December 5th, 2008 by Sten Franke
AK Social Media – MySpace, StudiVZ, Lokalisten, Sevenload, ethority&Co. Speed it up!
Press Release
Foundation of the Social Media Club Hamburg
Ebay – The U.S User numbers decline (Link)
Much ado about nothing – Red light for StudiVZ (Link)
OpenID vs. Connect, let the (cooperation) battle continues (Link
Market concentration: Twitter‘s rival- Pownce surrenders (Link)
Yellow card – 51.com has worldwide the strongest coverage as Open Social Community (Link)
Additional Presentations about it: (Link)
Handelsblatt Editorial – Knüwer vs. Iwersen, even indiscretion is a matter of honor (Link)
der Netzökonom adelt das Web – Internet wird zum Leitmedium: (Link)
Twitter specials:
Measurement of Twitter- Engagement: (Link)
Top of the Tweets – the top 10 lists of famous Brits’ twitterers (Link)
Twitter & Co. for companies, for god’s sake!!! (Link)
December 5th, 2008 by Sten Franke
This week we started a new local team of the Social Media Club. Our aim ist to meet in informal and laid back atmosphere and offer eyerybody who is interested in Social Media a place to go to.
Early 2009 we will interview Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Club, for a little podcast about the idea of the Social Media Club.
Up to this moment we are still organizing our team of the Social Media Club Hamburg.
Everybody who is interested in gettting involved, please contact me SMC_Hamburg@ethority.de
Our first meeting will be on the 22.01.09 7pm @ ethority (Protugal-Haus, Büschstr. 7)
Available updates:
FanPage in Facebook “Social Media Club Hamburg”
or www.twitter.com/SMCHH
December 5th, 2008 by Sten Franke
Now, it’s finally official! The BVDW Arbeitskreis Social Media gets to work. The Arbeitskreis (Working Group) is managed by Axel Schmiegelow (sevenload&denkwerk) and Sten Franke (ethority)
This new BVDW Arbeitskreis aims for market transparency and together with Online Marketer (OVK) – under BVDW standards – also sets out to develop social media platforms. Hence, the Arbeitskreis Social Media will become the representative party and competence centre of Social Media platforms for the German market.
Sten Franke about the long term objectives:
“In the long run, it’s about developing standards for advertising in social media and those standards should be compatible to changes happening around the social media’s world”
The establishment meeting took place at ethority – in the heart of Hamburg – amongst others, present were United Internet, GWP, MySpace, StudiVZ, Lokalisten as well as Unister.
Beside the main focus on the possibilities and opportunities in Social Media Marketing, the Arbeitskreis will also emphasize on minor protection and data privacy as well as market research related to the realm of social media.
The Arbeitskreisp is not a closed circle group, but rather it will actively seek interfaces and cooperation in the future – e.g. with OVK or AGOF – in order to accomplish the above mentioned objectives.
As soon as the first results of Arbeitskreis Social Media becomes available, we will give you the coverage in details.
December 4th, 2008 by Sten Franke
In Germany, it’s common knowledge that many PR agencies, communication companies and organizations as well as the classical media are having such a hard time adopting to social media. Well, it’s kind of giving Neanderthals a moon landing’s instruction and that is how, the brilliant idea of social media from U.S giant industries come across for communications-PR executives in this country. Actually, I might formulate this a bit too harsh and certainly it doesn’t apply to every PR agencies, communication companies and journalists in Germany.
But we can definitely say that a vast majority of communication executives are aware of social media but they just don’t know, how to deal or to connect with it. Although, they only have to follow the four simple fundamentals of communication in social media: transparency, dialogs, authenticity and velocity. The consumer generated communication channels enable journalists, bloggers as well as everyday people to be actively engaged in contributing, discovering and sharing information. Twitter, in particular, offers the optimal vibrant online exchange of information.
The U.S social media relation experts utilize this fact. Hence, the idea of PR and twitter is now continuously being pursued after the 140 character press release coming from Social Media Think Tank. This project is called MicroPR and it aims to provide an exchange information platform on Twitter for companies, agencies and journalists.
As mentioned by Brian Solis and Stowe Boyd, the formula behind this idea is actually quite simple:
PR + Media+Twitter = @ MicroPR
This service should benefit both Media and PR execs. The idea is clear: media professionals are always on the move, looking for answers for their research – company’s figures, business statistics or even expert’s opinions on specific subjects. By using Twitter stream MicroPR, journalists can tweets their questions and hence, build a pool company’s speakers, experts and PR managers.
