Study: Facebook is for women, Twitter less…

A recent study became of interest for me after having visited the Caveman show around Christmas. As we all know, and the comedy show makes this clear in a spectacular and funny way, men speak 2.000 and women 7.000 words on a normal day. Comparing this with the annual social media study by Shespeaks, it might sound obvious why Facebook is more for women, and Twitter the preferred social network for men.

Though having the proof with the study now, we might also argue that this is a prejudice. But let’s agree this is true for today…

The study has asked 1.559 women of the Shespeaks community which social network they are using. And, thinking about the above words, the result is not surprising. Facebook is the preferred platform for women: 95% of the surveyed women say that they have a Facebook profile. But only 38% are micro-blogging on Twitter. But why?

On Facebook women find what they want and need while not underlying any technical length restriction in communication (Sorry, Twitter is a 140 characters only platform…). Thus, social networking -at least for the moment- gives the proof for a long mystery. But there is more in the study from a business perspective!

Social media is becoming more and more a “strong driver for purchase decisions”. As the Shespeaks study states, with social networking women can satisfy their shopping behavior in a much better way. From a woman’s perspective, especially Facebook offers the right platform for brand commitment… and even more for recommendations. 80% have become fans of products and brands and 72% of the women said that they learn about a new product on Facebook. A dream-land for every marketer, right?!

Nevertheless, Twitter is the still very powerful for pr and marketing efforts – also if marketers want to reach women. Receiving coupon-codes is as popular on Twitter as it used to be (and still is) in the offline world. And when we look at the fact that 30% have purchased directly via Twitter or used a coupon-code therefore (27%), we might also argue that Twitter is a useful sales tool.

2010: Social media budgets increase – but where to find resources?

The good news? Budgets for social media will increase. The bad news? Companies are struggling to find the time and resources to handle their activity, according to the “Social Media and Online PR Report” by Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia.

The research aimed at finding out how companies are using online PR tactics and social media sites (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) for marketing and customer service. The result of the survey shows that the majority of companies (86%) plan to spend more budgets on social media next year 2010 – 13% are not changing their budgets and will keep the same level of spendings.

The biggest challenge for companies is resources: 54% see this as a significant problem. And 90% say it is more time-consuming internally than last year. The named benefit is remarkable: One-fourth of companies found they have achieved “real, tangible value” from social media; 60% say they have bained “some benefit but nothing concrete.”

“The reality is that most businesses understand how to listen, what to measure and where to engage but are struggling to define the value of engagement and reputation in social spaces,” said Michelle Goodall, Econsultancy’s social media and online PR consultant.

One of this companies is definitely Dell. They just announced to have sold PCs, accessories and software for 6,5 million USD via Twitter.

Some Twitter results…
- 78% use Twitter as a social media tactic and 74% of agency respondents
- 65% social network profile creatio n and management
- 62% use the micro-blogging site for publicizing new content
- 54% use the channel for marketing
- 47% for brand monitoring

Spot On!
Only 27% take the advantage of using Twitter as a customer service (and 25% as a customer feedback) tool for reacting to issues and inquiries. And when 31% see “tremendous opportunities” available in using Twitter for customer contact, but only half reporting that their companies are “open-minded but not fully convinced about the value to the business”, it tells the story: We all need to create results and cases in order to provide the positive proof. Especially, when 7% say their organization feels that Twitter is over-hyped and a fad.

Studie zu Social Media Nutzung: Von den Top 500 US Firmen lernen

Das dritte Jahr in Folge findet eine Studie des Center for Marketing Research at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth den Beleg, daß Social Media immer stärker Anklang in Unternehmen findet. Die Studie belegt dabei, wie Social Media bei den am schnellsten wachsenden US-Firmen im Aufschwung ist. Zudem liefert sie gutes Zahlenmaterial für Marketiers, Geschäftsführer und CEOs, wie man sich im Social Web bewegt.

