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Social Media Goals for U.S. Companies Defined

social-media-internet_and_future___The 2010 Benchmarking Study by Ketchum and FedEx researched 62 businesses from a number of different industries to learn how those businesses’ social media goals compare to their engagement levels on the social web.

Interestingly, the goals of most businesses, regardless of industry, are similar.  Leading social media goals of U.S. companies were identified in the study as:

  • Increase awareness and interaction with our brand: 94.1%
  • Create a community for our customers and fans: 76.1%
  • Increase traffic to our website: 55.1%
  • Identify and react to customer needs: 50.3%
  • Identify new business opportunities or leads: 49.0%

While companies are very much at different stages of social media adoption (only 10% claim to be in leadership positions in the social media space compared to 75% who are in the participation stage and 15% who are still only in the observation stage), there is a growing understanding that social media is essential to an integrated marketing communications strategy.

In other words, the days of ignoring social media or labeling it as a short-term fad are long gone.  Businesses that aren’t at least participating in the social media conversation are very much in the minority today, meaning other companies are reaping the rewards that social media participation can deliver to businesses and brands.

Clearly, as the study results mentioned above demonstrate, companies understand the importance of leveraging social media to increase brand awareness and interaction.  Nearly all companies included in the study stated that a key objective of social media participation is to raise brand awareness and interaction.

Even a small amount of social media participation can help raise brand awareness, so it’s not surprising that branding is a social media goal for most companies.   Brand managers understand that, and it’s good to see more executives buying into the importance of social media for brand-building.  After all, strong brands can help build a company and sustain it through challenging times.  Would a company like Playboy still be around today given the ups and downs it has faced throughout its lifecycle if the Playboy brand weren’t one of the most recognized brands in the world?  It’s doubtful.  Therefore, having access to social media for brand-building and business-building is an opportunity that companies can no longer ignore or claim they can do without.  Instead, social media marketing is a business imperative.

What do you think?

Image: stock.xchng

10 Big Buzz Brands of 2010 for American Consumers

Which brands generated a big buzz online and offline this year and how did they do it?  I compiled a list of 10 of the biggest buzz brands in the United States during 2010 to get an idea of what got people talking and sharing this year. These brands are in no particular order — just as I thought of them.  Check out the list below.

1. Old Spice

Thanks to a clever commercial, Old Spice enjoyed a resurgence in popularity that hasn’t been seen since the return of bell-bottom pants in the early 1990s.

2. Silly Bandz

Is there a store in the country that doesn’t sell Silly Bandz?  Okay, I’m exaggerating the popularity of Silly Bandz with that question, but just a bit.  These little plastic bracelets come in more shapes than you can imagine and have become the “must-have” item for girls and boys.  Whether kids want to wear Silly Bandz, trade them with friends, or use them as weapons to flick at each other in the absence of rubber bands, there is a reason why schools across the country have banned them.

3. Droid

It seemed like no one could compete with Apple’s iPhone.  Then Google’s Android smart phone hit the market and customers noticed.  With a better network and similar features, Droid has been nipping away at Apple’s market share (not to mention the market shares of other mobile device brands).

4. Angry Birds

It’s the hottest game in mobile apps and soon it will become available for gaming devices like the Wii.  Angry Birds 2 is in the works by creator Rovio, and the number of people trying to help a bunch of angry birds destroy pigs continues to grow.

5. iPad

Everyone was interested in the iPad in 2010.  Whether or not consumers dished out the money to get one is another story entirely, but they certainly were talking about it.

6. Kindle

With a drop in price, the buzz about Amazon’s Kindle e-reader device kicked up.  Considering how many other e-reader devices are hitting the market or dropping prices, it’s a good thing for Amazon that the Kindle followed suit.

7. Sarah Palin

Whether or not you agree with her politics, you can’t argue with the marketing machine behind Sarah Palin which turned a reputation that could have gone down in history as a 15-minutes of fame story into a brand that’s bringing in big bucks through multiple ventures.

8. Facebook

2010 could be called the year that Facebook took over the world — 350 million users globally, a movie, access to way too much private information, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

9. Groupon

Who doesn’t like big discounts?  Is it really surprising that Groupon got people talking (and joining) in 2010?

