News Update – Best of the Day

Measuring the return on invest (ROI) is difficult - especially when it comes to social media activities. Christina Warren wrote an interesting post on how to define goals, which metric tools and the sentiment analysis. And she refers to a presentation by Oliver Blanchard who created a funny presentation on social media and the ROI…

… and btw: Omniture just announced a new social media measurement product that they will launch.

A recent UK study by the IT consulting company Morse showed some very interesting findings… The use of social networks by employees at work is costing UK businesses £1.38 billion each year in lost productivity – including especially the security dangers) . 57% use it for personal purpose instead of business means. More about the study on the Morse homepage…

A funny commercial just reminded me of the cold age that is about to come up… and I am asking myself where I have seen this years ago. Can you help out..?

PS: The Premier League has made its way to Facebook. See who is leading…

News Update – Best of the Day

A annual study by Financial Times and Doremus Decision Dynamics among 470 senior executives indicates, that these executives are loosing trust in service providers. The top 5 negatives are…

Advertising and communications -10%
Commercial banks -31%
Investment banks -29%
Management consulting -17%
Insurance -15%

A quite new futuristic tool for media planning seems to be ‘psycho-graphic targeting’. Well, at least this new tool by Peerset -well explained by ReadWriteWeb- sounds very interesting. Peerset’s targeting algorithm uses keywords and meta data from online profiles and matches them with relevant information. Read more…

Ruffles knows what men are thinking… and thus, they have produced a great commercial. And guess what gets us away from think of something else than… well you know it.

News Update – Best of the Day

Connecting the offline with the online world is one of today’s biggest challenges – not only for businesses but also for the individual. A recent study by Forrester reveals some insights in the increase and decrease on figures focusing the online behavior and internet usage of Americans in the last five years. Frank Reed gives a deeper analysis of the study and brings the message of the study to the point for marketers…

“As Internet users know more about what they want from their online experience it will be critical for marketers to be able to pinpoint those activities. There is less experimentation with broader activities. People know what they like to do online and they go to do that rather than poking around aimlessly.” Frank Reed

And he sees the internet as the extension of offline world. This comes close to my view of my vision…

“Online is just a catalyst of the offline world.” Martin Meyer-Gossner, The Strategy Web

Social media is nothing for lawyers and law firms? Who said that? Just found a very remarkable and long short-list of such companies, written by JD Scoop. If you need some ideas to promote your law business, this is the place to spend some time for “cost-free consulting”.

Adidas produced a wonderful funny commercial. You will be surprised when you see who “runs” these shoes…

Ad Effectiveness – Mixing Apples & Eggs?

Sometimes you read a study and think: “Ah, this is interesting information”. So, you write about it in a News Update.

And then, you stumble upon it again, and think twice about the research. This happened to me with the ‘Ad Effectiveness study’ conducted by Forbes. And browsing through it again, my feeling was that the title of this eMarketer article reflected the result, but the study itself mixes apples and eggs in some way…

Still, the main statement of the study remains an important trend in online marketing, and is an even more important praise for the work of online publishers (yes, probably a bit self-referential for Forbes).

“Respondents were by far the least happy with ad networks, with half saying that the results did not meet expectations” (…) “Ad network spending is all about demand fulfillment while direct-to-publisher display is much aligned with the traditional advertising goals of demand creation,” said Forbes.com president and CEO Jim Spanfeller.

However, it has to be said that ‘ad networks’ is not a tactic for generating conversion. It is a supplier that offers ‘cheap space’ by bundling platforms into offers in most cases. Platform owners have a much deeper understanding of their target group and can definitely do a better consulting in terms of converting their target group into potentials for their clients. Absolutely, I agree with that statement, having done this for years…

BUT: Taking my view on the study, the set up of the study is in some way irritating. When the marketing executives were asked on budget allocations the results were these…

…and what they see as most effective tactics for generating conversion? Site or page sponsorship and SEO were considered the most effective ways online.

Thinking about the answering options (and bearing in mind my brand theme ‘tools, tactics, trends’) that were given to the responding marketers though, these options need to be separated from each other…

The question, I was asking myself is… Is viral marketing really an ad tactic? In my eyes it is not. It is a strategic communication tactic which integrates viral ads as some relevant online marketing tool.

So, this study set up seems to be a comparison of apple and eggs. Viral marketing is done in social networks. It is the way in which brand awareness other marketing objectives can be increased. Viral ads is the tool that may be spread like a computer virus by the users. It cannot be influenced like banner or text ads. Nor can it be bought. So, it is a modern marketing trend with little historical definition or proven success.

