Think Big, Think Local

Sometimes its is difficult to see the wood for the trees.

The Web is a big place packed full of global opportunities but if current trends are to be believed, thinking 'local' is the best business approach.

A 'localised' online presence develops business growth cultivates greater customer loyalty.

Social media is a critical part of this marketing mix, as are incentives (deals). Group deals continue their rapid rise in popularity, up 33% in 6 months.

By far the majority of people searching online (73%) are looking for local content as this infographic shows.

See the larger version here

The pay off is that 82% of searches online result in off line follow-up, either through a visit to a store, a phone call or a purchase.

So even if your business has a global perspective the greatest success will come from localising your offering -  local content on localised web sites, engagement in local social media and forums. One size (of content) does not fit all.

2012 Predictions - A Year to Digitally Disengage and Plant Vegetables?

Well at least the headline was catchy but you get my drift; any digital or social prediction for the year ahead needs to be prefaced by the financial realities that our world will be facing.

Bricks and mortar establishments will continue to struggle in shaky economic times and these trends will impact on employment and consumer purchasing patterns. Money will be tight and a lack of resources will make it difficult for many companies to fully assess and capitalise on digital and social opportunities.

Election year in the USA will see political compromise to garner support from the electorate, which may result in the Stop Online Piracy Act becoming law.  If it does, it will have a dramatic effect on any form of content creation.

Control
Authoritarian governments will have the ability to monitor all electronic communications in the near future as it becomes increasingly cheaper to do so; "every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner" says a report from the The Brookings Institution.

"Plummeting digital storage costs will soon make it possible for authoritarian regimes to not only monitor known dissidents, but to also store the complete set of digital data associated with everyone within their borders. These enormous databases of captured information will create what amounts to a surveillance time machine, enabling state security services to retroactively eavesdrop on people in the months and years before they were designated as surveillance targets. This will fundamentally change the dynamics of dissent, insurgency and revolution. "

eCommerce
2012 will be a year of continuing financial uncertainty which will affect business confidence and reinvestment.  Paradoxically these conditions also present opportunistic for those willing to take a calculated gamble and we will see more mergers and the ongoing growth in eCommerce.

Crowdsourcing
These platforms will show strong growth and provide opportunities for micro-economies to circumvent the challenges of the global macro economy. Examples include Quirky, which takes submitted product ideas, filters through community engagement and produces them, letting the idea creator 'cash in' at the end of the manufacturing and sales process. Kickstarter which is a funding platform focused on a broad spectrum of creative projects is such another example.

Ideas to Revenue using Crowdsourcing

MicroPayments
Sites that promote 'design to product' will increase.  Examples such as Zazzle and  RedBubble allow the creative amongst us to upload a  digital file while they take care of all manufacture, shipping and customer service.

Browsers
Google's Chrome browser will continue its rise and surpass IE as the #1 ranked browser

Gamification
The design and interaction lessons learnt in online gaming will become increasingly mainstream appearing as social apps in your mobile device and browser.

Influence
Converting digital influence into business value will remain a challenge but platforms such as Klout and the new kid on the block, Kred, will be there to provide some guidance.  However, the focus for the year ahead will be less on the measurement and more on how to achieve greater online influence with a variety of techniques and tools.

Social
Taste Graphs (things a consumer is actually interested in) rather than a person's social connections will provide better insight for marketers engaged in social commerce.  This will give rise to the use of 'tastemakers'  -  experts who are recommended to a consumer.

Twitter's growth and revenue will continue rapidly in 2012. This will mean more Twitter 'Promoted' ads appearing with some experts predicating an 80%+ revenue growth as a result. The proviso is that Twitter doesn't fall prey to an acquisition takeover and that Google+ does not perform better than expectations.

Social Burnout -  Facebook growth is slowing and people are already starting to question their own social existence and activity.  It could be a question of too much of a good thing when it comes to social and digital activity in 2012.  Users will be re-evaluating their social lives with issues of privacy being top of mind.

Quantifying the true value a business creates for online clients will remain one of the biggest challenges for companies in 2012.

Media
Trans-media campaigns such as the Jello Pudding / Twitter / billboard will increase in 2012 further expanding the definition of the term "social".