Die Studie besagt, dass 75% der befragten Firmen sich mit Social Media 2009 stark vertraut gemacht haben. Dies entspricht einem Anstieg um 18% zu 2008. Das starke Aufkommen der Nutzung von Business Netzwerken hat hier sicherlich seinen Teil zu beigetragen.

62% der ‘C-Levels’ kennen sich mit Twitter aus, 52% haben die Micro-Blogging Platform und Social Networking genutzt, um ihr Business zu promoten. Sicherlich interessant ist, daß eine von vier Inc. 500 B2B Firmen angeben, Twitter sei ein angemessener Platz, um mit Partnern und Händlern online zu kommunizieren.

Blogging spiele generell eine besondere Rolle. 45% betrieben 2009 ein Blog mit ihrer Firma (39%/2008 und 19%/2007). Das Wachstum bei Message Boards, Online video, Wikis, sowie Podcasting ist eher gebremst bzw. leicht fallend.

Social Media = wichtiger Bestandteil der Marketing-Strategie

43% der Inc. 500 Firmen glauben, daß Social Media ein “sehr wichtiger” Teil ihrer Business- und Marketing-Strategie ist. Sogar 91% gaben an, zumindest ein Social Media Tool einzusetzen (77%/2008). Und auch weiterhin wird Social Media in der Strategie der Firmen eine große Rolle einnehmen. Von den nicht bloggenden Firmen planen 44% einen Firmen-Blog in 2010. Mit Twitter wollen im nächsten Jahr 27% der Firmen einen weiteren Zugang für ihr Business schaffen.

Der Erfolg gibt Social Media Einsatz recht. Denn 48% der Unternehmen haben mit ihrem Einsatz von Social Media Erfolg. Bei Twitter ist die Quote sogar 82% und bei anderen Social Networks kam eine unfassbare Erfolgsquote von 87% zusammen.

Spot On!
Der Siegeszug von Social Media hält an und das Annehmen der neuen Medien geht rasch voran. Kein Wunder: 87% der befragten Firmen berichten von Erfolgen hinsichtlich Engagement, Leads oder Abverkäufen. Die Argumente sprechen für sich. Wer sich diesem Trend verweigert als Businesszweig, läßt zahlreiche Optionen aus, die Kundenkommunikation und Kundenbindung zu fördern.

Social Media-Strategie? Nur jedes dritte Unternehmen hat eine…

Die Personalarbeit von Unternehmen profitiert von ihr. Sind doch Millionen Arbeitnehmer und Studenten im sogenannten Social Web aktiv. Doch genutzt wird sie von den Wenigsten, wie eine Studie jetzt zeigt. Die Rede ist von der Social Media Strategie.

Eine neue Studie “Social Media und Personalarbeit” des Beratungsunternehmens IFOK hat mehr als 800 Personalverantwortliche aus deutschen Unternehmen aller Branchen und Größenklassen zur Bedeutung sozialer Medien im Bereich Human Ressources (HR) und deren Nutzung im eigenen Unternehmen befragt. Das Ergebnis ist ernüchternd, könnte aber auch schlimmer sein.

Der Mehrheit deutscher Personalentscheider ist klar, dass das Social Web (inkl. Social Networks und Web 2.0-Tools) für die Personalarbeit von wichtiger Bedeutung ist. Dennoch mangelt es in den meisten Unternehmen an einer Strategie, welche Tools und Taktiken für welchen Zweck zu nutzten sind.

60% der Personalentscheider messen Social Media bei der Personalarbeit eine große strategische Bedeutung bei. Doch zwei von drei befragten Unternehmen haben keine geregelte Zuständigkeit für den Themenbereich. Nur 30% haben eine unternehmensweite Social Media-Strategie. Social Media Guidelines gibt es bei nur 15% der Unternehmen. Auch bei der Fortbildung ist der Stellenwert sozialer Medien schwach: Gerade mal 7% bieten Schulungen zum Thema Social Media an.

