In a recent study the research companies comScore, Accenture and dunnhumbyUSA found some significant relevance between in-store sales and a company’s web presence. The study was based on a panel of CPG customers and one million U.S. Internet users who have given comScore explicit permission to have their online activities continuously measured and matched to their in-store brand buying behavior provided by dunnhumbyUSA.

The report comes to the conclusion that consumers who visit a website prior to their shopping experience in a company store spend 34% more with that company and 57% more on products or services based on their specific industry sector. It also states that visitors of brand websites are frequent buyers of the brand in retail stores. It shows that 42% more of these clients finish their transactions than non-visitors. Furthermore, website visitors are also heavier buyers in a brand’s product category. They are spending 53% more in their category dollars than non-visitors.

“Since website visitors have higher affinity to the brand and the overall product category, there is an opportunity for brand marketers to drive loyalty through personalizing the website experience, catering to the preferences of their best customers.”John LaRocca, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, dunnhumbyUSA

And again another study highlights the importance of content marketing as the new emerging trend in marketing. Shoppers were more aggressive in their approach to understand and evaluate their purchases prior to their visit in shops as a result of the massive information access through the web. According to the research, content marketing plays a significant role here. So, campaigns on the web not only add value to web shopping but also -and for some companies and brands more importantly- will help to drive and boost in-store habits and sales – apart from positioning a brand’s capability.

“Marketers who create compelling (brand) website experiences for consumers are extremely effective in driving incremental and profitable in-store sales. Analysis shows that consumers visiting the best of the 10 CPG brand websites evaluated in the research study, spent over 200% more on the brand than non-visitors.” Jerry Lohse, Senior Director, Accenture Interactive

Based on the fact that Brafton reported some weeks ago that the average consumer visits more than 10 web pages before a purchase decision, this study marks an important point in the relevance between online and offline shopping. This might be catalyzed by the new opportunities that smartphones, tablets or Augmented Reality (see real-life community shopping) offer, and shows the straight relationship between the two shopping experiences which more and more merge to one close shopping cycle.

Spot On!
More companies are realizing that offering web shoppers the same information and service as in-stores will lead to more purchase at both ends of the shopping cycle: online and at offline locations. The challenge for companies is to differentiate the shopping experience by using SoLoMo (social – local – mobile). Here the question for the future will remain whether in-store shopping needs to become more of a lifestyle experience or adventure to attract more consumers to join in-store activity (see IKEA Sleepover), or wether people will want to have real people around them and thus make it a social reality world, rather than a social web world…

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Year on year, Edelman’s Trust Barometer checks the credibility and trustworthiness of politics, companies, CEOs and media from a quite generalistic point of view.

The findings for this year were published in the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, a global survey which came out yesterday in its 12th year. The survey offers insights from over 30,000 people in 25 countries with the main focus on “Informed Publics”. By “Informed Publics” Edelman sees college-educated people between 25-64 years of age that are among the best earners in their countries and describe themselves as heavy consumers of media information.

Obviously interesting for me were two things… How are people trusting CEO’s after CEO’s criticized their marketers some month ago in a study by the Fournaise Marketing Group. And also, how are consumers worldwide gaining trust in social media as a source of business information.

Let’s start with the CEOs first.

When Edelman asked respondents how credible information coming from a CEO would be, 38% replied they would trust the information. Although this sounds not bad, it is a 50% dump from last year and the biggest drop since Edelman started doing the survey 12 years ago. And although government leaders were less trusted than CEOs, in more or less all the countries responding, 49% would want to see an increase of government regulation of business.

And how about consumers’ trust in Social Media?
Well, let’s put it that way… Social Media is on the rise but still lags behind corporate websites and traditional media. So, you marketers should better not rely solely on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages.
The 2012 survey tells us that 14% of respondents see Social Media as a trusted source of company information — an increase of 6% to one year ago. But it’s still getting the lowest trust score of the four options shown below. This comes close to the trust in company websites (16%). Traditional media still is top of “news pops” (32%).

Spot On!
So which business is trusted most? Technology companies are most trusted with 79% saying they believed tech companies do the right thing. Indian, Chinese and the United States tech companies earn most trust, UK, France and Germany rank lower. Trust in financial services companies and banks soars, and those companies are the least trusted businesses. 47% said they trusted banks to do what is right. 45% saying they trusted financial services companies.

Who do you trust? Would you agree with these Edelman findings?

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Isn’t it hard to get people on websites in general? And even more to keep them there reading as much of your business information as possible? How much time do your customers spend on your site? If you are not satisfied with the results you achieve with your visitors, here is some information that might boost your website staying time.

