July 11, 2024 by Jolindy

Another trip around the sun

I was woken up this morning by twins throwing themselves at me like puppies, all wriggly and demanding hugs and kisses. I treasure these mornings, as they are growing up way too fast and all too soon I won’t be allowed to hug or kiss either of them. And usually it is me having to wake them up – my daughter takes a single call, my son sometimes have to be dragged out of bed. But today is special and they are excited: it’s my birthday and they’ve been talking about it all week.

Our trusty local weather service claimed a whopping 4 degrees Celsius. A trip to the shower confirmed that today would be a “no water” day – for some reason the back-up tank is empty, and the town only gets water every second day. All reminders of why I chose to take this year to come and make a sustainable difference in a town where I grew up, but where the infrastructure is dicey at best. An article on Businesslive confirms that there is simply no money. The intro is bleak: “The Eastern Cape is in a technical recession due to sharp declines in the construction, manufacturing, and mining industries, which have put employment on a knife’s edge.”

It is easy to complain about how bad things are. And yes, things are bad. When we have no internet signal for no apparent reason for days, or when there is yet again no water. When the power just goes because it was too windy, and the technicians can only work on the problem the next day. When there are hungry dogs walking in the streets, and even hungrier children, with no hope of a difference soon because there simply is no employment for their parents. Yet we have to do something. And our “something” was to apply to Lottoland and to get the green light for funding to renovate and repair the local municipal swimming pool.

Some days it feels as if we bit off more than we can chew, and then I remind myself we have no choice but to get chewing. This project has to and will be completed successfully. It is merely a gateway project to so much more. We want to also raise funds for a local skills development centre to create entrepreneurs, which will lead to people able to earn money, get back their dignity and provide for their families. Isn’t that all we all want? Just to be able to be ok?

I sit at my desk at my office, a hot coffee at my elbow, with working electricity and internet access (for now), and I count my blessings. We don’t realise how privileged we are until we see how little people can survive on.

My facebook post today:

Instead of gifts to me for my 49th birthday please consider making a small donation to one of our biggest projects to date: Burgersdorp Swimming Pool & Sport Club by clicking here:

https://www.backabuddy.co.za/campaign/burgersdorp-municipal-swimming-pool

Today I just want to say how grateful I am to everyone in my life for your support and your love. I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.

April 11, 2020 by Jolindy

Physical distancing, Social Togetherness #LockDownSA Day 16

Day 16 LockDown

11 April 2020

1934 cases
Recovered: 410 (not sure if this number is accurate)
Deceased: 24

I found this circle diagram online, and it immediately resonated with me. One of the reasons I studied psychology, eventually NLP and became a lifecoach, is because I firmly believe that our reality is based on choice. The way we perceive the world around us, the “lens” through which we choose to view the world, ultimately determine our experience and our outcomes.

For instance, I read an interesting illustration that might explain this all better. There’s an old story about two boys who had a father who was an alcoholic. They grew into young men. One son became an alcoholic. “What choice do I have?” he said. “My father is an alcoholic.” The other son never touched a drop of alcohol. “How could I?” he said. “Look what it did to my father.”

There is probably a number of lessons that can be learnt from this simple and effective story, but the one that stands out for me is that we all have the power to choose. We may not always be able to control what happens around us, but it is up to us as individuals to choose how it affects us and how we respond. We can’t control the circumstances, but we have total and complete control over our reaction.

I am an adoptive mom of the most amazing twins. I cannot imagine my life without them. Yet, roughly 6-7 years ago I was in the clutches of a very dark depression. I had three miscarriages, and a friend whose support I badly needed at the time, chose to rather leave my employ, take over a number of our clients and open direct opposition to our business, and financially we were in trouble. There was a time when I could not even muster the will to get out of bed in the mornings. There was just no point. The black dog was my constant companion, and it cast a shadow over everything I wanted to do. I eventually accepted a job with a national corporate to help our company survive, just for another friend for whom I organised a position with the same company to aim for my position and cause me to lose this job. Just a year before all this, I was in Egypt, completing my Master NLP qualification. Newly qualified, I felt that I was supposed to “know it all” and set an example. There was this constant nagging little inner voice berating me all the time for just not being able to drag myself up by the bootstraps and snap out of this. I had all the knowledge, just not the ability.