Sharing
Social sharing capitalises on the fact that social networks have 'turned people into bragging machines' (as David Armano has so eloquently expressed it).  The integration of social sharing opportunities on corporate and brand web sites will gather pace in 2012 as more businesses seek personal endorsements of their products and services across personal networks. Adding sharing options to content ensures better status in search results and a greater number of page views.

Television
Social TV will take off in 2012 predicts the Harvard Business Review. Socially integrated shows such as the X-Factor, where people voted using Twitter, point the way to what will be happening more frequently.  The TV's themselves are more likely to be of the 3D variety particularly if you are in Asia, although those in the USA still prefer the cheaper, lower spec'ed models.
70% of video is consumed on Internet connected devices so revenue models for television advertising will change.

Tablets and Ultrabooks
Android vendors are continuing to challenge the dominance of iPads and Apple's premium pricing for its products. 2012 will see an increase in tablet computer sales but more likely a dramatic rise in sale of  Ultrabooks which are powerful laptops with the advantage of being thinner and lighter than their competition.
And while we are on the subject of Android, I predict that the sale ofAndroid mobile devices will surpass Apple's iPhone in the coming year.  Web sites will be optimised for Tablet and Ultrabook use as mobile commerce will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 39% through to 2016 (Forrester Research).

The Rise of Ultrabook - Google Trends

Augmented Reality
This adds a virtual experience to the real experience of our world and we are about to see exponential growth for Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) according to Mashable's Lance Ulanoff. Visiongain predicts that the the advent of MAR will have a profound and lasting impact on the way that people use their mobile devices. It will push the telecoms industry towards ubiquitous computing and a technologically converged paradigm.

Big Data will be Big Business for Small Business
At the moment much data is still contained in silos. Storing data in the Cloud and using systems such as Bime will put the necessary tools at the fingertips of SME's (Small to Medium Enterprises). They will be able to get a clear and consistent query model across all of their data.

Marketing departments will be employing analytics experts who can monitor real-time data from web sites, social media and industry-leading news feeds but simply monitoring will not be sufficient.  They will be expected to provide accurate data on visitation to web & social media sites, what content people are engaging with and how quickly they get to the product, service or messaging that the company is pitching. Human language interpretation of unstructured conversations will help this process.

"Companies will need to centralize Business Intelligence to feed every aspect of the business – marketing, product, innovation and customer service. Only then will BI help companies transform themselves into true social businesses.” Brian Sollis.

Publish or be Damned
Businesses will increasingly bypass traditional media outlets and go directly to their target audiences themselves by creating branded niche media properties. They will not only publish their own content but also disseminate it themselves predicts Sandra Fathi of AffectStrategies.

Freemium at a Premium
One hopes that in the year ahead other companies will see the value in building business, by offering a free option of their product or service, albeit with less functionality than the paid version.  Mailchimp is an example of this digital strategy. People who like the product and embed it in their daily use are more likely to upgrade to the paid version with all the bells and whistles.

Scheduling
This will increasingly be on the Cloud using platforms such as Schedulicity. Founder believes that the traditional pen and paper appointment book is dead in the water. "Over the next two to five years, the physical appointment book will be gone altogether and replaced with online counterparts".

Some companies are already using scheduling options to great effect and dispensing with more traditonal methods. Emerson Salon for example is sourcing up to 75% of its business from Facebook, Twitter and its blog.

Text Messaging
Text messaging is growing quicker than most have predicted and is highly prevalent in 19 of the 21 countries surveyed by Pew Research, with a majority of mobile phone owners regularly sending text messages. Many use their mobiles to record personal videos and this growth trend will continue.

Deal or No Deal
Deal and coupon sites mushroomed in 2010/2011.  However, as business realise they cannot manage their offers and cover all the coupon bases, we will see a rationalisation of these platforms with the likely outcome being that the major players such as Groupon will gobble up the smaller fry.  Deals by mobile which don't require a pre-purchase are likely to grow at the expense of those that do.

Business Process
Faced with financial challenges and the impact of social business, companies will need to restructure and refocus. Those that don't will whither on the vine.

"Companies of all sizes will need to transform their business and existing infrastructure, and reverse engineer the impact of business objectives and metrics. Businesses will have to embrace all of the disruptive elements, such as mobile and social technology, in a new, cohesive organization that is focused outward and inward." Brian Sollis

Bernie Borges believes that 2012 will be the year that more organisations embrace the convergence of employee personal branding and corporate branding through content marketing strategies.

Web
While the Internet itself remains robust, the World Wide Web will suffer as further as consumers and general users move on to dedicated platforms that deliver their personal preferences better. This trend will accelerate, although the company web site will remain the bedrock brand statement and the place on which many depend; as the definitive source of company information.

Social Media Content Marketing Predictions 2012

Reference:
2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions (Awareness)

New Publication - 12 Easy and Free Steps to Join the Digital Revolution

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Time is On Your Side - Part Two

Social Media

A recent 'The Science of Timing' seminar for Hubspot's Dan Zarella suggested the following optimum times (US times - Central and Eastern Standard Time Zones) to be engaged:

Retweets by the Hour - Dan Zarella

• Retweets of your content from Twitter

2-5 PM provides the greatest number of  ReTweets and you get more during the day than during the night.

Later in the day (5 PM) and later in the week are the dominant times for retweeting,

You need to pick the optimum time for the time zones of your target market and this may vary from the above.

Use this free tool to determine the best timing for retweets of your content - you could well be surprised.

Interestingly the study also shows that those who Tweet about 22 times daily have the most followers so I suggest that if you are using an automated service such as Twitterfeed you should adjust the settings to this posting amount.

Using Google Analytics timing reporting mentioned above you will also be able to see the number of referrals from Twitter to your web site.

• Facebook

Facebook sharing happens most during the weekends.

Less is more with Facebook postings and once a day, or once every second day, yields the best results

11 AM is the time when most people read content on Facebook. 2 AM, 5 AM, and 7 PM are the next best times which could mean some adjustment of corporate sleep patterns!).

• Email

Most bounces are recorded at 6am. and 5 and 7 in the morning have the best opening rates.

97% read their email in the morning, and 95% read it in the afternoon.

Weekend email has an open rate of around 42%  but note that abuse reports are also highest on Saturday and Sunday, 6 AM being the peak for this.

As with Twitter automation, you can set you email programme to deliver it into inboxes at the best time to capture the attention of your target audience.

• Blogs

Mornings are best for people who view blogs; 80% do so during this time.  The percentage drops to 60% during the afternoon, half (50%) read them in the evening and only 40% do so at night.

More men (60%) than women (50%)read blog posts in the evening, so demographic targeting is important.

Viewing rate is highest on a Monday (130 average) but tapers of a little on Tuesday. From Wednesday to Friday the average levels out at an average of 120 views. Saturday and Sunday's average views are lowest (80). Comments i.e. feedback, is higher in the weekend.

10 to 11 am has the most blog views, averaging 190 and the lowest blog viewing rate is at 5 am(65)

The Science of Timing

Time is On Your Side - Part One

Social and online media is all about engagement; more often than not in realtime.  If you are posting on social media sites at times when your target audience are away doing something else then you have a problem.

More of a challenge are enterprises who persist in following their business hours for online activity instead of adopting those of their audience.

While it is true that you need to be where where your market is, it is equally true that you need to be there when that market is digitally engaged.  Logistical challenge aside, consideration of time zones is a must if your business is not locally focussed.

While you can schedule your blog postings to publish at specified hours and use third party platforms to spawn your company RSS to your twitter account on a sequential basis, but do you really know that this scattergun approach is reaching your audience?

This is the first of two articles on timing and what it could mean for you.

Let's Start With Web Sites

Google Analytics should be now be a 'given' for all web sites.  To accurately gauge the times when people visit your site you need to enhance the Analytics reports and fortunately (if you are using Firefox as your browser) there is a free way of doing so. Here's how:

1. Download the Greasemonkey addon for Firefox 
2. Now add the Google Analytics Report Enhancer script (you will be prompted to accept this)
3. Open your Google Analytics window and in the left hand column click on 'Search Engines'

Click on Search Engines

 

Click on Source

  

Click on Time

You can do the same for 'day of the week' . As a result you now have a good idea as to which days andwhat times people are making greatest use of your site.  Check out not only 'visits' but also 'new visits'. Adjust the period to get monthly and annual rates.

Related articles

• The New Google Analytics Available to Everyone (analytics.blogspot.com)

What A Difference A Year Makes

Click on the chart to see the larger version

A year on year analysis of social media from January 2010 clearly demonstrates the rapid growth of the major networks.

While Wikipedia is chugging along with 5,000 new contributors Facebook continues to blitz the opposition, signing up 290 million new accounts over the same period.

