The 3 R’s of Social Consumers

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.

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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…?

One view into the future of mobile payment – Google wallet… (video)

Some weeks ago, I have written about the changing world of mobile payment and how the future could look like. Some major players in the world want a world without cash and Google does so, too. They announced their Android app Google Wallet some months ago which could easily replace the credit cards in the future if people will trust and rely on the power of one of the major internet players. And in times where mobile commerce is taking more market share from desktops, it is not a surpriusing approach to think about the future payment methods.

Many payments are done via credit or debit cards these days, smartphones have become our shopping companion. And while I have mentioned the future of loyalty cards merging with Social Media more than a year ago, many people already combine their loyalty cards and their cedit card provider. Now, just imagine you could also pay all your shopping products with one simple app?! Tap, pay, go – next shop, next purchase! No little snippets of paper for each payment. And, all out of one hand… (at least for those of you who want to give Google access to all your data)…

Adzag has published a nice video which illustrates the future of mobile wallet payment…

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By 2015 mobile web access will outpace desktop access according to IDC’s latest mobile research. The future of mobile payment –whether through Google or some other company- seems to be not far away if you look at the different ways of mobile payment options today. Techcrunch doubts the NFC hype though and we will see what the future brings. Nevertheless, it is much easier if you imagine that every shopping activity you do, generates one business contact card with customer service details for you on every purchase. The digital wallets are not far away anymore and they could make our lives much easier. Don’t you think…?

Marketing automation – A sleeping lead generation star…?

Although companies get flooded with information concerning the benefits of marketing automation, the topic is still “not self-explanatory” to most marketers. The majority of B2B companies understand the general benefit in principle. Nevertheless, only a few are using marketing automation yet (7-10%). It seems that marketing automation is a sleeping star…

Still, the market for marketing automation is growing as you can figure out from the numbers below. Not surprising. The solution providersfor marketing automation proclaim an increase in lead generation and explain companies how easy it is to manage the sales lead funnel. And generating leads is what drives the B2B world around…

The annuitas Group just recently published some statistics from numerous sources that summarize the marketing automation market and published an interesting infographic.

- 110 vendors are seeling products and solutions in the marketing automation space
- 81% of best-in-class companies see the benefit in closing deals faster
- 76% of marketing decision makers see generation of high-qualified leads as the biggest challenge
- 64% of them have neither an internal nor external process to manage marketing automation
- 36% use marketing automation for lead nurturing
- 451% increase in qualified leads get businesses that use marketing automation for lead nurturing
- 47% more closed werde generated via lead nurturing generiert
- 10% use marketing automation to follow up later in the buying cycle

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The statistics illustrate the power of marketing automation and what it could do to lead generation. However, when companies use marketing automation, only 25% use the full potential of marketing automation. It has become a “must have” in the marketing departments, at least of enterprises. If small and medium-sized companies use marketing automation or their a pre-sales/telemarketing to leverage their marketing and thus sales potential would be an eye-opening statistic in these terms. In many cases, time and resources hinder most companies from diving deeper into the potential of marketing automation and thus their brand content, the context in which it appears, and the community that talks about their business, products and services. The approach that I came across the last three years was an outsourced solution to service providers like agencies, publishers or software providers. And the main challenge of lead generation and nurturing is to align marketing, sales and customer service for a more efficient web strategy.

Would you agree that marketing automation is still a sleeping marketing star for lead generation…?

Study: Social Media and Advertising – What is the next hype for marketers…?

When you do Social Media marketing seminars and trainings (and I have done many in the last 24 months), most of the times marketers want to know everything around Facebook and Twitter (maybe Google Plus these days). However, according to the Pivot Conference that released their study “The Rise of the Social Consumer”, with the response of 230 brand managers, executives, and marketing professionals yesterday, some new hypes from marketers can be seen. Just check out the platforms that marketers are planning to invest in…

Although the big players on the market dominate at present, the next wave is already approaching marketers mindset. YouTube, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Zynga have made their popularity in the Social Media market and might get the future attention of the marketers. The second column shows an increase of those four platforms between 13-26% which obviously have some good business value if seen from the right customer service and customer relationship management spot.