It took time. A lot of time, a lot of healing, and constant persistent daily choices of how I was going to act or respond. Some days were really bad, some were better. I grieved for my miscarried babies, for lost friends, for unexpected betrayals, for our limping marriage, for our crippled company. This journey is different for every person. And it is really important that we always remember this. No matter what your journey is, or where you are in your life, no two people walk the same road. Just because I am able to function and run a business in the middle of my tsunami, doesn’t mean another person with the same circumstances, is able to. Even my “ability to function” is questionable sometimes – there are still some days that I find it hard to motivate myself. In my case, I have a self-motivation centered around the good old carrot and stick. If I achieve my goals that I am supposed to, I can reward myself. If not, I take away a reward. It also helps in a way that I have so many people and their families dependent on me. If I don’t do what I am supposed to, it impacts so many more people than just my little family.

Now, with Covid19, and everything that is happening in the world around us, it is even more important to take ownership for our actions and our reactions. Fear is our enemy, it always is. It causes behaviour like selfishness, hoarding, spreading misinformation, acting like a victim and looking where to place the blame. However, it is also dangerous to create a space of guilt, where one causes other people who are in a different space to feel that they are not good enough, or not coping enough. It is so unnecessary and hurtful to say things like, “But I am in the same situation, and look at all that I can do, why can’t you?” It is imperative that we realise every single person in the world right now is doing their utmost every day just to do what they can. People have different coping mechanisms and different reactions. Let’s leave each other be, support where we can, be understanding and share as much care and love as we are able to, if we are able.

Today, and every day, the best tool that I can offer you is gratitude. Gratitude in the face of adversity is so awfully hard, but it is a tool that really works to get an altered mindset, and more specifically, a more positive mindset. I have a gratitude diary, and every day, I try to write 3 – 5 new things that I am grateful for. This is not a guideline. If you cannot write something every day, don’t.

Affirmations and gratitude goes hand in hand, but I personally find that most affirmations tend to backfire. For instance, try and tell yourself in a mirror how wealthy you are, and hear that sabotaging inner voice laughing at you snarkily. Unless you are wealthy, and then good for you. The only affirmation that I find works for me, and works believably well, is Emile Coue’s “Every day in every way I am getting better and better.” Take that, snarky inner voice! Not much you can say about that! Because after all, it is up to me how I get better, and in what way, every day. My choice, my ownership, my responsibility.

April 5, 2020 by Jolindy

Physical distancing, Social Togetherness #LockDownSA Day 10

Day 10 LockDown

5 April 2020

1585 cases
Recovered: 45
Deceased: 9

Sunday bloody Sunday. Our first double digits official lockdown day, and a new week ahead that we have to face several business challenges, both for us and for our clients.

I take my hat off to journalists, I myself worked as a journalist for years, and I know how tough the job is. But today I can only shake my head at some of the most irresponsible journalism ever. The biggest Afrikaans newspaper, Rapport, screamed in massive block letters on its front page that lockdown could be extended to four months. Really, Rapport, really? In a time where people are terrified as it is. If this was hard news based on an official announcement by our government – you know what, of course, go for it. But most of the article is idle speculation fuelled by theories on what ifs and this might happens.

I have never seen our Rand perform so dismally against the dollar. Today is a bit better than yesterday, with the graph straightening a bit and not just shooting upwards, but at R19.05 to the dollar, this spells a lot of uncertainty for our imports market. South Africa relies heavily on imported manufactured goods. And with Covid-19, we desperately need medical supplies and equipment from China to support our medical teams and support personnel.

There is also some really good news. Our 2019-2020 National Crime Statistics are yet to be officially released, however, during an analysis of crime from the first week of the lockdown, compared to the same period last year, this morning (5 April), Police Minister General Bheki Cele confirmed a very welcome decrease of serious crimes during lockdown:

Murder cases have dropped from 326 to 94
Rape cases have dropped from 699 to 101
Cases of assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm dropped from 2 673 to 456 case
Trio crimes (which include carjackings, house robberies and business robberies) dropped from 8 853 to 2 098.
There is also a very welcome decrease in lockdown-related complaints.

