Last week, I mentioned that I will be answering some questions related to oDesk, webworking and freelancing in a category – Ask Me Anything! Let me share one I received last week from Mommy L. Don’t worry. I have asked for her permission to publish her letter.

This answer is personalized for the letter sender but I am pretty sure that if you are someone with a knack for writing, you can pick tips from this one.

…I am writing because I am trying to join oDesk. I have seen in your page that you have been hired so many times since you joined in 2008.

I am a housewife and I am running a family.  My husband works in a mall here in our city. He receives good pay, enough for us. Pero I wanted to work to earn my own money. Lain ra jud kung you have your own money, right? But after thinking and considering things, I still want to stay with my daughter, to see her grow up jud. I want to be a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom). I help in running a school canteen owned by my parents but i want more. I also don’t want to be idle and do nothing during my vacant time.

I am writing to ask unta if you can teach me on how to succeed in oDesk. I write. I think I am good at it. Pero I like writing poems and writing articles and blogs the most. I have been studying oDesk for about a week now and I must admit, di jud ko kaayo maayo sa IT world. My course in college was Management Accounting pero don’t be fooled ha, I am just also so-so in my “number” subjects. LOL.

Hope to hear from you soon, Likke! Hugs to your son!

**some parts of the letter have been omitted

Thanks for your letter. I appreciate you trying to contact me. And I will try to answer your question.

I understand that you want to see your daughter grow up. That was conviction convinced me to consider what I am doing right now. So far it is really awesome! I am even homeschooling my kid and the bonding time is too precious to exchange for an office job.

oDesk is a wonderful platform to contact clients, get a project, and earn cash. I truly believe that this is the future of work. The platform gives you and your client the peace of mind that you need in doing online work. Because you have considered using oDesk, I must say that you are on the first step towards your dream of earning more.

Plan out your next step

“Considering” oDesk has never been enough. I have seen my share of people whom I personally know who “setup and forget” their profiles. You would not be able to go far with freelancing if this is the case.

So you need to plan for what you need to do next. Never get stuck on just setting up your profile. For example, plan on filtering job applications that fit your skills and applying to them. From what you mentioned, you are keen on writing so search up oDesk for writing jobs.

But since you also have  knack for accounting, there are jobs in that category too. I will assume that you are more interested in writing assignments.

Get your first job

Eventually with all the applications that you sent in, you will land that first job. This is the one that you should take care of. In oDesk, feedbacks and ratings are crucial for success. Do you bestest on this first job.

Other freelancers will tell you this – a LOT! You need determination. Try to land that first job. It would mean you should never stop applying for a job. If it takes a week or a month to get that first job you are looking for, then so be it. Be never, ever surrender the freelancing dream.

Write. Write a LOT!

You mentioned you love writing. This is by far a very good asset in the web working / online freelancing world. Jobs that require writing skills are plenty – blog writing, original article writing, article rewriting, copywriting. These are some of the openings that you will have to sift through to earn on oDesk.

From applying to these kind of openings, you will soon know that you need to have sample articles to show your writing style and your capability to your potential client, that is why – write, write, write!

Study SEO.

Most of the buyers in oDesk will require SEO knowledge in the articles that you will be writing. In order to compete with other writers, go spend some hours researching SEO article writing basics.

You will find lots of resources regarding this topic. They will mostly teach you about using keyword, keyword density, hyperlinking, etc.

Those are all for now Mommy L. Best of luck to us! So to summarize and get you started with your oDesk success:

Action Items

• Create a job filter.
• Apply to jobs within your capability.
• Create at least three writing samples.
• Research about article writing for SEO.

Image credits: brartist

My birthplace is Iligan City. It is one of the highly urbanized cities in Northern Mindanao. But of course its fame is crippled by the current high crime rate and the more popular Cagayan de Oro beside it. My opinion, of course. But what I do know for a fact that Iligan is a haven for a tri-people culture where lumads, Christians and Muslims co-exist. And the sight of a restaurant or food marked with the word “Halal” is one quite common in our city.

I met Lareb over Facebook and he was a friend of a friend, you know how Facebook works. You see, he does not have a bit of a problem sorting and looking for Halal certified products because he lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Everything — everything there is Halal.

They do not sell anything that is not. If he goes to Indonesia or Bangkok, he would not have any problem looking for those products. But what if he takes a quick vacation here in the Philippines? Yes, he is going to have a problem filtering what he buys.

