Fraud Alert: Beware of Scammers Using WSIOMS’ Name

We have been made aware that scammers are impersonating WSIOMS Digital Marketing, falsely claiming to offer freelance work and requesting personal banking information. These fraudulent messages are being sent via WhatsApp by someone pretending to be “Enzokuhle or Omphilr, the HR Assistant at WSIOMS.”

⚠️ Please be advised:
✅ WSIOMS does not offer freelance work.
✅ We will never contact anyone via WhatsApp for job opportunities or payment details.
✅ If you receive such messages, do not engage—delete them immediately.

We take this matter seriously and are working to stop these fraudulent activities. If you suspect you have been contacted by a scammer using our name, please delete the message and report it.

Stay vigilant and thank you for your support.

The blog economy: Why blogging is good for your business

The blog economy: Why blogging is good for your business

Blogging is no longer something that just a select few do in their spare time. It has become a major industry and a fundamental part of any good digital marketing strategy. If you are still not convinced that blogging is right for your business, take a look at some blogging stats

5 Reasons why you should consider blogging about your business

  • 77% of internet users read blogs
  • Your small business is more likely to generate leads if it has a good blog
  • Consumers turn to blogs for advice and information to inform their purchase decision
  • Blogs generate inbound links to your website
  • 70% of consumers learn about a company through articles rather than ads

Need more information? Take a look at this great infographic from Infographic List on blogging statistics:

infographic

Source: Infographic List

If you would like to start a blog for your business, contact WSI OMS for more information on B2B blog development and training.

EcoCash: An innovative mobile payment solution for Zimbabweans

I am really enjoying our two-day Digital Marketing Strategies workshop with the Econet team in Harare. We are training at Pandhari Lodge, which is a good venue for a large team.

One of our exercises is to write a blog post and here is my assignment as an example of what can be written about Econet’s Mobile Payments solution that is called EcoCash.

EcoCash is an innovative mobile payment solution that enables Econet customers to complete simple financial transactions such as;

Sending money to family and friends
Buying prepaid airtime for themselves
Or other Econet subscribers

You can also pay for goods and services such as your groceries, utility bill, Kombi fares and salaries.

EcoCash addresses these problems

  • You don’t need to travel many kilometers to stand in a bank queue
  • You don’t have to worry about losing your money
  • You don’t need to worry about always having cash available
  • Don’t get cigarettes and sweets as your change

Benefits of EcoCash

  • Convenience as you don’t need to visit a bank
  • Save travel time
  • Your money is safe even if you lose the phone
  • Speed and reliability of the service no matter where you are

Top 3 questions on EcoCash

  1. How do I buy airtime using EcoCash?
  2. How do I check my EcoCash balance?
  3. How do I register for EcoCash?

To get the answers to these questions and more information on EcoCash, visit our agents or Econet shops to register.

Blogging for business

Blogging for business

Blogging for business

Here I am training a bright class of 7 students on using Digital Marketing for business. The challenge they gave me was to show an actual demonstration of how one goes about writing a blog post and then the process of spreading the word on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google Plus.

Hands on blogging

We all agreed to write a few paragraphs on using social media for their particular industry. In addition to writing the post, we are also going to write a few tweets, a LinkedIn status update, a Facebook and Google Plus update.Names of people and companies are withheld as this is only a training exercise and not for real.

Here are the posts:

Using social media in healthcare

Medical practitioners in Southern Africa are too busy with the physical patient and do not have time for social media. On the other hand the patients are now social media natives and would not mind a virtual relationship with their doctors. Here are 3 examples of how to use social media in the Healthcare Industry.

1)   Confirmation of appointments – Doctors/Hospitals can accept and schedule appointments directly with patients who now do not have to queue for service

2)   Patient follow-ups – Doctors can communicate directly with their patients as a follow up on the patient’s recovery progress and efficacy of the prescribe medicine.

3)   Virtual consultations – The doctors can receive patient’s biodata and vital signs and even have live face to face consultations with patients via skype. This then allows them to prescribe and treat the patient virtually. Physical space will not be a barrier.

Using social media for electricity usage education

One of the ways of educating the community is through the use of twitter, so her are some tweets we will send out.

Did you know you could cut your electricity costs by taking a shower instead of a bath?

Save electricity by installing energy saving bulbs instead of traditional globes.

If you need a cup of coffee, boil a cup of water, not a full kettle. Save electricity.

Leaving appliances in standby can still consume 50% of the electricity it would have used. Save electricity.

When cooking, use pots of similar size to your stove plates for effective use of electricity

Make sure your hot water taps don’t drip. Save electricity

Using social media in the film industry

Digital marketing in the film industry is already treading with social media through education exchange as part of the distribution platform that can be accessible to audiences.

In advancing the production of film making it is essential that we keep up with technological changes. More especially that Digital Terrestial Television (DTT) will be launched in South Africa. We should sustain relevance for the growth of GDP and Golden Economy

Using social media in manufacturing

Social media can be used to maintain relationships and credibility with key customers in our major markets. We would achieve this by setting up a LinkedIn account. The voice from LinkedIn should convey that we are a professional, helpful, honest and inspiring company whose primary purpose is to engage, educate, inform and enable customers to do business with us.

