Month: August 2023

The Future of the Web – 7 Reasons to Become Web 2.0 Compatible

The World Wide Web has revolutionized the economy and impacted the majority of the world’s population within in the last ten to fifteen years. Today the Web is not only a resource, for a growing percentage of the population, it is the way we do business. The tools and uses of the Internet are evolving from static, HTML Web pages to interactive, user-driven Web experiences.

Since the Web was created in 1989 and on into the late nineties, businesses only had basic HTML Web sites to relay information to consumers, with little opportunity for rich or user-generated content that marks today’s most popular and useful sites. Web sites were nothing more than online brochures and business cards. Through the evolution of Web development and spread of Internet popularity, Web sites have grown into interactive, social outlets that provide not only rich content (such as video or interactive interfaces), but user-generated content, where Web site users actually create communities and provide content that could never be built by a single organization. Today, interactivity is driving the market and helping to shape the next generation of the Web.

A term heard more and more, Web 2.0 is being used to describe the next generation. In 2004, Tim O’Reily coined the term Web 2.0 as the business revolution of the computer industry, and it has come to be a general term used to embody interactive user interfaces, rich content, online social networking, and user-generated content. Although it sounds like a huge overhaul is in store for the Web, there isn’t a particular process in place to transform it. In fact, Web 2.0 isn’t an object that can be created. It is actually a perception of the direction the Web is heading. Web 2.0 is a new outlook where interaction is key, collaboration is mandatory, and developers are busily working to turn lackluster Web sites into social arenas. The Web is being transformed into a resource where Web surfers and professionals can combine knowledge and experiences to bring value to businesses and every other Internet user.

The following seven statistics reinforce that marketers should be planning to implement interactive Web site tools in the future:

1. 77% of the United States population is online (Harris Interactive) This basic statistic is where it all starts – nearly everyone that an organization might be interested in reaching is using the Web… and usually extensively. The excuse of “my clients do not use the Web” no longer exists for not having a good Web site.

2. 30% of the online population read blogs, about 50 million (ClickZ.com) This new trend involves two of the phrases we used above when describing Web 2.0 – social networking and user-generated content. Imagine a newspaper where you could engage in a discussion with fellow readers about any interesting articles — that is blogging, and it will continue to grow rapidly. As with most of the technologies that are discussed here, the good news is that the technology of creating a blog is easy, although it still requires smart, dedicated people to generate the initial content.

3. 45% of active Web users are members of a social networking site (Nielsen-NetRatings) Social networking Web sites focus on building communities of people who share interests using the Web site itself as the vehicle for communications. A long list of such sites has popped up recently, many of which have a huge number of members. People love to interact with others, and the Web’s popularity has a lot to do with this. Business owners can use this trend in a number of creative and inexpensive ways to market their own products.

4. 38.4 million people visited MySpace.com in 2006, a 367% increase from the previous year (Nielsen-NetRatings) This site has had the most prominent growth in unique users from 2006 to 2007. MySpace.com, which originally focused on young adults, has rapidly become a business networking gateway. Ideas streaming from general social networking sites have helped sprout a string of new sites focused solely on business networking like LinkedIn, Ryze, and Tribe.net.

5. 54% of US Internet users watched online videos in 2006 (AP-AOL Video) Fifty percent of the US population is expected to watch online video advertising by next year, meaning that 155.2 million people will be exposed to online advertising by 2008. Businesses are projecting growth to $775 million in online advertising spending. The trend is expected to continuously skyrocket to a staggering $4.3 billion by 2011(B2B Marketing). Once again, the technology behind this is easy and inexpensive to deploy, so there is no reason for a Web marketer with good, relevant video content not to share it with the world.

6. 17 million US Internet users downloaded Podcasts in 2006(Pew Internet) Although this technology originally derived from the Apple’s IPOD MP3 player, it is not necessary to have one to listen to a Podcast or create one. In fact, producing podcasts integrated with RSS keeps listeners up-to-date with the latest audio releases from radio spots to online lectures. For marketers, the technology is inexpensive and easy to manage making it simple to turn ideas into podcasts.