Amidst all this uncertainty, we had a pretty relaxed Sunday here in the city of George. Our streets have never been quieter. We started our day with the longest bath ever. Every single bath duck had to be bathed and squeezed and lined up. It is such a privilege that my children enjoy having a bath with their mommy. We pottered around in the kitchen, and I taught the world’s most amazing twins how to make Chicken Biryani and Naan bread. We danced to a track list on Spotify, and when we were done, the kitchen looked as if a flour factory exploded in there. But we had fun, and most of all, the twins are having fun. I do not know how much of all of this they will remember, but what they do remember, I want them to remember with fondness and nostalgia, not fear and uncertainty. I never know when the next last will show up, so I try to make each moment last. I don’t remember the last time I could pick up both of them at the same time, or the last time they asked for a night bottle. Or the last time I changed a nappy (not missing those, but just sayin’) My mommy heart cringes every time I see how much bigger they are getting.

There is a bit of unnecessary whininess on the book of the face about people posting lists of questions and playing games, and how frivolous all of this seems in the midst of all this disaster. I remember reading that when the Titanic sank, the band continued playing. People need distraction when their world collapses. What does it matter really what people do to distract themselves during this time? Some of the questionnaires and tags are fun, and we all get to know each other a bit more. My blog title for during this time and this series: Physical Distancing, Social Togetherness, is exactly about this. Yes, we need to physically maintain distance from each other, but with all the technology we have today, there is no reason to distance ourselves socially. We can chat online, message via several apps, converse on our social media platforms, share, learn, like, comment, debate – it doesn’t matter. Stay involved and be part of the online community. Besides, I’ll rather complete a questionnaire or post a mysterious phrase on my wall than read the absolute hogwash that is coming out of the keyboards of some of the sheeple out there.

This is seriously what Facebook sounds like at the moment. And I am over it. If you read my blog and you support the way out there conspiracies that are floating around the cyber social space at the moment, kindly get yourself out of my world. You become the people you associate with most, and I fear that my own intelligence might take a dive just by association.

Anyway, no more doom and gloom for me today. I have a date planned in my bed, with some hot cross buns and hot tea and a book (don’t judge). I conclude with a fun interview I had with the twins today – even I didn’t expect some of the answers. Perhaps try these questions with your kiddoes. See, the social media questionnaires aren’t all bad *wink, wink

** CHILD INTERVIEW **
Ask your child these questions and write their
EXACT response.

Interview with Alice & James

1. What’s your name? Giggles Alice/Jamesie

2. How old are you? 5 years old (both) and no, they are 4 years old

3. How old is your mom? Both: 8 (aren’t they just too adorable 😂😂)

4. What’s your favourite color? Alice: Pink/James: Red

5. What’s your favourite food? Alice: Sweeties/James: Pizza

6. Who’s your best friend? Alice: Janie/James: Wandle

7. What’s your favourite song? James: The Fire and the Lion (It’s Katy Perry’s Roar)/Alice: Let it go

8. What do you like to watch on TV? Alice: Barbie and the Dreamhouse/James: Power Rangers

9.What’s your favorite animal? James: Lion/Alice: a horse, a horse!!

10. What makes you happy? James: Bicycle/Alice: my dollies

11. Where’s your favorite place to go? Alice: the mall/James: John Dory’s

12. What do you want to be when you grow up? Alice: A mommy/James: A daddy

13. What does mommy do all day? Go to work and take us to school and come and fetch us

14. What are you scared of? James: A monster/ Alice: A bee

15 Where does money come from? Both: from the shop

16. Where did you come from? Both: from my house

January 24, 2020 by Jolindy

Let’s talk digital by Creative Touch: Are Social Media Accounts the Property of my Business?

I thought long and hard about what the title of this article should be, and it is what it is. As a digital marketing company, we often come across clients who need assistance in marketing a business they just bought. They are all excited about having a social media presence, and getting us, Creative Touch South Africa, on board to sort it all out. More often than not, though, especially when buying over an existing business, there is already a social media presence. Now suddenly there is a dispute as to ownership of these platforms.

Look, it is really quite simple. When you buy a business, you buy it as a complete, operational entity. If you’ve been involved in the selling or buying of a business, you’ll know that when a business is sold there are different business assets that may be transferred as a part of the transaction to the purchaser during the sale.

