Fresh fruit in St. Lucia crafts market

 MARKETING is always an expensive thing, if you pay others to do your marketing they need to be paid, and when you do your own marketing, it is even more expensive.

Most of the costs for your own marketing are  hidden costs, and the largest  hidden cost is your personal time.  Today most marketing is within the online environment,  where SOCIAL MEDIA is the largest consumer of your time.

When you take the time and actually do a proper costing, you will be supprised at the true costs of your online marketing.   The first thing that you need to do, is calculate  what your personal hourly rate is. Then work out the time you spend plotting your online marketing, and include the following, as well as all others that come to your mind when compiling the list......

Product or service research
Target market research
s
Data collection and related image research, followed by image selection

Image preparation  and related issues
Copy writing then adding any specialised HTML CODE which you may know about.
Next is the review of your online content before it is finally published

Once you have a true reflection of the work done and the true time consumed to accomplish this marketing, then multiply your hourly rate by the time consumed discussing and implementing the necesary actions to fulfil the purpose, aims and objectives of that portion of your marketing.  Now when you are an amature and still learning how these things are done, how  will it take you to accomplish tasks that profesionals, who know all the tricks, and have many tasks preplanned and pre completed, take hours to do?

That is why it is always cheaper for small businesses to out source their marketing.

Todays post is actually all about marketing the fresh produce, mostly fruits such as bananas, pine apples, advocado pears, guava dillas and other fruits in season, which are sold at the St. Lucia village arts & crafts market in McKenzie street across the road from the Avis car hire office.

There is a very large selection of arts and crafts at this market.  The pics here were all taken earlier when discussing the online marketing for the many ladies who sell their wares at this open air market space.

Thanx for reading my blog post

Enjoy and remember to share this further.

why does my business exist?

The  purpose of  Frankie Two Socks Enterprises is to act as a holding company for all the projects and partnerships which I personally become involved with, or put in place as a local tourism development initiative. 

 I will be doing this through my personal brand name of Frankie2socks.  I have been working on this Idea for many years now. I started wearing odd socks way back in 1984 for personal reasons. During the early 2000's I acquired the nick name socks within the Mtubatuba  Town  area. During that time I was selling chili paste and pickles as a living. In late 2010 I some how acquired the nick name of Frankie two Socks within the white community of Mtubatuba and St Lucia.

In late 2016 I decided to actually use this to my advantage. In December 2016 I officially adopted the Brand Name Frankie2socks and have been using the hash tag #FRANKIE2SOCKS  to mark and identify some social media and blog post focusing on a wide variety of topics.  I have even told folks on the street that they may read more about my views on selected topics mostly stuff bout poor ecological management of lake St.  Lucia or the coastal zone

So what I am trying to say is that I have developed the personal brand name of Frankie2socks  and it has taken hold in the mind set and thinking patterns of many folks.  within my geo targeted zone. I also introduce myself to folks as Frankie Two Socks.  The brand name Frankie2Socks is thus easily associated with me as an individual, which gives me a distinct marketing advantage For all projects that I work on.


This will be extremely helpful whan attending meetings as a representative of the ARBU or Association Of Recreational Beach Users.  The ARBU is in place to act as a core group of folks who have an interest in the recreational use of the Elephant Coast Beaches, with  the specific intent to improve the tourism associated with the recreational Use of the Elephant Coast beaches, focusing on the Mtubatuba municipality and the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

Frankie Two Socks is back in town, and getting the tourism associated with the recreational use of the Elephant Coast Beaches back in the spotlight.  This project will require many resources, and I am looking forward to making lots of strange noises at many meetings, which will soon have many folks looking at the tourism associated with recreational use of our beaches in a different light.

I really want to go fishing on the beach and fish from the back of a van,,,   We used to have the right to do that before our area became declared a world heritage site, but somehow lost this right when the #IWPA took over the political control of our coastal zone, through some, at least in my mind, illegal or devious trick,

The fact that the IWPA is side stepping the public participation process is in many cases just simply over looked.  but that will soon come to an end.  There are laws in place to govern how these things are done, and in my mind the CEO of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority is being rather nasty about things. 

I will be blogging more about that stuff here in the near future.  in the mean time, I need some support, and I would appreciate it if you signed my petition here

Do you use hash tag marketing ?

