November 16, 2011

Using Social Media in Import-Export Companies

Everybody is talking about Social Media these days. Are you tweeting? How many Facebook friend and fans do you have (yes there is a BIG difference between fans and friends)?  Do my LinkedIn contacts know where I am and what I am doing?

First of all, what IS Social Media? Loosely defined, it is a way of anybody being able to communicate and build online communities easily and at no (or little) cost. It take the form of large communities such as Facebook, user-built knowledge resources such as Wikipedia, multimedia collections such as YouTube, or blogs, which are self-published publications such as ..well…World Trade Daily!

The big question, however, for the international B2B (business-to-business) community is, “Why should I bother? I have enough to do keeping my business going. I really don’t care to see pictures of my clients’ dogs on vacation.” The main reasons for using Social Media in your business are to effectively and inexpensively get out the message about your company and enhance communication with your clients.

Facebook (http://facebook.com)
Most of the 750 million Facebook users use it to upload pictures of their pets, friends, parties and latest vacations. But there is a growing business community taking form on Facebook.  It is in its infancy, but it is better to get onboard now! To get started as a business on Facebook look at instructions at http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=721. The best content to send on Facebook is news about trade shows you attend, new products from you or companies you represent, customer service and news about your industry niche. If your message includes a link to your website, you should create a separate Facebook landing page on your server so that you can identify the traffic as coming from Facebook.

Twitter (http://twitter.com)
Twitter is an effective medium for communicating short messages. The content you “tweet” can be similar to the content you send on Facebook, but shortened to not more than 140 characters, and with links to a shortened URL that you can get at services such as http://bit.ly. One important feature of Twitter:  “retweeting” is a very effective viral tool. If somebody you are following posts a Tweet that you find particularly interesting or relevant to your business activities, make sure you retweet it to your followers. That way the person who originally posted it knows you appreciate their messages and increases the chance that they will retweet your messages to their followers.

LinkedIn (http://linkedin.com)
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn is a B2B social network. That is, everything you post on it should be related to your business and your career. When you set up a profile on LinkedIn make sure you tell a good story about your business and yourself. Millions of people and companies depend on LinkedIn when doing due diligence for business partners and employees.  And if you are a business owner or executive, set up a profile for your business (http://www.linkedin.com/company/add/show) Make sure an email address on your profile is from your company’s domain name. Then set up a detailed description of your company  and start building “connections.” You can post news about your company and more detailed resources about your business. Also LinkedIn has a very important feature called “Answers.” http://www.linkedin.com/answers. Here you can post specific technical questions about your business area and you will get helpful and substantive responses from other professionals on LinkedIn. The great thing about Answers is that it both informs and give you the opportunity to establish you and your business as “thought leaders.”

Other social media sites:

  • Quora (http://quora.com)  is similar to LinkedIn answers. There is an ongoing discussion about international trade subjects at  http://www.quora.com/Import-Export. This is another opportunity to be informed and establish your online reputation.
  • YouTube (http://youtube.com), Vimeo (http://vimeo.com), Flickr (http://flickr.com)and several other similar sites are great places to post videos and photos of your expertise, products or services. Make sure you have some compelling messages!
  • GlobalTrade.net (http://globaltrade.net) is a social media site especially for international trade. Here you can set up a profile for your company and add content, such as articles, videos or PowerPoint presentations that you may have.

 

Posted by on November 16, 2011 in How Tos and tagged , , , , , , .

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November 6, 2011

Marketing on Online Marketplaces

Marketing on Online Marketplaces

In 1992 UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) set up a network of “Trade Points,” worldwide offices set up to assist SMEs trade internationally. In 1994 the United Nations International Symposium on Trade Efficiency officially launched the Global Trade Point Network. It was planned to be an innovative system using email, “Gopher” and the then-new World Wide Web to communicate trade opportunities between Trade Points worldwide.

This ambitious project soon became viral. Within two years there were millions of “ETO’s” (Electronic Trade Opportunities). ETOs soon morphed into the term “trade leads” – offers to buy or sell internationally. By 1998 the Trade Point system claimed to have listed more than 1 billion leads. But the system had a major flaw: There was no quality control over the types of deals that were posted. Anybody with access to a computer would post a request to buy a product or service, even if they did not have the means to buy or the product to sell.

As the World Wide Web expanded more people worldwide set up online marketplaces. Some were quite simple HTML pages with links. Others were more complex databases. By 1999 there were hundreds of these websites. In 2011 there are thousands. The most well-known are Alibaba.com, GlobalSources.com, Tradekey.com, TOBOC.com and many more (you can find a list at http://tradeleads.info).

But to this day a big question remains: How do I know which marketplace to trust and how do I qualify the leads I find? There still is no clear answer to this. However, my personal opinion is that international trade online has to be a combination of the old and the new. That is, online marketplaces are great tools to find suppliers and buyers. But import/export is still done the same way it always has been – spending time with people in other countries, getting to know them and their products, developing long-term friendships and trust.