Traditionally, transferred assets include the existing stock (if any), the equipment, vehicles (sometimes), furniture, supplier information and sometimes, client databases. Nowadays though, most businesses also have web pages and social media accounts that link directly to the business. These web pages and accounts contain information pertaining to the business, including addresses and contact numbers. There will be, on social media specifically, a creation date of the account, which also adds credibility as to how long the business has been online. There will also be existing analytics data, page fans, followers, etc. These are all assets from a marketing point of view. So now many business owners want to know whether these items count as the property of their business. The answer is yes, it is the property of the business. Which means when the business is sold, it stays the property of the business, like all the other assets, and should be transferred to the new owner.

There is sometimes a misunderstanding as to how to transfer ownership of social media accounts. In reality, it is very simple. It depends on what platform it is. Some accounts, such as Instagram, require a user name and password. Some accounts, such as Facebook, require an admin to be added to the page. Facebook can be tricky, because not everybody understands exactly how it works, and the platform used to also allow a business page to be run independently with its own user name and password. This has not been the case though for years, and Facebook business pages can only be accessed if a user is connected to the page via one of the admin roles.

Unfortunately, many people are under the perception because the business page is linked to their own personal profile, handing over the page will impact this. This is not the case at all. On Facebook specifically, you can have multiple “Admins” on a business page. There are other page roles available, such as “editor”, “analyst” and more – all of these roles have a place and a specific function. An owner though, should be “admin” as that gives full control over the page. There is a 7 day period during which a new admin cannot alter the role of any of the other “admins” or even remove them, you can only add. But as soon as the new admin is active, other admins can just remove themselves from the page. Be careful though, Facebook allows an admin to leave a page completely, which is then a headache of note to try and recover from “outside”. Also, if an admin leaves and the only roles left on the page are editors, there can be no new admins added, and an editor role cannot promote itself to the admin role. So be sure to transfer correctly, as the default role under the Page Roles section under Settings is “editor”.

Ideally, in a perfect world, a seller would make provision for the transfer of all the accounts, and keep the necessary user names and passwords secure to be handed over upon completion of the sale. If the seller chooses not to do this, and keep the accounts, there will now be duplicate accounts online, which will make marketing very difficult from a search engine point of view. How does the public know which account/page/channel to visit? If the seller chooses to deactivate all the accounts, this is again problematic, as it would mean that all of the followers and fans would be lost and the buyer would need to start from scratch. This would defeat the purpose of the buyer gaining access to the social media accounts if there is value and goodwill in the original accounts through existing social media pages and followers and subscribers.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances with regards to social media accounts. Speak to the team at Creative Touch South Africa if you require any advice on this or other digital matters: info@creativetouch.agency

September 10, 2014 by Jolindy

Facebook is demolishing like-gating – how does this impact you (if at all?)

Facebook has made some recent changes (what’s new) but the most important change was buried right at the bottom of the announcement:

You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app’s Page.

An example of a like-gate on a facebook page tab

What does this mean in practice? Well, in the past fan pages used to build apps with a like-gate (or click like to reveal) in order to motivate the public to become page fans before they could get access to more information, such as competition details, promotion details, giveaways and more. This would ensure that only page fans would be able to access this information and of course benefit from it. This was a common fan-building tactic, but has increasingly been losing popularity as page admins sought ways to rather engage with existing fans more effectively than continually attract new fans.

Several years ago, Facebook used to have a feature where an entire page could be like-gated, so page fans could only see page posts once they liked the page. This was also discontinued (thankfully).

How does this impact you? Obviously going forward as from Nov 5, 2014, you will no longer be able to use the like-gate feature on your page tabs. For marketers, this is a fairly important factor to take into consideration. We always found like-gates an effective way to build relevant page fans, because we would encourage our clients to offer relevant (to the brand) incentives to motivate the like-gate clicks. That means the public who became fans ultimately clicked because they were interested in what the brand had to offer, and would by default, also be interested in what the brand had to say via newsfeeds on the page.

Unfortunately, marketers like ourselves are in the minority on facebook. There has been pages who would blatantly use the like-gate to just build “any” fans, offering prizes not relevant to the brand at all, such as iPads, holidays, etc. The page fans that results from these kind of incentives really only clicked on the like-gate to stand a chance to win, not really because they wanted to engage with the page newsfeed posts.

This brings us to why facebook decided to take this step, and we get this straight from facebook:

To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.

