"Social Media, Korea and KBC" (February 2, 2011) Liam Lusk Social Media Consultant

Seminar transcription:

Steven: Liam, welcome to our seminar.

Liam: Thank you very much, Steven. First of all, just before I begin, I want to say thank you to Steven, of course, and Korea Business Central for giving me this opportunity to share my knowledge with everybody that’s here today. So thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. Let’s get started.
As you already know, I’m going to be talking about social media today. I’m going to deliver this presentation in three parts for you. The three parts I’m going to talk about are what is social media, why it’s social media, and the how of social media.
Let’s start with the what. I’ve also broken this into three parts for you as well. That’s going to be in facts, and is social media a fad and the love/hate relationship that so many people have with social media.
Let’s start with the facts of social media. For many, many people, social media can be overwhelming because it’s such a large medium and many people just don’t know where to start, of course. It can be very, very confusing.
For a lot of people, social media just drives them completely crazy because they don’t understand it or they choose to ignore it. You might recall that in the mid-1990s, many companies chose to ignore websites, which actually cost them dearly financially.
So what is the official definition of social media? Social media are primarily Internet and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications, and social interaction and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.
What? That can be quite confusing for some people, of course. Let me put it in another way. Social media covers areas including Internet forums, blogs, social blogs, micro blogging, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating, and social bookmarking to name just a few.
But if you’re still confused, you might be familiar with Cyworld. Cyworld, a lot of people are actually unaware of this, but Cyworld is actually older than Facebook. Then of course, we have Facebook, then we have Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, Digg, Flickr, blogs, RSS which you can actually use to KBC, but we’ll look at that a little bit later.
Let’s talk about some of these for you now. Let’s begin with Facebook. With Facebook, users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information and other personal information. Users can communicate with friends, through private or public messages and a chat feature.
Many companies create profiles on Facebook now, and of course, also fan pages where they can promote products and events directly to interested parties. Fan pages are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising.
At present, there are 500 million-plus registered users on Facebook and 50% of these users log in every single day. Fan pages have 5.3 billion fans at the moment and people who long in spend an average of 55 minutes per day on Facebook.
Let’s not forget the cell phone area. 100 million members actually use their Facebook accounts on SmartPhones and they are twice as active as normal Internet users.
Let’s look at YouTube. YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload, share and view videos. Many companies and businesses have also created what we refer to as channels, which is just your own page on YouTube. They use those to actively promote and sell products and services.
So we already know YouTube is a video sharing site. Each day, there are two billion views of videos on YouTube. Every 60 seconds, 24 hours of video is uploaded. The average user spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube. The demographics might surprise you. The average age of a typical YouTube user ranges from 18-54 years old.
Then we have Twitter and MicroBlogger. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile page. Tweets are publically visible by default; however, senders can restrict message delivery to their friends’ lists. Users may subscribe to other users’ tweets. This is known as following and subscribers are known as followers. Again, many companies and businesses have created Twitter accounts to actively promote their products and services.
So how many Twitter users are there? Well, 300,000 people join Twitter every day and there are 110 million users at the moment who search 600 million times a day and a third of those people use their mobile devices to connect to Twitter.
Then we have blogs. A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other websites usually presented as a list of entries. Blogs range from the personal to the political and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects. Of all Internet users, 77% read blogs. In the 18-44 age range, 60% visit blogs and within the corporate world, 14% of companies run blogs.
Then we have LinkedIn. LinkedIn, which most of you are guessing already know, is the world’s largest professional network with over 18 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.
As I’ve already mentioned, LinkedIn continues to grow and is 18 million at present. LinkedIn is also a worldwide social media and is in 200 countries and six languages. Unique visitors to the site each day? That’s 12 million-plus and every second a new person registers with LinkedIn.
So is social media just a fad? That’s a good question. Is this all just for teenagers to play games and send silly gifts on Facebook to each other, or maybe so they can show embarrassing videos of their friends on YouTube or so they can tweet useless information on Twitter?
Well, definitely not, of course. That’s why we’re here today. And here are some more reasons why. Let’s look at Twitter just for a moment. 23% of Twitter users follow business to find special promotions or sales. 14% of Twitter users use the stream to find and share products and opinions.
