Social Media And Effective Marketing Over the last decade, social media marketing has proven to be the most effective form of marketing especially compared to traditional media adv…
Social Media And Effective Marketing
Over the last decade, social media marketing has proven to be the most effective form of marketing especially compared to traditional media advertising. It is much cheaper, can reach a much bigger audience, can be highly targeted, is easily measured, and provides a direct two-way communication with an audience. It is especially crucial during the global pandemic that we live in, as many e-commerce has almost completely replaced traditional commerce, and social media is the main medium of promoting products and services.
However, embarking on a social media journey is no simple feat. Many startups and businesses treat it as a series of random posts which usually proves ineffective. Creating a social media strategy is crucial to ensure a professional and productive social media presence for your brand.
Here are 11 tips that businesses should consider when creating and implementing strategy for their business.
Creating And Implementing Your Social Media Strategy
A proper social media strategy includes many components among them goal setting, target audience and creating personas, asset mapping, position in the sales cycle, choice of channels, voice and tone, posting frequency, posting time, content types, content calendars, community management, online advertising strategies, influencer marketing strategies, social media policies, crisis management policies, monitoring, measurement, and reporting.
Setting quantifiable goals is very crucial so that everyone is clear on what you want your social media plan needs to achieve.
What your target audience already knows about you will dictate what you can credibly have a conversation about on social media. That is why is it important to be aware of your position in the sales cycle.
A common myth about social media is that it’s free, or at least very cheap. While it may be free to set up a Twitter or Facebook account, it requires time and lots of it to effectively manage these accounts.
A great way to ensure you hit your target and focus communications on the right people is to create personas. These are short descriptions of fictional individuals that represent your target.
Prioritize your channels, start slow and get comfortable even if it means starting with just one platform. Spend time getting accustomed to posting content, answering questions and comments, and the overall level of engagement required. Once you’re comfortable, add another platform and slowly build your network.
Setting your voice and tone is very important to create a professional brand for your business on social media. Voice is your brand personality described in an adjective while the tone adds specific flavor to your voice based.
Content creation is a vital element in contemporary marketing strategies. There is a science behind what motivates users to share digital content. Researchers have discovered a number of psychological triggers that inspire people to engage in online activities: social approval, communication, support ideas, and entertainment.
So that your social media content is more shareable, consider the following: create high-quality content, use smart structuring, add value to users’ lives, keep your audience in mind, trigger emotions and exploit trendy topics.
Make sure to create a crisis management strategy that takes into account speed, hyper-transparency, dialogue, search and detractors.
Before commencing with paid advertising, you should properly understand the organic algorithms for the platforms that you are using.
If you want to learn more about social media strategy or request consulting and training, please contact me through my website or LinkedIn.
According to a Pew Research Center report, 82% of Americans say they read online reviews at least some of the time. While BrightLocal reports this number to be higher with 91% of …
According to a Pew Research Center report, 82% of Americans say they read online reviews at least some of the time. While BrightLocal reports this number to be higher with 91% of people regularly or occasionally reading online reviews and 84% trusting online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Reviews help them to form opinions quickly as studies have shown that 68% of them form an opinion after reading only 1 to 6 online reviews.
Needless to say, online reviews are important to the success of your business and in encouraging or discouraging customers from purchasing your product or service.
In the era where everything can be faked, e-commerce sites such as Amazon, eBay and may others are plagued with fake reviews that are causing customers to become more skeptical. The Washington Post revealed in an investigative piece than in some categories, the percentage of questionable reviews can go up to 67%!
As consumers are waking up to the reality of the internet that they use on a daily basis, they are learning to identify the real reviews from the fake ones, thus avoiding products that seem to have too many suspicious reviews.
Here are 5 ways fake reviews can hurt your brand:
1.Fake reviews are illegal
Believe it or not, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) makes fake testimonials illegal in Section 5 of the FTC Act 15 U.S. Code § 45. The FTC considers a review to be fake if it is not based on the experience of a real customer. A fake review is seen as deceptive advertising as it may mislead the customer, encouraging them to purchase a product or use a service under false pretenses.
