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.
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.
March 30th, 2009 by Marcus Lauks
Original Article David Nelles
Users as brand evangelists – as multipliers of brand messaging in social media? Yet, marketers and communications execs perceive this reality as threat. Although, at the same time marketers don’t actually have any control over their brands in social media.
The success of brands in social media starts out solely through users and their engagement. Coca Cola does seem to understand this concept. The Coca Cola’s page in facebook.com has by now more than 3.3 million fans and it becomes the second largest fansite in this network. However, the success story was not initiated by any Coca Cola execs, but instead the idea originated from three normal users, just plain simple coke fans.
the Coke page, which totals 3.3 million “fans,” wasn’t even created by Coca-Cola, but by a pair of Los Angelenos who just love Coke. In late August 2008, aspiring actor Dusty Sorg was hunting for a Coca-Cola fan page he could join on Facebook. He didn’t find one that seemed legitimate so he hunted down a high-resolution digital image of a Coke can, uploaded it to Facebook and made a page.
However, a change in facebook Terms of Use last November made the creators of this fanpage quite worried. The Zuckenberg network specified that a fanpage, which devotes itself to a concrete brand, may do so only if it’s operated by someone authorized by the respected brand. Therefore, facebook offered Coke the choice whether to take over the fanpage or it will be closed. If one considers the analogy of losing control and social media, then one would likely assumed that Coke would have decided to shut the group down. Even one of the fan page creators commented quite negatively.
“Everyone has this vision that if something like this happens, the big company will send you off to Guantanamo,…”
Yet, Coke surprised the audience in this case. Coke resolved the task not by closing the group or by attempting hostile takeover, but instead Coke sought the dialog with group’s creators and even agreed to help and support the maintenance of this huge fanpage. Hence, the fanpage is given the aid of Coke’s interactive team Dusty Sorg and Michael Jedrzejewski. With this approach, Coke as a brand has shown how important it is to support fans in social media. Had Coke decided for hostile takeover or closing off the fan site with more than 3.3 million fans, it would have resulted in massive reputation risk coming from the huge brand supporters.
After the first bumpy ride in the area of user generated media, Coca Cola seems to learn its lesson. Coke has understood to utilize on users as brand evangelists, rather than to intimidate loyal fan communities in user generated media. The American beverage producer pursues with its decision the long lasting of dialog with the target group. Therefore, marketers of other brands should take this great example to heart and support their fan communities in social media. Such approach would deepen the relationships between users and brands, boost trust and loyalty as well as the sustainability of brand image.
January 20th, 2009 by Sten Franke
Starbucks does it, Tchibo applies it and even the future 44th President of the United States gets it. The magic word is called crowd sourcing and with Barack Obama, it is the platform citizens briefing book. This platform encourages U.S citizens to share their ideas in every single issue. Ranging from economic policy, over social policy themes to foreign affairs – this platform allows citizens to express their reformed suggestions and these will be rated by other users. So far there have been over 44.000 ideas from users in this platform, at which over 120.000 users also reflected in their voting choice.
The legalization of marijuana is the most popular idea at the moment in Obama’s platform, follows close by the commitment to become the “greenest” country in the world. If these popular ideas could help shape a better U.S politics? Well I doubt it. The development of such platform fits pretty well into the communication strategies of Barack Obama. Social media belonged right from the start for Obama’s advisers to one of the central tools in addressing voters. Hence, the development of the actual platform is the logical step in the social media strategy of Obama. Not only the new American President tries to integrate his clientele in product development and service optimization. Even the free economy discovers often the advantage of consumer’s feedback or rather CRM in the area of social media. Of course Dell stands out the most, but Otto, Tchibo and Fiat also communicate with their users to generate successful market oriented products. The advantage of such method is quite obvious in this media. There exists seldom better environment for such a direct way to communicate with the target groups and consumers. I’m positively certain that social media and CRM will go hand in hand near future.
January 16th, 2009 by Sten Franke
What is going on? Shouldn’t Facebook actually be happy about the fact of a well accepted widget among users? Within only a week, Burger King’s newest widget was installed by more than 82.000 users, who then deleted over 230.000 users out of their own friend’s list to get one free Whooper.
This particular approach was definitely a huge success from marketing point of view. Unfortunately; Facebook execs were not amused with it. Hence, they are now suspending this application from the network with following statement:
We encourage creativity from developers and brands using Facebook Platform, but we also must ensure that applications follow users’ expectations of privacy. This application facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy by notifying people when a user removes a friend. We have reached out to the developer with suggested solutions. In the meantime, we are taking the necessary steps to assure the trust users have established on Facebook is maintained.
Truthfully, I ask myself, what this application in a way does, to be even considered as colliding with data privacy protection. With Beacon, Facebook was definitely not so squeamish. Or perhaps Facebook has all together different intentions? Joe Bubble speculates that Zuckenberg might have discovered a way to make money out of it. Well, I’m certainly open for different opinions and would love to hear them. Actually, there exist quite enthralling discussions regarding this matter in our office.
January 14th, 2009 by Sten Franke
There are really products out there, which are not so easy to promote in a campaign. Intimate care products for women – amongst others – are certainly one of these kinds of products. GlaxoSmithKline has successfully managed to solve this problem by its campaign of Lactacyd Femina – a vaginal cleansing lotion. With hip sound in the background, the clip shows various activities of women out of their vagina’s point of view.
It’s definitely a well made clip, providing altogether amazingly somehow different perspectives.
December 18th, 2008 by Sten Franke
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 Sten Franke
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 10th, 2008 by Sten Franke
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.
