Posted by Ingrid Riley on March 19th, 2010
Digicel the seven year-old company which joined the Telecom game in Jamaica and the Caribbean as the mouth-watering buffet in front of a starving man, is now the Caribbean Brand with the largest Facebook Fan Page Community. They achieved the 100,000 Fan milestone on Tuesday March 16, 2010. They celebrated by running a full page ad in the newspapers and of course more giveaways as thanks to their fans.
Now in an environment where internet marketing professionals and entrepreneurs push to sell Caribbean brands on the validity and value of social media specifically and generally the necessity of having an internet marketing strategy and plan, Digicel with its achievement will no doubt drive the fan rush and social media push in Jamaica and the Caribbean. At least we hope so.
We spoke to Marketing Communications Manager, Tshani Jaja about Digicel, Social Media and the Caribbean.Share your comments or ask questions when you’re finished watching.
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Posted by Ingrid Riley on December 15th, 2009
Seth Godin, who has written 12 bestsellers that have been translated into 33 languages, is an in demand global speaker, digital age trend watcher and thinker is one of my mentors. I’ve bought and read his books, watched his videos and read his blog religiously.
I was commissioned to do an all day workshop with Jamaica Trade and Invest /JAMPRO on December 3rd at the Jamaica Conference Centre where I spoke to just under 100 Jamaican entrepreneurs of Micro, Small, Medium -sized businesses. I prepared a 95 slide power point presentation which was in demand at the end of the day. I pondered whether to just give it away, selectively do so or not at all.
So I asked Seth and my other colleague and mentor Gerd Leonhard, The MediaFuturist – he too is a blogger, global speaker, trendwatcher and ebook publisher. Gerd in a reply email said “My philosophy is ‘knowledge grows when shared’ and I have had a very good experience with that so far. I only publish PDFs though, not PPTs, and only use creative commons licensed images (Flickr) or iStockphoto.com or fair use stuff. If it’s free published I have never had a real issue.Cheers from Switzerland and let’s do something together in Jamaica one of these days;)”
I emailed Seth and asked him too, he too replied promptly and said…“I don’t share mine, because they have no text and make no sense..but if they had text, I’d share em.” So I followed their advice I shared my PDF Presentation…on Facebook, on Twitter and my Company Blog as a free download. And I more ebooks coming too and my roster for speaking in increasing too.
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Posted by Ingrid Riley on August 5th, 2009
winning on the uphills
This post was inspired by the Seth Godin’s blog post…“Winning on the Uphills.” You should read it. The link to this post came from Mike Michalowicz, the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur himself and it was on point and on time. It came at a time where I’d just about heard enough and had enough of the people around me spewing what I now call recession reruns. You’ve heard it…” boy, things are tough out there”, “Ingrid..gosh.. things are really rough sah.” Now at times it is in response to my internet marketing consulting fees and other times it’s just because the recession and how “tough things are out there” are now the standard patio, cafe, on-the-phone chatter. Yeah yeah, I know that there is a recession and I acknowledge that things are tough for alot of people and businesses, but I am big believer that even in such times people and businesses make money and I intend to be one of them. I am also quick to recognise this time, as an amazing period of opportunity and I simply won’t allow anyone to sway me to think or act differently. Have you?
I believe this is a great time for Internet entrepreneurship.
It is a time when you can create, launch, test, prune and push yourself to greatness. Let the losers keep their head in some hole in the ground, while you put your ideas to work and take them to the Caribbean, to the world.
Always wanted to start a blog? do it right now. Been thinking about finally taking your boss on and making your company more social and engage consumers online? Do it. Want inspiration check out how a Island Grill Jamaican restaurant chain has been mastering Facebook as a consumer engagement tool. Have a great software-as-a-service product that you’ve been afraid to launch? Ohh dammit, just do it and if you need inspiration Google,Symsure or check out the 37signals.com story. Think you can’t challenge the big boys and win? ask the Jamaican startups Pileojobs.com and Whatissocialingua.com how they got the balls and are gunning for it.Think you have a wicked online community idea ? do your thing and if you want proof that it can be done surf on over to Caribsingles.com, the largest Caribbean online dating site.
Be the company, the entrepreneur, the startup that’s focused on winning on these uphills, take advantage of these “tough times” to improve, take risks while your competition laments and yearns for the easy spots on the journey. With that said, watch for the unfolding of our blog media network.
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Posted by Ingrid Riley on December 3rd, 2008
Putting aside whether we’re actually in a recession, or not, I think it’s safe to say that the “R” word is on everyone’s mind.
Given that I’m in sales, and I haven’t had anyone tell me that “I’m not buying because I can’t get a bank to give me a new credit card.” Or “I’m not buying because I don’t think anyone will buy my services in this economy – no matter how many leads I generate,” I think it’s probably safe to say that the economy is not affecting many of us.
At the top, the economy is certainly showing signs of struggling – with bank failures, proportionally higher job losses, state budget shortfalls, etc. And this could certainly trickle down. Coincidence or not, we all are certainly paying more for food, gas and oil. So, this post is not meant to belittle hardships others are facing.
But, I do believe that we can get ourselves out of this mess by basically stepping on the gas pedal of innovation and doubling down on our respective career and businesses’ growth strategies. And not doing anything or retreating from our strategies because we “fear” it could get worse, would be disastrous for each of us individually, the businesses we manage and the economy collectively.
One of the areas where many companies are innovating is their internet marketing strategy. “R” word or not, many companies are investing significantly in inbound marketing strategies. They are publishing their way into thought leadership positions. They are networking their way into sales opportunities. They are redesigning their websites as lead capture machines and leveraging analytics technologies to improve sales efficiencies. These companies are innovating their sales and marketing processes and most importantly, finding ways that sales and marketing can work together to grow their business quicker and more profitably. More
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