If a company or a person is caught engaging in fake reviews, every single one of their violations is subject to a $10,000 fine. Recently, the FTC has started implementing this law by bringing a case against an independent retail website that paid for fake reviews. In order to ensure endorsements and testimonials are up to the standards of the FTC and you won’t get into legal trouble, they have issued this guide to help you learn more about this issue.
2.Consumers are smarter than you think
Consumers have become experts at spotting fake reviews and many of them ignore the star rating all together in favor of reading the description that reviewers leave before they decide on buying the product. A suspiciously high star rating is alarming, and customers tend to steer away from products that are too good to be true.
In addition to that, customers are doing more research on other platforms such as blogs and YouTube where they can get expert opinions and detailed breakdown of features away from written reviews on e-commerce sites. If the reviews on those sites do not match what experts are saying, customers will lose trust in the company and its products.
Honest negative reviews on your product page helps customers weigh the pros and cons. Customers already know that products are hardly-ever perfect and are actually deserving of a perfect 5-star rating. They are realistic and are not expecting flawless reviews. They read reviews to answer questions that they have about the product to make sure it suits their needs. Many users start by reading the one-star reviews to understand what customers hated about the product or service in order to determine if they buy it or not.
When a product’s reviews are mostly fake, customers are more likely to do more research about the product because they are more suspicious, which may lead to them not buying the product.
Customers are becoming more vocal as social media platforms gives them a stronger voice that reaches people beyond their networks, and you better believe that they will use this voice when they believe they are being scammed or taken advantage of. As they are better at spotting fake reviews, this increases the probability of exposing your practices. Once the word gets out that you are buying fake reviews to hype your product or service, your business’s trust and credibility suffers. They will encourage their friends to expose you as well causing your reputation to take a massive hit. Once customers lose trust in your company, it will be very hard to gain it back again.
4.Platforms will block your account
Several e-commerce platforms have instated policies that can suspend or ban sellers from using their platforms if they are found to be manipulating reviews and ratings. Amazon states that “If we determine that you have attempted to manipulate reviews or violated our guidelines in any other manner, we may immediately suspend or terminate your Amazon privileges, remove reviews, and delist related products.”
Facebook and eBay have also started cracking down on accounts and groups that are engaged in trading fake reviews for money or incentives after receiving complaints from the U.K. antitrust regulator.
Amazon is even going much further than just banning sellers and accounts, according to TechCrunch, they have sued more than one thousand defendants who were found to provide or engage in fake reviews.
5.Higher ratings will result in higher return rate
When a customer purchases a highly rated product, they automatically have higher expectations about the product. Once they try it out, they are more likely to get disappointed from the over-hyped review and therefore they are more likely to return it.
In a study conducted by the Harvard Business Review, they concluded that “overly positive reviews inflate customer expectations about the product (that’s why they buy it), customers can experience greater disappointment upon receiving the item if it doesn’t live up to its rave reviews. This then leads more people to send the product back.” They found that overly positive reviews increase the likelihood of product return by around 10%. This not only results in a decrease in profits and return costs associated, but as Ecommerce BrainTrust reports, Amazon will take down the product page of any product with a return dissatisfaction rate higher than 10%.
So, it is very clear now that purchasing fake reviews is not the best way to increase your sales and get feedback from your customers. But are there legal ways where you can increase verified honest reviews that will increase your company’s credibility?
The answer is yes. And here are two of the ways you can receive legitimate reviews from customers who try your product.
A.Amazon Vine
To battle fake reviews and gain trustworthy reviews for sellers, Amazon launched Amazon Vine, an internal service that provides sellers with unbiased reviews for their products from reliable reviewers with a high “reviewer rank” which Amazon calls “Vine Voices”. Having a high “reviewer rank” means that a reviewer is consistently submitting honest feedback for products that they have purchased on their site. Vine Voices are chosen by an invitation program and are determined by several criteria, most notably feedback from other customers about their reviews. You can learn more about joining the Amazon Vine Program as a seller here.
B.Revioly
Revioly is a market test platform that provides brand owners with early authentic reviews of their products, by their actual target market. Revioly states that they strive to purify online reviews, so that online shoppers can be confident about their choices. Brands can sign up for their service to receive honest and authentic feedback about their product as an Early Authentic Review Service (EARS). However, the company insists that do not guarantee 5-star reviews for your products because their team of reviewers will review them in a fair and truthful manner. You can learn more about joining Revioly’s review program as a brand here.
