Malaysian Academy of SME and Entrepreneurship Development (MASMED) Universiti Teknologi MARA, (UiTM) Malaysia organized a ‘MASMED Business Talk Series’ with the aim to provide digital entrepreneurs’ knowledge to UiTM students and society at large. Two senior lecturers from the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences (FSKM), UiTM, who are also Alibaba Certified Master Trainers were given the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience on E-commerce using the “Facebook Live Session” which became a great hit.
The first Facebook Live Session was presented by Suzana Zambri which obtained more than 5000 views for her 90-minute session . She shared her knowledge on “Boosting Your Sales Using Google Ads” with the aim to help young digital entrepreneurs to connect their businesses with customers. She explained how Google Ads presents a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to focus on online channels for sales and marketing as well as to engage audience in a meaningful way, yet with a cost as lower as MYR1! This is feasible as Google Ads provides methods to reach potential customers.
Using local scenes and scenarios as examples, Suzana highlighted that entrepreneurs can grow their businesses internationally also. She added that “Google Ads marketing can be used to reach potential customers all over the world”. Entrepreneurs can specify which country, district, based on customer age and gender for the Google Ads to appear to if they use the right keywords to describe the products or services.
The second presenter, Ts. Dr. Maslina Abdul Aziz presented her Facebook Live Session on “Starting Your Online Shop: Shopee and Lazada” which focused on helping new entrepreneurs to open their own first online shop. To make the talk interesting, Maslina started off her presentation by introducing Malaysia’s famous persona Makcik Kiah. “Makcik Kiah” is an example used by the Malaysian Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to illustrate the kind of cash aid an average Malaysian is eligible to receive from the government during the Covid-19 Economic Stimulus Package known as ‘Prihatin Rakyat Economic Stimulus Package’.
The whole session set to help Makcik Kiah set up an online store and focussed on the concept of “Frequently Asked Questions” or FAQ. Understanding the struggles for beginners to start an online business, Maslina clearly guided the audience on a journey with Makcik Kiah. Among the questions and dilemmas by new entrepreneurs included basic questions such as “I am not an IT expert; can I sell online?”, “Is online selling safe or not?”, to cost questions such as “What is the cost to open an online shop?” and the most popular one was “I want to be an entrepreneur, but I don’t have a product to sell”. These questions were answered very effectively by Maslina with facts and figures based on her research. The session was entertaining due to the two-fold mission; Helping Makcik Kiah and answering the dilemma of doing e-business. The session had more than 4000 views on the same day and continues to increase day by day.
The audience for both sessions responded positively leaving the session with positive comments such as “great sharing, very informative, well explained, very engaging and many more”. The videos had more than 300 shares. The total number of viewers for both sessions has increased tremendously to more than 5000 views.
Both Facebook Live sessions can still be viewed via MASMED Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/pg/masmeduitm/videos/?ref=page_internal