For B2B companies LinkedIn got some great assets, not only with their special groups. YouTube is some higly underated platform in my eyes. It can be used for different visual aspects in B2B, but also viral topics and campaign opportunities in B2C. If restaurants, service providers or entertainment brands want to head for local promotions, Foursquare (and Gowalla in some areas – also 5% increase forecasted) offers some fantastic buzz potential. Whether Zynga is really so powerful for marketers to promote their offerings, needs to be seen and proved in the future. I would rather recomment and elaborate on reward advertising models.

The study also showed that 84% of brands encourage user involvement with social advertisement campaigns. This is interesting as very often the perception of marketers was that people don’t really see the ads next to their streams. The intention of marketers why they invest in Social Media advertising is manyfold…

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Over half of respondents of the study (see full report) said they were shifting money away from other forms of marketing towards Social Media. 23% of respondents even stated that social advertising delivers a greater ROI than other forms of advertising. Although this sounds great, the strategic approach to every social advertising and Social Media engagement needs to be double-checked. The development of the results need to be aligned with the expectations and targets set before the Social Media activity started. At least if they don’t want to lack business credibility in front of their bosses…

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.

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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.

SEO study: Measurable results are key, but without strategy…

Would you like to know what tactics B2B and B2C marketers use to achieve a powerful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy? Well, then you should read the latest MarketingSherpa „2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – SEO Edition“. But only if you have time to read a 202-page paper. If not, find the latest insights in brief on SEO habits and effectiveness according to more than 1.500 respondents.

Although SEO is one of the main topics in meetings with clients these days, marketing decision makers tend to ignore the strategic approach. The study shows the discrepancy between what marketers want and are willing to invest…
- Developing a SEO strategy is a top challenge but ranks as bottom objective
- Organic SEO via Content creation is a winner but costs many resources
- Established SEO processes generate future investments in SEO
- Incremental SEO improvements add up to large profits
- Local business listings tactics are underutilized

Many organisations are not challenging a strategic plan. The tactical approach still rules the daily business with clear focus on fast tactical objective turnarounds (i.e. leveraging website traffic, lead generation and measurable ROI). Understanding and evaluating digital assets from a SEO point of view is still not a strategic topic in businesses. Only 27% of companies surveyed responded they consider planning an effective SEO strategy an important objective.

However, companies put massive importance on measurable results. The study claims the benefit of Inbound Marketing by some helpful numbers…
- Use Social Media – Revenue goes up 114% and Leads 30%
- Find and test niche content: Organic traffic increased by 40%
- Revamp and optimize web content – Doubles lead conversions

The graphic below illustrates the value if various tactics and how to position them for your strategic efforts.

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The above numbers sound as if SEO needs to become a strategic focus of your web strategy – and yes, it should. However, content marketing as an inbound marketing tactic stays a challenge for marketers, especially if it shall be authentic, story-telling and benefitial for users. No wonder it is one of the most difficult processes. BUT it is still considered to gain best returns. Nevertheless, the best SEO strategy needs to have the right approach from data capture to generating leads through to good landing pages, leverage mobile and finally do lead nurturing. And it needs to take into account the right follow up process from customer service and sales to complete a SEO strategy.