Facebook tells us that the average user would see 1,500 stories in a given day. Facebook’s algorithms bring that number down to a much more manageable 300. In order for Facebook to be a desirable place for users, the best and most relevant content needs to be surfaced.

Facebook uses many signals to determine what users see. But like-gating confuses those signals. Does a user really want to see content from that brand? You can see from what I said above why this is not always clear. Users may have clicked on a like-gate because of an attractive incentive, and not because of a need/want to engage with the brand. This might mean in practice that the user is now “forced” to engage with content via personal newsfeed that is not relevant or interesting to the user. This might harm the user experience. A negative user experience results in a user spending less time on facebook, which ultimately negatively impacts paying advertisers on facebook. The implied reason here is fairly obvious – advertisers need users to be online in order to target them.

In the famous words of Douglas Adams: Don’t Panic! Yes, it is still important to increase page likes. There are definitely a lot of ways to effectively build page fans, and more specifically page fans who WANT to engage with your brand. The end of like-gating is actually a very positive move. Marketers and page admins will just have to get more creative with their methods. This should also mean an overall improvement on page post quality on facebook. And you can still use third-party apps to collect data such as email addresses from page fans – which means building a database for emailing promotions and newsletters.

Speak to us at Creative Touch – Be Sociable about your company’s social media requirements, and more specifically how we can assist with your facebook page strategy.

March 11, 2014 by Jolindy

Facebook starred reviews for business pages

We’ve had some questions lately at Be Sociable about the starred review section on facebook business pages.

First of all – it is an excellent feature. The starred review section allows people to give your business a rating of 1 – 5 based on their experience, as well as an option to add a written comment.

Obviously it is also important to make sure that your page type is correct. The starred review feature only works on physical entities, which means pages that are set up as “local businesses” or “companies and organisations”.

Why is this excellent? Think TripAdvisor. Your ratings give people who is not yet familiar with your product/service the opportunity to – at a glance – get an idea of what other people think of your business. Obviously if you have a good business with good customer relations, your ratings will be positive. If not, your ratings will plummet.

At the moment the starred review section only seems available to businesses with a physical address – to those businesses who only have a website, the option doesn’t yet seem available.

The process seems fairly easy, according to directions found in the Facebook Desk Help section :

Just visit the Facebook page of the business you want to review.
Scroll down to the review section on the right hand side of the timeline.
Fill in the number of stars (total of five) that reflect your experience with the business.
Fill in a written review as well in the space that asks “What do you think about this place?”
You can mark your review public or select the friends, acquaintances or other connections you want to be able to see it.
Then hit “Review” and you’re done.

Page owners be careful. You automatically enable the Facebook starred review feature by adding your physical address on Facebook. Facebook warns you cannot remove individual reviews. So the only option is to remove the review function completely by taking your address off your page.

How Facebook Starred Reviews are Different

Of course it’s impossible to think about the new Facebook review feature without considering all the controversy now surrounding online reviews.

According to Joshua Sophy, in September, small businesses in New York state faced $350,000 in fines after the attorney general’s office said they had hired freelancers to write fake online reviews.

Facebook allows only those with an account to write a review. But how many fake Facebook accounts are out there is anyone’s guess. At best, the new Facebook starred reviews feature should probably be viewed as another way to collect feedback and generate social interest rather than an objective measure of customer sentiment.

September 29, 2013 by Jolindy

Why Social Media Marketing Should Be Taken Seriously For Your Business

We are an advertising agency, with our roots firmly established in the Garden Route. Our motto has always been to deliver the best service to our clients, and offer the best advise with regards to budget-spend that leads to maximum return on investment (ROI). We even used to own our own publications – some of you may remember some of the titles: Vibrant Living, Business Bulletin and Garden Route Property Finder amongst others. Some of these publications we sold, and the last one, Business Bulletin, we closed down ourselves after a successful 12 years. Why you may ask?

Well, let’s start at the beginning. Advertising and marketing is my passion. It has always been, and it will always be. There is nothing as satisfying as a client who becomes a friend and who trusts us to build their brand, while they focus on the nuts and bolts of growing the business. Our core services has always been brand assistance, be it graphic design, copywriting, print solutions – whatever the client required. We would design advertisements for local newspapers (including our own) for clients and assist with annual strategy planning around marketing budgets.