10. RedBox

First came Netflix, then came RedBox.  Blockbuster didn’t stand a chance.  How can you compete with cheap and convenient?

What do you think were the biggest buzz brands of 2010 in the United States or other parts of the world?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Whoever Gets Their Positioning Right Wins a Prize: Survival (And Even Profit)

I recently invited Karen Jones from BioEngagement to write a guest post for us about how best to position new technologies. Over to you, Karen!

Let’s say you have a new technology platform to sell. Should you describe it as “new and never been done before”, or “just like those other guys, but better”?

Positioning: Create a New Market or Segment an Existing One?

positioning
Positioning your new technology can make the difference between success and failure, case in point: Research in Motion (RIM) and TiVo, as described in this excellent post by Steve Blank.

In 1997, RIM decided to describe their new handheld communication device as an “interactive pager”, even though it was actually the first wireless email device, because pagers were something that people could understand at the time and therefore it needed very little explanation. There was a ready market there for the taking and RIM succeeded. The device is known as the Blackberry. RIM sales were $15 billion in 2010. In the last ten years they’ve made over $9 billion in profit.

TiVo, on the other hand, hated the idea of describing their technology as just a better VCR and instead carved out an entirely new market of digital video recorders, which took ten years of marketing slog and a loss of $400 million to achieve $240 million in sales in 2010.

So, “new and unprecedented” is not always better.

Technology Innovations: Are They ALWAYS For a New Market?

I mention this because in my field of life science, heralding a new technology as “unique and unprecedented” appears to be the default. Perhaps if the inventors and their shareholders took the guts to swallow their pride and describe their offerings in terms more familiar to their customer base, we would see some improvement in terms of time to adoption and profitability.

Take 23andme, for instance. This cleverly branded startup gained $22M in Series C funding in September this year (a feat in itself) and aims to help people understand what their genes mean by indexing them and highlighting significant findings. Naturally, it didn’t hurt that they got a leg up from Google, but my point here is that instead of harping on about their ground-breaking genome-scanning technology, their home page distills their direct-to-consumer offering as a simple saliva test. Something that everyone can understand.

Pay-As-You-Go Chemistry?

Newly launched Molplex follows a similar approach, on a fraction of the budget. Under the hood it contains unique virtual chemistry screening technology that allows researchers to identify potential new pharmaceutical compounds or compound fragments that bind to new therapeutic targets and to assess their pharmacokinetic and other critical properties without ever having to leave the desk. On its website it simply calls it “discovery on demand” and lets the researcher walk through its product offerings as if he or she was about to order a new chemical compound from a catalog. We’ll see if this works, but I’m pleased that their complex semantic web-based technology isn’t the first thing you read about when you land on their site.

A Better Antibody Generation Technology

Highly interesting biotech start-up Kymab enters the market with its next generation antibody technology which involves transferring a huge chunk of human genome sequence into a mouse in order to fully replicate the complete diversity of the human immune response. If they get it right, they will be able to tackle the most intractable of human immune diseases and attract technology licensing deals with pharmaceutical giants as well as develop their own antibody therapies. It’s an extension of existing technology which they are calling the “7th generation antibody technology” – i.e. same as the other guys but better. I hope they succeed.

A New Market Requires Education Before Adoption: Is There Time?

There are many life science companies that gone down the route of developing a new market before selling their wares. I worked in the genomics industry before the “biotech bust” and saw huge promise squandered, as it took too long to educate the market and encourage early adoption by the pharmaceutical industry that isn’t known for taking technological risks. Huge databases of human genetic variants known as SNPs, created before anyone had a chance to understand what they might be used for; gene microchips that could be used to identify the differences between disease and normal tissue, yet the market couldn’t recognise a common application. Failures of positioning.

So the next time that you see a new technology that puts its cleverness ahead of a simple and recognizable application, remember the Blackberry and the TiVo and reconsider whether it really is that clever.

Thanks Karen!