We will maintain ongoing communication with our customers by maintaining a bi-monthly blog update. We will provide feedback and share our views on our products and industry.

Some topics could include our production process, product applications and end product usage benefits. E.g. Why glass is better to use in food presentation over other packaging material such as tin cans etc.

We could also use weekly tweets to our customers to keep them updated on the industry and our products.

Using social media in telecommunications

Just by looking at students in this class indicates that traveling costs could have been saved by using Telepresence services. We have people from Botswana, Swaziland and Zimbabwe attending the training.

With Telepresence services, they could have just rented a public room which could have accommodated 6-10 people from their companies, and have one training session with the rest of the countries at the same time.

The lecturer would be able to project the presentation that all countries can view. The interaction would feel like we are all in the same room. Use Telepresence to save travel costs

Well that was a lot of fun and a lot of typing for me during lunch

Tell us what you think about using social media in your business?

How to promote your blog

How to promote your blog

The first step in content generation is always getting an idea, and then turning it into a piece of interesting writing. Blog post promotion is the next step.

How do you go about getting people to actually read your shining new and profound words? Here’s some of the best ways to go about it, read up on them right after your next blog post. Following through on all, or just some of these tips will get your message out there.

Steps to promote your blog:

  • Scan through your post and find the main topic. Take those words to Google Adwords and their free keyword selection tool. Use the terms given to you to optimize your title, this will pull people in by getting your post a higher ranking in search engines.
  • Have an RSS feed setup to push your content out to multiple platforms automatically. This will include many social media sites that can lead to more content generation from customers making comments.
  • Use a URL shortening service when posting to Twitter. Those few extra characters can help you make your point clear, and give your customers a little room to send a message if they Retweet your content.
  • Plan your strategy. Take the time to consider what updates you should send out on each platform you use. Customising the content for each can make a big difference in people’s interest being captured.
  • Include it in your newsletter. Add great content to your next newsletter by including it in your next newsletter. I first started doing this with my first client and our website traffic doubled on the first try. Not only that, but they also stayed to comment and engage with us.

Reach out to other bloggers, Collaborative promotion is great way to build links for your site, and for you personally. Why not go to others who are also seeking some blog post promotion? You will both benefit. Contact WSI OMS for help today.

 

The importance of a blogging policy for your business

The importance of a blogging policy for your business

In my experience, a blog marketing strategy can be one of the main points of your social media marketing campaign.  It adds a voice and emotion to your internet marketing strategy. Blogging is a powerful communication channel that you can use marketing purposes, but for larger companies, blogging can pose a serious risk to information security without the proper internal guidelines in place.

It is important that if you are using a blog as part of your internet marketing campaign to have a blogging policy that makes your employees aware of the risks and the things that cannot be discussed publicly on the company blog or on their own personal blogs. By not having a blogging policy in place allows your employees to cross the fine line even if they do not have the intention of publishing something in direct connection with your business.

What should you include a basic blogging policy?

Here’s a couple of points that you can include in the blogging policy for your business.

  • Unsolicited promotion of products or services.
  • Material that violates the privacy of our clients and employees.
  • Material that breaches the confidentiality of Onesys business information.
  • Profane, obscene, threatening, defamatory or slanderous language or imagery.
  • Material that infringes on intellectual property or publication rights.

 IBM Social Computing Guidelines

If you are still unsure of what you can add to your blogging policy, have a look at IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines. Find a short introduction below that they use.

Online collaboration platforms are fundamentally changing the way IBMers work and engage with each other, clients and partners.

IBM is increasingly exploring how online discourse through social computing can empower IBMers as global professionals, innovators and citizens. These individual interactions represent a new model: not mass communications, but masses of communicators. Through these interactions, IBM’s greatest asset–the expertise of its employees–can be shared with clients, shareholders, and the communities in which it operates.

Why don’t you have a blog?

Why don’t you have a blog?

If you are a small business owner you most likely have a lot to do already. Why do you want to add another thing to make your day more busier? Would you be interested if I told you that by adding a blog to your business you can make your business many times more successful than it already is and you only have to spend a couple of minutes every day to get that return. Would you then be interested?

Dedicating a couple of minutes on a daily basis to your blog can definitely help you business grow faster than any other type of marketing online. Here’s a couple of reasons I believe why you should add a blog to your marketing arsenal.

Why blogging is powerful for business marketing

Business personality: When you write a new blog post for your business, it automatically comes with your personality. There really is no other marketing or business asset that are more powerful than your own personality.

Helps your SEO efforts: Blogging is an essential SEO tool that can help you increase your valuable organic search engine rankings on Google. Every new blog post that you publish is seen as a new page by the search engines and has the potential to rank for your keywords.

Blogging builds trust: People really want to do business with people that they know and that they trust. When you publish a new blog post, it’s an opportunity to build some credibility around your name and be labelled as the expert in your niche. This builds trust for the target audience you are reaching.

Now is the time to consider starting a blog for your business. In my experience there are no other tool that is effective to help get the word out about your business, to build credibility, and trust.