How the Fortune 500 use Social Media in 2012

How do the Fortune 500 use and evaluate Social Media sites? Please find a great infographic by Go Gulf that illustrates some of the key Social Media statistics for the biggest corporate players.

Here are the key points…
- 23% already have a corporate blog.
- 58% have an active corporate Facebook account.
- 62% have an active corporate Twitter account and have tweeted from in the past 30 days.
- The biggest number of blogs is in specialist retail industry.
- The insurance industry gets the highest number of Facebook pages.

The next two years will definitely show some massive changes in the adoption of Social Media in big enterprises which we acknowledge in different meetings and seminars these days.

What do you think about this adoption of “Social” in companies?

Study: Social Media Use Helps CEOs Build Trust

We already know that Social Media use confers a wide variety of benefits for the average company. It can work as an effective platform for marketing a new product. It can act as a focus group to gauge consumer opinions. It can be used to reinforce brand image and community engagement on a day-to-day basis. And, for most basic uses, social media is free, easy, accessible, and convenient. From a business perspective, there’s really not much to dislike.

Now research has revealed another reason for businesses to use social media: credibility.
According to a study released recently by BRANDfog, a social media consulting firm, CEOs that use social media are perceived by consumers as more credible.

A full 82% of the respondents in the survey said that they trust a company more when its top executive actively uses and communicates via social media. Furthermore, 77% said that they were more likely to purchase a product from a business that has a socially-engaged CEO. These findings fall in line with earlier credibility studies, although they are the first to consider the CEO’s role in particular.

The strong preference given to CEO engagement is likely a testament to the power of informal, personalized communication in the digital age. In the past, an executive might have given a human face to his or her business by writing individualized letters with custom pens or by making a point to speak with small shareholders at the annual meeting. These days this appeal to personalized informality is best found on Facebook and Twitter, where the CEOs communicate just as we do and may actually respond to our individual comments or complaints.

At the same time, social media is perceived as an “honest forum” where people can speak candidly and where companies cannot stand behind layers of advertisers, consultants, and brand managers. By putting its brand message on Facebook and Twitter – and by keeping that message the same across traditional and non-traditional platforms – companies can appear more transparent and dependable. A brand message coming from the CEO only boosts that perceived transparency.

A minority of top CEOs currently use Facebook and/or Twitter to connect with consumers. Is this about to change? If companies are paying attention to this study, the answer very well may be yes.

This post is a guest post from Inkhead.

Study: Coupon user shop more, and more frequently than others

People like shopping. People like deals. People like coupons. This hasn’t changed in a hundred years. And as coupons follow some certain sales tactics, companies always ask whether digital coupons make more sales, or not. Here is an answer…

Some results from a Coupons.com research conducted by GfK Knowledge Networks offers some insights. The results show that digital coupon users shop more frequently and spent more money than the average shopper. The digital coupon users spent 23% more per grocery shopping trip than the average shopper ($55.05 vs. $44.87) which is almost $1.500 more annually. These findings were based on a representative study that monitored over 150 coupon campaigns representing a cross-section of CPG categories.

The findings state that Coupons.com shoppers made 21% more trips than average shoppers with 69 trips per year (vs. 57) and 1.3 trips per week (vs 1.1). Another on-site survey by Coupons.com with almost 4,000 users in January 2012 shows that 43% replied they would visit the grocery store either the same day as offline coupons or storing for the next day (25%) or in 2 days (19%), and keeping them to a loyalty card (18%).

Interestingly enough, the study made clear that Coupons.com shoppers made 48% more stock up trips (trips above $75) in a 52 weeks period than the shopper average (18.6 to 12.6). The heavy Coupons.com shoppers even more than doubled the amount of trips (27.2 to 12.6). On their stock up trips, Coupons.com shoppers handed in an average of 3.6 coupons per trip (vs. 1.4 for other shoppers).

Spot On!
However, these findings are essential from an upscale position, they need to be obeyed from a brand management perspective in order not to affect the brand positioning and pricing structure of a company. Another study on clothes by CouponCabin conducted by Harris Interactive shows that US adults say that they only buy clothing on sale (41%), look for a deal or coupon first that will decide on the purchase decision (10%), and find the item they want to purchase and then look for a deal or coupon before making a purchase (7%). So, coupons have a massive effect on our purchase decisions. And just imagine the opportunities companies have when using those coupons detecting tablet users…

Why retailers need to focus business on tablet users

It is kind of an open secret that tablets make you spend more money than you want. Some new infographic by Milo gives the proof, and it makes clear that tablet users are often more willing to spend more than shoppers using their desktop device or their mobile phones. The infographic relies on data from insights by eMarketer, comScore and Adobe. It states that by 2014 one in three US internet users (approximately 89.5 million) will have access to a tablet.