A recent research by the SaaS technology company Gigya helps companies and brands to become more social in order to engage more with their customers. And if they are doing their job properly, their aim is always to get people from social platforms to their website for a better conversion.

The Gigya research states that companies and brands, and obviously their websites, can increase the stickiness of their desired target groups with their website just by encouraging the coming back effect of visitors through social logins.

The Gigya’s results illustrate that site owners who implement Facebook Connect, Twitter sign in or Yahoo Login will be the winners. Users spend 50% more time on websites when they’re logging in through social networks. Just imagine if users spend four more minutes after a social login – whether it be on the Web, the mobile web, or apps. All of these options were tracked by the Gigya study.

The value of Facebook Connect in terms of giving an option to easily log-in on different other platforms and sites makes people carrying around their social graphs wherever and wherever they are online. And with all these connections our closest fellows, fans and friends find our restaurant reviews, cinema recommendations and places where I am immediately. With a target group of approximately 800 million users Facebook states a case for social sign-in opportunities.

The findings also show that it is the most popular source of social logins with 61%. It gets followed by Yahoo with 15% and Google 12%. It surprises me that Twitter is only at 10% and LinkedIn just gets 2% although we have over 120 million LinkedIn user. And users who logged in with a social network double the view of pages on a website.

Another interesting aspect is that with social plugins, users generally spend the most amount of time on the site, and page impression increase does obviously follow. Companies and brands should think about integrating value-add areas with log-in or comment or Newsfeed functionalities as the later come in first when it comes to spending more time with the site. So, add a comment section.

Spot On!
Some months ago, we already mentioned the importance of social sign-in processes with a study by Janrain and Blue Research. In that study, 42% agreed that companies offering a social sign-in option “are more up-to-date, innovative and leave a positive impression compared to those which do not offer this capability” on their sites. Well, it seems I should start thinking about integrating social sign-in here… From a comment technology point of view, which option would you recommend? Livefyre, Disqus,or the WordPress standard…? Open to suggestions…

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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We have seen films in which James Bond (or his “friends”) stands in front of tranparent TV screens, planning to save or change the world. We have seen Minority Report where Tom Cruise catches whoever and whatever in an impossible mission which becomes mission possible before it even happens. And we have seen visions of future screens here and here.

These were films. Are we living in this cinema world soon…?

Well, this “Smart Window” technology Samsung which is being promoted at CES 2012 is somehow groundbreaking and breathtaking. Lovely Ashley Esqueda is definitely real and checks out the new Samsung technology at their booth with a little demo of the window.

Would you want that “Smart window” in your living room where you can switch from looking out at the blue sky and watching Roger Moore or Samantha Morton at the beach? Or would you just be happy to have one more free wall without a black screen? I would.

PS: And if this is going to be the future, then I doubt the Accenture study forecast that states consumers will buy fewer TVs. How about you…?

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Sorry, if I am getting emotional in this post… After far more than 1.000 posts, there must be one that is more personal than the rest of this blog: Memories.

I haven’t been alive 1851. Well, I am not alone on that one, right…?! No, I haven’t changed the world.
Obviously. Many of the companies on this infographic could not make this happen…

However, in 1999 something happened that I did not expect those days, or when I started my career in the B2B marketing and media world. It was disruptive in my B2B marketing life. Ok, I admit it was no innovation…, maybe some tiny idea and thoughts were those days. It was a milestone for me personally. And a tipping point in my business experience…

Getting an award is something that gives people a career kick. No Grammy. No Oscar. No… whatever. Having an award from the company that is mentioned at the beginning of this chart is something special to me, especially when you were young, inexperienced but eager to become better and better in business. When United Buisness Media bought CMP in 1999, I achieved a Salesperson of the Year award from CMP. Big emotions, big memories, I can tell you…

Seeing JESS3 and Eloqua mention CMP in their history of disruptive B2B Technolgy Innovations infographic brought back these long forgotten memories. I haven’t seen anyone mention CMP for years…

This infographic is not only rewarding the importance of content marketing, it also shows that content marketing will remain to be relevant and thrilling in the future. However, it might shift more and more from text to audio-visual touchpoints? We will see…

PS: Thanks to Mai Nguyen to ping this through to me…

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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What are the plans of the big tech players for 2012? Nitrozac and Snaggy have some great thoughts and ideas, well at least they suggested that this could be their visions, or let’s say their resolutions, or what ever you want to call it. Maybe you want to add something…?

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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2011 was a great year for Social Business!

Social Business got the right attention and awareness. And those companies which thought that “social trend” might go away, found themselves in business meetings, workshops, seminars, webinars with me, or conferences where people gave me the honor to be the moderator. After all, the feedback was such that I can definitely summarize the 2011 Social Business success with the opening statement.

