September 30th, 2011 by Nelli Ranck
For the first time in the history of the IAA electric cars got their own exposition hall. These vehicles carry nowadays the hopes of the automotive industry and have a permanent place in the social web as well.
The Volkswagen E-Up, which is not on the market until 2013, is already the most discussed and recommended electric car on Facebook & Co. The Opel Ampera, scheduled for German market release in November, makes up the second biggest volume on the social buzz.
Two Audi models, the new A2 and the Urban Concept, hold the third and the fourth place, while the fifth position is occupied by the electric car pioneer Toyota Prius. Smart Fortwo ED, Nissan Leaf, BMW i8, Mitsubishi i-MIEV and VW single-seater urban study Nils complete the list of the most discussed and recommended cars in social media.
These are the results of an exclusive car study, which ethority conducted for the magazine “auto motor sport”. During the IAA, we analysed what electric and hybrid car models get the most attention from the visitors.
The percentage of buzz volume in social networks is an important indicator of brand strength. Sentiment analysis provides evidence for the effective design of communication messages and the expansion of a unique positioning of the car brand to fans and potential buyers. Trend forums provide insightful information on relevant topics of the future.
For inquiries and further information, please contact us.
July 4th, 2011 by Susanne Krohn
“Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the rain to make its colors appear.” This quote seems especially fitting when looking back on the summer party that ethority hosted last Wednesday in Hamburg, Germany. 70 invited guests gathered at one of Hamburg’s hip locations, the east hotel. Their curiosity could not stop them from braving the rain and following the invitation to be part of an exclusive pre-launch of ethority’s latest Social Media technology. Even though the summer party was missing some sunshine the guests and the entire ethority team celebrated the pre-launch of their new monitoring solution full of positive perception. The “gridmaster” is a tool developed by the Web 2.0 specialists from Hamburg which is the only one available on the market that translates Social Media campaigns into relevant marketing key figures, like gross reach and ROI.
Georg Stolz, CEO of Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analyse (ag.ma), ethority-CEO Sten Franke and COO Benedikt Köhler discussed the future of Social Media measurability and key figures for the assessment of impact and efficiency of campaigns as well as the comparability of Social Media measures in front of 70 invited guests from the agency and digital business in Hamburg.
“The time of trial is over, Social Media is an important part of the communication mix by now: campaigns get more elaborate and require a comprehensive budget. For companies and agencies involved with Social Media it becomes more important to verify their success not just qualitatively. Social Media monitoring can do much more than capture and count clippings in the meantime”, says Sten Franke, CEO of ethority.
Sten Franke added: “With the ethority gridmaster we can offer our customers the opportunity to capture campaign impact and efficiency in established measurements like gross reach and contacts and use this as a basis to illustrate the return on investment. The ethority gridmaster is particularly suitable for the preparation of pitches for agencies: The tool is able to identify exciting insights, relevant channels and quantitative provable potential for the customer even in the short term. Positive reactions and a vivid discussion about Social Media KPI’s on the evening of our pre-launch proved that the market is ready for it.”
The full version of the gridmaster will be presented exclusively by ethority at the dmexco on Sept-21 and 22 in Cologne in front of a professional audience.
June 17th, 2011 by Susanne Krohn
Discussions about another possible dot-com-bubble boiled up again when the value of LinkedIn soared into vertiginous heights. On its first day of trading LinkedIn’s IPO was up 109%, bringing the company’s valuation to $9 billion.
Apart from LinkedIn other tech companies are also under close scrutiny now. ethority wanted to know just how much buzz this discussion is generating. Therefore, our ethority research team initiated a Social Media monitoring study. With the support of our own gridmaster Social Media monitoring tool the industry talk about internet companies was recorded. The results of the “ethority Bubble Barometer” can be found in the infographic below.
According to the findings of the study Facebook and LinkedIn are the most frequently mentioned names associated with the internet bubble in Social Media. With Microsoft’s purchase of Skype for $8.5 billion in May, it may come as no surprise that the internet phone service also ranks in the Top 5 of all internet bubble related discussions online. A closer look at the analysis also reveals that the Social Media users tend to prefer blogs over forums and microblogging when debating the topic. The ethority study unveils that blog posts concerning the “bubble 2.0″ dialogue amount to 90 % in English-speaking community. While German and French web users also preferably opt for blogs, they also initiate discussions in forums, which add up to just below 50 % of the conversation share. Twitter is the community channel that is used the least when it comes to the lively web discussion generating just below 5 % of the buzz.
While there is no denying of the fact that the excessive valuations of the large tech firms continue to raise discussions of another possible dot-com-bubble, the answer yet remains uncertain.
