The Collaborative Economy: How It’s Changing the Way People Consume Brands. And how brands can tap into this culture of sharing. Every breakup starts with a letter. In this recent and rather poignant letter directed at brands, Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at Altimeter group, encapsulated perfectly the disruptive force of change that the collaborative economy would have on brands and traditional businesses. We've always had committed relationships with brands that we loved and we have bought from them repeatedly for a long time. However, with the dawn of a new generation led by the transparency and openness of technology, the economic pressures to be efficient and a more socially responsibly mindset, more and more consumers are looking to rent, subscribe, and borrow products rather than buying them outright.
If they do buy a product, they would ensure that it is sustainable and/or has a great resale value so that they can sell it or rent it out and make money. What are the key drivers to this shift toward collaborative consumption? Click here toenlarge. How Microsoft uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ Marketers Use Social Media Data to Drive Campaigns. Marketers worldwide are continuing to invest in making sense of the surge of data produced by digital interactions with customers—68% said they will increase data-related marketing spending in 2013 and just 3% planned to decrease spending, according to a study by Infogroup Targeting Solutions and Yesmail Interactive. So, what are marketers’ best sources of customer data? As of October 2012, 49% said website analytics, 19% said data from email campaigns and 12% said data arising from social media interaction.
Other data sources included SMS/phone analytics, direct mail interaction and display analytics. But data is only as valuable as your ability to put it to work. A survey conducted in November by Pitney Bowes of its clients and prospects delved into what kinds of data marketers viewed as presenting the largest source of opportunity for their companies. Among the greatest sources of long-term opportunity identified by marketers: social media data. Publications Study: For Stores, Social Media Still A Bust 02/08/2013. While there’s no denying that consumers are increasingly using social media in just about every area of their lives, they still aren’t into shopping there. A new global study from PwC, the global consultancy, reports that last year, only 12% of consumers bought anything through social media.
Nor does social media buzz do much to drive sales: Only 18% of those consumers active in social media made a purchase as a result of information they got via their social-media connections. “Our survey data shows that social media will, for the near future, remain a backwater sales channel, if you can call it a sales channel at all,” the report says. “While about half of respondents say they’re checking out social media sites daily, only a tiny minority uses the sites frequently to shop. In fact, seven out of ten online shoppers who took our survey say they never shop this way. That should remain the status quo for the immediate future.” PwC has classified them in three different groups: Twitter and Amex to let you pay with a hashtag. Twitter and American Express team up to let cardholders buy products with a hashtagThe discounted goods will require two tweets and then ship to your billing addressAmerican Express already has discounts on Facebook and other networks via hashtags (CNN) -- Twitter is getting into e-commerce.
It's now possible to buy goods online in two steps by tweeting a special hashtag. The new collaboration between Twitter and American Express will turn the social media service into a shopping cart. American Express members who sign up will be able to buy products by mentioning the appropriate hashtag in a tweet. The @AmexSync account will tweet back with a confirmation hashtag. Once you tweet that confirmation hashtag, American Express will shoot you a confirmation e-mail and give you 15 minutes to confirm you want the product.
The two companies announced the partnership on Monday and kicked it off with a single product offering, a $25 American Express gift card for $15. World Map Of Social Networks Shows Facebook's Global Dominance. (Click here for a larger version of the world map of social networks) Twice a year (in June and in December), social media strategist Vincenzo Cosenza updates his ‘world map of social networks’, in which he shows what the most popular social network is in now 137 countries worldwide – at least according to a combination of Alexa and Google Trends for Websites traffic data. The edition for June 2012 was published by Cosenza earlier this afternoon, and it shows just how dominant Facebook has become in almost all of the world. Funny caveat: Google+ stats are not displayed by Google Trends for Websites. According to the traffic data examined by Cosenza, Facebook is numero uno in 126 out of the 137 countries that were analyzed.
It’s only when you look at this animated gif that shows how the map colors have changed over the years that you get a sense of how Facebook steamrolled its competitors in most countries around the world. The hold-outs aren’t a huge surprise, but for the record: Also read: What Should We Call Social Media. OK, I am apparently very late to the party, but this was a revelation and I can’t just not share. I apologize in advance if I’m posting something old. So you know this really stupid thing that happens with links? It’s actually the worst thing in the world.
WELL, to fix the problem, all you have to do is copy & paste the link here. Once you press debug, try the link again and all your problems should be solved! BRB, crying from happiness. How much is a tweet worth? About 1/10,000 as much as a Yelp review. Tweets, status updates, pins, check-ins: They may seem trivial to you, but they’re valuable content to social networking companies.
For example: Next time you make an update in Path, consider that you just helped that company make 50 cents in revenue. Just how much value do you represent to these companies? Backupify, a cloud data backup service, decided to do some quick math. The infographic below gives you a glimpse. Dividing the estimated valuation of the company by the number of users tells you, roughly, how much value each user contributes to the company’s value.
Path: $12.50 per userInstagram: $18.52Yelp: $21.21Pinterest: $28.09Foursquare: $40.00Twitter: $71.43Dropbox: $80.00LinkedIn: $104.46Facebook: $118.34 But it’s the value of each individual status update that’s especially interesting. Tweet: $0.001Facebook share: $0.024LinkedIn search: $0.124FourSquare check-in: $0.40Path update: $0.50Yelp review: $9.13 Infographic courtesy Backupify. 3 Reasons Curation is Here to Stay. Perhaps you won't believe me since it's my job to spread the gospel of curation as the Chief Evangelist of Pearltrees, but I think curation is here to stay. These are the reasons why I believe this is the case. This year there has been a tremendous amount of buzz in Silicon Valley about curation.
Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum recently published a book, Curation Nation that has sparked a tremendous amount of conversation on the topic. Likewise a post by Brian Solis has been retweeted thousands of times. Oliver Starr is the Chief Evangelist for Pearltrees. With all the attention curation has suddenly received, people are probably wondering if this is just another fad or is it something bigger? First, curation is one of the underlying principles of the Web. Allow anyone to access any type of documentAllow everyone to disseminate his or her own documentsAllow everyone to organize the entire collection of documents The graphic above illustrates this process of democratization. The Three C's of Information Commerce: Consumption, Curation, Creation Brian Solis. InShare180 Over the years, social networks have lured us from the confines of our existing realities into a new genre of digital domains that not only captivated us, but fostered the creation of new realities.
As George Bernard Shaw observed, “Life is not about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself.” Such is true for social networks and the digital persona and resulting experiences we create and cultivate. It was the beginning of the shift in behavior toward an era of digital extroversion, self-defined by varying degrees of sharing, connections, and engagement. On Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, et al., we were attracted by the promise of reigniting forgotten relationships and enamored by the sparking of new connections. With each new connection we wove, we were compelled to share details about ourselves that we might not have divulged in real life. Our concerns of privacy or the lack thereof, now require education. The Social Genome The 3C’s, Consumption, Creation, and Curation.