And, maybe such a study should think about: What can be bought by marketers, and what cannot in our times of social media.

Spot on!
The following summary is meant to make clear what steps have to be done first by marketers to create the conversation results their bosses appreciate… and it is a guideline for the chronology of setting up an online marketing strategy.

1.) Tactics
At first, marketers have to think about the tactics they can choose from…
SEO, e-mail and e-newsletter, site and page sponsorship, corporate web TV or viral marketing.

2.) Tools
Then, they have to decide on the tools that can be used to make these tactics efficient…
good texts (I am missing this most interesting option), banners, or viral ads.

3.) Trends
And finally, we have options that might create powerful conversion…
The use of ad networks, behavioral targeting and pay per ‘x’ models (x=impression, unique user, sales, click etc.)

If the online industry continues to publish studies that mix apples and eggs, it is no wonder that 57% of respondents said they still spend less than 25% of their marketing budgets online.

It is still early days in online marketing, it seems…

Study: Agencies moving to slow for consumers?

If we can believe in a recent study ‘Beyond advertising: Choosing a Strategic Path to the Digital Consumer‘ by IBM Institute for Business Value, then ad agencies are years behind in catching up to digitally savvy consumers – although consumers are moving their media consumption online more quickly than anybody could have expected.

Now, despite the difficult economic climate there are some good news for the digital industry: IBM’s study states that interactive, measurable formats will be expected to account for 20% of global ad spending by 2012. The interviewed CMOs said they will increase interactive and online marketing spending in 2009 while 63% while 65% will decrease on traditional advertising. Generally speaking, the same trend that we acknowledged from the latest CMO report.

So, what are further interesting findings? Between 2007 and 2008 the proportion of consumers answering they used social-networking tools went up to 60% (from 33%). It even doubled for for online and portable music services to 46% and almost tripled for mobile internet. And believe it or not, the access to mobile music and video quadrupled to 35%.

Seeing these numbers, it is surprising that 80% of the interviewed ad executives forecast the industry to be at least five years away from being able to deliver whatever might be necessary in terms of cross-platform advertising, encompassing sales, delivery, measurement and analysis.

The problem seems to be the agencies according to study co-author Saul Berman, IBM global leader, strategy and change consulting services. Agencies need to identify and keep pace with the value shift in order not to loose out the same way the music industry did, he summarizes.

“To succeed — especially in the current economic environment — media companies will need to develop a new set of capabilities to support the industry’s evolving demands which include micro targeting, real-time ROI measurement and cross-platform integration,” said Saul Berman, IBM Global Leader for Strategy and Change Consulting Services, and co-author of the new study. “Now is the time for companies to move quickly to become more effective with their assets and build for the future.”

Spot On!
Watching the last decade, companies and agencies followed their customer audience and pushed their budgets to more interactive, measurable formats such as the internet and mobile (gaining 20% of the overall spend). This is not surprising as digital advertising enables advertisers to measure more effectively campaign success to prove the value of their budgets.

In terms of platform owners it shows that these need to identify new opportunities to monetize new consumer experiences before it is too late like the music industry has shown. The options are obvious: value of content, visual goods sales, value-added services plus hardware or software offerings.

For this study IBM conducted 70 interview sessions with global industry execs and surveyed more than 2,800 consumers in Australia, Germany, India, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.

Experten: Web 2.0 im Unternehmen verstärkt im Kommen

Cubic Consulting veröffentlichte kürzlich die Ergebnisse einer Expertenbefragung ‘Web 2.0 im Unternehmenseinsatz‘. Die Ergebnisse verdeutlichen, daß Web 2.0 im Unternehmen klar im kommen ist.

Das Fazit der Studie besagt, daß bei der Einführung von Web 2.0 in Unternehmen folgende Faktoren bei der Implementierung erfolgversprechend sind.

- Verankerung in Unternehmensprozesse (70%)
- Klare Strategie und Zielvorgabe (66%)
- Integration mit anderen Kanälen/ Tools (61%)
- Kontinuierlicher Verbesserungsprozess nach Einführung (55%)

Dirk Ploss, Geschäftsführer von Cubic Consulting, weiß über die Hintergründe bei den webbasierten Veränderungsprozessen in Unternehmen bescheid.