Study: Where, why and how do people share content…

For some years, I have used a graphic by ShareThis to show how content is distributed, or as we say today: How content is shared. And sharing is important to generate buzz, companies and brands thought and Social Media experts made us think so. It still is but there a tiny differences which might affect your business impact…

ShareThis is sharing their latest sharing insights in cooperation with Starcom MediaVest Group and Rubinson Partners, and it seems the social web sky is not as blue as people thought. The ShareThis button offers many insights to the platform owners and how people use social tools and networks to share “their” content. And when you have the ability to analyse the sharing habits of over 300 million people and 1000 publishers a month who pass links with a ShareThis button, resulting in 7 billion pageviews a month, then there is definitely some trends you can make out…

The study shows that sharing now accounts for an estimated 10% of all Internet traffic and 31% of referral traffic to sites from search and social. However, search still is twice as big as social.

It is not surprising that Facebook rules the sharing process these days. In terms of clicking through to sites, Facebook now generates 38% of all sharing referral traffic. Email and Twitter come in at second with each 17%. However, Facebook does even better. 56% of all shared content comes from the leader in social networks. Email do 15% (down from 34%!) and Twitter at 8% (down from 12%).

But which social network does better in actual clicks? Twitter is better here: Links on the micro-blogging platform are clicked 4.9 times each, Facebook 4.3 times and email 1.7 times. It would be interesting to see if there are no numbers for social bookmarking platforms. I would like to see which of these platforms are resources for those who are the “first clickers and sharers”.

Why? The study puts a question mark behind the sharing philosophy that talks about the viral capabilities of networks. If people share a link, then the first level of people who get the link will click but if these firtst clickers pass it on, then the chance to get more attention and clicks falls massively. This shows the importance of brand advocates for the distribution of content but also for the pocesses inside your sales, marketing, HR and customer service teams. Most companies and brands still don’t understand the value of these business enablers.

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The study gives advice which social networks are good for which sharing topics. On Facebook people like to share entertainment and shopping links whereas Twitter is more for business and health topics. People tend to share what they are most involved in, or what their conversations with friends, fans and followers are about. No difference to the offline world. Sharing is the future of business approval, and the modern definition of personality. People are not sharing everything, although some companies would love to see this. 80% of people share only one category of links. It is even less when it comes to clicking: More than 70% will just click on one category.

Do these numbers surprise us? Or would you share something you don’t LIKE?

Customer Service through apps is like a mobile promise…

Over one year ago, when I realized how blind brands and companies started creating apps for their business, I wrote my 5 strategic reasons why brands need an app. Although this was written with some twinkle of my left eye, I am 100% sure of what I stated in my 5 arguments (and many people shared these thoughts around the world).

Apparently, a study proves more or less what I sent out as an advice to brands those days: Have a valid business reason, and more importantly, have the right back-end support, when you start building an app… especially when using it for customer service reasons.

When your strategic reason of your app is meant to become a “Servicesetter”, a promise from brands to help and be there when people are out in the streets, companies want to make sure that there is sufficient service behind their mobile technology: people, products, processes. A recent study conducted by Constellation Research now finds that most companies have not really established service and support for those modern mobile customer service touchpoints.

Obviously, it has taken many companies years to establish some kind of customer service via digital media which makes customers want to use it, email and online chat amongst others. According to the study, it will be similar with mobile. Companies create mobile apps (and open up social channels on Twitter or Facebook) but are not set to handle the business coming through to them. Although it might be a marketing advantage for them, companies tend to forget the customer, and don’t think about what it means to deliver 24/7 support via social or mobile platforms.

“Customers are taking it to the streets. They’re going to go out and complain about your company on Twitter or Facebook or whatever–and their expectation is that companies will respond.” Elizabeth Herrell, Global Communication Analyst and Strategist, Constellation Research

The report also finds that companies use different teams for mail or phone customer service versus mobile and social. These later teams then have no information on the quality of the customer. The customer then don’t get feedback, stop using the app, writing bad reviews. Thus, nobody is going to use the app in the future. Money is wasted if nobody understands the strategic and tactical importance of an app.