What happened in terms of Social Business in 2011 and what is the outlook for web marketers in 2012…?

Well, first of all companies spend more time and resources understanding the challenge Social Media and Social Networking from a business perspective. We got the proof that European bosses don’t have to be persuaded to see the benefits of Twitter, that Social Media is a big internal topic, and that Social Business is critical to future business success.

ROI aspects are still key for Social Business performance. Nevertheless CMO’s were often lacking the right plan even for their Social Media efforts – and often CEO’s doubt their business credibility.

Job offerings spread around Europe, although sometimes clients asked me whether the offering is correct from a capabilities point of view. Often these openings were meant to be Social Business, in terms of a team-orientated or community-centric positions, but ended up being a “one-man-show-responsibility”: the Social Media Manager – although we all know about the importance of a multi-layer framework to set up a proper Social Media strategy.

From a client perspective companies were still very much in the broadcast or advertising mode. And the perception gap could easily be made out. Although communities were their targets, and many companies and brands tried their best to generate engagement around their business, many of them were still in an advertising scenario and mindset, instead of trying to think about change management in terms of culture and people.

Ultimately, companies have a massive opportunity in 2012 to change their perspective and become Social Business driven with the right teams…
- Teams that work with customer market intelligence.
- Teams that scale the business with social commitment.
- Teams that crave content for leadership and insights.
- Teams that understand business touchpoints in new context.
- Teams that leverage synergies between companies and brands with an appropriate plan.

And these teams don’t work internal or external. These teams group together cross-channel through Community Centric Strategy by understanding the 5C’s as the engines of Social Business: Competition – Commitment – Content – Context – Collaboration.

Finally, Google+ started listing brand pages in organic search results. One of my successful posts from November appears in the first page of the organic search results (see picture last entry).

Status updates will become a game changer in the social ecosystem and boost brand awareness. If companies and brand are blogging they should consider this in their SEM/SEO and keyword strategy when posting your topics on Google+. Marketers should consider this and watch out if this should not affect Facebook and Twitter marketing activities. Maybe it is time to invest more in content marketing…

Spot On!
All roads might lead to Rom – not many to lead to a Social Business. Companies that will work with the Community Centric Strategy in 2012 can close the perception gap between consumer and customers on their journey to companies. Social Business is about people and culture. The 5C’s of the Community Centric Strategy is a new way to Rom… but it will leave the “customer chariot” at home.

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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This new infographic from CEO.com illustrates that more and more CEOs are figuring out social media and finding great benefits as a result. Some weeks ago, we could see in a study that European business chiefs understand the power of Twitter and support its use these days. It seems Social Media is making its way to the C-levels.

Will the CEO of the future really be more social…? Let’s see…

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Crowdsourcing has been one of the main topics, we are talking about in our seminars and webinars as community experts these days. It’s definition and capabilities is perfectly described in the following video showing an MIT presentation (and with Evly you can start your own crowdsourcing project quite quickly)…

So, crowdsourcing is based on the right group of people, gathering around a topic of interest, a product or a brand. They are the extension of a company out in the market, working with the brand in terms of identification and differentiation which I have nailed down in my Community Centric Strategy model.

These people are working on company problems or tasks, and they contribute with relevant business input and ideas. Especially in the IT, telecoms and web industry crowdsourcing has been around for quite a while as this mass collaboration helped them catalyze their business exposure and feedback.

Today, I came across a study by the Everest Group called “Every Crowd Has a Silver Lining”. It finds crowdsourcing has got a fair business reason. It is experiencing some well-needed cost advantages which is leaving BPO behind. The study states that companies are utilizing crowdsourcing for as much as 50% of their product-related projects (like design, engineering, marketing, packaging, research, technology and testing).

“We are witnessing a second fundamental inflection point for crowdsourcing where large corporations in a post-recession era are increasingly using global professional crowdsourcing services in new application areas, often as a cost-effective alternative to traditional BPO. (…) Our study finds that crowdsourcing utilization has evolved from small- to medium-sized businesses to an increasingly accepted business practice for large corporations. As cost advantages are progressively augmented by greater accountability, quality assurance and timeliness assurances, the ‘on-demand’ talent model will continue to gain a greater foothold.” Sarthak Brahma, Practice Director, Pricing Assurance, Everest Group

Spot On!
Well, I do not know whether you have to base findings on the global recession basis to make it a powerful message. Or whether this is just the pure modern nature of many consumer which enterprise need to be aware (“crowdsourcing on demand”) of and make the best out of it. However, it is a fact that companies shift their task solving process from ‘job-based’ hiring to ‘task-based’ resource management. Crowdsourcing might be a great way to enable this shift in business process management. It definitely offers companies more flexibility in terms of budgeting. More heads come to different solutions, get trained quicker, find supervisors outside the enterprise, aggregate thinking and re-new the point of view for a brand decision or a product development.

