Papa John’s graffiti on walls?

Well, looks like the Papa John’s Madinat Qaboos outlet’s bulk business comes from home deliveries and takeaways. Leaving no stone unturned, they want their staff to speak in unison about the options available in the joint and the language to handle a call. This explains boxes pasted on the wall with details, just in case they forget on a bad day. Nice to know that they are taking their customer care a bit seriously, which is a rare phenomenon in this part of the world.

This shopping trolley, belonging to ‘Supa Save’ in CBD, is abandoned near a building next to ‘Costa Coffee’ in CBD. By the looks of it, this trolley has traversed quite a distance before the handler decided to call it quits. What will happen to this trolley now? How will it go back to the supermarket again? I can’t think of answers. No wonder, Carrefour decided to charge 50 bz for its trolleys in MCC and QCC.

Over the last few weeks, I have been meeting guys at various companies and here is my experience on the coffee/tea hospitality extended towards visitors by the hosts.

Various scenarios:

1. Water plus tea/coffee

2. Water plus tea/coffee plus juice

3. Water plus tea/coffee plus juice plus biscuits

4. Absolutely nothing

I can vouch for the fact that companies in Sohar are more hospitable than their Muscat counterparts. I was taken aback when a company in Sohar offered us water plus tea/coffee plus juice plus biscuits. The best part was they had the option for black tea and green tea as well. And the office boy came with a piece of paper to take our order. To top it all, at 11.30am, they almost forced us to have lunch at the company premises. It can’t get better than that, I guess. Anyone willing to challenge with a better offer?

Ok, agreed, this market loves press releases. But, how do you make press releases interesting to editors at newspapers and magazines? Remember, a newspaper editor gets no less than 50 press releases a day. How do you make your press release stand out of the crowd? As a journalist, I would love press releases which are precise and to-the-point in terms of news peg. Those extra flab on press releases are just waste of time, and a good editor will chop it off to make the copy crisper.

Being on the other side, as a public relations consultant, I make sure the press releases are catchy enough to attract editors’ attention by way of good headlines and proper structure of writing stories. Oh, yes, the newsman in me is more prevalent than ever before. As a journalist, I would be put off by flowery language in a press release, and now I make sure I don’t repeat the mistake when I am in the other side of the fence.

When I approach clients, the first thing they tell me is – we know how to write press releases. A cursory glance at their press release is enough to judge the quality of writing and thought process. I don’t blame them either. Their core job is not to write press releases, but to provide engineering solutions. In their effort to cut costs, they dish out crappy press releases created in-house, and which in turn does more harm than good in the long run. Folks, take care of your core activity, and outsource press release writing for people who are good are doing it…and see the difference.

Are businesses in Oman ready to embrace social media? It is early days for me on the field, but the signs are encouraging. There are a set of folks, who care two hoots for social / new media. They think and believe that fax and phone are the only two great inventions of this century to do business, and they will carry on the legacy of their predecessors. Then there are the exploring types, who are not sure of the benefits of social media and don’t get much of it, but somehow know the future lies there. They want to venture into social media, but not ready to bite the bullet yet. After some convincing talks, they say, ”Ok, send us a proposal, we want to try it out”. And, then there are the third kind who think they are quite e-savvy, but not ready to listen or experiment. You ask them about new media, they jump to say they have a state-of-the-art website. Their website was created way back in 2007, and since two years, there hasn’t been any update.

Advantages of social media for businesses

1. Community building

2. Product research

3. Customer service

4. Marketing and promotion

5. Transparency

Why social media?

You can buy attention (advertising)

You can beg for attention from the media (PR)

You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales)

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online: a corporate blog, a YouTube video, photos, a Twitter stream, a Facebook page.