Social Media in Ghana

Why Ghanaian Businesses should be on Facebook

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Most people in Ghana think everyone is on Facebook, they get surprised and would likely jump out of their beautifully made Ghanaian clothing , if you tell them you are not on Facebook and don’t care about all that social media gimmicks. While we Web professionals may assume that virtually everybody is using social media these days it’s far from the truth. People use social media but businesses don’t.Ghanaian Business have no idea what facebook can do for their companies and even go  to the extent of banning the use of social media like facebook in workplace. To the management of many a business it is just a waste of time and resources. A recent study shows that 94% of businesses actually do not use social media. Not using social media in Ghana in the 21^st century is like saying you don’t  need a car at workplace because you can walk to where ever you need to go , be it official or personal.Or saying that whenever you need to talk to client  you can walk all the way to his place of abode so there is no need to get an office phone. Funny, isn’t  it?
So of course another study shows that those businesses not using social media fail to compete.We are in  a very competitive  world, at the battle for  space and attention is not being fought only on land but  has migrated to the world of www.

What is the Solution?

We , are The Thinkers' Ink believe in your company. We believe we can help you create the necessary attention and influence that your business need, with focus on Ghanaian businesses.We want to give you 10 reasons  why your business should use social media, and is our hope that Ghanaian Business would take lessons from this blog post and take the step in the right direction.

1. Get feedback: If you are on any social media platform like faceboook, Twitter  and linkedIn, you can get feedback  from your clients who in one way or the other have come into contact with your business. This would enable you restructure or strengthen the services and products offered in the near future.
2. Offer​ discounts: Once you have an account on Facebook or Twitter or even before you gain a significant following the best thing you can do is offering discounts. People will follow you then and they also will buy. Dell has been selling computers on Twitter for years and your Computer or mobile phone shop can do the same.
3. Spread the word: Tell the people about you and your business once you have established a connection with your following by getting attention over and over again and again. Announce changes in your organization, promote your next appearance at a conference or introduce a new product or an improved services to all.
4. Watch the competition: In case you are not on social media your competition probably already is. You can watch their steps and try to learn or mimic them. As long as they excel on social media you have to do that. Than you can just watch them like you watch your overall industry and mentions of your brand. Google Alerts is your first love to do it but plenty of other tools assist you here.
5. Build networks: Social networking sites like LinkedIn would help you build and grow more networks in your industry, who could offer you supports and share information that could change the phase of your business. Great networks can also extend the boundaries of your company from the local level to international. Trust me, it works.
6. Develop your Brand: Social media platform is a great way of branding your business. It is more than the logo of your company. What you offer your clients  by way of services  would go a long way in ensuring the credibility of your business and what it seek to achieve, online branding is the new way of getting things done.
7. Say Thank You: Social media is a great way of saying thank you to your clients, you can send them an ecard or a virtual gift and they would forever remain grateful to you.

Well, I promised to give you 10 reasons why I think your business should consider social media, but since 7 is a perfect number in Christiandom, I think you are filled now. If you need more help  on how you can send your business online using social media, especially if you are a Ghanaian Company, why don’t you consider  calling The Thinkers’Ink, we are the business solution expert for Ghanaian Business. We would take your business from the ground into the information superhigh way, in a flash of seconds. What’s more! All our Services provided at The Thinkers’ Ink is absolutely FREEEE....…..

The Thinkers’ Ink.. Thinking Solutions, transforming Generations.

Online Branding in Ghana

Has your business in Ghana developed and implemented its brands,or you don’t not think of branding as you believe the business would sell by its self. When you enter a shop to buy a shoe or an item let's say rice, would you go in for the one you have never heard of or you  would prefer the one every child on the street is talking and shouting its name? Well, you guess is as good as mine. Branding your business sets you apart from your competitors and you should take advantage of it.

What is branding?