Let’s look at Facebook for a moment again. 25% of customers connect with brands on Facebook to receive discounts. Twitter and Facebook together – 67% Twitter users and more than 50% of Facebook fans are more likely to make a purchase from brands that they follow.
Also, an interesting fact – Facebook and Twitter visitors spend one and a half times more online than other Internet users. So if you’ve got a Facebook fan or a Twitter follower following your company, they’re one and a half times more likely to spend than another Internet user.
Love/hate. Lots of people love it; lots of people hate it. But you just can’t ignore it. Social media is everywhere on the Internet. Even if you want to, you couldn’t avoid it. I’ve already mentioned that when some companies started making websites in 1994 and 1995, other companies chose to ignore the new media and it cost them dearly.
So don’t be a company that ignores social media. Move ahead of your competitors and learn to use it to your advantage. Learn to love social media.
Now let’s look at why. I’m going to explain in why in three areas. I’m going to talk about looking around, impact, and growth. Let’s look at look around.
There are basically two ways to use social media. The first way is the way it all began – to stay in touch with your friends. The second way is to increase business, which is what we are really talking about here today. The numbers really truly speak for themselves. I think they’re brilliant so far. In this presentation, I’ve already given you some staggering figures. By the end of this presentation, most of the figures I quoted to you will actually be higher. That, in itself, tells us to pay attention. If you want to be truly global, grasp social media and then you can grasp business globally.
Now let’s look at the impact. If you use Cyworld or Facebook, maybe you chat to your friends on Twitter or you watch your favorite music videos on YouTube, you have a favorite blog you read on a regular basis. You have your professional resume on LinkedIn, you look for facts on Wikipedia, look for great pictures on Flickr, take part in forums or download your favorite podcast. You’ve guessed it. You’re already actually within the social media world.
For conservative business owners, one of the most common things to say is, “This whole social media thing will make my company look amateurish.”
Really? Well, let’s take a closer look. Let’s see who is using social media. You might be surprised: Absolut Vodka; Dell; Boeing – yep; those are the guys that make the big airplanes; Revlon, the cosmetics giant; Coca-Cola; American Express – the prestigious credit card company; Starbucks; Adidas; Google; Pizza Hut; Motorola; AT&T – the largest telecommunications company in the US; Gap; and CNN.
Next time you watch a CNN news story, look out for the YouTube icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the video used. These are just a few of the major companies that use social media, so maybe you should, too.
Let’s look at Flickr. Social network and spending worldwide. In 2009, $2.53 billion was spent on social network ads. In 2011, it is predicted it will increase to $4.26 billion. That’s a jump of 40%. Again, it’s a staggering figure.
But maybe you’re saying to yourself that we’re in Korea, so what does it matter? Let’s look at the growth of Facebook in Korea. In January 2010, there were a little over 400,000 users at that time. By December of the same year 2010, that number had grown more than six times to 2.3 million. That’s an increase of 1.9 million in less than a year. And remember, the globally-registered users on Facebook are 500 million and growing.
So can this really help your company grow? Yes, it can if done correctly.
And savings is another one. Your company can save on traditional advertising. Social media costs a fraction of traditional advertising even if you hire social media consultants.
Now will this replace traditional advertising? That’s actually maybe too early to say. But does this mean changing the way we market our products and services? Yes, but don’t take my word for it. Venture Capitalist Mark Kvamme thinks so.
He recently said to the ONMA’s global media conference in San Francisco, “If you can harness social media marketing, you don’t have to pay for advertising anymore.” He said that as recently as March 17, 2010.
Also, integrated marketing comes of age. “As the big social media campaigns of 2010, namely Pepsi Refresh and All Spice showed, integration across marketing platforms is a must. “ –Business Week.
“Social media creates kinship between companies and customers, and kinship equals purchase intent.” – Jay Baer
As businesspeople, we need to pay attention because I can guarantee your competitors are. Many professional marketers and advertisers believe that integration of the two mediums will be the most likely outcome.
Now, I want to take a look at the situation in Korea, because that’s where we are after all – or that’s where we want to do business perhaps.
Around the world, Korea is known for its expertise in the IT industry and also the cell phone industry. In fact, Korea is both respected and forward in these areas.
81% of the population is active Internet users, so logic would tell us that Korea must be using social media effectively, right?
Well, also computers, iPhones or SmartPhones are primarily used for social media activity. The answer is actually no, surprisingly.
Why? What’s the big problem here? I see three main problems in Korea. The first problem. If you live or work in Korea you’re probably familiar with Daum and Naver – the two main search engines used in the country, and they do a good job actually. You may also of course know Cyworld, which I mentioned earlier, which is Korea’s social networking site.