Dr Karen Jones is the founder of BioEngagement Ltd, helping lifescience companies to commercialise their innovations through smart business development, marketing and communication strategies. She holds a PhD from UCL, post-doctorate education at Harvard Medical School and over 12 years’ experience in sales and marketing of global life science companies. Follow Karen at @bioengagement.

Willpower and Corporate Communications Success

I invited Graham W Price, a chartered psychologist and coach, to write a guest post for us, discussing ways to help us each reach our business goals.

How to boost your willpower to make your corporate communications succeed

Willpower to succeed
The best laid plans of mice and men… we all know the saying and the chances are we’ve uttered it many times. We all have great ideas and good intentions that could make a real difference to our corporate communications (and our careers), but sometimes we just don’t seem to make them a reality.

We can make excuses such as “a lack of time”, or “other things got in the way”, but really it’s about lacking the willpower to stick to our goals and make them a reality.

So how can we boost our willpower to carry through those intentions that are going to positively impact our work and our lives?

Chartered psychologist and success coach Graham W Price has ten top tips to boost our corporate communications willpower:

  • Goals: Set goals, write them down, make sure they’re SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable, time-based). Write down a time by which you plan to achieve each one.
  • Motivation: Write down the benefits of achieving each goal. Visualise it as being achieved – make it a clear, strong, vivid visualisation.
  • When-then games: Spot any unhelpful when-then games you may be playing (“when I’ve been here another six months and understand the company better, then I’ll take action”; “when I’m 100% sure of success then I’ll make a start”). Drop them now and start taking action.
  • Commitment: If the goal is important and challenging, make a commitment (a promise to yourself that you can share with colleagues) that you’ll do whatever you need to do to achieve it.
  • Act as if:
    • If you believe you might need more ‘get up and go’ to achieve the goal, think of someone you admire who’s achieved something similar, or could easily achieve it. Ask yourself what they’d be doing in your situation. Then do it
    • If a lack of self-belief or any other limiting belief is holding you back, ask yourself what you’d be doing if you had a more positive belief. Then do it
  • Bold action: If a one-step-at-a-time approach isn’t working, take bold action. Do something courageous or imaginative.
  • Time management:If it’s a big important goal, set some time aside every day to move it forward, irrespective of whatever short-term priorities may be competing for your time. Talk to your manager and drop tasks that don’t need to be done and won’t contribute significant benefits.
  • Accept the feeling, choose the action: If uncomfortable feelings get in the way, accept the feeling (be willing to experience it and tell yourself it’s just a feeling that needn’t stop you and won’t do you any harm) and do whatever you’d be doing if you didn’t have the feeling. Doing this repeatedly will unwind the unconscious beliefs that are driving the feeling. If you’re fearful or anxious, and you know your reticence isn’t justified by any real danger, accept the feeling and do whatever it is that’s making you anxious. Use this same approach to deal with any other recurring uncomfortable feelings.
  • Focus on contribution: If you’re stuck on a goal, ask yourself whether it’s because you’re just focusing on your own needs, wants and perceived limitations. If so, try rephrasing the goal in terms of what it will do for others, your boss, your employer or your customers. This can take the focus away from your own so-called limitations and gives a new impetus to the goal.
  • Take control: Identify anything that’s mediocre in your life (both business and personal) and take steps to eliminate it. Get fit, spend more time with the kids, eat healthily, create a sensible work-life balance, lose weight, keep the desk tidy, quit smoking. Use the nine tips above to make it happen. This will raise your self esteem, confidence and will power.

These tools aren’t universally applicable. Some ‘when-then’ games may be sensibly cautious. Taking some bold actions might be unduly risky. But utilising the tools appropriately will give us the willpower to achieve our goals and enhance our success – not just our own success but the success of the work we deliver within our organisation.

Thanks Graham!

About the author:

Graham W Price is a chartered psychologist, therapist, coach and development trainer. He is an accredited member of the British Psychological Society (BPS), the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and a registered practitioner psychologist with the Health Professions Council (HPC).

He is author of “What Is, Is! The Power of Positive Acceptance” published by HotHive, outlining all the above tools and others needed for achieving satisfaction, resilience, improved relationships and success.