We started realising that people don’t really read as much physically printed matter as they used to. The forward-thinking publications are all moving online, and you often see people, wherever they are, cluthing a smartphone or an iPad or tablet, browsing the internet. Our target audience has moved online – and that is where we firmly believe our clients should be marketing themselves.

We’ve simply moved our advertising agency online, and opened a strong social media leg: Be Sociable. Social media is an excellent marketing platform choice – with the constant change-over to technology, and with iPads, Tablets and smart phones becoming more accessible and more affordable, more and more people are online. It simply makes sense to advertise your product where your target audience already spends a lot of time. Less people pick up newspapers, magazines, booklets, etc, and prefer to spend time online. Also, as with all responsible businesses, we realise that our eco-footprint makes a substantial difference in the world we inhabit, therefore advertising in printed media really makes little sense. Also, if you compare print media costs to online media, there is simply no comparison. You get far more results online for less expenditure.

Here, I cannot put it better than Marsha Friedman, and I agree with every word.

What tends to be happening now, though, is that businesses are realising that they should be on social media, but they are using the wrong approach. I remember when the internet first gained prominence and it became apparent that having a website was essential for any commercial enterprise. Back then, web designers were not plentiful and few people thought to hire a professional to create a site. They felt that any web presence was better than none at all and they found people they knew who were “into the whole internet thing” to help them.

As an advertising professional, when I saw a website that didn’t represent people well or looked amateurish, I’d ask who created it. Invariably, I’d get answers like, “My nephew did it,” or “I bought Web Design for Dummies and did it myself,” or “My son has a friend who just graduated with a degree in computer science.” While those days have passed for websites, I’m afraid I am seeing the same thing happen with regard to social media.

As social media has become an integral element of all mainstream media, some people regard it the same way they used to regard websites—as a good addition to their marketing tactics, but not so essential that they need to approach it with a professional sensibility. As with any marketing outreach, social media done badly will actually set a person back rather than move him forward.

At the end of the day, social media is serious business. Done right, it can create a base of thousands of followers. Done wrong, it wastes time and energy and, most important, gives people the impression that social media marketing isn’t important. In fact, it has become one of the most critical and fundamental components for any marketing strategy, which every company needs to put in place.

Speak to the Be Sociable team and book a free session with one of us – we will happily evaluate your current social media presence and advise you on the best way forward.

10 reasons to hire a social strategist and community manager:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you’re not on social media, then you’re not where your audience is—and you’re missing out. The social media potential for brands is astonishing, and it includes:
•    An endless stream of information and trends that are happening in your industry
•    The chance to check out your competitors to evaluate what you are doing right (and potentially wrong)
•    The ability to engage one-on-one with your audience and form a more personal connection
•    Tracking mentions of your brand online so you can offer customer service through social media and answer inquires (as well as dispel myths)
•    Content creation and curation
•    Community-building
•    Increasing advocates of your brand through word of mouth marketing
•    The opportunity to increase trust and credibility with your community
•    Social media can be used for sales

June 23, 2013 by Jolindy

How committed are you to your goals?

“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
— J. K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Today was our wedding anniversary. And, as with every date that celebrates a moment in time, or marks an occasion, it is a time for contemplation. At least for me.

I wondered at the fact that we reached this date against all odds. Obviously on the decision scale, staying together weighed more than splitting up. As with all change, there is a lot of stress involved when two people decide to live together. Two often very diverse lives are merged, sometimes with different values and definitely with different viewpoints and ways of doing things. Yet, because of love, we make it work. And it seems to be working fine, so far. We are both committed to making this marriage work, and that counts for a lot.

Marriage or even relationships in general, is not the only aspect of our lives that requires a level of commitment. Our choice of employment, our choice of residence, our health, our studies – the list is endless. The chance of success in all these areas seems unattainable – unless we are committed. And right there – there is the keyword: commitment.

The word commit comes from the Latin word committere, which means to connect, entrust. When we stand behind our words, we demonstrate commitment. Commitment exists when our actions meet the expectation of our words – when there’s a congruency between intent, words and action.