“The JCI Academy is the best JCI experience that you will ever have” is a statement that I frequently heard from past national presidents. “It will probably be in the top experien…
“The JCI Academy is the best JCI experience that you will ever have” is a statement that I frequently heard from past national presidents. “It will probably be in the top experiences of your life.”
And indeed, it was, without a doubt, as memorable as they described it. I could not have thought that one can create as many memories, learn as many lessons or make as many friends in the span of 10 days.
Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the 2017 JCI Academy in Kumamoto, Japan. The JCI Academy is an annual event that is hosted in a different Japanese city every year where upcoming JCI national presidents and leaders are invited to an empowerment academy to prepare them to be future leaders. This year, we were celebrating the 30th edition of the academy, three decades of evolution and experience had culminated in a wonderful experience for everyone involved. Under the slogan “Who Changes The World? It’s Us!”, JCI Japan had prepared an intensive program with JCI Past President & Academy Course Leader Lars Hajslund. This academy was also special because it included JCI Past President Pascale Dike and JCI Past Executive Vice President Boydee Dizon as trainers, giving us a greater grasp of knowledge and experience. So many lessons learned, so little time to talk about them all! I was truly an overwhelming week and a half, of which I will describe the highlights.
As part of the program, we were invited by a Japanese family to spend a weekend with them at their home in Kumamoto. Each international delegate was assigned a different family and he/she was whisked off after an introduction ceremony. I was lucky to be hosted by the Yonemuras, a delightful family with young parents and adorable daughter & son that lives in Kumamoto’s suburbs. Like many other families, they barely spoke any English, which made the experience even more interesting. Communicating by Google Translate (so grateful for the invention) and sign language, we were not only able to talk about necessities, but also deep meaningful conversations. Even though this was not my first trip to Japan, I feel that with them, I was introduced to traditional Japanese customs and traditions… and the home-cooked meals were superb! They truly treated me as their own child and went above and beyond to make me feel at home. They were also very glad to learn about my country Lebanon and try samples of its food, which to them must have felt like an exotic faraway land! I truly feel that they are now my second family and I hope to visit once again very soon.
Another highlight of the program is the Japanese elementary school experience, and this year, we were truly lucky to not only spend one day (as usual) but two days at different schools to absorb this unique cultural experience. We were invited to attend a school day at one of the Kumamoto elementary schools where the teachers and students welcomed us with a meticulously-choreographed ceremony. After that, we joined the students in their gym class where we were introduced to traditional Japanese games along with a few games of dodgeball (which proved once again that I suck at sports, even against 9-year-olds). We were also invited into the classroom where each of us made short presentations about our respective countries as we saw the children’s light up with fascination about the different cultures. Yet, the most fascinating encounter we had was lunch & cleaning time. Japanese school children are taught responsibility by taking care of most of the school’s chores, from serving food, cleaning the classrooms to scrubbing the toilets. Being served a typical Japanese school lunch, we had the chance to chat with children about their hopes and dreams and about our cultural differences and traditions. Then we joined them as they cleaned their classrooms like clockwork, a very mesmerizing sight.
Our second encounter with elementary school children was harmonious in nature. The JCI Academy committee had organized for us to attempt to break the Guinness World Record of the most nationalities attending a dance class. More than 77 nationalities performed the Kumamoto song along with a whole Japanese elementary school; the only way I can describe it is magical (and sweaty)! We were even featured in Japanese media such as TV reports and news articles.
All this and I haven’t even begun talking about the official training academy yet! The best way to describe it is the most I’ve been out of my comfort zone, ever! Starting off by being grouped with Japanese roommates, who may or may not speak English, and being assigned to a team that you are supposed to work and present with (some of my team members only spoke Spanish, Korean, or Japanese) and that was the beginning of a week full of hilarious and emotional moments of cultural diversity. Living alongside my team (Team H) for a week, being together non-stop: eating, partying, sleeping and breathing, made us a family, one big multicultural multilingual family. A week of intensive training and group work did not pass without frustration, embarrassing instances, tearful emotions and a great deal of separation anxiety. During our last night, the amount of hugs received and tears shed surpasses those of best friends parting.