7. 63% of consumer product marketers, 65% of media and communications marketers, 37% of retail marketers, 37% of financial services marketers and 38% of equipment and tech marketers currently use or are planning to use RSS within the next 12 months (Rok Hrastnik) RSS has the highest value among Web 2.0 technologies, mostly because it integrates with a majority of other interactive tools and because it requires virtually no upkeep. Not only is it a great way to gain publicity for news articles, press releases, events, but it is also keeps Internet users up to speed with podcasts, blogs, and online videos. Making a list of articles or events RSS-compatible is quick and requires hardly any ongoing maintenance, therefore making it a procedure that 100% of marketers should be exploring.

These tools are quickly becoming the cornerstones of online marketing plans. Interactive user interfaces, rich content, online social networking and user-generated content will be essential tools for online marketing growth in the near future.

How To Get More Interviews In Your Job Search

Richard Bolles, job search guru and author of What Color Is Your Parachute? predicts that you can expect to search for work 1-2 months for every $10,000 you hope to earn. So, if you’re looking for a $40,000 a year position, you may search for 4-8 months to land it. Back when the economy sizzled, that job search length would have seemed outrageous, but now, many people would be thrilled to only search for 4-8 months.

Now the question is: How can you limit your job search length regardless of what’s happening with the local economy?

The answer to that question depends on the strength of your job search campaign. Take a look at these common job search problems. If your campaign is suffering from any of these symptoms, try one or more of the tips suggested for each.

If you’re mailing resumes but aren’t getting interviews:

o Your campaign may not be intense enough. Remember that searching for a job is a full-time job. Increase your employer contacts by phone, fax, mail and email to 10-20 per week. Gather job leads from a greater variety of sources than you have been using, such as networking, newspaper ads and Internet sites. But most important of all, tap the hidden job market.

Bottom line: Getting interviews from resumes is in part a numbers game. Contact more employers to increase the odds in your favor.

o Your resume may reveal that you do not possess the skills sets employers want. Get them! A tight economy means employers can command whatever skills, credentials and experience they want, so why argue with them? Volunteer, take a class or create a self-study program to learn what you need to learn. Or, take a lower-level position that will prepare you for advancement to the job you really want.

Bottom line: It’s up to you to qualify yourself for the job you want. Demonstrate your initiative and enroll in that class now, then be sure to claim your new skills on your resume.

o You may not be contacting the employers who are buying the skills you’re selling. First, identify the three skills you possess that you most want to market to employers. Second, match those skills to three different kinds of positions that commonly use your preferred skills. Next, tie each of the positions you identify to specific local industries and employers who hire people with the skills you’re marketing. Then create different resume versions for each of the types of positions you intend to seek. Make sure each version highlights and documents your ability to do what you claim you can do.

Bottom line: Different employers need different things from their employees. Know what you have to sell and sell it to the companies that want it. At all costs, avoid genericizing your resume with clichés and vague statements.

o Your resume may poorly communicate what you have to offer. If you have weaknesses in your employment chronology or if you are changing careers, you will need to take great care in structuring your résumé’s content to overcome any perceived deficiencies. Create a powerful career summary statement which emphasizes your primary skills, qualities, credentials, experience and goals. Group your most marketable skills into an achievements section and showcase those using numbers, concrete nouns and clear indications of the results you accomplished. Use company research and the employer’s job description to focus your revised resume on the company’s needs.

Bottom line: The person who decides whether or not to interview you will make that decision in a mere 15 to 25 seconds. Be clear, organized and achievement-focused to use those seconds to convince the employer to interview you. If you’re getting interviews but no job offers:

o You may have the basic skills the employer needs but not the advanced skills they prefer. Review the second bullet above and act on the suggestions presented. Once you have updated or expanded your skills through additional education, experience or self-study, begin building a career success portfolio to prove your success to prospective employers. This will also help you respond to those behavior-based interview questions that are the rage these days.

Bottom line: It is up to you to advance your career. Figure out what you lack, then learn the skill or develop the ability.

o You lack strong self-marketing skills and this is showing in your interviews. To improve the quality of your interpersonal communications and interview responses, take a class. Invite someone to role play an interview with you. Practice answering behavior-based interview questions. Arrange to participate in a videotaped mock interview. To project your personality positively: Select three to five about yourself that you want the employer to know about you by the end of your interview. Brainstorm ways to weave those things into your responses to common interview questions. Learn about personalities different from your own. Smile and relax! Make strong but not excessive eye contact. Go into the interview armed with 5-8 words or phrases that positively describe your workplace personality and use those words or phrases throughout the interview. Match your communication style to the interviewer’s questioning style. Know your resume and defend it. Keep your responses brief and always to the point.

