local online marketing tips for south african businesses

Local Online Marketing Tips for South African Businesses By Pucka Marketing Solutions

of 45 Badisheng Isaac Morena, Cell No: 0767859821, Follow us on Facebook & Twitter (@BadishengMorena) © 2011

Local Online Marketing Tips for

South African Businesses

BY



Local Online Marketing Tips for South African Businesses Copyright © 2011 Pucka Marketing Solutions CC

Notice of Rights All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced, modified or sold to anyone. The recipient of these eBook may distribute it electronically or print it and distribute it that way. You may use it in any other way that is not prohibited above.

Notice of Liability

The author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the

information herein. However, the information contained in this book is given without

warranty, either expressed or implied. The author will not be held liable for any

damages caused either directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this eBook.

Other Notices

Any recipient of this eBook can contact me for more information. You may also contact

me to get a description of the services Pucka Marketing Solutions offers and get a

quotation. For more information you can go to Pucka Marketing Solutions’ Facebook

Fan Page. You can also send me a private email via Facebook. You can connect with

me on LinkedIn and follow me on Twitter.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pucka-Marketing-Solutions/153779434679322?sk=app_4949752878



Table of Contents

(Click on the headings and go straight to the section of interest)

1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 4

2. ONLINE MARKETING ............................................................................................. 5

3.1. BUSINESS WEBSITE .............................................................................................. 6

3.2. GOOGLE PLACES .................................................................................................. 7

3.3. FACEBOOK PLACES ............................................................................................ 10

3.4. ONLINE BUSINESS DIRECTORIES .......................................................................... 11

3.5. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.................................................................................. 12

3.6. SEM AND SEO .................................................................................................. 27

3.7. DIGITAL INFORMATION PRODUCTS........................................................................ 34

3.8. SOFTWARE ........................................................................................................ 35

3. MOBILE MARKETING ........................................................................................... 35

3.1. VODACOM MOBILE MEDIA ................................................................................... 36

3.2. MXIT .................................................................................................................. 37

3.3. ADMOB BY GOOGLE ........................................................................................... 39

4. CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................... 41

(Click on the links below to check the sources used for this eBook)



1. Introduction

The purpose of this eBook is to provide useful and concise online marketing tips for

business people. I will do this by showing you the different ways to increase the visibility

of your business online. I will also discuss an exciting new type of media which has

taken South Africa by storm and show you ways to use it in your marketing process.

Now look at the two terms that epitomise what I will be discussing in this eBook. I also

hope they help you understand why it is important to adopt new marketing strategies.

According to wordnetweb.princeton.edu the Information Age is “a period beginning in the

last quarter of the 20th century when information became easily accessible through

publications and through the manipulation of information by computers and computer

networks”.

According to Wikipedia.org New Media “is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the later part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content anytime, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content. Another important promise of New Media is the "democratization" of the creation, publishing, distribution and consumption of media content. What distinguishes new media from traditional media is the digitizing of content into bits”.

The information age has long been upon us. The reason we have to take notice now is

that most of our customers are using new media platforms to interact with each other

and other brands. The customers we want to interact with are using mobile phones,

laptops, other mobile devices and desktop computers. Today’s people are looking for

easier ways to find and verify information.

Business people thus have to adapt to the change in behaviour of their current and

future customers. The business community needs to know where its target market is

spending its time and engage them. New Media platforms collect a lot of information

about their users and they can assist business people to reach their target audience.

This eBook will cover the whole scope of online marketing and mobile marketing

platforms and methods. I will help you understand the different platforms and which

ones are worth pursuing depending on your specific target market. I will give you

enough information to take the first step in engaging your customers on these platforms.

My hope is that you will see how important online marketing and mobile marketing are

and seek the help of marketing experts like Pucka Marketing Solutions.

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=information%20age

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media



2. Online Marketing

The online community is the largest community that can be accessed without leaving

your home or office. This fact is the reason the World Wide Web is the place to be for

any size business. If that does not convince you, the fact that your direct competitor is

using this platform must. If you are using the net and you are not sure if you are using it

the right way read the tips below. The tips I have for you should also help you get a

professional and be able to gauge if they know their story.

Figure 1: Top African Internet Users. (Source: internetworldstats.com)

As you can see in figure 1 the number of people that are accessing the internet via

laptops and desktop computers is 6.8 million. The market is substantial and it requires

that you give it the attention it deserves and do it properly. If done properly online

marketing can increase your brand popularity.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm



3.1. Business Website

A business website is a digital storefront where you can show information about your business to your target market. According to Wikipedia.org “a website (also written Web site or simply site) is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address also called URL”. The benefit of a website is that it can be found by billions of internet users worldwide.

More importantly a website is a platform on which you can engage your customers in

the comfort of their own homes, office or any other place they choose to surf the net.

The other benefit of a website is that you can include links to other online platforms

where you want your clients to interact with you.

Figure 2: Example of a website (source: http://www.garyromhairdressing.co.za/new/home.html )

As shown in figure 2, a website can have picture links to Facebook and Twitter. A

website can also have links to LinkedIn, YouTube and any other place you want to

interact with your customers. Later on in this book I will be speaking about other types

of websites where you can find and interact with your customers.

The key characteristics of a good website are as follows:

Purpose: The purpose of a website must be clear to a visitor within 15 seconds

or else a visitor will leave your site. A visitor must get the impression that your

site has what they want in order for that person to stay on the site for a longer

period. Look at figure 2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_server

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_area_network

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL

http://www.garyromhairdressing.co.za/new/home.html



Theme: A website must follow the same theme as the business establishment.

This is important so as not to send your customers conflicting messages about

what your business is all about.

Looks and Style: A website must be aesthetically pleasing because you have

about 15 seconds to make an impression on a visitor to your site. If a site does

not look good, people doubt if they want to deal with the owner of that site.

Functionality: A website must be easy to navigate. The user experience is

enhanced and visitors then stay longer on your site.

Clear Call to Action: A website must also have a clear call to action for a visitor.

This is so that a visitor who knows what they want can take action quickly and

the one who still needs to read on can do so with the knowledge of what you

expect them to do. For example you can include “follow XXX” links as in figure 2,

“contact us” links, “order now” links, “place an order” links, etc. In figure 1the site

owners have decided that in order for their business to succeed they must

engage their customers on twitter and Facebook.

Optimized: A website must also be optimized so that people may find you using

search engines (i.e. Search Engine Optimization). Your site should be optimized

so that people may know on what social media websites they can find you and so

that they can share your site with people they know (i.e. Social Media

Optimization).