The second problem – let’s for a moment pretend that you have a website based in Korea and it is in English and Korean. So far, so good. Now, I am in the US or the UK – basically, I’m outside Korea and I want to find your product or service. I don't know your company’s name, so I need to search using keywords.
How am I going to search? Well, I will more than likely use either Google, Safari if I’m a Macintosh owner, or Firefox. These are just some search engines, of course.
The problem comes with this: Internet Explorer. What’s the problem? Most sites in Korea are built on the back of Internet Explorer. I won’t go into the complications, but this means that a lot of sites that are Korean are unreadable on other search engines, and purchases are therefore very difficult or even impossible to do.
That brings us to the third problem. All this gives a potential client a bad headache. Korean sites simply aren’t friendly outside Korea or in Korea for non-Koreans as well.
We all know the economic situation. Globally, everybody is struggling. But don’t be fooled. People are still making money out there, so don’t be a company with empty pockets and struggle to make a sale.
If social media is used correctly, globally you can make money, but you need to do it right. And if we’re making money globally, we’d have lots of dollar signs popping up everywhere. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Remember, social media is our way of doing this if you want.
Let’s look at the how. In my opinion, there are three options here. Option number one: You can be self-sufficient. You can open a new department as option two. Or, option three: You can hire social media management.
Let’s look at that first option one more time – self-sufficient. Well, to be self-sufficient, you have to learn about social media and how it all connects. Also, what social media is correct for you and your company.
Let’s take a brief look. Facebook – we’ve already heard about Facebook today. The Facebook fan page is if you want the business page for Facebook. Used correctly, it can be very profitable for your company.
You could make that YouTube channel. Again, used correctly, video can be effective in creating not only profit, but exposure for your company. Then we have Twitter. Twitter is another means of helping with profit and exposure.
Then we have blogs. You can build a blog using different blog clients such as WordPress, the one I would recommend. Or you could use Posterous, Blogger, and Tumblr. There are many other blogging clients of course that you could use.
Then there’s LinkedIn – a great way to create not only exposure for your company, but also B2B business.
Then we have option two: Open a new department. Why not? You could pick up the right people and be successful or it could be a very costly mistake. You will find it hard to employ people for a new department that is for something you don’t fully understand.
Our third option: Hire social media management. Now, social media management, consultants as well of course, could help you understand what social media is. They could train your staff or set everything up and manage it for you, what social media management can do for your company.
Something that I think you’ll agree is very powerful is a page one ranking on Google. Your company will definitely be noticed if you’re on page one of Google, without a doubt.
If you ever use Google like me, how often do you honestly go to that second page? It’s very seldom, right? You usually pick people on that first page.
So can page one on Google be achieved by using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Digg, blogs and Flickr? Well, it would be very, very hard to achieve. What do you need to do to get page one ranking?
The fact is, of course, we’ve got these main social media sites that we can connect to, but we actually need to connect to so many more. And the list, as you can see, just goes on, and on and on. You really need to be able to connect to a lot. Probably you’ve not heard of some of these social media sites I’m guessing, but they all matter.
Let’s get out the social media toolbox and show you one way to do this. I’m going to show you a simplified explanation of a method called SMB, or Social Media Banks, if you want.
Now, if you’ve ever visited a site like blog or YouTube, or really anything, you’re probably familiar with these icons that you might see at the bottom of maybe a YouTube video or at the bottom of an article of a blog.
Well, this is what makes social media work for companies. Every time you click on one of these little icons, it helps a company.
Let’s, for a moment, pretend that we’ve got your site in. We want to link your site to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, a blog and other social media sites. That’s what we really need to be able to do.
By doing this, you can achieve that page one ranking on Google. Again, as I said earlier, you will get noticed by prospective clients.
How do you really achieve this? I just told you about connecting to various social media sites. But let me give you a little more detail.
An example would be you make 20 videos and release them on a time release. From the 20 videos, you also include your URL or your website address. You also need to make these videos into transcripts and mp3s.
Once you’ve done that, you then need to place these videos onto social media as well as the transcripts and the mp3s. You really need to do this to a minimum of 45 sites. These sites will include video sites, article sites, podcast sites, blogs, etc. By doing this, this will help you achieve that page one ranking on Google.
