Tech ten minutes is back!

Tech ten minutes is back!

Our fabulous breakfast meetup is back.

May 4 to May 7

Monday May 4

Is your website working for you?

Tuesday May 5

Is your Social Media working for you?

Wednesday May 6

DIY or pay someone to SEO your site?

Thursday may 7

Making Social Media pay for itself -monetising your advertising

Tech ten minutes is a ten minute minute talk on a particular topic surrounding technology in business. the talks are structured so that even the small business entrepreneur can garner some knowledge that he is able to apply immediately.

The talk is followed by half an hour of discussion and questions and the guests are then free to network until 8:30 am .

The environment is informal and relaxed and BYOD (Bring your own device).

The coffee is free and  awesome and if you would like a croissant or breakfast sandwich please ask and we'll arrange one.

As we are a Cape Town based business with a strong interest in heritage, we ask our guests to bring a few coins to contribute to the St Georges Cape Town Cathedral roof restoration fund.  - every penny helps

PLEASE BOOK for this as there are limited spaces.

call the office on 021 828 9869 or 0748273548

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So, Why does my business need to be using Social media?

We get asked this question a lot! Prospective clients often feel confused and even scared of being active on the web, and think that having a website is enough... well, its not.

Not any more. Websites are static and difficult to use for conversations. They are the 'Shop Window' for your business, but nowadays, a good website will be integrated with social media. Here are a few reasons why you can't afford not to be using social media for your business..

• Answer and address complaints quickly. Increasingly, businesses are using Twitter and Facebook to handle complaints. Just check out KLM, Vodacom, and Virgin for good examples.If you want to see badly used social media,look at the KFC South Africa FaceBook page!
• Get feed back on your business activity. If you want to gauge the possible reaction of consumers or customers to something you're planning, Social Media is almost like an instant polling station! Just ask your questions on Twitter or Facebook for almost instant answers.
• Share photo's and video of your business activity and products. Its a vibrant community out there and with the right images, you get wonderful free exposure. 
• Word of mouth marketing is a powerful way to boost your sales. And without the cost of radio or television campaigns either. Its quick and effective, and all about making connections.
• Increase loyalty. Your social media activity will make your connections feel a strong sense of loyalty to you. After all, you're not just broadcasting to them...you're engaging with them
• Market research. You can easily search your business area or market and see what's happening. People will be talking about it, that's virtually guaranteed on social media. 
• Your competitors will be on it. So you don't want to be left out and lose business. If they're not already on social media, they soon will be!
• Statistics tell a story. You get tons of useful information from the data provided by social media activity. Web analytics and traffic reports tell you where your activity is coming from and allow you to position yourself vetu clinically to where you need to be.
• Become the expert in your field. Using content curation (collection and aggregation) positions you as the expert to ask questions from in your field. People will come to your sites for information and advice. before they even get near your competitors.
• Brand protection. You don't want people to criticise you on line, but if they do, you need to be able to talk with them instantly.Just look at HMV in the UK - they ignored social media and were driven into bankruptcy by a barrage of negative social media commentary they failed to answer.

                                                           creating conversation...

Social media is how you can engage with your customers and business contacts in real time and almost instantly. Increasingly, its how we do business, search for purchases and perhaps most importantly, make complaints about poor service or products. 

Social Media is growing and is a powerful force in marketing and brand protection. Nobody wants folks out there saying bad things about them on Twitter, facebook, Pinterest and all the other platforms which give people a genuine voice. That voice is affecting the way we buy products and services. Social Media sites are replacing traditional search engines (YouTube is second to Google for the number of searches recorded).

But you need to be positioned on the right Social Media platforms for your business. Thats where we can help. The advice of a good social media consultant is vital. A good consultant will live and breathe social media. They won't design websites, or do advertising. They'll just know exactly where you need to be on the many platforms that exist out there. 

This is our business. Social media is what we're all about. So we can help you with your website...from a social media integration perspective. But Social media is our speciality here at Nomsindo. 

We Create Conversation for your business...

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Social Media - What we do

We've been asked a lot recently just what is it we do for our Social Media clients. So here it is..

• We carry out a full review of a client's existing social media and web activity.
• We ask lots of questions about their business.Its important we 'get' their vision and mission to be able to understand just where they need to be on social media and what their market is.
• We would seek to understand where and how the client feels they should be using social media.Contrary to popular belief,its not for everyone!
• We'd want to talk about possible budgets. Its important to us to know how much they think it might cost to have a social media presence managed for them.
• Following this, we'd make a series of recommendations based upon our analysis of their needs. Some social media channels are a 'must have' for most clients. Others are more sector-specialist. Others are more related to the demographic of their potential markets/clients. For example, Pinterest has 65% of its hits coming from young women, whereas Google+ is more male oriented.
• We'd then offer a setup package which would include social media integration with their website, setting up of a blog and other social media platforms as necessary.
• A monthly management contract sets out the level of activity we'd undertake, as a minimum. For example,number of daily tweets, facebook posts etc. This is always flexible to suit changing business needs. We'll do the work and then talk with you later!
• We provide a detailed monthly report including web analytics and social media activity so that you can see where your traffic is coming from and how your social media presence is growing and effective. After all, you need to know what the return on your investment is.

