“Bolshoi Sacibo!… These things are a work of art!” – Will, Ukraine

“…best Christmas gift I’ve ever received!” – Charlie, Sarasota FL.

“Last year I looked everywhere for a hat like this and there was none be found… Perfect in every way… I really LOVE it and simply can’t find satisfactory words to describe the yummyness of this hat” – Kelly, Alaska

“My mom considers our 3 HoHo Hats family heirlooms. They were the hit of the holidays!” – Travis, Portland

The reviews are numerous, spanning all over the world. Prior to even having a website!

This niche business started when the client could not find what she wanted in a Santa hat, so she made it herself. After a growing number of sales from eBay and other websites she got a patent for her reversible work of art. When she knew she had something others loved just as much as she did, she took the next step and started the search for a website to properly brand, profit and mange everything from.

HoHo Hats has a great lesson to teach others about transforming a hobby / passion into profit online:

1) Testing the waters:
The community of buyers are passionately seeking what she had passionately created. The lesson here is that the client “tested the waters” first; fishing for potential others who had a similar need like she once had through simply listing the product on eBay first. The feedback gave her factual validation in her decision to take the next steps.

2) Be open and objective to feedback
We lucked out with a client that genuinely connects and cares for her customers in what they have to say. This important relationship is fueling additional product lines. The clients ability to “relate” with the buyer on an objective level (staying true to her identity) will act as the core of community growth. And once empowered through social media leads us to the next point.

3) Planning and managing the future
Ultimately it is not the product that drives success, but the purchasers of the product. With growth of sales and community comes the of growth of additional daily tasks. The website is acting as a HQ for the clients business in the following aspects:

• Sales come from the website
• Company branding  is coming from the website
• The style of project management being used (agile project management) enables proper organization of the many feature and wishes being sent in to be released out at the proper time. It also keeps multiple teams accountable to the client – she is able to stay up-to-date from this transparent work model which she is actively involved in.
• Community analytics will be analyzed in coordination with website analytics giving the client the ability to make quick and intelligent decisions based on intelligent data.
• The client is able to see what aspects of projects she has time for and what aspects need to be managed externally.

1) The brand.

• Its wrong when – You are your brand identity. When your unique personality is your brand then your customers are buying into “you” and “you” need to be at the core of “your” community.
• Its right when – Your brand has a personality of its own. If an organization can team up with another individual or company that can study this personality of your organization and represent this online then you can investigate subbing out social media further.

Our experience – We work with clients whom we take a genuine interest in. If we can click with the company, we naturally become invested in their success. If the people you hire do not take time to learn about your company, your company culture and your customers first, run away! We feel like we are part of each clients company (and we are, see point 3) and thus have a vested interest in their success. Without this genuine interest, the community would suffer and their brand would not be properly represented.

2) The time.

• Its wrong when – You have the time and only need some guidance on how to use this time wisely. It may be a better investment to learn about how you or a socially intelligent employee can use social media to retain and or grow a customer base.
• Its right when – You honestly do not have the time, or get distracted easily. Its extremely important to have an online presence today for the majority of organizations; but when your operations suffer because your spending to much time with your community playing famville and you’re not following a path in which the community is helping your revenues, then its time to rethink your strategy.

Our experience – We tend to have a combination of time spent teaching / reporting combined with interacting with client communities. The reason for building an online community around your organization is not-for-fun, its for-profit. Thus, we never let the client out of the loop and when we show real results and important comments and questions to our clients from their community the light bulbs come on. When clients see the data/results of their community online they understand this form of media is like a focus group on steroids, the community is able to provide feedback while advocating their brand and acting as a critical sales force.

3) The purpose.

• Its wrong when – Your purpose is to simply pay for someone to create a false sense of community. It’s wrong in general, and if someone agrees to assist you in building this false sense of community the only winner is the company your paying to create a lie.
• Its right when- You have transparency and clarity of intention but are hazy on the means to achieve your desired results. When the internal resources are not available but you still wish to leverage this media, teaming up with an outside agency is a good idea.

