December 19th, 2008 by Christoph Maeurer
The last Friday Flash before Christmas
Social Media:
The complexity of social media (german)
>> Netzwertig.com
Signs of an unsuccessfully social media campaign (german)
>> Connectedmarketing.de
Xing’s acquires Socialmedian – a social news site
>> Readwriteweb.com
>> Golem.de (german)
Miscellaneous:
new trend: Online-Sleepwalking?
>> Telegraph.co.uk
Mr. Yang on the “heat” spot
>> Valleywag.com
Reviews in Pictures (till now only Part 1 and 2 are available)
>> Boston.com Teil 1
>> Boston.com Teil 2
Still looking for a Christmas present?
>> Well, go get personal with Scarlett Johansson’s tissue waste
Twitter specials:
- who spend, how much time with Twitter? >> Tweetwasters.com
- Twitter and Influence >> Twinfluence.com
- Die “wahren” Twitter-Freunde herausfinden >> Twitter-Friends
Another neat collection of Twitter tools with screenshots
>> Ibrahimevsan.de
Spiegel Online is twittering
>> Prblogger (german)
Happy Holidays and A Merry Christmas!
December 18th, 2008 by Christoph Maeurer
Original article by David Nelles (translated by Nils Maier)
Twitter appears to be the “It” place for the application of company’s communication, both for external and internal purpose. A few weeks back, moms and women twittered avidly their outrage against Motrin campaign and recently there is another case making its appearance on Twitter, which proves once again how truly relevant this channel for company’s communication is. In this recent case, Ford – with the help of Twitter – has succeeded in preventing wide spread damages, which could have cost the company’s reputation. The starting point was a letter of notice sent by Ford’s legal department to a privately owned Ford fansite, demanding for $5000 or the site gets shut down. The copyright violations were the reason behind this demand.
The prominent warned platform was therangerstation.com. This fansite is dedicated to lovers of Ford’s small pick- up trucks. Based in Detroit, this fansite exists for more than 10 years. Well, the reactions regarding Ford’s legal demand were quick to come; the story appeared on the same day in two major car blogs like Jalopnik and Autoblog as well as on Twitter.
It was like a dark cloud of social media brewing over the online reputation of Ford. However, unlike Motrin, Ford has Scott Monty, who is the head of Ford’s social media and he actively reacted in a quick manner over criticisms voiced in Twitter – by continuously tweeting and promising to clear the issue as soon as possible.
Few hours later, Scot tweeted Ford’s official response and provided the link for the official statement of Ford over therangerstation.com controversy. This action was good enough to calm brands evangelists.
Hence, through quick and active reactions from Ford communicator, the virally spread of this issue and online reputation damages for the company were successfully prevented. Certainly, Motrin would have preferred this kind of success. Well, Scott Monty surely took all rules of social media communicator to heart: listen intensively, velocity, deal directly and personally.
In the U.S, Twitter has established itself as a channel for professional communicators. Unfortunately, the case is quite different here in Germany, the discussion revolving around Twitter and its adoption for the company’s communication has just yet to begin. Whether a company should be twittering or not, the examples of past times have definitely shown that Twitter should at least belong to a portfolio of a social media monitoring. However, company’s communicators should not wait too long to get actively engaged in the discussion of microblogging services, where so many multipliers are located like nowhere else.
December 16th, 2008 by Christoph Maeurer
Original article by David Nelles (translated by Nils Maier)
It’s about time to focus on Christmas. The current U.S presidential family and the First Dog Barney do it officially straight from the White House.
December 16th, 2008 by Christoph Maeurer
Original article by Alexander Becker (translated by Nils Maier)
Here are some facts: The U.S market share of Nike was only around 48% in 2006. Two years later, 2008, the number has increased up to 61%. Sport goods belong to a very competitive segment and this kind of increase is somehow magical. U.S marketers are still passionately discussing, how this Lifestyle-Brand could achieve such an amazing result.
The main argument in the discussion centers quite obvious on the name of Nikeplus. More of the scene’s insiders believe that the influence of Nike’s own social network is barely even considered. The former Nike Marketing advisor – Ted Mininni wrote: „There’s no doubt that social marketing has had an impact at Nike. Question is, how much?“
With the success of Nikeplus.com, Business Week puts up the question, if Nike with its community actually created standards for other brands networks? But somehow, there exists seldom company, which started its own online network and then achieved such brilliant success. As said by Nike’s global director of consumer connections – Stefan Olander – „ It was never about how can we convert some percentage of users (to buy Nike shoes), it was about creating a social network for dedicated runners. . .“.