“Die Möglichkeiten des Web 2.0 werden bei vielen Unternehmen noch nicht erkannt und ausreichend genutzt – Angst und Unwissenheit sind hier die stärksten Hinderungsgründe – wie auch von den befragten Experten eingeschätzt wird. Unternehmen werden zukünftig Web 2.0-Anwendungen stärker einsetzen – intern wie extern. Unternehmen werden kaum die Möglichkeit haben, sich diesem Trend zu entziehen.”

Unterstützt wird seine Annahme von Forrester Research. Nach deren Angaben werden Unternehmen die globalen Ausgaben für Web 2.0-Technologien in den nächsten Jahren bis 2013 sehr stark erhöhen.

Das veränderte Kundenverhalten macht dabei die Investitionen in Web 2.0 unbedingt erforderlich, meint Ploss:

“Unternehmen müssen erkennen, dass sie nicht mehr allein bestimmen, wie sie mit ihrer Zielgruppe kommunizieren und auch nicht mehr, was über sie geschrieben wird. Die Technologien machen es möglich, dass Unternehmen zukünftig folgendermaßen kommunizieren: 1=nx”

Als Fallbeispiele fallen Dirk Ploss aus eigenener Erfahrung folgende Beispiele ein…

Otto – Fashion Blog: Two for fashion (Mode Blog sponsered by Otto): Zwei Moderedakteurinnen schreiben aus Berlin/Hamburg und New York über Mode und Trends.

Synaxon – Einsatz von Blog und Wiki: „Der Chef ist nicht automatisch der Schlaueste. Aus dieser Erkenntnis hat Frank Roebers, Vorstandssprecher der Synaxon AG, eine radikale Konsequenz gezogen: In seinem Unternehmen darf jeder jederzeit jede Regel ändern.“ Brand Eins

Tchibo – Community Building: Ideenaustausch zwischen Designern, Erfindern und Entwicklern mit Kunden und Konsumenten.

Spot On!
Unternehmen, die den Einsatz von Web 2.0 evaluieren, sollten sich auf jeden Fall mal die Tipps des Experten für Enterprise 2.0 anhören: Dion Hinchcliffe hat seine Meinung abgegeben, wie europäische Unternehmen auf das Thema Enterprise 2.0 zugehen sollten. Eins muss dabei allen Unternehmen klar sein: Die weltweite Wirtschaft befindet sich in einer Transitions- und Umbruchsphase, was neue Strategien im modernen Web betrifft. Ein absolutes ‘Richtig oder Falsch’ für die eigene Unternehmensstrategie zu finden, ist dabei schwer. Mit professioneller Hilfe können Unternehmen aber auch Fehler vermeiden.

Are social testimonials the future drivers for strong brands?

When BBDO Consulting came up with their latest ‘brand parity study‘ in Germany*, we could all learn that brands are ‘exchangeable for the consumer’. Although companies spend a fortune in brand building which are meant to raise emotions for purchase decisions, the direct implicitness of a ‘brand buy’ looses more and more its value. Today, the customers brain seems to resist this powerful and expensive approach.

“Companies need to upload brands with motivation and find the right benefits for the consumer in customer communication”, says Björn Sander, Managing Partner, BBDO Consulting.

So, we might ask the question: Is advertising via emotions still the driver of the consumer buying decision in the world of the future brand building? Or will strong brands be ‘tackling’ the money via word-of-mouth in the future through ‘brand-vangelists’? Let’s call those people ’social testimonials’ (or name it ’social model’ or rockstars if you like)…

An example. Imagine you think about buying a new mobile phone. In the shop you get offered a Nokia and a Blackberry. We all know what these brands stand for: Nokia as one of the first-time mover in connecting people away from home, Blackberry one of the top mobile business enablers for managers. Through the years we all were educated via different communication strategies that these brands, while positioned in the same market segment, are meant to serve these different purposes and benefits. But the knowledge around brands and their impact on consumers seems to be built via the same learning concept:

“People buying from people because people are relying on word-of-mouth from people they trust.”

Now, in terms of buying decisions, word-of-mouth has become an enormous influence on brands with web 2.0 (i.e. through rating, review, crowd-sourcing, etc.). In our case, some fellow ’social-testimonial’, a fellow worker, peer or friend, might argue correct saying: “Why should some construction worker need business features like email or sync functionality on a mobile?” The brand reward for his colleague’s need is deciding on the brand, not the emotion.

It is not that this person does not understand or rate the other product or it’s message. It is simply not paying the credit that his fellow, peer or friend needs. But the reward ‘Connecting people’ is exactly what this example of a construction worker wants – nothing more, nothing less. And this was the Nokia brand pitch on consumers right from the beginning of the brand building process: spreading word-of-mouth easy, fast and everywhere you are going. What a great reward, right?

