Forum weekly update #96

Hi all,

 

We were excited this week to launch a new way for Australian businesses to promote themselves as part of our new “Love your work” brand campaign.

 

Businesses simply take a photo containing a simple handwritten message to promote themselves - tagged with the #spruik hashtag, and upload it on MYOB’s loveyourwork.com website.

 

The site not only helps businesses share their #spruik into other social media platforms, it also puts them in the running to win one of four promotional packages from MYOB, each worth $25,000. There is also 25 runner-up prizes of $1000 business grants for the most creative #spruiks.

 

Businesses can #spruik about their unique passion, product, service or story, and there is no limit to the number of times businesses can enter and go on to share their #spruiks with their customers and friends.

 

The first prize includes a professionally made film that can be adapted into local cinema advertising. The promotion is being run in support of MYOB’s position as Gold Partner of the Amex ‘Shop Small’ movement, which is running nationally throughout November.

 

MYOB CEO Tim Reed says business owners tell us that spreading the word and finding new customers on a limited marketing budget is one of the biggest challenges they face. “We hope this campaign enables them to do that, and have a bit of fun in the process.”

 

In other news this week, it appears the honeymoon is over for the Australian Federal Government, with dissatisfaction among small businesses towards the government growing according to our latest MYOB Business Monitor Report. Dissatisfaction has climbed to 37 per cent in the latest survey of over 1000 SMEs conducted by Colmar Brunton, up from 32 per cent earlier in the year. Satisfaction with the government has also dipped slightly to 23 per cent.

 

Meanwhile, the latest MYOB Business Monitor survey in New Zealand has found small to medium enterprises in the agribusiness sector are preparing for a tougher year ahead.

 

Despite enjoying a solid year of growth in 2014, a survey 1000 SME operators has found few expect favourable market conditions to continue into next year. According to the survey, just 17 per cent of agribusiness SME operators forecast revenue to increase in the year to September 2015, compared to an SME average of 38 per cent. The number expecting revenue to fall is higher, 18 per cent compared to just 11 per cent overall, while 19 per cent are uncertain what 2015 will bring.

 

It’s been another busy seven days on the Community Forum, with a whopping 1150 posts (including over 400 from MYOB staff) and another 350 new members joining us.

 

Our stars this week were PaulBihet, Dee-Workman, The_Doc, Stuart_Donaldson and fiona-s. Many thanks for all your hard work assisting other community members. A special shout out to Dee-Workman, AlanT and PaulBihet for having multiple posts marked as solutions this week.

 

Thank you to all those community members who have recently shared their expertise on the Community Forum.

 

Love your work,

 

Jason Hill

Community Manager