Note also that users accessing Facebook on their mobile device has grown by over 200 percent to 200 million.  This growth trend will continue

Another significant mover has been the professional network, LinkedIn with a 100% growth and Flickr has now features 5 billion images, which represents a 25% increase in their activity.

Related articles

• 2011 social media statistics show huge growth (browsermedia.co.uk)

Blogger becomes more dynamic

Many of us use Google's Blogger platform and the company has just launched a series of 5 dynamic views, using HTML5.



This blog uses the platform and below are three example of the new views which you might choose to link to, in preference to your normal site views.  Your site address remains the same with the addition of /view at the end of the URL.  For example http://thedigitalconsultant.blogspot.com/view.

Flipcard View

Mosaic View

Snapshot View

In your Blogger Settings go to Formatting and you will see that dynamic views have been set up as default.

Depending on your target audience you might choose to promote one of these views in preference to your normal template.  For example http://thedigitalconsultant.blogspot.com/view/mosaic

If you have a travel or photography blog then a snapshot view is far more visually exciting and interactive than the standard fare.

Example from a travel photography blog

Related articles

• Google Gives Blogger a Dynamic New Look (mashable.com)
• fresh-new-perspectives-for-your-blog-blogger (googleplusone.wordpress.com)
• Fresh new perspectives for your blog (googleblog.blogspot.com)
• Google's Blogger Just Got Cool (thenextweb.com)

Network Based Papers

paper.li

The use of social media aggregation to publication has been around for some time.  One such example is the Swiss company Small River, whose Paper.Li  which takes your daily tweets and creates an online publication from them.

I have used this platform to segment thedigitalconsultant tweets into three distinct publications.  Paper.li also has edition control - daily, weekly or morning & evening.. With the rapid growth in tablets such as the iPAD, this format has many attractions for spreading your content still further.

There are four types of Twitter account based papers a user can create, and one Facebook account based:

1. Account Based Paper - a paper created on your Twitter account
2. Hashtag based Paper - a paper based on a #tag you want to follow
3. User List Paper - a paper based from a twitter user list
4. Create a Custom Newspaper - advanced options for customized Twitter newspapers
5. Facebook based papers - giving you the ability to create a paper based on simple search terms. These papers are created on public posts.

All of the above offer ample opportunities for event marketing and target segmentation.

LinkedIn Today

News today that another social network, LinkedIn, is taking this 'entry to journal' principal a step further. As it prepares to list publically, the company has upgraded its web site with a new feature, LinkedIn Today.

With more than 90 million professionals using its network it is certainly time to try and broaden the companies public appeal and try and boost user activity.

LinkedIn Today allows the user to tap into articles that are being shared by their connections or by people in their industries.

According to the company's media release LinkedIn Today informs you of the following:
1. What your connections and coworkers – people you know – are sharing.
2. What your industry peers are sharing
3. What stories are interesting to a wider audience, outside of your industry

Offering users a personalised news stream is seen as a way of encouraging users to spend more time on the site. Only time will tell if this is so.

Being able to see who followed a topic headline provides insight into LinkedIn users who share a link publicly.

This content distribution also points to the advantage of having your content propagated and shared, as opposed to spending money on online advertising.  Your messaging is not diluted and the reach potential is as great, or greater, for less cost.




So will LinkedIn Today prompt me to use the social network more often?  To be honest, I doubt it. I find Paper.li's functionality far more engaging with greater editorial control over what I wish to publish or view.

LinkedIn's niche is professional networking and while job seekers make full use of it, most of them will still get their news from other media sources, Facebook and the more immediate source Twitter.

Related articles

• LinkedIn launches social news product (reuters.com)
• LinkedIn launches personal news service (news.cnet.com)

2011 Crystal Ball Gazing

The reality is that there will be so much happening in 2011 and at a faster pace than ever before.

Top picks:


3D-enabled television sets will contiue to be pushed by manufacturers but the 'imminent 3D revolution' will remain on the horizon

Gaming will continue to grow with Sony's Move and Microsoft's Kinect motion control gazumping the older platforms

Home computer and television convergence will continue with Apple and Google leading the way

Rupert Murdoch's content paywall will make more profit but continue to shed publication subscribers

iPad2 will be released with mounted cameras and Face-time video-callingsoftware

Devices that can anticipate our needs by using intelligent accelerometers and provide personalised content, advice or services, will become more prevalent

A bigger Cloud and smaller devices with solid state hard drives

There will be more Android, Nokia, Apple, Blackberry and Windows Apps than ever before, generating close to $10 billion of revenue in 2011

And here are the predictions from a variety of digital pundits:

Social Media

Gary Halliwell of Venturebeat:

• Social customer service will drive revenue
  Smart companies will do more of this in 2011.
  
  
• Social marketing will move beyond Facebook and LinkedIn
  In our connected world of Tweets, blogs, emails and posts, this information transmission is captured in electronic form, and what we know as “word-of-mouth” in face to face interaction has become “word-of-digital”, and it’s incredibly track-able and useful.
  
  
• Socially adept companies will align the needs of employees and customers
  In 2011, we’ll see more companies embrace Zappos’ approach to social as integral, and large corporations relying on their inertia will feel the hot breath of excitement from fully motivated competition.
  
  
• Millennials will take another step forward into the breach
  The shift to greater social connectedness will continue to move forward in 2011
  
  
• Social will penetrate deeper into company structures
  Not surprisingly, marketing decision makers had the heaviest use of social media. This is a trend that will hopefully reverse, as more CEOs see the power of social media to network and to amplify their thought leadership
  
  
• Go live or go home
  Going “real time” means preparing an organization to react to what’s happening in their world, cohesively and adeptly. It requires planning for the future with room for ambiguity and change, and the flexibility to react from the top to the bottom of a company.

New Products




DigitalTrends predictions for products and trends to be seen in Las Vegas this year include:

• Unfinished tablets
• iPad accessories
• 3D content
• Superphones
• AMD Fusion
• Intel Sandy Bridge
• Smart TVs
• Automotive media extravaganzas
• Next-generation e-readers
• All-in-one PCs as an art form

E Marketing

Predictions from EMarketer.com

• Apps invade all platforms - mobile, desktop, tv
  
  
• Content consumption convergence - consumers engage seamlessly with content across multiple platforms
  
  
• Location, location, location - mobile social network usage will more than double by 2015 and location based services have yet to reach the mainstream
  
  
• Social gets its share of marketing dollars -  4 out of 5 marketers will use social media tools in 2011and changing consumer usage patterns will make social media a must. 80% of companies are planning increased spending in this area in 2011. Traditional advertising spend is falling as budget is funnelled to social media. Return On Investment remains difficult to quantify.
  
  
• Targeting audiences vs content -  Audience segmentation and targeting will remain key factors driving the shift to digital marketing
  
  
• Online privacy debate heats up -  50% of users remain concerned about privacy issues. More people trust the government than advertisers, but most don't trust either.

Click Here's 2011 Digital Trends:

• Digital will be everywhere in 2011
  In 2011, we’ll see digital engagement as an everywhere medium
  
  
• The brand web site is under threat from social media
  Despite the rise in buzz around Facebook pages, brand websites are every bit as relevant as they’ve ever been. They remain the only true digital channel that can be completely and wholly owned by you, the brand
  
  
• The jury is out as to who will win the HMTL5 vs Flash battle
  Should we continue to invest in Flash and business as usual, or do we abandon the platform altogether and fix our sights on the promise of HTML5
  
  
• Mobile Advertising
  In 2011, mobile advertising will provide more opportunities for advertisers with rich technology, a unique daypart, more customization and more tracking.
  
  
• User Generated Content and the emerging power of the status update
  Brands need to focus more on building an advocate base through the delivery of a consistent brand message
  
  
• There will be more fun and games
  Consider how multitouch and mobile apps transformed the mobile device into an opportunity for meaningful engagement with audiences away from computers and TV screens. GPS functionality transformed social networks into a local experience. Even the humble webcam has evolved well beyond its original function as it has been repurposed to serve up face recognition and augmented reality experiences. The Kinect’s technology is positioned to lead a transformation of similar magnitude
  
  
• The constant evolution of Search Engine Marketing
  First and foremost in 2011 will be the necessity to build a website that lends itself to successful search engine indexing and that, with the all-important keyword-rich content and linking efforts, can return high rankings on SERPs
  
  
• The future of shopping is social
  Recommendation engines and group buying sites are becoming increasing popular and integrated into social networks such as Facebook. You may not even recognize them, but these shopping tools are showing up all over the place and will give shoppers a lot of power in 2011.
  
