Marketing a Business in the DRC

I received this query today and I thought I'd share my reply here with you.

I'm humbled to have met you online trough our FB friend xxxx 
I've just moved to DRC and I'm trying to bring a wealth fashion concept to a marketing illiterate nation
I will be importing some fashion clothing and jewellery from Dubai and/or China to sale up here in Eastern DRC.
I have a lot of friends from this region and myself grew in South Africa. What I need to know from you is, how can I get all my facebook friends living there and abroad to talks about my business?
How can I turn to facebook to ignite a sleeping marketing to my advantage?
Or, should I say I can I best advertise my business online?

Small Busines Marketing

Marketing Your Small Business 

Hi all.

This is just a quick post to remind you how important it is that you go and market your services on a regular basis. Even if you're incredibly busy with your business, you need to keep up your marketing activities. The reason for this is that you might be busy now, but it's because of marketing work you did months ago. So the marketing work you do now is what's going to keep you busy in coming months. 

Saying that, you don't need to spend a great deal on marketing, particularly in our type of industry. Too often I see too many businesses going crazy and spending too much.  They go out and buy all the bells and whistles, hundreds of T shirts and pens and brochures and banners, etc. etc. Personally I have never believed too much in the flashy bits and pieces of marketing. You need a solid website, business cards, maybe some vehicle branding, Facebook and social media. And then to go and list it all on different business directories. 

Howzit! is a brilliant place to go and advertise your services or any of your classifieds. Unlike most other services like this they allow you to bump up your ads every day. http://www.howzit.co.za/

Remember that you can purchase my ebook - Working From Home as A Transcriptionist in South Africa. 

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How do you combat loneliness in your business?

Hi guys,
It's been quite a while since I've blogged and I wanted to come back to my blog with a fresh idea, something which may not have been blogged about much in the past.

We virtual workers have a different set up to the office worker in many ways in that we don't have a knock off time, we don't commute, and we don't have many coworkers - some of us may miss the social aspet that an office affords. How do you combat the loneliness that working by yourself might bring about?

There are several ways we can do this:
1) We can sign up with groups such as TAVASA

2) We can build up a network of contacts on Skype and other instant messaging services.
3) We can become involved in community activities.

It's this third that I want to talk about in more detail, as the first two have been blogged about extensively, and it's the second that I've more recently become involved in.

Getting involved in community activities has numerous benefits - it leads to making numerous friends and thereby reducing the loneliness, particularly when you end up involved in activities such as teaparties, walks and community garden planting initiatives. An added benefit is networking - you get to know what others in your area, and others get to know what you are doing. Although making money is not my primary objective of community assistance, through being involved with the I Love Kensington Association I have obtained two clients and also been able to assist a Virtual Assistant who also wants to start up in the business. We have been able to accomplish some pretty amazing things, too - see pic of the community garden we planted. My life was pretty full before, with kids and work - now it's full to the brim and I'm finding I also have a bit of a social life - the loneliness factor does not intrude much now.

Have a good week, guys!