May 24th, 2011 by Susanne Krohn
With almost half of all airline bookings made online today, it may come as a surprise to learn that travel sites still lag behind when it comes to their use of Social Media.
The findings of the L2 Digital Index Travel report reveal just how much potential there is for airlines, hotel chains and cruise lines to be explored.
Since people use Social Media when researching, choosing and booking travel online there is no arguing about the main message of the study about the importance of Social Media in the travel booking process.
Twitter, for example is a popular tool for customer service to reply to customer complaints and other issues. 9 of the Top 10 travel brands on Twitter are airlines and the success story of New Zealand’s Twitter campaign “12 Days of Valentines”, where users where asked to post their favorite cuddle position in order to win round-trip “cuddle class” tickets, just proves the immense impact of Social Media channels. Within the 2 weeks of the campaign Air New Zealand was able to increase their Follower base on Twitter by more than 76%.
All you small and big travel brands watch out since 2/3 of your consumers admit to being influenced by traveler-generated ratings. In contrast only 9% of brands do allow reviews on their website, although there is a reported increase in traffic of 24% where sites allow them. Keep in mind that reviews bring authenticity and are highly valued by the consumers.
Here’s a handy infographic that opposes stats that highlight the important role of Social Media and the gaps that need to be filled. Our experts at ethority will be more than happy to assist you with any Social Media need you might have. We have a team of highly experienced professionals who will advice your travel brand in order to get greater value from Social Media.
February 27th, 2011 by Sten Franke
Social media users see “Black Swan” as Best Picture, Darren Aronofsky as Best Director, Natalie Portman as Best Actress in a Leading Role and Jeff Bridges as Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Social media users see “Black Swan” as Best Picture, Darren Aronofsky as Best Director, Natalie Portman as Best Actress in a Leading Role and Jeff Bridges as Best Actor in a Leading Role.
ethority has analyzed over 40,000 user opinions relating to the Oscar nominations in forums, blogs and on Twitter with the help of its Web-Monitoring Software Technology. The most interesting question for the research team was: Which of the nominated films and stars are being most heavily discussed in English and German language social media channels? Who are the hottest candidates for the Academy Awards in user-generated media?
The results of the study provided a few surprises. According to social media users, the films are running neck and neck. The differences between Black Swan (17%), True Grit (14%) and Inception (13%) are so small that we will be waiting with bated breath until the envelope is finally opened on Sunday night. The picture is clearer for Best Director: Darren Aronofsky, with 31% of all posts, is significantly ahead of David Fincher (23%) and David O’Russel (18%) – according to the users, we at least know that the winner’s name begins with the letter “D”.
Things are even closer in the race for Best Actor: Jeff Bridges holds a lead over James Franco (both 24%) of only a few hundred posts. Jesse Eisenberg is only 4% behind. By far the clear favorite amongst film bloggers and commentators for Best Actress is Natalie Portman with 45% of all posts. Anette Bening (17%) and Michelle Williams (15%) can’t even make out the leader’s tutu from that distance.
Sten Franke, founder and CEO of ethority comments: “As a film buff and enthusiast, I would have expected The King’s Speech to have been discussed far more strongly and to have stood higher in the users’ favor. But at the end of the day, we are only showing what the community thinks. The Academy has the final say! We’re keeping our fingers crossed.“
The core of social media lies in the interaction with the target group. Automated social media monitoring offers the possibility to identify what users think about a film, a brand or a company. Users utilize the social web to air their views and opinions honestly, without any sugarcoating.
“Monday will mean going into the office early after a long Oscar night.” Adds Benedikt Köhler, COO of ethority. “We will want to compare our own generated data with the Academy results as quickly as possible and see how buzz developed during the Oscar night. The results will, of course, be available to read in our blog.”
About ethority: ethority GmbH & Co.KG as a Social Media Specialist is one of the leading providers of social media monitoring, strategy consulting, marketing, branding and market research in the field of social media. Ethority has been working successfully with large German and international businesses for more than 10 years. The company’s client base includes global and online brands and medium-sized companies in the field of B2C and B2B who are looked after by the more than 50-strong ethority team based in Hamburg, Munich and Atlanta.
October 27th, 2009 by Sten Franke
“Birth announcement of Social Media Brand Building” of Sten Franke and Roman Schael is now available as a presentation, which visualise the Social Media elementary principles.
Enjoy!
October 22nd, 2009 by Sten Franke
Consumers today are everywhere not easy to grasp, whether from the perspective of the classic channels such as TV, Print, Radio and particular not from Social Media perspective. Media usage behaviour has become fragmented that the close bond between many brands and consumers is disbanding. The medium Internet enables users to move exceedingly selective. In doing so, they mainly come into contact with what owns specifically relevance to them only.
