This presentation recounts the story of how May King Tsang, founder of MayKing Tea, started her business from scratch in Australia, using the power of Social Media, especially Twitter to drive her Tea Note Speaking, Tea Consulting and Tea Writing business forward.
1. May King Tsang
• Founder of MayKing Tea
• Tea Note Speaker
• Tea Business Mentor
• Tea Writer
• Lover of Tea Puns
• Founder of Queensland
Business Facebook Group
• Oh, and sells tea too =)
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28. Workshop: Positioning Yourself as an
Expert Using Social Media
• When: Wednesday April 17
• Where: Chalk Hotel
• Time: 6-9pm.
• Cost: $67 for you AND a friend
• What: May King Tsang,
Jay Jay Live,
28
29. Thank you / Questions
MayKing Tea
May King Tsang
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Notas do Editor
Hello, my name is May King Tsang.My first name is May King and I am the founder of MayKing Tea.You can probably hear from my accent, I’m not from around these parts:I’m a BBC (British born Chinese) I am a Tea Note Speaker, hired to talk about all things tea.I am a tea business mentor, helping people who want to start a tea business get started.I am a writer, writing for three blogs as well as my own, and I am writing a book on tea and recipes this year.Oh, and I sell tea too :o)I am also a huge fan of Social Media and here I am speaking on a panel with the Commonwealth Bank talking about building online communiTEAs. I’ll explain more about that later on.In essence I love my tea, I want to spread the word about tea, and basically I want to be a:
TEA ROCK STAR I’m waiting to be interviewed by Ellen Degeneres, Graham Norton or Sonia Kruger
I started my MayKing Tea business in the UK.You can read my blog on how I got into the business of tea as I know you’re here to learn more about Social Media, so I’ll carry on. I started by business in 2009 and I was working full-tme in IT, 9 months later I was made redundant, and then worked on my business full-time. This was me collaborating with a tea company doing a tea talk in front of around 50 people at Hampton Court just outside London. And whilst I was finding my feet with my business, my husband came home one day and said:
I’ve been relocated to Brisbane, and we had 6 weeks to move.My first reaction was this:
Yep – I threw my toys out of the cot.I didn’t want to move. I had only just started my tea business, doing a few tea note speaking gigs here and there, managed to get my teas into a café and a cake shop and here I was being asked to move.Well after moping around for a few weeks, I thought I’d better get my act into gear and prepared for the move across. One of the things I did was say goodbye to my business colleagues and ask them if they knew of anyone who lived in Brisbane?One lady said that they knew of someone who lived in Sydney.Fortunately, my husband had a week in Sydney before we headed onto Brisbane,So I arranged through a series of TEAmails to meet this lady.Unfortunately the only day she could meet was on the morning of the day that I had arrived so:
We had a 24 hour flight from London to Sydney.I got into the hotel and luckily they were able to check me in.I had a shower, got dressed and went out to meet this woman.Fortunately for me, she was the queen of networking and had a networking morning where I was able to meet up with other like-minded women.Through this network, I was able to secure a further three meetings during the week.
During my Twittersations, I came across this lovely lady: Linda Fairbairn aka @journeyjottingsWe had a chat, had a cup of tea in the city of Brisbane, and she mentioned a few networking groups that she goes to, and which one were effective for her business.If you’ve been to tourist shops you’ll have seen her map illustration of Australia: Journey Jottings where you can note down very briefly quick notes on places you’ve been to in Australia.
Now what is important about Social Media, is that you can’t conduct business alone just by going online.You could, but you’re probably limiting yourself. So you have to combine online networking and face2face networking: whatever is within your budget.So when I first started networking in Brisbane, this is what I experienced.Have you experienced this? People talking at you? People looking over their shoulder to see if there’s a better prospect? Puts you off doesn’t it? As my nephew will demonstrate to you in the next slide:
You have two ears and one mouth.To relationship build you must learn how to listen.And when I say listen, I don’t mean wait until the person has finished speaking!Remember: with relationship building, it is NOT ABOUT YOU. Listen to see if there is a way you can help the other person. If you help them, they’re more likely to remember you, and if they remember you for the help you gave them, they might remember you and over time may refer you and your business to others. That is the power of relationship building: when other people talk about you.