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Obviously, the headline question is not easy to answer. Both elements have their impact on business success. At this years IBM JamCamp, we could hear many presentations why “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, and how to turn your business into a social business (i.e. Sandy Carter’s speech) that will drive innovation to new dimensions (and here is some hint how companies might get huge investments for social business realization).

A new study by Booz & Company also shows that spending more on R&D won’t drive results. The results from the study illustrate that the most crucial factors are strategic alignment and a culture that supports innovation. The study surveyed almost 600 innovation leaders in companies around the world, large and small, in every major industry sector.

So what makes a truly innovative company? For sure, a focused innovation strategy, a compelling business strategy, deep customer insight, intelligent networking, as well as a splendid set of bright tactics. These are all elements that help giving your company an innovation boost. Still, the study states that corporate culture ties everything together — the organization’s self-sustaining patterns of behaving, feeling, thinking, and believing.

Still, the results of this year’s Global Innovation 1000 study make clear that only about half of all companies say their corporate culture robustly supports their innovation strategy. Moreover, about the same proportion say their innovation strategy is inadequately aligned with their overall corporate strategy. And although entire industries, such as pharmaceuticals, continue to devote relatively large shares of their resources to innovation, the results are much less successful than they and their stakeholders might hope for.

What I like about this study is that it supports my assumptions and thoughts of the Community Centric Strategy model. Across the board respondents identified “superior product performance” and “superior product quality” as their top strategic goals. And their two most important cultural attributes were “strong identification with the consumer/customer experience” and a “passion/pride in products”.

Statements like the following from the study could be taken as a proof for the future development towards a more cultural business attitude that puts the consumer in the middle of your innovation efforts…

“Our goal is to include the voice of the customer at the basic research level and throughout the product development cycle, to enable our technical people to actually see how their technologies work in various market conditions.” Fred Palensky, Executive Vice President of R&D and CTO, 3M Company

In my presentation at the IBM JamCamp 2011 I made clear that companies and brands need to close the perception gap between consumer’s demand and company goals. If companies don’t respect the 5 C engines of the Community Centric Strategy these two expectations cannot be aligned. We will continue to talk of target-groups instead of consumers that are grouping together in “community centers”. This is more of a cultural development companies need to go through than definable strategic capabillities by companies to drive innovations. By closing both the strategic alignment and culture gaps, companies and brands will better realize their goals and attributes.

Spot On!
The study results show that companies and brands should rethink the way they drive their innovation strategy. It suggests that the ways R&D managers and corporate decision makers think about their new products and services are critical for success. This includes all aspects how they feel about intangibles such as risk, creativity, openness, and collaboration. When nearly 20% of companies said they didn’t have a well-defined innovation strategy at all, it offers the chance to start anew and with the right approach. The Community Centric Strategy might be one solution for companies to evaluate culture as one of the main drivers to achieve your strategic goals in a modern way of doing business.

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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In the last weeks, I came across the same issue in many meetings with clients. Social consumers increase their use of Social Media and social networks to state their opinion about a company, brand or service. Sometimes to rate the way companies make use of Social Media, or how they engage with them in campaigns or branded social hubs. Sometimes to complain about incredible customer service, or the quality of products. Sometimes just to link or share some content piece that attracted their attention.

The input described above by consumers can be summarized under the 3R’s: ratings, reviews and recommendations. These 3 R’s will challenge companies and brands in the future. Companies know that they have to find a way to deal with all the content published, as well as to establish ways to make use of it in the context of their business.

Ratings
Years ago, we would have seen ratings on Amazon, eBay or rating platforms Ciao. Today, there are external and internal rating opportunities for customers. Most modern content management systems have implemented rating systems. Content and shopping pages have their 5-star systems, percentage scales or „thumbs-up-and-down“ to evaluate the quality of the content or product provided. Facebook, Twitter and other social sharing buttons act in the same way, reach out and distribute ratings to a wider audience to name just some options the social consumer has here.

Reviews
While the chance to find yourself as a brand in a Twitterstorm was low in the past, the tables have turned. Companies like H&M, Motrin or BMW have become victims of reviews in the last years. Whether through crowdsourcing or blogging, reviews could leverage or damage your business success in a day’s time. The question remains the same for brands. Most consumers don’t differentiate between the trusted and personal reviews. In which reviews can they trust, what not, and what could end in a brand nightmare? The list of review sites is long, the one of personal blogs, social networking accounts, etc. even longer, and getting intense the more people review their personal views. And then, organizations have to bear in mind that 97% of purchase decisions are based on digital experiences.