Hash tag marketing for the tourism industry associated with the recreational use of the Elephant Coast beaches, with a primary focus on the mtubatuba municipality and the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

DO you use hashtag marketing for your business?

If you answered no, then you need to think clearly about why not, as hash tag marketing is a truly powerful online marketing tool.

So here is why you should use hashtag marketing for your business.

Hash tags can be purpose generated, and product specific.  This is good for events, where the event name, and perhaps year for an annual event would be your hashtag, and brands where the brand name will be your hashtag.

hashtags are such super powerful creatures within the SEO or Search Engine Optimization industry.

Hashtags are easy to use, how ever they do require some careful planning, which will involve a number of different folks each focusing on a different area of your marketing.

One must remember that there are three distinct areas of Search engine Optimisation which each need to be run as stand alone sections, which are integrated into the whole.  these are

1) #IPSEO or InPage Search Engine Optimisation is all the stuff contained within the HTML code of the page, and includes but is not limited to  a number of high end technical tactics such as schema markup and EXIF data and many simpler tactics such as adding alt tags to images, and including title tags along with many others.

2) #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimization is all the supplemental online marketing such as content marketing, Search engine marketing, social media marketing and all the rest of them online marketing tactics which  most folks think is out side of the SEO space.

3) OLSEO or Off Line Search Engine Optimisation, is the most important aspect of any SEP campaign, as this is where you introduce your desired search terms, along with their semantically similar terminology to your intended target market audience within the online marketing environment.

Most folks think of OFF LINE MARKETING as seperate from online marketing, but today we have things like hash tag marketing, which is where online and offline marketing are married and act as a single combined marketing effort.

this is where #FUFISM based marketing can really be seen to be working.

 

 

Cloud computing with help from #frankie2socks

CLOUD COMPUTING  for your business

Frankie Two Socks enterprises is in place to manage my personal business interests, and I offer FUFISM BASED online marketing advice through the 4ubrand blog . I am also involved in some community development initiatives within the Mtubatuba Municipality and surrounding areas of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. 

The ecology of the coastal zones, the St. Lucia Estuary and Lake St. Lucia, as well as the many game parks within Umkhanyakude district Municipality  are the primary draw card for local, domestic and international tourism within the Mtubatuba Municipality.  One of our main objectives at Frankie Two Socks Enterprises  is to get small and micro businesses within the tourism industry of the Mtubatuba municipality to use the cloud within the interwebs as a powerful business tool, with a strong marketing component.

Cloud computing has been around as a concept since late 1970's, but has only recently become available to the public at large.  Google and Microsoft as well as many tiny players are battling it out to have the most attractive cloud computing services. Many of the foreign search engines like Baidu in china and yandex in Russia are also into the cloud computing game. I use Microsft's email service at hotmail.com as well  as Googles email service at Gmail.com

Both of these service's  offer the individual as well as business and organisations cloud computing services which most folks do not realise exist.

Hot mail  users log into the microsoft cloud and can access many other free services where one can use MS office related features, and store your documents in the Microsoft cloud.

Google  users use their Gmail email address and password to log into all of Googles cloud services such as Drive,  sites, G+, YouTube and others.

Businesses can have  their cloud branded with their domain  and have a completely private space where their company information is safe, but accessable from any web enabled device, any where in the world

FRANKIE TWO SOCKS ENTERPRISES offers business the opportunity to set up and manage your own cloud space within the interwebs, by making use of the GOOGLE FOR WORK programme  click here to request a consolation

Imfino Zethu, your Green Groccer in St. Lucia

IMFINO ZEHTU IS A PROJECT WORK INITIATIVE

Imfino Zethu is a green grocer that will soon be based in St. Lucia by the sea, to cater for the fresh herb and produce needs of the tourism and  hospitality  industries within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, along the Elephant Coast of KZN South Africa.

The basic concept for running a green grocer style shop that focuses on culinary herbs and related fresh produce came about when researchers working for project work evaluated the supply and demand chain for fresh produce such as herbs, spinach and the other fresh produce that would be used in high end restaurants as well as in the many bed & breakfast establishments in the Mtubatuba Municipality. The major focus was on a brief study within the high end restaurants and food chains within the St. Lucia village.