The challenge of strategy development for Social Media lies in coping with the phenomenon Real-time. As Brand Affinity Specialist, ethority develops sustainable strategies that standardise “bonding” brands and products to consumer potentials. Such strategies are built consistently that they match up with today’s decentralised and individualising tendencies of the altered media usage behaviour.
1. Social Media implies “Online-isation” of everyday life!
Inside internet time does not exist per se. Each user has to ascertain and set his proper time and determined georeference when ether he goes online. Each and every entry produces “sense of time” that entails the phenomenon Real-time. Therefore reality claims “to be online”!
2. The mass consumer turns into an individual consumer!
The process of shaping purchase decisions is fundamentally altered by Social Media. It is extended and infused by mutual recommendation, advice and finding closing decisions. Purchasing processes become “social-medialised”.
3. Real-time triggers brand swap behaviour
Real-time reference cause a serious critical maturity among users. Hence the social-medialised purchase decision process is from now on deliberated, balanced, and will be always negotiated as it is newly-made.
Each time when consumers go online they wade through markets, bazaars (forums) and sales stores (Branded Channels), and just if it happens that he shortly turns around just before the cash point, in order to consider just another object of purchase, it reveals brisance power of the Social Media elementary principals.
4. Expiration of brands and products as “Impulse Buy Items”!
Brands and products are not be advertised and sold as “Impulse Buy Items” any longer. Due to the Social Medialisation of purchase process, Social Media conversations can no longer be labelled as trivialities. Quiet the contrary, conversations in forums, blogs and on twitter we depicted as ,openly thinking`. Here users ,voicing ones thoughts` and feelings aloud.
5. Social-Medialisation puts brands and products under permanent test!
The effect of the phenomenon Real-time is that brands and products are at all times put on the test. Each time again and again as if they were brand-new! Everyday life of today’s consumers is infused by Online-isation. This requires to move monitoring continuously under the condition of comprehensive survey of Real-time. And this in order to be in the know wherever users move, mainly concerning where, when, and with what one to address them.
6. Comprehensive survey in Real-time only!
Solely in Real-time, it can be found out when it is appropriate to go into a dialogue with users individually.
7. Social Media requires permanent presence!
Social Media always require to be online. Each and every moment when consumers as users are archetypically be “on the prowl” online. The opening of a social-medialised purchase process will only succeed when empathy and knowledge about the precise and appropriate moment are applied. Whoever does not agitate in presence at the precise point of time with the user, misses to sell his advice and trading to the users interest.
8. Brands and products need to be permanently tied to consumer potential!
Sustainable strategies in Social Media and comprehensive monitoring secure that ,unmet needs´ can be detected and identified before time in order to be fulfilling when leveraging them by brands and products.
9. Not isolation, but integration!
Social Media Brand Building enables to get the Real-time phenomenon under control. One sided monitoring is not sufficient when it comes to fulfill consumer needs adequately. Usage of isolated Social Media tools (onesided non-comprehensively monitoring and manual research) can not capture many things and thereby exclude much in their search. Social Media Monitoring should not be a “tunnel vision” observation.
10. Sapere aude*!
Social-Medialisation produces “non-indebted” business maturity. Because inside the online medium consumers as users handle their intellects more courageously and responsibly. In particular when they turn into their purchasing modus operandi.
*ethority, as an advocator to respect users maturity, pull up the philosopher Kant without decidedly intending to apprehend him or grasping him entirely.
The elementary principles of Social Media Brand Building create facts!
Social Media is not just another channel of the Marketing Mix. The reason lays in well-founded social-medialisied two-way communication that multiplies the advertising impact and justifies a shift of Media Spendings. In the States and in Great Britain Online Media Spendings already exceed TV Media Spendings. When a consumer is online he does not sit passive in front of TV at all. On the contrary, when it comes to dialogue he looks for affirmation and debates on his way towards a brand or product inside forums and branded channels. Thereby he only purchases what is debated online; meaning what is social-medialisied.
The consumer does no longer look on things without comment as it is when he watches TV. He is demanding when he emits his comment and he prefers that brand with which he can collectively live the medialised going along with the brand’s product.
Social Media Brand Building is the sales trigger for two-way communication towards a 24/7 online infused everyday world. Social Media Brand Building accomplish essential “Brand Bonding” and realises that “branding together with users will be mutually shaped “.
