It's awesome to read about use cases in countries I know little about. Viber, Telegram for direct marketing? Wow. How do people decide to join? How do you do ad's?
Just like in Argentina in '11 I was amazed that all SME had Facebooks, and were just skipping the website-part I was used to.
Funny how local circumstances (might your Whatsapp problem just be an upload-to-US problem?) create different business environments. It reminds me that country-specific network and adoption effect exist and matter.
Doing business in countries like Uzbekistan is tough because of inability to get payments. But there is a solution to that and it's called MIDDLE MAN.
For example, Facebook ads are really picking up here. Of course, most small businesses cannot pay to Facebook directly due to tight payment regulations. So what happens? A middle man comes in. He signs up as a Facebook partner (or regular user), finds small local businesses that pay him extra and then he pays Facebook through his internationally accepted cards to show ads belonging to others.
I have no doubt that if American companies came here and tried a little, they would quickly realize that Uzbeks are entrepreneurs, who can be good partners and can make lots of money.
Even the ideas that I see pop up in the United States have been implemented here long time ago. For instance, we had car-sharing service in Uzbekistan since I was a child -- we just didn't have GPS and mobile phones to make an Uber, so we had middle men finding riders and putting them into one car. Then the driver would pay a fee for that.
Same thing with delivery -- we had delivery services, which you could call, so they could find the closest person to you (or the store/pharmacy) and deliver the items quickly. You would just pay cash to the driver (which of course had to be trustworthy-- otherwise delivery service wouldn't work with them)
What you call a "Middle Man" is also known as a "Market Maker" or a "Liquidity Provider". He takes on the risk of connecting supply and demand in order to profit from the bid/ask spread.
The "Middle Man" has been replaced with technology because it's more efficient and enables more liquidity than an actual man or a network of men could.
If you see solutions popping up in Uzbekistan for basic logistical problems such as transportation and delivery, perhaps you should try to implement them elsewhere? I would be interested to hear more examples that could be implemented elsewhere in the world.
> Viber, Telegram for direct marketing? Wow. How do people decide to join? How do you do ad's?
I've lived in a country where LINE, an IM/Call/Video/Games/etc is hugely popular.
Companies have official accounts which works for a couple of reasons:
1. Sometimes they gets automatically added to your list I think. I might have just forgotten how I got them though do don't quote me on this.
2. App specific promotions "follow us for xy and z". I guess this is the ads you're wondering about, it's basically a "100%" impression rate towards costumers you already know is interested in your brand.
3. Stickers are something that are huuuuge. Companies can create their own cute ones that obviously include the logo in one way or another. People then get them for free or buy them. I think companie pay to have them in the store for free, while paid stickers gives LINE a cut.
4. General curiosity from costumers, "Hm I wonder if AirAsia has a LINE account, maybe they have some discount there?"
Obviously you can block each account if you so please.
Just like in Argentina in '11 I was amazed that all SME had Facebooks, and were just skipping the website-part I was used to.
Funny how local circumstances (might your Whatsapp problem just be an upload-to-US problem?) create different business environments. It reminds me that country-specific network and adoption effect exist and matter.