Would he Google about it? Most probably he would. He needs to know which food is seen as permissible according to Islamic law. The thing is, we do not have one until this site was put up of course:

Halal Certified Food

If you are looking for a resource site, you don’t need to look any further as this one continues to list the food we have here in the Philippines that are halal-certified. Check it out.

Oh and they do have a Facebook acount. Get updated on Halal certified food and products in Facebook.

Snail mail. I loved receiving them. Back at fourth grade, I used to have a pen pal from the U.S. She was a sweet girl a year older than me. I can’t remember the details of our correspondence but I still recall the feeling of opening an envelope laden with stamps and marks from the post office.

Right now, I rarely get those. When I do, I take lots of pictures of the thing (Calvert, thank you!).

What I receive though are sweet pieces of messages (Twitter, Facebook, email) that I love reading. Not only because it makes me realize I am so blessed but also since I know I can help them out with my 2 years experience as a social media assistant but haven’t started doing so.

So this is my call for questions — Ask Me Anything! Free of Charge!

Ask me about freelancing. Ask me about oDesk. Ask me about social media.

Here are a few notes on asking:

1. If you want me to review your profile, please send me the profile link.

I can stalk you myself but if you shut your profile from Googlers (or haven’t setup one, heaven forbid!), I cannot help much except use quotes from #ihatequotes to inspire you and help you out.

2. Ask specific questions please.

Please don’t make me decipher your message like it’s some Morse Code or something because I don’t know how to read that. Be as specific on where you need help please.

3. ..but please Google it first.

Don’t give up! <– My answers will revolve around that theme. Because freelancers (especially mothers!) should not turn their backs on this wonderful opportunity. But you got some questions that are too specific? I know, it’s cliche but please Google first. I won’t walk you through how to create your profile, setup your Paypal or other nitty gritty bits like those. It has all been written and all of them have been helpful. You can Google them.

4. Refer me to your friend, your wife or your officemate who needs help.

I only have a bit of time on my plate but I’d be glad to reach out to anyone who needs a bit of  pushing to get started.

The Catch?

All I ask for in return is that you give me the permission to publish your letter. I’ll keep it as anonymous as you want it to be. Aside from that, if you have a blog, please link to me.

I got a question! Where to send?

Thank you! Just contact me at contact@fleirecastro.com.

I will be publishing the first Ask Me Anything Letter in a few days so stay tuned.

Image Credits: ollily

The Problems

I have recently written about pharmaceutical brands that have questionable disclaimers that have been updated by the Department of Health. These brands have not shown the new Filipino phrase. These brands have not updated or shown what they can do to honestly present themselves and reflect it in their websites and campaigns.

Then there are those pharmaceutical brands that have safety concerns. These attacks have been resounding as these results is the same thing that each potential customer will see when they research about a certain medicine. Concerns, such as that mentioned, resonate on search results for such brand.

As a conclusion, it is mentioned that there fixes to these kinds of concerns and problems. But these fixes have to been done as soon as possible to lessen the damage, control the issue and regain customer trust on a certain brand.

What Have Been Done So Far?

There are already several medicine campaigns using social media that have been launched. These are some of the campaigns done.

1. Blogger feature – Featuring a blogger is a pretty neat idea. Leveraging influencers means instant penetration to the community or communities that the featured person already has. It is like a personal testimonial of the featured blogger.

2. Event blogging – This involves inviting bloggers to brand-related events.

3. Blog writing contest – Contests involving bloggers to improve online exposure

4. User ideas submission – Prizes given to participants with best brand-related ideas on activities

5. Photo submission and voting – Usually hosted over Facebook

6. User story submission and voting – Users are encouraged to send in their related stories and are voted on by readers

7. Photo tagging in social network – Usually hosted over Facebook

8. “Like” a Facebook page – Winners determined by the number of comments/likes

Apparently, not all campaigns are flawless.

6 Quick Tips to Improve

Your Medicine Brand Promotion

1. Don’t require login just to see the winners!

Users have their own cases of Attention Deficit Disorder. They would certainly not take the pains of signing up just to see a winners list of people they do not even know. Right?

2. Don’t encourage spamming

Would you gain love and admiration for a brand that encourages spamming? I’m not sure about you but I prefer people tagging me because I’m actually on the picture.

3. Do use Sharing Tools for social media sites.

4. But.. Don’t Overdo it.

Do limit the sharing sites to submit to.