Twitter is one big party – if Facebook is a party amongst mates, Twitter is like a party amongst colleagues.You’re connecting with one person but other people could be listening.In FB you’re broadcasting to your FB friends, but in Twitter, anybody could be listening.You never know who’s watching. You build closer connections because when you’re chatting because it’s a one2one connectionYou just chat, you get into the conversation, and the most important thing is, you never know who’s watching.
There are two common ways that business owners use Twitter by those that don’t understand Twitter:Promote / sell / shout to anyone who’ll listenPush everything from Facebook to Twitter.Each Social Media application requires a different strategy.Twitter is focused, it’s about engaging and having a chat like at a party. There is no need to broadcast if you’ve created your Twitter Account correctly.Twitter Functionali-teas:BioFollowers / EngagementShares (Retweets)Direct Messages
If you can text you can tweet. Most of us have a Smartphone.How long does it take us to tweet? Not long. You’re restricted to 140 characters.Get to your meeting or to your children’s school pickup run just 10 minutes’ earlier and get into the conversation (Tweetersation).
I can talk for England, but Twitter helps me to keep my message focussed.And if you’re really stuck there are tools such as twitlonger to truncate your message which is permissible now and again.
Making money is not instant. Just like building relationships is not instant. The money will come but you have to get into the twittersation first, build those relationships and the referrals will come later.
What is great about Twitter is that you’re effectively networking online.What you don’t need to do, is to ask people what they do. All that information should be online and you can use some keywords for your industry to get more chance to be picked up on Google.All the content in FB is internal to FB, so when you’re being searched for in Google, Google might recognize that you have an FB profile, but doesn’t list the content you’ve contributed within FB. Potentially your tweets can be found on Google, as well as your Twitter profile, so there is more chance of you being found on Google if you use Twitter more than FB.
Relationship building is important face2face and online.You can Help your Twitter followers by RTingSharing is caring. Remember, it is not about you. Help: with no hidden agenda or expectation and then walk away.Help RTing/sharing is a way of relationship building.Relationship building with other business owners could in turn mean business for you from them directly or referrals, or business owners may know people who in turn could be your customers/clients.Relationship building is a gradual process and doesn’t always mean instant results.Social Media is not the only way to relationship build.You have to use a combination of both.That is why I use networking, face2face and online.
As I’ve built my reputation online, people have started to share things with me.Some of the shares have turned into customers and clients, but for pictures like this, it demonstrates that other people are thinking about me, which is great as it helps my bigger picture of wanting Australia and the world to drink better tea. Also – by others sharing tea pictures, it reaches out to a new audience, and remember:YOU NEVER KNOW WHO IS WATCHING!!
Herald Sun, MelbourneEkkaFreestyle Tout (starting sharing their posts about the 2011 Queensland Floods)Taste Trekkers (followed her as she is a foodie. She tweeted about Sunnybank, and I asked where that was. We met and then she invited me to do a 5 minute talk on tea)Courier Mail (It was Natasha Mirosch’s event that I spoke at. Sally did the cooking. Natasha put a journalist’s name my way which got me into the Courier Mail – twice. Once was a 2 page spread.Sunday Mail: this was through a networking event.Regional Flavours (referred to by @goodbeermatt)Feature on three websites (www.tastetrekkers.com.au / www.freestyletout.com.au / www.freestyleescape.com.au)Several Business Mentor clients came via Twitter
Dina Yuen, listened in a conversation I was having with one of her followers on tea.Had a skype chat, now I’m her resident Tea writer on her blogRecently entered a competition to be interviewed by Larry KingWrote a review of the book of poemsGot picked up by Scrumptious ReadsNow collaborate with the book store to do many eventsThat led to collaboration with Gerard’s Bistro which in turn led to a feature in Saturday’s Q Weekend MagazineThe newspaper feature was shown to me by a friend of mine on Facebook, which brings me onto my next point.
