Social Media and International Trade

I have been developing a website for an international client this week. This client is a lovely Dutch lady, running a business in Spain that helps other Dutch folk settle and find work in Spain. A perfectly sensible business, Holland, a nation across the channel shares our dire weather and tens of thousands of them flee the weather to take advantage of the Iberian peninsula's endless summer. The website will be finished soon and it will go on the portfolio section of the New Reckless New Media website, due to be launched in September.

This whole process has made me think about how international the internet has made business. I think nothing of ordering something of Amazon US or buying some piece of tat from Chinese E Bay. On a larger scale, service based companies are looking to overseas markets as opportunities to sell virtual versions of their various services. We live in an age of international webinars, web based e-learning solutions and a number of social media events.

That's not to say that it is altogether easy to win international clients or to offer them a service similar to what you offer your local customers. In this case, although the client speaks perfect English, the website has to be in Dutch so simple things like the calendar function, something that we would usually have used an off the shelf application to implement needed to be hacked to represent Dutch names for months and days. Still these are not major obstacles and lessons that need to be learned if we are going to do more business with international clients. I am currently discussing doing a recruitment related website with a Lahore based company. We communicate with Skype and email but the time difference is a bit of an obstacle making our email discussions rather drawn out.

As a sales person, I intend to do all I can to increase my client base and at the moment it seems to me that there is an appetite out there for British Web Design. I am not going to suggest that I understand the reason for this for this phenomenon but it does seem that Social media has been the key to opening the door to international trade for Reckless New Media.

I am a big fan of linkedIn as a base for cultivating a powerful network of clients colleagues and prospects. I have found that a number of international leads have come from some of the groups that I belong to and naturally these leads open doors to further opportunities. Naturally I have a pretty organised approach to social media, I know why I am there and what I am looking for. That is not to say that I am mercenary in my posting as that is a major turn off. The great thing about social media is you get to communicate with people who ordinarily would have put the phone down on a cold call but are happy to engage in a discussion on how to better market their company on-line or how to generate more leads etc.

Twitter is also a favourite in our office. It is to some degree a recreational instrument in that we do have a lot of fun with it and the majority of our tweets do not have a commercial objective. They do however create a vibe or energy in the office and about our team. Outsiders who follow us, many of whom are customers and prospects get to know us better. What we watch on TV, what we like to eat and what we do on the weekend. I feel that this forges a link between us and is a form of virtual bonding, pre meeting small talk if you will.

I would really like to hear from readers what they have achieved for their business through social media. I would especially enjoy receiving any tips as to how I can help my clients grow their business through social media. As it is such a young phenomenon, there are new opportunities being presented nearly every day.

If you would like to chat with me about making social media a part of your marketing mix, I will be only too happy to hear from you. My email address is matthew@recklessnewmedia.com

Happy Socialising

Micro Business and Web Cowboys

Yesterday I had an interesting experience, a distraught woman called me up and begged me to look at her website. I was a little taken aback as, although it is a fairly reasonable request seeing as I work for a web agency, this person's emotional intensity made me feel uncomfortable.

When I typed in her URL Google Chrome sent me a warning message indicating that this website my be harmful to my computer. The lady on the telephone assured me that this was indeed a legitimate commercial website and I needed to have a look at it. With some degree of trepidation, I twice informed Chrome that I was indeed bonkers and I would like to proceed to view this website.

I was relieved at first to discover that rather than contraband naughty-stuff and black market pharmaceuticals, the website was simply for a horse trader. The poor thing! She has owned the URL for 5 years and recently paid very little for a new website that while not doing anything for her brand or offering any SEO compatible architecture had managed to upset Google terribly. When the world's most popular search engine rejects you, that's not good for business.

I told her how it was, she needed a new website on a new domain and quoted her on our bare bones CMS system. She gulped, my very reasonable £1500 for a basic but well built and user friendly website was way above her budget. I felt sorry for her, I didn't want her going back to one of the budget website companies, this was after all her livelihood.

The long and the short of it is I was able to cut out some functionality and use an off the shelf CMS system to get the price down to £1000 and she was able to stretch to that. I was happy that I was going to get another small business a quality web presence that helps them to promote their brand and grow their business.

She came in with her partner this morning and we discussed some layout options and design concepts. Happily this job is moving forward and we should have another very satisfied customer in a few days.

This got me thinking, why are people happy to entrust a major business purchase to an amateur or alternatively why are owners of Micro business so unwilling to invest in a decent web presence? Many micro business spend massive percentages of turnover on print advertising but if there is any one thing that can uplift your brand and convince potential customers to choose you over the competition it is a good professional website.

Instead what I see is hundreds or even thousands of DIY websites or build by numbers template sites that do very little for the company or the brand.

The Company I work for, Reckless New Media is a full service web agency. We have helped dozens of companies most of the SMEs to make the most of their presence on the web. One of the most powerful things the internet can do for you is capture data of people and business that are interested in your products or services. We always encourage our clients to include some form of data capture on their websites, used with an email marketing program, this can be the basis of a very effective, very economical digital marketing campaign.

If you are interested in any assistance or guidance in getting your brand on-line why not have a look at our Wild Wild Web campaign, aimed at getting micro business on line.