Then when people click on those little icons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc, they’re going to be telling all their friends about you and your company and they’re going to check you out, of course, and ultimately buy your product or service, which of course, is what you actually want. So you’re going to get those referrals back to your site.
Let’s look at that again in a diagram format. You’ve made your videos, which you’ve changed into articles, podcasts, etc. You then place them onto many social media sites, 45-plus minimum. This will help you achieve that page one ranking on Google.
Then, of course, people are going to click on the small icons, and they’re going to interact with their friends on Twitter, Facebook, other social media and YouTube. Ultimately, they will then be sent to your website.
The other thing is you’re going to have those videos, and maybe articles, podcasts, etc. on your site. Hence, we have the social media bounce (?).
What I’m going to do now is show you an example that it does, indeed, work. Let’s pretend you need a lawyer in Korea, so you put it into the search engine of Google. You’ll notice that this is page one on Google. I just pointed the arrow to number one for you to prove that.
Now, this is something me and my business partner did some time ago. You’ll notice that we are number two. We’re also number six. That is actually both of those videos. We’re also number nine and number ten ranking on page one of Google.
So that’s five times we appear on page one here, and we did this in July 2010 and haven’t done anything since. But we still rank page one, and not only on page one, but we’re there five times. So it can actually be done.
You’ve seen the numbers. You’ve seen who else is doing it. You’ve seen the method. You’ve seen an example. This all means that one-way marketing is really finished. Stop thinking campaigns. Stop thinking conversation. Listen first; sell second.
A little bit more about social media. You need to decide what direction to go in. Ignore social media and fall behind your competitors or grasp social media and steamroll ahead.
Let’s summarize what we’ve talked about today in this presentation. We talked about the what. In the what, we also talked about why and finally how.
In what, I talked about the facts, whether social media is a fad and why people love and hate social media. In why, we talked about look around, the impact of social media and also the growth of social media. In how, we talked about whether you should be self-sufficient, whether you should open a new department in your company or whether you should hire social media management.
That’s the presentation. But also, I want you to remember that you can link your KBC account to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and of course promote KBC or Korea Business Central as much as you can so we can build this community up and help each other in the process.
I’m going to show you now, if you haven’t already, how you can connect KBC to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. First things first. Connecting KBC, look for this area on the right-hand side of your home page on KBC and click on “Settings”.
Then if you click on Settings, you will see this pop up. Once you do that, you’ll be taken to the “My Page” here, which you can see on the left-hand side and now you have to click on “Connections”.
What that will do is renew over to this page here. You can see the two highlighted area. We’ve got “Connect to Facebook” and also “Connect to Twitter”. By simply clicking on this, you will now link your accounts.
And you can also post directly to Facebook and Twitter from your KBC account. Just simply place your text into that area here and then you’ll directly go to Facebook and Twitter.
You can also click these icons on any content you’ll see around KBC on discussions and so on. Just look for these icons and then you can share them with your Twitter and Facebook.
If you click on the “Share” button, you can also send various articles to other social media such as Delicious, MySpace, StumbleUpon, and Digg. Of course, you do have to have accounts with these social media as well.
And to pull from outside KBC on Facebook, very simple. You just simply go to your wall and you can insert a link. Just simply click on the link icon here, then enter or copy and paste the URL to the KBC page you want to share into the link space in here and then finally add some pics and click “Attach”.
If you want to post on Twitter, you can basically enter or copy and paste the URL of the KBC page you want to share into the text area here, and of course, you can add some text as well if you want and simply click the “Tweet” button here.
Post into LinkedIn – this is almost identical to tweeting on Twitter actually. Just go to your LinkedIn homepage and in the box next to your photo at the top, click the “Attach a Link” icon to get this following graphic. Enter or copy and paste the URL of the KBC content you wish to share and click “Attach”. Then if you do wish to, you can add some text there as well.
This is for a group section. You enter or copy and paste the URL of the relevant KBC content page into the “Add News”, click attach, then enter a message in the space above, click, share. It’s that simple.
So really, you’ve got no excuse now not to share KBC content on your social media. Actually, Steven has this in a text form as well. Maybe you could get that link a little bit later. It’s very useful. As I mentioned before, it’s a good thing to share KBC and let people out there know that we exist. It will help us all in the end.
Lastly, I want to say thank you for listening. My name is Liam Lusk. If you need help with social media, you can send an email to Liam. liam.kwalus@gmail.com or give me a call if you want on 010 272 5834. Thank you again.