When I was networking, a lot of people were telling me they were on Facebook, so I went on a training course to learn more about it and I learned the power of Facebook Groups, and so I created Queensland Business
I created Queensland Business because I felt Queensland needed. I was astonished when I went to networking groups and I’d ask how people’s businesses were, and most people explained how their business was doing really well. As a Brit, that means I’m cynical and I thought that surely not everyone’s business I met was doing brilliantly. I created Queensland Business as a place where business owners could ask those burning questions and not be judged by others. It’s a place to share useful content with other business owners, and also to find joint ventures and collaborative opportuniTEAs. It’s a quick way to receive answers to those burning questions without you having to do copious amounts of research. As of early March there are over 2200 members.
Since November 2010, I worked very hard to build up Queensland Business and do my best to assist business owners. Where a member’s question wasn’t being addressed, I would ask the question again, so that the feed would reappear to the top again. Nearly 2 years later, after helping many business owners, it was my turn to ask for help. My story demonstrates the power of relationship building with no set expectation and hidden agenda, and how the concept of “Pay It Forward” came to me in droves.
Here is my website and as you can see I am not putting all of my eggs in one basket.Whilst I love Twitter, I also use FB and other Social Media platforms.The reason I am explaining this is because of the importance of embracing Social Media in conjunction with your current face2face networking and other marketing strategies.
ClaytonUtz is a prestigious Law firm in the city. They googled something like “High Tea, Brisbane” and I popped up on many pages in Google. My work on Social Media, all the tweets, blog posts, guest blog posts, LinkedIn status updates, Pinterest pins, Google + Hangouts and YouTube videos were starting to pay off.Brisbane Council googled something like “Chinese Tea Tasting, Brisbane” – and up I popped everywhere.I took part in a 2 week festival celebrating Chinese New Year of which Master Chef contestant, now celebrity chef, Poh took part!!
You never know who is watching!I mentioned my change in personal circumstance before, and I went to have a business meeting with a friend of mine. When he noticed I was feeling low, he insisted on taking me for a walk to the local tea shop in Stone’s Corner. He walked in, said “Hi, I’d like to introduce you to May King” and before he had finished the sentence, the tea shop owner said “Oh wow! You’re May King, you’re a legend!”, he asked me if he could call his wife to say I’m at the shop, then apologised for “going all celebriTEA on me, but asked me whether I could talk to his wife on the phone” – They found me on Social Media and have been watching my progress over the last couple of years and have admired (so they tell me) the passion I have for educating and encouraging people to drink a better quality tea.
Social Media Marketing cannot be used in isolation.If traditional marketing methods have worked for you in the past, don’t ditch them!Facebook is not going to do it alone for you. You have to try and work on other Social Media applications and find the right fit for you. Figure out how much time you want to spend on each application, and keep doing it.
The question is always asked. Does Social Media work?This body art painting was a joint collaboration by two businesses who use Social Media for their business.The following statistics shows what happened on the days that followed the post being put up on Facebook and Twitter. I have always said that it’s not about the numbers, but who is talking about you.11 Shares including Brisbane, Melbourne (Business Magazine), Russia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and Spain, personal pages and fan pages14 retweets including Australia, US, India, UK and France
The question is always asked. Does Social Media work?This body art painting was a joint collaboration by two businesses who use Social Media for their business.The following statistics shows what happened on the days that followed the post being put up on Facebook and Twitter. I have always said that it’s not about the numbers, but who is talking about you.11 Shares including Brisbane, Melbourne (Business Magazine), Russia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and Spain, personal pages and fan pages14 retweets including Australia, US, India, UK and France