Auch Personal sind eher sporadisch im Social Web unterwegs. 80% haben zwar im Zusammenhang mit ihrer Personalarbeit etablierte Business-Netzwerke wie Xing oder LinkedIn besucht. Zur Recherche nach potenziellen Mitarbeitern nutzen 60% Web 2.0 Plattformen. Facebook ist hingegen dort noch nicht wirklich angekommen. Nur jeder dritte Personaler war bereits im Rahmen seiner Personalarbeit hier aktiv.

Twitter erhält noch wneiger Aufmerksamkeit, denn nur jeder Zehnte hat den Micro-Blogging Dienst schon genutzt. Die Studie macht klar: Dies kann eklatante Folgen haben:

“Nehmen Personaler die Kurznachrichten-Plattformen nicht einmal wahr, können sie kaum die entsprechenden Risiken und Chancen bewerten, um gemeinsam mit anderen Fachbereichen effektive Strategien zu entwickeln”, warnen die Autoren.

Auch sich dem Arbeitgeber (Employer Branding) große Möglichkeiten zum Fachkräftegewinn bieten und Stellensuchende hier schwer aktiv sind, wird diesem Umstand von den Personalern offensichtlich noch nicht wirklich Rechnung getragen.
- 3,8% beobachten systematisch, was über sie auf Web 2.0-Portalen geschrieben
- 28,6% macht dies hingegen nur gelegentlich oder selten (27,8%)
- 33,8% verzichten ganz auf ein Social Media Monitoring

Einträge auf Arbeitgeber-Bewertungsplattformen hat noch nicht mal jeder vierte Personaler zur Kenntnis genommen. “Damit vergeben erstaunlich viele Unternehmen eine der größten Chancen, die digitale Gespräche bieten: Erfahren, was und wie über das Unternehmen kommuniziert wird”, so die Studie.

Spot On!
Die Unternehmen wissen um die Benefits des Social Web, mit Social PR Eigenwerbung zu betreiben. Und die Chancen des Social Web für den HR-Bereich werden ebenfalls gesehen.

Dennoch ist es oft nicht so einfach die Kultur einer offenen Unternehmenskommunkation einzuführen oder zu etablieren. Wer die Produktivität der Mitarbeiter geregelt fördern will, sollte sich eine klare Social Media Strategie und Guidelines zugrunde legen, bevor er die Mitarbeiter zu produktiven ‘Social Webern’ macht. Denn dann stellt sich auch nachhaltig der Erfolg ein, daß die „Talentpipeline“ ordentlich und mit wahrem Personal-Potential gefüllt wird.

Studie: Twitterer sind Werbung nicht abgeneigt

Abgesehen vom exorbitanten Hype um den Micro-Blogging Service, stellt man sich die Frage: Warum der “Firmenwert” von Twitter auf 1 Milliarde Dollar geschätzt wird.

Nun hat aber eine Studie von Interpret Licht ins Dunkel gebracht. Die Studie macht dabei klar, daß Twitter Nutzer doppelt so empfänglich für die Einbindung in Markenkommunikation sind als andere soziale Netzwerker – und das auf verschiedenen Ebenen.

Die Studie von Interpret hat dabei mehr als 9.200 Internet Nutzer im August befragt. Das Ergebnis hat mich ein wenig erstaunt…

- 24% der Befragten, die auch Twitter nutzen, haben Produkte online bewertet oder ihre Meinung dazu abgegeben – dagegen stehen nur 12% Nutzer anderer Social Networks.

- 20% der Twitter Nutzer sehen sich auch gerne Firmenprofile an – hingegen nur 11% der anderen

- Ebenfalls 20% klicken sogar Banner oder gesponsorte Links an, aber nur 9% derer aus anderen Netzwerken.

Nun könnte man sagen, daß die Ablenkung durch Bilder, Ratings, Widgets oder Spielen bei Twitter natürlich wesentlich geringer ist. Zudem sind die Targeting Optionen bei Facebook noch nicht so, daß man sagen könnte, hier liege die Zukunft der optimalen Vermarktung ohne Belästigung der Nutzer durch unpassend platzierte Banner oder Inhalte. Oder welcher in einer glücklichen Beziehung steckende Facebooker hat noch nicht im Banner das Angebot von “Ehe-Vermittlungsbüros” erhalten?