Bottom line: Your interviewing performance serves as a preview of your on-the-job performance, so project your best. Research, practice, and sell! To job search is to make mistakes. Question is, are you learning from the job search mistakes you’ve made?

Evaluate your search every two to three months so you can fine tune your campaign on a regular basis. You probably get your car tuned up regularly. Why not do the same for your job search? With the right knowledge and proper tools in place, there will be no stopping you!

What Are the Different Uses of Vending Machines?

A vending machine is an automated vendor. The automated operations performed by these machines make them convenient and time-saving at public and commercial places. A consumer needs to deposit the required money and the product he or she wants is provided by these equipments.

There are different versions of vending machines that have been launched since the first historical reference. The vending machine manufacturers have always tried to improve the usefulness and safety of these self operated equipments so that people can make best out of them.

Foods and Drinks

An automated vendor tool that provides food items or drinks to the consumers can be easily found at a commercial place. The tools vending healthy foods are installed at schools and offices to promote good health among students and employees. Fast food vending functions can be found at theaters, malls and other places that are visited by thousands of people on regular basis.

Snacks and ice-creams are other popular items that are sold through vending machines. Besides, there are automated vending tools that vend candies, chewing gums, sweets and other such small items.

One can find automatic vendors that provide soft drink cans at bus and railway stations, airports, recreational venues and other such places. In some countries, beverages and alcohol cans too are vended through these machines.

Automated Ticket Vending Equipments

A popular use of such tools is to sell tickets at various places. You can easily find them at bus and railways stations and metro stations as well. These tools make ticket selling a time saving process as there is no need to stand in a row to buy the tickets. These automated ticket vendors are quite useful to save customers valuable time and also reduces the operating cost being spend on ticket vendors who does the same task manually.

Other Uses

A vending machine may also be used to sell hygiene products. For instance, one can find vending machines that sell tampons and menstruation pads to women at women’s rooms at different public and commercial places. There are vending machines in the men’s rooms that vend condoms.

Machines that vend medicines are also common at public venues like transit stations and shopping malls. A popular use of these machines is to sell newspapers. The machines selling newspapers are different from conventional designs. These machines have a door that opens as the consumer deposits the money and the consumer can select the newspaper he or she wants. In other machine designs, the item purchased is dispensed into a slot.

Other uses of vending machines include the sale of cigarettes, small toys, fruits and other items. One of the latest uses of these machines is to sell music CDs and DVDs. The manufacturers are using different technologies like biometric recognition to make these machines highly safe and practical. The equipments are popularizing the concept of vending without human intervention.

Managing Time Wisely

Work can take up most of your time especially those who do online business, where most of your time will be spend on networking with other netpreneurs, reply emails and provide online customer services to your clients etc…

You tend to forget there still a lot of housework s needed you to attend to. By the time you done your work, you simply got no “energy” to do anything but to close your eyes and sleep.

Now I understand, why most women tend to work at home, part of the reason is that they can earning a living at home at the same time they can attend to errand, kill two birds with one stone, how wonderful !

But most of the time, thing cannot turn out what we want it to be, isn’t it? Hours seem to fly by when work online. You are tired, and it required a lot of effort s even to do the basic of household duties like l fixing dinner, fetching your kids from school etc.

Now fear not, start organizing your schedule well. Here are some tips to help you balance your work as well as your home. It worked for me and I hope its help.

1. Managing time wisely – First of the most important factor is to ask yourself how and where you want to spend your time is key to how to keep a balance in your lifestyle. You can start keeping a PDA or notebook to keep track your entire daily schedule. You can even do it online. Through this way, you can definitely cut some time out by doing certain tasks; for example you can read a newspaper or knitting in the car while you are waiting for your husband or children to knock off from work or school respectively.

2. Prioritize your tasks – Divide available hours between your home and your work diligently. In order to reach your personal, business or family goals, you must learn to cut down on “redundant” activities. For example, you can cut down these “helping other” activities (I know it tough as women we tend to have difficulties saying “No” as we are helpful by nature) but who going to help you when your life is “messed up”. So most importantly you really need to prioritize the activity according to its value or importance.