Mininni summed up on the results to the Business Week’s article:
“- The use of social networks has grown 38% in the past year, per comScore.
- A recent McKinsey survey found that many companies are struggling with Web 2.0 technology.
- McKinsey also cited that only 21% of nearly 2000 executives surveyed were satisfied with available software to launch blogs or create social media.“
December 16th, 2008 by Christoph Maeurer
Original article by David Nelles (translated by Nils Maier)
A lot has been said about Do’s and Don’ts of corporate blogging. On his latest posting, Jeremiah Owyang enlists a quite meaningful set of rules for companies, in which each of these steps should in the end lead to the ultimate direct dialog with consumers. Basically there are eight main points, which should be taken seriously into account by communication executives.
1. Writing style:
How you write indicates how real you can truly be
Great: Blog is written in a human voice
Bad: Content looks vetted by corp comm.
Horrible: Rehashed press release
The written style of blog must be distinguishable from the art of the company’s communication. A blog is mostly about personal statements and evaluation. Hence, a blog should not be written like a press release, but instead it should reflect in overall the personal evaluation of the author. In a corporate blog, it should be about granting authors the possibility for personal touch.
2. Topics:
What does the blog talk about? does it matter to marketing –or customers?
Great: Discusses the lifestyle (or workstyle) of actual customers.
Good: Discusses the wider industry topics
Horrible: The corporate blog exclusively talks about the company
We think, one should consider corporate blog as a medium and it must provide customers with added values. Keeping this in mind, a good content is one, which relates to everyday work and life of consumers/target group. For examples, mobile phones provider should talk about trends and new offers concerning the mobile phones usage and respectively a travel agency’s blog should inform its reader about vaccination and travel trends.
3. Humility:
Perhaps one of the most important attributes, how human and real is this blog, or is it giving lip service?
Great: Admits when wrong and discusses in open the short comings of the company and product and demonstrates in public how it will be improved
Good: Admits shortcomings but combats and defends the criticism, also known as spin
Bad: Only discusses the company in the best possible light, and may link, but not take on critics
Horrible: Never discuss the short comings of the company on the blog
A corporate weblog should be the place for real and honest dialogs. To achieve honest conversations with readers, it’s pretty essential for communication executives to be able to deal with criticisms. Surely, it’s not easy for communication execs to admit mistakes about their products or services publicly, but in particular this ability to communicate openly belongs indeed to the area of communications. Thereby, only an authentic dialog with consumers – even if it means admitting own mistakes – could lead to a long lasting consumer relation. The danger of losing control – in the area of brand communications- increases immensely, if companies do not take criticisms seriously and react upon them accordingly.
4. Linking Behavior:
Links are the currency of the blogosphere, it indicates you respect someone else’s opinion so much that you’re willing to send them away from you.
Great: Links out to other sources, even competitors or critics as well as the next listed
Good: Links out to other sources, where other discussions are occurring
Bad: Primarily links to corporate created content 25% of the time
Horrible: Primarily links to corporate created content over 50% of the time
This point is in particular very important. The basic fundamental in social media is about sharing content. A good link to other weblogs enables users to form own opinions as well as to improve their knowledge in a fast and efficient way. The incessantly links to own articles give both readers and consumers no real added values. From economics point of view, one could call this kind of behavior as zero sum game. Thereby, links to other information sources are inevitable in order to realize a Win -Win situation for both corporate blog and readers.
5. Customer Inclusion:
Do corporate blogs allow their customers to partake? or are they only second class citizens
Good: Allows for customers to guest blog, or includes snippets of their experiences
Bad: Content is only published by employees
It could certainly be an interesting approach to involve consumers in the editorial creation of blog, but convincing marketers of this idea is yet another story. But that does not mean, one should not even try it. For me, this kind of approach is still new and speaking from experience, it’s really quite difficult for German companies to even recruit their own executives to blog for the companies. So, I think it will surely be more difficult to persuade consumers to write for a corporate blog. Still, there is nothing more authentic than the consumer’s testimonials written on the corporate blog.
