The world is mobile social networking

From a new study by Insites Consulting, we can learn that Europeans connect more to social networks via their phone than surfing the web with them.

47% of smartphone-connected-Europeans will surf the mobile internet every day. However, this might sound like massive traffic load, it is probably more remarkable that 66% of connected smartphone users log on to their social media profiles daily. At the dmexco all experts agreed that the mobile phone is and will remina the leading communication device.

Obviously, it makes a change if you have your smartphone with you whereever you go – at least from a social network point of voiew. It is a difference in terms of frequency and intensity of use of social media platforms. It comes as no surprise that Facebook confirms “People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users”. Smartphones are the emerging access point for Social Media.

Incentivized ads boost brand perception, study finds

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.

Spot On!
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.

Study: Mobile ads increase user engagement… these days

Mobile advertising seems to be the rock-star among banners these days. For marketers it is becoming an essential digital marketing tool for the future due to its ability to achieve an essential audience reach everytime and everywhere.

The latest global MediaMind study “The Comprehensive Guide on How to Leave an Effective Message” suggests to increase engagement levels and pay-per-click rates through the location where the advertisement is displayed, the time when users see it, and the size of the banner seem to be crucial. For the study MediaMind surveyed about 21 billion impressions, from the second quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011.

The study finds that telecom advertising is the second highest vertical for user engagement. It is just surpassed by sports, still ahead of electronics, travel and retail though. This comes as no surprise as the telco spendings are increasing as of the high competition in the market place. In 2011, US Telecom advertisers are expected to spend over $4 billion on online advertising.

However, awareness is high, click activity still lacks engagement. From one million impressions web users would “dwell” on 70,000 adverts but only click on 1,800. The old question reamins: If we could only measure the final impact of banner awareness before people click banners.

The success factors in a telco advertising campaign: timing and location. Seen from a conversion point of view, telco ads achieved the highest conversion rate after the first impression, generating about 5000 conversions every one million impressions. Users were most likely to convert within the first three exposures to commercials, claims the study. And users converted with a higher probability when telcos targeted them with the most effective ads early in the campaign.

“Out of every one million impressions that are served, 70K impressions are Dwelled, and 1,800 impressions are clicked on. Overall, every million impressions generate 5,300 conversions.” Study Conclusion

Spot On!
In the future, will the high clickrates from mobile banners stay high (0.6% average CTR compared to usual banners reaching not even 0.1% CTR)? A former MediaMind study has also found that users convert at a much higher frequency when exposed to mobile ads. We will see what the mobile evolution of the user brings. In my eyes, it is still the creative aspect and the first message that goes out to the user that makes the change for a great campaign, followed by an “intelligent creative optimisation” which Gal Trifon, MediaMind General Manager obviously suggests.

PS… At dmexco I will be moderating the panel: “Mobile rocks! Strategies and Challenges in Mobile Advertisment”. (21.09.2011, 2.45pm, Congress Hall, Cologne). The keynote will come from Greg Stewart, CEO of the MMA. The panel will focus on opinions and answers from the international mobile market. Which strategies should be implemented to build up a successful communication via the mobile channels and which successful case studies are there? Come and join us!

Any further findings on mobile advertising you can add?

Will Millenials cause a headache for IT in the future?

Just a few days ago, I have written about the challenge for IT departments that millenials will want to use their own private devices at work as employees in the future. If this is causing CIO’s and their IT managers headaches then better get some iboprofen now, as there is more to come…

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”.

Spot On!
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?

Majority of Irish students favor use of private devices and Facebook…

What will companies say if employees want to bring their own devices to work? How about security issues and support opportunities for companies? A real challenge for the future when we look at an Irish study that interviewed 164 students in secondary school and at third level in order to understand how this generation is communicating these days.

The study by IT distributor Data Solutions on behalf of Blue Coat Systems shows that more than 60% of young people expect their employers to allow them to use their own personal devices (i.e. smartphone, laptop, etc.) for work purposes in the future.

The argumentation behind their expectations are obvious: They know how to use our private devices, so they don’t need to learn new technology which saves the company time and money. The challenge for companies will be to establish a set of new policy and security guidelines, as well as data safety and storing options.

“More than 85% of the students surveyed own or have access to a laptop, and almost 40% own a smartphone. This facilitates the trend towards ‘bringing your own device’, and every business is going to have to learn to accommodate this trend while ensuring security (…) When today’s students enter the workforce they will be completely in tune with the new ways of communicating and collaborating online, as most are already using social networking sites, blogs, Skype or instant messaging. Employers now need to look at new ways to facilitate their needs and expectations.” Michael O’Hara, Managing Director, Data Solutions

The study also shows the bluring use of email comunication. 75% of Irish students favor social networking sites like Facebook as their main channel for communicating online these days. Just 6% prefer to use email.

