Study: Social Network access at work? Teens expect it!

Your company thinks about limiting or restricting the access of social networks during working time? You better have a second thought about it…

A recent study states that for the net generation social networking has become a crucial part of their business life. It is so central to their lifestyle that it becomes one of the main decision criteria when weighing job offers.

The Junior Achievement/Deloitte Teen Ethics Survey shows that 88% of teenagers use social networks on a daily basis. 58% of the teenagers surveyed said that they would consider the ability to access social networks when considering a job offer.

Business decision makers in companies should be aware of the fact that this might become a central question in recruiting talks. Teenagers will definitely make decision pro or contra a job on considerations about having the ability to access Facebook, Twitter, and the lot when applying for jobs.

Spot On!
Teenagers don’t use social networks to waste time witht heir peers, or even be unproductive. The main reasons for the use becomes clear when taking a close look at the results. 51% of the surveyed teens use social networks to help others. And 29% use the social benefit to create awareness for a cause. So, if you think of improving customer service, you should consider these facts and try to transfer the social abilities of the networks in order to build a stable customer communication world – with the net generation.

News Update – Best of the Day

The term “content strategy” might not be familiar to business decision makers. For those who want to get a short insight, please read the interview with Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for Web. In this interview by Keir Whitaker she tells us how to avoid the 3 biggest online content mistakes.

Listening to customers is not a pure social media discipline. Having a listening strategy in place could become one. Jeremiah Owyang talks about the “Eight Stages of Listening” and gives good advice to companies how to set up their listening strategy.

The IT industry very seldom created funny commercials. This one by Lenovo is fantastic… – the grandma proof.

Creating a cool social media case: Golfer Generated Content

In 2001, just one year after I started playing golf, I launched silicon.de Golf Masters. It is an invitational golf tournament for IT- and business decision makers. As these business managers have to be pampered within a very special atmosphere, we are always playing at a private golf club and try to find innovative and funny ideas to create this atmosphere.

And every year I am facing the challenge to find new lifestyle partners who want to place their products within this special target group. But sometimes -like this year- my brain has its extremely creative five minutes. So, I had the challenge of presenting a film to the golf players after the tournament on the one hand, and having an extraordinary case study for the golf tournament on the other.

Being a social networker I remembered a time back last year, when I got to know Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO at KODAK. He was talking about KODAK’s social media activities on Facebook as well as Twitter – and the power of the digital video cameras Zx1 and Zi6. So I thought: “Hey, why not having the players create their own golf video of the day?”

The idea of golfer generated content was born…

I was lucky. KODAK really liked the project and I received an approval for this cooperation from KODAK – in only one day. And believe it or not… funnily enough the players who had no idea about my plans were crazy about the video idea, and they all wanted to win the cameras which we handed out for the winners of special contests (nearest to the pin and longest drive) after most of the players had tried them out.

So, here it is: Golfer Generated Content – creating content offline for the online world of our silicon.de YouTube channel: a reference for the silicon.de golf tournament, for KODAK’s commitment to the social media world, and to great golfers who created their own film.

And here is the feedback that I received from KODAK – from Jeffrey Hayzlett after he had watched the user generated video…

“Well, we recently launched the Kodak Challenge in America with the PGA Tour , so we strongly believe that golf is another great way for people to come together and share Kodak moments. I noticed from the video that you captured a lot of great moments and people having fun together. Plus I saw some good golf shots as well as some bad ones, which shows the authenticity of video as a communications tool. Thanks to Kodak Digital Video Cameras like the Zx1 HD videos are easily captured anywhere and anytime. Next time I would love to join you at the silicon.de Golf Masters, even though I do not play golf very well. :-)”

Plus Jeff’s quote for the production of the video which our video producer Marcus Kaempf created in 3 hours time for me… (seeing – evaluating – cutting – streaming)…

“I thought it is great – artistic in making and at the same time telling a story. Pictures and moving pictures are always telling a story and the participants of the silicon.de Golf Masters captured it beautifully in HD. With the Kodak Zx1 HD Pocket Video Camera you made me smile.

