Social Networking and Client Communications
February 9, 2010
Being in the business of online content production in various platforms can be both rewarding and laborious at the same time. Depending on to whom you speak and in what context you discuss it, being online can be a huge benefit for some but a nuisance for others.
Social networking is the booming choice these days for companies who are trying to reach potential customers in various demographics and buying patterns. No doubt that any company will tell you that they want as many customers they can get. They want to attract long-term clients and build solid business relationships that they can enjoy for years to come. How do they propose to get this business? Will old marketing systems still work just as effectively?
The Importance of Networking
Social client networking is critical and necessary for effective client communications. There isn’t any way that a corporation can be effective in the online community without establishing a presence that anchors them in the business world. Customers don’t only rely on brand names or household names anymore as their sole reason for doing business. They want to know what other customers think. They want to know what others clients’ experiences have been. They want all of the information they can obtain before they make a buying decision, whether that’s to buy a widget or to make a long-term financial investment.
Communication is important in any business. Social networking has flung the door wide open for corporations and small businesses to build their network of loyal customers. There are online communities, discussion groups, Twits and fan pages that all serve to sing the praises of any business who has chosen to work online. In order for the business to be successful in their communication efforts they can implement the methods of several ideas: 1.) Set up a social networking platform, whether that’s a blog, an online newsletter, a Facebook page or a Twitter account. Do something to establish a presence in the online world. 2.) Work and develop your online presence. It’s a great thing to have a Facebook page, but is it being put to use? Interact with other social marketers. Answer and ask questions that pertain to your niche. Become the preferred “go-to” person or corporation when someone is looking for information on your subject of specialty. 3.) Vary your social networking platforms. Don’t be narrow-minded: not everyone is on Facebook and Twitter. They just happen to be popular name brand sites that you hear everyone buzzing about. There are other sites that are just as effective and have many users in your demographic area. Find out what groups fit your company’s mission and become an active part of the community. 4.) Keep a polished presence. This counts for both your blog and website and any other forms of communication that you have established. Be as professional as possible at all times. Make sure your site and blog(s) are clean, easy to read, engaging and offer value. Make sure everything about your online presence is outstanding because your readers may visit your site only once, and first impressions are lasting impressions. Social networking and communicating are both efforts that have to be maintained and tweaked when necessary. They can’t be set on auto-pilot and be expected to work on their own. A few dedicated minutes per day or a couple of hours per week should be sufficient to ensure that your corporate blog is getting the attention it needs and exposure for your body of work. In the long run, the dividends are invaluable and the initial investment of time and skill will have been all worth it. February 8, 2010 According to a new report from Gartner, companies will learn to embrace social media in the future not only for external marketing and brand-building but also for internal communications. Earlier this month, Gartner released its five predictions for social software in 2010 and beyond. They are: You can get more details about the Gartner predictions in this press release. In terms of marketing and branding, the most interesting prediction from Gartner is the first one listed above — within 4 years, social Web tools will replace email as the primary tool for communications for 20% of business users. The shift is already happening as companies move marketing budgets from email marketing to social media initiatives. I’m actually surprised that the 20% prediction isn’t higher. The third prediction, that over 70% of IT-dominated social media initiatives will fail through 2012, doesn’t surprise me though. I can’t imagine that anyone will fully figure out the perfect way to leverage the social Web from an IT, marketing, or any other discipline’s perspective within the next two years. I also find the fourth prediction listed above to be very interesting, which states that 70% of collaboration and communications applications designed on PCs will be modeled after lessons learned from smartphone applications within five years. The move from computers to smartphones for an incredibly wide variety of tasks is already happening so quickly since the iPhone hit the market. The 70% prediction doesn’t surprise me at all. I wonder how many businesses are prepared for that shift? If it’s not already on your radar screen, it should be. It’s amazing how quickly the social Web has caused the business landscape to change, and these predictions are just a small sampling of additional changes to come as more people and businesses around the world fully embrace the tools of social networking and collaboration. What do you think of Gartner’s predictions? February 5, 2010 A study by WPP of 17,000 search engine users reveals quite a bit of information about search engine brand loyalists. The complete report will be released later this month, and is certain to bring some interesting insight that could help advertisers connect with more targeted audiences.
The Future of Marketing Communications and Social Media
Gartner also predicts that companies will become more open to employees using both business and personal social networks for business purposes, but with that change in policy will come the need for companies to create specific guidelines for use. According to a study by Manpower (via eMarketer), only 20% of companies worldwide had formal policies for how employees could use social networking sites in 2009 (see the chart for a breakdown by region).Search Engine Brands Attract Unique Audiences
For example, take a look at the chart above which shows that innovators and early adopters are most likely to use Bing as their preferred search engine. Given that Bing is the newest search engine of the top three, this finding isn’t shocking. However, the study also reveals that Bing users are more likely to shop at Walmart than any other search engine users while Google users shop at Target and Amazon. Also, Yahoo! users choose AT&T and Sprint as their wireless providers more than other search engine users. It’s these pieces of information that advertisers are likely to eat up!
Here are a few highlights that show how demographic and behavioral attributes vary online based on the search engine people choose:
- More likely to shop at Target and Amazon
- More likely to book flights online at JetBlue.com
- More likely to make travel reservations on HotWire
- More likely to research the Lexus car brand
- Tend to be the “average consumer”, conventional but open to trying new things, rule followers
Bing
- More likely to shop at Walmart
- More likely to research the Toyota car brand
- Tend to be middle-aged, highly educated, tech-savvy
Yahoo!