Auch aufgrund der Penn State Studie läßt sich eine große Chance für Twitter im Advertising Business ausmachen. Schließlich sind 20% aller Tweets über Marken. Und Twitter hat ja auch alle Voraussetzung geschaffen, um die Monetarisierung ins Rollen zu bringen.

Das schreit förmlich danach mal die Twittergemeinde dazu zu befragen. Wie seht Ihr das? Wollt Ihr Werbung auf Twitter? Und wenn ja, wie soll die aussehen. So manches Twitter Werbe-Modell gibt es ja schon…

Twitter: BBC Interview with Evan Williams

In London the talk of the town in the internet industry and in bars yesterday was the BBC interview on Newsnight with Twitter founder Evan Williams – the first interview that he has given in the UK. And it is no wonder and not surprising that there was so much buzz around this interview. The UK loves social networking…

On Facebook profiles the British country is the number one in Europe. Every third person in the UK is registered on Facebook (16,4 mio. people). And now London is also leading on Twitter accounts. On Twitter accounts the UK in general is coming in second place – just after the US. Even Williams cannot give an answer on the hype around his micro-blogging service, neither for the UK nor in general.

But he had a good answer on the latest critic around Facebook and Twitter from the arch bishop Vincent Bishop who has been blaming the social networks as “dehumanzing communities”:

“I wasn’t aware of that. I think it is kind of silly. (…) It’s about humans connecting with each other. And often in ways they couldn’t otherwise.”

Spot On!
It is a bit of a shame that there was no question on Twitter’s monetization strategy or their verified or business accounts plans. Or some more information on how he sees the Nielsen study on Twitter demographics. Sometimes it is more important to celebrate a status than focusing on good journalism. Somebody standing next to me in the bar said to his friend: “Who is that trying to be my friend on Twitter. Just got to know her by accident. Anyway, she looks nice… Added!”

In the bars the people were celebrating a lot yesterday. If this was because they are the social networking leaders in Europe? Anyway…

Long life to the Queen!

Is Twitter a sales tool?

In a lot of talks and meetings with clients I am asked if Twitter is a sales tool. Now, what would you say? The university professor might answer with a Solomonic answer: “Well, it depends how you see it…”. Being a member of the Twitterati it is one of these questions where you have to hold on to your horses in order not to be too excited. The best answer is probably: “Yes, it is… and No, it is not!”…

The why for “Yes, it is”…
Looking at the latest development in the “Twittersphere” it can be said that the micro-blogging service can be used as a push tool for sales promotions meant to generate an upside in revenue. The best examples are accounts from companies like Dell (selling re-furbished IT for 3 mio. USD), Threadless (selling shirts – no numbers released yet) or Zappos (selling shoes – no numbers released yet).

Although we don’t know see any revenue figures of Threadless or Zappos, seeing the follower numbers alone offers the option to sell through the indirect way to this new “distribution list” by keeping up the conversation with new thoughts and ideas gathering engagement – or direct via ‘extraordinary’ offers. Just take a look at my sales statistic or metric, I summarized on the Dell Outlet account and you can evaluate your sales options.

Especially, the aviation industry has used the power of pushing their offers through this new media channel – thus uplifting their revenue figures. Some airlines like JetBlue (called “JetBlueCheeps“) and United Airlines (“twares”) offer cheap seats Twitter sales promotion programs (also for unsold tickets). The companies push their announcements via Twitter and the user -hopefully- listens to their Tweets and needs exactly the route offered.

In Germany Lufthansa has also started with sales promotions via Twitter – and obviously after this test the worldwide Twitter offering is “coming soon”.

The PRO view…
Yes, Twitter is a sales tool as there is no limit in terms of target-group, industry sector, the costs of the product or the product and service itself. Use it as a sales tool if you think your customers or your desired target-group is open-minded, loves last-minute offers or is ready to be engaged via social media.

The why for “No, it is.”
Nevertheless, the way how companies use Twitter to address their target-group with their sales promotions appears like some kind of old “watering can” marketing principle. Is this really time-to-market sales? Can this be called “targeting” which is the modern form of receiving sales promotions? One thing is for sure: Forecasting on such sales push activities is nearly impossible… the proof is in the test. But: once started, there is no way out. Sales promotions on Twitter are relying on the “hope” factor by offering an additional sales channel called “SomeTwitterAccountByOurCompany”.

And sales strategies go against the means of social media anyway. Sales philosophy is “We know what you want and here is your customized offer!” – social media is “We listen, learn and share what our customers want to buy from us!”.

From the airline examples we can learn that the offer is not just positive extra media promotion. It is limited in its sales power in a way that consumers need to be flexible and last-minute offer driven. Sounds a bit like the ebay way of selling…

So, Twitter sales promotions are relying on the “hope” factor by offering an additional sales channel called Twitter account. Some follow as they are just listening to the company or product development, some as they learn from the tweets and some as they want to share common knowledge. Not all followerrs really want to buy something. You are in good company when your company does not want to aggressively buy followers in order to go down the good old spam route.

The CON view…
No, Twitter is not a sales tool but more a customer service tool with the positive side-effect that you can sell indirect by giving good service, helping your customers and solving their problems in real-time. Don’t use it when you think your customers are bound to traditional cliches, rarely take the advantage of accepting fast shopping opportunities and don’t know what social media can do for them.

Spot On!
Generally speaking… – From a followers point of view (in this case meaning customers), there is a positive argument about Twitter sales promotions: Interested customers will follow (=read) the sales push tweet – uninterested won’t, they will ignore it. And customers don’t even have to delete the message like a spam mail. It is dying with the followers timelife stream…

Advice
The Critical question to ask are… Do we have a long-time social media strategy or do we just want to “drive” a short-time sales push? What have we done in the past to push our sales revenues? What worked out well? I am sure, if you ask yourself these questions, some more questions on your web strategy in terms of sales achievements will follow…

Am I right…?

How to attract more visitors – The 10 most important visitor resources for blogs

Is there a secret, why corporate blogs and business blogs have more success than traditional corporate websites? Is it the modern architecture of blogging systems? Is it the exiting and exhilarant spelling style of bloggers? Or is a conspiracy of the digital natives against the internet retirees?

Nothing of it! Blogs and bloggers are simply using some very effective methods to attract visitors.

The 10 most important visitor resources for blogs:

1. Feeds – Blogs are read via feed reader predominantly, not via browsers any longer. Well-known blogs have more than 100.000 feed reader per day. On a normal day in Germany, there are some blogs with more than 10.000 feed reader.
   Highlight your RSS feed on your blog and take advantage of a feed service like Feedburner
2. Google – Visitors through search engines are the second largest visitor group of blogs. Bloggers use always methods of search engine optimization (SEO) in order to achieve good rankings with important key words.
   Write in a search engine friendly way. Use Google’s Webmaster Tools and install a SEO plug-in like wpSEO!
3. Pingbacks and Trackbacks – Links don’t just offer a value-add for your own users but also backlinks and numerous new users.
   Link all directions as often as possible and learn to use trackbacks in a proper way.
4. Twitter – with the micro-blogging service you can approach users faster than with your blog. News with real add-on information are spread via Twitter the “viral” way very fast.
   Work on broadening your Twitter follower base. Promote your Twitter account on your blog and vice versa. Twitter your blog postings at the right time!
5. Social Networks – Promote your important blog postings on XING, Facebook or LinkedIn.
6. Forums – Are you an accredited expert, for example a wine blogger?
   If you see in a forum the question: What are the most expensive wines or the 10 most dry French ones? Write a posting on your blog and post only the link in the forum.
7. Blog directors and RSS feed directories – Just some selected directories (Technorati, Blogoscoop, Bloggerei, Wikio) generate new visitors. Especially, if you are ranking well in these directories.
8. Your comments on other blogs – Make yourself heard on other blogs as a constructive business partner – far and foremost in not well-known blogs. This will result in new visitors. Beware the free of sense comments! This will damage your own blog reputation in the long term.
9. Comments of others on your blog – This is the secret of well-visited blogs:
   Be responsive to comments – You will win permanent visitors!
10. Guest writers – Invite readers/users, other bloggers or “VIP’s” from the offline and online world to write guest posts. Every guest author will be talking to others about it or link directly to this post.
    Your creativity has no limits: travel agents blog about journeys of their customers, hotel managers animate guests to write about their vacation resort, … Your customers don’t want that? Ask them if they want to publish some of their holiday pictures on your homepage! You will be surprised seeing the reaction…