So at all players of the silicon.de golf tournament, to KODAK, and to our production specialist Marcus…

When people comment this post, this will be your applause! THX everyone for making it happen…

News Update – Best of the Day

The outlook for online advertising in the US is not as good as expected. According to the IDC’s Ad Report Model predicts that U.S. online advertising will decline by 6% for full-year 2009 (9% in the first quarter already). For Europe the European Internet Advertising Association (EIAA) predicts more hope. In their Marketers’ Internet Ad Barometer 2009 they state that 70% of all advertisers will increase their spending in 2009.

Are you an expert on cloud computing? Well then, you are not alone if not… Mary Jander gives a great overview on the status on products for cloud computing and how far IT and business decision makers are in their minds seeing the benefit. And don’t forget to read the comments…

Is traditional media advertising dead? If we listen to the CEO of Vitrue, a social media company, then we acknowledge from his point of view why companies should ‘Stop Advertising. Start Socializing’…

Web 2.0 mindset: What business learns from politics

At the Web 2.0 Kongress 2009 in Munich, end of March, Director of Polling at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, John Della Volpe, commented on the latest election in the United States, and the change in political communication strategies.

His presentation made clear that web 2.0 is more of a mindset than a technology, and he showed how quick ‘followers’ can be activated and motivated for new mindsets and ideas – his case was Obama’s web 2.0 strategy.

“How to mobilize the millennial generation? – Let them mobilize each other. (…) The millennial generation crave opportunities to make an impact (…) they will help if asked”.

This worthy knowledge in mind, combined with convincing success data of the successful Obama strategy (2 mio. profile in a social network, 400.000 generated blog posts, 200.000 offline events kicked off, plus more than 35.000 self-initiated non-profit groups), it is no wonder Obama raised half a billion dollars online.

But what can companies learn from this input? Glad, John Della Volpe spend some minutes after his presentation with me and passed on some advice for companies…

So in his opinion, companies and their business decision makers need to let control go. Managers should forget their old ‘control mindset’ and make a move…

“Find your most passionate advocates, empower them, ask for more.(…) Give them authority, treat them with respect, tear down the wall between the customers and the organization, empower them with the right tools in the right atmosphere, with the right philosophy, and it can be very benefitial.”

Spot On!
To me this sounds like Dion Hinchcliffe’s advice. He said that if you position the right people inside your company to implement enterprise 2.0 strategies, the rest will follow. Now, Della Volpe conclusion on web 2.0 is quite close to Hincliffe’s words. If these two experts make the same case, why are decision makers still not embracing web 2.0 tool and techniques in order to improve customer communication and for internal process optimization? Or is this savvy, normal management tactic and wording?

B2B Study: Marketers Strategies and Spendings for 2009

A recent study from Marketing Profs and Forrester Research amongst 300,000 marketing executives and other management professionals, conducted in late 2008, offers insight in the latest b2b marketing strategies, budgets, tactics and attitudes.

The key findings are that marketers have three deeper needs for the future: measuring effectiveness becomes increasingly important (i.e. webinars and search provide great tactical benefit), understanding customers deepest needs and wishes, plus exploring and learning from best practices for daily business implementation is crucial.

The report makes clear that top marketing business decision makers are relying much more on digital marketing tactics. With a high percentage of respondents saying that their company web site (91%) and email activities (81%) are the top media used for their tactics. Still, it is interesting to see that a lot of marketers work with traditional tactics like public relation (72%) and tradeshows/conferences (70%) as very important lead generation tools.

With the increasing importance of web 2.0 and social media platforms and tools for customers, companies are changing their media mix from ‘[more costly] traditional media and toward [less costly] new tactics’. Nevertheless, the marketers knowledge on tactics for the new social media platforms is still in an ‘infancy’ status.

In average, the budgets are still spend in an ‘old-school’ manner with tradeshows/conferences (20%) and TV advertising (18%) leading the marketing mix spending, followed by inside sale/telemarketing (16%) and print advertising (13%) – the leading field only interrupted by one digital marketing activity: direct mail (14%).

Spot On!
The report reflects in some way the economic crisis when the executive summary is talking of reducing spending and focusing efforts on a narrower segment of their target markets. Meaning… the so called ‘watering can’ marketing strategy is vanishing and marketing strategy will be focused much more on the digital ‘1-to-1′ as well as ‘1-to-many’ approach. The real (or potential) customers, their environment and the people influencing them has reached the marketers mind – so social media is not too far away for them to understand, and offers great opportunity to learn much more needs and wishes.