Are you pretty sure you have an audience in MySpace, Delicious and StumbleUpon? Think again. Research the top sites where your users might be and you can limit it to just the top three if possible.

5. Do use a Facebook username.

It’s pretty basic to have a vanity URL. Just reach a minimum number of fans and head on to http://facebook.com/username to customize your URL. There are several uses for having an easy-to-recall URL. Putting it on your main site without the extra slashes and dashes is one of it.

6. Do hire a social media marketing assistant.

Most probably when you setup campaigns like these, you will need a social media marketing assistant to interact with your fans and other tasks. If you leave your page thirsty for updates, most likely your fans will ignore whatever you are running.

Do you have other tips for these medicine brands for their online and social media campaigns?

Image Source: Getty Images

I have recently written about the The Dreaded Black Screen of “No Approved Therapeutic Claims” and this one is related.

What happens when you whip out trusty Google, search up a medicine you want to purchase and find these out:

• no product website
• no local supplier’s site
• no official social media accounts
• bad reviews about the medicine

Simple — You move on.

This is a scenario of a total disconnect on the medicine’s lack of online marketing.

Good for you since you got the info you needed (medicine bad, find another).
Bad for the manufacturer since they didn’t get your business.

But hey, try to multiply this scenario with the many users primarily using the internet for SEARCH, the manufacturer is going to have a big headache.

A “Lack of Online Marketing” Example

Here’s a concrete example.

Medicine Name: SARIDON
Manufacturer: BAYER

Saridon, according to Wikipedia, is an analgesic that is widely marketed and available in the Visayas and Mindanao region here in the Philippines. Due to its cheap price, it has become widely popular.

Try to emulate our above scenario and do a search for “Saridon” and you will see a very disappointing array of results. Encouraging? Certainly not.

You will see this search result all of the following:

One Wikipedia article. Check. One Youtube vid. Check. One fan-made Facebook page. Check.

But where is the SARIDON information
that your customer is looking for?

Turn to page 2 of the results and you’ll start seeing a negative feedback (warnings) and write-ups about the product. Issues were being raised regarding Saridon.

One columnist raised the issue of the ingredients found in the product. It stated the previous usage of phenacetin in the formula which is a known carcinogen and used in cocaine production. The product was reformulated but this time used propyphenazone which is not quite as safe to use like the previous active ingredient.

Another attack on the product is the mention of using Visayas and Mindanao are mere test markets (Imagine that! We’re lab rats!) and further mentions of the same warnings as the above columnist.

I know some of the people from Visayas and Mindanao might say they have not even heard of the product. That is the point. What if this kind of news moved from just an online buzz and circulates to ears that hear offline.

Would that be good for the brand? The resounding answer is NO.

The Fix?

The good thing is that there is always a fix for this. Online problems have online and offline solutions. The question now is how quick the company, brand, or manufacturer will address these kinds of issues before it becomes too late.

The Future of Work

What is the future of work? It’s the virtual office. There, I answered the question. And a good place to setup your virtual office is through oDesk.

But before virtual offices become mainstream, business owners should be encouraged. They should know how to take that first baby step to go virtual.

This video is from oDesk and they are encouraging business owners and netrepreneurs to get started with an idea, get a team and create your business. Tell them your “big idea” and get $250 credits so you can hire your virtual freelancers and get started.

Pretty good marketing strategy and reflects one thing that is quite common for most people, which is this -

It is very easy to think about starting something but so hard to execute.

• What’s stopping you?
• Why haven’t you started yet?
• How long will you let your idea be just another.. idea?

My Own “Big Idea”

Being a social media assistant for almost two years had given me ample knowledge on freelancing life. The ups and downs, ins and outs. There is a story to tell and each freelancer or web worker I know has their own wacky stories.

Somehow, I wanted to be able to help out the newbie freelancers through this idea, this venture, this business. There are lots of business ideas that I narrowed down to those that I was interested in. You should be working in a niche that you love after all.

My own idea is creating a helpful site for freelancing Filipinos.

I have received lots, countless of inquiries on the how, why, what, where’s of a freelancing career. Usually, I just keep mum because there are LOTS to explain about freelancing. I want to change that. I want to answer their questions through this site. This will be for freelancers who took off with their careers and are now willing to help out newbies in their quest to join the ranks of online earners.