  
• The Rise of the Demand-side platform
   Marketers will look to DSPs to expand their product offerings and become much more than a technology company that merely lends out its bidding platform. In 2011, look for these companies to go to market with turnkey and unique products that will further drive efficiency and attract large marketers
  
  
• It will be the year of the mobile website
  In 2011, the net result of the increase in smart phones will be a drastic increase in mobile web usage and more brands will begin to create mobile websites instead of applications

Meeting and Events

2011 will mark significant change for the global meetings and events industry, driven in part by the ongoing adoption of mobile, the increase in popularity of social networks and the pressure to make meetings and events more transparent, predictable and aligned to the business - Certain Software

• More and more events will be organised and managed via handheld devices
• Smart phones and social networks will provide expanded ways to engage attendees

  PaidContent

• It Will Be The Year Of ‘Interactive TV’
  Growing broadband penetration and a face-off in the booming race among over-the-top box maker - Robert Andrews
  
  
• Netflix Will Be Acquired
  Think of what iTunes is for Apple—that’s what Neflix could be for its acquirer - Andrew Wallenstein
  
  
• The ‘Ad Network’ Name Will R.I.P.
  The term “ad network” will fall even further into disuse by ad-tech firms - David Kaplan
  
  
• Local Deals And Check-Ins Will Converge
  Would it really be that much of a surprise to see, for example, a Groupon or LivingSocial deal at a nearby hair salon when you load a check-in app on your phone?  - Amanda Natividad
  
  
• The E-Reader Will Reach Critical Mass
  This is the year the standalone e-reader shifted from luxury to near-commodity, from a $250-$350 planned purchase to a $140-and-below basic buy. - Staci D. Kramer
  
  
• We’ll Finally See Some Big Name Digital Media IPOs
  The year will be then capped off by a record-breaking filing from Facebook, which will value the company at a staggering $100 billion - Joseph Tartakoff
  
  
• Microsoft Will Keep Trying In Mobile With Limited Success
  In the year ahead, we will see more attempts by Microsoft to take that new OS, put it in more devices—and, yes, roll them out to more carriers and other retail channels. - Ingrid Lunden
  
  
• Google Will Win Its Intellectual Property Lawsuits
  On its own, Google has been footing a big chunk of Silicon Valley’s legal bill for several years now. The company has created important case law that benefits its competitors too - Joe Mullin

JWT
Ann Mack, Global Director of Trendspotting for J Walter Thomson (JWT) 2011 “watch” list.



 Happy New Year to all readers of The DigitalConsultant. May your 2011 be a social and profitable one!

Related articles

• Five trends all marketers should watch in social media in 2011 (freshnetworks.com)
• 2010 in review: What our 10 most popular posts say about the year in social media (smartblogs.com)
• 11 Marketing Predictions for 2011 (samirbalwani.com)
• New Social Media Business Trends for 2011 (jenningssocialmedia.com)
• What will happen in digital advertising in 2011? - Quora (quora.com)

Role Of Twitter In Marketing Strategy

Loic LeMeur on the role of social media in marketing.  Loic is the founder and CEO of the popular Twitter+Facebook application and site Seesmic.com.

He founded and hosts th premier tech event in Europe, LeWeb.net, which brings together 2000 entrepreneurs from 40 countries each year.

Business Week named Loic one of the 25 most influential people on the web.  He advises the World Economic Forum and covers the Annual Summit every year in Davos.

Related articles

• Can Seesmic Reinvent Itself as an Enterprise Tool? (mashable.com)
• Looking Forward to LeWeb 2010 (blonde2dot0.com)

Who's Piloting Your Social Media Ship?

The importance of social media to a business is now well known and proven.  More than a third of all companies in the States now actively engage in social media according to a  recent survey from CareerBuilder.com.

Its management within an organisation is often piecemeal at best and this lays an enterprise open to brand and reputation issues.

According to Mike Sachoff, 43 percent of employers have their marketing departments take care of their social media strategy, followed by public relations (26%) and human resources (19%). Twenty-five percent of employers have 1-3 people communication for their organization, while 7 percent have 4-5 people handle the work. Eleven percent have six or more people communicate for their company via social media and fifty-seven percent said they did not know.