I will not go into details about the official program to leave some mystery for the future delegates of the JCI Academy, but I will share the top lessons that I learned below.
TOP 11 LESSONS THAT YOU LEARN AT THE JCI ACADEMY:
You will not learn anything new if you stay in your comfort zone. It will be difficult but it is definitely worth it.
Fear is an illusion. As soon as you overcome it, you will become more powerful and can achieve what you thought was impossible. How about jumping on a pile of broken glass?
“Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the ability to act in the presence of fear.
Language barriers can be easily overcome especially in our day and age. Don’t let it be an obstacle to meeting and getting to know people that don’t speak your language.
A task can be done in several different ways and all of them can be right.
Whenever you are angry or frustrated, be patient and think to yourself: “right now I am learning. I might know what exactly, but I am definitely learning.”
Love transcends language, culture, age, nationality, gender, and orientation. You can’t imagine how amazing it feels to give love (or “diamonds”) to strangers or acquaintances and receive it back.
The pen is mightier than the sword and if you let it flow on its own, you’ll be surprised by the creative ideas that you will come up with.
Many times, you should be a leader and guide people on the right path. Yet, the hallmark of a great leader is knowing when to follow other leaders.
Do not regard people who are working on similar ideas/projects/goals as competitors. By supporting each other, your achievements will be better and more impressive.
It is rewarding to take the untraveled path, but sometimes, following instructions of those who are more experienced and practicing their ways can be more rewarding.
I was expecting the JCI Academy to give me information about leading my national JCI organization. Make no mistake, it did. But it also gave me much more than that. It taught me vital life lessons that have permanently altered my life, my beliefs, my behavior and way of thinking. It gave me friends all over the globe, many of which are now very dear to my heart, and from countries that I didn’t even know existed! It got me out of my comfort zone so much that going back to it right now feels weird. It showed me a different global perspective and made me consider ideas that I haven’t even thought of before.
My advice for all JCI members is to work hard through empowering their community in their local and national chapters and work hard to be selected to attend the JCI Academy in Japan because it is well worth the commitment.
-- *JCI is a nonprofit organization of young active citizens age 18 to 40 who are engaged and committed to creating impact in their communities. Active citizens are individuals invested in the future of our world. JCI gathers active citizens from all sectors of society. Worldwide, JCI has more than 200,000 members in 5000+ local chapters across 124 countries and has implemented tens of thousands of impactful projects. For more information about JCI, visit www.jci.cc. If you are in Lebanon and interested in joining, fill in this form: www.bit.ly/jcilebanon. **This post was originally written for the JCI official website. You can find the published version here. ***You can view the full album of photos from this trip here.
With over 100 flights in the past two years, I have become a master of planning my own trips and booking them online. Many people would opt to pay a travel agent to plan all thei…
With over 100 flights in the past two years, I have become a master of planning my own trips and booking them online. Many people would opt to pay a travel agent to plan all their trips and vacations, but there are several reasons why it might be better to plan and book them themselves.
Most big agencies won't customize the trips for you especially when they have group offers, and this for me is the number one reason why I plan everything myself. I customize everything to my liking in the interest of not wasting time on things that I have no interest in seeing or doing. Additionally, I like to book the flights that best suit my time and the hotels that fit my budget and my preferred locations within a city without the added fees and commission of the agent.
Another reason is that it gets you more involved; you would learn about the destination that you are going to beforehand so you know what to expect. You can read reviews and avoid tourist traps that agents usually get commissions to take you to.
Another important reason is that it is usually much cheaper to plan it yourself. You can see all the prices of the hotels, flights and activities that you want to do and with a little bit of research and comparison sites, you're guaranteed to get the lowest price available.
Below you will find some resources to help you plan a trip yourself with SIX simple steps.
STEP 1: Making a decision
Here are some tips to help you make a decision on where you want to travel
Minube is a website that helps you determine your interests.
Trippy helps you ask travel enthusiasts questions about the destinations that you are interested in.
Set your dates but try to be flexible if you want to find cheaper prices or better experiences.
Research unique vacations; do not settle for the cliche trip vacations such as Paris, Rome or London.