Vision or Utopia: social testimonials enforcing future brands?
Let’s take this idea a bit further. In business everything turns around the reward concept: ‘What is the reward for selling something…?’ Now, as word-of-mouth is one of the biggest benefits of social influence today, why should not ‘everyday people’ (and not VIPs) get the option to be rewarded for becoming a social testimonial for a brand?

What if there was a kind of reward for using private social media tools (blogs, micro-blogging or even social networks profiles) as a personal tool to say and show online ‘Yes, these are my brands!’ Would this not change our behavior towards brands? Not in terms of writing (micro-)posts as people already do it. But in terms of ‘wearing and carrying around brands with your online presence, your online pictures, your personal digital dna, etc…

Generally speaking, if our ‘engagement’ in brands could be rewarded, a brand will have more visibility, our enthusiasm for that brands will increase and with it our word-of-mouth for the value of the brand and all it’s impact. Correct? Or is this against online reputation? Or are people not happy to being testimonials?

Spot On!
We all know that without any reward, there is limited commitment for brands. But what if we were showing our favorite brands open to everyone and avow ourselves to those we ‘adore’? Virtually speaking, companies could take us by the hand like advertising columns and reward us with a mechanism they see as appropriate? Are brand committed people not the best emotion drivers for their ‘followers’ (as the ‘Twitterati’ would say)? Would this not carry a brand’s word-of-mouth to a next all-time high? And in the end, would this not work in the favor of making brands more emotional and less exchangeable?

Open to discuss…

*BBDO Consulting has only a German version of the study.

Top IT Consultants: What is your Twitter strategy?

Yesterday, we were focusing on the Twitter strategy from top strategy consultants, today we will finish this report with checking the activities from the top IT consultants. If these companies don’t use Twitter there is no reason saying they are the ‘technical specialists in communication’. We will merely focus on the official company accounts and the possible company brand accounts.

One thing before we start: Compared to the strategy consulting companies, IT consulting companies are quite ‘open-minded’ about the share economy. There is no hiding in the communication fields of the old economy. This is -in most cases- talking markets, showing transparency, creating value for the web busisness community and believing in the power of social software.

Let’s make the case…

Top IT consultant companies (in alphabetical order)
The questions that The Strategy Web asked these companies were like… Do you have a corporate Twitter account, how do you use it and what is your strategy behind it? Please find the answers, some were translated into English by The Strategy Web …

Company Account
twitter.com/BearingPoint
twitter.com/GovTwit
The first impression counts in business, the people say… “My personal Twitter strategy I learned directly from MC Hammer – ‘Forget the number of Tweeters – just stay interesting!’.” Paul Dunay, Director of Global Field Marketing at Bearingpoint, knows of personal branding, reputation marketing and the changing world of communication in the sense of ‘getting things gone differently‘.

Summary
Let’s talk about the GovTwit account first. This is one of the most excellent examples of a Twitter directory that probably exists on the web with Twitter IDs and links to official government blogs and URLs noted in Twitter bios. Beraingpoint knows how to share and all companies can learn from that example..
Nevertheless, the second one, the brand Twitter account, seems quite down to earth like a simple press release-RSS-push. But there is a clear strategy line as this Twitter account is the access point and traffic driver for the corporate blog which lives and broadcasts social media.

Company Account
twitter.com/CiscoSystems
twitter.com/CiscoGeeks
So, there are two different interesting Twitter streams: the first one for press releases, news on personal and management changes, and it picks up RTs of stories around Cisco from followers (Nice give-and-take scenario!). The second one (start Dec. 2008) pushes their Cisco AXP contest for application developers who are meant to “think outside the box”. No, the top brand account belongs to someone else. And Cisco started early sending tweets out… so this is to everone: you better hurry up to get your brand account.

Summary
Cisco has defintely entered the web 2.0 scenario big way. Using different social media like blogs, FlickR and sure, Twitter – to get all these activities around modern communication and messaging fly high. Twitter seems to be adding value to their marketing, their pr, and pushes corporate branding.

Company Account
twitter.com/gartner_inc
The man behind the corporate Gartner account is Andrew Spender -Vice President, Corporate Communications- and this company has more than 60 analysts (!) on Twitter. The corporate Twitter account from Gartner mixes internal knowledge, pr releases, communication on consulting issues, hints to their analysts and shares company experience from events and career opportunities. It’s the aggregator of their global Twitter and business knowledge satellites.