Fifty seven percent of "don't knows" is a big number and graphically demonstrates the fragmentary nature of social media control and monitoring.

So how much control should companies exercise given that many are averse to their employees freely using social media but equally concerned that they should be able to do so?

Responsible use can be of great benefit it is the loosed cannons that are a concern to employers.

They might well consider using a tool such as Socialite; a name that has nothing to do with the likes of Paris Hilton and is developed by a company called Facetime (which in itself is a little confusing as they have just sold their brand name to Apple).

Facetime's own survey has found that:

• The use of social networks and social media sites is not only widespread, but has seen a significant shift in usage profiles.
  Sixty-one percent of end users use these sites at least once a day, up from 51%. Fifteen percent use social networks "constantly throughout the day." Social networking is used by 95% of respondents.
  
  
• The most common work-related purposes cited are for professional networking, 79% (up from 54%), and learning about colleagues, 66% (up from 52%).
  Thirty-seven percent of respondents use social networks for sales prospecting.
  
  
• LinkedIn is the most commonly used site for professional purposes (86%, up from 62%).
  For personal purposes, Facebook leads the pack with 93% of end users accessing the site, at work, for personal reasons. YouTube is used by 51% of end users for work-related purposes. Twitter is used by 76% for work purposes and 62% for personal reasons.
  
  
• Eighty-nine percent of Facebook users utilize the status updates function, with 28% using Facebook at work to play games such as Farmville, Mafia Wars or Scrabble.
  Thirty-five percent utilize Facebook to create and publicize events and 44% join "fan groups."

View the Socialite (aka Facetime) presentation

Related articles by Zemanta

• CareerBuilder: One-Third of Employers Use Social Media to Promote Their Organizations (pamil-visions.net)
• How Far Will Employers Go to Control Employee Social Media Use? (webpronews.com)

Will This Online Video Company Survive?

Finding a market niche in the online world is tough going but Howcast seems to be surviving.  Forming alliances with the big boys such as Yahoo!, AOL, Hulu and Microsoft's MSN has certainly helped.

Howcast streams over 25 million videos a month and was founded by Jason Liebman (pictured) a former Googler.

Approaching two million downloads across iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry phones, Howcast claims to be "the #1 mobile app for instructional content - wherever you are".

The are some offbeat "how to" topics waiting to be discovered and shared. These include:

• How To Survive a Bear Attack
• How To Pick a Karaoke Song If You Can’t Sing
• How To Stop Blushing ( presumably after the bear attack?) and
• How to Walk in High Heels
  

How To Survive a Bear Attack on Howcast

Its "How to Kiss With Passion" has so far proved its most popular, with 20 million views on YouTube. 

300 videos a month are being produced by the company but they are aiming for 10,000 a month.  That's a lot of instructional video to choose from.

My favourite title to date is "How to Stop Eating Crap to Stop Feeling Like Crap", which I would have thought was self explanatory

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I Am Listening

Image via Wikipedia

The immortal words of Dr Frasier Crane have some bearing on boosting the effectiveness of your social media marketing.

We need to know two basic things:

• where our customers are and 
• what they are saying?

Convince and Convert's Jae Baer suggests four ways of discovering if your existing customers are active in social media.

The first idea is to deploy good old fashioned espionage using modern digital tools.  Simply by providing your customer's email addresses to companies such as Flotown or Rapleaf is all that is required for them to data mine the  figure out which and how many of customers are on social networks, their preferences and other marketing details.  Your may also be interested to track you own digital footprint with Rapleaf.

Secondly (and one of the simplest methods) simply ask them and ensure that all of your lead generation forms and opportunities ask them about their social media habits.

Thirdly if you are using email platforms make sure that you are using tools that allow the recipient to recommend to others. Embedding third party code from platforms such as AddThis is one such option if the email solution itself does not provide the required functionality.  Simply run reports to discover which of your subscribers clicked your Twitter link and/or shared content on Facebook.

Finally Jae recommends "Gmail Stalking" as the two main social networks, Twitter and Facebook (and others) have "functionality that allows you to see whether your Gmail contacts are using the services and invite them to connect with you".

