March 28th, 2012 by Mathias Buerk
It’s time again. The social media landscape develops at an enormous velocity. All the time new platforms are emerging and gain significance, while others disappear off the screen. That’s why we offer Version 4.0 of the German Social Media Prism.
In our Blog we already covered Pinterest, which wasn’t included in Version 3.0 yet. The image sharing platform was the fastest standalone network to reach to 10 Mio users globally. At the end of February it had 17.8 Mio users worldwide, while in Germany it has 1.4 Mio.
Our Top 20 social media sites featured social media sites that increased in importance since our Version 3.0 of the Social Media Prism Germany. Among them DailyMotion, Orkut, and Photobucket are to be found. They had to be included in Version 4.0 of the German Social Media Prism.
Here you can download Version 4.0 of the Social Media Prism Germany. Share it with your friends and feel free to comment below.
German Social Media Prism 4.0
March 7th, 2012 by Sten Franke
We have been teaching it a while already, in the meantime most businesses seem to have understood. The acknowledge that their own social media activities, and of their employees, are a huge treasure of data that yet has to be heaved, ordered an analyzed.
Latest research supports this thesis. For instance a new Iron Mountain study concluded that most European businesses still do not know how to deal with data stemming from social networks like facebook, twitter, or linkedin. “Although 94% (Europe: 86%) of the German businesses asked in this study are aware of the fact that communication via social media channels can possibly be classified as a formal business process” the paper states. “At the same time 72% of German businesses (Europe: 63%) do not consider themselves as being able to capture the data and information exchanged in social media accordingly”. The authors see this as one possible reason why 90% of businesses ban the use of social media while working to their employees.
However, this hardly affects ever more individuals using social media. A current analysis by Statista depicts how regularly users surf their favorite networks by now:
Not without my facebook
In their examination the colleagues of Iron Mountain picture the situation very negative. They believe that facebook and Co. constitute a similar problem to companies than when email was introduced to the business world. Nevertheless, this example convinces only partly. Even though when emailing started it posed a difficulty to businesses, then firms could not handle the data for analysis properly.
The data and information social networks can provide surmount in importance multiplicately. Social media monitoring and intelligence tools (e.g. the gridmaster) allow the analysis of tweets and posts extensively and to continue working with the gained data.
At Iron Mountain the generated data is perceived as highly huge and unstructured that it is hard to control. Hera again I have to object and refer to our gridmaster. Nevertheless the study is right in remarking that the immediateness and informality in social networks raise the risk of violating copyright or revealing confidential information.
April 15th, 2009 by Mo
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.
March 4th, 2009 by Mo
Original Article by David Nelles
What makes social media attractive? Evan Williams’s prediction is definitely right. Social media appeal to human’s baser need, which is the desire to socially connect with each other. Social networks as technical solution offer the possibility of globally social interaction. Respectively, the state of interaction between individuals in social media is actually a continuation of the offline social interaction into a digital world. From technical tools, Twitter has somehow fulfilled this baser need of human’s social interaction- shown by its huge number of users. However, I have to disagree with one of William’s comment. Well I think, Twitter won’t need the five extra years to get its tool used by broader public.
January 14th, 2009 by Sten Franke
After Thestrategyweb.com had explicitly published the survey’s results of Community Monitor 2008 for Brain-Injection consulting and the Cologne Business School, I would like to take a closer look on the presented profits models of each network. The survey’s results show a fresh a quite sober picture. Banners are still the prevalent marketing tools in social networks, but at the same time brand’s marketers appeared to be somehow completely ignorant of the fact, that those kinds of advertising are actually inefficient in the realms of social media. Myspace and Google have had their experience, e.g. the click rates of banner ads in Dickschiff social network is sinking continuously:
The ads’ so-called click-through rate plummeted from one in 100—a decent return by Web standards—in 2006 to one in 1,000 in 2007. “Users became more or less desensitized to the advertising,” says Seremet, a veteran of Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) and now president of video game publisher Green Screen. “You won’t make money on it.”
Google was quite unhappy about the development, considering that the internet empire based in Mountain View, California had promised different numbers, when it bought the sole commercialization rights in 2006 for the News Corp. network for almost $ 900.000.000 (article).
Trouble is, Google pays News Corp. for that right even when the ads don’t generate much, if any, revenue. “We have found that social-networking inventory is not monetizing as well as expected,” said Google Chief Financial Officer George Reyes…
This development is certainly not specifically for Myspace, but rather it applies to the whole networks. I agree and support the comment made by the authors of the survey:
“We assume one of the reasons is that the advertising industry needs time to adjust to new ways and possibilities of advertising in Web 2.0.”
Firstly, marketers must learn to actually listen in social media. Hence, after all the years of doing the talking, it’s now high time that they go into open dialog with the consumers. Invitational ads as banner can certainly be a medium to connect users or consumers to brand community etc. but the dialog with consumers should be the core focus.