Join our webinar on ‘Social Networking for Business’

On 22nd of April, at 4:00 PM (GMT+0100), Michael Leander-Nielsen, well-known marketing expert, is hosting the webinar on ‘Social Networking for Business‘.

The webinar will present the results of his latest study conducted in Q1 2009 amongst 500 business decision makers in Europe. It will be focusing the social networking potential and attitudes from individuals as well as brands.

Michael gave me the honor to be the special guest on this webinar and talk about the future of social networking. And he was so kind to have me pre-publishing three exclusive results from this survey…

1. Nearly 11% of business decision makers spend more than 9 hours on social networks a week.
Imagine what this means to productivity if these decision makers would be focusing more on their real business – the business of the companies they are working for…

2. For now, 37% cannot say yet if social networking is benefitial to their business.
Combined with the first finding an even bigger productivity issue for companies, don’t you agree?

3. The acceptance of advertising on social media profiles is increasing as long as people don’t have to pay membership fees anymore.
The option of advertising on social networking profiles is there but what does this mean to employers/companies in terms of employee contracts?

Furthermore, the webinar will provide insight and discussion opportunity on the following aspects…
- How do business decision makers use marketing through social networking platforms?
- How do business decision makers set your personal objectives for profiting the most from social networking platforms?
- Which key drivers, key trends, and key motiviations can be identified for engaging in social networks?

Register now and see who will be taking part in the webinar with you. Michael and I are looking forward to ’seeing’ you discussing with us on the 22nd of April.

Enterprise 2.0: Dion Hinchcliffe’s advice for Europe

At Cebit, I had the pleasure to be part of an exclusive social media experts group to enjoy dinner with Dion Hinchcliffe, the enterpise 2.0 specialist as well as ZDNet blogger, and Dr. Frank Schoenefeld, Head of Business Internet Applications and Services at T-Systems.

The fireside talk offered some very interesting insights on enterprise 2.0 and how companies are starting to put the pieces together for a progressive approach on ‘breaking the chains of control’ and ‘being open for change in terms of the new dialogue with customers’.

Dion explained on how much companies in the US use wikis, social networks, external and internal blogs for the sake of collaborative working benefit. What was surprising is that companies in Europe are also preparing to become enterprise 2.0 business focused (i.e. ABB, BASF, Deutsche Lufthansa and Vodafone) – although these ‘offices’ don’t really have an elaborated enterprise 2.0 strategy, yet, both experts admitted as much as they could see it.

On my question how far enterprise 2.0 goes, when facing the Skittles website experiment Dion simply answered that this is a social media experiment which we will see more often probably. Nevertheless, a good example that shows how companies experiment on social media and web 2.0 opportunities – though this ‘completely open approach’ might be risky.

Next day, Dion found some minutes to spend with me to give European companies some advice on…

How to find the right attention for enterprise 2.0 inside your company?

and…

What are the biggest challenges of enterprise 2.0 for European companies?

Spot On!
The final conclusion of the very well organized dinner by Kongress Media was that the enterprise 2.0 strategy heads in the direction of…

Position the ‘right’ people who live and breath the enterprise 2.0 intelligence and know of the appropriate techniques and tools. The rest will follow…

Up to now, there is no case of bad experience with enterprise 2.0, at least none Dion, Frank or the other experts knew of. Still… There is no proof whether this is the right tactic to convince business decision makers of a new enterprise communication strategy – but the essential strategies are visible. Will stakeholders rely on this kind of business outlook? And afford to focus the risk of ‘letting go responsibility’ in difficult financial times of strong accountability? The fact is, the more examples of enterprise 2.0 we find the better for every business. Enterprise 2.0 shares knowledge, intelligence and humanitizes companies in the eyes of customers.

News Update – Best of the Day

Ever thought about how the press release might look like then, now and tomorrow? Mark Senak did, and created a very interesting insight on how the new social media world will change PR efforts in the future.