What about you? What is your “big idea”?

This is not a sponsored post. I never did any of those yet. This is a case study an example of how being remarkable AND asking for it can get you the exposure you deserve. Afterall, karma is real. But you have to ask, you know.

Objective: Show how the “Reddit Effect” (and possibly social media) increased sales in an indie software company.

THE COMPANY

Mizage is a small development company that created Divvy – a window management software for Mac.

THE EFFORTS

Let’s say you want to get the word out for your application. After all the creation of accounts on Twitter, Facebook and seeding of initial reviews on related review sites, you want to try out and get a sponsored link at Reddit (notorious for ignoring my posts *bitter*).

Edit:

Steve from Mizage sent me an email! Thanks for the compliment. I was wrong on assuming they had the sponsored links up before the awesome frontpage post. Instead:

We gave the reddit staff some Divvy licenses and they gave us some advertising in exchange =)

That’s even cooler! No wonder I saw the word “divvy” on the advertising FAQ page. Coincidence?

With this, I still maintain my stand on “efforts”. They still have to be made. How are your customers ever going to find you anyway.

Created an ad. Cost: The minimum bid is $20/day for untargeted ads and $30/day for targeted ads.

Take a look at that. Just 69 votes and 34 comments? For a sponsored link? Not much attention there you might think. Surely you need some more of that to increase sales. BUT! Here’s the thing that people might miss.

THE OPPORTUNITY

After all your efforts above, you have created an exposure for your product. Sure, it didn’t generate lots of sales and yet this leads to an encounter with an interested buyer who doesn’t have much to give but just might be the fan that you are looking for.

Your response would be as awesome as Steve’s.

THE GOOD KARMA

You might ask — Why the heck would I do that?? FREE?

Because you just might create a superfan who will do his part of the “deal” and land you at the top page:

Take a look at that. Just 2511 votes and 788 comments? For a NON-sponsored link? That’s an investment of relationship.

THE REDDIT EFFECT

Tyler_Mizage posted the effects of this frontpage post to their Divvy’s sales:

CONCLUSION

I want to save this documentation as proof of how effective it is to:

1. Provide a product of value.
2. Effort effort effort!
3. Find the right channel and create an opportunity.
4. Give freebies.
5. Create a superfan (or superfans!).
6. Learn how to ASK.

There’s number 7 though: Keep it going.

How? Boost up Facebook and Twitter. 

An amazing software and company like this deserves more than 10 fans! And more than just customer service, Twitter can be beefed up to boost branding. And also, they can hire a social media assistant for some of the stuff that they might need help on for these profiles.

I have just viewed this really inspiring video from TED by Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity. I have said to myself that I had heard it all before. It was almost like Seth Godin telling me to quiet down the Lizard Brain.

But still, I was able to pick gems from the talk. This was one – Genius will come but do your job anyway.

Why do you think this is relevant to small and medium business owners? Why do they need to hush down or to listen to this creativity genie?

Your genius begs to be expressed.

It will haunt you in anyway it can. It pops up when you are about to sleep or when you wake up. It’s that small voice in your head ushering you downstairs to turn on your laptop in the middle of the night and type up a blog post. Or that freakish little tune in your head that wanted you to record this guitar riff while you were on a date (yes, business owners do have love lives!).

But your product is your genius embodied in a candle or an iPhone app or a digital product.

And yet, your genius was not the one that made your product successful.

It was:

• the hours that you put in it
• the days a week that you walked into your office
• the emails you sent to reach out potential customers
• the Twitter updates you made to help your customers about a product information
• the Facebook posts you had to let your friends know of the promos you have for the month

These were the acts that your creativity genie regret to inform you. That you need to get your product out there for the world to see.

Start now by hiring a social media assistant.

I have been a Reddit lurker for 5 months now and certainly been enjoying the variety of posts I read there which ranges from narwhals to political articles that I cannot care about since I am not from the U.S. of A. Nevertheless, I find these posts really entertaining.

Yesterday, something really interesting came up that is worth talking about -

What can be the cause of the possible downfall of Reddit and other online communities?

I believe it is  some kind of hard truth – marketers want to move fast in their promotions. They lack the patience to build the connections needed and with the onset of social media, positions such as social media managers, experts, and consultants bloom like mushrooms. After all, it’s a rule to go where to money is.

For social media “people”, there is also a rule and that is to go where the audience is. Where is the audience? They are in enormous communities or sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter and my favorite – Reddit.