Recommendations
Probably, the most dynamic part of the 3R’s is the recommendations part. In social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn) people hint, share and forward quick opinions about a film, a hotel or a show in minutes – and forget about it. Companies and brands need to take a position on these recommendations, or clear up the damage as best as they can. Well, if they find them and have the processes, people and resources in place to react. Some recommendations are still in the stealth mode as of semantic detection issues, or as they are only shared within the social graph of a person. And some recommendations are not even recommendations. They get catalyzed through social banner opportunities with Googe Plus buttons inside Google ads or via recommended people of the personal social graph in Facebook ads. And some will stay invisible for brands – most offline spoken words.

Spot On!
The challenge for companies in the future will be to educate social consumers on their way to social purchase. Social consumers often don’t pay attention to who said what, their gender, habits, age and preferences. Customers tend to be affected by a negative scale although it may be positive. 97% is not 100%, 4 start is not 5 star, the last opinion that was the only one negative, and so on. Most consumers don’t check who or how many people have rated the hotel on tripadvisor or booking.com. So, what is better? One rating in the 100% range, or 5 ratings getting 95%? A review where companies can react and improve the quality of their service? Or a recommendation that they could use as a statement to their blog? In my eyes, we will need to have seal of quality buttons that tell people to be aware of the fact that the 3 R’s are a good orientation for quality but not the final truth. And marketers should think about the best alternative to straigthen and strengthen their brands whatever effective the 3 R’s might be for their business.

Would you agree…?

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Marko Greitschus / pixelio.de

The guests in the pub did not expect very much. A drink was their desire. A tasty sandwich was luxury to them. Competition amoung pubs was tough, even in this little village a long time ago. There were many pubs around in that coal distrinct north of Germany. The owners of the other pubs in the village changed more or less every year, some even earlier. My grandparents’ business stayed for over a decade, until they decided it was time to stop working. The guests loved their attitude, their individual touch, their personalized way of talking to them. My grandparents’ business was successful.

What was the key to their success story?

Before I answer this question, let me ask you something… When did you shake hands last time with a friend, or a business partner? Do you remember? Did you ever think about why we are shaking hands with people? Have you ever not returned a handshake? It is a common habit of introducing ourselves and of saying Goodbye. We just do it. Well, let’s say in the offline world we do it…

Those days, whenever somebody came into my grandparents’ pub, my grandma and granddad gave them a personal handshake, embedded in some small talk about the weather or last nights sports results. The conversation made people feel good, feel wanted, not just being anonymous guests. They created a living room. People started talking with them about their personal hopes, fears, issues. The handshake had broken the ice…

In our social web world of today, customer relationship management and social networking become an increasingly important factor to be maintain a successful business within a more and more challenging and competitive world.

Many relationships today begin with a virtual handshake. So you may ask: What is a virtual handshake? Today, it comes in the format of a comment on a blog post, a LIKE on a status update on a Fanpage, an introduction mail inside a social network, or an invitation to join a community (Facebook or LinkedIn or a company specific).

In the offline world, nobody would turn away and not return the handshake. However, in the online world individuals put effort in terms of writing, talking and engaging with companies and brands, making their brand passion transparent, or just opening their minds to “business” (or privat?) conversations. All of that often before having received a virtual handshake with those companies that are reaching out to them via their -often anonymous- social hubs.

By participating in a community or engaging in conversations, customers take the initiative, they state a case and describe an act of will. Companies tend to forget that this is a virtual handshake. “Hello! Here I am! Look what I am telling you…”.

Many companies and brands do not answer. They don’t reply on social networks. They don’t value the hand that is right in front of them waiting. The hand which feeds them and their business. The free opportunity to connect, collaborate, or convert. Lack of time and resources is the killer of many of their social web activities.

My grandparents never forgot to shake hands with people that came to visit their pub. This was their success story. So simple, right…?

Think about it next time you set up a group or a community. Relationships start with a handshake – whether real or virtual. There just needs to be somebody that returns the handshake. For some this might be a change management process, for some it is just natural attitude towards customers…

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Can we access the internet if we have nothing to drink anymore, if our water is poluted? No, we can not! Sometimes, adults should ask themselves about, and quickly start to re-think, the values that they hand over to our kids. I am happy to have spoken with mine about this topic last year around the Blog Action Day 2010…

Some weeks ago, I have written about a UK study from the London Science Museum made clear that UK people rather prefer to have sunshine and internet connection than clean water. Now, Cisco comes up with a similar study.