Obviously, young internet users are even more open to tablets and willing to use them for online spending. Already today, 79% of 18-34 year olds now using their tablet to go on online shopping trips. In the category of the 35-54 year olds this makes up 50%, and 43% for those 55 years old or older.

Although the laptop is still the online shopping device, the tablet wins against all the other mobile devices fur online commerce across all groups. However, tablet users are willing to spend more than mobile and desktop shoppers according to the data sheet. What is even more interesting for retailers, tablet users are more willing to make a quick emotional purchase than smartphone shoppers.

The average tablet user spent $123 in terms of visitors by average order value on online goods. Desktop and smartphone buyers in comparison spent $102 or $80. What is also interesting to see is that 31% of tablet users do price comparisons on their tablet before spending money in offline stores.

How about you? Have you experienced some similar tablet spending attitude for yourself, or your family?

Survey: How Top B2B companies generate more leads via Social Media

The challenge for all B2B companies is to find the balance between inbound and outbound marketing today. And the main question is how to generate leads with Social Media. A new study conducted by Aberdeen Group sponsored by Silverpop and Eloqua, offers some insights in how Best-in-Class B2B companies generate leads through Social Media platforms.

The findings of the study “B2B Social Meeting Marketing: Are We There Yet” show that on average 17% of the Best-in-Class B2B companies generate their leads via Social Media channels. Compared to their peers, this is almost 230% more marketing-generated leads through Social Media than other companies (5%). 84% of the responding B2B companies were using social marketing in some form.

The study differentiates between Best-in-Class (top 20% of aggregate performers) versus the industry average (middle 50%) and laggard (bottom 30%) organizations by using the following metrics…

1. The average annual company revenue growth of 20%, compared with 8% for Industry Average and -3% for Laggard firms.
2. An increase of 10% year-over-year improvement of marketing leads in average resulting in closed business – versus 3% for the Industry Average and -1% for Laggard firms.
3. A lead pipeline of 44% in sales-forecast generated by marketing – versus 10% for Industry Average and 5% for Laggard firms.
4. A 73% annual customer retention rate – versus 27% for Industry Average and 7% for Laggard firms.

The Best-in-Class companies show an outstanding adoption of various social technologies…
- 51% use website social sharing tools, versus 36% of Industry-Average firms.
- 49% use keyword-based Social Media monitoring, versus 39% of Industry-Average firms.
- 21% use social sign-in, versus 8% of Industry-Average firms.

Best-in-Class companies have experienced the opportunity of utilizing Social Media for the sales funnel, and know how to generate leads through social engagement. 
- 80% of Best-in-Class companies are more actively engaged in Social Media marketing – versus 73% of Industry-Average firms and 60% of Laggards
- 47% of Best-in-Class companies see expanding lead generation as their primary strategy with Social Media marketing, and 13% cite generating leads as their secondary strategy.
- 23% of Best-in-Class companies said developing clear business processes for social marketing as their top strategy, and 8% cite process development as a secondary strategy. 

Spot On!
All-in-all, the study shows the challenge of creating the right Social Media strategy for business when you want to succeed with lead generation via Social Media. But it is not only strong engagement the company needs. It is also the clever combination of using Social Media alongside the right communication techniques like email and SEO, and how Best-in-Class companies succeed here. They are 27% times more likely to integrate email with Social Media than Industry-Average firms, and 33% more likely than Laggards to do so. And they are also 24% times more likely than Industry-Average firms to integrate SEO with social media (even 69% more likely than Laggards).

What is your experience in lead generation through Social Media? How did your company perform, and what else could you add? Looking forward to learning from you…

Study: Working remotely = Telecommuting

The trend towards smarter working is on the rise. More and more companies think about trends like Bring-your-own-device (BYOD), and some even start talking about telecommuting which means working remotely.

No matter which phrase companies are using, managers start to trust in the productivity of their employees. They let them work from home. If this is a cost-issue, we don’t want to argue…

Now, the collaboration software company Wrike has published some insights about people working from home in a survey with 1,074 respondents. They were asking them a variety of questions about working from home. The key findings are…

- 89% of respondents said they consider the opportunity to work remotely as one of the three main perk…next to salary and reputation.
- 83% replied they work remotely from home – at least part of the day…
- 66% think their office might get fully virtual by 2015

Being an evangelist of the mobile and flexible workspace, there is a lot of experience about the Pros and Cons of the mobile workspace that will rule our future business. It takes some serious commitment and self-discipline to work from home and in mobile offices like coffee-shops. Nevertheless, it inspires your work, gets you in a new centre of attention in front of clients, and as it is new, some will be envy as you can be so flexible to go playing golf midday.

However, it is still a challenge as you can see from the infographic and the study results…

Study: What makes Twitter users trustworthy?