A website is a critical part of a business establishment and if you market it properly it

has the potential to increase your customers quite dramatically. It is also important to

take time refining your business identity and make sure it shows on your website.

Remember that your website is your online brand ambassador and your message

needs to be consistent to be effective.

3.2. Google Places

Google Places is a great place to list your business as it offers you the opportunity to

show up on the first page of Google results for your service in your town or next to it.

Google Places is an online business directory like the online yellow pages. According to

Google.com, their search technology (algorithm) decides the order in which businesses

in their database are listed in accordance with the relevance to the keyword and the

location in which the required business is.

According to MarketingTitan.com, “Keywords are defined as the exact phrases used by

prospects to search for something.”

http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=7091

http://www.marketingtitan.com/a_definition_of_keywords



Figure 3: Google Results Page for the Keyword “Salon in Pretoria” on the 14/06/2011.

When Google Places first came out they used to show only seven business listings and

a map at the top of the search results (see Figure 3).

Figure 4: Google Results Page for the Keyword “SEO Company” on the 14/06/2011.



Now you also get mixed results (see figure 4). According to a report by

publicdomaindetective.com, websites that are performing well in organic results and

Google Places listings for a specific keyword also performed well in the mixed results

page as seen in figure 4. This source also states that well performing Google places

listings have the effect of pulling up a site’s organic ranking. This means that if a site

appears very high on Google Places and very low on organic results it will appear

higher in the mixed results. I will make this report available to you on my Facebook

page, you can go through it get an in depth understanding of Google Places.

Google is showing increasingly local results because it wants to provide the most useful

results for the person searching for a service or business type in a specific area. You

get the results shown in figure 3 and figure 4 by doing two of the following things. Firstly

when you search for a service or a type of business and you do not specify the location

of the service or business, Google will use your assumed location which you can see on

the left-hand-side of the results. Google thus gives you a list of businesses next to the

stated location. This location can be changed to give Google a more accurate position.

The second way is that you can include a specific location when searching for a service

or business type, for example “hair salon Witbank”. The second way has a better

chance of giving you the desired results, location and all.

In order to increase your chances of appearing in the first page of Google’s results for a

query of your business type or service you need to do the following:

You firstly need to register your business with Google Places. It is important to fill

in all the details that are required in the form. It will be very beneficial for you if

you upload pictures and videos as well.

Claim your listing. You can do this by choosing to receive a verification code by

SMS. I found that this is by far the fastest way to claim your listing.

Put your contact details on your website on every webpage. This contact details

on your webpages must be the same as the contact details on Google Places.

This so Google can verify your contact details.

You also need to list your businesses with other online business directories. The

experts say that the more listings the better. It is critical that you list with Yellow

pages because Google trusts it and a listing with the yellow pages will get you a

higher listing on Google Places.

You also need to ensure that you get reviews and ratings.

There are reports that give you more detail than is shown above and if you want them

you can contact me through Facebook and I will send them to you. The information

above is meant to give you an idea of what Google places is all about.



http://www.yellowpages.co.za/




3.3. Facebook Places

Facebook places is a mobile phone application that enables Facebook users to alert

their fans about where they are. This is good advertisement for your business because

the status report appears in the wall (small area where people write what they are doing

currently or any other thing they want to write.) and all their friends have an opportunity

to see your business. Facebook is running Face Places in South Africa now, but it is

only available to iPhone users. According to Doug Gross, Facebook will release

Facebook Places applications for Blackberry and the Android system soon.

Figure 5: iPhone Facebook Places Application Screenshot

In order to make sure that your business is on Facebook Places, you need to use the

iPhone mobile phone. The iPhone that you use must have the most recent version of

the Facebook application, which will have the Facebook Places Feature. According to

Nick O’Neill you need to follow the following steps to get listed:

Create your listing by clicking on “Add” and filling in the required information.

You need to do this in the actual business premises since Facebook Places

uses GPS to verify the position of your mobile phone.

You then need to claim your business. To do this you need to log into

Facebook and search for your business listing and click on the “Is this your

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08-19/tech/facebook.places.explain_1_facebook-places-gowalla-mobile-apps-facebook-app?_s=PM:TECH

http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-places-business-2010-08



business?” link (see figure 5). You will then receive a verification code, which

you must use to complete the verification process.

The last step is to merge your Facebook Places listing with your Facebook

Fan page.

When you are done you then let Facebook users spread the word about your

establishment. Ensure that you are always at the top of your game because this

application allows users to comment on the service quality.

3.4. Online Business Directories

Online Business Directories are like the yellow pages in your local telephone directory.

The things that make them different to the traditional yellow pages also make them

better. Online directories are better because they allow the business owner to show

more critical information like a map, pictures, videos, services and a short description of

your business.

As a business person you need to view these listings in two ways. The first way is to

look at the listing as a listing that is meant to be seen by users of that particular

directory. Good business directories have thousands of people visiting them and

searching for businesses daily. The second way to look at your listing is as a form of

verification for Google. Google has special programs that will find your listing and if the

contact information (Physical address, phone number, fax number, etc) is the same,

Google will thus give your Google Places listing more preference.

Below I have listed the web addresses and the PageRank of the most popular online

Business directories. As far as I am concerned it is an absolute must that you have a

presence on these websites. Your presence will go a long way in increasing the

credibility of your business online as well as making it much easier to find through

search engines.

According to Wikipedia.org “PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page and used by the Google Internet search engine, that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is referred to as the PageRank of E and denoted by PR (E).”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_page_rank



Table 1: Online Business Directory List

Online Business Directory Google PageRank (max =10)

www.yellowpages.co.za 6

www.easyinfo.co.za 5

www.infohub.co.za 5

www.mbendi.co.za 5

www.ezsearch.co.za 5

www.hotfrog.co.za 5

www.firstier.co.za 4

www.cylex.co.za 3

www.tuugo.co.za 3

I gave you this list of directories so that you can get started today and increase your

online presence. It is tedious but you only need to do it once and reap the rewards for

as long as you stay in business.

3.5. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing (SMM) is the use of social media

sites to promote products and brands, to advertise, to

engage and communicate with customers and other

related activities that must be in line with the company’s

marketing strategy. Social Media Optimisation differs

from SMM in that SMO is the effective use of social

networks, see definition below.

Here is a really good explanation of SMO by hudsonhorizon.com:

“Social media optimization (a.k.a. SMO) is the process of optimizing your company's

social role on the web in order to increase business, boost sales, and enhance visibility,

traffic, and overall web presence.