6. Dialog:
Allowing for feedback can instill more trust
Great: Comments enabled and published instantly
Good: Comments enabled but reviewed causing time delay
Bad: Trackbacks only
Horrible: No comments allowed
Without questions, the best case scenario is for consumers to be able to use commentary section without any limitations. If company does want to enter into a real dialog with consumers, then this is a needed characteristic. I couldn’t agree more with Jeremiah: no comments policy is definitely the worst case ever. A weblog is a communication medium with feedback channel, if one doesn’t want to allow it then one should steer away from it.
7. Comment Moderation:
Blogs that allow for disagreeing comments are more real –and interesting.
Great: Comments (other than spam or off topic) are allowed, including direct disagreements
Bad: Negative comments are censored or altered
Horrible: No negative comments allowed
When company communicates, then be it on the right path. Deleting critical comments about companies or products is definitely not the best strategy for a corporate blog. As communication execs don’t actually delete the bad comments, but rather these comments are actually going into other channels, which probably harder to monitor or to control. In this kind of medium, one has to handle critics wisely and sees it as a chance. With open dialog company can try to placate the critics and foremost win them back as happy consumers. Company’s censorship would only achieve the opposite effect: long lasting dissatisfied consumers.
8. Frequency:
While more isn’t always better, having a steady rhythm of content is important
Good: A steady publication rate of posts appropriate to the speed of that market
Bad: Posts appear at a random rate, often starting off with apologies for not posting
Horrible: Posts appear to either promote the company during an announcement –or to combat a competitor
Authentic dialog as well as the regular feed of weblog with content is the key to success. This point is often underestimated by companies. The creation and physical appearance of weblog is by far not the whole concept and for certain it won’t keep potential avid readers interested. The success lies instead in the frequently production of weblog’s content – content in foreseen and manageable interval.
The corporate weblog can be a very important element in the field of communications. This applies to marketing as well as to internal and external company’s communication. Hence, companies must be brave enough to step up and be consciously aware of all the consequences. The rules of brand communications have changed through social media. If a company with a corporate weblog wants to engage in communications with user generated content channels, it must take the fundamentals rules in this area to heart: an eye to eye dialog with consumers – authentic, direct and open for criticisms.
December 12th, 2008 by Christoph Maeurer
Short and vibrant
Intel published Social Media Guidelines for employees
>> Intel.com
More than 100.000 downloads for Wordpress 2.7 within 20 hrs
>> Boren.nu
Courtesy of Kmart: Bloggers on shopping spree
>> Mediapost.com
Corporate blogs, are they trustworthy?
>> Readwriteweb.com
40 million Americans using Social Networks
>> Readwriteweb.com
Twitter Specials:
Feed your own blog with tweets
>> Twitterfeed.com
List of German Startups Twitterers
>> Deutsche-Startups.de
Have a great weekend!
December 11th, 2008 by Christoph Maeurer
Google presents the most popular searches, globally known as Google Zeitgeist 2008.
For Germany, the most popular searches are eBay, YouTube, Weather and GMX. The List is also shown in Google-Watchblog.
Furthermore, it’s quite interesting to see that five social networks are among the german top ten of Fastest Rising – Wer kennt wen (#1), Facebook (#3), followed by SchülerVZ (#4), StudiVZ (#5) and Jappy (#6).
Actually, I didn’t hear much about the last community Jappy, so I did a quick research and here what I got: Jappy is a portal for singles, which replaced the Singlestreffen.net in 2002.
Back to “Wer kennt wen”:
It’s such an impressive fact to see that globally “Wer kennt wen” is among the top ten of Fastest Rising and it even ranked on the 8th place.
If one looks at the current numbers of IVW in November, one can see that Wer kennt wen network has shown more page impressions than StudiVZ (4 billion vs. 3.9 billion). Although StudiVZ lies considerably ahead of Wer kennt Wen and other Social Networks in Germany – with 166 millions numbers of visits – and yet, SchülerVZ stays on the top with 4.9 billion PIs.
But we need to take into account that page impressions alone, are not the only significant indicator, given the fact that every single photo click can actually generate few more page impressions.