That said, there are ways that can help bridge the gap between the old and the “new:”

eMarketservices.com, a website funded and operated by the trade promotion organizations of Canada, Norway and Spain, eMarketservices provides knowledge and information about eMarkets in different industries all over the world. Although some of the information is dated, most of it can serve as a guide to doing business online. Highlights of the website are:

Credit Reports – One you have established an online relationship with an overseas partner you might want to check him/her out a bit more. One way to do that is by running a credit report, preferably through a local credit reports service in their country. There is a good list of these services on the website of FITA.

Online Trade Data – The trade data companies profiled on world Trade Daily are great resources for doing due diligence on overseas partners. They will show companies that are shipping the types of products they deliver. Look at Datamyne, PIERS, Zepol, Panjiva and a few others.

The US Commercial Service can help indentify reliable overseas buyers through its services. Consult a local expert at a US Export Assistance Center. If you are an exporter outside the US consult your government’s export assistance agency.

Get on an airplane – at the end of the day you have to know your business partners. And the best way to do it is to visit them onsite. Spend time with them, eat dinner together, and see their facilities. That is how long-term business relationships have always been cemented.

 

Posted by on November 6, 2011 in How Tos and tagged , , .

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October 11, 2011

Updating Your Website so that it Informs and Can be Found

Many websites in the international trade industries look like they have been forgotten! The images are dated, the text is stale and the graphic design looks tired. Even the copyright date is a few years old!

People running small businesses believe they are too busy to pay much attention to their website once it has been set up. And in many cases these websites may have been designed by the then-prodigy 12-year-old nerd in the family. Or, as I was recently told by the owner of a very successful export management company, “What do you mean my website needs to be updated? I stayed up all night for many weeks in 1991 designing it myself.”

A website is an organism – a constant work-in-progress that changes as your business, the world and technology changes. Sadly many international trade people are stuck back someplace in the 1990s! It is time to change!!

The most important things that a good website offers are, in order of importance:

  1. Informative content
  2. Clear and concise messages about who you are and what you do
  3. Easy usability and navigation
  4. Pleasing graphics

These points seem to be common sense. But it is surprising how many websites, especially in the international trade field, offer very few of any of them.

Why you should develop a website with these principles in mind:

  1. Informative content means that you have text that tells the story of your company and products, using strategic keywords that will enable web users to find your website when using search engines such as Google. In general, search engines will index pages with at least 250 words, where the keywords appear in between 2-3% of the text.
  2. Have a dedicated “About Us” page that clearly explains who you are, where you are and what you do. It is best to be as specific as possible so that a visitor to your website understands that you are a serious and focused business. And, of course, the “About Us” page is also a good opportunity to include your keywords!
  3. A website cannot be used if its “usability” makes it too complicated. For a small site (less than about 15 pages) all that is needed is clear navigation on each page, together  with a site map that serves as a table of contents for the site. More complex sites need more awareness of usability. But in essence, the important thing is to make sure that the average user understands what to find and how to find it on your website.
  4. Website graphics styles seem to change every few months. It is important to make sure that the color scheme and font type are pleasing to the eye. There are now many services such as WordPress that offer “themes” or design templates. Many of them are quite attractive. Best, of course, is to hire a professional graphic designer who understands web design, color combinations and fonts.

Posted by on October 11, 2011 in How Tos and tagged .

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September 17, 2011

Why an International Trade Online Business Blog?

International Business and the Internet

Is your import-export business ready for the online world?

Many small businesses involved in international trade are too busy to pay much attention to the latest trends and skills needed to use the internet. After all, many of them think, Letters of Credit have not changed much for at least 400 years! Containers have been used for transporting goods since the 1970s. And, many ask, “Why should my competitors know exactly what kind of business I am doing?”

However, like it or not, the internet has changed the world. The internet  is much more than just a medium of communication. It is more and more becoming the main vehicle for marketing and transacting business, both locally and internationally.  And it is opening a new world of opportunity and transparency in international trade.

For example:

  • These days most people looking for business partners, service providers, product sources and resources about  new markets start by searching online
  • Online marketplaces and trade shows are to some degree replacing live trade shows
  • International meetings are now regularly held using Skype or similar software, vastly cutting down on travel expenses
  • Social Media gets the word out immediately about international trade transactions, events, products, and news and career opportunities
  • Optimization of websites for search engine placement, Pay-Per-Click  advertising campaigns and social media marketing strategies are all now central skills needed to run a business

Sadly many international SMEs are falling behind with these skills. And their more savvy competitors are gaining  ground.

All this said, human nature and the nature of international commerce still demands live person-to-person contact. This blog is here to help international trade companies bridge the gap between the in-person and online worlds.

Posted by on September 17, 2011 in Introductions.

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