The Cisco study states that one in three college students and young professionals consider the Internet to be as important as fundamental human resources such as air, water, food and shelter. The study is based on the second annual Cisco Connected World Technology Report. It examines the relationship between human behaviour, the Internet and networking’s pervasiveness across 14 countries in the world (United States, Canada Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, India, China, Japan, Australia).

Mahesh Gupta, Vice-President, Business-Borderless Networks, Cisco (India and SAARC), said in a teleconference on Thursday that about 33% across the globe and 95% Indian college students and young employees admitted that Internet was as important in their lives as water, food, air and shelter. The internet has become a crucial important thing in peoples’ lives. More than half of the respondents (62% of employees and 55% of college students) said they could not live without the Internet. They see it as an “integral part of their lives”.

From a face-to-face social perspective, it is also quite amazing to see that people had indicated that Internet was more important to them than meeting with friends, dating, or listening to music. Like in the UK study, updating Facebook seems to be of the highest priority – higher than socializing. Gupta stated that within certain countries 91% of college students and 88% of employees globally had Facebook account and check it on a daily basis at least once. Furthermore, seven of 10 employees have “friended” their managers and coworkers on Facebook, and 68% follow their manager or their work colleagues on Twitter.

From a hardware point of view, mobiles rank highest as their important technology device, as high as being “the most important technology”. Two-thirds of students and 58% of employees felt that a mobile device (laptop, smartphone or tablets) was the most important technology hardware in their lives. Young employees in the UK (74%), India (71%) and Australia (66%) ranked highest when it comes to the importance of mobiles devices.

Spot On!
The study also shows some trends that other industries should watch out for. When two of five students have not bought a physical book (except textbooks) in two years, this is a clear message to the print industry. And when 2 out of 3 choose Internet connection over cars, the it becomes clear why concepts like BMW Drive Now and Smart Car2Go become popular. However, the new trends also need to be watched from a distraction point of view when being online.

Let’s hope they don’t forget to drink some water…

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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According to a recent study by KN Dimestore and SocialVibe brand messages and incentives influences most consumers to pay more attention to ads. In fact, if companies combine these two advertising and brand strategies, the interaction of consumers with brands increases by 91% and brand perception by 38%.

The study -which gathers data from more than 30,000 survey respondents- reported that when 48% of survey participants initially opt-in to engage with a brand for the incentive, they stay and pay attention to the brand message.

The aim of the study was to find out if and why incentives prompt people to engage with the advertisements, how they affect consumer perception of the brands, and if they influence people to visit the company’s website or „buzz“ their friends about the offer. Respondents gave feedback on ads from U.S. brands across financial services, CPG, entertainment, e-commerce and technology categories between June and July of 2011.

Some key findings of the study…
48% of those interact because of the incentive but pay attention to brand
12% interact purely based on brand
31% interact for brand and incentive
9% interact purely for the incentive

The results summary makes clear that engaging with the ad increased the odds that the consumers would purchase the product. Above that, incentives through ads drive website and in-store traffic, as well as purchases – and also conversions. Happy customers are coming back more often to the website when initially satisfied with an incentive through incentives. 36% of respondents were more likely to purchase brand-related products at physical store after interacting with the ad.

SocialVibe names the strategy “value-exchange brand advertising”. The company defines it as ads that ask for a consumer’s attention in exchange for something they want, such as virtual currency for social games or making a donation to charity. There is a clear differentiation from sign-up and straight purchase intended offers like cost-per-action (CPA) advertising.

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The study is an interesting step in indicating the value of ads for branding. Generating consumer interest and awareness get’s more and more challenging these days with the masses of advertising we are faced with on a daily basis. Mobile advertising shows some similar development in terms of incentivization and engagement. Often companies said that the value of ads is getting lower as they just value it from a conversion-based ROI perspective. However, the study now shows that earning points, virtual currency or some other rewards finds the atention of customers. That’s when conversion comes into play, and that’s where brands need to foster engagement to a purchase via the right communication tactics.

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Credits: Gerd Altmann / pixelio.de

An online study along with in-depth interviews of 400 “Millennials”, ages between 20 through 29, and 200 IT managers the U.S. from mid-sized to large corporations gives some interesting insights in the expectations of the Millenials when it comes to IT. The study was conducted by Isurus Market Research and Consulting with analysis by GigaOM Pro, and underwritten by Bomgar.

