Enterprise Social Networking: Focus on Relationships (Altimeter Report)

February 22, 2012 by jeremiah_owyang

Altimeter’s latest report now on Enterprise (inside of companies) social networking is now out from Charlene Li, author of Groundswell, Open Leadership and my business partner. She conducted thorough analysis by surveying 185 users, surveyed 81 ESN decision makers and interviewed 12 technology vendors.

Key findings that attracted my eye include:

1. Long term adoption often unsuccessful beyond one department. What’s interesting is there’s lots of initial enthusiasm but a slow decline after deployment. In many cases, primary adoption occurred in the marketing/product section, IT, followed by sales and corporate communication.
2. Highest adoption of fremium tools. Interesting breakdown of vendors, with self-service Yammer in the lead, followed by Chatter and Tellingent and IBM connections.   What’s interesting is these fremium tools enter the market, get their hooks in and grow adoption and switch to premium offerings.
3. Companies are measuring in the wrong way. Lack of metrics (or measuring the wrong way) by focusing on measuring conversations or engagement –rather than measuring improvement in relationships

Who said social media will reduce emails?
What’s interesting is that enterprise social networks don’t actually reduce internal email. The report also includes an actionable plan to get started, while there’s lots of details in the bullet points (filled with real world examples from real research interviews), they include four ways ESNs drive business value, including: 1) Encourage Sharing, 2) Capture Knowledge, 3) Enable Action, and 4) Empower people.

Open Research: Use it, Share it, and We’ll Publish More
We’re continuing to publish reports, and have a growing archive on our site, and will be doing a variety of webinars in support of these research findings. If you found them helpful, we look forward to you engaging with us in the conversation, and appreciate you using, sharing, and applying the findings.

You’ll find the full report embedded below which you can download, print and share, also read Charlene’s post.

Altimeter Report: Making The Business Case for Enterprise Social Networks

View more documents from Altimeter Group Network on SlideShare

Pinterest: Essential or Beguiling?

February 20, 2012 by John Bell

Almost everything you need to know about Pinterest is conveniently wedged into this infographic from lemon.ly. It reaches women like no other social platform. It delivers more traffic than YouTube, Google+ and LInkedIN combined (kind of like saying a country is bigger than Iran, Turkey and Pakistan combined – sounds like a lot but less than Russia, Australia and Brazil combined). Pinterest is growing very fast. 

Many brands are jumping on board. This raises the obvious question as to whether Pinterest is worth the energy and effort now or whether brands should wait. Is it essential to your business? Or is it an innovative platform for you and therefore worth some resources? Or is it simply beguiling – waiting to charm or enchant you and divert you from more meaningful programs? This last risk is a big one.

In Altimeter’s latest report on Content: The New Marketing Equation, Rebecca Lieb cautions,

“Bright, shiny objects, i.e. a fixation on newer channels and technologies, can distract from foundational channels, e.g. search, written content, such as blogs, and educational content.”  

Certainly many marketers are skeptical and even disgusted with the amount of attention Pinterest has earned. As a marketer, I don’t worry about that. None of us really know whether Pinterest will become a significant platform or become the next Empire Avenue (hey, even MySpace is making a comeback!)It’s more important to evaluate this platform and the others vying for attention and resources based upon how it can help your business today.

It’s Essential

If you are an ecommerce offering catering to women, you should jump on board now. Many retailers are doing just that. The number one ecommerce retailer in this space is Etsy. The haystack nature of that marketplace seems ideally suited for the visual curation that Pinterest delivers. The most remarkable Pinterest quality is really the women. While Instagram is also big with women, it doesn’t have the same referral traffic as Pinterest. If you have a product collection well-suited to this curation, have a storefront/product page to point people to and sell to women, then Pinterest is an easier choice. While you are figuring out the value of the “engagement” metrics (pin-ing and sharing, essentially), you can still look to count the referral traffic which is already a valuable KPI for online stores. 

A Worthy Innovation   

I certainly know plenty of big brands who are going all in on Facebook. Anything else – even Twitter – is a distraction. That may be a dangerous single-mindedness. We are all pushing our organization’s ability to adapt to new customer and stakeholder behaviors. We need to learn. We need to learn how to cope with the flood of choices available to people out there. Should you be on Google+? I think that one is a good bet. It may take another six months to understand its business impact but experimentation via limited investment is the only way to figure it out. 

If you want to specifically engage women who are energized by fashion, food, home design, graphic design or hobby, then it may be worth some effort and investment. These categories do seem to dominate and you can see it in the most followed users.

If you have a collection of visual images to share that are of natural interest to people or if your brand intersects with a theme/meme already gaining traction, then that gives you one more good reason to engage. It doesn’t make sense to take this platform on if you don’t already have the picture content or the theme that lends itself to pinning (bookmarking) images.

Give yourself a time constraint like 2-3 hours a week. Pick out the likely KPIs that might show progress from click-throughs to followers and likes. Benchmark yourself against other similar brands or against ones you aspire to being compared to. Every brand should have some tolerance for innovating on new platforms. With a logical decision tree and quarterly evaluations, it’s possible to keep the level of effort reasonable. 

Just Plain Beguiling

The simplest filter is women. If you are trying to engage C-suite decision makers (let’s face it – predominantly men) you are pretty far off your target. If you have no picture assets (e.g. catalogs) or objects that capture people’s interest, then the level of effort to create them and hope they are of intrinsic interest to people just isn’t worth it. The reason we are intrigued by Pinterest is the natural growth of the platform. Our job must be to understand it and make use of it, not try and game it.

SEO Blogger is skeptical of Pinterest’s value today. He outlines a scenario to evaluate its potential based upon a crude ROI model. As a solo-practitioner, his criteria makes sense. For brands considering the platform, we are way off any ROI that matters. Simply know the platform, judge whether it is essential, innovative or merely beguiling and go from there. 

Great Pinterest pages:

• Etsy – probabaly the top page, how else can you find these must-have rings 
• West Elm – I love their collections. If I was currently shopping for furniture, thsi woudl definitely make it easier and more enjoyable
• Michael’s Stores – how else can you make sense of all the craft supplies these guys sell? 

Social Business: We’re Just Getting Started

February 15, 2012 by jeremiah_owyang

Recently, folks suggested that social business space was getting washed out, especially with Social Media Week spreading across the globe and being hosted at many corporations. Yet despite the interesting and activity around this topic, many folks are confused around what maturity really looks like. Managing a Facebook page to promote the latest campaign isn’t really social business, it’s just social added to existing interactive marketing.

I was talking with industry peer Michael Brito (former Intel and now at Edelman) about the maturity of the space at Cisco’s social media week yesterday, and we both agree this space is just heating up. But don’t listen to us, instead, let’s review a sample from a recent Altimeter Report on Social Business of what actual corporate decision makers said in a recent survey:

Figure 1: Only the Most Advanced Companies are Conducting Social Business Holistically, Beyond Individual Silos

Figure 2: Advanced Companies are Formalizing Processes to Intake Customer Insights

Figure 3: Only the Most Advanced Companies Are Integrating Social Data into Customer Databases

Let’s take a look at this data, to understand why the social business space is still very immature:

The Industry Isn’t Mature, Few Have Reached Advanced
Altimeter’s research often segments buyers by their maturity, as it helps to forecast future behaviors and we wanted to share this today. First note this maturity breakout of these corporations (many of which are global national) that have over 1000 employees: novice are 44, intermediate 81, and advanced are 18. Percentage wise, we see that 56% of the 143 are lumped in the intermediate stages, followed by 30% of the market in novice, and followed by the remaining advanced a mere 12% of the set. What does this mean? While most companies are past the experimentation stage, they’ve yet to roll these out across the corporation or think bigger than campaigns or specific business units.

Limited Integration Across Business Units, Products, and Customer Databases
Looking at Figure 1, we can see that many companies are not even integrating this across their enterprise. We know from data that rollout usually starts in Marketing (with a segment of that being corp comm), followed by customer support who has to respond to angry clients, followed by product teams, and then low adoption for partner ecosystem and supply chain. One sign of an advance company is the ability to integrate customer feedback into the product roadmap in Figure 2. We know this is a sign of maturity as it requires both vertical approval from executives and broad approval across product lines and beyond –it’s often against the culture of many engineering groups. Lastly, in Figure 3, companies barely even have a full view of their customers in the social space, as data is siloed among brand monitoring, locked in Facebook apps, and spread among the company.

Understand What Advanced Corporations Look LIke
There’s a few criteria I look for when seeing if a company is advanced beyond the three figures presented above. Nearly all employees are using social in a safe and organized way (called Holistic). Another criteria is data is being aggregated from multiple locations and the company is able to predict and anticipate what customers are going to do. Thirdly, they stop using the terms ‘social business’ and just use the term ‘business’ as this integrates into their normal digital communications. While somewhat dated (2010) I created a list of what an advanced company looks like, although I feel it needs updating in 2012.

I look forward to hearing from you, what are you seeing: Are companies starting to mature? What are your indicators?

LinkedIn Shares Jump as Ads, Subscriptions Boost Revenue

February 10, 2012 by (author unknown)

Shares of LinkedIn Corp., the biggest professional-networking website, rose the most since November after it reported quarterly sales that more than doubled and forecast higher 2012 revenue, buoyed by advertising and subscriptions.

Pinterest Hits 11 Million UMVs (and 8 Tips for Brands)

February 8, 2012 by Kelly Ferraro

In case you haven’t heard, last night TechCrunch announced that Pinterest hit 11.7 million UMVs, becoming the fastest standalone site ever to surpass 10 million monthly uniques. This presents a huge opportunity for brands, as you might have already read about here.

The #1 driver of consumer purchases is word of mouth recommendations from friends, and Pinterest holds the power to drive authentic “word of eye” recommendations in a way that is changing the landscape of social commerce.

How? The landing page for Pinterest is an endless visual stream of subtle product recommendations from the very people who influence your purchasing decisions – friends and strangers with good taste. This means that there is an endless opportunity for your brand and its products to be seen by Pinterest’s 11.7 million unique monthly users as endorsements from friends in the form of repins.

Currently available stats show the average Pinterest user spends 98 minutes per month on the site, compared to 2.5 hours on Tumblr, and 7 hours on Facebook. Pinterest is most popular in North Eastern states, among females (estimates range from 58% to 70% female), and with people ages 25-44 (59% of visitors).

How it Works

In case you haven’t already joined the millions of others pinning products, here’s a quick overview of how Pinterest works: Pinterest enables users to “pin” images found around the Web into categorized collections, or boards. Think of it like an interactive, shareable scrapbook. Or as I like to say, it’s your virtual high school locker. Pinterest can capture the brand essence, personality, inspiration for product design, or company culture through visual boards. It could also be used to organically grow your brand’s reach through an influencer re-pinning strategy, to further engage with fans through themed boards, and to inspire consumers to action, perhaps through a “best board” or a “most pins” contest.

Why People Love It

“It’s lovely from a visual perspective,” says my colleague (and Pinterest addict) Sophia Aladenoye. Apart from Pinterest’s tactile and user-friendly experience, it helps people make visual mental notes of a life they aspire to, like a vision board. “Pinterest is personally helping me with my 2012 vision board exercises… helping me to more easily remember the images that represent my goals, wants or benchmarks for 2012,” say Sophia. Others claim that the site is helping them to “de-stress,” to plan their wedding, or help redecorate their home. And some say they honestly just like the fact that is invite-only and feels exclusive (or perhaps felt exclusive before its recent boost). Men are also jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon – my friend and colleague Maury posts vintage cars, and Grassroots Modern blogger Creede Fitch posts photos of modern furniture designs he finds inspiring.

How Brands Can Leverage Pinterest

1) Create a new social commerce touch point

With 11.7 million UMVs and counting, Pinterest presents an opportunity for brands to expand their audiences by going where the masses are. Consumers are always a step ahead of brands and its important for brands to follow behavior rather than dictate it. Your brand’s presence on Pinterest will create another consumer touch point and a way to be discovered by new people. The visual Pinterest boards would help invite new people into the fabric of your brand by setting a mood or encapsulating a lifestyle, helping users to imagine how your brand’s products, services or culture fit their lives.

2) Grow influencer networks

Brands can leverage Pinterest to find influencers with whom to engage. You can expand your influencer networks by following influential Pinterest users and boards, and repinning items to our own Pinterest boards, giving credit to the influencer. Brands may also choose to engage with influential bloggers and have them curate a board on their Pinterest page.

3) Identify and engage super fans

Pinterest may also be a way to identify natural brand advocates or “super fans.” You can search for your brand’s products and discover who is most frequently pinning about your products and engage with those people. Surprise and delight super fans by rewarding them with products they pin to their boards. Eventually you may create a fan-curated board that allows super fans to add their pins.

4) Increase brand loyalty by sharing your brand’s culture

Pinterest is a fun, inspirational and highly visual atmosphere and your brand has an opportunity to engage fans in new and creative ways. Consider creating boards that align with product or service themes, for example, West Elm categorizes its boards by colors from its design palette, such as “Aquamarine.” Or create a board that reflects your company’s dedication to a CSR initiative. Or, compile pictures of everyday fans and influencers engaging with your brand, such as a board that features pins of people across the globe wearing a retail brand’s clothing.

5) Host contests for further engagement

Perhaps you can host a contest for fans to create the best Pinterest board with your products, and reward the winning fan with items from her board. Or, invite other users to co-create boards on your page around certain themes, and reward the winning team with product or a brand experience. For example, a travel brand can ask Pinners to create mood boards that reflect a destination like the French Riviera, and then reward the winning board with a trip.

7) Inspire repins (and purchases) through bold visuals

As mentioned earlier, the #1 driver of consumer purchases is word of mouth recommendations from friends, and Pinterest holds the power to drive authentic “word of eye” recommendations through a repin endorsement. To accomplish this, you’ll want to make sure that you have high resolution, professional quality, close-up photos to leverage. Photos of products should be taken in a way that enables the viewer to imagine herself wearing the product, engaging with an item, or taking part in the setting. Photos should taken in a way that makes them stand out in the visual stream that is Pinterest. For example, a bold-colored photo or a gray-scale photo might set itself apart from the photo stream.

Promote your culture first, products and services second

The trick with Pinterest is to leverage the “soft sell” and promote your brand culture over the products or services themselves. Pinterest is committed to maintaining a non-promotional atmosphere, and the hard sell could get you kicked off the platform. So to create the right atmosphere, think about what your brand has to offer and what the images say to people and what you want to ask, for example:

• A tech brand: “Do you like innovation? We’re innovative too, and here’s a photo of our developers making our first-ever app for iPhone.”

• A fashion brand: “Do you like bold, basic colors? We love everything bright and bold, and this painting by Matisse captures our upcoming line’s color scheme.”

• A home furnishings brand: “Do you enjoy a clutter-free living space? So do we, and here are three books we love that talk about a clutter-free home.”

• A credit card company or bank: “Do you imagine yourself living a lifestyle of luxury? Here’s a picture from the beach in the Virgin Islands where you could be right now.”

Through play and inspiration, Pinterest might just empower you to become the architect of your brand’s culture.

What do you think about Pinterest for brands? Do you think users will stay engaged once brands join?

Special thanks to Chris Heydt and Sophia Aladenoye of Ogilvy for their contributions.

Five Trends: How Brands Integrated Social, Mobile, and Web into 2012 Super Bowl Advertisements

February 6, 2012 by jeremiah_owyang

By Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis, and Zak Kirchner

Findings: Five Trends Indicate Cross Channel Integration a Mainstay. Super Bowl ads, while only representing the nation’s largest consumer facing ads are a bellwether for advertising trends for the remainder of the year. To best understand these trends, Altimeter Group’s research team analyzed each Ad in real time, and conducted analysis to best understand the advertising trends for 2012.  Using Chicago as a middle ground, we reviewed all ads from kickoff till the game clock expired and found that trends out of 87 advertisements.

• Trend 1) Brands Heavily Invested in Promoting Traditional Websites
• Trend 2) Surprisingly, Many Did Not Promote a Call-To-Action
• Trend 3) Only a Sixth of Ads Explicitly Promoted Social Media
• Trend 4) Hashtag Marketing Emerged to Stimulate Continual Engagement
• Trend 5) Cutting Edge Marketers Teased with New Marketing Tactics, including Shazam

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Above Graphic One: 2012 Superbowl Ad Analysis: Less than one-third of Ads don’t promote cross channel

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Above Graphic Two: 2012 Superbowl Ad Analysis: Less than one-third of Ads don’t promote cross channel

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Rather than push for fans and followers on social sites, brands invested in promoting traditional websites, and experimented with new forms of engagement like applications, Shazam, and even promoting hashtags. We found five trends:

Trend 1) Brands Heavily Invested in Promoting Traditional Websites
We found that 49% linked to a corporate website URL, also 9% linked to a microsite URL for a total of 57% of all Ads linking to traditional URLs. This standard deployment comes at no surprise, as a call to action is often needed for advertising ROI, and traffic surges are often the most common way to measure this. Surprisingly, despite many game watchers having multiple devices on in tandem to the TV, a whopping 32% did not have any online references to either a URL, or even a social site.

Trend 2) Surprisingly, Many Did Not Promote a Call-To-Action
In a surprising move, brands did not have a direct call to action. In fact, 32% did not link to any social site or URL as listed in trend 1. For example Chrysler’s Imported from Detroit showed the logos of their car lines, but did not have any URLs. Likely this is due to high brand recognition of brands, and the goal was to drive awareness, consideration –but not drive leads or intent on a website. Why did brands do this? We believe for a few reasons: to drive conversation among friends, or to make an impactful statement, or lastly because we live in a Google world, consumers can readily find URLs without being prompted.

Trend 3) Only a Sixth of Ads Explicitly Promoted Social Media
We define this instance as Ads that showed their social networking accounts like Facebook, Twitter, or even hashtags in text, or sometimes even written on signs in the ad content itself.  Unlike previous Super Bowls where consumer generated ads were infused with traditional ads, we saw less than expected integration of content from the crowd. This year, we didn’t see any explicit mentions of content that was created by the crowd. Furthermore we found low integration with social media, in fact, 16% of brands linked or mentioned their social networking accounts. Among them 11% linked to Facebook, 2% to Twitter. We did not capture any integration with Youtube, Linkedin, or Google+.   Despite the low explicit mentions of social in the Ads, nearly all of the ads are cross-posted on YouTube.

Trend 4) Hashtag Marketing Emerged to Stimulate Continual Engagement
While Twitter helped to promote their platform with the Twitter Ad Scrimmage (which lists more hashtags than we saw in-Ad), we found that 6 ads explicitly promoted hashtags (total of 7%), and only 2 brands promoted their Twitter accounts (2%).  Interestingly, when hashtags were deployed, we found that traditional URLs nor a request to fan or follow. To highlight, General Electric’s Ad focuses on how their technology is a key component of the beer value chain, pointed only to a hashtag “#whatworks” rather than promote a URL or a social networking account. I asked GE’s Twitter account why they did this and they responded to me in Twitter “@jowyang It’s all about shared conversation tonight (and tomorrow). We want to hear from people. #whatworks” This sea change in tactics is an indicator of how brands want to extend the experience beyond the expensive 30 second Ad to an ongoing permanent discussion. Additional hashtag engagement was found by Budweiser pushing #makeitplatinum (in two ads, by our count), Audi’s #SoLongVampires, Best Buy’s #betterway, and underwear line using #beckhamforhm.  These investments appeared to pay off as both Budweiser’s “#makeitplatinum” and Audi’s #SoLongVampires became trending topics minutes after their ads published, there was no indicator that either were sponsored.

Trend 5) Cutting Edge Marketers Teased with New Marketing Tactics, including Shazam
Beyond promotion the traditional website, microsite and social media account, brands have started experimenting with promoting new forms of marketing engagement for a total of 11% total incidence. To extend the experience, 3 ads promoted applications (often showing on an iPhone like Citibank’s Ad), 3 promoted SMS interaction, and GoDaddy promoted a QR code. We found that brands were integrating Shazam, a music finding application. In particular, Elton John in an Q1 Pepsi Ad was the first to promote this integration, encouraging further interaction by downloading media. Although not emerging, in the traditional sense, Etrade even promoted their phone number, which likely drove direct engagement. Brian Solis notes that this extends the experience and audience now becomes more engaged by downloading and consuming media beyond the game day.

Summary: Promoting Traditional Websites Still King –Social Integration Nascent
A majority of efforts had a focus on making a market impact by asserting new positioning, and linking to traditional websites and microsites.   Unlike previous years which pushed CGM in Ad content, or a direct push to fan and follower, brands in 2012 were more focused on engagement in social media, extending the life of the campaign.  A set of brands didn’t promote any cross-channel engagement, instead focusing on a powerful message, which we should expect to be a trend as brands can be found in every channel, esp aided by search.    New forms of marketing are emerging that result in integrating data from applications, as well as mobile experiences, that we’ll continue to see pioneer through the year.

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Methodology:
Altimeter Group, a research advisory firm, had a team of researchers including Jeremiah Owyang, Zak Kirchner, and a third party oursourced resource for independent data collection take note of each advertisement and notate if they linked to a URL, (corporate website or microsite) mentioned social media, or used other tools in the Chicago area, which is mid-country. Secondly, Altimeter retrieved a list of brands that were advertising and was able to retrieve Facebook fan and Twitter follower numbers in order to compare pre versus post (stay tuned). Scope of ads captured were post-kickoff, to end of game when game clock expired. We did not use ads mentioned by NBC during the game highlights. We found that some ads were localized for the Chicago market vs other markets, however the ratios and trends cross-country are likely accurate.  In the spirit of Open, we’ve made the data public on Google Sheets.

Update: AdRants has commented on the data. Update: This data mentioned on USA Today.

Social Media and Travel

January 27, 2012 by Scott Monty

If you’re like me, you spend a good deal of time on the road. Whether it’s at an airport, on a train or in a car, you’re mobile and your digital life is mobile too.

The pervasiveness of tablets and smartphones (in addition to the already ubiquitous laptop) is growing daily. Just this week, Apple announced that it sold 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone. It means that more of us are doing things on the web (or mobile web, as the case may be) while we’re on the go, and there are certain things those of us in the digital world look for when we travel – at least with regard to infrastructure.

The Airlines
To my knowledge, Southwest was the first airline (or at least the most prominent early on) to get involved with social media. Their blog, Nuts About Southwest, has been a perennial leader in the corporate blogging space. They’ve made great use of Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and more and have always led with a very human and very customer-centric approach.

JetBlue made a name for itself in the social media space after a difficult travel situation thanks to severe winter weather in 2007. Their CEO David Neeleman was direct and honest in his approach, the video of him was sincere and emotional, and JetBlue made it clear that it put customers first. And to think that my colleague Morgan Johnston at JetBlue had started his job on that very day…

Delta got a late start in social media (and was the subject of its fair share of complaints, including a dramatic rant ), but now has @Delta and @DeltaAssist looking after its customers on Twitter. Not to mention some personal interaction from a certain member of the crew from their famous safety video.

That finger wag gets me every time.

The other airline that’s going above and beyond in social media is Virgin America. Based out of Silicon Valley, they’re in the thick of the action from a technology standpoint. And their use of Groupon, Loopt, Foursquare and more prove it. But their always-on monitoring is essential when it comes to catching consumer complaints, especially after their switch to a new reservation system last year.

Overall, customers want interaction – they want to be heard, certainly, but they also want action – when they take to Twitter to voice a concern. According to an eMarketer article, the expectation that a company will respond increases by age cohort from 38% of 18-24 year-olds all the way up to 65% of those in the 55+ age category. And it clearly matters in terms of satisfaction:

If you’d like to see a comprehensive roster of airlines on Twitter, check out @Kayak’s list of some 160 or so.

Staying Powered – and Connected
I’ve been in the unfortunate circumstance of leaving for a trip without power cord for a device. There are two points of good news: many times, you can charge your phone directly from your laptop using a USB port; and quite often, the hotel will have a power cord for your phone that you can borrow from their lost and found collection (I was once told by a concierge that phone cords are like currency at most hotels).

There are a few gadgets that I’d recommend as well. If you’re travelling internationally, it’s essential to have an all-in-one adapter that has attachments for every major country’s electrical sockets. And because the hotel where you’re staying or the airport may not have many readily available sockets to charge your laptop, phone, tablet, etc., it’s handy to have a cord with 4 outlets, an all-in-one charging station, or even a PowerSquid that will allow up to 5 others to connect. You’ll be the most popular person at the airport! (Note on all of the links in this paragraph: http://cmp.ly/5).

Then again, a number of airports have recognized that passengers travel with gadgets and need places to charge.

Thanks, Delta!

If you happen to have a non-3G iPad or a laptop without an air card, you depend on local wi-fi networks for connectivity. I’ve been in my share of airports that have had plenty of network access, but I didn’t want to spring for a Boingo account to get connected. For that reason, it’s helpful to know which airports have free wi-fi. Here’s a quick list for your reference:

Airports with free wi-fi:
Boston (BOS)
Charlotte (CLT)
Cincinnati (CVG)
Denver (DEN)
Fort Myers (RSW)
Honolulu (HNL)
Indianapolis (IND)
Kansas City (MCI)
Las Vegas (LAS)
Oakland (OAK)
Orange County (SNA)
Orlando (MCO)
Palm Beach (PBI)
Phoenix (PHX)
Pittsburgh (PIT)
Portland (PDX)
Sacramento (SMF)
San Antonio (SAT)
San Diego (SAN)
San José (SJC)
Tampa (TPA)
Washington Dulles (IAD)
Washington Reagan (DCA)


But it goes farther than wi-fi and charging stations. FareCompare has developed a list of the top 12 airports for social media power users, with a list of the top airports that are also known to take good care of their customers. I’ve reproduced the table here.

City	Airport Code	Twitter Hits	Outlets per Gate	Other Amenities
Atlanta	ATL	14.7 million	8.1	Charging stations, work desks
Baltimore	BWI	7.92 million	7.3	Charging stations
Dallas	DFW	2.7 million	7.2	Charging stations, work desks
Detroit	DTW	3.4 million	6.7	Charging stations, Boingo data ports
Fort Lauderdale*	FLL	120,000	2.65	Fast, free Wi-Fi
Los Angeles	LAX	153 million	5.3	Charging stations, internet kiosks
Minneapolis	MSP	2.11 million	Varies by terminal	Charging stations, iPad kiosks coming 2012-13
New York City	JFK	8.45 million	Varies; Terminals 2, 3, and 5 have the most	Charging stations, work desks, iPad kiosks
New York LaGuardia	LGA	1.05 million	7.2	Charging stations, iPad kiosks
Salt Lake City*	SLC	8.97 million	5.4	Charging stations, work desks
San Francisco*	SFO	110 million	13.6	Charging Stations, lounge areas, work desks
Seattle	SEA	6.68 million	2.7	Charging Stations, fast Wi-Fi

* Airport has free Wi-Fi

The Airports
I’ve had experience with some airports that are downright personal. For example, I traveled to Kansas City last year and was pleasantly surprised at the greeting and send-off that I got from the Kansas City International Airport (@KCIAirport) on Twitter:

Followed by a warm greeting waiting for me at home (@DTWeetin):

When you’re travel-worn and checking in on Foursquare or commenting on a queue, sometimes it’s heartening to realize that there are teams of people looking out for you. For example, Logan International Airport (BOS) in Boston has a team of five people handling their social media; @LAX_Official gives travelers in Los Angeles tips, newsletter and other helpful information. For a roster of over 130 airports on Twitter, see @Kayak’s list.


What’s your experience with regard to social media and travel? Do you have any other examples of airlines, airports or other entities who get it right, campaigns that resonated with you, or personal touches that made the difference in an otherwise difficult circumstance? Please leave a comment with your input.

Image credit: ~Oryctes~ (Flickr)

Social media: What next?

January 20, 2012 by (author unknown)

By now, most will acknowledge social media is here to stay. What can we expect and how do companies stay ahead? A digital strategist and former social media manager of The New York Times shares her views.

How Many Twitter Feeds Should You Have? 3 Questions to Ask

January 12, 2012 by Liz Caradonna

Recently, I’ve been involved in helping a client launch a new Twitter feed. This will be their sixth or seventh account on Twitter, all the previous of which are still active and serving specific functions. The process has sparked several discussions among the team — not for the first time — about a question we’ve all encountered: how many different Twitter feeds should a brand really have?

Unfortunately there is no universally applicable answer. Not only is every brand different, but the answer may differ for the same brand over time. What I can offer is a short list of questions you should ask when determining the ideal number of Twitter feeds for your brand:

1. Who will be tweeting?
   It’s not always safe to assume that the time involved in moderating and posting to one account will scale effectively to multiple feeds, especially if you’re planning to monitor publish on a very different schedule for each. Conversely, if you’re planning on having different staffers manage each feed, you’ll want to consider how closely these people work together. Will you need to build an additional process for knowledge-sharing and ensuring brand consistency across each account? All of these factors will have an impact on the resources needed to maintain an additional Twitter feed.
2. What will you be tweeting?
   Can you clearly articulate the difference in focus, scope, tone and content between each feed? Perhaps more importantly, can your community managers all do the same? Successfully managing multiple Twitter accounts while avoiding miscommunication will require you to delineate very clearly what the content and approach will be for each. What types of content will overlap between two or more feeds, and how do you plan to handle that (syndicating, re-tweeting or adapting)? What criteria and process will you use in cases where a follower starts a conversation with one of your accounts that should be handed off to a different account? These decisions may require more depth, detail and discussion than you have anticipated.
3. Who will be following you?
   It’s important to consider the reasons your audience might benefit from you having several Twitter feeds, and not just your own reasons for having them. Even if all of your feeds are equally interesting and valuable, it’s possible that your followers won’t want to follow more than one of them. Some of the best cases for multiple Twitter feeds can be made for scenarios where the intended audiences for each are very distinct (customers vs. job seekers, for instance). But if you find yourself in a situation where the intended audiences for two of your feeds are nearly identical, you may want to hold off on launching that second account and instead consider expanding the scope of the current one.

