Marketing

When IBM’s Center for Business Value released its 2011 report into the relationship between social media, marketing and brands, it revealed a “perception gap”. On the one hand, marketers had an understanding that their connected consumers “wanted” or even “expected” a certain style of interaction through social media. And on the other hand, there was the hard reality of what those customers actually wanted. The gap between the two was the distance between two competing realities. But is anyone listening? In reality, we are not really dealing with a gap. It could be better described as a “mismatch” – after all, a “gap” would indicate some alignment. But the problem for brands is that the distance between the two sets of expectations is growing. We are now dealing with a widening chasm in the world of customer experience. Two years after IBM’s original report, even a casual investigation of most branded social media would indicate that the chasm is becoming more pronounced as brands continue to shift their marketing spend and resources into digital and social media (Gartner’s US Digital Marketing Spending Report indicates that 25% of the marketing budget is now devoted to digital). But when it comes to business effectiveness, more budget is not necessarily always the answer (though there would be few marketers who would refuse an increase, I am sure). To bridge the social chasm, business must begin to re-think, re-action and re-calibrate their organisational approach to social: Re-think: Start with what you know. Create a new social baseline and audit all your activity for assessment. Real time analytics and dashboards such as those from Anametrix can provide the kinds of decision-ready data that is essential to informed decision-making Re-calibrate: If you have started a social business program in the last two years, it’s now worthwhile assessing its impact. Have you achieved the original milestones? Has the program had the kind of impact that you expected? Take a look at R “Ray” Wang’s 50 use cases that help demystify social business and think through the business processes and workflows that are business critical. Are your social programs impacting business results? If not, it may be time to recalibrate. Re-action: This is no time for social business fatigue. No one ever said that change was easy. And equally, no business achieved competitive advantage by being complacent. It’s time to re-action the business programs that are core to your strategy. What’s your experience? Interestingly, this recent workplace research study by Microsoft revealed that there is also a chasm between business management and the workforce. Teams not only expect or demand more collaboration – about 17% of people are actively ignoring IT policy and installing social tools independently. This is delivering some value to the business – with 60 percent of participants in the Microsoft study indicating that their use of social tools has increased productivity – but this would be a far cry from the billions of locked-in value that McKinsey Global Institute’s 2012 study revealed. If businesses can’t work to unlock the value in the low hanging opportunities within their own business, how long will customers have to wait? It seems like there are whole industries on the brink of disruption. Social may not be the driving force, but it could be the trigger. Microsoft Social Tools in the Workplace Research Study by Mark Fidelman Tweet#call_to_action h4{padding:0px 5px;}

German: Collaborative Economy

The world is changing. The world has changed. Trolling through the news on Business Insider, I stumbled upon their chart of the day titled, Time Spent Watching Video On Mobile Devices Has Doubled In The Last Year. That some exponential growth, right there. The article goes on to explain: "As mobile devices like smartphones and tablets take over many computing tasks from traditional desktops or laptops, they're also changing the way we consume entertainment. In the past year alone, video-watching on mobile devices has doubled. And only recently, tablets have passed smartphones as the most popular type of device to watch video on." How do you consume video content? Have you watched a YouTube video on your TV (via something like Apple TV or Roku)? Have you watched a YouTube video on your computer? Have you watched a YouTube video on your smartphone? Of course. We all have. Is the experience similar? It's on YouTube... that's the same. It's video content... that's the same. It's on a screen... that's the same. But place yourself, contextually, now. When we're watching this content on a TV screen, it is usually a very different environment than that of a computer screen and we're usually not in a fixed or reclined position when we watch these pieces of video content on our mobile devices (we're, typically, on the go). I'd argue that those three environments are fundamentally different and how we consume, pay attention to and react to the content is very different as well. Can you feel how much online video is changing how we consume video content? Let's say you love a YouTube video that you saw on your TV, how do you share it and talk about it? It's simple when you're watching that same video on a computer and a little bit more complex when you're on a smartphone. As if marketers and media professionals didn't have enough to worry about, YouTube is now pushing TrueView (a system by which consumers can skip a video after 5 seconds). While TrueView may seem like a technology geared towards a consumer's desire to skip ads on video content, it's actually a robust analytics platform for television ads that is in a nascent stage as Google (the owners of YouTube) captures all of this critical usage to then push back on advertisers as a way for them to create better and more compelling ads (and for YouTube to charge a whole lot more in terms of placement and the analytics behind it). This could be the win-win that traditional advertisers need to create a more compelling advertising platform with video. We shall see. Still, video consumption is going through this massive shift as more and more viewers are cutting the chord and watching on the go. This isn't going to change. In fact, the trend demonstrates that it is going to increase - both in terms of the usage of these devices for video content and the amount of the population using them. Deal with it. We're about to enter a very different media generation. Accountability for TV ads is going to become as precise (if not more detailed) than what the people in search engine marketing have known for over a decade. We're going to soon have a much better idea as to what creative works, how much of it was truly seen, and if it had any impact (beyond people hitting a "skip this ad" button). Something tells me that traditional advertising is going to be in for some tough truths about the type of work that is being produced, and the value behind the entire process. Directly correlating sales and interest to TV ads isn't going to be the type of metric regulated to the specialized agencies anymore. It's going to be tablestakes in what will become a very complex game of finding optimal marketing mixes that are no longer so heavily weighted to TV ads over everything else. We don't like change. This is going to leave many media professionals scoffing. So be it. Just keep watching these mobile numbers and correlate that to people moving from traditional cable to Internet-ena

The native advertising model raises a number of important issues for publishers. What kind of advertiser is best to work closely with? Is the advertiser's brand complementary to the publisher's? Will the audience find the content engaging? How and where should it be labeled on the site? The list of questions can seem endless. And that doesn't even include the often uncomfortable clash that can arise with the editorial department. This trial by fire process is giving publishers a reason to create a universal set of guidelines for their organizations. These guidelines will help the sales team determine not only which brands to work with but how to work with them. It will also help them adapt to the native concepts lurking around the corner -- Gawker's "commerce journalism." When experimenting with new native concepts or choosing a new partner for an established native placement that you've already been running, what are the rules? This places publishers in an ideal position to lead. Here is a list of questions to consider when producing a set of guidelines for native advertising. Who needs to be involved in ideation? While the precise mechanism may vary from publisher to publisher, native placements are still bought and sold as ads -- with an extra creative layer. A good native program doesn't wrangle with a publisher's audience, but rather enhances the customer experience on the publisher's site. For ads to be truly native and unique to a publisher's brand, a degree of imagination is required. Who at the organization is ideating on native concepts? Is that a function the person is well suited for? To achieve a seductive native program within a company, some inter-organizational cooperation between creative and business forces may well be needed. What is the experience going to be like for users? What will users see after their initial click and where do they engage with the content -- behind a wall, login or takeover, or below the fold? When it comes to user experience, publishers know good design and good execution. They should leverage this knowledge to help the advertisers maximize engagement with their content, which in turn benefits everyone. Where should it appear? When native ad placement comes up, the conversation is usually about how well the unit is integrated into the look and feel of the site. What has yet to be defined this early in the game is where on the page -- and by extension, the site -- the native ad will best perform. Since native ads often become another piece of content in the editorial experience, this is a question best suited for publishers to answer. Even then there's no science to it. Or is there? In these uncharted waters, taking a data-driven approach to how the publisher's regular editorial performs on various parts of the page can help inform an optimal native placement. Native ads represent an opportunity to breathe new life into under-used or under-appreciated portions of a site. Through great content, publishers can retrain readers to engage with placements they may have previously ignored. How do we choose bedfellows? In regards to what happened to The Atlantic, the industry is on high alert for incongruous publisher and advertiser relationships. But let's not forget the factors that led to the outcry -- the quality of content and the overall controversial status of the advertiser. How about less risky partnerships? For example, a parenting site would shy away from a violent video game producer, but what about a major CPG with sugary cereals in its portfolio? If the advertisers have great content -- not to mention dollars -- at what point does the risk of backlash outweigh the potential rewards? Setting up guidelines to address these questions can save you the headache for later, but don't be surprised if an unexpected scenario creeps up. As challenging as this may be in the current economic environment, choose the side of value for the user over short-term monetary gains.

"I don't want to walk around looking like an idiot." "It's several thousand dollars." "I couldn't imagine wearing that." "I'm trying to limit my distractions to the actual world." "I really don't think I need to be that connected to everything all the time." "Glasses just don't really do anything for me." "It'll be too expensive." "I'm going to be a holdout for a watch-type device." "I'm going to wait for it to drop in price." "I have an iPhone. I'm perfectly content with my iPhone." "I already have glasses." "I'm not really an early adopter." "You'll have to check with our CEO." Click here to subscribe to the iMedia YouTube channel for more exclusive content "A man is seen wearing Google Glass at the premiere of 'The Internship' at the Regency Village Westwood" image via Shutterstock.view full article | Add a comment

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What's the Future of Business? UX + CX [Podcast] via @marketingprofs

Why Mcafee did that video: He wanted to distance himself from the software stigma, see interview by @Dan_Holden

RT @FrankEliason: Rental Car Co. Run by Teenagers Undercuts Hertz, Avis - Yahoo! via @YahooNews @Jowyang should chec…

Small business owners are putting less on the line, but feel more optimistic about the future. Are they seeing through rose colored glasses?Small business owners say things are looking up, according to the latest Citibank Small Business Pulse survey. This year's query of 750 respondents revealed only 14 percent feel business conditions are poor--the lowest level since the survey launched in 2010. Nearly half of the small businesses (48 percent) say conditions are good or excellent, up 24 percent since 2010. Fifty-four percent say they expect 2014 to be even better. A possible cause for the shift might be that fewer owners are having to bootstrap, or finance their venture out of pocket.While fewer business owners fund their ventures with personal savings--37 percent compared to 62 percent in 2012--about a third mix the two together. Nearly 14 percent of all business owners say they use personal credit account for their business, the survey found. But the past year has also been kinder to small business owners in general. The percentage of owners taking less profit to support their business fell from 78 percent to 64 percent, while that of owners who took on more responsibility--often because they couldn't afford to hire staff--similarly dropped from 67 percent to 54 percent. "As conditions improve, many small businesses are planning to add staff despite some still reporting a ‘skills gap’ in the U.S.," said Jerome Byers, head of Citibank Small Business, in reference to the 16 percent of small business owners who claim they cannot find quality help. "Plans for physical expansion are in the works too, including the possibility of small businesses crossing international borders--and well they should. With global services and resources to support them, no business is too small to consider international options to find suppliers or customers."In fact, 13 percent said they plan to add more locations, while a quarter would consider expanding to markets abroad.