Did I forget something? Is your ranking of visitor resources different? Where do you see options to attract more visitors for your blog? Looking forward reading your comments and reading your ideas and thoughts!

Guest writer Karl-Heinz Wenzlaff is the German expert and consultant for business blogging. He knows the useful tips and tricks, and is specialized on professional company blogs, product blogs or employee blogs. Some month ago, he helped me migrating from Blogger to Wordpress in order to set up a magazine theme.

Thank you for being one of my guest writers, Karl-Heinz.

Personal Branding – how to build your career 3.0

Personal branding is the way to stand out of the crowd and being noticed in some special way in the business world which makes you unique. It is your value proposition for the future of your career. In a session at the webinale09 I held a speech about ‘Career 3.0 – split between personal branding and productivity’ and gave some projections on the relevance of social media activities and how these affect your career development.

Today, we want to learn from Dwight Cribb, founder of his successful recruitment agency, what professional recruiters think about personal branding and what is the relevance for personal branding. You can follow his offline and online thoughts via his Twitter account.

Q: What is the first thing you do when somebody is being suggested as a perfect candidate?
Dwight Cribb Of course I will first probe what the relationship between the candidate and the person suggesting him is. Supposing that the recommendation is made during a phone conversation, I will in parallel check the candidate’s profile on Xing. If that does not provide the information I require I will probe deeper with people search engines.

Q: Let’s imagine somebody is not doing anything for personal branding. This person is not blogging, micro-blogging or social networking. Does this have a positive or negative impact on your perception of that person?
Dwight Cribb This largely depends on the type of position I am recruiting for, both in terms of seniority and discipline. I would normally expect someone in a directly client facing role or someone who communicates directly on behalf of a division or company to have at least some presence on the web. It is, however, true that not being on a social networking site is today more of statement than being on one. A few years ago one could be forgiven for thinking of people who had not yet discovered Xing, LinkedIn and facebook as being somewhat backward or conservative. As it is today largely impossible to not have noticed these networks flourish, we must assume that those not on them have shunned them on purpose. This may be a good strategy if one relies on others to communicate with clients and the public, especially as a senior manager. A C-Level executive will through his utterances on social networks have a severe impact on the brand communication, it thus needs to be 100% in line with the other communication, if not it will cause at best confusion and at worst it will undermine the credibility of the brand.

As for blogging, I think that is a very personal decision and I would never think badly of anyone who did not blog. I may, however, think badly of someone who blogs badly or in a manner inappropriate to his or her position. So overall it would not reflect badly if I found out nothing about a person online, it would just peak my interest and make me more curious to receive other information in the form of a CV or a recommendation from a third party.

Q: Will personal branding and the individual online reputation replace the traditional CV some day?
Dwight Cribb I doubt whether it will replace the CV, it is more likely that it will continue to augment the CV. Online reputation is a fantasy product. We each spin our profiles in a manner which we feel supports the image we want to convey. It is self marketing. A CV is more strongly based in chronological fact and provides a picture which comes closer to the reality than the pictures which get drawn in communities.