December 10th, 2008 by Christoph Maeurer
Original article by David Nelles (translated by Nils Maier)
It’s a well known fact; Dell is pretty advanced in the adoption of Social Media in the areas of CRM and Marketing. The interview with Richard Binnheimer in Online Marketing Blog, actually punctuates my assessment about the U.S number one PC provider: Dell did get it!
I found the middle part of the interview quite interesting and educating. Binnheimer explained the reasons, which supported Dell’s decision to adopt Social Media.
“1. The Magnitude of Change: One billion people are now online — a figure that will double by 2011. In fact, every day 500,000 new users come online for the first time. Content is exploding. There was more content on YouTube in 2006 than on the Web in 2000. This represents a significant shift in what we think of as media, or put another way, what and how people get information. Taken together, we are experiencing changes to the dynamics of how we process information to form opinions.
News cycles can start from anywhere today. News and conversations are not just local/regional, they are global. Single blog posts can have as much power as major news stories. People are publishers, content providers and decision-makers. There are additional and new news cycles, and a proliferation of outlets for information. There is a rapid and continuing democratization of information.
This global information technology infrastructure enables individuals to connect and converse using all kinds of social media. They are forming new communities, their own communities, sharing information in ways they care about and make sense to them. These communities shape debates, impact perspectives and perceptions. The numbers and connectedness are of such a magnitude that public opinion and perceptions can be influenced and changed by “each other,” not controlled by others (and, I think this is a good thing, by the way).
2. The Value of Personal: I personally believe social media is contributing to a significant change that take us from what I call the “traditional, rational, objective, institutional” perspective to a more “subjective, emotive, personalized and human” perspective.
The move from “objective,” fact-based, third party reporting and commentary (traditional media/advertising/controlled messages/interruptions) to individual, “subjective,” and “crowd sourced” perceptions is very powerful. Perceptions are no longer just reality. They are real. The “new facts” are based on real interactions and experiences that people share with each other. Perceptions (“my real experience and my views) gain legitimacy and value and become a part of the larger community’s “facts.” For more on the importance (and inherent value) of perceptions in social media check these links.
If you are not persuaded by the trend data, directions and changes occurring, I would pose this question, rhetorically. I call it the customer question.
3. Connecting with Customers: Since when did any business not want to connect with its customers? Seriously, what is the issue here? Do we need to justify using today’s efficient, effective and readily available technology to spend 30 minutes or couple hours a day connecting with real customers?
No one has yet to explain to me why they should not use social media as a way to connect with their customers. We could leave this point hang and let it stand on its own. I think it speaks volumes.
However, lets flesh it out a bit. Connecting and communicating with customers is about more than merely meeting customers’ expectations today. Social media is an ideal tool to reach customers more quickly, efficiently, frequently and cost effectively.
Even more importantly than its efficiency and cost-effectiveness, social media is an ideal tool to listen, learn and engage in real conversations with customers. Does someone need to justify that?
Here is an example: If a conversation occurs in a Minneapolis Starbucks about the new Dell mini, I can’t hear it, nor be informed by it. On the other hand, if that same conversation starts in Minneapolis (or China) with a post on a blog, Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook or wherever, not only can I listen and learn, I can act and join the conversation.
We can immediately take the information and do what we need to – fix something, thank the customer for positive feedback, correct misinformation, whatever might be relevant. It’s like having Dell customers from anywhere in the world walking the halls of our offices in Round Rock, TX. How cool is that? But the result is better than cool. The immediacy of online listening means we can continuously build a better business based on real time customer input.
One further thought, beyond listening and learning, I’d also highlight the benefits of engaging in online conversations using social media. If your customers are connecting with each other, why not join them? At a minimum you are forming a relationship, and more broadly, a community. There are all kinds of benefits to deeper and interactive relationships. One of my colleagues likes to say, “we used to host, prepare and serve the dinner party. Social media allows us to come to the party, join the conversation in a more relaxed manner and be part of it.”
The above three mentioned reasons, hit the bull right in the eye: the changes in media communications with consumers, immense value of authentic communications and eventually the direct contacts to consumers. Exactly these facts are the decisive pleadings for a solid place of Social Media in marketing mix.
Marketers in Germany should take these pleadings seriously into account. All three reasons do not only apply specifically for the U.S but rather this development applies as well here for Germany.