These three questions are a great starting point for identifying some of the pros and cons you’ll need to weigh against each other depending on your brand’s situation, but they are by no means an exhaustive list. What are some other considerations you’d suggest for a company wondering if they should expand their Twitter footprint?

Twitter birds image via Scarletbits

Old Services Meet New Media: A Tweeting Cabbie’s Growing Business

January 3, 2012 by Jacqui Cheng

Temuri checking his Twitter and texts for new bookings

“Can you pick me up at my place in 15 minutes? Text me when you get here.”

No, this isn’t a text message to a friend or a call to a car service — it’s a direct message sent through Twitter to a driver of a Chicago cab. Rashid Temuri, who goes by “Chicago Cabbie” online (@ChicagoCabbie on Twitter) has taken what would otherwise be considered a traditional taxi business and integrated it with social media in a way that is still exceedingly rare in the service industry. How much better can it be interacting your clients through Twitter, FourSquare, Facebook, or Google Latitude? Apparently a lot — Temuri is not only seeing success from his social media strategy, he’s building a loyal repeat customer base because of it.

Here’s how Temuri works: he, like most other licensed cabs in the U.S., works through a dispatching company (in this case, Flash Cabs). Normally he would put himself “on call” when he’s on duty, meaning the company can send him to pick someone up when the client calls in. But instead of doing that, he has been posting when he’s available on Twitter — for example, here’s one of his recent tweets:

“Good morning #Chicago!! It’s a wet wet day here. 41°. Take $5 OFF the meter from now till 2PM to any airport from anywhere. :-) #ORD #MDW”

In addition to tweeting, he also allows clients (or potential clients, as the case may be) to follow him on Google Latitude or Find My Friends so that people know wherever he is at any given time and can contact him when they need a ride. He offers free WiFi within his cab for iPhone and iPad users (“Don’t use your limited data!” he says), and plans to soon offer free WiFi for regular laptop users. Sometimes, as seen in the tweet above, Temuri gives discounts for his social media followers, and he always remembers who everyone is.

Continue reading ‘Old Services Meet New Media: A Tweeting Cabbie’s Growing Business‘ …

When There Isn't Room For More Social

December 18, 2011 by Jonathan Burg

We are fast approaching a point where most normal people do not have any more time that they could spend on social media platforms.  But this doesn’t mean that we’ve reached the end of the road for time spent on social.  We’ve only reached the end of the road for time spent dedicated to social.

In the broadcast media business, there are industry accepted numbers that appear absurd to normal people.  For example, who spends 5 hours a day watching television?  Apparently you do.  But that doesn’t mean that you spend 5 hours a day on the couch.  Rather, it means that the television is on for 5 hours a day, often as background noise or entertainment while you are doing other things such as exercising, folding laundry, cleaning or cooking.  The television is no longer a “destination experience” that must be experienced in all of it’s attention-dedicated, high def 3D glory. Rather, the television is yet another source of background noise in our lives.  It’s is our ambient entertainment fix.

Social media is quickly becoming both more than and less than a platform.  Social is becoming the ambient thread that connects and joins people, devices, brands, marketers… the world.  Ambient connectivity doesn’t demand constant attention, it enables pervasive access.  Passive socialization through platforms like The Washington Post’s social reader are creating designed, passive social data and signal.  On-demand social media such as Twitter and the serendipity of location and photo sharing are user initiated in limited bursts of socialization.  This is the future of social.  We are always connected, we just don’t need to waste our attention on it unless we need it, until it decides that there is something we should be seeing (such as Facebook alerts).  This is smarter social, this is always on social, this is ambient social.

Humanity has lived parallel lives – one digital and one analog.  The two played off of one another, but it was up to the user to invest the time needed in the digital in order to suppliment their analog.  In the new ambient-social world, we live the experience what is in front of us.  Everything that isn’t in front of us is available as needed, and brought to us as appropriate.

We will continue to spend gobs on time on Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Google+.  The platforms aren’t going away and the behavior of social media hasn’t reached it’s saturation point.  Our active attention however, is fast reaching saturation.  

Market Implications

The implications for marketers and developers are profound.  In the world of ambient connectivity, disaggregated, specialized experiences (reading the news on a newspaper site) must provide social data back to the aggregate platform in order to invite new visitors.  In turn, the disaggregated specialized experiences must find ways to integrated the aggregate platform (such as Facebook) back into their experience – utilizing the tools and APIs of the platform, as well as third party enablers such as Wibiya.  

Most importantly, brands are going to have to orient themselves around their real place in the universe.  Most people simply don’t care too much about what marketers have to say, and don’t want to be all that plugged into your marketing.  Marketers are going to either have to become more entertaining or offers greater digital utility.  Because simply being there with customer service and promotions is no longer the price of relevancy.

Implications for Humanity

I was recently at a tweet up where a well known Twitter power-user became board with the people around him and went outside to tweet.  We have all seen this in meetings, where the power player in the room ignores the presentation put together for him or her, in order to answer emails on their mobile device.  This isn’t our future.

This new dynamic is less about disruptive technology that removes us from the present, and more about a new generation of smarter connectivity – one that ultimatly resembles the past before we had ever digitally connected in the first place. This technology doesn’t disrupt our lives, and it doesn’t demand that we disrupt our lives in order to participate.  We aren’t going to spend more times looking at screens, rather we are going to get better experiences in the time we spend looking at our screens.

Welcome back to the real world.  We’ve missed you.

This is the world of ambient social connectivity.  Because when computers do the reading and the thinking, we are free to get on with our lives.

Article: Companies Worldwide Plan to Increase Social Media Marketing

December 13, 2011 by (author unknown)

More Latin American companies plan to increase use for advertising, recruiting and communicating with customers

Twitter Reboots

December 12, 2011 by Geoffrey Colon

While the majority of the social media world was getting excited a few weeks ago about the launch of brand pages on Google+ and the timeline feature rolling out on Facebook, last Thursday that other platform of the “Big Three,” aka Twitter, decided it would not be upstaged by the whales in the social ocean. In what’s being seen as a play to fend off Facebook and Google+, Twitter has given itself some new bells and whistles in a major reboot.

Twitter’s revamp comes at a time when they want to prevent their current user base at 100 million from eroding. The reboot consists of a major user experience overhaul of Twitter.com, updates to their mobile application (Twitter has had an explosive increase of 25% in new registrants in 2011 based solely on mobile usage) and an unveiling of two very large new features to help marketers. These include the debut of brand pages and embeddable tweets.

Some of the key takeaways on this revision are the following:

Twitter’s new long term strategy as a result of the reboot is to register new users because of platform simplicity while keeping current users on the network property for longer periods of time engaging with content. The later move to keep users on Twitter.com is Twitter’s ammunition to help attract more advertisers based on longer usage time on the platform. Twitter has always been a simple platform since its creation, but the revisions make it even easier for both current and new registrants to stay on the platform for longer periods of time. The new user interface is clean and does a good job of not trying to mimic other social networking sites. Twitter took a lot of heat in the past for its user-unfriendly layout on Twitter.com. These complaints are one reason its mobile usage grew at a more rapid rate than its online usage. With the relaunch, Twitter is trying to attract users it has stated for years it was not primarily interested in: casual social networkers who login from their home computer or smartphone and want the ability to quickly find trending items of interest and communicate between friends. While the goal of longer usage time is nothing new on social networks, Twitter plays to its strength in real time search and communication functionality. This is emphasized with the new “Connect” and “Discover” buttons which are featured prominently on the new function bar. As a result, the new Twitter now overshadows both Facebook and Google+ in becoming the dominant “in real time” search and communication tool of social networks.

One of the reasons for this dominance is because of its mobile-friendly nature. With the reboot, the mobile interface is upgraded to make it simpler to find direct messages and @mentions while on a hand held device using the Twitter application. This new functionality is a move by the service to make it easier for one-to-one communication between users. If a user sees a brand communicating with them and can find this conversation in seconds, they are more likely to continue to engage with said brand. It also is a power play by the platform going directly after SMS provider market share and is a function not yet offered by either Facebook or Google+.

Twitter’s new brand pages will ultimately be most useful by companies who want to do the following: a) engage with others for customer relationship management purposes b) use the service to generate new leads in the B2B space c) build engaging experiences on a platform without having to push the user to third-party website real estate for deeper discovery.

Because Twitter has an open API, smarter brands will not only build a page, but will go deeper with an engagement strategy that is Twitter.com-specific for their brand by allowing followers to interact with brand content directly on the platform. There will be less users clicking on links redirecting them to content elsewhere. New brand page experiences will consist of photos, videos and other experiences crafted by technologists, developers and coders inhabiting the halls of social agencies like Ogilvy Digital Influence. One possible scenario may see brands using the platform strictly for CRM to help service this sector. Another usage may be brands using the tool which separates @replies and mentions heavily to their advantage for real time communication with customers and/or bloggers on Twitter. This change makes it very convenient for brands to communicate marketing messages in a more time-efficient manner. This addition will really help B2B companies who actually want to turn engagement with followers into demand generation leads and ultimately sales.

Finally, brand pages will allow those who are following a brand to go to the profile page on Twitter to engage deeper with the brand. Twitter has always been about spreading information through links that push users to a third-party site such as a company website. As a result of this revision, Twitter is trying to keep users on the site for longer periods of time in which to help build an attractive experience for brands and their followers, while generating a viable advertising revenue model.

Embeddable tweets are probably the biggest armament to “Word of Mouth” marketers in the revamp. Ever since the dawn of the platform, it was impossible to embed a tweet on a third party blog like Wordpress or Posterous. Since many influencers blog and tweet alike, this feature allows for gatekeepers to share Twitter content more easily. Embeddable tweets can also be used to register new followers by providing a frictionless user experience. Users can click on embedded tweets on a brand website or blog and with one-click begin following that feed without having to be logged into Twitter. This “open graph” experience is similar to the user experience Facebook implemented with Facebook Connect to help popularize that platform across the web in 2008. Ultimately, embeddable tweets will have the biggest effect on digital word of mouth marketing because tweets can be brought directly to a blog post or brand website giving readers a sense of real time conversation around a subject category.

In summation, the reboot was necessary for Twitter and has come at the right time in the platform’s relatively short tenure. For users it makes the network much easier to use for real time search and communication. For brands it puts emphasis on using the platform for creation and management of content through an official brand page and a real time communication strategy with advocates. For influencers it allows for more dynamic blog experiences through integration of tweets into their posts.

With proper planning and execution using their social agency partner, brands across the board from B2B to B2C to CPG to travel to financial services to retailers to healthcare can use the new Twitter in better ways to communicate with current customers, potential customers, critics, advocates, influencers and bloggers/journalists all in real time. By making two-way dialog more efficient in the hope of attracting new users while keeping the experience simple, Twitter is now set up to ultimately become the primary brand communications tool in the new world era of social marketing.

New Thought Leadership Is Needed For Social CRM

December 12, 2011 by Michael Brito

For the last year, I have tried to engage with the small circle of social CRM influencers.  I have followed many of them on Twitter; retweeted their good content, linked to them from my blog posts and tried to engage with them on a variety of different levels.  Not to debate but to learn.  I am trying to figure out what it is they know that I don’t know. Is there some secret formula to social CRM that’s hidden in their brains that they only share with each other, like the Illuminati?

Perhaps I am not taken very serious. Is it that I am a marketing guy by trade? Could it be that work for a PR firm? Who knows.

Whatever the reason is, here is what I know about social CRM (and I am summarizing):

The social customer is gaining influence (we all know that) and has been ever since Al Gore invented the internet. Companies that used to engage in one way dialogue realized that the social customer was important so they began to engage. Now many of them are trying to solve customer problems via Twitter, Facebook and other networks.

I know that CRM is about managing customer relationships in an organized way; and can help improve operational effectiveness within the organization, easier access to customer data, and improved collaboration between cross functional teams, specifically sales.

I know that “social CRM”, a term often debated by industry pundits, is about putting the social customer front and center.  I have a tendency of over simplifying everything but this is how I see it. Social CRM is a business strategy that helps organizations evolve into a social business.  It is an initiative that considers technology, intelligence and process; so when organizations communicate with their customers they know what to say, how to say it, when to say it and who to say it to in order to provide a more relevant and meaningful customer interaction.

I also know that all this talk about social CRM is much easier to write/blog/tweet/debate and criticize others about than it is to actually implement. I have spent many years working in the enterprise, and while collaboration is improving, it’s still not where it should be. Try to get sales, marketing, support and engineering to all agree on a social CRM project. Good luck even getting them to attend the meeting.

Lastly, I know that social CRM will eventually be integrated into normal business operations (or marketing?) once organizations reign in the chaos, technology catches up and processes are established. Perhaps we won’t even call social CRM anymore, just social business.

Other than expanding on the points above, what else am I missing? What is the holy grail of social CRM that I am overlooking?  Is there a trigger, process or methodology that I have not yet read that sheds some light on this?

I don’t care who coined the phrase. I don’t want debate the definition. I don’t really care if you agree or disagree with my views. I know I am not a part of the inner-circle. I just want to learn. I want to understand.

This is why I feel new thought leadership is needed in this space.

I have spent many months researching this and I am tired. Everyone is saying the same thing. I even searched YouTube for “social CRM” and the content is old dating back to 2009. Is there no more innovation in the space?  Maybe the experts have moved on to bigger and better things; possibly trying to establish themselves as social business thought leaders.

My conclusion is that new thought leadership is needed in this space. No disrespect to the “old school” but if social CRM is about the customer, we need people who are on the front lines engaging with them every single day sharing their views and establishing a point of view.  Community managers, support professionals and others who are solving customer problems and building advocacy are the ones I want to hear from. There is a big difference between telling the world what “they should be doing” than telling the world what “they are doing.”

Certainly there is more to social CRM than just general community management and support. Enterprise collaboration, process improvement, technology, governance also play a substantial part in the CRM process. But guess what, many community managers and others are doing this today.

The landscape is changing so quickly that what works today may not necessarily work tomorrow.  And, while theory is certainly a good foundation, practical application is where the learning actually happens and thought leadership gives birth.

Courting Users and Brands, Twitter Gets a Facelift

December 8, 2011 by Mike Isaac

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter launched a site-wide redesign on Thursday, completely reworking the user interface in an effort to be better understood to a wider audience.

‘We can and have an obligation to reach every person on the planet.’

The redesign, which is currently being rolled out to users over the next few weeks on mobile devices and the web, consolidates a number of Twitter’s existing features into four separate categories, the better to organize a growing sense of information overload.

“We have to provide the simplest and fastest way for people around the world to connect with everything,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo told a news conference.

Despite its massive user base and near ubiquity in mass media, Twitter continues to face an uphill battle. The service comes with its own language composed of “@” signs and hashtags, a mish-mash of acronyms and web jargon. Though the platform has penetrated early adopters, entertainment companies and some major advertisers, a broad swath of consumers aren’t entirely clear on what the language means. The new home screen features a tabbed bar, prominently displaying buttons that correspond to the more nuanced language of the service. So now, users can click on the “@” button at the top of their feed to search for a specific user, brand or business. Similarly, the “#” button lets users search by subject matter.

“People are using ‘at signs’ and ‘hashtags’ everywhere,” said co-founder and executive chairman Jack Dorsey. “We need to bring meaning to this syntax.”

Continue reading ‘Courting Users and Brands, Twitter Gets a Face Lift‘ …

Since its launch in 2006, the microblogging company’s user base has swelled to over 100 million people, casting over 200 million tweets per day.

The massive growth, however, is as much of a problem for the company as it is an asset. Searching for content associated with a specific hashtag can be a messy proposition, as there is no relevance attached to any given Tweet that someone has tagged. In other words, every hashtag is born equal, even if the Tweets themselves are surely not.

It’s a problem for any kind of search — news in particular. But it’s a nightmare for major brands and businesses who want to use Twitter to burnish their brands — and consequently for Twitter, which would love to become a kinder, gentler environment for more advertising revenue. Competitors like Google+ and Facebook both have highly visible brand pages with a great reach — users can “like” Facebook pages and “+1″ businesses, which then become visible to their friends. So in turn, other users are able to approach the brand through their circle of friends.

“The main feedback we got,” said Dorsey, “was that they wanted greater access, greater approachability…and a better way to access their content.”

But instead of adding more features to keep up, Twitter’s answer is to streamline. “As other services tack feature after feature after feature on top of one another, we’re going for simplicity,” said Costolo in a thinly veiled swipe at competitors Facebook and Google+.

Convincing advertisers that their products will be visible to consumers, then, is crucial. Despite the massive user growth and hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital funding, the service has struggled to successfully monetize its product. Earlier efforts include the introduction of promoted Tweets — giving businesses the opportunity to have their tweet appear at the top of a search query for a fixed period of time — and more recently the company said it was testing self-serve with small businesses, essentially an automated system that doesn’t require customers to deal with Twitter employees to purchase ad space.

If these sounds like familiar revenue models, it’s because they are. Google made its billions pioneering the self-serve advertising model, while it’s estimated that 60 percent of Facebook’s global revenue comes from self-serve ads, according to Internet research firm E-Marketer. Twitter’s self-serve ads will launch in a fuller capacity in the near future.

Part of the new product roll-out includes enhanced brand pages for businesses. The new pages also went live on Thursday with 21 advertising partners, as well as a number of charities and personalities, Twitter says.

The challenge now, it seems, is to translate Twitter’s interface to the world at large, which in turn will make it more likely for advertisers to adopt the service’s new ad products.

In order to do this, that means growth. Internally, the company has been expanding rapidly in 2011, growing from around 200 employees to upwards of 700. The company plans to keep hiring, according to Costolo, recruiting engineers in their offices in London, New York, Toyko and more. Further, Twitter expects to move into a new headquarters in 2012, composed of three floors at 220,000 square feet in downtown San Francisco.

Ultimately, Twitter’s aim is to be widely understood, widely adopted and obviously, wildly profitable.

“We can, ” Costolo said, “and have an obligation to reach every person on the planet.”

Slides & Video: Climb the Social Business Hierarchy of Needs (LeWeb Keynote, 2011)

December 8, 2011 by jeremiah_owyang

I’m thrilled to return as a keynote speaker at LeWeb for the third time in a row.  While I’ve shared these same findings on social business at conferences in the US, I’m pleased to finally present in EMEA. We found that despite companies running to open social media accounts, internally, companies are ill-prepared.  Yes, that’s right, it’s time to return to basics and focus on building a scalable infrastructure –before jumping into adopting social tools.

I’ve embedded both the slides from the keynote as well as the report (original post here) which it’s based off of below, feel free to widely share.  Also, I’m thankful for the broader research team which includes Christine Tran and Andrew Jones.

Above: Here’s the 20 minute video. I added it a few days later.

Climb the Social Business Hierarchy of Needs: LeWeb Keynote, 2011

View more presentations from Jeremiah Owyang.

The original report, which the high level slides are loosely based on are below, which includes 63 interviews, survey of 144 enterprise class corporations, and analysis of 50 case studies.

Social Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang

Additional Discussions:

• Econsultancy covers the speech and citing the research findings.
• Fotopedia took some interesting photos
• SimplyZesty covers the research findings, focused on number of social media accounts
• The Conversation Manager says it’s worth watching
• Orange, a French Telecom company was at the event with their own booth, and covered my presentation as well as with George Colony, my former CEO at Forrester
• Becky Cortino writes’ “This is a fast-paced presentation, interspersed with Jeremiah’s PowerPoints, punctuated with excellent case examples”
• Stephen Chabot shares the slides (French)
• Coverage of Social Business (Dutch)
• Olaf Molenaar shares the presentation, thank you! (Dutch)
• Dutch Cowboys mention the speech (Dutch)
• Live coverage and commentary of the presentation (Portuguese)
• This infographic lists the top discussions and speakers at LeWeb
• Marketing Facts took a video from side stage, and uploaded, thanks(Dutch)

Two Trends in US Social Media – Saturation and Segmentation

December 5, 2011 by John Bell

Social Media usage is getting more complex. While social platforms continue to expand in markets like India, Brazil and Russia, certain parts of the social Web may be cresting in the US. If you take a look at Global Web Index data (GWI) for October 2011 in the US there are two important insights that immediately pop out:

Saturation and the Importance of Content

Twitter and blog publishing seems to be staying flat and niche. The complexion of Twitter users, while niche, do represent influencers from journalists to marketers. Expecting to significantly expand consumer conversations (beyond customer service triage) may not be realistic. Brands will get more by providing content worth sharing via Twitter. GWI  puts it, “Future engagement on micro-blogging will be less about conversations and more about content”  

As for Facebook, membership in the US seems to be reaching saturation point, and people are dropping some of their more involved behaviors like creating content in favor of sharing existing content

“Social Networking is saturated in the US and behaviour is shifting into a more passive usage. Visitation remains high, but users are doing less”

The big exceptions seem to be an increase in posting images and even video to profiles. Historically creating and publishing video even in the era of Flip Video camera (sadly, the era continues without that particular camera) has been a niche activity with a high barrier to entry. Is that changing?

Even a year ago, 30 billion pieces of content (links, notes, photos, etc.) were shared on Facebook per month. With people less likely to create all of that, they are on the lookout for great stuff to pass along.

“One consequence of real-time social is a move from creating content to sharing other peoples content. We call this the rise of the “transmitter ecosystem””

The opportunity for brands as creators of remarkable and relevant content will grow. How many brands will embrace a content marketing strategy as their way to engage customers and stakeholders? 

 

Creating a Segmented Strategy

Age, income, region, interests and more are showing up as differentiators in terms of how people are using social media. US social network users lag behind the globe in terms of using Facebook to express themselves or networking for work. My Space continues to serve a predominantly less educated audience with less income. And Twitter grew the greatest amongst a younger user base – 16-24 year olds during this last period while still catering to a smaller influencer crowd. 

Combine these distinctions with what people seem to be doing on platforms and differences per country and it is more important than ever to create a social strategy that is segmented and informed by this research.  Looking to use Facebook globally and with a single approach across 30 or 50 markets as a new, “one-strategy,” channel may not be realistic. Marketers will have to pay close attention as they roll out acquisition and engagement programs in diverse markets like the US, South Africa, Indonesia or Mexico. 