Set your budget and try to divide it up into your different travel components: flights, transportation, accommodation, activities, dining and shopping.
Always search in incognito mode when you are looking flights because some sites increase the price when they notice that you have come back to book a flight after you saw a lower price (using cookies)
Try to stick to one airline alliance for all your trips and claim your traveled miles with one of their airlines. The three major airline alliances are SkyTeam (I have an account on MEA), One World (I have an account on Qatar Airways) and Star Alliance (Lufthansa for me).
Sometimes it's worth it to mix and match especially from the same alliance. Most airlines now sell one-way flights at reasonable prices, meaning one might be cheaper for the outbound flight while the other works better for the return.
You could even fly to one airport and depart from another.
On international flights, book window seats so you can rest your head on the bulkhead.
Book seats close to the front so you can beat everyone to the passport control line. Also, you will get your food first.
Leave on a Wednesday: It's the cheapest day to do it, says FareCompare.com. Per the website: "The day with the most seats is likely to have better supply, and thus ... more empty seats that require discounting to fill the plane—meaning they'll have to release more seats at their cheapest price point."
Book Six Weeks in Advance: A revealing study from Airlines Reporting Corporation found that the best time to purchase your airfare is about six weeks prior to travel. The reason: Around this time, prices drop below the average fare.
STEP 3: Booking Your Accommodation
Here are some of the Best websites to book cheap stays:
www.hotels.com (My favorite because it has the best rewards program. For every 10 nights you book on it, you will get 1 free hotel night with the average cost of the 10 nights you booked. Also, it has a lowest price guarantee, meaning that if you find a cheaper price of the same hotel room on any other website, they will match it for you)
www.trivago.com (It never has the cheapest room rates and its ads are super annoying so I'm crossing it off from my list)
When using these websites filter by:
Distance to city center
Cancellation option
Price before and after cancellation
Stars (1 – 5)
Rating (1 – 10)
Whether a bus station or any other form of transportation is next to the hotel
Hotel tips:
Book a room with a free cancellation option (even if the price was higher than booking it without this option). Later on, this booking can be cancelled when the whole trip is 100% confirmed and another room without the cancellation option is booked instead in order to benefit from the lower price.
Book several “free cancellation” hotels and decide which hotel you want a few days before your trip to better accommodate your itinerary.
Book business hotels on weekends and during summer, prices are usually cheap because demand is low.
Ask for a corner room because it is usually bigger and quieter than regular rooms.
Sign up for a hotel’s loyalty program and try to book hotels with their chain if you can to get rewards.
Tripping is platform that connects travelers with locals who are renting out their homes around the world. There are over 750,000 rental spaces ranging from luxurious penthouses to rustic beachside stays.
Hotel Tonight: For last-minute lodging deals, a free mobile app available on iOS andAndroid devices for when you are stuck without a place to sleep.
Hostels.com allows you to book a bed in a shared room at hostels in 180 countries.
Couchsurf for free with people who share their homes, cities and lives in profound and meaningful ways, making travel anywhere in the world a truly social experience.
STEP 4: Arranging Transportation
These are the transportation pathways that you need to consider for your trip:
Inter-city transportation:
Airport – Hotel transportation
Hotel – Hotel transportation (when visiting more than one City in the same Country)
In-City transportation:
Hotel – Restaurants
Hotel – Beach
Hotel – Night Spots
Hotel – Attractions (Museums, Historical areas, Monuments, etc..)
Types of transportation forms to consider:
Uber: Using Uber application on mobile or using their website. Other similar services include Lyft, Sidecar and Careem. Uber is by far my favorite method of transportation in my hometown and when I travel because it is much cheaper and safer than any other car-based transportation service.
Use my code rpjpr or click on this link when you sign up to get your first free ride for free!
Taxi: Ordering a taxi could be done from the Hotel or online depending on the destination.
Public bus: Google search the public bus schedule and routes based on the destination.
Metro/Train/Subway: Google search the train stations schedule and routes based on the destination. Most cities have their own metro/train apps.
Rent a car: Google search rental companies based on the destination.
Internal flights: Big countries such as US, Canada and India have many airports and many times internal flights are cheaper than land transport.
