50% of companies with online communities will fail to manage them well- Gartner. Social computing is becoming a significant customer relationship management (CRM) market trend and represents a disruptive force in this market, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that, by 2010, more than 60 percent of Fortune 1000 companies will have some form of online community that can be used for customer relationship purposes. Social applications* offer a great opportunity for CRM practitioners to improve customer experience and influence the customer, particularly in an economic downturn when companies are trying to keep customers and increase wallet share, said Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner. Investments should focus primarily on the customer online buying process where it can offer a direct return on investment (ROI) in terms of sales, awareness and customer loyalty.
However, Gartner predicts that, by 2010, more than half of companies that have established an online community will fail to manage it as an agent of change, ultimately eroding customer value. Are Baby Boomers Killing Facebook and Twitter? The story is as old as the Web: A social network born among twenty-something college kids and young wired professionals sprouts up, apparently out of nowhere, and grows into a cultural phenomenon. Eventually, it reaches critical mass and explodes, its mushroom cloud drawing the attention of millions of Baby Boomers, leading to a huge influx of new users, which in turn triggers complaints from the youngsters who started it all. The invasion of the Boomers spurs some members of younger generations to flee the carnage (and the fallout) in search of fresher territory.
We've seen this scenario play out on MySpace and Facebook, and now it is starting to happen on Twitter. When the Baby Boomers--traditionally defined as anyone born in the United States between 1946 and 1964--arrive, they tend to do so en masse. And when they set up camp, they invariably change the dynamic of the social network itself. End of Innocence "Younger folks don't want their parents there," Rainie says. #toyotafail: the crisis that wasn't. In Social Media We Trust? - Social Media. Every year, for the past ten years, the PR firm Edelman has released a trust and credibility survey called the Edelman Trust Barometer. This year’s was recently released, but with some interesting results: Mainly that the trust in global business has risen across the board. Something surprising was that trust in all forms of media went down. When it comes to information about a company, stock or industry analysis reports topped the list for credibility at 49% while social media bottomed out second to last — only above corporate advertising — at 19%.
Social media is about the voice of the people, like you and I, to spread by word of mouth what we believe in — whether it has to do with a brand or not. But how did the numbers fare there? Trust in information from our peers dropped by three points, from 47% to 44%, but went up in all other areas including trust in information from government officials and CEOs. Losing it What does it mean to you? Not an end-all, be-all Don’t be discouraged. Understanding the ROI of Customer Evangelism. “ What is the ROI? ” is the question that usually follows announcements of new marketing activities. No matter how creative your marketing initiative might be, if it does not result in benefits larger than the initial investment, it is worth a revision. The ROI question has now long been part of the conversation about inbound marketing , email and social media .
Yet, it remains less visible in the realm of another marketing channel— customer evangelism . Customer evangelism is a type of word-of-mouth marketing in which a company develops a loyal base of customers who voluntarily spread positive messages about it. But what is the ROI of customer evangelism? A 2008 study by BzzAgent , a Boston word-of-mouth marketing agency, showed that the return on investment reaches about 400 percent. Though this piece of data is optimistic, it might not be entirely useful for your business needs. Measure Social Media Following Track Referral Submissions Survey Your Sales Team.
Crowdsourcing is a skill, not a theory. At #OUI2010, intra-organizational crowdsourcing has been one of the more interesting topics. (Of course, I am a producer of OSS and OI research of and a consumer of crowdsourcing work, so I am not as up-to-speed on the latter.) Of the four long papers on crowdsourcing presented at the conference, two were about internal crowdsourcing. The most ambitious was a paper by Hind Benbya and Marshall Van Alstyne (presented by the latter) about crowdsourcing can be used to create internal markets for knowledge, rather than the more hierarchical and bureaucratic approaches of more traditional knowledge management. As in external crowdsourcing, they use the two-sided market perspective (which Van Alstyne helped invent) to match buyers and sellers.
However, their new wrinkle is to argue that a price system — rather than internal fixed incentives or a rating system — is necessary to stimulate the right quantity and quality of idea generation. Dealing With Employees Who Are Social Media Celebrities. One of the big promises of social media is that literally anyone can become a celebrity now because of cheap and easy access to social media tools. We all have a shot at our 15 megabytes of fame if we can create compelling content. But what are the implications for businesses that get serious about social media? Are there hidden dangers lurking for companies whose employees are “too good” with social media? This article will explore five benefits and five threats of celebrity employees.