Brian Solis wrote about the new Twitter service:
Through Twitter, MicroPR connects journalists and bloggers to qualified, targeted PR professionals who can help you with the stories you’re currently writing
And this is how MicroPR actually works in practice:
brian_solis_micropr
In fact, this is not such a bad idea at all, if critical mass of PR specialists and journalists are active on Twitter. Whether this critical mass has yet to unfold in Germany, well I actually doubt it, but who knows, what will be for the coming years? Twitter is for certain, an idea worthy of a follow up consideration, right!?
December 3rd, 2008 by Sten Franke
As Mario Grobholz, founder of myON-ID, told me on the phone yesterday, they have secured their second round financing.
An abstract of yesterday’s press release:
…” Thereby, the Munich Startup for online reputation management has secured shares in millions through second round financing. T-Online Venture Fund, Nexum AG – Pironet NDH AG subsidiary – and as well as the founders’ company remain further as shareholders.”…
More information on:
>> myON-ID Blog
>> Press release
>> myON-ID @ T-Venture.de
December 2nd, 2008 by Sten Franke
Today, I stumbled upon a posting at The Strategy Web Blog. Among others, Martin is mentioning in his article the six effects for companies, who are participating in digital conversations using social media. Those effects are:
The multiplier effect:
Social media opens access to (potential) customers as well as partners and it manifolds information acceptance and allocation for brand’s and company’s communications.
The globalization effect:
Breaking the geographic, mental and psychological distance to customers, hence, establish credible contacts to target group.
The Networking effect:
Networking between companies, customers, interested party and partners can lead to new markets – see Cluetrain manifesto “Markets are conversation”.
The quality improvement and protection effect:
The improvement of products, quality and services should not only come from internal vision of the companies but rather from the market and consumers. This way, a product development strategy would not fail on the market.
The sales funnel effect:
People buy something from other people: networking between people – through word of mouth – leads become infinite numbers of potential customers.
The “humanization” effect:
Over decades companies came across customers like an impenetrable construction, they functioned in such fix structures with little regards of humanly gestures. This art of behavior changes since social media trend surfaces: customers begin to take notice of humans behind the work and actions of companies.
The multiplier effect is one of the most crucial effects in the utilization of social media for companies. This effect in particular is one of the reasons, why companies in Germany are still having such problems in adopting social media. The communication platforms of social media can spread the news about companies and their products virally – faster, plus with wider coverage than any classical media.
Even when the following example was not coming from the world of brands’ and company’s communications, the twitter activities concerning terror attacks in Mumbai as well as the latest earthquake in Indonesia, showed how fast news travels and multiplies in social media. This multiplier effect can be a blessing and even a curse at the same time. However, marketing and communication executives should be aware of the fact, that even with or without their participation in social media, their products and companies are subjected to conversations.
Another new component Martin mentioned, the humanization effect (also explained by Brian Solis in his Social Media Manifesto) sounds actually quite plausible. This do apply in dialogs with the customers, since they are now no longer subjected to faceless anonym Call Center agent but rather to a twitter or social network profile with picture and name in it. This is the case for the U.S customers of cable entertainment, Comcast. With Frank Eliason in twitter, Comcast customers can relate more easily to the brand. Ultimately, social media does make a product / company more human and less of a black box.
I can’t agree more in terms of the effects, which have impacts on products development and sales. But I would likely put Word of Mouth into networking effect, since conversations between consumers are the crucial part, which then lead to purchase decisions. In the realm of social media, being pro consumers and actively engage in sales processes, is the ideal.
December 1st, 2008 by Sten Franke
Companies might surely have their reasons not to adopt social media. Based on Patricia Skinner, here are some of the reasons:
• Company needs no publicity
• Company has something disastrous to hide
• Company fears the customers
• The company’s target group is exclusively customers, who are younger than 10 years old or over 100
• Company has already too many customers
• Company is on the verge of insolvency
If those reasons apply, then marketing and communication executives should definitely avoid social media. However, companies should definitely adopt to social media, if:
• Company wants sustainable sales figures
• Company wants to use one the most efficient of marketing types – Word of Mouth Marketing
• Company wants to participate in changes of media communications with respect to their customers and target market
• Company wants to convince brands evangelist and influencers with their products
• Company wants to draw more attention to their products in specific target group
• Company wants to improve their product development through digital dialogs with target group and hence, acquires long lasting brands reputation
