No, this isn’t a sudden rush of hyperbole, it’s a serious question which is worth thinking about. Here’s why… [Read more…] about Is Sustainability the new Feminism?
Social Networking in China Grows Exponentially Among Specific Consumer Segments
Take a look at the chart from eMarketer that shows the growth of social networking users in China since 2009 and projected through 2015. It seems like every business is focusing on expanding into China with such a huge number of consumers finally accessing more of the products and services from outside the country’s borders. Social networking represents a big opportunity to connect with those consumers based on these reported usage trends.
The eMarketer data represents Internet users in China who use social networks via any type of device at least once per month. In 2009, only 155 million people in China were accessing social networks at least one time each month. Today, that number is 265 million, and by 2015, 488 million Internet users in China will access a social network at least once per month. That’s a lot of potential customers who might be interested in learning about your brand.
An interesting fact to consider about social networking in China is that different social networking sites are favored by different consumer segments. Brands need to find the right social networking destination to connect with the right audience.
eMarketer points out that social networking users in China are very willing to follow brands on social networks, blogs, websites, and so on. In a study by OgilvyOne Worldwide, social media users in China ranked following and friending brands as the second most popular social media activity that they participate in. An amazing 87% of social media users in China already follow and friend brands on Twitter. With such widespread acceptance, it’s unlikely that the willingness to follow brands on social media among the Chinese audience will decrease anytime in the near future.
As with all forms of social media, social networking gives brands and businesses an incredible opportunity to listen to customer conversations, define and meet customer needs, and plan for the future in order to best meet those needs. There are a lot of people in China who are willing to listen to your brand. Are you preparing to connect with them?
Image: eMarketer
Brands Spread the Love for Valentine’s Day Promotions
This year, brands are looking for new ways to connect with consumers and drive sales with unique Valentine’s Day promotions. Many of these new marketing initiatives leverage social media as one would expect in 2011.
AT&T is a brand that stands out from the crowd this year in terms of launching modern and unique Valentine’s Day promotions. AT&T put together a campaign called Shout Your Love from the Mountaintop that debuted just four days before the February 14th holiday. The tagline for the promotion was, “when you love someone, you want to tell the world. You want to shout it from the mountaintop.”
Customers were asked to share their messages of love on the AT&T Facebook page (shown above) and beginning at 8:00 a.m. (PST) on Valentine’s Day and ending in the evening the same day, “fully qualified Mountain Men yellers” read those messages of love on HTC Inspire 4G phones and shouted them for the world to hear. The shouting aired on a live webcast and the submitted messages and Mountain Men videos appear on the AT&T Shout Your Love from the Mountaintop Facebook app (shown below) and on the Share AT&T YouTube channel.
Within the short four days of the campaign, nearly 10,000 people submitted messages of love. Three days before Valentine’s Day, AT&T added a Twitter element to the campaign by asking users to use the Twitter hashtag #LoveShout to spread the word, and AT&T invested in Twitter promotion so the hashtag would be listed in the top trending topics. To round out the online marketing promotion, banner ads and video ads were placed on a variety of top websites such as AOL and Yahoo!
I’m not sure if this campaign drove the ROI AT&T was hoping for, but it undoubtedly drove a positive brand buzz. What do you think of this creative Valentine’s Day promotion by AT&T? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Bringing transparency to CSR reports
In those far off, misty days of University, one of the terrible misconceptions I used to labour under was that I could play the drums.
My few remaining friends from those days are still trying to convince me of my lack of talent on the piano and guitar as well.
No one mentions singing.
ANYWAY…
One of the drums I keep on banging today is to do with transparency as a foundation of a company’s sustainability, and it’s not just me this time either. The reason for this is because as regulation has become looser accountability has to be strengthened, and the only way accountability can really be implemented is through transparency.
But how do you do it? After all, publishing every minute of every meeting ever held will just be a data overload, and while businesses need to move away from secrecy as a default no one’s suggesting the end of commercially sensitive material.
An interesting solution comes from the Netherlands, where the mandatory examination of CSR reports for transparency has been going on for several years now. [Read more…] about Bringing transparency to CSR reports
CSR lessons from the fashion supply chain
Here’s a hypothetical thought. Suppose I was walking along the street one day and a Chinese man walked up to me and kicked me.
I’m absolutely certain I would say “Ow” and I might also enquire (politely, of course) what had led him to such a course of action.
Now imagine you were walking down a different street in a different country, and a Mexican walked up to you and kicked you.
Do you think your pain or response would be dramatically different because of the different people and circumstances involved?
I doubt it.
One of the very interesting effects (but not intentions) of the CSR and sustainability agenda is the way it breaks down stovepiping between different industries and companies. Take the recent report from Labour Behind the Label and War On Want (PDF download) for example.
[Read more…] about CSR lessons from the fashion supply chain
comScore Releases 2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review Report
Each year, comScore releases a report that outlines what happened in the digital media industry in the prior year, so marketers can get an understanding of what’s been happening and leverage the opportunities created by those trends in the following year. The complete report is available for free download and paints a positive picture of the digital media landscape that is very promising for 2011.
Some of the highlights from the report follow:
- Ecommerce spending: Total U.S. ecommerce spending increased by 9% in 2010 over 2009. Retail (non-travel) ecommerce spending jumped 10%, and travel ecommerce spending climbed 6% in 2010.
- Social networking: In 2010, 9 out of every 10 U.S. Internet users visited a social networking site in a month. The average Internet user spent more than 4 hours on social networking sites each month during 2010, and 1 out of every 8 minutes spent online by the U.S. Internet user audience is spent on Facebook.
- Search market: The U.S. search market grew by 12% in 2010. Specifically, unique searchers grew by 4%, and the number of search queries by searcher increased by 8%.
- Display ads: Display ad impressions increased by 12% in 2010, and social networks accounted for more than 33% of those display ad impressions. 4.9 trillion display ads were served to the U.S. Internet audience in 2010.
- Online video: The average U.S. Internet user streamed more than 201 online videos and spent more than 14 hours watching online video in 2010. That’s a 12% increase over 2009.
- Mobile market: 1 in 4 mobile customers used smartphones in 2010 with 3G usage going over 50%. In 2010, 47% of mobile users are now “connected Internet media users (via browsers, applications, or downloaded content),” which is an 8% increase over the prior year.
Internet use continues to grow and the mobile market is growing at lightning speed. Trends show that online video and mobile marketing are the big things for brands to target as well as social networking. Is your brand represented in online video, mobile and social networking? That’s where your customers are, and your brand needs to be there, too. These trends aren’t going to reverse themselves in 2011, and they’re not unique to the U.S. consumer audience.
Image: stock.xchng