SSMarch2009

Changing Timber Market Spawns
Opportunities for Small Sawmills

The slowdown in the housing market has brought
big mill commercial log buyers to a slow down,
one that could be called a standstill by most
logging company's. With big mills already
stockpiling more log inventory than their demand
calls for quality saw logs have become readily
available to the small portable and stationary
sawyers at reasonable prices. The silver lining
can be found if you have your eyes open. "I look
at it as an opportunity to set my own log prices
and intend to start buying select logs to mill up
and start drying. This is all part of my five year
goals. I also plan to rewrite my business plan to
make sure that it accurately asses all aspects of
the business." Backwoods Sawyer hit the nail on
the head with this statement. It's a positive
forward thinking out look like this that keeps
todays business owners one step ahead of the
game. Finding ways to stay in front of the curve
during tough times will position a business for
success. Until our economic growth turns around,
and it will, businesses need to be able spot the
silver lining and adjust to the changing market.
This can be critical to weather hardships and still
be afloat and ready to sail ahead through better
times. Many areas of the market have new
openings for creative and insightful
entrepreneurs. Sawyers who can do secondary
processing are able to be price completive and
give themselves an edge over competition.
Examples could be large buildings, fencing and
construction projects to KDS4S lumber, furniture
and finish work. If you have the ability to produce
your own lumber and raw materials this allows for
the final price of completed work to be lower than
average. In today's market everyone is looking for
the lowest price for quality products.

A while back I was driving down the road with
mill in tow when a car sped past with several
arms shooting the finger at me while yelling
obscenities. They were referring to me as a
#*%king tree killer and destroying the forest. If I
could have talked to them they would have
found I am not only concerned about saving
trees but that rather than being part of the
problem (yelling and screaming with no
positive impact) I take action to be part of the
solution.

This is not the first time I have been yelled at
and probably wont be the last. I have spent
many hours researching and spreading
information in hopes of making a difference in
the way trees are salvaged, recycled, used and
the way it impacts the commercial timber
industry.

There are many horror stories about wrongful
action taken by those who want to change the
timber industry for the better. Unfortunately
most of the victims are loggers, sawmills and
tree farmers. A friend who not only salvages
and respects trees and the timber industry had
two logging trucks completely destroyed by
students who objected to the trees being
removed for the construction of there
classrooms (Santa Cruz, Ca. many years ago).
This is a perfect example of ignorance by
those striving to learn. Instead of doing there
research and going the extra mile to make a
positive impact some individuals or splinter
group chose to act blindly resulting in slowing
down real change and giving there cause bad
Mo Jo.

Education = Power. There is no excuse for
ignorance.

                Social Media Marketing Campaigns - Goals and Tactics

by Stephen Smith

  Social media marketing goals will often involve different overall strategies and social media channels. It
is possible to market with the aim of achieving all the following benefits; they do complement each other
and some results naturally arise when other goals are achieved (e.g. better brand awareness eventually
brings links).

   Let’s take a look at some of the goals you can strive towards:

   1. Increased Brand Awareness. Content can be created and spread through social media to improve
public perception of your brand by evoking specific qualities which make it distinct from others. For new
websites or businesses, this pervasive visibility generates brand familiarity. Social media channels can
rapidly generate word of mouth and buzz for most brands.

   2. Reputation Management. The goal here is to positively influence the way a potential and existing
customer/audience perceives your brand. Work of this nature is less push-orientated and may involve the
creation of social media profiles and wikis that rank well on search engines for your brand name.

   This also includes monitoring public forums and feedback channels to track and address what is said
about your site. Some view this as social media optimization, although I would classify it as pull-marketing.

   3. Improved Search Engine Rankings. When considered within a larger SEO and link building
framework, content can be creatively developed and promoted for the purpose of obtaining links from the
members of the social news websites.

   This means you should primarily target social sites with the highest potential to give you links, instead of
smaller-sized communities which only offer interested traffic. While important, your site’s profile need not
be entirely relevant to the social media website in question; content can be created specifically to appeal
to different audiences.

   4. Increased Relevant Visitor Traffic. If you are only interested in getting interested visitors or users for
your website, you should invest more time on social communities which have a high topical relevance.

   The social site’s topical focus should be inline with what your site covers/offers. For example, instead of
promoting your internet marketing articles through wide platform like Digg, try pushing it on more
appropriate communities like Sphinn, because it will get you people who are more likely to follow your site.

   5. Improve Sales for a Product or Service. To effectively increase your product sales, you should
release your offer through an influencer who is respected in the community or work through a sponsorship
model (contests etc.). Hard selling a social media audience through an overtly commercial profile is not
advisable because it will come across as marketing spam.

   One solution is to segment the market and focus on being the number one solution for specific user
problems. Naturally, you should mostly target communities which are highly relevant to your niche focus
because this increases the likelihood for traffic to convert.

   Having distinctive goals allows you to embark on mini-campaigns which target specific communities to
fulfill individual goals. For instance, you can run a link building campaign through Digg while
simultaneously building brand awareness by leveraging social video communities like Youtube or Daily
Motion.

Find out more about this topic and other marketing strategy's at Stephen's Website