The beauty of his system is that it costs nothing and takes very little time.  Here is how he does it:

1. Create a .csv file from a list of your customers’ email addresses (you only need email addresses, not names, mailing address, etc.).
2. Create a free account on gmail.com specifically for this purpose. Don't use an existing account.
3. Upload the .csv  list to your Gmail account.
4. Next go to Twitter and create a new account using your special new Gmail email address.  On Step Two “Find Your Friends” of the Twitter signup process, select Gmail.
   Twitter will automatically read all of the email addresses of your customers stored in Gmail, allowing you to track the number on Twitter and/or follow them immediately.
5. Set up a new Facebook account using your new Gmail address.
   On Step One “Find Friends” of the Facebook sign up process, indicate that you have a Gmail account, and follow the simple instructions.
   All of your customers on Facebook are presented to you, and you should be able to become their “friend” with a single click.

So having discovered where they are, what should we be listening for?  The answer is, anything that is said about your brand, as both the positive and the negative present opportunities for you to exploit.

Suzanne Vara of SocialMediaToday first recommendation is that a listening station be established "where you monitor the conversations about your brand, competitor and industry as a whole".  She sets out what should be listened for in your brand, competitor/s and industry:

For brand and competitors the list includes:
 - Inquiries
 - Praise
 - Complaints
 - Recommendations/referrals to others
 - Mentions of: company name, abbreviations, key players, product and specific services

Industry:
 - Broad keywords that are used to describe your industry
 - Targeted core keywords for your specific services and/or product
 - Non-industry used terms – if the general public calls it something different or abbreviates you listen for that as well.
 - Industry leaders

If you are not already listening your competitors will be, so now is the time to start. Facebook alone has 500 million users, each with their own story to tell. That's a lot of potential prospects.

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Consider Social Media as Word Of Mouth Marketing

"I love the companies that have created a position called “Head of Social Media” or similar"
Antonio Batanero, Sr Director Distribution & Digital Marketing, Sol Meliá - The Americas.

In this interview with Ritesh Gupta, Batareno states that the establishment of a corporate social media committee might be the best way to release its full potential.

If as he suggests we view social media as a mix between "word of mouth, customer satisfaction, email marketing, CRM, and loyalty" then it is really no surprise that the responsibility for this important marketing tool is often poorly defined within an enterprise.

This is precisely why building, maintaining and monitoring online reputation are such important strategies and the corporate structure for managing this needs to be clearly thought through.

Friends telling friends reveals the good, the bad and the downright ugly about an enterprise.

BP who are currently battling with a growing ecological disaster are using social media as a key part of its PR strategy.

In this way they can counteract some of the negative and satirical PR that is being generated on the Net.  They are using the hashtag #oilspill on Twitter and judging from current trend mapping they seem to be maintaining the highest profile in the area most affected.

I suspect that there is a 'corporate committee' handling this and all of the emergency PR associated with the oil spill.

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The Social Media Revolution - Updated

By now the world needs little convincing about the power and impact of social media.
First released in 2009 this video has had over 2 million views and Socialnomics have just updated it.

Key points to consider in your digital strategy:

• Facebook now tops Google for weekly traffic in U.S. (time to review your SEO strategy)
• 1 in 8 couples married in the U.S. met via Social Media (no wonder your company filters identify most sites as "dating"!)
• 80% of companies now use social media for recruitment (got to update that LinkedIn profile)
• If Facebook were a country it would be the world's 3rd largest (and this doesn't even count China)
• Facebook accounts for 50% of mobile Internet traffic in the UK
• What Happens In Vegas stays on Facebook, YouTube, Flickr. (you can run but you can't hide)
  

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Future Shop?

It may be satire but this clip from The Onion is not as far fetched as it sounds. 

The combination of voice recognition software and product advertising would be a winning one if they could only just iron out the bugs.

An Ad- Whisper over ride button for a starter!

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Modern Modern Media Consumers Participate

This visualisation demonstrates just how significant the participatory nature of the the internet is.

Of the 61% who read their new online, 35 % actually contribute to the creation of the news, commented about it or used to social media to promote it to others.

The other point of interest is that people 'graze' for their news content and this is the nature of the medium.  Only 21% claim to routinely use one site for news and information.

These findings are hardly surprising given the development of the semantic web and the expectation people have to have the news come to them rather than to have to go searching for it.

Modern browsers all have the ability to subscribe to news and interest feeds so once a subscription has been set up the news follows the consumer rather than the other way around.  User 'portals' such as Feedly and aggregator sites and software make the ability to set up a personalised menu even easier.

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