3. Learn to relax – Like I said ‘We Work to Live, We do not Live to Work’. It’s no point being successful at the expense of your home and your family. Set aside some time to relax some that you can recharge your life “battery” too much some thing is not good. You can organized some activities like going picnics at the park with your family or meet up with friends for coffee, these in turn will help maintain your social life. Similarly, surf the internet with your husband or children. Show them websites of their interest. That way, you will strengthen bond with them as well.

These are some of few suggestions on balancing work and family. Hope you find it useful and most important thing is that you should start it Right Now! Cheer!

Learning How Horoscopes Are Done

In everyone’s life, there is a time when you wonder what the future is going to bring. This is natural as you would like to be prepared if a disaster or some other important event is going to occur. As a result, many people go to horoscopes for an answer. These horoscopes are available in a number of forms, such as the daily newspaper or consulting with people experienced in this field.

Astrologers, psychics or other people in the in this are are the ones consulted for determining your horoscope. They make a reading by working with the planets, moon, sun and elements tied in with your birthday. The reading is based on the location of these heavenly bodies, in the sky, at the time of your birth and one of the elements of fire, earth, water and air.

Each element depicts a certain personality such as fire, being hot and raging, water being slow and easy flowing, earth being solid and dependable and air being unpredictable. By matching these elements with the other items on the chart, it is believed that a person’s personality is revealed and their future actions can be predicted.

The planets are placed in a circle and divided into twelve blocks, each of which covers a certain period of the year. Each block is identified with a sign and one of the elements. The elements are interpreted as fire, your personality is intense, water, your personality is easy going, earth, you are a solid and dependable person and air, you do things that are not predictable. By matching these elements with the other items on the chart, it is believed that your personality is revealed and your future actions can be predicted.

The signs are shown in many newspaper horoscope printings. They are Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces, Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn, Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Many people read these signs every day to see what is in store for them.

There are many different types of psychics in the market today, many of whom appear on the Internet and are available for consultation by writing of by telephone. One should be cautious, if deciding to go this route, to investigate the person being consulted. Reliable psychics have a following that are willing to testify as to their ability. Many of the websites have testimonials listing likes and dislikes posted on the site.

Whether practicing as a psychic, astrologist, numerologist or others they are working on the principle of horoscopes. When seeking this type of consultation it should be remembered that a lot of personal information will be exchanged. Because of this factor, it is important to know that you are consulting with someone who has proven themselves in the field and the printed information should be read very carefully.

How to Make it Online Rendering Bulk SMS Service Delivery

Text message is a big revenue earner in the mobile industry today in Nigeria and in the diapora. People love to text and so is money being made by those who are involved in text messaging business. According to fastwebSMS.com, over 15 billion text messages are sent yearly in Nigeria. The number is still growing as the country’s tele-density moves into the 60 and 70 million text messaging subscribers. And since the people love text messaging, both to send and receive, it’s growing into one of the most powerful market plat forms in the world after the internet.

Now, not only do ordinary subscribers love text messaging, big and powerful organizations have come into the foray, using text messaging as a marketing tool to reach millions of telephone subscribers quicker, cheaper and directly with their advertising promotions. Now with bulk messaging tools online hundreds of GSM subscribers are reached with the same message with the stroke of a button saving time energy and company resources that are usually wasted in the old and conventional ways of advertising. On this discovery, hundreds of millions of naira would be spent by small, medium and large companies in SMS adve5rtising, marketing and promotion. Apart from the popularity of SMS as a quicker, cheaper, personal means of publicity it has more uses in every business. In fact any business that wants to keep customers patronizing them needs to use bulk text messaging service. Regularly advertising, like the newspaper take time to get to the consumers, and at times the people you are targeting may not even see your advert. But SMS gets directly to their phones and immediately they will read them while some might even call you back for more enquires.

And with the internet bulk SMS is made even more useful as companies can brand their text messages with their names to make consumers read them immediately they are received. The internet also makes it easier for you to sell wholesale bulk SMS to your customers anywhere in the country. The service works like one opening an email account on yahoo. You will open such accounts for your customer with has all the facilities for sending bulk SMS. Once they signs up with you they are your customers as long as that relationship remains.