And there it is....in a nutshell.

Nomsindo - We Create Conversations. 

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Developing leadership capacity...characteristics of great leaders

This is a blog post I've been writing for the best part of a year now. It's ideas and observations from running workshops on leadership for various people and organisations. You learn a great deal from running these events, Just as you learn a great deal when teaching. If you look at good leaders closely whilst they are working, they usually all share several, if not all of the same characteristics. They certainly are not in the business of collecting followers, but in making new leaders. Now you'll have read that quote in quite a few 'leadership' bibles by now probably. But what are the essential characteristics leaders display which inspire people to achieve great things for their organisations. I think you could possibly distil it down to the following list.

• Passion. All great leaders have a passion for their profession or/or business and/or organisation. This passion is infectious. It rubs off and inspires everybody else around them. No big inspirational speeches, just a constant enthusiasm for a clear mission which others want to be a part of. Good people want to be a part of something exciting and bigger and want to be able to say that they were a part of it. If you make these people feel like they are essential to the success of the mission, and give them credit that's due, your passion will inspire loyalty and that 'go the extra mile' factor in your team.
• Capacity-building. They always try to add value to their organisation by recruiting great people. its not the job of a leaders to gather followers but to enable more leaders to develop. Finding talented and creative people is a characteristic of truly great leaders.
• Excellence. This is not an aspiration but constantly and consistently modelled by great leaders. Your people can see by your example how they should be working, and they will set themselves their own goals for success based upon your example. When the going gets tough, they will model their responses on your behaviours and example.Everyone in the team is accountable for the success, but also for sharing the load. There are no favourites on the team; everyone is treated the same, with the same expectations of excellence from everyone.
• Lifelong learners. Great leaders are learners,but more than that, they are completely open about this. You don't stop learning once you get to a top leadership position, you just keep on going. They utilise the expertise within their own teams. If someone knows more about a particular area of the work in hand, great leaders are not afraid to defer to that expertise, not seeing this as a threat to their leadership, but an opportunity to learn by listening to the talent in their teams.
• Delegation. Great leaders give their team members the space to work, and to be creative and innovative. They don't micro-manage, but give people ownership of their work. They trust their people (who they've probably recruited) to do their jobs and perform their particular roles, giving them space to solve problems and challenges without the boss looking over their shoulders. Great leaders have their team members' backs and don't sacrifice them for their own personal 'safety' if something goes awry. 
• Mentoring. Great leaders are a constant presence mentoring everyone in their team where its necessary. People are not just recruited and told to get on with the job. Great leaders work with people to bring out the best in them and its a constant process of professional development. Regular feedback on performance is a hallmark of this mentoring. Great leaders also take an interest in the personal lives of their people. They know about their families, their interests and activities outside of work and make them feel valued by asking about these things. And this personal knowledge helps them to know when they can push for more or when they need to pull back.
• Experience. Great leaders can walk the walk as well as talk the talk. people who want to get on will go with leaders who they believe will bring them success. They know that a leader was once in their shoes. Great leaders expose their people to a range of skills and experiences to broaden the overall skill sets of their teams. They are genuinely interested in helping more of their people to become great leaders themselves and they celebrate success when their people are promoted or move on. They help them develop their professional learning networks and share contacts where appropriate. They'll never block you on Twitter or LinkedIn -where they usually have plenty of endorsements of their skills and experiences.
• Facilitation. Great leaders facilitate the success of their people. They clear the path, and help them to achieve success by smoothing the way as much as possible, flattening out or removing the obstacles along the way. They know what might hold back their people and remove these barriers. They take care of all the politics, freeing up their folks to do their jobs without distraction. 
• Bravery. Standing up for what's right, for their teams and for individuals is inspirational behaviour. Great leaders are visible. They don't spend all their time behind the closed office door, but out in amongst it mixing it up where the action is. They don't just follow the vision, they make the vision happen by fronting up to all the issues which can threaten success. They are not afraid to put their own jobs on the line where they believe that something needs to be said or done which might be viewed as controversial or a bit left-field.
• Fairness. Great leaders are scrupulously fair to everyone. They treat everybody in the same way, including themselves. They hold themselves to account in the same way as they hold their people to account, and never expect their people to do anything they wouldn't try to do themselves. Not afraid to dirty their hands and muck in with the team where necessary.
• Consistency.  They always deliver what they promise. They are genuine people with no falseness about them so that you always know where you stand. Hidden agendas are not a part of their modus operandi. Great leaders understand that their people take their cues from them and so they behave in a way they'd expect others to behave also. 

Have I missed anything out? please add your comments below. For great leadership seminars and workshops for your organisation, contact Nomsindo using the details on this site and let us help you to develop your leadership capacity. 

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The Google workshop an introduction

Nomsindo is offering a FREE (You pay for your own coffee) Google workshop on Saturday mornings for any interested businessmen/women in Cape Town.

Did you know that even a basic knowledge of the FREE Google tools at your fingertips can rapidly change your web and digital presence?

If you are going to grow to the point that you need to appoint a social media professional either in house or from an agency will you know enough to be sure you're not instructing a dud?

Feel free to contact us here

Please fill in the contact form if you'd like to join us. The workshop is informal and will be held at a waterfront venue to be announced shortly.

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