Millenials are growing up in an “instantaneous world” of social web conversations, mobile phones, and almost permanent WiFi access. This brings new challenges for IT departments in the future as expectations are these young people are high. Millennials expect more or less immediate answers on IT support questions and all options of multi-channel communication. However, the worst is: Ideally, they could solve their technology issues themselves.

Some key findings what Millenials do…
- 71% state to have done a Google search for a solution finding at least once.
- 61% don’t turn to company support first to solve problems, while 71% say they have done a Google search for a solution at least once.
- 58% prefer to communicate in chat or text messaging, not the phone.
- 40% use a mobile device for work “on a weekly basis.”

So, if Millenials are responsible for their own technology, as it is their private device, IT could get away from the omnipresent IT support issue as they will have less responsibility, costs will decrease for IT, and it is a sustainable Green IT approach. Or who wants to carry around two mobile phones, two tablets, two notebooks, and so on?

The challenge for company bosses? Millennials say that their job satisfaction is “strongly affected” by the type of mobile device their employers provided. Isn’t this great? Just ask them what they want and you can increase personal productivity and work efficiency. Correct?

“Our research highlights the biggest challenges for IT departments: Millennials expect immediate responses, prefer a wider variety of communication channels and, when it comes to problem solving, often turn to Google and outside resources before contacting support,” David Card, Research Director, GigaOM Pro.

Millenials will become difficult to handle though. 60% think that good support time for a technical problem to be solved is less than 10 minutes. Compared to IT managers who think that a reasonable time frame for solving tech problems was an hour or more, this calls for problems between the work forces in the future. No wonder, 80% of IT managers see Millennials as “different or very different than their older peers in terms of technology expectations”.

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However, these two studies might sound like a massive IT change process for companies in the future. It has to said that 75% of Millennials rate their IT departments a six or seven on a seven-point scale. Maybe IT should think about setting up IT knowledge wikis instead of letting their employees loose time surfing on Google for a solution. Millenials are not expecting something outrageous, they might just be brighter in terms of technology handling, and show us that collaboration on social networks and in communities works when they are solving their issues without the IT department. They are just another generation. The transition managers need to rate that aspect, too…

What is your view on these new challenges for it?

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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It seems to be a love and hate relationship: Executives and Social Media. On the one hand, companies see how critical a social business strategy is for their business. On the other, they still don’t know how to harness the value of the new modern media landscape and the feedback channel online world. This is the insight we get from a survey of C-level executives conducted by Harris Interactive for Capgemini.

The findings, which are part of Capgemini’s Executive Outsourcing Survey, were published with their launch of the social media management service. The survey asked 302 senior executives at Fortune 1000 companies.

The question where to position Social Media inside the company seems to be omnipresent: Marketing? Customer Service? Corporate Communications? Or really change the company to become a social business operation? Does someone have a crystal ball? More than half say that Social Media is a part of their company’s customer care operations. However, 64% of those responded that it is a pure responsibility of their social media marketing department.

Surprisingly enough, 74% executives stated in the study they were not even sure how many employees are dedicated to customer care via the Social Web activities of the company. The value of Social Media can be seen by 57% of responding executives who think that it is “inviting customer input on product and services, lead generation, responding to complaints, internal reporting, and measuring customer satisfaction.”

And it is best to forget the 13% who still believe that Social Media is not important for future success of the company.

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The attitude from executives towards Social Media also describes the fact that less than half of executives (41%) are monitoring online conversations about their brand, product and/or services. They only respond to an online conversation when a customer poses a direct question, representing a significant missed opportunity for companies to proactively solicit feedback and enhance the customer experience. The ooportunity to engage with the customer is there but executives (and probably their management teams) need to embrace the opportunity and change their business into a social business strategy and align it with their web strategy team.

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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There is not one industry today that is not effected by the way we interact through Social Media. The Swedish start-up Tripl illustrates with a fantastic infographic how much the travel industry is influenced and effected via modern online conversations and check-ins. The necessity for hotels, airlines and restaurants to engage and understand Social Media is obvious: 50 Mio. reviews have been created on tripadvisor only 495.000 rated hotels!

Some key facts…
- On a daily basis, 72% of social network users access their social network sites while travelling
- The top 5 airlines have 2,566,000 fans on Facebook
- 200 Mio. passengers will board GOGO-WiFi flights in 2011
- Traffic growth of travel companies from social networks? Facebook 69% and Twitter 46%!

…and that is only 7% using mobile internet while tarvelling internationally!

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Some years ago, Billy Joel sang his song “Honesty” and I always remember this one first line… “Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue.”. Apparently, it seems that Billy was not quite right with his statement (although he took a different approach to his somng argumentation). It is interesting to see that more and more campaigns seem to pitch with that virtue proof…

I wrote about the interesting HonestTea campaign. That campaign not only proved the value of Earned Media but more importantly how honest people in the world were. And it also pointed out that honesty as a virtue might become a wonderful topic for campaigns – a real ambient campaign driver.

