Turn interest into business: DIY with natural and organic, does it work with social media?

Hey, I would like to share a blog with you.  The blogger share her daily life which all related to the environment issue.  She shares her farming life, studies of aroma therapy,ideas of environmental protection and her handmade DIY natural products.  

I was surprised that she turn her interest into a real business!  She sells her harvests, DIY aroma skincare and natural food products in the blog.  The blogger linked up with the blog of her shop (Jovial DIY) with her personal blog.  假日農夫 

The blogger make use of most of the social media channels to promote her business, for example blog, forum, flickr, YouTube, facebook, etc.  Customer can discuss with the shop owner and other customers in those channels for product information and ideas about GREEN, the shop want to build up relationship with their customer and spreading the ecofriendly message in these ways.

Jovial DIY encourage their customer to return or reuse the product container when they do repeat purchase.  Customer will be refunded for the empty bottles or discount offered on the product when they bring their own container for shopping.


   

Posted customer's comment in flickr

Products catalogue in Facebook of Jovial DIY

However, there are some cons for the shop using the social media to market their product.  Although the cost of advertising is low, for the small scale business like Jovial DIY is difficult to arouse awareness of the audience in certain level.  As not all people are interested in the green topic when they browse the social media channels, they wont particularly to search related topics in there, so they may not discover the shop and related information about the shop.  Consumer confidence is another problem for the shop, as this is a online shop, customer cannot touch the product, they may have query on the product quality, while other customers may left their negative comment in the social media channels, this will affect the customer attitude, belief and decision. 

Handmade aroma soap, handmade jam, bread and cookies, food and skincare product.

*****Amanda Lam ^^

Have you join the Earth Hour?

Have you ever heart about Earth Hour? It's really a meaningful event hold by WWF which  I join Earth Hour in every year . Each year, WWF will pick one day to encourage people turn off the lights for one hour at 8:30pm. This year, there are 120 cities supporting the event for saving energy.

Facebook is a really powerful platform for company or organization for promotion. World wild, there are over 1,000,000 join the Earth Hour fans page.  Also, WWF created different  Earth Hour page for citizen supporting their city.

I think most of us have already watched the official promotional video in Hong Kong version. Let's watch the other version which really funny!

Without light for an hour at 8:30pm, what will you do? Still having dinner? Watching TV? Playing Facebook? or.............



In fact, we can do many things without light.  Let's saving energy and protect the environment in your daily life. If the earth hour event hold at everyday, the affect of light pollution can be reduce significantly in Hong Kong. Watch the video from youtube and pay attention on the sky.

Suki Wong

Tough to be GREEN x PlaystationHK?

Today when I go to the youtube site, the No. 1 most top view video is a Hong Kong teenager Mr. Ming free talk show. The video title is directly say " Why people think it is so tough to be GREEN?"

Firstly I just think it is only a teenager upload his talk show to show off his talent. His puffy behaviour make a lots of people comments on that and draw the attention successfully.

53, 923 people LIKE the post from Youtube!! More than 300 comments about the video~

At the end, I found that...... he is promoting the competition hold by SONY computer entertainment HK Ltd. I'm sure this video is more aggressive and popular than only show a poster on facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/PlayStationHK?sk=app_162384753782330



46, 831 people LIKE the post from facebook!!



Compare with two online marketing methods, both are using the internet platform to promote the same event, but youtube video is more easy to express their objective to their target audience.

If anyone are interested of this competition, please visit their website and join it, maybe you are the winner to win the PlayStation®3 console!!!!!

Tracy Chan

3R - REDUCE, REUSE & RECYCLE!!

RECYCLED CLOTHES

3R - REDUCE, REUSE & RECYCLE!! 

Have you tried recycled clothes before? Recycled clothes are not second hand clothes, but clothes that are made of natural resources. I have found a quite interesting post from the Yahoo Blog, it is about using natural resources to produce clothes. Please take a look! The clothes are 

nice, really suitable to wear during this hot summer! ^ ^

http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/jw!dmKHHFuBBBKIDK6Iisjhwg--/article?mid=1345

http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/jw!Nf3L7cmLHx99XT9IrG0od_tOodE-/article?mid=3729

Being a more sustainable fashion company, H&M contributes a lot on providing fashion for conscious customers. One example of how they are doing this is by using natural resources in their collections. How about recycled materials? H & M introduced the H & M CONSCIOUS that are made from post-consumer or pre-consumer waste and help reduce water, energy and chemical usage. 

http://about.hm.com/hk_en/corporateresponsibility/hmconscious__about_conscious.nhtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ4Ij7PH41k

The new message encourages customers to be more socially and environmentally conscious about their consumption choices and remain fashionable while doing so. 

Using social media can arouse consumers interest and awareness, but since consumers cannot feel and touch the texture of the clothes, they may not make their decision to buy the products easily. Thus, for what the company can do is to convince the consumers, to attract them to come to the stores and have a look first. They need a lot of efforts to persuade the consumers.

Sally Wong ^^

Meet People with same interest!!

Hey guys! When we talk about environmental friendly, we must think about some official organization like Green Peace, Environmental Protection Department.
But if you want to talk with someone about your views, who can you find??

Nowadays, we got a lot of forums for us to chat with people through the Internet. Now, I would like to introduce one to you.

Hong Kong Discuss

This is a forum which has been started since 2003.
And you can chat with a lot of people who have the same interest with you.
There are more than 2000000 members in this forum.

So let’s talk about what we can share in this forum.

In Hong Kong Discuss, we have a page especially for people for cares about the environment.

In this page, you can share articles, you can ask questions, you can discuss some environmental news with your friends on Internet, and you can also share your own experience.

It’s an interactive platform for you and the others you may not know to share your same interest through the Internet.

Protecting our earth is the responsibility for all human. Please come and share your views and let us be the model of the rest of the world. If you do interest on it, please feel free to go the forum through the link below.

http://www.discuss.com.hk/forumdisplay.php?fid=510

See you next time!!

Anson Wong~*