The Employee Celebrity Is Born Organizations around the world are wisely trying to dive into social media to take advantage of the new opportunities. The Shift to Managing Talent An employee celebrity is someone in your organization who has a positive reputation apart from or in addition to your corporate brand. When you’re working with talent, there are inherent benefits and potential landmines.
Five Opportunities of Celebrity Employees #1: A Human Connection #2: Enhanced Credibility #3: Better Insight. Openness audit. Our B2B Social Media White Paper – Learn & Earn. Tipping the Scale If ever I needed a reminder about what really matters to advertisers, I got it earlier this month at the tech-media-gadget-advertising-palooza otherwise known as CES in Las Vegas. Simply put, in the 30+ meetings Microsoft Advertising held with... Microsoft, Warner Bros. UK Launch First Ad Campaign Featuring 3D Printing Today is a definite first for me, and for Microsoft Advertising, as we launch the new campaign for The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug on Windows 8 Ads-in-Apps, followed by a cross-platform solution on MSN and Xbox 360 on 13 December.
Why is it a... Microsoft and AOL Partner to Bring Video to MSN and Bing Apps Today, in partnership with our friends at AOL, I’m happy to announce a content distribution agreement that will bring some of the best video content available from AOL to Microsoft’s video platforms, including MSN, with an audience of nearly 450... Teachers for Tomorrow: Recruiting Generation Next Our Fight Against Fraud Bing Ads is Off to a Great Start. Tips for Talking to Your Boss About Social Media. Robin Neifield | February 26, 2010 | 0 Comments inShare3 Don't let your boss push you into adopting ill-conceived efforts for social media. Instead, take the offensive. Back in the early digital days we often fielded panicked calls from in-house marketing personnel whose head of marketing or another C-level executive would demand that they secure the top organic search listings in the major search engines.
Thank God most business people now understand both the value and difficulty of that feat. Today's equivalent is the overworked, understaffed, and stressed out in-house marketing departments being presented with the demand to start tweeting or get a Facebook page up - yesterday. When your boss comes blowing into the room demanding that you make an immediate splash in social media, deflect any attempt at forcing an ill-conceived tactical launch by asking for a short period of time to gather and present your research, plan, and budget. The Homework: The Conversation: What’s your strategy to get people to open your blog via Twitter? | Sylva Wilson. I have seen several methods used on Twitter and have tried most of them. There is the good old “Hit them hard and hit them fast” method. This method consists of sending 4 – 5 different tweets all with different texts, but very leading as to what the article is about.
You hit these tweets 4 to 5 times in a row right after each other, with the same link to the same article. Each tweet says something different. Article is really titled “Only 2 days left to buy a pair of Cashmere Gloves for $2” Your tweets read like this: Are your hands cold from frostbite? Always wanted cashmere but thought you couldn’t afford it? Woman caught red handed with these Read this (okay that one is really mis leading…but the point is to get them to open the link) So you get the point from this hit them hard hit them fast method right?
The next method I have seen is the …method. Tiger Woods caught cheating with another new lady. And remember, don’t stop blogging! Like this: Like Loading... How Online Video Can Increase Your Sales By 30% The use of online video is continuing to grow and develop as higher broadband speeds become more widespread worldwide and the appetite by the younger generation for viewing rather than reading. The old chestnut phrase , “A picture is worth a thousand words” begs the question, “How many words is a video worth?” Zappos (an online shoe retailer) does shoes and social media remarkably well and utilizes online video very effectively. They use video to engage with the buyer as much as possible. Their use of video to create “virtually” the reality experience of a bricks and mortar store, as if the buyer were in store and “more”continues to evolve. They use online video to Describe their shoesHow to use the productTo demonstrate Note: The videos are about the products, are with real Zappos employees and not models or actors… a bit of authenticity happening here, not stock photos with incredibly handsome and beautiful people.
They are testing interactive video on their site for Nike products. Empowered. Keynote: Building Business in a Connected World. Tomorrow morning I am giving the keynote at City of Port Phillip’s inaugural Breakfast Briefing session for the year in St Kilda, Melbourne, on the topic of Building Business in a Connected World. Here are event details and registration. Below are my slides for the presentation, which is almost entirely based on our Success in a Connected World visual framework launched earlier today. The usual caveats apply – the slides are NOT intended to stand alone but to provide a visual accompaniment to my presentation, so these are shared primarily for those who attended my keynote.
