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Archive for the ‘social work’ Category

This is the second in a series of articles we will be publishing relaying thoughts and ideas from the Internet Retailer Conference in Chicago, which occurred June 5th through June 7th. Peter Kosciewicz, Director of E-Commerce for the Eastwood Company, and Chris Saito, Senior Director, Shopping Products for Yahoo! Shopping, delivered a presentation entitled “Social Networking: The Peer Pursuasion Marketing Tool.”

According to Kosciewicz, the Web today has grown into an “architecture of participation” that facilitates social networking through devices such as blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, and more. Forrester Research has published studies that show that traditional marketing is continuing to lose credibility. For example, in 2002, 78% of respondents in a survey said that ads are a good way to learn about a new product. In 2004, that number had dropped to 46%. In 2002, 14% of respondents agrees that companies generally tell the trust. As pathetic as 14% is, in 2004, it had declined even further – down to 7%. Social networking as a means of marketing overcomes this lack of consumer trust because it relies on the word of the consumer rather than the word of the producer. Research from Datamonitor reported that 85% of repondents in a survey indicated that word-of-mouth from friends, family, or colleagues is more trustworthy than corporate-generated content.

So how do you take advantage of social networking to sell more product? Simple – you open yourself up. You plant the seeds of a community to grow up around your site by using devices such as blogs, customer reviews, and forums to give a voice to your customers or prospective customers. The caveat is that you must be high quality. You must have high quality service and a high quality product. If not, avoid this marketing method.

Kosciewicz outlined four important rules for using social networking on your web site:

1. Guide but don’t control.

2. Never censor.

3. Don’t be afraid of the negative.

4. Don’t be paranoid.

If you open up a forum on your site but then restrict what people are allowed to say, such as removing posts that are negative toward your company or that mention your competitors, then you will do more damage than good to your reputation. Use negativity as a way to improve your business. If people are negative, look at that as feedback and act on it. Make changes, and then let your community know about it. Don’t worry about your community talking about your competition. Your attitude has to be that you are the best, so why worry about it?

As a community develops around your web site, certain members will establish themselves as more influential than others. They will be more outspoken, and will be the ones who often respond to others. Cultivate these members, because they can be powerful allies. Once you have identified the more influential members of your community, contact them regularly, give them free product, become their friend. Feed your influencers information, and they will distribute it for you. But do not make it appear that you are only interested in them because they can help you sell stuff. You need to be genuine.

Measuring the impact of social networking is difficult. Unlike other forms of marketing, there is no direct connect between social networking activity and sells. What you will want to do is track traffic to pages such as customer reviews, referral links, etc.

Social networking can be a powerful marketing tool, if you have a high quality product and are not afraid of an open dialogue with your customers.

If you would like help implementing a social networking strategy for your web site, call Work Media at 1-888-299-4837 or email info@workmedia.net.

There are some special qualities that one must have to work from home and have a successful home-based business. You must be able to master self-control. There is no boss there to look over your shoulder and distractions everywhere. You need to have some self-discipline about those activities and actions you have to learn not to do. You don’t want to be eating all day and night because the refrigerator is right there. Spending all afternoon watching television wouldn’t be good if you expected to have the evening off. When that comes is in the afternoon and the bed looks mighty inviting, try to resist the nap temptation. It isn’t as easy as one thinks to stay focused and productive.

Working from home means you still have to work when you don’t want to. The boring, frustrating and scary work has to be done too. This skill is a must and essential for establishing and developing full self-control. You have to learn to stop behaviors that interfere with productive work. There is going to come the time when you will have to choose work instead of fun, boring tasks over exciting ones and/or the frightening business calls verses the easy ones. There will be plenty of times that the bed will look more and more inviting. This is not because you are tired, it is because you don’t want to do something.

When thinking of work at home many people think of a peaceful place that is free from all the interruptions of corporate jobs. Any one who has ever worked at home will tell just how distracting it really is. Some days many people find it almost impossible to get anything done. The phone rings always, neighbors drop by, laundry needs to be done, the dog has to go out, the kids are screaming, there is always something to drag your attention away from the work you have to do. If you want to be successful as a work at home person you must master the art of working in small increments. You will also have to put on blinders and plant yourself in your chair and work.

You have to be one of those people who like isolation to be able to work at home. If you are one of those people who get energy by being alone then you can achieve productive work by being at home. You will also probably like the respite from constant people around you. If you are one of those people who loves the daily socialization work brings, you find loneliness is not your cup of tea. To be productive and not feel so lonely get some online friends to chat with and leave the house frequently to stay focused. Only you can decide if working at home is lonely or peaceful to you.

The challenge of working at home takes courage and self-confidence. You have to have the courage to face all the rejection, unsteady income, no more planned routines and no more water cooler babble. You are going to have to learn new things and stay strong. You will need self-confidence to help you to hold your head up high with pride. You will look and tell people when they ask what you do with out hesitation.

To your Success

Social work and helping others is all about assisting people that need guidance in their lives. There are many routes one can take in order to get into social work, and there are just as many routes to pave a superior career path. When you get into social work, you will be in a position to help other members of the society with counseling, with community support, and you will be in a position to help others augment and/or improve their lifestyle and way of living. This profession is indeed challenging, and every day that you work as a social worker opens you up to fresh experiences and new opportunities.

Social work jobs are varied; some requiring minimal training and others requiring a concentration in a specific subject or one or more degrees. You might find yourself working with the elderly, with children, with disabled individuals, with people that have problems with drugs, or you might find yourself working within the realm of education, or even in the criminal justice field. Social workers also work inside centers for families, in homes, and in hospital environments too.

Working for child protection services, in counseling positions, and in hospitals allows you to interact with others on a personal level, to offer advice and to perhaps improve the life of other individuals. Helping people is clearly rewarding work, and you are offered plenty of diversity in terms of employment positions. In addition, working in this field allows you to bring out your best attributes and to use them to help others that are in need. A feeling of value for the work that you do is also something you will experience.The  jobs involve helping people all of the time. You will feel as if you are giving back to the community. You will also develop self-confidence as you work in  jobs that help others, and your self-esteem will naturally elevate. What is more, you will find that social work jobs are positions that can give you a sense of accomplishment and immense pride.

Social work jobs are jobs with comfortable salaries and equally comfortable benefits. In addition, the need for new people is very high, so the jobs market is very flexible. A great benefit associated with this field is that there are myriad points of entry into the field. You can start out in a variety of social work positions and work your way upward as you define your own path of career development. The open jobs available to social work hopefuls is expanding at a super rapid pace too, since the need for social workers has been, and remains very high.