My Thoughts On The 4 Reason For The Rise of the Side Hustle

Mar 14,2017 / By Kimron Corion / No Comment

As I look back on my working life, whether it was working as the Officer in Charge at Grenada Public Service Credit Union now called Ariza Credit Union or later in financial services in Canada. I have always had a side hustle. During those times, I was just making some extra money, either writing business plans or social media marketing. I did my undergraduate degree in Economics; I never thought I’d now be working in digital media, much less doing a Master of Digital Media. However, my love for digital media grew as I got deeper into my side hustle. Now my side hustle has taken over my life.

5 Reasons Why Buying Facebook Likes Is a Waste of Time and Money for Your Business

Aug 8,2016 / By kimron / No Comment

I recently had a client who I was consulting and one of the things he was working on was setting up his Facebook page and generating traffic. He decided that in order to generate some likes for his new Facebook page, he would purchase a couple thousand likes for his page. I have never been a fan of buying likes or any kind of audience on social media for that matter, but I was interested to see what would happen.

After the order for likes was made, I decided to check out the page and look at the persons who liked, and when the likes were coming in steady. I started noticing something weird. The persons who were liking his page: 1- Were not the target market of his business, 2- These persons all had different profile pictures but the exact same post, 3- maximum number of post on the page was three. Basically the profiles were all fake and to me that was a complete waste of time. Why would anyone want likes from fake profiles? My client immediately stopped, but here are 5 reasons buying likes is a waste of time.

1. Poor or No engagement: If the majority of fans are fake, then when you publish your best content you will hardly be reaching anyone. When offers are published in your business, it will be a waste of time and there will be no true engagement and no one to reach.

2. It will mess up your EDGERANK: Your EDGERANK score is based on the amount of visits to your page, your comments, likes on contents and how much time it is shared. If you purchased fans and the people on your page are fake and not interacting with your brand then your EDGERANK score will be very low, and Facebook will see your page as unimportant.

3. You may lose future prospective real fans: If someone stumbles upon your page and realize that no one is talking about this or there is absolutely no interaction, they may perceive that what you’re doing is unimportant and just move away without becoming a fan.

4. It’s a waste of money: Normally in business whenever you purchase something, it should be something of value. In the case of buying fans, there is no value there, you are basically buying something or someone that doesn’t exist that will add absolutely no value to your brand.

5. Unable to generate leads and sales: True Facebook marketers use Facebook as a means of generating leads and then sales. So unless you are purchasing adds which can reach real people, then marketing to your “purchased” fan base and trying to get them off Facebook and unto your website, landing or sales pages will be futile since that may not be real.

There are alternatives to purchasing fake fans or fake likes; one can ask friends on their personal page to like their page and invite their friends to like it. They can put their Facebook page in their email signature, create valuable contents that will attract people and promote them, and place their fan page in the persona description on their personal page. One can also simply purchase adds which can generate likes, leads and sales. There is no shortcut to marketing in general, the same goes for Facebook marketing. Take your time and grow your fan base, there are amazing programs and people that can teach you how to do so such as Amy Porterfield and Brian Moran. Just stop wasting your company’s time and money.

Entrepreneurship Facebook Social Media

5 Cheap And Creative Ways to Market Your Small Business

Jul 20,2016 / By kimron / No Comment

One of the biggest challenges faced by small and medium-sized businesses today is marketing their business effectively.

Many believe that marketing and advertising is an expensive business practice; however there are creative ways that even the smallest business can take advantage of. Social Media and the Internet has leveled the playing field between small and large businesses to some extent. In the past, larger businesses had an advantage over smaller ones based on the size of their marketing budget. This is not the case today, and the following are some creative ways to market yourself like a big business:

Content Marketing– Content marketing involves sharing valuable information to your online community; information that will inform and educate without directly selling to them. At the end of the day,when people feel informed and smarter they will feel a connection to your brand which will lead them back to you when they’re in need. Some examples of content you can share include blog posts and articles, infographics, videos and other graphic designs. The best part about Content marketing is that for the most part it’s free, with tools such as Canva or Easely.

Social Media Ads– Whether it’s Facebook, Google AdWords, LinkedIn or Twitter, social media ads are one of the best ways to market your business. My favourite is Facebook. If you’re a small business owner and you’re not on Facebook, that is a big mistake. It is free to set up a Facebook page and free to post valuable content to build a relationship with clients. Facebook ads allow you to reach your ideal audience very cheaply. Businesses can spend as little as $1.00 a day to run ad campaigns to generate Leads and Customers. The targeting and retargeting options and also the ability to create custom audiences from your email list and website visitors is great for business marketing activities.

Email Marketing– One of your best assets in business is your email list, because you get to reach out to these people at any time, offer them value and also pitch them products and services. However, there is an art to doing this; sending random emails with random subject lines will not get your email opened. You may also have people unsubscribe from your list if you do this. Ryan Deiss wrote a book called ‘The Invisible Selling Machine’ where he shows how email marketing should be done. Small businesses need to get an email marketing service such as aweber or Mailchimp and start building their list immediately.