SMO differs from SEO in that the underlying goal of SMO is to generate company awareness from channels other than search engines. SMO seeks to generate company success by stimulating a social buzz about your website through a variety of social media tools, services and platforms. Some of the most popular methods of SMO include content distribution through blogs, vlogs, social networks, RSS feeds, and third-party applications or widgets.”

In light of the above stated definitions of SMM and SMO, companies need to know their

target market and how best to engage that target market in order to increase revenue. I

Figure 6: The Biggest Social Media Networks


http://www.easyinfo.co.za/

http://www.infohub.co.za/

http://www.mbendi.co.za/

http://www.ezsearch.co.za/

http://www.hotfrog.co.za/

http://www.firstier.co.za/

http://www.cylex.co.za/

http://www.tuugo.co.za/

http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/Our-Company/Internet-Glossary/Social-Media-Optimization.htm

http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/Our-Company/Internet-Glossary/Traffic.htm

http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/Our-Company/Internet-Glossary/SearchEngineOptimization.htm

http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/Our-Company/Internet-Glossary/Website.htm

http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/Our-Company/Internet-Glossary/BlogWeblog.htm

http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/Our-Company/Internet-Glossary/Vlog.htm

http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/Our-Company/Internet-Glossary/SocialNetworking.htm

http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/Our-Company/Internet-Glossary/RSS.htm

http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/Our-Company/Internet-Glossary/Application-Programming-Interface.htm



will now explain the social media landscape by listing and discussing the biggest social

networks. The aim is to help you decide which social media strategy you need to adopt.

Facebook

According to Facebook.com, Facebook has more than 500 million active users

worldwide, 50% of which log on to Facebook in a given day. The average user has 130

friends. There are more than 900 million objects that people interact with i.e. pages,

groups, events and community pages. The average user is connected to 80 community

pages, groups and events and creates 90 pieces of content each month.

According to InternetWorldStats.com, South Africa has 3.8 million Facebook users with

a penetration rate of 7.8%. This source also states that there are 6.8 million internet

users, which is 13.9% of the population.

Now here are the demographics of South African Facebook users that you can use as a

starting point to see if your target market is on Facebook. You can also see how much

time you want to invest in Facebook if any. Figure 7 below shows the total number of

male and female users.

Figure 7: Male and Female Facebook Users in South Africa (Source: socialmedialogue.com)

Figure 8 below shows the age breakdown of Facebook users.

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm

http://www.socialmedialogue.com/facebook-statistics-south-africa-4-million-users-in-april-2011/576/



Figure 8: Demographics of Facebook Users in South Africa (Source: socialmedialogue.com)

Now we can look at the age breakdown of by percentages of South African Facebook

users (see figure 9).

Figure 9: South African Users by Age (%) (Source: socialmedialogue.com)





Now that you know who is on Facebook I think it is time to go through what you can do

on Facebook. The following points show what can be done on Facebook.

You can create an account after which you need to create a profile where you will

disclose your personal details, work experience, interests, hobbies and

educational history. Facebook then uses the information about the schools you

attended and companies you previously worked for or are working for to suggest

people you may know. You can then send them a friend request and the receiver

of the request has to confirm that they want to be your friend. This is how you get

friends on Facebook.

You can also create Fan Pages (see figure 10) and Groups. Fan Pages are used

normally for brands, societies, celebrities, products, companies, etc. While

Groups are used mainly for causes and campaigns. Fan Pages also appear in

Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

You can also send private emails through Facebook and you can chat to them if

they are on Facebook at the same time as you.

Facebook has a paid advertising option where you pay for clicks or impressions.

The advert consists of a picture and some text. You can target your audience by

age, race, gender, education level and interests.

Figure 9: Screenshot of Pucka Marketing Solutions Fan Page




Companies use Facebook to interact with their customers so the customers can have a

closer relationship with the company and thus have greater brand loyalty. Facebook is

primarily a Business to Customer (B2C) marketing platform.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business networking site. Its members are comprised of business owners,

company executives and other professionals in various industries. LinkedIn has more

than 100 million members worldwide and more than 1 million members in South Africa

and More than 3 million in Africa. This is a very good platform to connect with people

you might be interested in and advertise to your target market.

I found a great presentation by Amodiovalerio Verde, which provided great insight into

the users of LinkedIn. I think it will be wise for me to take you through parts of this

presentation that I think you would like to know about.

Figure 11: LinkedIn’s Worldwide Demographics. (Source: Amodiovalerio Verde)

http://www.slideshare.net/amover/linked-in-demographics-and-statistics-2011




Figure 12: Key Facts about LinkedIn. (Source: Amodiovalerio Verde)

Figure 13: Pie Chart of Distribution of LinkedIn Members. (Source: Amodiovalerio Verde)





Figure 14: LinkedIn’s Members Demographic by Area. (Source: Amodiovalerio Verde)

The information I have given should give you an idea about who is on LinkedIn and

whether it would be beneficial for you and your business or profession. In business

networking plays an important role in the growth of the individual because of what you

stand to learn from other people. LinkedIn also allows you to make key contacts that will

be vital in growing your business. Depending on the kind of business you run you can

use Linked as a platform to network with professionals in the same industry as you or

use it as a platform to attract customers or both.

It is important to state that LinkedIn should not replace traditional methods of

networking. Linked should instead augment the networking strategy you have now and

increase the pool of people you can network with. The result of employing this strategy

has the potential of helping you improve yourself and the performance of your business

much faster.

Now let us look at LinkedIn and what a few of the critical features look like. Figure 15

shows the LinkedIn’s home page of my account. You can click on the links on the

navigation bar to check the other features they offer.




Figure 15: Snapshot of My LinkedIn Home Page.

Figure 16: Snapshot of a Group on LinkedIn.



Figure 16 is a snapshot of a group on LinkedIn. A group is a forum where LinkedIn

members join and share advice, opinions and content. You have the choice of joining

existing groups or starting your own group. This is a good way to increase your

reputation in the industry you are working in and learn as well.

You can also pay to have your ad shown to your target market. LinkedIn Ads allows you

to target your audience by Geography, Gender, Job Title, Job Function, Industry,

Company Size, Seniority, Age and LinkedIn Group. The figure below shows where your

ads will show up on the Home page. You can choose from Text ads (1) and Picture and

Text ads (2).

Figure 17: Snapshot of a LinkedIn Account Showing Where Paid Ads Appear. (Source: LinkedIn Ads FAQ)

Finally, In order to get started in LinkedIn you need to get registered and create a

profile. In this profile you need to disclose your personal details, work experience

details, education details, interests, hobbies, etc. LinkedIn then finds people you may

know using the company name, school you attended and people you are already

connected to. You can also join or create a group. You can also search for people by

name and invite them to be your connection. They have to confirm that they want to be

your connection. LinkedIn is primarily a Business to Business (B2B) marketing Platform.

http://partner.linkedin.com/ads/faqs/?utm_source=li&utm_medium=el&utm_campaign=gate-c



Twitter

Twitter has more than 106 million users worldwide. Twitter also has 55000 active user in

South Africa (see figure 19), meaning that only 55000 users post at least once a day on

Twitter. According to Author Goldstuck, South Africa has about 1 million Twitter

members. This might be true since according to Alexa.com, Twitter.com is the 7th most

popular website in South Africa, which is better than Gumtree (9th), News24 (10th),

LinkedIn (11th), Bid or Buy (12th), Standard Bank (13th) and FNB (14th). I believe that the

rest of the Twitter members in South Africa are just followers of brands and other people

of influence. Figures 18 and 19 have really useful facts about Twitter world users and

South African users.

Figure 18: Twitter Demographics from 2010. (Source: bandwidthblog.com)

http://www.quora.com/Twitter-1/How-many-users-does-Twitter-have-in-South-Africa

http://www.manywebsite.com/top-15-most-popular-south-africa-websites-may-2011/

http://www.bandwidthblog.com/2011/01/10/infographic-facebook-vs-twitter-social-demographics/



Figure 19: Interesting Facts about South African Twitter Users. (Source: PracticalMarketing.co.za)

Here are some more great facts that I took from PracticalMarketing.co.za. “Other interesting statistics include:

SA mostly tweets at night, between 7 and 8 pm. Many also tweet first thing in the morning, and over lunch.

A surprising find is that SA tweets more on Tuesday than any other day of the week. The least popular day to tweet is Sunday.

The bulk of SA Twitter users are located in Cape Town, which has almost a third of all users. Tweeting is still confined to the few developed cities, with Cape Town and Johannesburg taking a vast lead. Pretoria, while being a large city, does not take much interest in Twitter.

The most popular companies that users talk about on Twitter are Vodacom, Eskom and Microsoft. Sentiment analysis of these tweets has indicated that many of them are negative.”

After all those facts and figures I think it is time for me to tell how Twitter works and how

best you can use it to benefit your business.

http://blog.practicalmarketing.co.za/857/interesting-south-african-twitter-facts/

http://blog.practicalmarketing.co.za/857/interesting-south-african-twitter-facts/



Twitter is a social network that allows you to have other twitter users follow you and

receive all sorts of information and content from you. Unlike Facebook and LinkedIn

Groups you are the only one who can post on your message board and whatever you

post is seen by users who follow you. You on the other hand receive messages and

other forms of content from users you follow. When people decide to follow you there is

no action required from you.

As a business owner you want an audience to whom you can make announcements to,

who will receive your announcement immediately and save you thousands in

advertising costs. This is the ideal situation and it takes time to get to that point but it is

possible. Remember from figure 18 it is said that 25% of all users follow a brand and

67% of those people actually buy from the brands they follow on Twitter.

Figure 20: Coca Cola’s Twitter Home Page

As you can see Coca Cola has done really well in using this platform. They have more

than 300 000 followers, that means if they put up an update more than 300 000 people

may see it and that is how powerful Twitter is. I must state that as an old company they

still rely a lot on traditional media to keep their brand in people’s eyes. They therefore

do not use Twitter as effectively as Barack Obama (see figure 21) who has 8.6 million

followers and according to twitaholic.com, Lady Gaga (10.9 million followers) and Justin

Bieber (10.4 million followers) are the only people that have more followers.

http://twitaholic.com/



Figure 21: Barack Obama’s Twitter Account

Business people need to take notice of the massive potential that lies in this platform.

The fact is people are hungry for information and they will get it where they can get it.

So I believe that business people need to take a leaf out of Coca Cola’s and Barak

Obama’s book and start building a community of loyal followers on twitter. You can use

this platform to tell your customers your side of the story, set the record straight, give

them advice, etc. The key is information about you or your company will be coming from

you. People will then trust you and prefer to deal with you.

There are many ways you can use to increase the number of followers on Twitter. The

easiest way is include a link on your website if you have one or you can include a

picture of the twitter logo and a “follow us” call to action on any traditional advertising

method you use. If it is a radio advert, consider the viability of having the person

speaking on the ad asking the listeners to check you out on Twitter at the end of the ad.

You can get started by signing up to Twitter and start looking for people to follow to get

you started. You can also fill in the details on your profile and Twitter will suggest people

you may be interested in following. Twitter also suggests account to other Twitter users.

Twitter allows you write messages in the message board with the restriction of 140

characters per message or update. You can also upload pictures and videos. You can



also link your company’s Facebook Fan Page to your Twitter account so that when you

update your Facebook Fans your Twitter followers get updated as well.

YouTube

YouTube is a social network where users can view, upload and share videos. These are

videos that are made by YouTube users. You can upload a professionally made video

or an amateur video made using a camera phone. According to Alexa.com, YouTube is

the 4th most popular website in South Africa. The power in YouTube is in the stats

shown in figure 22 and coverage as shown in figure 23.

Figure 23: Key Statistics about YouTube. (Source: Viralblog.com)

YouTube is unique in that unlike LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, the video you upload

can be found and seen by anyone in the world. Anyone can take your video and add it

to their blog and share it with their friends on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. There

are literally thousands of social networks, including blogs and forums that people can

share your video in. So the potential of your video becoming a world hit is greatly

improved and your brand can get a tremendous boost. So it is worth trying.

http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/ZA

http://www.viralblog.com/research-whitepapers/youtube-statistics/



Figure 24: YouTube’s Coverage. (Source: Viralblog.com)

YouTube also gives you the ability to create a channel. This is like a group because

users can subscribe to your channel. In this channel you can create a unique design

and people can also see all the videos you have ever uploaded in that channel. This

allows you to develop a loyal following, which you know for sure will view your video if

you post it today and they will tell you if it is good or bad.

YouTube also allows users to promote their video on YouTube at a fee. They use the

same system as online classifieds where you pay to have your listing or video in this

case show up at the top of the page for your selected keywords or category.

Social Media Marketing Conclusion

The fact there are many more social networks you can go on and promote your brand.

The question is that will be worth your time, I believe not, especially if you are just

starting out is social media marketing. The four networks I explained to you are a very

good starting point and they offer you a wide enough market to find your target market

http://www.viralblog.com/research-whitepapers/youtube-statistics/



on them. The thing to remember about social media users is that they enjoy fun,

interesting and useful content. If you consistently provide good content on any of the

four sites people will trust you and you will always have their attention. Social media

users are not very patient nor are they tolerant. If you do not provide them with good

content you will lose their attention, and they might stop visiting your page. That is what

makes social media tricky in that it requires you to allocate time to update your fans and

followers.

3.6. SEM and SEO

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) are forms of

marketing that promote websites on search engines. The reason SEM and SEO are

important is that all the internet users need to use a search engine to navigate the vast

World Wide Web. SEO and SEM play an important role in making websites more visible

to search engine users. There are two ways that a promoted website appears on a

search engine results page (SERP) (see figure 25).

Figure 25: Screenshot of SERP for the keyword “Dentist”.

Figure 25 shows two ways a website is displayed in SERPs. The position denoted by

the number 1 is a position occupied by websites which are promoted by using SEM,

which is the paid promotion option. The position denoted by the number 2 is a position

occupied by websites which are promoted by using SEO, which is the free promotion

option. The difference between SEM and SEO is not a hard and fast rule. It is just the

way internet marketers choose to define the two terms to make life easier.

1

2



On that enlightening note, when you hear someone explaining any other way do not

worry as long as they perform all the tasks that comprise of SEM and SEO. For the

sake of this eBook I will stick to the definitions as stated above. I will start by explaining

SEM and then SEO.

Search Engine Marketing

This form of marketing is the paid form of search marketing where you can use the paid

marketing options offered by search engines. The most popular search engine paid

advertising platform is Google Adwords. Keywords are put up for auction and Google

users bid for keywords they are interested in and the highest bidder will get the highest

position on the SERPs. Every keyword has a suggested bid price and the more popular

the keyword the higher the suggested bid price. The other positions are filled by users

who offered lower bids. The bidding price is stated in US$ as cost per click, so you are

actually paying for clicks. Google does however reward websites that get a high Click-

Through-Rate (CTR) by reducing the cost per click of your listing for the same position.

Yahoo uses a much more simple paid advertising system. In Yahoo’s case the highest

bidder gets the highest position for a specific keyword. In Yahoo’s system CTR is not

considered as a factor to improve your position on the SERP.

For this reason Google Adwords is preferred by small business owners because they

can get their cost per click reduced if they get high levels of traffic on their site.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimisation is the use of free methods to optimise websites so that the

websites can get a high rating from the search engine and appear high in SERPs for

specific keywords. This is because search engines have rules that they follow to give

one website a better rating than other websites for the same keyword. This rating

determines which websites appear first, second, third, etc. The aim of a SEO campaign

is to get your website to the first page of SERPs and to the top for keywords that will

help your site receive a lot of visitors.

In this eBook I will be discussing SEO for Google. The reason is that Google is the most

widely used search engine in South Africa (see figure 26). The other reason is that SEO

for Google is very different to SEO for Yahoo. A Yahoo optimised website is considered

“spammy” by Google but a Google optimised website is still good enough to make it into

the Yahoo directory. So, best practice suggests that you optimise for Google first and



then get your website listed and indexed in other directories and search engines of

interest. For the reasons stated above, I will only be dealing with SEO for Google.

Figure 26: Snapshot of the most popular websites in South Africa. (Source: Alexa.com.)

Let us first look at the demographics as provided by Alexa.com (see figure 27). The first

thing you will notice is that relative to “the general internet population” the users in the

age range (35-44) are “over-represented” at google.co.za. You also notice that users in

the age range (18-24) very “under-represented”. This information is interesting when

you consider the user demographics for Facebook (see figure 9): 33% (18-24yrs), 31%

(25-34yrs) and 14% (35-44%). Now that we know who uses Google SA the most I can

now show you how to increase your chances of being seen by these users.





Figure 27: Snapshot of Audience Demographics from Alexa.com.

SEO for Google is divided in to on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation. On-

page optimisation is the optimisation tasks that need to be performed on every page of

your website. Off-page optimisation is the optimisation tasks that take place off the page

and website. The ultimate reason for performing SEO tasks is to increase visitor traffic

(or just “traffic”) to your web page and website. It is important to remember that anyone

can do SEO and SEM. The only issue might be whether or not you have the time to

learn, apply and keep applying SEO and SEM. SEO and SEM campaigns are not set

and forget campaigns because they need to be monitored to see if they are effective.

How Google Works

Before we get into on-page SEO and off-page SEO let firstly look at how Google works.

I found a great Google guide that can help you understand Google. I suggest you go

through it if you want in-depth knowledge about Google. I am only going to give you a

very simplified explanation about how Google works. According to Googleguide.com,

Google has three types of computers which are:

“Googlebot, which is a web crawler (or spider) that finds and fetches web pages.

The indexer, which sorts every word on every page and stores the resulting index of words in a huge database.

The query processor, which compares your search query to the index and recommends the documents that it considers most relevant.”

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/google.co.za

http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.html



The Googlebot is a computer that automatically requests web pages like a person using

a web browser would. The retrieved page then gets crawled by a special program

(spider or crawler) that has been designed to send specific information to the indexer.

The data that gets sent to the indexer is in code form. The crawler does not like crawling

JavaScript and Flash code because they take up too much space. Thus websites which

use HTML perform better than those that use Flash or JavaScript.

The indexer then stores all the pages it received in alphabetical order of search queries

in a huge database. As seen in figure 28, when you make a query it the responsibility of

the indexer to suggest the most relevant results to show in the SERP. The indexer uses

a system called PageRank, which is named after Google’s co-founder Larry Page.

PageRank is the rating system I mentioned above, where the indexer rates a certain

webpage from 0 (min) to 10 (max). The webpage with the higher pagerank for a

particular keyword will be listed above a webpage with a lower pagerank.

There are a lot of factors that go into determining the pagerank of a website with respect

to a particular key word. I will go through some of the main and well known factors

below.

Figure 28: A Schematic that Shows What Happens When You Enter a Search Query.

(Source: Googleguide.com.)

http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.html



On-Page SEO

The first thing to optimise is content. You need to make sure that your most important

keywords appear at the top of the webpage in the H1 tag. You then need to make sure

that the keyword density for that keyword is 1-3% of the number of words in the page

contents. You also need to use synonyms of your most important keywords as this will

help keep you within the required keyword density and it will increase the relevancy of

your page to that specific keyword. You should type a couple of your keywords in bold

to make the spider take notice of them.