Q: If everybody has a strong personal brand, don’t companies fear these people could get chased by some competitor and recruiters? Or that employees just work for their own career purpose?
Dwight Cribb Most successful employees work for the own career advancement. But in the long term they will only achieve this by delivering results to their employers, because people are very good at spotting meaningless self marketing and will not fall for it for long. Good employees have always had a strong personal brand (also called reputation). It has been true in all areas and across the ages, if you do something well you will be admired by your peers and your reputation will spread. This means that others will try and employ your services, sometimes via a recruiter.

Q: What is your advice on how companies have to handle personal branding of the employees in the future?
Dwight Cribb Let people define themselves what they are comfortable with. Give them a clear guideline what company resources and what company information they can use to build their reputation and to what extent they must make clear what is their opinion what the company’s.

Q: What do you think of the personal web managers vision?
Dwight Cribb There are instances where this makes perfect sense, but I belive they are far and few between. This is a role which has precedence in the offline world, many high-profile business people, politicians and celebrities employ someone with this brief. Whether they do their job online, offline or in both really does not make much difference. We have come to expect that the picture we get presented of these people has been scripted and planned in detail. We even often admire the way in which they craftily manipulate their image. But I think we would be less inclined to condone or accept this level of abstraction in communication in our closer environment of colleagues, family and friends. A facebook status update from a friend loses relevance if I know that it was posted his or her personal web consultant, who was busy making them be liked by their friends and acquaintances.

Q: Give us 3 tips how to create a personal brand, please.
Dwight Cribb Be yourself, be honest, laugh at times.

Thank you for your time and your advice, Mr. Cribb.

Monetizing Social Media: Social Medians have to set a trend…

Having worked twelve years monetizing media platforms (offline and online) I follow with great interest the latest talk and buzz on monetizing the social media economy. The time has come to make a point after some famous blogs in Germany (medienlese.com and rivva.com) were about to be closed down. Being a blogger and a social median, I thought about this in a guest post on Digital-Conversation and received some interesting feedback. So, I would like to share my thoughts also with the international social media community.

In my post, I stated that it must be possible to monetize personal social media activities. Not in any kind of classical way of web monetization but in an unconventional way – as unconventional as web 2.0 has revolutionized the world of communication. The reason and necessity for this thought is that, in my personal view, social media activity needs to monetize for the individual as a good (online) reputation is not going to feed ‘hungry holes’. No, all this work costs a lot of time and effort. Does really nobody want to hear this?

So, we do need a new concept, in every kind of respect – as a combined concept of monetizing social medians in particular – not social media in general. And in my eyes, we won’t be successful in marketing millions of individual blogs, micro-blogs or social networking profiles. No, the complete picture of an individual counts… here needs to be the access for future ideas and concepts. The individual personal branding is key…

A vision – mental acrobatics
Let’s imagine a new web world and turn the present concepts upside down. Just as a kind of mental acrobatics, or vision, how we could be marketing the individual social median.

Let’s call it the ‘3 at one blow’ idea – and don’t tear this concept into pieces – it only counts as one full picture…

Blogs…
Just allow brands you prefer to be a partner of your blog
If bloggers don’t want to follow the footsteps of the classical web 1.0 publishing branch, then blogs need to find an accepted standard ad format – a similar one web 1.0 started with (the full-size banner it was those days). Maybe the 125×125 Button could be the one which seems to have established itself at the leading blogs not only in America? Bloggers don’t want and need 20 ad spaces. No, blogs need a maximum of four ad spaces in my eyes, as we don’t want to have the right hand frame like a blinking advertising column for ‘everybody’s brand’. No, ideally, bloggers want to decide themselves which brands gets space, and which doesn’t. Bloggers should just give their self-preferred brands the option to be visible on the individual blogs. Bloggers should not write branded or sponsored posts (the Trigami modell) which pay out their business, blog or the areas of companies interest. Bloggers are doing enough for the world, they don’t need more work to do…