STEP 5: Getting familiar with your destination geographically
Getting familiar with the area geographically helps a lot in having a sense of direction when you reach your destination. This will definitely save a lot of time! The best way to do that is by using: GOOGLE MAPS!
Use Google maps for the following purposes:
To find the location of the city center area with respect to the Hotel
To find bus and metro stations. Google maps will also tell you which buses/trains you should take to reach a certain destination and how much they cost. This will be extremely helpful for countries where the majority don't speak English (such as Japan and Turkey).
To determine the distance from the hotel to your targets (attractions, restaurants, shopping centers, pubs and night clubs)
Star all the locations that you want visit. This will help you cluster nearby attractions together in the same day.
STEP 6: Finding attractions, restaurants and wild night spots
The best way to find and decide on top attractions, restaurants, shopping centers and night spots to visit, is through word of mouth and performing a good search online. Contacting a person who lives in the country you are planning to visit for the first time is a very reliable source as well. Even more reliable than what you can find online. Questions you might want to ask include:
What are the major attractions?
What would a tourist most likely won't want to miss?
Where is it crowded the most in down-town?
The internet is the second reliable source to find places to go to as you can always find people’s feedback and reviews… First, always search for a schedule of events and festivals that are occurring during the days of your stay at the chosen destination.
Also, visit the local tourism office (usually in the airport or at main train stations). They know about everything going on in town. They can point you to free activities, special events happening during your stay, and everything in between. They would usually give you discounts or coupons as well.
Additionally, find out what Google lists as top 10 attractions, restaurants, pubs, and nightclubs at the targeted destination and make a list of each.
These websites can be used for brainstorming and planning:
Sites like Groupon, LivingSocial & Yipit provide you with great discounts on many touristic attractions and tours.
Some cities offer city passes or cards where you can do all the major attractions in that city for a very discounted rates. I used the Go City Card in New York City and Los Angeles and the Montreal Passport in Montreal. So make sure to check if these exist in the city you are visiting.
You can also use social media (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc…) to check out the lists made by searching online through:
Watching videos of prior year festivals that are interesting to attend at your time of visit.
Watching videos of parties in the chosen night spots.
Reading people’s comments and reviews of chosen restaurants and attractions.
Always have a scan of your passport, visas and important documents in your email and Dropbox folder in case you lose them or they get stolen.
Don’t exchange money at the airport or hotels, ever! They usually have a much higher exchange rate and/or commission.
To manage who paid what when you’re travelling in a group, download the Tricount app for your phone.
Always get behind business travelers when in security lines. They move fast. Try to keep up. Never get behind families. They take forever. It’s not their fault; they just have a lot of stuff.
Research the SIM cards available in each country beforehand. Many times you can order them online directly to your hotel.
In Istanbul for example, you can order an AllDayWifi router to your hotel for unlimited data. Read about my experience with it here and use my code mindsoup for 10% off your order in 2017.
Take pictures of your luggage and clothes. If your bag gets lost, this will help identify it more easily and speed up the process of having your travel insurance reimburse you.
Take earplugs. Snorers and noise are everywhere and you need your sleep.
Tell your bank you’re travelling so your card doesn’t get rejected.
Where's your next trip to?
If you want to download these tips into a pdf to keep with you, check it in the presentation in my Slideshare account below.
Disclaimer: None of the above mentioned websites, apps or services are sponsors of this post. They were mentioned because I genuinely use them and recommend them.
It has been a while since I last blogged on this platform and I do miss blogging about what's going on in my life. Truth be told, for the last couple of years, I have been ext…
It has been a while since I last blogged on this platform and I do miss blogging about what's going on in my life. Truth be told, for the last couple of years, I have been extremely busy, not only when it comes to my professional career as a communications consultant, but also working on social impact issues with several local and international organizations such as Junior Chamber International (JCI) which is a 101-year-old UN-partner organization that aims to make positive impact through youth empowerment as well as the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers program which empowers successful individuals in 436 different hubs to positively impact their communities. Hopefully I will be writing more about these organizations in the future.
In this post, I am going to be talking about the two activities that I took part of this month in Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul is one of my favorite cities. Having been traveled to dozens of cities in the last couple of years, Istanbul has my heart due to its welcoming people, locals and expat population alike.