The next thing is to make sure that the Googlebot crawls all the pages you want Google

to index. Assuming the Googlebot found its way to your homepage first, you should

ensure that all the links to the pages you want the spider to crawl are on the homepage.

The best way to ensure that your pages are indexed is to make your links “text links” in

HTML code.

Another way to link to other pages on your website is to have text links in your content.

Make sure that the word you are using to link to that page is a keyword for that page so

that Google does not penalise that page and thus lower its page rank. One of the

factors in the PageRank algorithm is link quality. This means that the word by which you

link to the webpage must be one of the keywords for which that page has been

optimised or a synonym of that word.

The last issue is that Google likes fresh content so if you have a static website it is a

good idea to change the content once a month or so. If you have a blog this will not be a

problem as long as you post at least twice a month.

Off-Page Optimisation

This type of optimisation involves increasing the link popularity of your webpages. Link

popularity refers to the number of websites that link back to your webpages (backlinks).

This is where the concept of link quality comes back again. You need to ensure that like

the on-page links discussed above the links on other websites follow the same rule.

The most effective ways to increase link popularity are as follows:

Article Marketing- This includes the writing of article (350 to 600 words long) and submitting them to article directories. You must optimise these articles the same way you optimise the content in your webpage. You must remember to link back to a relevant page on your website. Here are the top 10 article directories According to makemoneyonlinegeeks.com:

http://makemoneyonlinegeeks.com/article-marketing/make-money-online-with-article-marketing



o Ezinearticles o Goarticles.com o ArticlesBase o ArticleDashboard o SearchWarp o Buzzle o Suite101 o ISnare o Article City o Article Alley

Blogging- This refers to writing blog posts for someone in your niche and you

can link back to your webpage in the “About the Author” section at the bottom of

the blog post. You can also leave comments on other people’s blogs and include

a link to your website. These comments can be deleted so make several

comments and create a relationship with the blogger and then add your link when

it makes sense to do so. You can also buy advertising space on popular blogs.

Press Releases- You should submit press releases to online news sites by

means of press release submission websites. You will include a link to your site

in the information box at the bottom of the press release. You can start with free

press release websites such as: www.prlog.org, www.free-press-release.com

and www.pr.com (source: newsbrief.co.za). According to cyberzoo.co.za, the

best paid press release websites are www.marketwire.com and

www.pitchengine.com.

Online Directories- You can list your website in high pagerank directories.

According to cyberzoo.co.za, the directories you should get your site listed in are

www.dmoz.com, www.yahoo.com and www.botw.com. Google trust DMOZ (the

open directory) because they own it and they trust Yahoo because it is a world

class directory with a good track record for accurate listing.

Writing in Wikipedia- Wikipedia is the largest open source encyclopaedia on the

net. That means the content is written and checked by anyone who wants to. It is

important to write your article as an impartial observer or else the other users will

notice it and report it or edit it themselves. You can add your link only as a

reference to the source. Go to www.wikipedia.org.

Forums- You can also get involved in industry related forums. Forums are part of

social media it is just that they are so many I could not profile any one forum.

When you find that one forum that you can get involved in, start by just watching

what is being said before you get involved. Then post a couple more times before

inserting your link. When you do post your link make sure it is a genuinely helpful

statement, preferably when you answer a question.

Answer Questions- Go to www.answers.yahoo.com, www.answers.com and

www.wiki.answers.com. These three sites are very respected by Google and

http://www.ezinearticles.com/

http://www.goarticles.com/

http://www.articlesbase.com/

http://www.articledashboard.com/

http://www.searchwarp.com/

http://www.buzzle.com/

http://www.suite101.com/

http://www.isnare.com/

http://www.articlecity.com/

http://www.articlealley.com/

http://www.prlog.org/

http://www.free-press-release.com/

http://www.pr.com/

http://newsbrief.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74:the-best-free-press-release-services&catid=35:demo-category&Itemid=95

http://www.cyberzoo.co.za/?p=438

http://www.marketwire.com/

http://www.pitchengine.com/

http://www.cyberzoo.co.za/?p=438

http://www.botw.com/

http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.answers.yahoo.com/

http://www.answers.com/

http://www.wiki.answers.com/



Yahoo because the answers given are answers to real questions, so they can

show up in the first page of SERPs. Follow the same tactics as in forums and

blogs because people do not appreciate blatant advertising.

These are the most effective methods in use right now and it will be in your best interest

if you are serious about SEO to follow the above advice. You need to remember that

Google prefers local results, so in order to show Google that you are an authority in

your local area you need backlinks from local sites. It might be difficult but it is

necessary.

3.7. Digital Information Products

Digital information products can take the form of eBooks, audio-books and video-books.

The purpose of digital information products is to increase your reputation as an expert in

the particular field you are in. These products follow the trend that social media set in

that you are sharing useful information and you are not blatantly advertising yourself or

your brand.

The thing is if people appreciate the content you create they will market it for you by

sharing it with people they think might need it and your brand will get noticed by a lot of

people. If people appreciate your content, they will tend to trust that you know what you

are doing and they will give you their business or refer you. You can’t really tell if your

product is going to be a hit, the trick is just to keep on going because if the information

your providing is truly helpful you will get recognised for the good work and it will

translate into increase in business.

It is important then to choose the digital information product type that you are

comfortable producing. I say this because as time goes on people will expect to receive

these products from you some will even ask. This is good it means you are making an

impact and it means they have developed a dependency for your advice.

My advice on this issue is that you should look at your industry and see what

information or tips you can give away for free, which are actually useful and make a

product out of that. If people see that you are good at what you are doing and that you

really care about helping people they will give you their business. Just remember to

mention your name and/or company name on these products.



3.8. Software

Software is another practical way to create brand awareness. The use of software can

increase brand awareness a lot if done the right way. I for one believe it is much more

difficult to develop software and apps that will create the level of hype around your

product as you want. For one they may need skills that you do not personally have like

coding.

Software can also help you increase your link popularity especially if the software needs

to be used on site. The bottom line is that if you have popular software your brand name

which will be on the dashboard of the software your brand will be better known.

3. Mobile Marketing

Mobile Marketing is the promotion of product or brand to mobile phone users. There are

different ways to do this and some of the most used ways are SMS and MMS

advertising, Please Call Me ads, ads on mobile based social media and mobile search

marketing. I believe that the mobile marketing scene is the most exciting marketing

method in Africa right now. The main reason for my sentiment is that according to Rick

Joubert, as of 2009 there are more mobile phone owners than radio and TV owners

(see figure 29). According to SAARF AMPS, 76% percent of adults (15yrs and older)

have mobile phones. On the other hand according to Mobile Africa report 2011 (page

29) the penetration of mobile use in South Africa is 98%. The bottom line is that the

mobile market is the biggest market in South Africa and we must take it seriously.