Steven: Thank you, Liam. That was very interesting. I really enjoyed it. We still have question and answer time. What’s the difference between a blog and a social blog? You had mentioned that earlier at the beginning.

Liam: I guess a blog is really just someone placing their opinion out there about a particular subject, not necessarily wanting reaction; whereas, a social blog is when really the interaction is a must to create the whole feeling of the blog.
As an example, it can be someone ranting about their opinion politically, to use that as an example, but not really wanting any interaction from other people. Hence, it’s a one-way discussion.

Steven: It’s not a separate category or anything, though?

Liam: No, not really. It’s just different ways of blogging.

Eun-Shil: I really want to know if there is some evidence provided in the media about the profits that can be generated if you use the social media.

Liam: You mean as a company how much money you can generate?

Eun-Shil: If there’s some sort of evidence about social media for a company. Every small or medium enterprise is interested if I’m going to be involved in social media, especially here in The Netherlands, let’s say on a very low scale, how much more money I can generate? Is that information present at this moment? Do you know what I mean?

Liam: I haven’t come across any solid information that can predict something like that. I think what you’ve got to decide as a company, as an example, if it was your company, is how much you’re spending on traditional advertising right now as an example and how effective is that traditional advertising right now.
What a lot of companies are doing is actually taking part of that traditional advertising budget and removing it. Of course, social media, the cost behind social media is really perhaps just the cost of maybe a consultant. And in some cases, nothing at all because sometimes people try to do this alone, which is possible of course.
Now, how much it will create in profit of course is the big question. It really depends on your social media campaigns and how you handle them and who your targets are, in all honestly. That’s a tough question to answer, I’m afraid. I really don’t know the answer to it.

