Tag Archives: Twitter

Amway Australia, Amway News

Amway Australia, 40 years on and taking the lead

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Amway Australia 40 yearsAmway Australia was the first Amway market to open outside of North America. The story goes that Rich DeVos said it was similar enough to America to try out Amway there, but far enough way that if it failed nobody would know! Well, last month Amway Australia celebrated 40 years in business, and while, like all businesses, it’s had its ups and downs, “failure” would not be close to an appropriate description!

I’m unfortunately not able to easily track most Amway Asia markets, but Amway Australia & New Zealand (the two markets merged several years ago)  is in my opinion leading english speaking markets in their use of both “old” and “new” media in the past year or so. They’ve been doing innovative videos for years, with many now available on the Amway Australia Youtube channel, but recently things have been going to a whole new level. In the last year or so they’ve launched social media channels such as –

On Facebook – Continue reading Amway Australia, 40 years on and taking the lead →

Amway News, Amway North America

IBOAI launches Social Media Guide for Amway Business Owners

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I just came across this great new Social Media Resource Center on the IBOAI website, with tips on the do’s and dont’s of using social media to promote an Amway business. The guide gives some great summaries of different social media services, their rules and guidelines, and general netiquette on using them.

Where I found the guide falls down is in addressing older forms of internet communication such as blogs and forums and the continued failure to address the fact that the Internet is not a broadcast medium, as I pointed out last year. Amway seems to consider an IBO’s internet presence as a form of “non-local” advertising, when in fact something like a blog is as “local” as you can get – it’s only available to people who have actively decided to go to the location of your site. Something like google display ads are not “local” – you’re broadcasting them over a variety of websites over which you have no control, and neither does the recipient. Sending a spam email to masses of people you don’t know – that too is broadcasting. A blog post, a tweet, a facebook page – they’re local, narrowcast messages sent only to people who actively want to receive them – people who have made personal contact. Amway’s view seems to be that personal contact can only be made in one direction: IBO to prospect. Why? If this was a consistent rule, then if someone “in the real world” learned I was an IBO, and contacted me for some reason (saw an ad, read an old internet article, heard from a friend, whatever) – it would be wrong of me to respond to them. That’s ridiculous isn’t it? Continue reading IBOAI launches Social Media Guide for Amway Business Owners →

Amway Europe, Amway News, Amway North America

Amway spreads its wings on the net

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Amway has been slowly delving into elements of social networking on the internet. A while ago Amway Euope quietly started posting links to sites of interest on there own Amway Europe Delicious bookmark site. More recently they’ve started promoting (and regularly updating) an Amway Europe feed on Twitter.

Amway Global in North America has been on Twitter for a while. There’s now a Nutrilite Health Twitter, an Artistry Beauty Twitter, an Amway Canada Twitter, and an Amway Global Twitter and as of a couple of days ago, a Ribbon Gift Twitter. I’ve not delved much into Twitter before, not really being sure of where it might be useful. Indeed, my initial experiences have not been good, with attempts to update my profile resulting in “twitter is over capacity” and “something is technically wrong” errors. Still, it has me intrigued, and the error messages are a clear indication it has plenty of other folk intrigued as well!

As “microblogs”, twitters are much simpler and easier for corporate staff to quickly keep Amway business owners up-to-date. One tweet of interest –

Looking at an IBO Facebook page promising “prosperity guaranteed.” Perfect example of why Social Media Guidebook for IBOs coming out soon!5:10 AM Jan 19th from web

Clearly the corp has realised that IBOs need guidance in this area, and I’m glad action is being taken to give it. Another tweet that  appeared as I was writing this post –

Ten new followers overnight! Probably thanks to @BWW, also Tweeting great stuff about their LOA & Amway Global. We move forward together! 12 minutes ago from web

Still, rapid ease of use has it’s problems – you’re more likely to make errors! When I looked at it, the above tweet links to http://twitter.com/BWW, which is clearly not a twitter by Britt World Wide. I think they meant http://twitter.com/brittworldwide! The (real) BWW twitter points to even further expansion of the Amway World into social networking, with the annoucement of a Britt World Wide FaceBook page. Facebook has had an explosion of Amway related groups , with nearly 400 results showing when I searched for “Amway” groups ((including one for TTAA supporters!)

Amway has always been about “social networking”, technologies like FaceBook and Twitter are tools that can transform how we do it. But how to effectively and efficently use them is something I don’t think we’ve really learned how to do just yet.

PS You can “follow” me at http://twitter.com/ibofb