I was invited to be a mentor and a judge during the Social Impact Summit that took place on December 9 & 10 in Habita co-working space in Istanbul. It was organized by a newly established NGO called Istanbul&I, a volunteer-based organization with over than 150 members from more than 45 countries, mainly expats, working on social impact. Hundreds of participants attended to learn more about social impact through entrepreneurship. It was a super dynamic and inspirational event that left me at awe at the power of youth to change the world to the better. More than dozen ideas were pitched and the judges team had a hard time choosing the winners.
Here are some photos from this event:
With some of the attendees of the summit (I'm in the back :p)
Judges Panel
Mentoring Young Entrepreneurs
Selfie with the judges
While presenting & my summit badge against the Habita Wall
Part of the audiences who attended the event
The second event that I took part of on this trip was the Third Edition of the Averroes Academy on Advancing Business Friendly Reforms, Entrepreneurship and Empowering Strong Competitive Private Sector in MENA Countries organized by the Arab Center for Scientific Research and Humane Studies. Around 20 participants from the Arab World, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran took part in this program to learn how to write and implement policy papers that can improve business social impact in their own countries. This was only the first part of the academy. By the end of the program in mid-2017, participants would have submitted actual policy papers to cause impact to their communities. I will hopefully talk about my policy paper idea once I start working on it.
During this academy, I was asked to conduct a hand-on workshop about creating a marketing strategy for social impact papers. My introduction for this workshop showcased some of the world's top marketing campaigns that caused social impact. You can view the compilation these case studies in the presentation below.
Here are some photos from the Averroes Academy in Istanbul:
During my marketing strategy workshop
Introduction to Social Impact Marketing Campaigns
The participants of the Third Averroes Academy
During a meeting with the the German Organization Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF)
A quick side-note: the previous winner of the Averroes Academy is Lebanese professor Dr. Patrick Mardini who just launched the campaign for his public policy paper about Electricity in Lebanon. You can watch the video that summarizes his topic below.
Also, during this trip, I witnessed two explosions that took place in Istanbul near the area that I was staying in. AlJadeed TV asked me to report on the incident, you can watch my live phone interview with them here.
On another note, Istanbul is one of my frequently-visited cities due to several projects and family business. And it can actually be quiet expensive and confusing to stay connected if you don't have a postpaid phone line there. Their prepaid SIM card policy requires you to use a different phone device every time you visit (in three month intervals) or to go to a police station to register your device with a substantial tax fee, in addition to the cost of the 4G service on your prepaid plan.
For my past couple of trips, I have been using a wifi router service called AllDayWifi that made my life so much easier in Istanbul, especially that I need to be connected all the time for the benefit of my clients in Lebanon. I also need to be connected because my proffered method of transportation is Uber in Istanbul. Their service consists of delivering a 4.5G wireless router to your hotel, hostel or Airbnb location and you can use high speed real unlimited data on the go throughout Turkey for a very affordable price. They even send you a power bank to keep the router pumped up with juice throughout the day so you are always connected. Once your trip ends, all you need is to drop it off at the reception of your hotel at check-out and they will take care of picking it up the next day. I am very satisfied with this service and I wish there are similar startups that provide this service worldwide for this affordable fee.
I would recommend that my readers try this service. Make sure to book it a few days in advance so that they can deliver it to your residence before you arrive. And as a bonus, I have requested a discount code for my readers from them. So if you go to www.alldaywifi.com and order your router for your trip to Turkey and use the Coupon Code: MINDSOUP, you will get a 10% discount on your total bill till the end of 2017. Let me know if you try it and what you think about their service.
The kit includes the 4.5G router, a charger & cable, powerbank (not shown), user guide, metro map of Istanbul, a sealable drop-off bag and a protective case.
Finally, here are some photos of my favorite things in Istanbul.