Brand marketing is the method and the means by which you propel your business into the public consciousness,it just a means of shouting your business identity that it becomes a house hold name.Just imagine waking up in the morning, you switch on the television at Founder of The Thinkers’ Ink is talking about taking your business online, you tune in to your favorite radio station to listen to the morning news, and it  is the voice of the PR of The Thinkers Ink talking about why Ghanaian businesses should encourage the use of  social media in Ghana.Now you finally Google to find out how to brand your business online in Ghana, and on top of the ranking is The Thinkers’ Ink  showing how to do just that.What would you Do?  I Guess Right

Despite common belief branding a business is much more than your logo.A logo is one aspect of your business brand but there is much more to it than that. Your business brand is how customers perceive and think about your business. This may include several factors such as how you answer the phone call; how you treat your customers, to the overall look and feel of your business all contribute to your business brand.

Why develop a Business Brand?

Most Ghanaian  businesses do not care about  how customers or potential clients perceive them,but is branding important at all? Developing a brand for your business will help you have a clear vision of how you want your business to be perceived by clients and potential clients. Once you have a clear vision of how you want your business to be perceived you can then build a brand that achieves that vision. When developing your business brand from Ghana,you will have to  determine the emotions and thoughts that stir in a client’s mind when they think about your business. Of course you want your brand to create good thoughts and emotions in the minds of clients and potential clients and even first time visitors of your office or website. For this reason creating a well thought out brand can be valuable to your business.

What Next?

Contact the Thinkers' ink and let us help you take your business to the next level, remember all our services provided are frrreeeeee. Thank You

Emmanuel Kumah "chats" with Bill Gates

Why is Bill Gates Rich?

Have you ever asked your self such a question?  Can luck make someone rich , or  being the son of a rich man bestow riches on you, well I have been asking such questions myself and this week I have decided to write a post on some of the richest man on Earth and learn some valuable lessons from them.
Why am  I writing post on richest men in the world and not in Ghana, well is partly because the information of rich men in the world are readily available for us to learn from them. If I  ever meet any rich man in Ghana, I would love to find out the source of  his riches, but whilst  I have still not found one , if only we have some in Ghana, let me introduce you to one  of the richest entrepreneurs in the world and learn from their great worth of knowledge and experience.

Why is Bill Gates Rich?

Well before answering such a million dollar  question, let’s take a look at the early life of the
one time richest man on Earth .
                                                                  Early life

I would be Rich!

Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington to William H , Gates and Mary Maxwell  Gates. His family was upper middle class. Bill Gates parents wanted him to be a lawyer when he was young but it  did not then out that way.
At 13 he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school.When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy an ASR-33 Teletype terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students. Bill  Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC, and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Bill Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly.After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.
Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard and spent a lot of time using the school's computers. He remained in contact with Paul Allen, joining him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974.The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company.He had talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.

So why is Bill Gates Rich?

Well I believed as you read the history I  got from Wikipedia , you were able to point out some few reasons why Bill Gates became the richest man in the world. If you didn’t get the lessons don’t worry I would teach you those valuable lessons, I only pray you would learn from them and tailor them to your own dreams.

• ·         Passion or Interest: One key lessons I  gathered  from Bill Gates biography is the interest or passion that he had for computers, he was so crazy about this machine he was even excused from mathematics class to pursue his interest. What are you passionate about, find that out and work your way up  for you would definitely be at the top

• ·        Firelighters: Bill Gates surrounded himself with friends who were also passionate about computers and those colleagues served as firelighters in his way to the top. Unfortunately, most of us surround ourselves with firefighters- people who don’t believe in what we do and always want to quench the fire that is burning within. It may be colleagues at work, at home or even your own friends and family.Identify  all the firelighters in your life and be with them the more if  you want to be rich.

• ·         Effective Networking: Even after completing elementary school, Bill Gates got in touch with Paul Allen for several years until they saw  the  opportunity to start their own business. Have you gotten contact with those friends who are interested in what you are interested in?  You never know what you can do together.

• ·         Approval: Bill Gates got the approval from his parents when they realized his passions for  computers,and did not force him to be a lawyer as they have envisioned. Parents,please support your children when you see them getting interested in one thing and don’t shut them down , you never know who they would become.
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 What Next?
Well, I don’t know about you but I belive, this   are some of the things that made Bill Gates rich and we can learn from them. What do you think, drop me your comment. Thanks.

Entrepreneurs in Ghana.

 

 Why you need to be self employed.