Using Social Networks to Improve Operations

December 2, 2011 by Gary Edwards and Mike Amos

This post is part of the HBR Forum, The Future of Retail.

For decades the mystery shopper was the main way retailers assessed operations from a customer’s point of view. By sending in a fake shopper, typically once a month, an individual store essentially was buying a dozen performance snapshots per year. Then telephone surveys began to supplement mystery shopping. Today, digital technologies are supplanting both, with online customer surveys providing an exponentially greater number of performance snapshots per day.

A well-managed loop that links customer experience feedback with recommendations on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp, can boost service quality and operational performance, increase traffic and create more happy customers — people who crow about a retailer online for free, turning their friends into new customers too.

A new mini-industry has emerged using these techniques, known as “customer experience management,” or CEM. Our company, Empathica — as well as a number of competitors — are providing customer feedback to operations, while partnering with “web-scraping” companies to listen to random chatter online.

Now we’re turning attention to linking operations to marketing through “social CEM.” The aim is not to drive online advertising impressions, but to explicitly and transparently drive the behavior of customers, front line service staff and retail managers. The aim is to create a true dialogue, not simply a listening post for customer kudos and complaints. And by doing so, this loop can drive meaningful operations and customer satisfaction gains.

An example: At Debenhams, a major international department store chain based in London, a customer complained through an online survey about a poor meal they received at the store’s restaurant. “Ordered turkey dinner. Very dried out. Overcooked vegetables in greasy, cold gravy.” The store manager called the customer that night, apologized, and sent a coupon for two free meals. The customer was invited to post their happiness with the problem’s resolution on Facebook, and did. The store manager made sure the kitchen turned out better turkey dinners. The result: a satisfied customer, better kitchen operations, and free social network advertising. Debenham’s effectively took what would have been a one-off customer experience problem and turned that customer into an Debenham’s advocate online and improved its operations to reduce the possibility of future disgruntled customers.

A social network feedback loop starts with information gleaned from customer surveys conducted online. Those survey-takers are then linked directly to social networks like Facebook through a link on the survey.

So how many customers will actually bother to move from surveys to socializing their experience? We have some data that suggests a healthy amount. We conducted 25 million surveys last year; more than 80 percent of respondents said they’d recommend the brand they were being quizzed about. We’ve then seen 10 to 20 percent of customers follow through with social network postings after the survey.

Some recommendations for retailers considering tying together their feedback, social, and operations loops: Customers need some nudging: incentives like coupons do the job. At 100 Boston Market restaurants, customer advocates got $3 coupons for a recommendation. In a three-month period, Boston Market received 100,000 Facebook newsfeed recommendations; advocates redeemed more than 4,000 coupons.

Finding customer advocates isn’t the only goal. Unhappy customers need to be channeled through a “customer rescue” process to help solve problems and mend relationships, and provide feedback on problems for operations to solve.

At Citibank branches in New York City, for example, every customer who completes a survey receives a call back from their bank manager within one to two days. The manager uses survey feedback and software intelligence to determine whether complaints need resolution or whether the manager should provide a simple “thank you” to reinforce the local branch’s commitment to customer service — like old fashioned retail and small local banks or credit unions still do.

The advocate process is proving far more powerful than regular social network advertising. The key is authenticity: we listen to our friends and colleagues for advice and recommendations. So while retailers and restaurant owners can buy social media advertising, the real place to drive growth is on the consumer newsfeeds. Not only are those kinds of clickthroughs more numerous. They are also more powerful. Beyond simple word of mouth advertising, poor-performing outlets get suggestions for improvement, which they use to guide better operational performance.

Social 2012 is Web 2000

November 30, 2011 by Josh Bernoff

by Josh Bernoff

Here’s what it was like in 2000: the Web frenzy was underway, and the predictions for it were completely out of hand. In many ways, they were overblown. And yet the long-term impact of the Web was far more pervasive than any of us had expected, along surprising dimensions. 

It’s the same now. Social technology in 2012 is the Web in 2000. The predictions both over- and underestimate its significance. Here’s some perspective (always a badly needed commodity) from the Web of 2000, applied to the social technology world of now.

In 2000, less than two-thirds of American consumers were online, but many of them were only occasional users. Broadband made the difference — it turned a “check-occasionally” experience into one that was a pervasive part of every interaction between companies and people. The rise of broadband was far more important than the rise of online penetration.

Now, more than half of Americans are in a social network. But as in 2000, keep your eye, not on penetration, but on the enabling technology, which in this case is mobile. Mobile changes social from a “check-when-I’m-at-a-PC” experience to one that pervades everyday life. Mobile penetration in the US will reach one in three consumers this year. The explosion of cheap smartphones in 2012 is what will make social part of the fabric of every interaction.

In 2000, all eyes were on eCommerce. Every company we worked with wanted an eCommerce strategy, and the likes of pets.com and furniture.com were threatening to challenge bricks-and-mortar retail. Commerce was huge, for sure — try $60 billion this holiday season — but for most companies selling online wasn’t the big impact (and rather than killing bricks-and-mortar, the Web became an important strategic element of every traditional retailer). Instead of eCommerce, for most companies, it was service that mattered. Consumers wanted to get information both before and after the sale — every company had to deliver on that promise.

Now, social commerce is again a big topic. But the overblown expectations around Groupon may lead to another disillusioned collapse. Once again, the real power of social technology is in service — the successful companies are those that live up to their customers’ service expectations by responding to queries in the social world, as Zappos and Comcast now already.

Finally, in 2000, all the focus was on how the Web changed companies’ relationships with their customers. But arguably, the impact of the Internet was broader within companies. Everyone got email. Everyone got laptops with browsers installed. And as a result, organizations flattened — anyone could reach anyone else, electronically, anywhere. This vastly increased the speed of collaboration and ratcheted up competitive demands.

Now, again, the focus is on social technology as it affects consumers. But increasingly, from Chatter to Newsgator, the staid old Intranet is becoming a social network that feels a lot like Facebook. Social interactions within companies are transforming the speed of interaction and flattening corporations even further. If you work for a sizable company, you may find in the next few years that your corporate social network is far more important to you than your Facebook page. Social will transform what it means to work in a company, just the Internet did.

Here’s the value of perspective. Try to lift your viewpoint out of the tired old social technology dichotomy — “We all have to do this now” vs. “Social is truly overhyped.” Instead, ask yourself, once the social connection is part of every interaction, for most consumers, and both within and outside of companies, how will the world be different? The strategic thinker prepares for that. 

 

Infographic: 5 Companies That Are Rocking Social Media

November 29, 2011 by Scott Monty

This infographic was created by Voltier Digital, a content marketing agency based in Florida, specializing on the creation and promotion of impactful content marketing campaigns for businesses of all sizes.

We all know the usual names of companies that are doing well in social media. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the lesser-knowns and why they’ve had success, either on an ongoing basis or with some one-off efforts that stood out.

And since infographics are all the rage, what better way to look at them? Of course, for SEO purposes, I’ve listed them here as well.

• Dell is presented as a master in the art and science of listening. 
• Morton’s made headlines with its surprise-and-delight effort with influencer Peter Shankman recently, but goes beyond that with helpful information regularly.
• Unisys uses social media internally for effective collaboration and a boost to company productivity.
• KLM is using Twitter and Facebook for real-time customer service and encouraging customers to submit ideas.
• ABC is having fun with the way viewers can engage with their new show Pan Am by providing some goodies on Facebook.

Are there other companies that are doing some interesting things with social media that are worth talking about? Drop a comment in below.

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Created by Voltier Digital for ScottMonty.com