Micro-Blogs…
Just offer brands you ‘adore’ to sponsor your profile or background picture
Some micro-blogging platforms offer the option to create the profile and the back-ground picture in a way the social median likes it to be seen. Why do only some social medians use this as ad space? Is this working against your glory as a social median? Against the online reputation (and editorial integrity as we called it in the publishing industry some years ago)? Or will there be problems coming up with my employer when I suddenly integrate a logo into my profile picture, or my background picture? Again: If there was some kind of uniform standard, the problems could be solved quickly. Cut out a piece and make us serve our favorite brand!

Social Networks…
And finally, just offer one or two brands you prefer to sponsor your profile picture
The best and only valid ad space on social networking profiles in my eyes is… the profile picture. For, what is the first and most powerful asset you sell with? Yes, you, yourself. And what is the first thing we look at when watching social media profiles? Right, the face. So, why don’t we see profile pictures, in which ’social medians’ stand for their preferred brands? The way, we have seen this at Twitter lately, where some people promote the events they will be attending in the near future. OK, I can imagine that the employers could be asking, why there is a logo on the profile picture. But if it was standard, and going hand in hand with the blog and the micro-blog, it would not be a problem anymore.

Let’s summarize this idea…

What if…
- you could monetize your pesonal branding by being sponsored from your favorite brands?
- you could define three to four brands you prefer to sponsor you as a social median?
- you could escape the discussion on media reach with the ‘3 in one blow’ power monetization idea?

Somehow the social media scene seems to be stranded given shrinking or not existing budgets for online media. Isn’t this the right time for a change to find a new monetization model for social media? But in my eyes, either the social medians don’t want, or they cannot face this issue. Thus, although companies want to be present on social median’s activities.

In general, the social median has to ask himself/herself three questions in the future…
- Do I want to make money with my personal branding?
- Do I want to continue post my knowledge for free for a better personal branding?
- Or ‘live’ with a small online reputation and just have a microblog profile as of a lack of time?

“Free things always hurt” is the saying of the salesmen. Isn’t it better to show the value proposition of your content, combined with your personal branding, and market this according to your preferences?

The classical ways of monetization (Bannering, Affiliate and Google Adsense) cannot be the future of social media monetization. The problem is obvious: a small reach (compared to huge media platforms or ad networks) offers no chance for a payback or break-even point. The big online platforms have experienced for years that an increased cost-recovery is not to be achieved with these monetization models. Do social medians really want to continue playing along the odd old game?

And what I really cannot understand… Why do bloggers and their ad networks still try to make money with the old cpx models (cpm, cpa or cpo), following IAB standards. Don’t we all know that this cannot be the future of web monetization? At least not, if the quality of the platforms is not meant to suffer…?!

Social medians have to set a good example and find a new moentization strategy which is not depending on sophisticated IAB social media metrics. This way is too complex and I would not even find the time, or even see the necessity, to do the reporting based on this definition. Selling, optimizing and reporting cpx models already was difficult enough. So, why not make processes easier and give companies what they want…

Identifying and positioning next to social medians – but the social median is to decided on the partners.

Spot On!
Let’s imagine we could commit a maximum of four brands for one, two or three years to become partner with us. We would be so called ’sponsored social median VIP’s’ (obviously not everyone in the world could reach such a status). Only those companies will get our valuable ad spaces that have been defined by us as our ‘favorite brands’ for a certain time-period. Isn’t this a worthwhile aim of monetizing a social median? Social medians are trendsetters. They are facing the signs for a change – and know about their powerful personal branding.

Looking forward to hearing your views on this monetization model ‘Only my favorite brands can partner with me’ (without writing sponsored posts!).

PS: Performance is nice for companies, but not at all costs for social medians. Or does the world really want to see the freedom of opinion with high-quality content dying before it has even started big way? Just because it cannot be monetized? The social median does not want to become rich, but she/he should make his value proposition clear to the world, right?

Nächste Seite »