Here’s another edition of the Weekly Biz Buzz. How did your business perform this week? For me, it went by slowly and I was very lazy due of the rainy season (excuses 
) but I am glad that content are still popping up.
I really miss the inputs from you. I noticed a rise in terms of blog traffic and newsletter subscription after the relaunch but I have not seen a lot of blog comments. Spam count dropped significantly as well (if that matters 
). I really need to know what you have to say about my content and I won’t bite, serious…
A big “Thank You” to Paul Simister and Jared O’ Toole for commenting on my blog posts this week! 
With that, let’s get started with this edition of Weekly Biz Buzz.
Wayne Liew Dot Com Updates
Some of you might have noticed that I introduced a new segment for Wayne Liew Dot Com called Entrepreneur Interviews. I have been spending some time finding people that are passionate about their business and what they do. I really hope that you will be inspired and learn something or two from these entrepreneurs.
Unlike interview that you see on other blogs, interviews that I conduct focus on entrepreneurial mindset and strategic viewpoints of businesses. No technical and nitty gritty elements will be covered as I am sure that you can learn more of these from the entrepreneurs directly.
Desmond Ong, an 18 years old site flipper is my first guest. Do check out the interview at Desmond Ong Interview. Young entrepreneurs think differently compared to other teenagers so make sure that your approach is a little different when approaching them.
Buzz Marketing and Word of Mouth Marketing
My good friend, Matthew, recently launched a blog post series covering buzz marketing and word of mouth marketing. With the rapid development of new media and interaction tools online, word of mouth marketing can be done easier than before.
If you have no clue on how to get people talking about your business or the products that you offer, you must check out his series. Two blog posts from the series that I particularly like are Building Buzz by Being Buzz Worthy and Three Pillars for Word of Mouth Success (do check out my comment for additional tips). I also recommend you to read the book, Buzz Marketing by Mark Hughes.
Listen to Your Community Like Starbucks
We all know that Starbucks, due to the recession and slowdown in sales, introduced instant coffee. Newt Barrett blogged about the launch with skeptical thoughts. Later, Starbucks responded. Yes, a real response from a real Starbucks person, Matthew Guiste who is managing Starbucks’ social media campaign.
Starbucks does listen and you should as well. People are discussing about almost everything on the Internet within their own communities. Whether the agendas against your business are positive or negative, you should be there addressing doubts, misunderstandings or praises. Start monitoring your community using tools like Google Alerts, Twitter Search and BackType today.
Dominate Your Niche and Be Prominent
Brian Clark wrote an interesting blog post, How to Dominate Your Niche, providing tips that are very useful if you want to stand out in your niche. Unlike online marketers, I understand that most small business owners and entrepreneurs cannot choose a niche because they are already in a niche.
Thus, you have to be different and start jumping on channels that your competitors fail to make use of. Most niches are not covered by online videos or podcasts yet. There are still niches that are not covered by blogs. If your niche as a whole is still new to social media technologies, you should embrace them now. It does not require a lot of money anyway.
Brian mentioned using personality positioning to stand out among your business competitors. I have to agree that it’s a good way of both branding and to attract the attention of your prospects.
How Are You Getting Attention for Your Business?
The process of getting eyeballs to focus on your business and products must be ongoing. Efforts must not be dependent on whether you have an upcoming ad campaign or product launch.
People are talking about you and your sector because they now have the luxury of surfing the web and interacting with other web users. However, instead of committing these social media errors, you should be putting yourself out there and add value in order to shorten the distance between your and your target market.
What are some of the ways that you think can get more attention for a business? Share your thoughts with me in the comments section below.
If you like this edition of Weekly Biz Buzz, be sure to subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed to receive the latest updates.
Sign up for Wayne Liew Dot Com Newsletter by filling up the form below if you want to get premium small business tips from Wayne Liew.
Photo Credits: Valerie Everett