Spot On!
The study findings illustrate that social media sites continue to be on the rise in popularity, and it indicates how older traditional online communication tools like email become less attractive. When 88% have a Facebook account, it is not surprising that they are not swappping to Outlook anymore when communicating with each other, not matter if business or private. And it seems that this will have the same effect on the hardware and devices they want to use. Maybe we just need a separate login on our computers in the future? What is your view on this development…?

Hyperspecialization – The future of work 3.0?

All people engaging in the Social Web are eager to pull, push and share all kinds of specializing topics in different areas of thoughts, interests and visions. In some way these people define a new development where the work of generalists is being cut into workload of networks of narrow experts or specialists. At least, Tom Malone, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the Harvard Business Review article “The Age of Hyperspecialization,” sees this trend and explains in an HBR video why breaking jobs into tiny pieces yields better, faster, and cheaper work.

Malone sees the key “trend” behind this movement in “cheap communication technology” brought to us all over the world – more or less instantly and costlessly. Having said that, Malone’s illustration of scambled eggs being made ready to eat via the locations, Boston, China, Moscow, Paris and Singapore shows the limitation in the theory. For “brain workers”, it definitely makes sense and is a valid and applicable theory. Managers need to figure out how to break up traditional single job descriptions into pieces of hyperspecialist work and maybe rearrange their business processes if they want to make use of hyperspecialization.

What I definitely see is greater flexibility for employees in this movement. The development offers also some massive opportunity for freelancers being integrated into different projects. Thus, I would ask, whether the work of employees, sitting in office, could not easily be outsourced to even more specialized freelancers. Or if it will be more difficult to coordinate these specialists? Or would this be the work of a hyperspecialist again?

Is this really a new trend? Is this the normal evolution of worklife and business? Is this another step towards workplace 3.0, the mobile workplace? How do you see that…?

Screens of the future – Merging Augmented Reality and 3D Apps

What happens if we are merging Augmented Reality and 3D applications in the car industry? After the last vision of Toyota which explored the futuristic rear seat window called “Window to the World” and the Corning “Day Made of Glass“, or Microsoft’s productivity vision of the future, this is another fantastic vision of the capabilities of modern technology in the future.

This business vision, called the Aeon Project, won the 1st place at the Imagina Awards for Best Design and Communication. It is thinking ahead of time and explores the merger of Augmented Reality & 3D applications in a mobility mode.

The Aeon project is not only about the navigation or connected drive mode opportunities, you might know from other car manufacturers. It offers some interactive knowledge management via selectable applications which gives the user the chance to learn about the world around us. It just takes a simple swipe of finger and the screen tells you more about the history of buildings or gives information about restaurants nearby.

It also offers customization features. Whether you want virtual reality, mixed reality or augmented reality, the system can shift from facts to figures to graphics. The real connection of online and offline…

Do you like that…?

Study: C-level executives still unsure how to leverage Social Media for business growth

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.

Spot On!
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.

Study: Why most mobile brand apps don’t work…

The hype about mobile apps is still omnipresent. In which marketing meeting you are, people get mad about creating the next killer app. A recent study by Deloitte gives insights what makes a mobile killer app and why most of the developed apps don’t work.

Last year, the average Apple user downloaded 51 Apps, and it is expected to grow up to 83 of the approximately 400.000 in 2011. And although the app industry is growing as of the increasing tablet market, just a few apps become killer apps.

The study states that less than 1% of apps published by global consumer and healthcare brands were downloaded more than a million times. Whereas, 80% of all brand apps found less than 1.000 people who downloaded it. However, chances are high that people download your app. The study findings say that 45% of consumers with a smartphone download an app at least once a week.

So why is it a challenge to find the rock star app? What makes it so difficult to leverage the brand impact through an app in the mobile market? What are companies doing wrong?

Well, basically most companies don’t think about the value add and the service that these brand apps are meant to provide. Deloitte states that if you obey the following criteria then the chances increase that your brand app reaches the top apps…

- Portability– 81%
- Accelerometer – 77%
- Sophisticated touch screen use – 61%
- Location-based services – 61%
- Camera – 59%

“The app market has some way to go before it rivals TV or the web for penetration, but it is of growing importance for brands. Brands view apps as a golden opportunity to communicate directly with consumers and in a more meaningful, long term manner. When brands get it right, the returns can be huge.” Howard Davies, Media Partner, Deloitte

Which leads us to the question how to make things right, right?

Spot On!
First of all, companies need to understand that handing over an app to the customer is like a promise to care for the customer. It is not just another marketing or communication channel that brand can play around with – at least if mobile apps are not meant to get out of essential impact for business and web strategy in the future. If you as a brand manager think about some strategic approaches, I would be surprised if you don’t find the right “app fit” for your customers. And if you bear in mind that the app shops are quite crowded already, you will not forget to promote the app. Otherwise nobody will find it…

Honesty – The ambient campaign driver that brings virtues back…?

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…

Spot On!
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?

« Vorherige Seite — Nächste Seite »