Figure 29: Estimation of owners of different media. (Source: Rick Joubert.)

http://www.slideshare.net/rickjoubert/mobile-marketing-summit3v11a


http://www.saarf.co.za/

http://www.mobilemonday.net/reports/MobileAfrica_2011.pdf




According to Rick Joubert, 14+ million mobile phones are WAP enabled and 4+ million

mobile phones have a mobile web browser. This data is important because it shows you

that the biggest portion of mobile phone users can be reached by SMS and “Please Call

Me” ads as primary methods of advertising. The methods discussed above are not the

only way to reach your target market and thus does not always have to be your primary

method of advertising. In the following sections I will take you through the most

important and most effective mobile marketing methods on popular networks and

platforms.

3.1. Vodacom Mobile Media

Vodacom is the largest mobile phone operator in South Africa and it is closely followed

by MTN (see figure 30). The reason I am writing about Vodacom in this eBook is that

Vodacom is the largest mobile network that offers the most mobile marketing solutions.

You can go to vodacommobilemedia.com, and see the mobile marketing services that

Vodacom is offering.

Figure 30: Market Share of Different Mobile Networks in South Africa (2010).

(Source- Africatelecomnews.com)


http://vodacommobilemedia.com/what-we-offer/

http://www.africantelecomsnews.com/resources/AfricaOpp_South_Africa.shtml



Mobile Messaging

This is the first type of service that Vodacom

mobile media provides and it comprises of

Please Call Me (PCM) advertising and Promo

Voice Caller service. PCM is a service where

people who send and receive PCMs see text

adverts with links if necessary. PCMs are sent

to 23 million users a month and are sent about

600 million times a month. This is according to

a presentation by Rick Joubert (Sandton, 2008)

Promo Voice Caller service is an automatic

calling service, where ad messages or any other messages are recorded and your

target audience is called with those messages.

Mobile Internet Marketing

According to vodacommobilemedia.com, this

service is targeted at 4.1 million users of The Grid

and the Vlive! Portals. These portals provide

approximately 55 million impressions per month.

The Grid is a location based social network where

you can display banner link ads and text link ads.

Vlife! is an internet portal by Vodafone where you

can display banner link ads and Tenancies. You

can also have a mini site and show videos on a

branded mobile channel.

The biggest competition to this service is MTN’s “Bulk Messaging” solutions. I will

include a full discussion on this option in a 2nd version of this eBook. You can go to

mtnsp.co.za, and read more about MTN’s “Bulk Messaging” solution.

3.2. Mxit

Mxit is the most popular social media network in South Africa. According to

NumberOf.net, Mxit declared in a newsletter in March 2010 that they had 19 million

subscribers. Mxit is a free application which can be downloaded onto a mobile phone or

a computer. Most Mxit subscribers use the mobile application that is why I am writing

about it in the mobile marketing section. According to heavychef.com, 77% of their

subscribers are under the age of 25 (see figure 33) and they have slightly more male

Figure 31: PCM users demographic. Source: vodacommobilemedia.com

Figure 32: Internet users demographic. Source: vodacommobilemedia.com

http://vodacommobilemedia.com/what-we-offer/mobile-internet-advertising/

http://www.mtnsp.co.za/MTNServices/MessagingSolutions/Pages/Overview.aspx

http://www.numberof.net/number%C2%A0of%C2%A0mxit%C2%A0users/

http://www.heavychef.com/can-you-use-mxit-to-engage-with-your-community/

http://vodacommobilemedia.com/what-we-offer/mobile-messaging/please-call-me/

http://vodacommobilemedia.com/what-we-offer/mobile-internet-advertising/vlive/



subscribers (see figure 34). Mxit also provides good marketing services for advertisers

and I discuss these services after the two figures below.

Figure 33: Mxit Age Demographic. (Source: Heavychef.com.)

Figure 34: Mxit Gender Demographic. (Source: Heavychef.com.)





According to Heavychef.com, Mxit provides various advertising options. They are as

follows:

Splash Screens- These are full colour advertisements that appear for a few seconds when a subscriber logs on. These advertisements fill up the user’s screen.

Broadcast Messages- These are plain text messages that appear to everyone.

Competitions- Competitions are run through Tradepost, which is a contact that is automatically added to all Mxit subscribers contact lists. Here messages can be broadcasted as described above and also allow for voucher redemption.

Portals- You can have a complete portal where subscribers can choose to add your community. You could have live feeds, voting polls and also allow users to download content such as ringtones, wallpapers, games and videos.

Xchange- This is a classifieds service, where you can post items for sale and look for and buy items that are listed.

3.3. AdMob by Google

AdMob is a mobile marketing platform owned by Google. AdMob is the mobile version

of Adwords and it works in the same way. The difference is that your ads appear on

mobile phones as opposed to computers. The ads have been optimised for mobile

SERPs and mobile sties. I will now show you the demographics of mobile internet

users. The portion of the mobile market that can see your ads consists of 18+ million

mobile phone users. As stated above 14+ million users have WAP enabled mobile

phones and 4+ million users have mobile phones with internet browsers.

Figure 35: Internet user Mobile Operator Preferences (2009) (Source: Raymond Buckle.)


http://www.admob.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/RaymondB/mobile-marketing-research-mma-sa



Figure 36: SA Mobile Internet Age Demographic (2009) (Source: Raymond Buckle.)

Figure 37: SA’s Mobile Internet Users by Race and Gender (2009) (Source: Raymond Buckle.)

Mobile Marketing is a great way to reach your target market no matter where they are in

South Africa. Mobile Marketing can be your primary form of marketing and bring much

success. I suggest that Mobile Marketing should be used as part of a broader marketing

strategy that also includes Online Marketing and Offline Marketing. As time goes by you

will know which method is more effective for your business and you can then put a

greater proportion of your budget into that method.





4. Conclusions

The Information Age is definitely upon us and to prove that you do not have to look

further than this eBook. Your target market is definitely using New Media to interact with

other people and brands. Your target market is also using New Media to find and verify

information. People are using the information they find on New Media platforms to

decide whether or not to buy.