The National Australia Bank (NAB Group) is another example how companies come up with that topic. Some while ago, the NAB was shaking up the financial services industry by encouraging the customers of other banks to “break up” with their bank. The campaigns continues now to a next level now…

The NAB is challenging the honesty of consumers with a series of social experiments on the virtue of honesty. The honesty project of the NAB proves that Australians are very well behaved and very honest.

The bank is publishing the results in little clips. Watch the results…

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This modern ambient approach to make a change in the communication to consumers from banks I found quite refreshing, compared to the traditional annoying and boring print letters I still get today. If banks open up to customers with some clever ideas like these it will be a perfect way to get Earned Media which leads to Owned Media and puts a question mark behind the honest value of “Paid Media”. And that is a fact, that is my honest truth.

PS:: What is your view on the campaign? The honesty approach? The value of honesty from a bank’s perspective?

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Social Media is becoming the new talent aquisition tool for companies. A recent study by Jobvite states that almost 90% of companies are planning to use social networks to find job candidates. This is an increase of 7% to last year. Two thirds of employers said they had successfully filled a job position via social networking.

The study that polled 800 human resource staffers and headhunters in the U.S also illustrates the importance of personal branding which I proclaim for years now – also with the vision of a personal scoring index. Job seekers should understand the importance of having an active profile on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. However, this is essential and career benefitial, the study also warns that what you say and do on those sites has an impact on your career.

Running the survey in their fifth year, Jobvite is seeing a steady increase by employers in the use of social media.

“Employee referrals are the highest quality hires. (…) They last the longest, have the best match with expectations, and churn the least.” Dan Finnigan, CEO, Jobvite

According to Jobvite’s own client data, 70% of companies examine candidates’ social media profiles after getting a referral. Which means you never know who is checking your latest party pictures and how much you ruin your reputation by updating embarrassing information

“Don’t post any picture, say any words or take any actions that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see,” advises Finnigan.

Some interesting finding shows that Facebook is not the main place to look for job candidates. However, LinkedIn went up from 78.3% to 86.6% (inclusive of all possible usage like search, job postings, etc.).

Having said that, Jobvite also asked their own customers how many actually hired staff using social referrals from various social networking sites. 43% of referrals that resulted in hires came from Facebook versus 41% from LinkedIn and 16% from Twitter.

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For the Social Society in which we are living social engagement become an asset bonus but also a challenge for job seekers. Today, it is still difficult to understand for many recruiters why you have a personal brand. In the future, this will change and show your affinity to a topic, to brands and to modern business tactics. People might be addressed or recruited by younger hiring managers who are more tolerant of social media failures or side steps but the more senior a position gets, the pickier recruitment managers are getting.

How do you see the future of personal branding and how recruiters are checking your capabilities via social networks?

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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Rainer Sturm / pixelio.de

A recent study by Virgin Business Media now shows some similar insights. It states that 58% of U.K. workers think offices of today will not exist in ten years’ time. The study was commissioned to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the British sitcom The Office (basis for the U.S. show).

The findings are based on a research that surveyed 1,000 U.K. workers that gave feedback on how their working lives have changed over the last ten years, and how they expect them to change over the next ten years. It has to be said that it was predominantly based on the impacts of technology…

Working remotely will be the new trend. Commuting and traditional offices will be out soon. At least that is what UK workers predict: 56% of respondents are not seeing themselves commuting in 2021 like they do today. An impressive 83% respond that technology enables them to become more productive in the last ten years. Productivity in the future means (62% say so) they would use just one device to handle both their personal and work life in ten years’ time.

The question will be if people will want to work from home, or prefer to continue commuting. Having someone to talk to, not being forgotten and having a need to show somebody that you are really “at work” might be reasons against the future outlook with no traditional offices space.

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In May a report from Regus and Unwired called VWork: Measuring the benefits of agility at work makes clear that only 12,3% of respondents want to work from home. It will be interesting to see whether companies offices will extinct, or if companies will give their employees money to find coworking space (like the car allowance concept), or if they host coworking space (in order to recruit new people…). The virtual office will be the future for many people. I just can see lawyers, controllers or HR people who might need their traditional offices. The rest will be able to work remotely… It is more flexible, more agile for marketing, sales and business development, and people are motivated to have more meetings.

Would you agree? Do you see this development as dangerous? What is your view on the extinction of office space?

©2012 The Strategy Web™. All Rights Reserved.

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