We all want to know what makes us trustworthy, especially when we tweet something. What is the secret sauce that makes others believe in the importance of our tweets? What makes those tweets better than those of our competitors?

The answer comes with a study “Tweeting is believing” from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University. In their research the two parties find how companies and individuals can feed their tweets with more credibility, and giving them some of the secret sauce.

So, ok,… the results were no really the deepest insights, but somehow they undermine what many of us might have expected: Gain followers, receive retweets, include URL’s in your posts, set up a profile picture alongside a serious bio with information that correspond with your tweets.

In order to get the right findings the researchers surveyed more than 250 Twitter users factors to understand what makes up credibility in Twitter accounts. These factors got scored from one tot five, five being the highest.

The top-rated factors that make tweets more trustworthy…
1. Tweet was retweeted by someone you trust – 4.08
2. Tweet from a verified subject expert – 4.04
3. Author is someone you follow – 4.00
4. Tweet contains a URL you clicked through – 3.93
5. Author is someone you’ve heard of – 3.93
6. Account has verification seal – 3.92
7. Author often tweets on topic – 3.74
8. Author’s tweets frequently include similar content – 3.71
9. Author’s user image is a personal photo – 3.70
10. Author often mentioned and/or retweeted – 3.69

These were the lowest five credibility lowering factors for tweets…
1. Weak grammar and/or punctuation 2.71
2. Profile picture equals Twitter’s default user image – 2.87
3. User image is a cartoon/avatar – 3.22
4. Author follows many users – 3.30
5. Author’s user image is a logo – 3.37

Spot On!
In many seminars, companies and managers have asked me whether a weak language and incorrect tweeting is destroying the credibility of the brand. They wanted to know whether avatar pictures or brand pictures might affect it. In my eyes, companies should worry more about their general company Social Media standards, their way of collaboration external and internal, and ask themselves why and what they are tweeting about. Tweeting is just a tiny part of your Social trustworthiness….
What are your own experiences? What makes you trust a Twitter user? Any ranking similarities you can see as well?

What happens in 24 hours on the Internet?

We have had the 60 minutes infographic and we have had the dynamic Social Media Count. Now, we get to know what is happening in 24 hours on the internet with a great infographic by MBAOnline.

As we know from the elder illustrations mentioned above, there is a hell of a lot happening these days on the net. The time people spend publishing status updates on Facebook and Twitter, writing on their blogs, or watching videos on audio-visual platforms like hulu or YouTube is unbelievably high.

See some of the facts that we think are quite impressive…
- Facebook as the biggest social network sees 4,7 billion minutes spent on their platform…
- Although some companies like Atos proclaim the end of email, there are still 294 billion emails being sent…
- With the importance of Google+ for business and the increase of blogs, it is not surprising that 2 million blog posts are written every day…
- The evolution of the audio-video world – 864,000 hours of video uploaded to YouTube.
- The explosion of Mobile – More iPhones sold than babies born on!

See, what else is happening in 24 hours on the Internet…

Google+ for Business (Infographic)

Although the world is discussing how Pinterest becomes the next Social Media rockstar and how it will revolutionize the world of social networking, it might be worthwhile seeing how far Google+ has become a valuable social networking platform for business.

Chris Brogan and the guys from Blueglass have created a nice infographic which give some good insight and tells you why Google+ is the place to be and why business pages are taking networking to the next level.

iKnow – Let’s foresee the future

We all want to know how the future looks like? What are key trends? What is the next bid thing in technology or our industry? The challenge is… How can the future be foreseen? Well, maybe there is a way if collaboration succeeds as the new imperative of humanity…

A new European research project by the EU Commission is challenging the unforeseeable future. The platform iKnow Futures aims at interconnection knowledge via an “innovation, foresight and horizont scanning system”. And ideally it will help companies, societies, political systems, science but also individuals to identify upcoming risks and dangers as well as potential opportunities long before the next economical crisis, the next virus, or the next weather desaster.

The platform is meant to give insights in new tools and technologies which could change the future. It displays latests projects and research which could foresee trends in science. And it shows first signals via “weak signs” when there is some danger, threat or risk on the horizon that might affect a country, a county or a just some cities that already can be made out as critical.

The long-term EU project collects insights in academic research and collects data to make the world easier for interpretation and economical planning. Whether this is a new form of common knowledge that might revolutionize the world’s approach to common intelligence needs to be seen. Nevertheless, everyone of us can participate and help to make this place a better world with less unpleasant surprises.

Spot On!
Collaboration for a better world sounds somehow fantastic, and the project is definitely deserves a closer look. Imagine someone could have predicted 9/11 attacks with a Wild Card? And what if they become Weak Signals? Would this have saved the world from a nightmare, and would this have changed the ecosystem of planes and traines? How could collaboration platforms become the next “chaos prevention radar”?

PS: And let’s hope Apple won’t try to claim and aim for the name…

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