Ever thought about how b2b buyers and technology business decision makers use social technologies? Forrester did. Jeremiah Owyang writes about the most interesting findings… and finds the right arguments for the boss that does not trust in the value of social technology. This data might be convincing and helpful…

Ever thought about how to increase traffic on your website traffic? Sure you did. But did you read the right 3 SEO strategies and ranked them? Richard Martin did, and shares his thoughts on maximizing traffic based on links, content and quality.
For German users: Kostenloser Leitfaden – 30 SEO-Strategien für Unternehmen. Download hier.

PS: Ever thought about how you feel when explaining Twitter… I did. If you want to have a look…

The rebirth of personalization – CMO study

A new study, called ‘The Power of Personalization’, by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council brings the discussion on personalization back to digital reality. It focuses on the products, benefit and relevance of customized content and communication which should make marketers rethinking their marketing activities. The study surveyed over 700 senior executives ranging from CEO, CMO, SVP, and VPs of Marketing from across different market sectors.

A retrospect on personalization
Some years ago, when we launched a personalized-version of silicon.de, there was a common sense that personalization will become one of the essential features in digital publishing. As business decision makers were said to be busy and having only restricted time to consume business collateral and information in an effective way, personalized platform offerings seemed to be the perfect publishing business to meet their needs.

But when investors of online businesses (most often VCs) wanted to see the quick ROI on their money, tables turned for publishing platform owners. In order to satisfy their investors requirements, the digital currency had to become reach in terms of page impressions – not quality in terms of concrete targeting activities. The whole digital world lost its focus on a wonderful option for digital media: personalization as a marketing driver for efficiency.

Thus, digital media turned into a mass and reach generating industry – simply because there was no other option to finance online business models. CPX, as the one and only digital currency, became a killer for personalization for platform owners.

Personalization is coming back
The new study offers some worldwide insight that marketers have regained the aspect of personalization. Marketeers explore and define personalized communications strategies. The report highlights new technologies and solutions such as customized content creation, proprietary on-demand personalization technologies, one-to-one delivery and interaction channels. Interesting is also the emergence of transpromo documents that integrate transaction and marketing communications.

The reason why personalization will become more important in the future is quite clear: Time is running short and the need for time-efficient work-tactics is increasing. Social media has shown the importance of individualized lifecycle marketing techniques as word-of-mouth results show the value customized communications. Just think about the idea of personal web managers and the personalization topic becomes a completely different value.

56% of marketers believe personalized communications out-perform traditional mass-market delivery. Apart from that, survey participants could identify key trends. Amoungst others were implementation, and integration of personalized communications through media such as email, personalized URLs (PURLs), digital advertising, direct mail, word-of-mouth, dimensional mailers, etc.

To cut things short: Personalization in terms of marketing budgets and campaigns is still in the ‘infantile stages of being integrated into most companies’. Although the targeting of customized content is promising, marketers are still afraid of pushing their budgets in an area without reliable or 3rd-party verified customer data sources. Going the ‘try-and-error’ route seems to be not very popular in the companies sense – especially in rough financial times.

Short summary on some important findings (by en-ovationblog)
- Over 56% of marketers content that personalized communications out-perform traditional mass-market delivery; digital, database-driven channels offer the most upside potential for engaging in customized communications.
- Chief marketing executives are seen as the primary owners of personalized marketing initiatives. However, sales and customer relationship management groups most frequently maintain control of the data that provides the foundation for these campaigns.
- Personalized communication gets less than 10% of a majority of CMOs – future outlook: 55% say they will spend more than 10%.
- While many marketers are still working at tracking the overall effectiveness and ROI of personalized communications, almost 40% say they are generating either “extremely effective and measurable ROI” or “better response rates than other programs.”
- Individualized letters and email are the most common form of personalized communication.
- Conversion and close rates are the primary measure of success, followed by email actioning, website traffic/page views, and impact on retention and churn.

Spot On!
Personalization is another important step to efficient marketing activities. If they need to measured in numbers or in the sense of a customer relationship ratio is something companies has to evaluate and define for themselves. In terms of platforms owners the digital currency question remains. Is there not a need for a change? What value does a website visitor have in a special business content environment or vice versa in a consumer area – and why? Is e-mail newsletter text- or picture advertising the most unrated form of advertising? A lot of question the study brings back to life. The rebirth has just begun…

The executive summary of ‘The Power of Personalization’ can be downloaded here.

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