The question now is what’s in it for me? How do I benefit? How do I make money from all these? What is the market outlook like for a sustainable investment? What are the returns on investment? And as these questions juggle your mind, take a look at a business with all possibilities for mega profit and that is wholesale Bulk SMS service. I call it the business for the ‘simple” man. If you have been looking for an online business that will make you regular income, I recommend wholesale bulk SMS business for you. Trust me, it’s a bomb in money making on the internet.

Market Potential

The market potential is huge it’s determined by the number of subscriber base in the country, we are now heading for 70 million subscribers out of the population of 140 million, according to 2006 census. Imagine we have grown in the last couple of years gone by already. So, the figures keep growing and that is how the market potential keeps increasing for you to make more profit.

Your Profit Potential

Bulk SMS business is a volume driven business with greater advantage for growing customer base. As a wholesale bulk SMS reseller you have a platform that helps you retain your customers once they sign up with you they are bound to stay with you buying SMS regularly from you. And with the ongoing tread, If you have just 1,000 customers signed up with you, and each of them are able to buy up just 5,000 SMS monthly that’s N5, million income but your profit could be around N500,000 to N 1 Million monthly. Good business isn’t it?

Competition & Marketing Challenges

Don’t think others are going to fold their hands and watch only you take up the wholesale bulk SMS reseller business. No, of course! You are going to face competition like in any other business. At least, you should know you are not the only one reading this step by step guide right now. But, the secret to dealing with competition is to market yourself in such a way it would seem like you are the only one offering that services. Yes! That is what you have to do. And one way to do that is to identify who your target market is and device strategies to keep bombarding them with your offer until all those who would require your service have signed up with you. Here is my step by step guide on How to sell wholesale Bulk SMS Online! Follow it religiously and you will never make mistake.

Customized text message from research is one of the laziest ways of making money in Nigeria with no capital requirement and there are a lot of opportunities in this business.

Here is your opportunity Lock into it now!

Looking forward to hearing from you.

How Customs Tracked N67m From Smugglers, Intercepted $8m Illegal Movement January in Lagos

As one of the watchdogs of national economic security in Nigeria Customs Service, has again showed in words and deeds, that it is serious with ensuring that the activities and operations of smugglers, money launderers, people dealing in illegal arms and corrupt politicians, are tamed this new year and off course, new decade.

January, 15, Jerry Attah, public relations officer, federal operations unit of NCS in Ikeja, Lagos, told the world through the media that Usman Yahaya, who resumed duties as acting controller of Customs for FOU ‘A’, hit the ground running when he intercepted contraband goods valued at over N67million in one week

According to Attah, barely one week in office, his quest for outstanding performance using credible intelligence yielded positive results with the interception of 2,065 jerry cans of vegetable oil 25liters each, 1,185 bags of 50kg foreign parboiled rice, 1500 jerry cans (25lts) of diesel, with a duty paid value of 67,362,500.00, between January 7th -14th January 2020 along different unapproved routes within our areas of coverage.

This feat is coming as a result of series of meetings held with our sectional heads, team/patrol leaders where he unveiled the management’s mandate bestowed on him which includes blockage of all revenue leakages, trade facilitation and intensification of anti-smuggling operations at various entry points: seaports, land borders, and Airport within our areas of jurisdiction in the south west zone.

DC Yahaya warned smugglers and ‘would be’ of the danger that lies ahead for them if they do not engage in legitimate trade, as some have started counting their losses

“You will agree with me that the fight against smuggling can only be won if all hands are on deck”. He called on all the members of the media and the general public to support the fight against smuggling by providing necessary intelligence that could assist the service in reducing smuggling to its barest minimum.

Meanwhile, DC Yahaya’s redeployment was part of the Comptroller-General’s strategies to re-jig and reposition the Service for greater efficiency and effectiveness especially in the areas of revenue generation, trade facilitation as well as combating smuggling.

DC Usman Yahaya is a quintessential and an enforcement guru who hitherto was the Coordinator of Strike Force, Zone ‘A’, before he was posted to FOU ‘A’ as the Acting Controller.

He took over on Tuesday 7thJanuary 2020, from Comptroller Aliyu Mohammed, who was elevated based on his record to a new assignment as the Acting Sector 4 Commander of Border Drill Operations code named Ex-Swift Response.

The assumption of office by Usman Yahaya at FOU ‘A’, naturally, has sent panic to all smugglers and non-compliant traders knowing very well his antecedents as an Enforcement Czar.