However others may still find them useful or interesting. Note that the presentation is intended primarily for individuals and smaller businesses. It’s a completely different presentation for large enterprise. How Paulo Coelho Uses Social Media. Paulo Coelho is one of the most successful fiction writers today and he actively uses social media to engage with his readers. For the past 25 years the Brazilian author has written many inspirational books, which have garnered him a huge fan base all around the world. I recently discovered Coelho's writing and have been busy devouring his books ever since. I've also been checking out his online presence, which is based around 3 main platforms: blogging, Facebook and Twitter.
Writers and publishers can learn a few tricks from how Paulo Coelho uses social media. Sure, the success of Coelho offline made it comparatively easy for him to translate that to online success. But he also engages with his online communities and posts fresh content daily. UPDATE: Paulo Coelho left a comment on this post, stating: "I have a very efficient staff for everything else, but NOT for my presence online. Blogging Coelho has been blogging for over 5 years, since April 2006. Facebook Twitter Conclusion. Social media: the ownership battle between marketing, PR and customer relations. As social media breaks out of its infancy, brands are still wrestling with how best to take advantage of it. After all, there is far more to social media than Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Factor in hundreds of other networks, bloggers and the use of reviews to gather customer feed-back, and social can be a complicated beast. The consensus is that brands should have a social-media presence, but there are differing opinions on how it should be organised internally.
Here, three marketers describe how they are set up to take advantage of social media. Sony Ericsson Ben Padley Sony Ericsson vice-president, head of digital marketing and CRM, is the company's former UK and Ireland marketing director as well as its one-time global head of music marketing. . - How do you approach your social-media strategy? People often say of social media that it is such a loose thing, that the rules are not defined. . - Sony Ericsson is a global brand. . - Why do you adopt a marketing-centric approach? Naked Wines. Mike Brown on The World's Simplest Social Media Policy | nateriggs.com | Columbus Social Media + Social Media Strategist | Nate Riggs & Social Business Strategies. Welcome to nateriggs.com. Why not while you're here? The Chick-fil-A PR crisis has commanded a ton of our attention this week.
It’s interesting that a brand, so well-known for its effectiveness in marketing and operations execution can bring its reputation under attack as a result of a values statement made by the leader at the helm. The statement below from Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A’s President and COO is taken directly from a July 16th interview with K. While Dan Cathy’s statement does not oppose same-sex marriage, his reference to the has sparked a heated opposition to the company’s assumed position on Gay and Lesbian couples. Who the Family Dining Segment Targets Right or wrong, neither Dan Cathy nor Chick-fil-A have much to lose in offending Gay and Lesbian couples.
Why do I make this claim? Because these couples are simply not the target audience that Chick-fil-A depends on to keep their sales up. So who do Family Dining Restaurants target as customers? He said. Amen. Ooyala. Video has been a major feature of the Web 2.0 revolution, but beyond the ubiquity of YouTube businesses need sturdy, enterprise platforms that deliver video in a simple but profoundly effective way. This is what Ooyala does. Ooyala is the leading video management and deployment platform, based out of Silicon Valley, with a raft of leading brands who deliver their important video through their HD delivery, syndication and monetization product ‘Backlot’. So it was that we turned to Ooyala in 2010 when needing to deliver the insights from the Like Minds Conference in a custom Like Minds Insight player. Since then, not only is every Like Minds Insight watchable online, but tens of thousands have been able to virtually join Like Minds events through Backlot’s robust live streaming service.
Another reason why our partnership with Ooyala is ideal, just like our other partnerships, is because Ooyala are committed to innovation. They go on to describe in their own words what they deliver, Integrate Social Media Into Your Website - Social Media Integration Tips - Entrepreneur.com.
7 Reasons Social Media Is Bad for Marketing. SearsKilledMyDog.com: The Anatomy of a Social Media Nightmare Averted – A Case Study « Digital Marketing Mercenary. Social Media in Your Company – Guidance for Where It Fits In. 1,000 percent increase in customer engagement? Samsung shows how social media is done. How to Audit Your Social Media Efforts: 20+ Questions to Ask Yourself. Sterling Performance | BNET. Your Authentic Social Network: The Identity Graph. Social Search–Optimising Is Not An Option! Why your social media strategy shouldn’t be owned by a PR or ad agency. ULTIMATE GUIDE: How To Create A Business Social Media Strategy From Start To Finish.