May 8th, 2009 by Marcus Lauks
Original Article by David Nelles
All beginning is hard. The dialog with customers in user generated communication channels will be more than just a free will thing to do in the future, but utmost it will become the obligation of companies. After companies have been quite detached in the last decades from their customers in regard to the communications, and now they bring consumers and suppliers back together on the same level. The imbalance of power between brands and consumers has shifted in favor of the consumer. Through social media consumers are able to talk eye to eye with companies and brands. Thus, communication with consumers in digital area requires the long forgotten abilities such as dialog capability, authenticity, and transparency. The shift of media usage will put tremendous pressures upon companies to re-adopt these abilities. The classical work of the communication collides often with the new media. Thereby, five fundamental mistakes stand out the most in regard to the social media handling:
Not being true to self. Authentic dialog also means that brands i.e. companies are communicating themselves and hence, the communication must be transparent. Transparency begins there, where users i.e. consumers can recognize with whom they actually talk to. The temptation for brands to be actively engaged in a hidden way through social media is quite alluring, but over time this could actually endanger the brand image and dialog with users. Sony, Walmart and Vichy were example from the past for such failed and fake maneuver way into social media. Only a transparent dialog with target groups will help in countering this kind of risk.
Not listening to users. Even, when it somehow hurts, it won’t be often enough said: All beginning of the company’s efforts in the area of social media must be to listen first. Social media strategies are dialog solutions and not monolog strategies. Hence, the start of each dialogs lies in listening. If one foregoes a social media monitoring, then one can hardly find the right target group. Furthermore, one cannot determine which topics the potential customers in social media are actually interested on. Who is deaf and actively engaged as brands in the area of user generated media will harvest only on disappointment – that for certain.
Not finding the right words. Marketers are often having trouble speaking the language of social media. Real dialog is more than just a press release, advertising statements or tight- lipped PR statement. A good social media strategy is definitely not just another one-way channel for press releases and brand messages. Social media marketing means: Humanize your brand. Particularly, this applies in addressing the target group. The dialog must have a real added value for users, and for them this begins with a real authentic dialog.
Focusing solely on sales. This is in my honest opinion one of the cardinal mistakes. Social media marketing is not online marketing. Measuring the success of social media marketing strategies with metrics of classical online marketing is surely not the right objective. Social media can’t be reduced simply into relation between clicks and sales. Social media marketing is the building of consumer engagement and brand image. Such metrics might not lead to a direct or clear classified buying decision, but they do show quite significant influence for buying decisions in the future. Another reason, why sales and social media only contingently fit each other: What happen with party guests, who try to involve other guests in sales conversation? Yes – They won’t be invited to the next party. The same thing applies for brands, which in their social media efforts only try to get users to buy the products. Such brands won’t have the long lasting success in social media, since no one would want to listen anymore.
Micro instead of macro approach. Big companies have obviously problems in handling social media as one whole communication process and hence, online sales department might be in charged for a group page in facebook, or company communication in charged for a corporate blog and a brand with its own twitter stream. Multiple closed communication ways within the company is the result out of such strategies. This kind of approach would only lead to confusion and the target group would not perceive the company as one unit. It’s quite decisive for user to have a voice or at least to be able to communicate with other voices. Social media must exist outward as one uniformly communication string. Hence, the various activities should be coordinated and structured on top of one another.
The listed cases, which often occur by inappropriate application of social media, are certainly not the only rocky obstacles for professional’s communicators. Nevertheless, the cases do show how companies and brands still need to get use to the direct contact with their target group. This kind of contact needs not only a different way of thinking but also a mid-term structural change in the communication processes within the company. Hence, structures of the classical communication work require a change management as to keep in touch with target group in the future.
April 21st, 2009 by Marcus Lauks
Original Article by David Nelles
There it goes; Twitter has become a substantially relevant PR tool. Hence, within only few months a number of brands have experienced, how fast a crisis can spread – thanks to this channel of the 140 characters. The American painkillers Motrin had encountered the anger and resentment of few well networked moms. The E-Commerce Gigant Amazon had to experience a hacker attack over Easter, which erased literature offers regarding gay and lesbian themes. And last but not least, the Domino’s pizza delivery service has its share of experience in regard to the short distasteful video of two employees on YouTube. The three cases show that even in the U.S Twitter has definitely become more and more relevant for company’s communication. Yet, how could these three companies avoid the big disaster to their reputation before it even started? Maybe these three tips below can help a little:
Only listening does not suffice
Important is also knowing, who talks about the brand in Twitter, and how badly he/she speaks about the brand and the corresponding company. Therefore, the following few priorities should stand out in foreground:
Priority No. 1 has to be the people who make up the majority of your brand’s customers. And that will be the question for Domino’s as it plots the best plan of response: The pizza chain needs to know not only how many people saw the video but who those people are and how likely they are to be current customers.