Yahaya thanked the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd) and the entire Management Team of the Nigeria Customs Service for considering him worthy and assured he will work assiduously with all officers to justify the confidence reposed on him.

Attached are his official portrait and pictures of seized items for your immediate use

Again, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col Hammed Ali, rtd, on Tuesday in Lagos told newsmen how officers of the Federal Operations Unit of the Nigerian Customs Service intercepted illegal movement of over $8million at the Muritala Muhammed International Airport in Ikeja, Lagos.

Speaking on the interception, Ali explained that based on credible information received, FOU Customs intelligence unit, was activated and detailed to storm the E wing unit of the MMIA on January 16, 2020, where the illegal movement of the foreign currency was intercepted.

According to the customs boss, one Chimezie Okonkwo, driver of the coaster bus where the currency, loaded in six bargo bags and conveyed to the airport was arrested.

“On Saturday, January 18, 2020, an inventory of the consignment was taken and was witnessed by representatives of the Directorate of State Security Service, DSS, Customs Intelligence Unit, Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Unit, in the presence of the suspect”, he said.

He further explained that at the end of the inventory, a total of 20 sealed wraps were opened, counted, re-sealed, and re-wrapped under video coverage, where the total sum of $8,065,612, was counted.

The Customs boss, while reminding Nigerians that only $10,000 is the threshold allowed for genuine drivellers, who have no intention, of laundering for international terrorism, drug smuggling, arms proliferation, and other criminal acts, pleaded with members of the public and the press to join in the fight against all forms of smuggling and money laundering.

Small Business Email Marketing – How to Improve Your Marketing ROI

IPT Ltd recently released some survey results that proved very interesting reading. They asked the public what they considered to be the most effective marketing medium. There were no surprises to see that TV came first with 37%, but a surprising second was email, which came in at 32%! Which approach do you think will generate the best return for a small business? Yes, small business email marketing!

Obviously, you will need the contact details of your customers as well as any new prospects, for your small business email marketing plan to succeed.

There are two ways that you can get people visiting your business to give you their contact details. Get them to fill out a form on the premises for you to manually upload later or, (the best option), direct them to your website where they can fill in a opt in form.

To ensure that people actually want to give you their details, you’ll need to offer them some kind of incentive. Buy One Get One Free offers, competitions, and even valuable free information do a good job. Every person who fills in the opt in form becomes a member of your email “club”, people you’ll be able to contact time after time.

There is a well known business maxim that goes “people only do business with people they like” and if we add ‘know and trust’ then there you have the goal of online email marketing. Each email you send will build up trust and the likelihood that the email prospect will buy from you when the time is right.

Email marketing for small businesses is a really good business-building decision for all small businesses. As well as being a extremely cost effective, emails build trust, credibility and enable you to send messages to your customers or clients at a time when they are ready to purchase, whether that is the 3rd email you send, 14th or 154th!

A good small business email marketing approach to take is to describe a problem that your target market has, and suggest your product or service as a solution. As you show understanding of the problem, on a subconscious level your email recipient will know that you can solve it. Another way is to provide useful tips people can use, as this demonstrates knowledge and expertise. Also sending an email with a coupon that can be printed out and used as a discount is good business email marketing approach as well.

The same research completed by IPT also shows that most influential aspect of an email communication is discounts or money off at 27%, second comes general interest about product or service at 24% and joint third place at 20% is prize draw and brand familiarity. These statistics should help in your decisions as to what to include in your own small business email marketing campaign.

One example in the ‘real’ world small business email marketing success I can think of is a dog breeder who started a monthly newsletter with photos of the dogs they had available. This meant that if a person came by and didn’t want any of the dogs on that particular day, they could sign up for the email newsletter and get photos of new dogs sent to them each month, without having to visit the breeder’s home. Now these dogs were selling for about $1300 a pop, so this was a brilliant way to keep in touch with potential dog buyers.

You just need to look to the Fortune Global 500 corporations to see more examples of email marketing success. They recognize that staying in touch with clients and customers through email can actually cut your advertising costs and get you more sales. With small business email marketing you can easily get to the stage where an email blast is more successful than a £2,000 for a full page newspaper ad.

