead costs (no real estate rental) They continue to thrive with lower prices.

With smart phones, buyers are increasingly aware that for most sales, the sale prices are more than that of Amazon! The Internet is increasingly integrated into our lives as this is one of the way we connect with our friends and family through social networks.

On the Internet, you do not need to compete with crowds and queue in long holiday queues. You have a wider choice and most times it costs less than stores. You expect less in terms of customer service and thus the experience is generally better because of the less expectation.

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What Groupon's Doing That Google Couldn't.

Social commerce is getting more important and popular than ever. With the profits Groupon is getting, they are getting more sales staff and targeting more SMBs which the big boys are not going after.

On the social front, social media has powered them to leverage on the masses to make the incredible sales happen. For some deals, powerful influencers can easily bring enough people to make it happen.

Many things have changed. To be successful today, businesses must embrace online strategies and social networks. Marketing traditionally can only get you that far, and the market share is shrinking. Do not stay in the past. Embrace the future.

-- Robin Low

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Social media -- 2010 Update


Many things have evolved in the year 2010. Social Media is HUGE -- Facebook has more than 500 Million Users, and if users of Facebook were in a country, it would be the third most populous country in the world.

In terms of usage, Facebook Users spend a total of 500 BILLION minutes on Facebook monthly. (Compared to 150 BILLION least year)

24 Hours of Video is uploaded to YouTube every minute (More than double last year), 200 BILLION videos are viewed daily (More than double last year), 4 BILLION Photos Uploaded to Flickr last year, 95% of companies in US use LinkedIn to attract and hire employees, (59% use Facebook, and 42% use Twitter), 27 MILLION average number of tweets daily (8x increase from 2009).

Social media has changed the way how a lot of people communicate, especially those under the age of 30. Together with mobile devices, social media and text messaging is more popular form of communication than voice communication.

Social media is now mainstream. Businesses are realizing that social commerce is very important, and engaging with their customers and influencers is very important as many people use the Internet to find information on products before they make the purchase, and the decision is largely based on reviews and recommendations from friends.

"Social Media is like water. On its own, water does some cool things, but when combined with other compounds it enabled the evolution of all life forms.

Social media itself is nice, but when combined with other tools, it is enabling everything to evolve from communications to business to politics to marketing"

-- Mike Voipe, CEO Hubspot.

In engaging with customers, social media empowers the customers once again, and companies need to have strategies which focus on employees and customers. They are in control.


Social Media is not a fad, is an important way of communication.

-- Robin Low

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

There will be no need for resume.


With social media and personal branding, I have known so many people who get jobs through online networking, participating on forums or simply having great informative blogs.

With the power of social media, will we reach a point where a resume is no longer required? By the time the resume is needed, the contract will probably already be signed and the resume may simply be a formality for the HR department to file away.

Just like any superstar or movie stars, your portfolio is public, and everything have done is known to everyone. There will be not much need for a resume. You are your brand!

-- Robin Low

Friday, December 3, 2010

YouTube - Lebron Commercial & Spoofs (Real Time Marketing)

It is very interesting how Nike Commercial can spark so many spoof videos and many of them very well made, targeting and leveraging on the controversy to help the other videos get popular (and go viral)


Original Ad:



South Park Response:



Cleveland Cavaliers Fan Response



Michael Jordan's Response:



This is real time marketing at its best.

Leveraging on current controversy and media hype over the return of Lebron James to play against Cleveland is a good way for a video to go viral.

Real time marketing is the ability to react to these micro-trends to help get a blog or video to go viral. Often, when people are trying to search for the new thing or other interesting spoof, your video can be found and played, and if its humorous, it will be shared by many as well.

The last Michael Jordan video is on the money. Well put, and great branding for Jordan. Whether it is or not made by Air Jordan, it is yet to be known, but Jordan denies it.

Whoever it was that put that spoof together did a really good job at it. Even though MJ nor Nike had anything to do with it, it sure fooled me the first time I saw.

The Rise commercial was a slap in the face to a lot of people (namely Clevelanders) so it’s no surprise there are a countless spoofs of the video. He needs to realize that everything he does will be magnified more than before so he needs to think these moves out a little more.

This currently draw a lot of attention, and if hey, do you have a Lebron video to share as well?

-- Robin Low