A monitoring is not only a quantitative analysis of the relevant brands mentions, but it’s also about the qualitative analysis like the segmentation and the creation of user’s typologies. Only a qualitative analysis ensures an effective potential crisis analysis. Thereby, it’s not only decisive, how often a tweet or retweet comes out but it’s also important, whether the tweet fits into my target group or not.
Don’t hide uncertainty – Transparency is a must
Companies should engage themselves in the discussions with quick and fast manner towards the emerging crisis in Twitter&Co. even if the companies do not actually know, what is happening, just like in the case with Amazon deleting the whole product groups. A short PR statement would only ignite more fire to the unfavorable situation. A transparent answer in Amazon’s case would be to inform users that the mistakes are not known yet and people in charged are doing everything in their power to resolve the problems. Through this kind of behavior, one shows that critical voices in Twitter are being taken seriously and that one does react to the voiced sentiments. This kind of strategy can smooth the situation and best example for it: the action taken by Scott Monty after a notice of one of the Ford fan’s communities:
Monty logged onto Twitter and asked people to hold off: there was “more to the story.” That slowed down commentary. A little later he added, there was counterfeiting of Ford trademark properties involved. That froze the conversation and bought him some time.
“Some time,” in a PR crisis a few years ago used to translate into about four days. Times change. Monty figured he had bought Ford a few hours.
The above example show that through the announcement of the brand alone of something is being done in respect to the circumstances can definitely slow the spread of crisis significantly down.
Exercise precautions and build your own Twitter community
This basic doesn’t only apply for Twitter but it applies as well for the whole area of social media. In case of a crisis, a strong brand community can be a life insurance for the brand.
Strong, emotional brands that have built up years of consumer goodwill seem to be more insulated from long-term hurt. Few consumers judged much-loved Whole Foods when its CEO was caught posting comments on financial sites under a fake name. Another consumer darling, JetBlue, has recovered valiantly from its Valentine’s Day massacre, which left passengers stranded on board on a runway for eight hours.
It appears quite advantageous for brands alone, out of the perspectives of crisis prevention to build a strong community around its brand. An authentic and long lasting dialog with users, and tying customers emotionally to the brand will make sustainable damage of brand reputation very unlikely. Furthermore, a big brand community i.e. a big Twitter followers guarantees a real sense of hearing in the target group of user generated channels. At least, Domino’s Pizza now understood how essential own Twitter community can be.
April 15th, 2009 by Marcus Lauks
Original Article by David Nelles
Okay, we’ve seen the missing willingness of few marketers to get into dialog with their target group in social networks. Now, it’s a fair turn to give these execs some rules on how Facebook can also work for them. Through my research, I’ve come across a really meaningful “manual book” for Facebook on mashable. Based on this manual: The five pillars for a successful Facebook Fan Page.
Networking
Connect your online appearances. Utilize you existing network presence to additionally fill out your Facebook Fan Page with life. With this strategy, you can be absolutely certain that your target group – which already actively involves in other web appearances, has an easy access to the Fan Page.
Cooperation
Use existing Fan Pages for own purposes. Why make something new, when existing pages are functioning quite well. Cooperate with existing brand evangelists. The best example is the actual cooperation between Coca Cola and its brand fans.
Information
Don’t be an advisor or exclusive information giver only to your supporters. Give also other users advises, which they can get out of your Fan Page. With this strategy, you can increase the brand image outside your own fan group. Hence, Dell plants itself as advisor for Facebook users in the application of social media for small business.
Added Value
Increase the attractiveness of your Fan Page through special offers or winning contest. Winning contest can encourage user’s engagement, which can boost engagement in the corresponding Fan Page. Good examples are Adobe , Ben & Jerry´s and Old Navy.
Relevance
Look for your target group. A proper targeting is a must for a successful fan page. Not all brands would get strong fan community like Apple&Co. Hence, a relevance check should always be in foreground of a Facebook initiative.
The following strategies should come out of the five pillars: At the beginning, an extensive targeting must make sure that the corresponding brands i.e. the products do fit into the Facebook target group. Once this process comes out with positive result, it’s helpful to check if there are big fan pages, which are worth to cooperate with. After a possible cooperation or own initiative, it’s quite important to link the fan page with the rest of the brand’s web appearances as to forward the traffic of the existing internet appearances into the fan page. In the end, the success of each branded community – be it on myspace or Facebook- depends on the quality of the contents. The content of such community must show a real added value. This could be winning contest or special offers and even promotions, which increase the user’s engagement in brand communication.
