The web and the funerals…

Wired magazine announced the end of the web in their article The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet. And many people took part in the funeral by sharing their views in interesting blog posts or tweets. But it was not the only funeral that I came across yesterday…

The trend of agencies to create virals in order to predict the end of the old advertising world seems to be ongoing as well. This time it is coming from Eastern Europe.

The idea is nice, the execution could have been better. This time CSS, a social media agency in Latvia, is hosting the end of traditional advertising called The Grand funeral…

Come on agencies, let us know what you are thinking about this project…

Social Networks – Are niche communities the future of networks?

More often people are fed up with all that self-referential talk of individuals on social networks. Or, companies which do not understand the idea of an online conversation, including clients and not just broadcasting the old-fashioned marketing and sales way. Just today, I had some people in my Facebook stream and my Twitter updates telling me how the weather was, what their kids had for breakfast, or that their wives don’t understand their affinity to social networks. OK, nice, fair enough… Interesting? No!

And then I hear my wife saying… “Why keeping up the contact to so many people if there is no option to even get actively into 10 per cent of the conversations happening in these online relationships?” True, but you never know when some contact might need you, or vice versa.

Checking Facebook and staying up-to-date on Twitter becomes challenging on a busy day, with kids that are happy to see dad in the evening for some minutes, and long-time friends complaining why they don’t hear anything from you anymore.

So, is there another trend coming up in the future that might go for niche social networks, niche communities? Why? We had that offline for ages. Years ago, people have spend hours in their football club bar after a training session, or went to book readings to enjoy the discussion afterwards, or went to a vernisage in order to “philosophy” about the latest gallery exhibition with someone they don’t know. The reason for doing it was just their share of interest in something, a hobby, a passion, or a kind of affinity. So, are we seeing social networks for art geeks going on virtual gallery tours in the future?

My father was telling me that he uses a Bridge community and plays daily for one or two hours. A friend of mine is a DJ and he spend hours in communities for DJs like My DJ Space or Mix DJ. Some even still (or again?) love vinyl and become members in a community there. These music enthusiasts do nothing more or less than share their interest in being DJs, and obviously loving to mix tapes. The special interest is the centre of their community engagement.

Some years ago, somebody approached me with the idea of an international golfer network (http://www.golffriends.com/welcome/community). As I love playing golf (though don’t have enough time to play often…), there was some interest to become a member, if not more to become more engaged in the business idea. But then, time and the thought of managing many private interest networks -as I have quite some hobbies- next to my business networks and the top networks made me not investing too much time in that vision. Maybe I should have done…

Mothers share their passion for coffee on Cafemom, and if we think about all the Starbucks communities it does not surprise us. Games exchange ideas and thoughts on Raptr, or real social activists use Care2. Even more “nichy” is the passion of men for their moustache that they express online to the public. And others share their interest in Whisky or Wine networks.

So, my question is if niche networks could take a big portion of the market share of global social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc.) in the future? Can you see people going away from the self-gloryfying popular networks that the mainstream web user is engaged in? Tell us of niche networks you know and how you see this trend?

News Update – Best of the Day

The latest Nielsen study makes us believe that email is loosing momentum to social media and games and comes in third place in web usage of the Americans. Not really correct, when you think of email communication being some integral part of games and social networks…

Ever wondered how long a b2b sales cycle from lead generation to sales conversion can be? Marketing Sherpa got the answer by asking over 1.000 B2B marketers… Yes, it takes LONG!

While the experts are still talking about the Old Spice interaction, this Australian campaign for the Cadbury Picnic chocolate bar sounds quite intersting. The audience had to eat a Picnic in a .30 sec commercial break, using mobile phones, webcams and handycams to create their own TV ads and setting it up here. In an Australian first, every single ad that went to air on television (200+) was unique. Naomi made me laugh…

News Update – Best of the Day

Studies can open up new knowledge in the way countries see the internet. So, one says Britains trust in the internet more than in friends. The openness they divulge information to social media space is interesting…

Full name: 92 per cent
Hometown: 62 per cent
Date of Birth: 59 per cent
Relationship status: 49 per cent
Secondary school: 40 per cent
Marital status: 33 per cent
University/College: 30 per cent
Partners name: 28 per cent
Employer: 20 per cent
Job title: 18 per cent
Parental status: 17 per cent
Primary school: 16 per cent
Children’s names: 9 per cent
Full address: 5 per cent

Whilst another study shows how promising the future of ecommerce looks like in China.

“99% of university students and professionals ages 22 to 35—the key consumers of the future—are online an average of four hours a day. And they are already comfortable buying goods and services online. (…) Some 39% of university students and 49% of young professionals shop online, spending an average of $294 each in 2008. The majority go to the Internet first to get product information and compare prices.”

And sometimes, you just need somebody who is taking a close look at the social media world… i.e. in Japan.

The next big brother vision is created in real life: on the social web. If you read this investigation, then you might stop using social networks… or you might understand how and in which way companies work with your secrets. This post makes clear how important it is for companies to be transparant in the way they are working.

Kids are the future. Essential that we all help them - no matter where they are living. Shivers going down my neck on that Altius Foundation campaign. Great idea, great concept and fantastic delivery…

Die 3-Säulen-Strategie: Erst Marke, dann Mensch, oder andersrum?

Nachhaltigkeit in Social Media fordert Unternehmen

Social Media hat sich innerhalb kurzer Zeit zu einem neuen Element im Mix der Unternehmens-Kommunikation etabliert. Unternehmen und Agenturen erkennen zunehmend mehr Chancen, die ein Social Media Engagement bietet. Sei es in der Marketingkommunikation, in der PR, im Vertrieb, HR oder Sales. Über die neuen Möglichkeiten wird nicht nur diskutiert, es finden sich immer mehr Unternehmen, die Social Media in mindestens einem Bereich installieren. Auch wenn sich viele Engagements noch in der Versuchsphase befinden, so ist bereits zu erkennen, dass Unternehmen Social Media ernster nehmen als noch vor einigen Monaten.

Viele Unternehmen lagern ihr Social Media Engagement an Agenturen aus, bei anderen werden neue Abteilungen und Verantwortlichkeiten geschaffen. Von Social Media Beratern, Social Media Managern und Evangelisten ist die Rede. So manche versuchen, auch eine Hybrid-Funktion aus traditioneller Jobbeschreibung und „soziale Zusatzaufgabe“ zu erschaffen.

Social Media Verantwortliche erhalten weitreichende Verantwortlichkeiten, die es in dieser Form selten vorher im Unternehmen gab. Sie können meist ohne vorherige Abstimmungen über das Unternehmen im Netz sprechen. Sie werden zur Stimme, zum Gesicht, zum Aushängeschild. Doch was passiert mit dem Engagement, wenn Social Media Verantwortliche das Unternehmen verlassen? Verlieren Social Media Aktivitäten damit ein „Gesicht“, eine „Stimme“ im Netz?

Social Media sollte unserer Meinung nach daher immer auf drei Säulen aufgebaut sein, um es nachhaltig im Unternehmen zu verankern. Ob die Konzentration auf eine Person vorteilhaft, bzw. das Auslagern der Aktivitäten auf Agenturen sinnvoll ist, steht hierbei als Frage im Mittelpunkt.

Marken (statt Personen): “Vermenschlichung durch Authentizität der Personen”, oder kann die Marke das selbst?

Social Media soll authentisch sein, transparent und dialogorientiert. Um diese Bedingungen erfüllen zu können, bedarf es nicht nur einer Strategie, sondern Menschen, die eine Marke leben können und der Marke im Netz eine Stimme verleihen, die Unternehmenswerte vermittelt. Oftmals ist die Stimme eine Person, die auf Kommentare, Retweets etc. reagiert. Dieser Mensch verleiht der Stimme im Netz einen eigenen Charakter. Wie reagiert die Stimme auf Kommentare? Wie geht sie mit Followern um? Inwieweit lässt sie sich auf einen Dialog ein? Natürlich kann man versuchen, alle Maßnahmen genauestens zu konzipieren, Social Media ist aber schnell, schneller als jedes Konzeptpapier. Und zu viel Konzeption schadet dem Engagement, sowie der Authentizität. Also muss ein Unternehmen nicht nur auf eine Person setzen, sondern auf die Vermenschlichung der Marke.

Organisationskultur: Mehrere Personen im Unternehmen stützen den Social Media Auftritt

Social Media Aktivitäten sollten niemals auf eine Person fokussiert werden, sondern immer mehrere Personen aus verschiedenen Abteilungen einbinden. Im Idealfall gibt es einen Markenauftritt im Social Web, der von verschiedenen Personen betreut wird, die wiederum selbst aktiv als Person auftreten können. In der Kombination Marke / Person können vielerlei Synergien entstehen, die den Auftritt als Ganzes ,als “unternehmerische Menschheit”, stützen. Fällt eine Person aus, können die Maßnahmen schnell vom Social-Media-Team übernommen werden, ohne dass ein Bruch in der Transparenz der Kommunikation zu befürchten ist. Besonders in Urlaubszeiten scheint das Problem der Verlagerung bzw. des Management von Social-Media-Aktivitäten durchaus brisant zu sein. Wir hören bereits von mehreren Seiten, dass aufgrund der Umsetzung von nur einer Person hier ein eklatantes Problem entstehen kann. Denn eines ist gewiss: Auch Social Media Betreuer brauchen eine Auszeit.

Automatisierte Prozesse, oder… Das perfekte Zusammenspiel zwischen Mensch und Technik

In der beobachtenden Analyse setzen viele Unternehmen bereits erfolgreich auf Social-Media-Monitoring-Tools, die wertvolle Ergebnisse zu Tage bringen. Die Reaktion selbst auf bestimmte Anlässe wird aber immer noch vom Mensch bestimmt, definiert, organisiert und orchestriert. An dieser Stelle sollte unserer Meinung nach, automatisierte Prozesse Unterstützung leisten, wie dies zum Beispiel auch Online-Marketing bereits erfolgreich eingesetzt wird. Dank Targeting, Frequency Capping oder dynamischen Updates werden Online-Kampagnen schnell optimiert und damit auch erfolgreich. Für Social Media sind solche automatisierten Prozesse zwingend zur Entlastung und taktischen Optimierung notwendig und dienen der Unterstützung der Verantwortlichen. Sie lassen Social Media auch langfristig ein wertvolles Instrument der Kundenbindung zu werden.

Spot On!
Diese 3-Säulen-Strategie soll Unternehmens- und Abteilungsverantwortlichen einen Denkansatz beim Einsatz und der Optimierung von Social Media im Unternehmen liefern. Der sinnvolle Einsatz von Social Media Entschleunigung im Unternehmen (Slow Media Manifest) sowie produktivitätssteigernde Wex-Experten in Unternehmen (Personal Web Manager) sind hierbei zukunftsweisende Visionen für eine effiziente soziale Online-Unternehmenskultur. Denn nur, wenn wir sinnvoll mit unserer Zeit umzugehen lernen, kann eine 3-Säulen-Strategie das Social Media Engagement eines Unternehmens unterstützen und sich im Sinne der Wertschöpfungseffizienz manifestieren und dieser sinnvoll nützlich sein.

Über die Autoren…
Für die Idee zu diesem Post haben Heike Bedrich und ich die Köpfe auf dem Internet World Kongress zusammengesteckt. Uns hat die 3-Säulen-Strategie gefallen und ist unserer Überzeugung nach, ein guter Schritt für Unternehmen in eine erfolgreiche Social Media Welt.

Heike Bedrich ist seit vielen Jahren in der PR- und Marketing-Welt zu Hause. 1998 gründete sie mit Talisman ihre eigene Agentur für Kommunikation und Imagebildung. Sie betreut Kunden aus der IT- und Medienszene und hat sich auf die Themen PR, PR 2.0, Corporate Communications und Online Reputation Management spezialisiert.

News Update – Best of the Day

Every social media expert out there loves talking about The Cluetrain Manifesto and it’s impact on the future of our marketplaces. Now that the Cluetrain is more than 10 years old, I am trying to follow it’s creators in order to see how their views have changed. One of the founders Doc Searls -after Christopher Locke and david Weinberger some weeks ago- was writing last week about the main drivers of the open marketplace transaction, conversation and relationship. “Marketing is now all gaga over “social media” as well, in part because many believe that Cluetrain was all about “social” markets”, he says, and I have to admit sometimes I do see it that way, too. Having agreed with him, I do have to add: Technology changes quickly but it is difficult to change a market situation – no matter if social or open. Why? In the first place, it is driven by human beings. And it takes them a long time to adapt new culture. Haven’t we seen this 10-15 years ago when all this internet hype started? In some way, we seem to be on this learning curve again. Don’t you agree?

There are many valuable Twitter tool lists. Vadim Lavrusik created one of the (in my eyes) best Twitter tools top 20 lists that will help you improve your Twitter experience.

Adbands has become a classic event in the last years. And the commercial which was produced for the event tells us why. No more to say…

My 5 learnings for management from the WorldCup

The FIFA WorldCup is over. The matches are played. Spain is the new World Champion. The team really has deserved to get the Copa del Mundo (…not only because they won against Germany.. ;-)… ). Now that the tournament is over I thought about it and asked myself, what were my management take-aways from the last five weeks…for me.

1. The team is the star. Worldcup 2010 was like Enterprise 2.0: Teams with top stars fail (Rooney, Ronaldo, Ribery, Kaka, etc…), real teamwork wins.

2. A scarf seems to be a team managers fashion guarantee for success. Though, managers who wear a scarf built world-class teams, it’s no guarantee to make a world-class team win the cup (Jogi Löw, Bert van Marwijk, etc.).

3. Managers need to have the courage to change long-serving systems in favor of integrating young players techniques, visions and ideas (Mexico, Germany, Uruguay, etc.). Nevertheless, the accompany of “old stars” as motivators is a great back-up…

4. Management stand-still is a killer. The market-competition for the “on-paper” leading countries is increasing. Globalization, new training opportunities and new markets offer countries great opportunities to become a challenging competitor for the old market champions (England, France, Italy, Brasil).

5. It’s all about communication, authority needs to be defined anew. There is no right or wrong in leading until the communication is not aligned with the culture and mentality of the players (France, France, France,…).

What are your key-findings, take-aways from a management perspective. Share them with us… And by the way: If it is serious fun you would like to share, just go ahead…

Global Generation Z study: How teens see the digital future

There are not many studies telling us how the teens between 11-18 envision the future. One of the key findings of last year was that they expect access to social networks at work.

But what else is important for the lives of the Gen Z in the digital future? Tomorrow’s business might be affected in two ways: Offline meetings will be replaced with online interaction say 34% of repondents of a new study and travel habits might change. Why travel and work oversees when there is the option to be mobile at home?!

Habbo Hotel, celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, released a new worldwide research amoung 49.000 digital natives who have online more friends than offline – between 100 and 200 in their social networks. And these social networks shape their confidence in a positive way state 64%.

Let’s look at the key findings…

Content should be free…
The study makes clear that 32% of the respondents never pay for money at the moment, and 26% will only pay for content if there is no free content available on the web. How different the markets have developed shows the comparison of the
countries: In Spain and Italy 48% of Gen Z’s claim to never pay for content, in the UK it is only 21%.