Yesterday, I attended a conference organized by the British Council Ghana, christened the Fast Track. It was organized for the fresh, unemployed graduates and national service personnel in Ghana who would soon be hitting the streets of Ghana looking for white color jobs.

At the end of the seminar, I went into my little box trying to figure out why I don’t need to look for a job in Ghana, in other words I challenged my  brain to think of how  I can be an  entrepreneur  in Ghana and leave the  scanty jobs available to  the majority to struggle over.

You know, before you find out how to do something, it is always better to answer the WHY? before the HOW. So today, I have decided to write a post on why you need to be self employed if you are in Ghana and to encourage Ghanaian Graduates to develop the Entrepreneurial spirit and stop chasing for the limited jobs in Ghana. Interestingly, about 60,000 graduates come out of our various tertiary institutions each year but the number of jobs created in a year is less than 10. Have you now considered being  self employed?, if you are still not convinced, here are some reasons why I think you need to be self employed in Ghana.

·         Money: If you become self employed you would work hard to have all the money you ever desire and would get time to spend the money with the people that matters most in your life. If you work for someone, the harder  or smarter you work the richer that individual becomes and he only pays you only a fraction of the money you have earned for him. Scripture says, God would bless the work of your hand, well , what if someone owns  the work of your hands?

·         Time: Time is the most limited commodity in the 21^st century, most people’s relationship and family is in the ruin because they go about  chasing for money. IF you are however self employed you would have the time to visit that family member who needs  those words of encouragement , and the time to visit those places  of interest without intimidation from your boss. Think about it?

·         You are in Control; if your are self employed, you  are in control, you take control of your life and take responsibility for anything that happens. In other words you would stop the blame Game many Ghanaians are involved in.

What Next?

I believe a word to the wise is enough, let’s think of establishing our own business even whist we are in school and stop chasing for the limited jobs in Ghana. Let’s us create our own world and frame our world by our words. The one who believes is possible always achieve their dreams. Remember whatever the mind conceive and believe it can achieve.

Emmanuelkumah: The Road to Succes

Persist till you succeed

Success is one of the major meals every individual should seek in his journey on earth. Unfortunately, not all men are successful. Why is that the case? I think I know the answer,Because  not all men  wants to be successful ,in other words, not all men wake up from bed and then decides to push their  way to success.

WHAT IS SUCCESS?

What then is success? To me success is a journey and like every important journey, it begins with the first step and a lonely long walk through the narrow road. Are you dreaming of becoming successful in all spheres of your life? If your answer is yes,then continue reading this article. Here, I would point out to you one of the major components of success.Though this key to success is directly in front of us, so many people jump over it and I believe you have done the same many many times.

EVER HEARD OF THE WORD “PERSISTENCE”

What is Persistence, Persistence is self discipline and self discipline to me is, having the ability within yourself,based on your strength of character and will power , to do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. This means if you want to be successful you should do what you feel like not doing to get what you want .For instance,if you want to be a successful  Pastor or to be in ministry  just like I am planning, you need self discipline ,the ability to wake up at dawn and pray till something happens whether the  weather is chilled or red hot.A successful athlete persist each day running  a 100 meter race in the cold or hot till he finally wins the ultimate race.Just know that , success is not a matter of luck if it was all men would have been successful.

When the going gets tough- Persist

Perhaps the greatest display of self-discipline is persisting when the going gets tough. Persistence is self-discipline in action. Your persistence is, in fact, the true measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed. Each time that you persist in the face of adversity and disappointment, you build the habit of persistence. You build pride, power, and self-esteem in your character and your personality. You become stronger and more resolute. By persisting, you become more self-disciplined, if you are on your way of doing  something extraordinary don’t give up, persist till you succeed and when you have, men would path a way to your door step.( I would definitely  be the first on your door step ok!)

Parting words

Before saying good bye know this : “There is no failure for the man who gets up every time he falls, who rebounds like a rubber ball, who persists when everyone else gives up, who pushes on when everyone else turns back.”

What Next?

I always find it a great joy to hear from my readers , has this article brought a change in your life, or do you know somebody who would benefit from the article ?, feel free to share them  on Facebook and other social networking sites and don’t forget to leave me a comment, I would love to hear from You. Thank You