Back to the question though.  Some possible causes of Reddit downfall (which is also applicable to other online communities):

Power users can be seen as people like Naruto and Sasuke. Too haxxxed!

Image source: Alan

1. The Abuse by Power Users

A power user is a user of a personal computer who has the ability to use advanced features of programs which are beyond the abilities of “normal” users.

~Wikipedia

On Reddit, a moderator named Saydrah had received the bashing of the Redditors. One member discovered that she had been “gaming” and using Reddit to her client’s advantage. This becomes a concern since Reddit is all about a community of like-minded individuals who share content from all around the web that they find interesting.  Users then get to upvote or downvote these links to their liking which then, if good enough, reaches the frontpage of Reddit – the seat of traffic.

If a power user finds a way to cheat this system then it defeats the purpose of the community.

2. Breaking a User’s Trust

Trust is like a condom; if you break it, you are screwed.

~Me

You have determined that your audience are users of communities like reddit. Now what?

If you are just a normal user, you add friends, submit content, upvote, downvote, and most of all READ AND CLICK! Here’s the thing though – once you gain some kind of popularity as a redditor, aside from the badges and karma, you get trust.

Yes, trust is also an online currency. And truth is even if communities like Reddit are like eyeball farms, trust is hard to gain. All the more harder to regain if you break such trust.

For Saydrah, it will be hard for her to regain that trust. She might have to create another username which is something really easy to do. But what about the lost trust? Well, let’s just say she will be needing another 2 years and 20 badges to earn it all back.

3. Conversion Into “Just Another Media Outlet”

If people can simply get a site to move up the frontpage then it’s viral traffic to the submitter and this really spawns the issue with spammers and abusers. Do not convert your site to be just another venue for ads and spam. The users deserve more than that because they are there for the community and sense of belonging and ownership.

Remember that you are offering something that answers these users problem and that is a site to read top stories without being bombarded by ads.

Clients of Saydrah may be not be overjoyed to know that her involvement with Reddit has come to an end but really, she has learned lots from this experience I assume. That is: Do not treat a community of users as a mere eyeball source. Communities DO NOT want to be marketed to.

4. Closing Your Ears to the Buzz

The users want YOUR verdict – What will you do to an abuser? How will you end a contest? How do you deal with a crowdsourced, nominated name that is not so beautiful like Mister Splashy Pants?

They are right. They might not be paying to use your site and your service but the time the spend on your site is your achievement. To monetize that you have advertisers and merchandise. It will be enough to listen or risk losing these members.

So the best thing you can come up might be to ban Saydrah. Remove badges and karma, will you do that?

Use Pip.io and totally define control on who sees your posts through a beautifully created UI.

Robert Scoble had recently interviewed Leo Shimizu, the CEO of a new social networking site called Pip.io.

I have decided to give the site a try and see if it’s the same ol’ same ol’, you know, social networking site.

Upon registration, you will receive a welcome email – yes they do that too.

Using Pip.io is going to change the way you communicate with your friends and family on the web! You can share conversations, photos and files, instant message, video chat, and much more – all in real time!

And you will be redirected to a really cutesy panoramic view which reminds me of logging in an online game.

A few minutes into the app and you can tell what to do first – setup your profile of course. It immediately sets my location.

So based on what I understood from the UI, I uploaded an avatar and proceeded to install applications. They have Facebook, News Reader , Twitter and Youtube. Not much.

I was able to add up Facebook and Twitter but was hesitating in adding up News Reader. I already have my Google Reader for that and can’t imagine adding up all my RSS feeds one by one. Maybe there’s an RSS feed for Google Reader? That is still have to know.

I stopped there since the next few things I saw were feeds from my Facebook and Twitter. For Facebook, it was actually limited to commenting on stream updates and I cannot LIKE which is what I usually do.

For the rooms at the sidebar, I have not put it to use since I am not sure if I will be enjoying that. I clicked on what I can within the application and I can say that I felt so lonely. Maybe because I didn’t import my contacts to search for those who have profiles but I doubt anyone has one.

Scoble was able to mention about privacy but I have not been able to put it to test since I do not know where to test as all of these were based on quick observations from someone interested but doesn’t know where to go next.

Again, I felt lonely using the app as I cannot explore and see other people’s profiles and I did not know where to go next as there were no quick tips or walkthroughs.