Give talks at networking events, workshops and meet-ups– One of the most creative ways to market your business is to share your expertise with others who are willing to listen. Networking events and meet-ups are great opportunities to share with others. You can also start your own meet-up in your industry. One-on-one workshops are also a great way to get in front of people and get the word out about your business.

Partnering with other brands and small businesses– This is very effective because when businesses partner with each other they are able to tap into each other’s resources. Two small businesses can agree to promote each other’s products or services. They can also team up to run joint promotional campaigns, which they may not have been able to do if they were doing it on their own.

Why Only the Market Gets to Determine if You Will Succeed in Business

Jul 12,2016 / By kimron / No Comment

Lately, a lot of changes have occurred in the business landscape. One such change I firmly believe may be the best is the use of social media. My opinion is also held by many successful entrepreneurs like social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk, who normally refers to social media as the current state of the internet. However, I am appalled by the number of small businesses owners that are not making use of the opportunities that social media presents. Additionally, I feel compelled to mention that in this current business climate, which is marshalled by useful tools like social media, THE SUCCESS OF ENTREPRENEURS/ARTISTS/CREATORS NO LONGER STRICTLY HINGES ON OTHERS. For instance, if you sing, it isn’t absolutely necessary to use a studio to approve your music or a producer to work with you. Instead, all you need is a smartphone to record yourself singing then upload your product to YouTube or Facebook to start building a community around your music. Also, if you are an aspiring writer, you don’t need the permission of a publisher; instead, you could start a blog and populate it with your pieces.

In this day and age, individuals shouldn’t be given the privilege to dictate the direction you take in your life as an aspiring entrepreneur or personality. Instead, let the market determine whether you succeed or not. Therefore, if you are courageous enough to put yourself, your idea, and eventually your product or service out there, the market will reward you if it up to standard and satisfies the needs and wants of the consumer. One of the best examples of this truth is in the movie industry. The Legend of Tarzan received terrible reviews from critics, but it still went on to be a big winner at the Box Office. Consequently, the trend insinuates that it is possible that the influence of critics may not seriously affect the success of a film; instead, the market will determine its success. Therefore, one should be willing to be proactive, ignore the naysayers, and let the market determine if success is possible.

One morning, I was sitting on my couch watching CP24 Breakfast, and Steve Anthony was interviewing a member of LMFAO; I believe it was RedFoo. He said something that stunned me. He was speaking about how hard it was to reach his fans and to get their music out, especially on Facebook. As a Facebook marketer, I was genuinely appalled by his assertion and potentially misleading statements. Admittedly, it’s true that organic reach on Facebook is down, and the company recently changed its algorithm to show more posts from friends and less from businesses forcing us to pay to play. However, looking at the situation logically, any network with over 1 billion active users should be worth your time, so I still believe it is the best platform to reach your desired audience. You just need to figure out how to maximize its capabilities, and the market will reward you. Also, you should utilize Facebook advertising, even if you feel forced into a situation where you have to pay to reach your community. Consider this scenario, would you prefer to pay a monthly rate of $1,000 for television ads with no guarantee you will reach your target audience or pay Facebook as little as $5 dollars a day to reach your potential customers? Personally speaking, I think I’d prefer to pay for ads on Facebook any day.

Moreover, if you have a dream to start a business, don’t worry what anyone says unless that person is part of the target market you’d want to reach. Instead, give your idea a chance and build a community around your business for free or at worst minimal cost using what may be the best thing to happen to entrepreneurs in the modern era, social media. Again I must emphasize that you shouldn’t be afraid to start. However, please be mindful that the market rewards good but by the same token, it kills the inferior. Therefore, you should never offer substandard products with the hope that marketing would be the solution. However, at least give your idea a chance by starting and properly incorporating social media because based on recent business advances, the market significantly influences success.

Entrepreneurship Social Media

How To Create A Call To Action On Your Facebook Cover Photo

Feb 26,2015 / By kimron / No Comment

I have been having my doubts lately about how effective Facebook is for small businesses. I sometimes wonder why people would force to build a huge following on a Facebook Business page and get to reach only 2 to 3% of them. But still according to Alexa.com, Facebook is still the second most trafficked site on the internet. Which means every small business should be using Facebook since that’s where everyone is, however we all need to think strategically about how to do it to make it work. One of the best and most effective ways is to use Facebook advertising which I will explain in a subsequent post. Facebook however has recently introduced a “Call to Actions” button on their Cover Photo. How amazing is that, someone can click on your Facebook cover photo and take whatever action you want them to take. Whether it is to download a file, sign up for a newsletter, visit a website, send traffic to sales page, watch a video, visit an app and I am sure they will be adding more call to actions soon.

The following is a walk-through of how to do this, start by clicking Create call to action on the cover photo

Facebook Call to action

You will then see a drop down menu where you can select an action, choose one

These are the different options available for now

Facebook Call to action

After you select your option whether shop now or another, enter your website or landing page

Facebook call to action

Next step is to choose whether you want to send people to an app or otherwise, this options is available for android and iOS devices.

Facebook call to action

Finally you select create and you’re good to go. Your cover page is one of your most important piece of real estate on Facebook and if you use it wisely, it could make the difference between success or not.