So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get you started then…

Congestion at Nigerian Sea Ports

As at the last count, more than 2000 vessels were still stranded on the high seas of Nigeria’s territorial waters due to their inability to berth at Lagos sea ports. This is not the first time importers and exporters are being made to go through a lot of pain to clear their goods at the nation’s sea ports. Annoyingly, it also appears this won’t be the last. As a matter of fact, congestion at the ports has become a chronic problem. It has been identified as one of the factors responsible for the diversion of Nigerian-bound goods to the ports of Benin Republic and Togo by Nigerian businessmen. No one can blame the importers, because even during non-crisis periods, it is still cheaper and faster to clear goods at the ports of these neighboring countries than at Nigerian ports, which explains why imported goods from Cotonou and Togo are cheaper than similar goods in Nigeria.

Successive administrations in Nigeria have repeatedly given the impression of attempting to address this issue. But none have gone beyond lip service. It is therefore understandable that most observers saw a recent stakeholders’ forum to address the issue of port congestion in Nigeria as another attempt by government to buy time. Many who received the news believed that the game of deceiving Nigerians was about to be repeated. Forum of various types have become a deceitful way of doing things at government ministries in this country. In the end, the only purpose such forum serve is to achieve publicity for government officials by forming part of news items on television network news.

We expect the federal government through the ministries of transport and finance to conduct an independent investigation into the problem of congestion at Nigerian ports so as to objectively identify the true causes of the congestion. A stakeholders’ forum which brings together customs officials and clearing agents cannot achieve anything. You cannot expect clearing agents registered by customs to openly criticize the customs. This is Nigeria; Customs will simply withdraw such agent’s license the next day.

Operators at the ports have often pointed accusing fingers at the Nigerian Customs Service and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA). The customs service still insists on manual inspection of all containers arriving at the ports. How many can they check in a day? A full, automated clearing system should be put in place as obtains in other parts of the world. Nigerians also see as disheartening the presence of multiple units of custom officials, all performing similar tasks at the ports. On its part, the NPA should purchase and install modern cargo-handling facilities to replace those epileptic, obsolete and non-functional equipments at the ports. The NPA also needs to jettison its policy of assigning certain vessels to particular ports, as this arrangement makes some terminals congested while others are barely utilized. Ships should be free to berth at any available terminal. Government should also take measures to fully equip other seaports outside of Lagos, such as Warri, Koko, Calabar and Onne sea ports which are grossly under-utilized.

Summary Measures such as these will help in addressing the long-standing problem of congestion at the nation’s seaports. Nigerian businessmen and ultimately the Nigerian economy will be the better for it.

Author: Kenneth J. Agwu

Advantages of Social Media Marketing

In the world of business, marketing is essential. However, in our new digital age, traditional marketing is becoming increasingly ineffective, and a new form of marketing is on the rise. Because of its many advantages, social media marketing has become an almost essential part of any business’s attempt to establish a firm footing in today’s competitive market. When considering the pros and cons of different marketing methods, think of all the time and money that was traditionally spent on marketing your products or services, and compare it to what it now costs to market your business on social sites.

Originally, businesses paid out of pocket for advertisements on television, billboards, or in newspapers. Eventually, these strategies came to the point where they were not cost effective in the least. Of all viewers of advertisements, only one to two percent actually contacted the distributor and was interested in their product. Why was this? One of the most interesting advantages of social media marketing is that when viewing television, advertisements often irritate and interrupt viewers, causing most of them to be uninterested in the advertised product. With social media, the targeted audience not only watches the advertisement, but also participates in it.

Participation is a key advantage of social media marketing. Online, people willingly participate in activities and blogs that market your company for you. When the customers become involved with your business or company, they not only care about your products, the come to care about your business. Social involvement with customers usually leads to an increase in clientele and customer satisfaction.

Another advantage that comes with social media marketing is that online advertising with sites like Facebook is one hundred percent free. You no longer have to rent a billboard or air time on the television or radio. You do not have to pay for ink and paper and distribute fliers about your business. You can do it all electronically and be much more productive. Almost every human being, in the United States at least, has heard of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. Most of them have profiles. By marketing your business online, a completely new world of advertising opens up.

With all these advantages, a business almost cannot survive in our world without internet marketing. The best thing about it though, is that it is affordable, effective and can work for anyone. Any business, no matter how small, can effectively market itself online.

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