Our experience – Is that this form of media has rarely been the core purpose. Its through the management of client websites that social media shines as a critical aspect in achieving the goals of the client. With the website we are able to gain an intimate working relationship with the client and their business. We get to understand their goals and call to actions of their audience. When we do our job well with a website, this has naturally opened the door to manage social media and traditional marketing roles. Specifically when we can show results of social media impacting the bottom line though analytical facts, its then clients begin to see the big picture of how connected everything really is.

So if your investigating social media, make sure you understand your brand,  your time and your purpose first. And if the choice to sub out your social media seems more logical for your group, then make sure the company or individual your looking at subcontracting to also understands these same points as well.

It’s been just over 3 months since our last post for iPlanIT Global! Oops!

Heres an update for all you industry experts, clients, partners and curious friends.

Firstly, we are bringing on a new team member. Amanda Murphy is a rock-star in Media and PR. She adds a needed perspective and experience in tailoring to the new needs our clients present us. We are facing situations with our clients wanting to maintain a consistent brand theme and strategy across all their marketing projects (print, web and mobile).  It makes logical sense, why would one sacrifice their organizations professionalism on any of the media platforms they exist on? With Amanda on board we can not only tailor to this need but also keep our own site up-to-date! (No more 3 month layovers for updating our blog!)

Secondly, our primary focus we would like to communicate over the course of this year is management of client websites, social media and marketing. We will try our best to convey our servicing to these areas in the most simplistic manner possible. We think results work best so do stay tuned for examples in this world we operate in. We hope to provide everyone with some insights through experiences – its been a fun journey and to not share seems like we are doing you all and ourselves an injustice. Plus, experience is better model for everyone rather than opinions and theories of how one should use a website, twitter, facebook, marketing etc… From industrial engineering to start-up retailers, from our use of open source software to custom development we have enough success and yes even some failure stories from actually doing that we can share actual results and not subjective opinions.

Thirdly, iplanIT Global is on a continual path of discovery. Like the web we will change and help our clients profit from this change. The changes that occur in the web are only utilized if it propels growth and profit. What we have experienced is that for the majority of organizations, a strategy does not tailor itself off a system, but it is the system that tailors itself to the strategy. One must understand where they want to go before they know which vehicle(s) to take to get there. We are simply tour guides that passionately enjoy learning about this changing environment, and from knowledge and experience we can guide our clients on a path they will benefit most from.

The first presentation I gave to the athletic directors in communicating the idea for this new website was 3 things:

1. Communication – both internal and external
2. Community – brought together from the website and social media channels
3. Commerce – ROI from potential advertisers and official OCC store front

While the communication externally (pulling stories across Ohio that have referenced OCC events) is going great, the internal communication is a progression. Changing how people communicate is best done incrementally. So we are slowly phasing into a routine for the administrators to get comfortable with – your only strong as your weakest link; and if all are not on board its a waste… and we don’t like waste. Social media and commerce are still in its infancy and planning stages so it will be something to keep an eye on.

Promotion of the schools

The conference is huge, with 32 schools it is one of the largest high school conferences in the nation. We shared the idea with the conference that the schools should be a highlighted factor. Each schools mascot is displayed, linked to their schools sports page and organized based on the division they are in.

Community features

• Creating community around events
• Creating community around content
• Bringing community together on facebook
• Updating community on multiple platforms (highlights on website, facebook and twitter)

Though social media has just been implemented; the use of these tools will hopefully bring the conference to the level that is benefiting college conferences which have  have made it a part of their communications standard.

It has been an extremely busy and enlightening past few months (we have spent so much time on clients we neglect ourselves at times- hence the new website). What once started out as a web development company has now changed. Just like nature of the web we have found ourselves changing in order to fulfill the needs of our clients.

Stay tuned for more exciting information on how we’ve changed, what we’re doing for clients and what we can do for you!

Nick Wolf
President