Steven: You know, Liam, that’s kind of been a bugbear of Internet advertising for a long time, the fact that they talk about all the great things coming in. In fact, a lot of companies are getting the great things. But this measurement issue seems to be something that comes later, being able to actually track the results.

Liam: I think the thing is with trying to measure, with any medium, whether it be just a website, whether it be social media or even traditional advertising, it’s very tough to predict what you can get from it, because of course, this can be done incorrectly as well as correctly. That’s the big thing.

Eun-Shil: I think, to be really honest, the future of a lot of companies will depend on social media because I found out fairly recently through the KBC interview, done by Mr. Sang Chong, I got a lot of comments and also requests from other people around the world, including company, through the higher rating of my KBC interview in the Google ranking.

Steven: Really?

Eun-Shil: Yes.

Steven: What kind of terms were you showing for?

Eun-Shil: Everything you type in Google like “Korea,” “Korea Business,” you’ll find easily Korea Business Central and still now, especially here in the Netherlands and Europe, I’ve seen that my interview even if you type in my first name, Eun-Shil, will end up on page number one on position two or three. I generate some new business from people who want to be involved in my business, which I have already in Korea. It’s all because of the Google ranking and my interview.
Steven: So what we need to do is when we’re talking about these interviews is mention about how it could be effective in that aspect.

Eun-Shil: Absolutely. I think that you have special futures on the KBC website, like the member relay interview, if you can put that on a very high position in the Google ranking that will generate much more traffic, and in the end, business.

Steven: I know you posted the comment, the success story. Would you mind posting a follow-up comment to your success story posting and mention about the ranking benefits you’ve got? I would love to see that.

Eun-Shil: I think in addition to the beautiful presentation Liam has already given us, a lot of entrepreneurs take it for granted that they will show somewhere up in Google ranking because they do have a website, but that is not enough. I think to be involved in all types of blogs or network websites like KBC, which Liam also explained earlier, is extremely important to boost your presence on the Internet. That means good for your business.
I will certainly do that, because I have received phone calls coming from all parts of the world who would like to import-export their wines to Korea and even asked me, “How did you do that? How did you enter the Korean market? What are your business contacts? Can we use you? Can we pay you?”

Steven: Wow.

Eun-Shil: It even included some KBC members independent from each other asking me the same questions.

Steven: That’s the best testimonial I’ve heard all day. Thank you for that.

Eun-Shil: Including the Korean government who also tried to contact me here in The Netherlands to look forward to do some business together. I think that will end up in an advisorship for my side.

Steven: I’m almost wondering now, were you personally responsible for Obama mentioning Korea seven times in his State of the Union Address this week?

Eun-Shil: I am not. (laughs)

Steven: (laughs) Okay. I thought you might be leading to that.

Eun-Shil: I did listen to the speech of President Obama because I’m very much interested in politics. Politics and economics go well together. It’s really, really surprising. I estimate the impact of the KBC interview to be really honest. But you have seen on the website, the several reactions from other KBC members, it’s I think 5% that I did receive in my professional business email box.

Steven: Amazing. Thank you very much. I’m going to go back to Liam here. I’ve got a question. What’s your opinion about Cyworld and where they’re going? You mentioned that your first issue with the Korean social media was the problem. You mentioned Cyworld, Naver, and Daum. Your point there I think was that Korean social media is blocked off from much of the world, if you can confirm on that.
As for you mentioning about Facebook, I can remember a year and a half ago asking a Korean colleague of mine, “Have you ever heard of Facebook?” and he said, “No, I don't know what that is.” You certainly wouldn’t find that today.