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Apps are 6 times more popular than web browsing these days, states a study that Zokem just recently released. And apps create smartphone loyalty, says Gartner. If companies bear in mind that web-centric people are not as loyal to brands as they have been, the importance of having the right strategy for the app and the correct processes in place that deliver the mobile promise becomes apparent. Herrell’s conclusion is that customers need to take customer service via mobile and social more serious, and dedicate teams to it which have the same capabilities as their counterparts on i.e. the phone. The customer service teams will not only have to be able to write a 140 characters tweet but also to understand the urgency of reponse, the importance of the client from a buzz point of view, as well as giving some feedback in “real-time”… and that can be via phone or the mobile app then.

My advice would be: “Think why your brand wants to offer a mobile promise to your customers. Then start building an app…!”

Web 3.0 – Let’s find a new title…

Many web evangelists are sharing their views about the future of the next web these days. What will The Web 3.0 be, and how will it be named? For years people have foreseen The Semantic Web. Some might say, it is The Mobile Web, and know how to illustrate the opportunities (i.e. Augmented Reality) in their video.

Others deny this theory and state it is The Spatial Web.

“What tend to define Web 3.0 as not semantic, but rather the extension of the Web 1.0 (content) and Web 2.0 (Social Graph) into the spatial domain. Web 3.0 web content and social nodes are both tagged with spatial relationships and able to form social relationships based on current location. (…) We at the Web 3.0 Lab thing that by adding more spatial dimensions you will get improved semantic understanding. Much of our social understanding is spatial. Reasoning that some people hope to get out of triplestores we think will emerge out of geo-tagging of information. Spatial arrangements of data will drive interesting conclusions about how that data relates to the real world, how it is used, and therefore what it means.”

And if we listen to the conversation of Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, and Robert Scoble, at this year’s Web 2.0 conference, then the power of location-based data will be connecting the dots of user behaviour for future business and customer service strategies. Dennis envisions the future of Foursquare in “listening for what’s going on around you (…) You’re walking down the street and normally you eat lunch, but you haven’t yet. And Foursquare will tell you that you’re close to a sandwich place you read about in the New York Times three weeks ago. And that’s what you want to try.”

Thinking about the development of location-based technology the Web seems to move away from being The Global Web to The Local Web.

In the end, some proclaim Web 3.0 will be The Contextual Web.

“It is a robust procedural grid that understands us, and responds appropriately given the user’s current context.”

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Isn’t it funny how we all try to invent our own Web 3.0 stamp as web specialists? And I could imagine different other namings or titles. The Authentic Web. The Realtime Web. The Live Web. And be sure, I will find some explanations for all of the above named. In the end, the Web is about people. People invented and continue to drive the Web – from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 – now more conversational, engaging and transactional than ever before. So, why not name it The People’s Web or The Human(ity) Web?

You decide. What title seems most appropriate for you? Come on, let’s discuss…

News Update – Best of the Day

A recent Deloitte survey states that 74% of Americans believe higher prices could slow their spending in the months ahead. Deloitte’s study also revealed that mobile and social connections are helping shoppers make savvier buying decisions. Interesting is also the finding about social and mobile influence. 32% said stores are running out of merchandise faster, and shoppers appear to be turning to their mobile phones to locate product inventory and seek guidance in the shopping process. People with web-enabled smartphones (32%), more than 43% said they have used it specifically in a store to assist in their shopping. Furthermore, 40% consumers surveyed interact with retailers through social networking sites to find out about promotions, browse products, or review recommendations.

PS: If you want to see how the future of shopping online could merge sales and customer service, check out his video by 3LiveShop.

What is the future of work? Jocelyn K. Glei suggest that it is play and he finds some logic and thought-provoking explanation why. He bases his findings on “Social pressure, competition, time pressure, novelty… these mechanics are pretty powerful universally”. And an interesting article from NY Times…

It is always interesting to listen to what futurist say about the future of mobile. Dr. James Canton discusses in a one-on-one interview with One+ Editor in Chief David Basler at DigitalNow 2011 the affects of mobile on the meetings and events industry.

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