As a business owner you can claim your place on these New Media platforms and play

an active role in building your brand popularity. The benefit of using these platforms is

that they give you a lot of control in how you spend your advertising budget. These

platforms allow you to identify the most effective campaign ads in real time, which will

allow you to use your marketing budget effectively. You also have the ability to target

specific users according to gender, race, age, etc. These platforms thus allow you to

target your market with pin point accuracy (as illustrated by Pucka marketing Solutions

Logo), which has the benefit of increasing your Return on Investment (ROI).



Appendix – SAARF Factsheet

I found this great resource that is used widely by marketing professionals. You can use it to do your own investigations and see where you need to spend your marketing funds. The source is www.saarf.co.za in the FAQ section. “SAARF AMPS® is an acronym for the SAARF All Media and Products Survey. It is a single source survey, because information on media usage, product consumption and demographics are collected from the same respondent. SAARF AMPS® is an in-home face to face personal interview. It is currently done using Double Screen Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (DS-CAPI). With DS-CAPI, both the interviewer and the respondent have a laptop. The interviewer’s laptop has all the interview questions loaded onto it and allows the interviewer to capture the respondent’s answers. The respondent’s laptop displays all prompt materials (e.g. publication mastheads and response options) at the appropriate time during the interview. The SAARF AMPS® sample is currently about 25 000 adults (15 years and older) per annum. The interviewing is conducted in two fully national fieldwork waves – January to June and July to December. Results are published every 6 months in the form of 12-month rolling data which covers the two most recent fieldwork periods. Selection of addresses The residential addresses of almost all urban communities are listed on our contractor Nielsen Media Research’s geo-frame. The addresses are arranged within each geographic stratum (area) alphabetically by suburb name, then by street name within suburb and numerically by street number within street. Multiple dwelling units such as flats, cluster houses with the same street number are listed individually. The sample is selected in urban areas by using a random starting point, and then selecting systematically with a fixed interval every nth address number. A cluster of two addresses are selected at each primary sampling point to save travelling costs. In rural areas (villages and farms) and informal settlements where there are no formal addresses sampling points are selected using global positioning technology. Interviewers are given a longitude and latitude co-ordinate and a GPS device to enable them to navigate to the selected point. A cluster of two addresses are selected at each primary sampling point to save travelling costs. Selection of respondents Two addresses are selected at each sampling point, one for a female interview and one for a male interview. At each of this one respondent is selected using age to ensure a proportionate sample. Inhabits at mines and hostels and domestic workers are sampled differently in accordance with their gender composition. ”

http://www.saarf.co.za/



Table 1: Cell Phone Trends. (Source: http://www.saarf.co.za/- AMPS Trended Media Data)

Jul07-Jun08

(2008BA)

Jan-Dec 08

(2008AB)

July-Dec 08 & Jan-June 09

(2009BA)

Jan-Dec 09

(2009AB)

Jul-Dec09 & Jan-Jun10

(2010BA)

Jan-Dec 2010

(Dec10)

AMPS Universe (Adult Poulation in

'000)

31,303 31,305 31,524 31,524 34,020 34,020

Cell Phones:

000

Own/Rent/Use

67 67.9 67 71.3 73.8 25,945 76.3

Company/Privately Maintained:

Privately

Maintained 65.9 66.7 65.9 70 72.5 25,538 75.1

Company

Maintained 1 1.1 1 1.3 1.3 407 1.2

Contract/Pre-paid:

Contract 8.2 8.6 8.2 8.7 8.5 2,861 8.4

Pre-paid 58.8 59.3 58.8 62.6 65.3 23,085 67.9

Service Provider:

Cell C 5.7 5.8 5.7 8.3 8.8 2,903 8.5

MTN 28.4 29.4 28.4 30.5 31.8 11,531 33.9

Virgin Mobile 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 72 0.2

Vodacom 32.7 32.3 32.7 32.4 32.9 11,439 33.6

http://www.saarf.co.za/-



Table 2: Internet Trends (source: http://www.saarf.co.za/- AMPS Trended Media Data)

Jul07-Jun08

(2008BA)

Jan-Dec08 (2008AB)

July-Dec 08 & Jan-June 09

(2009BA)

Jan-Dec09 (2009AB)

Jul-Dec09 & Jan-Jun10

(2010BA)

Jan-Dec 2010

(Dec10)

AMPS Universe (Adult Poulation in

'000)

31,303 31,305 31,524 31,524 34,020 34,020

WWW Accessed:

000

Past 12 Months

10.3 10.7 12.6 13.4 15.6 6,138 18

Past 4 Weeks 9.1 9.5 11 11.7 13.4 5,315 15.6

Past 7 Days 7.7 8.1 9.3 9.8 11.1 4,482 13.2

Yesterday 5.2 5.6 6.4 6.8 7.7 3,066 9.0

Place Accessed:

Educational

Institution where

study 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2 741 2.2

Home 4.5 4.8 5.7 6.2 7.3 2883 8.5

Internet Café 1.4 1.5 2.1 2.4 2.6 944 2.8

Office 4.1 4.2 4.6 4.6 4.5 1614 4.7

Elsewhere 1.1 1.1 1.7 2.1 3.2 1605 4.7

Emails Penetration:

Sent/Received e-mail

Past 4 Weeks 8.9 9.3 10.3 10.8 11.8 4,432 13.0

Used Internet:

Search 7.7 8 9.1 9.5 10.9 4,087 12.0

Directory Services 1.3 1.3 1.4 1.4 1.6 597 1.8

Games 1.7 1.7 2.1 2.3 2.6 1092 3.2

Gambling 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 87 0.3

http://www.saarf.co.za/-



Dating 0.4 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.6 244 0.7

Social Networking — — — 4.2 6.3 2,730 8.0

E-mail 6.4 6.6 7.4 7.9 9.3 3,632 10.7

Instant Messaging 2.6 2.7 2.1 1.9 2.3 941 2.8

Chat (Excl

Mail/Instant Mess) 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 3.2 1,349 4.0

Music Downloads 2.1 2.1 2.8 3.1 3.4 1,365 4.0

Download a Podcast 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 120 0.4

Shopping 0.9 0.8 1.2 1.2 1.1 346 1.0

Banking 3.1 3.2 3.6 3.8 3.8 1,386 4.1

Share Trading 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.6 201 0.6

Research/Obtaining

info 6.9 7 7.3 7.3 8.3 3,158 9.3

Listen Radio on-line 0.8 0.8 0.9 0.9 0.8 282 0.8

Watch TV On-line 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 111 0.3

Read

Magazine/newspaper

on-line 2 2 2.5 2.6 2.5 891 2.6

Obtain Latest News 1.8 1.8 1.7 1.8 1.8 605 1.8