Change in media communications with consumers is less of a threat and more of “a not yet exhausted of possibilities”. It was never so easy to listen and to communicate with consumers in direct dialogs – cost efficient and less of divergence. Yet, one should not forget, that Dell had its Dell Hell experience before it got to this point of realization. If you want to read the whole interview, here is the link.
December 8th, 2008 by Nils Maier
The development around Social Media and its adoption in Marketing, gains more importance in the marketing mix. At first glance, it looks like as if the U.S marketers are more courageous in their approach to social media marketing. But at second glance, there are actually relevant successful examples in Germany for the adoption of social media marketing. Langnese and Tchibo are two great examples, on how the social media actually influences the German marketing department. Unfortunately, the big giants Advertisers in Germany are yet to let loose their reservations about social media marketing.
What might be the cause of these reservations from the German Advertisers? A quick and close attention to consumer generated communication platforms provides answer to this question. The digitals communication platforms enable each user to submit contents, as well as to publish them and to connect with other users. Well, what does this imply for the marketers? Quite easy: the brands message seeded in these channels are no longer under direct control of the marketers. Well plain and simple, through this media, the users have taken control over brands communications. Ultimately, the multiplier of brand messages is about being pro consumers and less about classical marketing campaign. We think, this shift of power on behalf of consumers, is what scared most of the German companies, to actually be actively engaged in Social Media.
Although for the most part, this fear is without reasons. Marketers should definitely get in direct dialogs with their target group and their customers. In Social Media, it’s all about direct communications with consumers, since consumers are often also users of social networks, visitors of products valuation portal, as well as forums users and at the same time functioning as brands representatives. Hence, marketers must enter into transparent dialogs in respective platforms with these multipliers. Being pro consumers should also mean for the marketers to give authentic information for their consumers and by using social media strategies, provide a real added value to their target group.
But where and how should a marketer start, in the realm of social media? What should be the first thing to do in regards of social media initiatives? Well, if I – as a company- actually want to get into dialogs with my costumers, then I should better be listening first. Thereby, the first step would be applying comprehensive communication strategies through Social Media Monitoring. But, an effective Monitoring solution is only a small part of the comprehensive social media strategy. Lee Oden provides an overview of fundamentals for communications strategy in social media:
• Audience – Listen and understand your audience and how they communicate/interact on the social web. What types of social networks, media sharing and assets do they engage? What are their goals for doing so?
• Objectives – It’s important to consider both the goals of the company as well as the audience you’re trying to reach. Marketing on the social web is about giving to get. Knowing what your community wants is key in reaching your own organization’s goals because you’re going to give it to them.
• Strategic Plan – What approach will you take to meet the needs and interests of your audience in order to meet your own? Will you engage influencers, will you energize brand advocates or will you create demand by offering non-branded resources?
• Tactics – What social media marketing tactics and corresponding technologies will you use to implement the plan? Blogging, microblogging, social networks, video, forums, blogger relations and outreach. There are many to consider.
• Tools – What specific tools will you use to efficiently monitor, communicate, create and promote social content? WordPress, Facebook or MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Again, there are many to consider.
• Metrics – How will you measure success according to the objectives you’ve identified? What tools will you employ and at what point will you take benchmark measurements as well as interval measurements? Who will you report results to in the organization and will there be success metrics that you can share with the community you’re engaging?
From my point of view, these propositions from Lee are actually quite right. The existing fear of losing control should not lead German marketers to completely ignore this media. Such behavior would inevitably result in complete loss of control. After all, social media is not a temporary phenomenon, but rather it is a long lasting change in communications behavior. Only, a pro active and strategic approach in the realm of social media would enable control in the area of brands communications. Thereby, Leo’s above mentioned strategy propositions do provide some insights. After all, a marketer should not ask the question, if he/she should be engaged in social media, but rather, how long he/she could afford avoiding this social media engagement.
December 8th, 2008 by Nils Maier
Finally, we got the mystery solved.
In my opinion this is the best campaign 2008! It’s creative, funny and actually exciting as well. I read about some users complaining about this campaign. For me this was so exciting that I was refreshing the website last night every 5 minutes. Unfortunately, it didn’t start when the countdown was finished. But well this morning it got released! Great job guys!!!