This commitment to one’s goals is most definitely the most important rule for success. Without it, we fall prey to procrastination, bad habits, laziness, rationalisation and a host of goal-defeating problems. Commitment is a strong word – much stronger than “agreement.” If I agree to meet you for dinner, I have three options: keeping my agreement, cancelling, or changing it. If I commit myself to meeting you, I will meet you no matter what.

Why is commitment to our goals so difficult? We have even labelled this difficulty: commitment-phobia. It is an easy term to bandy about, especially when it comes to relationships. Fear of commitment in much popular literature refers to avoidance of long-term partnership and/or marriage but the problem is often much more pervasive, affecting school, work, and home life as well.

Commitment fear/phobia is not only about balking at the idea of being in a steady, exclusive relationship. It is about not buying that house because of “what if”, or not embarking on a career or even a study direction. It is about not making good health choices, or not sticking to them.

When you are committed to your goals, attaining them is easier. Your choices are clearer. If your goal is to be the top salesperson in the company where you work, your actions will be congruent with this goal. You will make more calls, more appointments, and close more deals. You will put in more hours, because achieving this goal will mean more success and yes, more income, for you. Making those extra calls won’t be easy, but if your goal is clear, you will do it. If your goal is to shed extra weight, the choice between grated carrot and a chocolate cake won’t be so difficult. It is when you are not committed to your goals that choices appear to be hazy.

We are still here to celebrate our wedding anniversary not because we are still in love. There is that, but often love is not enough to wield against the petty conflicts. It is commitment that keeps us together through the darker times, and that reminds us that things have been better, and will get better.

Talk to us at Chrysalis Coaching about achieving your goals. About being committed to what you want. For an appointment, call Jolindy on 082 780 9209. For more info, please “like” our facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/chrysalisnlp

August 10, 2012 by Jolindy

Why is social media one of the most important marketing tools?

If you are in business, then you are marketing your business. All business owners are (or should be) searching for the best or most important ways to market themselves, their products or their services. And of course, cost is always a factor. We understand that we have to spend money to make money, but we want to save money in the process.

I’ve been involved in social media marketing since before the concept was officially known as social media marketing. And this article is just my opinion on the matter – I would love to hear what you think.

Now, let’s get to the point. Why is social media one of the most important marketing tools?

Social media gives you a more direct path of contact between you and your market. Having a strong social network allows you to communicate effectively with existing and potential users. More “traditional” marketing tools allows for pretty much one-way communication, but with social media you can directly interact with your client base. One of the most important aspects of using social media as a marketing platform is the fact that you are able to access a massive market that would otherwise be inaccessible through traditional media (unless equally insane amounts of money are spent). Social media makes connecting with customers easy.

Now, even today, I am exasperated to hear clients say: “But I don’t use facebook (or twitter or google+ or….). I cannot see how it can be of value to my business to have a social media presence.” And my answer is: If you aren’t using social media yet, you’re missing out on a vast, untapped group of potential customers. These days, almost everyone is plugged in and connected online – Facebook has more than 900 million active users and Twitter has almost 300 million. Is this really a user base that you can afford to disregard?

What can social media do for your company?

Firstly, by actively using social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Pinterest, etc you can raise awareness of your company to a very large community. Just like placing a newspaper, radio or television advertisement, social media is an easy way to get your company name in front of peoples eyes.

Secondly, social networking connects your with a large chunk of active online users and can generate leads of all kinds for most businesses. You can tie awareness in with promotions and competitions, and run a very effective online campaign which can only benefit your business.

Once you’ve established your network, it doesn’t stay there. You constantly add new people, and you build relationships with your existing followers. Once you’ve established a connection or formed a relationship it is crucial that you maintain the correct impression. Relationships leads to sales.

Social media also allows you to improve your customers service. Because of direct communication, social media allows you to interact with potentially disgruntled customers and sort out any problems/issues that may exist. Social media also allows your happy customers to publicly share how satisfied they are doing business with you. This gives a whole new meaning to the concept “Word of Mouth”.

There are amazing tracking/monitoring tools available which allows you to access a valuable range of data about how people found you, who they are, how they came to view your website/social page, etc. With this info, you can work out the most effective ways to increase your social media network, adjust your campaign and capture your market.

In short, social media is a whole different way of looking at promoting your business. And if you look at how some of the larger brands embrace their ongoing social media campaigns, it can definately work for your business too.

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by Jolindy Dreyer

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