Taking a nap while getting to my destination in a massive and well equipped Uber XL. (not sponsored)
Turkish Kunefe and tea at Hafiz Mustafa (also not sponsored)
View from the top of the Galata Tower
Mouthwatering display of sweets
Shopping in Istaklal, the street that doesn't sleep in Taksim
A crunchy cheese-filled simit to give you some energy while you conduct your business
JCI Beirut hosted me on Wednesday March 2, 2016 to conduct a hands-on training about Social Media Strategy at Berytech Beirut Digital District. In this workshop, where more than 5…
JCI Beirut hosted me on Wednesday March 2, 2016 to conduct a hands-on training about Social Media Strategy at Berytech Beirut Digital District. In this workshop, where more than 50 people from different backgrounds (students, fresh graduates and professionals) attended, I explained how to create a social media strategy for business. The points discussed included examples of brands that do not have a proper strategy, defining social media goals, the sales cycle, asset mapping, defining the audience and creating personas, choosing channels, voice & tone, posting frequency & time, crisis management, and understanding Facebook's algorithm. The session was followed by a Q&A session. I was really overwhelmed by the positive feedback from the attendees after the session especially that several ha said that they learned so many new things that they have not learned when they took expensive workshops or companies.
It had been almost two years since I had given a public social media workshop in Beirut. I haven't realized that the demand on my workshop was so high until we noticed that the event on ihjoz was fully booked in one day and then double booked in 4 hours! I promise to conduct more public workshops about different social media topics soon!
You can check my slides from the workshop below. If you have any questions or need advice, feel free to email me on mhijazi@onlinecollaborative.org.
I was invited to speak at the 4th Arabian Social Media Forum in Kuwait last week. I spoke about some case studies that reflected the state of social media in the Middle East. In m…
I was invited to speak at the 4th Arabian Social Media Forum in Kuwait last week. I spoke about some case studies that reflected the state of social media in the Middle East. In my presentation, I discussed successful campaigns from Lebanon, UAE, KSA, Jordan and Egypt.
I have also included examples of bad conduct from brands and celebrities on social media, in addition to examples of really bad (ugly) examples of social media customer service from Lebanon and Kuwait.
Some key takeaways from the presentation:
A simple campaign can go viral for a long time if implemented properly. (#MyDubai)
Negative content spreads much faster than positive content. Campaigns that use negative content in a smart way can take advantage of this with a smaller advertising budget. (Ugliest Couch campaign)
You must know and study your demographic before you launch an online campaign. (Samsung Levant's Secret Valentine)
With a small budget, small businesses can hugely increase their sales when they set their goals properly, give its users a decent incentive and have a proper strategy. (Couqley)
You can always come up with a creative campaign even if there are so many imposed restrictions by the government or culture in the targeted country. (Olay's Eyes of Arabia).
Check my presentation with embedded Youtube videos below! What are your favorite campaigns from the Middle East? Share with me your thoughts in the comments section.
This was the first post we came across by Malik's Lebanon . It's a cute idea, but we're a bit worried that One Directioners (is that the official name of the fandom?) …
This was the first post we came across by Malik's Lebanon. It's a cute idea, but we're a bit worried that One Directioners (is that the official name of the fandom?) might take it seriously and possibly murder Malik's workers when they find out it's a joke.
XXL Energy released an original new flavor inspired by Lebanon. haha
Oh Beirut+ TV, how we wish all of what you said was true! Watch the episode here.
Selfie sticks gone too far spotted on Mashable. Update: Apparently this is not a joke? We weep for the future of our planet.
A very apparent fake product release was announced by Barry M, the Nip Dip would hypothetically allow you to apply glitter to your nipples.Not sure how we feel about this one...
We love it when law enforcement agencies have a sense of humor, good one GMP Radcliffe
One of our favorites (if not absolute favorite) was obviously brought to us by Google.
We spent a good chunk of our day playing PacMan on GoogleMaps, hope we don't get fired!
Updated:
Sakker El Balad gave out fines to a big chunk of population. The fact that the new driving law was supposed to be implemented today makes things funnier. In terms of creativity though, as NSTC pointed out, this had been done before by Nando's (and also Red Bull).
Awesome new deal on Groupon.
Red Bull Leb joined the April Fool's party too... with a laundry detergent? Ok..
Now this is a Trident flavor that we wouldn't say no too. We do love us some Oreos!
UPDATE:
Deek Duke pulled some pranks on their customers, watch the videos here, here and here. Pretty funny! You can also find more videos on their Facebook page and Instagram.
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