For more information about Graham see www.abicord.com/graham-price

Google Previews Your Corporate Site

Have you noticed Google’s “instant preview” feature?

If you run a Google search for your company, you should see at least one result; ideally, you’ll see several pages from your site. Each will have a small magnifying glass to the right hand side… if you click that, you’ll see a thumbnail snapshot of the page.

Does your site look attractive at this scale? Is the page complete? Does your logo stand out? Is your branding recognisable?
Cairn Energy

These previews aren’t always flattering to the corporate site. Zipping through some of the FTSE 100 companies, I did spot some issues:

  • some sites are displaying with blank sections, where, presumably, part of the page hasn’t loaded before the snapshot was taken
  • I also saw one with a ‘down for maintenance’ display; I expect that this will be overwritten the next time the site is spidered
  • sites with a Flash-based home page (or elements on the page) don’t display well, showing just the plugin-jigsaw-piece image where the Flash should be.

Search Engine People found that sites with popups, where the page dims to highlight the popup, look bad, though this isn’t usually something that corporates use; something to bear in mind if you’re adding in a site survey popup, perhaps. Do go and read the Search Engine People post if you haven’t seen it yet, as there’s a lot of good examples and discussion there.

The good news is, though, that some sites look great at this scale, clear and attractive, with strong branding messages. The Cairn Energy preview shown above, for example, looks bright and vibrant, helped perhaps by the home page being short and wide rather than long and thin.

And some sites have text highlighted – see the screenshot for the Kingfisher home page, where the highlighted text happens to be a positioning statement. The company should be pleased with that!

Kingfisher

If your site has words displayed, are they useful to the visitor and helpful to you? This snippet is generated based on what the searcher is looking for, and the text on the page, so may be little that can be done to improve this other than ensuring that all content on the page is carefully honed. We can see that this varies, because if, for instance, I search for Aviva Group, and then for Aviva plc, and look at their About page, different text is highlighted in each case.

Aviva plc

Searching for Aviva PLC..
Aviva group

…and for Aviva Group.

This may not be something that you need to worry about. I expect that the images will get updated regularly, so if your site had a bad hair day, it may not be visible for long. I imagine that not many people will use this feature when looking for a corporate site; after all, if you know which company you’re looking for, you’re probably not going to be tempted into visiting a different organisation. However, if people are likely to search for your products and services, this may matter a great deal.

It is possible that people will use this feature when looking for information usually found on a lower level page, to cut out navigation within the corporate site. The extent to which people will use it is, as yet, unknown, but it will be interesting.

What do you think: will this matter? Is it a feature you’re likely to use much yourself when searching?

Brand Buzz Influences Perception as Holiday Shopping Begins

holiday_sale_1The biggest shopping days of the holiday season are coming, and retail brands are fighting for attention, wallets, and buzz.  YouGov has been tracking brand perceptions among an audience of 1.5 million consumers of which the organization surveys 5,000 people daily. A recent study was designed to learn how women with children under the age of 18 feel about brands as the holidays are approaching.

So which brands are on top in terms of positive consumer brand value perceptions based on the brand buzz around them?  According to YouGov (as reported by BrandWeek), the following brands are earning the most positive buzz:

  1. Target
  2. Old Navy
  3. Amazon
  4. J.C. Penney
  5. Kohl’s
  6. Toys ‘r Us
  7. eBay
  8. Walmart
  9. Sears
  10. Best Buy

Brands with the biggest jump in positive value perception versus 30 days earlier are Sears, Toys ‘r Us, Macy’s, eBay, and Bloomingdale’s.

Many of these brands are getting positive responses from consumers due to their big discounts and extended sales that have been rolled out earlier than ever to ensure retailers get the sales they need to wrap up a successful year.  New mobile promotions and social media marketing campaigns are launched every day as brands try to connect with the elusive digital consumer audience.

From a marketing perspective, the results analysis from these campaigns and tactics will be very interesting!  There will be a lot for retail brands to learn during this holiday season.  Returning to the “old” ways of marketing simply won’t get the job done anymore.  It makes you wonder what we’ll see during the 2011 holiday season!

What do you think?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts about brand value and promotions this holiday season.

Image: stock.xchng