Our research team was instructed not to let the folks know that they were doing a #PEEPSEE type study of what herbs were sourced local and what was not locally available.   this was successful as I do believe that none of these guys realized that they were being spied on, so that we could evaluate the feasibility of a green grocer within the village of St. Lucia.  Well there is quite some competition when it comes to the standard fair of potatoes, onions, cabbage and carrots, but once one steps up in the market and starts asking around for things like jem squash,, Mswelies, Mbatha, Uqadolo or Imbuya, then you get asked what are you talking about.

Well these are traditional African greens, which all fall under the umbrella of Imfino.  Imfino is a Zulu Word which can be loosely translated as Green Leafy Vegetables. And Imfino Zethu can be loosely translated into English as Our greens or fresh leafy veggies.

The idea here is to establish a green grocer focusing on culinary herbs and African style Greens, so that a small group of farmers in the Dukuduku South Region of the Greater St. Lucia wetlands can have a sustainable market for their fresh produce.  We still need to do some work on the education side of things, so that the farmers can understand the needs of their client base, and package the herbs and Imfino in a suitable manner for consumption within that market space.  We still have some time for that as the first seeds have not germinated yet, how ever there is prep work on the ground in progress.

Our  lesson on the practical aspects of packaging their end products,  will be a small hands on tour of a few different retail outlets that supply fresh herbs to the public, and include, but not be limited to :  Food Lovers Market in Richards bay,  checkers, shop-right, OK FOODS, Richards Bay spar. Pick n Pay Mtubatuba, Pick n pay Richards Bay Board walk.

Project work will soon be getting its own blog, which will work together with my blog to promote all  tourism issues, focusing on using the beach as a tourism attraction, and living off of the passing trade associated with the recreational use of our beaches within the iSimangaliso Wetland park.

Project work is also discussed here 

Thanx for reading now please do share this with your social media networks.  we would really appreciate the extra exposure.

#projectwork

#FRANKIE2SOCKS

Project work and Frankie two socks Enterprizes

What is Project work, and how will this impact on Frankie Two Socks Enterprises.

Project work is an Info4u supported project aimed at getting folks within the Mtubatuba local municipality working within the hospitality and tourism industry of the Elephant Coast.

Info4u is one of the corner stones of Frankie Two Socks Enterprises, and focuses on supplying relevant information to the world through the info4u web site found at www.info4u.co.za

Mtuba4u is an organization which focuses on the online marketing of all businesses within the Mtubatuba local municipality with the prime focus on tourism associated with the passing trade  generated through the recreational use of the beaches along the Elephant Coast of KZN South Africa. this web site can be found at www.mtuba4u.co.za

Frankie Two Socks Enterprises is a collection of organizations, including Info4u, Mtuba4u and others,  which run a combined FUFISM based online marketing business. The primary focus at Frankie Two Socks Enterprises is to ensure that folks within the Mtubatuba municipality  get their fair share of the passing trade associated with the recreational use of the Elephant Coast beaches.

Frankie two socks enterprises is thus in place to ensure that there is reasonable public beach access to the beaches in and adjacent to the Mtubatuba Municipality. These beaches all fall within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage site, which places them squarely under the control of the IWPA or iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority, who are (at least in my opinion) not doing a very good job, and have successfully destroyed the local and domestic tourism market associated with the recreational use of our beaches, within the Elephant Coast.  Way back in 2004 a company called Acer Africa unertook some studies, on behalf of the IWPA in their efforts to understand tourism flow patterns within the Mtubatuba Local Municipality, and the Umkhanyakude District Municipality. read those here 

Specialist report  SRSEED

Specialist report SRTourism

These reports make for interesting reading with HIND SIGHT, as the economic losses predicted here have become reality.  These losses are very substantial, but no body is taking them seriously.  Not really sure why, but these huge losses seem to be irrelevant to councilors within the Mtubatuba Local Muncipality, who have not taken the efforts to address them.  In 2004 KZN TOURISM issues an occasional paper discussing these matters where they alledge that more than 20 000 folks lost their jobs within our region, due to the knock on impact of the 4X4 Ban.  which you can read here OCCASIONAL PAPER 20 

I will be taking this up further and you can follow me on any one of my social media profiles, or subscribe to this blog to be kept in the loop  

You can help by visiting this petition, signing it, share it  and then  asking your friends, family and others to do the same.