Unfortunately, if it’s about profit models, then a central investigation object is missing in this analysis. Brand communities, Fan pages or sponsored groups should have been definitely subjected to the analysis. After all there are excellent examples, which accentuate, how important and meaningful these advertising forms are in social media. German version of MySpace is one of it and for me Jägermeister and Niveacamp of Beiersdorf stand out the most.
Even StudiVZ is successful with its sponsored group of Brands4Friends. This shows again how meaningful a brand community in social networks can be used as an oriented dialog marketing tool.
Well I do think that the survey lacks in the pivotal choice of investigation for profits models of social networks. Since the future of profits models lies for certain also in the area of brand communities.
Profits models like, e.g. Membership fees are certainly not for the big networks. It’s quite different for niche products like the business networks Xing or Linkedin. There, users are pretty concrete about their value added, which they expected from the usage of these networks and therefore willing to pay the fees. On the other hand the value added in Facebook&Co. is much more diffuse.
It’s quite interesting as well that 26% of the investigated networks do actually offer the integration of shops and this development has potentials, which yet to be fully exhausted. A good example from social media E-commerce is e.g. Brands4Friends and also edrugsearch.com. The American search engine for pharmaceuticals had huge success with the implementation of a community. It’s not of importance if at first the shopping and then the network or vice versa, since the outcomes would still be the same. Communities and E-Commerce can have a successful relationship and as former StudiVZ CEO- Markus Riecke said to this connection:
“Online Marketing is easy there, since user’s interests equal the offers”. Therefore shops can certainly be the profits driver for the big networks.
To sum it up: In my opinion the profits drivers lie in the future of social networks in the brands communities and in the alliance with E-Commerce. These two advertising forms are the closest as tools to generate an adequate successful marketing in social media, hence creating a profitable model for social networks. Overall, the future success of big communities would surely lie less in the area banner ads as well as membership’s fees.
December 11th, 2008 by Sten Franke
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.
August 29th, 2008 by Sten Franke
Just in time for the weekend, I added the Love Bunnies application on Facebook – NO, it doesn’t have anything to do with Playboy! – and found out instantly, just how dirty-minded my colleagues really are… (@ Nils: thanx for naming your bunny Fiana!)
When I read Regina Lynn’s blog announcing Love Bunnies – “the world’s first personalised Facebook sex toy!” yesterday, I have to admit I was intrigued – for work reasons of course. After all, it is a great example for innovative, sophisticated social media marketing.
LoveHoney.co.uk is a British online shop for “Sexy and Secure Adult Shopping” that made use of the social network Facebook to launch their latest product: The Love Bunny. But what exactly is a Love Bunny? To the point: it is a toy for adults made out of silicon – does that ring any bells? Facebook users can add the Love Bunnies application, adopt one of these cute little (rubber)rabbits, name it and start flirting with other Bunnies in a candy cotton world. Furthermore, if you have fallen deeply in love with your Bunny, you can order your very own silicon-Bunny (including a unique birth certificate) and get it delivered to your doorstep.
LoveHoney tells you how it’s done:
How to get a personalised Love Bunny Facebook sex toy
1 Log in to your Facebook account
2 Install the free Love Bunnies Facebook Application
3 Create and name your own Facebook Love Bunny – flirt with other Bunnies and have fun
4 Follow the link on Facebook to buy your unique personalised Love Bunny vibrator for real!
The Love Bunnies Facebook Application
Choose a colour for your Love Bunny, give your Bunny a name and you’re ready to play! You can move your Love Bunny around the Facebook Bunny World Warren, change your Bunny’s mood to show how you’re feeling, and send flirty messages to other Love Bunnies. At any time you can click to buy your Love Bunny vibrator for real.
Buy Your Personalised Love Bunny Vibrator
Your unique Love Bunny is delivered direct to your door in a presentation rabbit hutch box, complete with its unique Bunny birth certificate.
But, it doesn’t stop there. Marketers at LoveHoney seem to know how to work the web 2.0 world – the onlineshop has its own YouTube channel, where new products are presented and introduced in a rather “charming” way, among them, of course, the Love Bunnies:
After “playing” Love Bunnies with a few colleagues, I can tell you that it is worth it to add this application and have a little fun with your friends. We definitely do! Going from 1st to 2nd and 3rd bunny base with one of my colleagues, caused quite a stir at the office today with all the winking, rubbing, undressing and licking… And now, after pushing each others buttons, we are on our Bunnymoon! We’ll both be back soon, maybe with a surprise or two from our trip…
Concluding, LoveHoney has found a way to advertise a hard to solicit product through innovative social media marketing. Evidently, people talk about it! Let’s hope that other marketers get with the program and throw more of such campaigns at us in the future.