Liam: That’s a good question. The case with Cyworld, which I know you’re aware of, because I’ve seen your comments in the discussion on KBC, is we all know of course Cyworld tried to penetrate both Europe and the US. One of their big reasons for failing there was because they didn’t – as an example, if you were in Cyworld in Europe, you couldn’t connect an account to Korea. That was a big problem of theirs, and they spent a huge amount of money and ultimately failed.
But I did hear a very interesting story earlier this week, which I’ve been trying desperately to find. I might need some help on this one. Cyworld has publically announced that they want to enter the US and the European market again. I don't know how true that is. I’ve been trying to find this news story desperately for today and I didn’t find it in time.
There’s a huge difference between Facebook and Cyworld, and the biggest difference is the interface. The interface of Facebook is extremely simple, although they’ve changed it two or three times now. But it remains to be very simple and it doesn’t matter what language you speak, you can find your way around Facebook pretty easily.
Whereas, with Cyworld – I’m not very experienced with Cyworld to be honest, because the one time I tried it, I said, “I’m not coming back here again.” But that’s probably because of my lack of Korean. That didn’t help of course.
But also, it seemed so hard to join Cyworld. You need your ID number, you need this and you need that; whereas, with Facebook, it’s an email address.
Cyworld in Korea, they’re doing okay. Of course they are. I think if they do want to penetrate Europe and America, they’ve really got to rethink their interface completely, and possibly even think of a name change. Anybody who sees Cyworld again and has tried them before might not be wanting to try them a second time.
With regards to social media itself in Korea, I think the problem here is that many companies are so conservative in their own business model. They don’t like to try new things. They don’t like to experiment too much.
I think what has been shown in both Europe and the US, because of the recession, etc. and the economy, companies really had no advertising budgets at one point so they went onto social media. They started to use Twitter and Facebook and that really built their businesses up. You’ve had businesses go from a cottage industry to someone in their bedroom who set up a little business, and they’re medium-sized businesses now because of social media.
I really implore Korean companies to really look at this, especially the ones that want to go global.

Steven: Thank you, Liam. We’re coming to the end here. We could squeeze in another question or two if we keep it quick.

Liam: May I just answer a question that Dennis has posted here, Steven?

Dennis: I’m now thinking of creating a website on the WordPress platform. Is that good for business?

Liam: I think out of all the blogging platforms, Dennis, WordPress is very simple to use. I don't know how much experience you have looking at WordPress. At first, it’s a learning curve absolutely. But once you become familiar, placing a post onto WordPress is very similar to the Word format setup. It’s actually quite simple.
Once you work out how to use that – everybody’s learning curve is different, Dennis. As an example, my learning curve is maybe a month or something. Although I know a lot about social media, two years ago, one and a half years ago, I knew nothing about how to do a blog or anything. I’m self-learned. Carl Kwon will agree with that, I think.

Eun-Shil: Basically, I think he’s asking what kind of tools I can use to create a website and be on the Internet. Is that right, Dennis? Besides WordPress, which I use myself, I also use DotNetNuke, DNN. It’s also very useful, fairly easy to use like if you were doing a Word document, with a lot of extra features without knowledge of being an IT specialist. You can use it as well.
I think there are several forms you can use to create a website and go onto the market. I think it’s very important to define first what kind of business you have and what kind of customers you want to reach.
For me, for instance, I really don’t depend on being visible on the Internet. Most of my clients come from mouth to mouth advertising. It depends on what kind of business you want to have and what kind of clients you want to have.

Liam: Absolutely. I think you’ve mentioned some very important points there. What kind of business is it? Also, what kind of clients do you have? These are very important questions that you must always consider in any element of business.
One thing I would like to add about WordPress is because it is such a large blogging client, if you want, is that it does get good rankings in Google search, more than other blogging clients, just because it’s so big and so many people use it.
For that reason, it’s a good one to use. Also, because of the ease of it. Dennis, if you really want to look into this further, then feel free to contact me. If I can help you, I certainly will.

Steven: Thank you very much. I’m going to bring it to an end. Thank you very much to Liam for sharing with us about social media. Thanks to our panelists. Have a great day. Bye!

Liam: Thank you very much, Steven, and everybody.

Eun-Shil: Thank you, Liam, for your presentation.

Liam: My pleasure.