Summary
“Briefly, we use Twitter to communicate with a broad range of people. This includes IT end-users, technology providers, journalists, bloggers, etc. It has become a very effective way of developing a direct, credible, authentic two-way relationship with people who have an interest in what we have to say about the business of technology. Twitter is a great way for anyone to engage directly with our analysts and we’re always listening for feedback!” (Andrew Spender)
PS: Again, the most obvious account belongs to someone else…

Company Account
Many! – … and the brand account…?
There is nearly nothing that Twitter does not support for IBM: business sections here, here and here, events here and here plus community building accounts here. Is the brand account changing it’s owner? There were more follower, there is no actual IBM logo and there is definitely something going on…

Summary
IBM is a very active user of Twitter. It becomes obvious from the named examples that IBM uses new media for their communication strategy – not surprising as collaboration software is part of their business. “Social media tools are impossible to be taken away from an innovative communication concept.” says Petra Bauerle, Web Managing Editor at IBM – yes, she twitters as well.

Company Account
twitter.com/oracle
Similar ’strategy’ that IBM has: Twitter for big events like Open World and it’s push as well as it’s blog), for tech communities around Oracle Technology Network (OTN) as well as an ‘cocktail-mixing’ aggregator account. Wanna see all Oracle Twitterati? Go ahead… and check their wiki with Oracle and non-Oracle people.

Summary
“Generally, as a company, we encourage communication among our employees, customers, partners, and others – and blogs, social networks, discussion forums, wikis, video, and other social media can be a great way to stimulate conversation and discussion. They’re also an invaluable tool for experienced Oracle users who want to share information and tips on the use of Oracle products. (…) I’m not aware that we have a formal, documented plan for the use of Twitter, just as we don’t for other social media, but we definitely have a level of participation, since it can be a good way to reach out to and engage with a variety of communities.” Steve Walker, Vice President EMEA

Company Account
None – brand account options difficult.
“At the moment, the trend washes Twitter in the spheres of a brand name like Google: Twitter is not only seen a web-service for micro-blogging but a synonym for for the dialog in 140 words – you “twitter” like you “googled”! This trend makes the service and the micro-blogging attractive for a bigger user group.” Torsten Schollmayer, Senior Associate Marketing & Analytics

Summary
Sapient sees the value of also for business accounts for the benefit of social information finding and -exchange, and supporting own brand building – Twitter offers direct and konvergent 1:1 and 1:n-dialogue with clients, competitors and specialists. That’s the reason why Sapient will be on Twitter in a short time period in order not to lose innovation leadership in te market of interactive consulting. BUT: The brand account is gone, so we will wait and see what the digital consulting experts will be doing… The question remains: Why do they start so late on Twitter?

Company Account
Many – company does not make them public as project-based…
“The motivation for our involvement in Twitter and other micro-blogging tools is connected with expertise. Through the use of these tools, experts of Siemens IT Solutions and Services can not only exchange information or present their expertise, but also interact with customers and stakeholders. Networking and open innovations play an important role within the Siemens group, therefore we also designed the open source tool ESME (Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment), which can be use by every enterprise.” Janine Krebs, Media Relations

Company Account
None – brand account options difficult… or not?!
Unisys pr agency answered briefly: “Unisys has decided not to go with Twitter. The companies opinion goes along the lines that Twitter is interesting, generally speaking, but up to now, there is no response from clients to head for Twitter.”

Summary
I am sure there will be some activity when they have been reading about the Twitter options in this post… if so, tell us in a comment, ok?!

Spot On!
We can learn a lot about the pr and career chances, capabilities and possibilities of Twitter from the IT consulting companies, and nearly all of them are using Twitter in a big way. If you need some more background on the Twitter effect for the benefit of your marketing, you should listen to Jon Samsel’s advice. Generally, the especially the real-time business benefit is obvious…

Before companies even join, they can search on Twitter and monitor what people are saying for any term or terms about their employees, their company, their industry, their branch etc. – and then simply put the results into a RSS feed reader.

The real time focus makes it one of the most valuable resources in fast moving industry days. And it tells companies very early when customers have a problem with their communication (see Johnson&Johnson Motrin example) or customer service.

Seeing all the positive aspects… there is one thing that needs to be said about the no. 1 micro-blogging tool: All the positivism in mind and seeing the wonderful new world of communication, Twitter can also be a time-thief if not treated carefully. For some managers professional support will make sense. Tweets attract your personal psyche, shake their body of words and love the power of anticipation in dissipation just like … does.

Anyway, happy to hear what you think of these IT consultants strategies…

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