Sharing is not popular…
While sharing is one of the main principles of the social web, not more than 23% regularly share content online, and when they share, it is music (54%), games (35%) and images (35%). 39% rarely or never share content.

TV and radio will stay…
The majority of teens cannot imagine a world without good old TV or radio. TV and mobile phone are the device that are most important for Generation Z to live with. Traditional print media (books, newspapers and magazines) will be gone some time in the future think 55%. Just 18% see their existance next to other media.

Digital language transforms to offline…
A third if the reponsing teens (34%) think that online language (SMS and online chat) could be used for offline conversation. In comparison 31% of the Habbo teens responded that they needed to stop using abbreviations outside of the internet.

Spot On!
When it comes to education the Generation Z states that the web has a big impact on their process of learning. 46% see a regular use of virtual worlds replacing traditional methods in school. Especially, when we read that 43% prefer the digital approach and find it easiest to learn from the internet. Nevertheless,it seems that books still have a standing in the learning process: 38% like the combinated learning from print and online. And even 16% chose books as their preferred way of learning. Although I can imagine that the new world might look like the Gen Z tells us, I think business budgets, resources and cultural differences might turn the world slower in their direction than we think. My learnings from the last decade in business…

What is your perception of these results?

News Update – Best of the Day

If you are a car manufacturer, the “2010: Automotive Marketing Return On Investment” study by Foresight Research helps you to identify the relevance of the web and social media in purchase decisions of car buyers.

- 86% of all new vehicle buyers used the internet in their new vehicle purchase process (2009) – thereof, 90% compared vehicles and pricing, while 83% checked for incentives online.
- 13% of all new buyers used some form of social networking to share information on their purchase decision. Especially young buyers under the age of 35 used 24% social networking to share their decision.
- Among the most influential car buyers 93% used the internet, 29% offered vehicle recommendations on social networking sites.

The combination of traditional online advertising and integrated social web community content is quite seldom to see these days. Ericsson took an interesting approach with their “2020 Shaping Ideas” microsite where interesting people from Vint Cerf, Don Tapscott to Charles Leadbeater have been recorded with their visions and good arguments. And you can share the content via loads of options or embed the father of the internet for example with his view of the future…

On the social web, companies need to be aware that customers will ask questions starting with a “WHY…?” which will reflect the way they handle their customers. So, companies should be prepared for answers, not just sit back and make a fool out of their customers like this company Canadian insurance suggests in their new commercial.

Futuristic agency visions – In Memoriam Advertising

Whenever there is an advertising festival, we see a promotion video which shall illustrate the future of the advertising business. Some weeks ago, I wrote about the end of the future of advertising agencies which refers to the FITC in Toronto and envisions what could have happened to the last agency on earth.

Yesterday night, I came across another wonderful commercial which Young & Rubican Argentina produced for the Lapiz de Platino Festival. It is directed to those ad agencies with creative ideas that annoy customers (and consumers) with non-authentic, unrealistic and non-engaging productions that are not-yet or no longer familiar with reality.

It is probably not intended to visualize that advertising does not work anymore. And I can already hear some of the evangelists shout out now. But all evangelists out there should rethink their futuristic web visions. Even the founders of the Cluetrain Manifesto did so. They admitted after 10 years in an interview with Simon Owens that the thesis 74 “”We are immune to advertising. Just forget it” might be wrong.

“Advertising isn’t going to work? Yes, it can. Google is the biggest brand and company going and they’ve made it completely on Internet advertising, and so checkmate.” Christopher Locke

And co-founder Weinberger explains…

“Because though advertising has changed, the kind of advertising that appeals to the lizard part of our brain, that does work.” David Weinberger

The challenge for advertising agencies is to elaborate these parts of our resistant brain. Otherwise they will inhume advertising, forget that companies are still looking to acknowledge social media ROI, and continue to create ads that might seem heavenly – but from those who are no longer with us: In Memoriam Advertising.

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