- More likely to choose AT&T or Sprint as wireless providers.
- Tend to be 55-years of age or older, reserved, less independent, skeptical about future and about trying new things
AOL
- Tend to be 55-years of age or older, less intellectual than peers, responsible spenders, use dial-up modems, pessimistic about future
But that’s not all! The study will also reveal how people who prefer different search engines are more or less likely to actually make purchases on the Web sites they find. That’s a connection many marketers may not have realized existed, and it can certainly help advertisers.
What do you think about these study results?
Source: AdAge.com
Hello JobDeck! Plus–Twitter Productivity
February 4, 2010
I recently received this tweet from Skellie, one of my favorite idea sources:
Productivity in 11 words: One thing at a time. Most important thing first. Start now.
So–I promptly threw out my entire library of David Allen and Stephen Covey books, closed my Nozbe account, and trashed my Pomodoro.
Not really. But I do recognize that if I followed the 11-word formula faithfully, I would resolve a lot of productivity problems. And happily, this thought fit right in with a post I’d been planning on how to avoid the social media time trap. Then I got a tweet about JobDeck, and everything fell into place!
TweetDeck is just one of the several good tools available for managing Twitter, but it’s the one I know best. And it’s also the one that recently rolled out a special version for job-seekers. JobDeck is essentially TweetDeck enhanced with built-in job search functionality, a special column for recruiting news, and a desklike appearance. The New York Times Technology section offers a nice summary of the product.
In terms of productivity—having a dashboard like TweetDeck, where you can filter and organize many Twitter streams (as well as input from Facebook and LinkedIn), is a huge help if you really want to be involved in social media. But TweetDeck can also increase the seduction factor by making you aware of just how much is going on in the Twitterverse every minute. So you might want to browse Tim Ferriss’s article How to Use Twitter Without Twitter Owning You—5 Tips. One tip (“Set alerts or blocks on Twitter usage”) discusses productivity aids like RescueTime. I’m about to test-drive RescueTime and will review if it’s interesting.
I’m also trying out Mr.Tweet. Basically, Mr.Tweet looks at your own followers/followees and recommends other Twitterers you might want to consider. So far, Mr.Tweet has made some interesting suggestions—and the excellent interface shows how each one was derived, as well as providing individual profiles that include Twitter statistics and sample tweets. It’s free, and worth a look, especially if you have a focused Twitter agenda and would like to quickly find high-value tweeters.
A final thought about Twitter and productivity. I was a late adopter of Twitter, and I’m still figuring out how best to use it. One key (for me anyway) has been finding people whose tweets alert me to things I want to know about. Getting the most out of Twitter requires practice, but you can learn to scan various streams quickly and pick out just what’s relevant or intriguing, while letting the rest go by.
That’s from the perspective of using Twitter as an information source. Using Twitter as a search tool has a whole different set of considerations, and there is not a better overview than Boolean Blackbelt’s How to Search Twitter for Sourcing and Recruiting.
History of the Apple Logo and Lessons Learned
February 4, 2010
The Apple logo has become an iconic symbol of one of the strongest relationship brands, but it wasn’t always the cool monochromatic, Web 2.0 logo that it is today. In fact, the Apple logo has undergone three major redesigns since the original was created in 1976.
1976
The original Apple logo was created by one of the lesser-known founders of Apple Computer Co., Ronald Wayne. It’s hard to even notice the apple hanging from the tree above Sir Isaac Newton’s head in this image. The text that borders the image (which is too small to read at any size) reads, “Newton… A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought … Alone.” It’s not surprising that this logo only lasted a year as the primary tangible symbol of the Apple brand. There is really nothing positive that you can say about it in terms of branding a technology company.
1977
The rainbow apple is the logo that most consumers saw in their introduction to the Apple brand. Apple brand champion Steve Jobs, himself, hired graphic designer Rob Janoff of the Regis McKenna Advertising Agency to design the new logo, and the final design chosen — the rainbow apple — worked. According to some reports, Janoff has claimed the bite taken out of the apple was intended to show people that the image was an apple, not a tomato, and it was a play on words between “bite” and the technical term “byte”.
1998
One year after Steve Jobs returned to the helm of Apple (after he was ousted from the company years earlier), he called for a logo update, and what came out of this redesign was a color change from the dated rainbow palette to a modern monochromatic version that was also highly web-friendly. The primary color for this Apple logo, which is still used today, is chrome, but it has appeared in other colors as well. In a word, the new logo was sleek and matched the new direction Jobs planned to take the company. The monochrome Apple logo has even been reported as stimulating the brain and making people who are exposed to it more creative (according to a 2008 study by Duke University). The logo redesign in 1998 was subtle, but very effective in repositioning the brand and moving it into a new century in consumers’ minds.
Companies spend millions of dollars on rebranding initiatives, often dropping millions on a logo redesign alone. While I’m sure Apple invested quite a bit in its two logo redesign efforts, the lesson to learn from this history report is this — if there is value in your logo as a tangible symbol of your brand, a complete logo redesign might not be the best strategy to revamp or rebrand. Subtle changes could make a better difference and yield better results. However, sometimes a complete redesign is warranted, as in the case of the original Apple logo, so don’t be afraid to admit when your tangible brand elements just aren’t working.
What do you think?
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