Entries Tagged 'New Media' ↓

There’s been volumes written about why and how companies should get involved in social media, so I thought it might be useful to share some surefire signs that your company is NOT ready for social media. So here goes:

• Management Indifference: If you spend more time trying to convince your bosses that social media is worth the time, effort and investment than actually implementing ideas, then it’s better to find another place that suits your beliefs and skills.
• No Strategy Needed: While there is no doubt some of the early trailblazing brands in social media didn’t sit around writing strategic plans prior to launching initiatives, those success stories are more the exception than the rule. Real thinking and planning is required for long-term success.
• It’s a Fad: If that’s a phrase you’ve heard in the hallways around your office coupled with eye rolls, it’s usually not a good sign. People resistant to change and new ways of doing business often peg everything new - from mobile marketing to the iPhone - as a passing fad. The term ’social media’ will pass, but not the underlying fundamental change driving consumer collaboration across the Web.
• Outsource It: If there is a strong belief within your company that your advertising or PR agencies can handle social media without any involvement by your management or people, then you’re clearly not ready for this world.
• No Bad News: If a brand would prefer not to hear about what’s wrong with its products and services, then it’s certainly not a good candidate for social media. In other words - let’s not listen to our customers if we really don’t have to.
• Relationship to Sales: I have been in meetings where brand managers have said that they will not assign any man hours or any marketing budget to social media until it can be linked directly back to a product sale. I think they are the same guys who have been counting Web site clicks since the mid-90s.
• No Technology Needed: OK, I may be a bit bias on this one because we provide a software solution, but if your company thinks it can sift through the millions of blogs and new posts and comments every day with a couple of interns and a spreadsheet, then I would question how serious you really are about social media.
• Afraid of Failure:  If your boss expects that everything is going to go smoothly from the moment you get started, you’re in for a rough time. This is still very much a trial and error business and good brands and marketers know they are going to take some lumps along the way. That’s just part of the innovation roadmap.

Mike Spataro

As a former journalist (six years as a UPI wire guy), I have the utmost respect for the written and unwritten rules that have governed traditional broadcast and print journalism since the beginning of time. In fact, I’m saddened by how much those rules have deteriorated over the years. The day-to-day battles I had during my UPI days with friends and foes at the Associated Press, including the now legendary John King back in the days of Providence, RI, would make for some great posts for another day.

However, this lingering story about NBC’s attempt to delay the news of Tim Russert’s death just bugs me - not because it wasn’t the right thing to do, but it shows the incredible lack of understanding of how much news coverage has changed over the past few years. Without a doubt, attempts to reach Mr. Russert’s family prior to NBC airing the story was the correct course of action. But to chastise an employee at Internet Broadcasting Services for updating Russert’s profile on Wikipedia 11 minutes before the story appeared on NBC is just not right. Like it or not, these are the times we now live in. News no longer waits for anyone.

NBC had no choice but to handle the situation as it did and the network is probably thrilled not to be held accountable for leaking the information early. But to think that breaking news like Mr. Russert’s death will not hit the blogosphere, Twitter and other online sites before traditional media is just insane in this day and age.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I’ve had more than a few front row seats (called jobs) with companies that thought they could stick to their old ways of doing business when times changed, only to find out the hard way that wasn’t such a good idea. UPI was one of those companies. Let’s hope NBC isn’t another.

Mike Spataro

It has been a week of digesting many of the latest papers and data points from IDC, Forrester, and Gartner. Since, I have shared some Forrester and Gartner updates I thought I should post on IDC’s latest figures about Internet advertising revenue which project a doubling from $25.5 billion in 2007 to $51.1 billion in 2012. That will make the internet the #2 advertising medium in five years, growing about eight times as fast as advertising at large. This will make the internet bigger than newspaper, cable TV, broadcast, and second only to direct advertising.

Video advertising will be the principal disruptor of Internet advertising during this time, as its revenue grows sevenfold from $0.5 billion in 2007 to $3.8 billion in 2012 at a compound annual growth rate of 49.4%. Brand advertisers will shift significant amounts of money into video commercials, primarily from broadcast television and to a lesser extent from cable television.

IDC concludes that

• Search ads will remain at the top of the Internet ad hierarchy with revenue at $10.4 billion last year, reaching almost $18 billion in 2012. IDC believes search, now having almost 41 percent of the market share, will have just above 34 percent by 2012.
• Online video ad spending will grow from about $500 million in 2007 to $3.8 billion in 2012 and its Internet advertising share will expand from 2 percent to 7.4 percent.
• Referral and lead-generation services will see the second strongest market share gain, says IDC. Revenue from referral and lead generation services will grow from $2.3 billion in 2007 to $5.9 billion in 2012.
• Mobile advertising will also show robust growth but the segment will still have “just shy” of 1 percent of the overall online ad market by 2012.

Amazing projections, let’s just hope that brands and their agencies are listening to this and paying attention to the consumers that are consuming it.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

Notable analyst’s, Brian Haven and Suresh Vittal, from Forrester Research have just published an outstanding and well-thought out paper about Measuring Engagement. The overall theme of the paper declares that “the metrics marketers use today fail to capture the supercharged social behaviors and intimate relationships people have with brands”. This is very active discussion topic with many of our customers and one of our TruCast platform’s key differentiators - in that enables the measurement of engagement that brands/marketers are having with their customers in the social media space.

Building on the framework that Brian initially developed around the four I’s of engagement: involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence the authors further detail how to measure engagement and prioritize metrics that are appropriate to customer purchasing processes. Some key highlights/takeaways include:

- Why marketers are failing to take action

- Utilizing an engagement framework for the new social era

- How engagement measurement strategy reinvigorates consumer insight

- Why marketers should prioritize the acquisition of engagement metrics

In sum, a framework and tactical steps are well laid out for marketers in this paper to support why engagement measurement will transform the marketing landscape and require new marketing skills, partners who get it, and convergent marketing technologies.

Well done Brian & Suresh

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

A great report was recently published by Brad Bortner from Forrester Research about “How Web 2.0 will Transform Market Research”. Online communities offer marketers - real-time, cheap, and unique insights that traditional qualitative focus groups don’t necessarily provide. We continue to see clients leveraging our software to listen and understand what consumers are saying about there brands. Web 2.0 and social media provide a new laboratory for listen and dissecting consumer opinions. Forrester interviewed 31 leading Fortune 500 firms to compile this new piece of research. I would encourage marketers and market researchers to purchase the report and learn more.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies