News Update – Best of the Day

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Ecommerce is developing rapidly. And although users are said to be slow in adapting new technology, they expect their retailers to embed the latest trends and technology in their websites. As this will increase the sales potential of a business, companies should carefully listen to top 10 tactical trends by Michael Piastro which will help supercharge your ecommerce strategy for the future.

Social Media is in “at” your workplace, you said? Yes, but what does top management use it today? A new comprehensive study of more than 1000 business professionals by Pierre Khawand, Founder and CEO of People-OnTheGo shows that business decision makers manage multiple “inboxes” including Social Media. Social media is already a regular part of the work day. LinkedIn is the most popular social network. More than two-thirds (63.8%) of top management and almost three-quarters of marketing (73.9%) and sales (74.2%) respondents check LinkedIn regularly. Isn’t it interesting that private email is as popular as business email for top management? Social Media or private emails… Thinking about what might affect productivity more in the future…

Are small companies spending most of their marketing funds into Social Media in 2011? No! The use traditional websites and e-mail, says a report by online survey firm Zoomerang and GrowBiz media that surveyed 751 small firms (predominantly with less than 25 employees). The survey finds that over a quarter will spend at least 30% of their online marketing budgets on their websites, E-mail coming in second (18%). Only 10% were planning to spend at least 30% of their budgets on Social Media.

Nespresso loves commercial story-telling

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Nespresso loves to do commercial story-telling. In my eyes this is done in a really effective and impressive way. Although the commercials are produced for TV, they make their way from a buzz point of view on the web when you look at the social media metrics. The number of likes, ratings, comments and “embedded content” tell us how to do some good viral as well (without obeying the secrets of a viral).

The TV commercials follow a story with George Clooney and John Malkovich. In the first spot, George could escape afterlife only by handing out his Nespresso capsules to John Malkowich (who is playing God) in front of heaven’s gate. Nevertheless, George Clooney could embrace the sweetness of heaven’s lovely secrets in the long version. Now, whether this was done by purpose to make it more attractive as a viral to be spread, we could not find out. But I am quite sure, it was…

Now, in their new TV spot John Malkowich is a cab driver picking up George Cooney who just leaves a Nespresso bar. And obviously the price for the lift is again the Nespresso capsules. Do you think George is happy to see John again? Watch it…

Spot On!
In order to get good storyboards for their spots, Nespresso asks their club-members to hand in story ideas. In the past, they have also given them two pre-produced spots to decide which one they would send on air. Can it be said that Nespresso’s approach to commercials follows some kind of social media or crowd-scourcing model? I think it does, and it does it well without making “social media noise” around it. The commercials are funny, creative and have the right cosmopolitain charm that people associate with the characters that tell the story. That’s modern commercial story-telling, isn’t it? And that’s why people love sharing it, right?

PS: Have written this post while drinking a Volluto. John and my favourite flavor… 😉

Meetings and the importance of dissent

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We all experience this phenomenon on a daily basis in business. In meetings we spend hours listening to the stuff that has been said for years. No new input, no fresh approach, no disbelieve. People love to tell each other what everyone already knows. And those who really address new topics and thoughts often fail to alert the rest of the meeting crowd. Thus, the output of these meetings in most cases could be summaruzed with a single = 0…

As most of us don’t know why we have meetings and what the purpose of these meetings is, we tend to stay in our comfort-zone and don’t address the “unsaid, unknown and unpredicted”. Safety and familiarity makes us hide our dissent in meetings. And the reason we love to keep our jobs does it’s favor to it (especially in recession times). In most cases everyone knows the outcome of meetings before they have even started. The reason? We have made up our minds already…

So, how can we introduce new input or information for more effective ways of meeting conversation? Social software could play a crucial role in this perpetuum mobile business cycle. The use of social bookmarks, blogs and wikis offers a new perspective for discussions in meetings. If people give valuable input on the meeting topic via these platforms before the meeting starts, the discussion gets less influenced by the group harmony.

Apart from that, meeting members tend to follow the group heads, especially young and junior members often don’t dare to dissent with their bosses’ view – no matter if he/she is right/wrong. By opening up an input-first strategy, or platform, for the meeting, the “meeting-leader” can introduce the new input to the others and encourage meeting members to share their views and ideas around the new conversation topic.

These social platforms also serve as a checklist for the meeting (and can shorten the time needed for it). People need to be prepared upfront. Less duplication of known facts follows. And new thoughts as well as new dissent gets more awareness. As these platforms are open for all employees to work with, meeting members might acknowledge input from meeting members that were not planned to attend the meeting.

In many meetings I have seen and been to, this has proven to be more creative, and it generates more engagement and involvement. These cross-thinkers get a voice and become drivers of new business. They get invited to present their views, get their benefitial feedback which makes them become thoughtleaders. And the good thing is…? You don’t only have those people in the room that stay in the center of commodity and common believe.

Don’t you think? Yes, you can say “No!” if you dissent… Only then, it will start the conversation!

News Update – Best of the Day

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Finally, Twitter starts their first trials rolling out their first advertising into individual users’ Twitter streams. The first clients are from Starbucks, Red Bull and Virgin. This new monetization strategy called Promoted Tweets was announced some while ago and will kick off addressing Hootsuits’s 175 million users with showing them paid tweets. Interested to see how the users will react…

LinkedIn powers the company profile pages by integrating new company pages. Companies can now “showcase their products, services and associated recommendations”. The company pages allow brands to showcase recommendations from their customers which becomes benefitial for the brand virally and credibly on LinkedIn. When memebers on LinkedIn endorse products or services of a brand, their recommendations become visible to all of their connections. The viral effect is obvious. Thus, brands get some of the most credible, authentic endorsements of their products on Company Page’s Product tab. The question is whether the user likes the idea to become a brand testimonial…

Although I am not a huge fan of plastic toys, I have to admit this Barbie commercial gets the message across. “When I grew up” is a good example of kid ads targeting adults…

News Update – Best of the Day

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How will the future of the workplace look like? I have my views: flexible working hours, mobile offices and driving busness by networking outside of the office. Generally speaking, I love to share ideas and thoughts that I come across like these work displacements. Now that Porsche and VW (partly) banned access to social networking sites, it is interesting to see the other side of the medal. Maybe social networking becomes the main corporate sales strategy in the future. This example shows why the use of Salesforce Chatter could become an optimization of the future workplace.

The good thing about Social Media? People blog about events you could not take part in as they took place when you had meetings, where not in the country, etc. They share their new knowledge and some good case studies of social media campaigns like Juan Martinez who took part in the Social Ad Summit ’10. He tells us about the 5 Dos and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing, he learned from Aaron Shapiro, partner at Huge, Inc..#

One of the succesful modern virals was the Old Spice campaign. AdNews interviewed Isaiah Mustafa on the future of media and on becoming an internet sensation.

Offlinewelt 1.0: Die Wireless-Kampagne

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Manchmal liebe ich die um die Ecke gedachte Welt der Kreativen. Und wer hat gesagt, dass Print nicht wirkt? Print wirkt. Wenn man die richtigen Ideen hat… Manche nutzen das sogar, um mal wieder Wireless zu arbeiten.

Sky Deutschland: Kundenservice im Abschreibungsland 2.0

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Am liebsten würde ich diesen Post anfangen mit “Es war einmal…”. Denn es fällt einem schwer zu glauben, dass diese Geschichte in der heutigen Zeit nicht erfunden ist. Ist sie aber nicht…!

Es geht um den Kundenservice der Sky Deutschland Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG. Und würde ich mich nicht seit mehr als einem Jahr über den Kundenservice wundern, so hätte ich mir diesen Post erspart. Es ist ein Fallbeispiel der ganz besonderen Art und Wert, geteilt zu werden.

Zur Vorgeschichte…
Vor einem Jahr wollte ich auf HD Receiver und Empfang “upgraden”. Ein Anruf bei der Sky ließ mich wissen, dass es derzeit keine HD-Empfänger für Kabelempfang gäbe. Deshalb könne man derzeit meinen Vertrag nicht gleich hoch stufen. Es würden Gespräche geführt mit dem Hardwarelieferanten HUMAX und solange müsse man eben dann auf seinen HD Empfang warten. Was soviel hieß wie, man könne eigentlich keine neuen Umsätze mit Kabelempfängern machen in Deutschland. Man fragte sich, wie eine Firma unter solchen Umständen ordentliche Umsätze schreiben kann.

Ungläubig gegenüber dieser Information versuchte ich mein Glück über einen Saturn Markt in München und siehe da: Ein Verkäufer am Sky-Stand berichtete nach einem ausführlichen Telefonat von der Option, dass ich zwei Wochen später eine Promotion nutzen könne, die mir den HD-Empfang und Erhalt eines HD-Receivers ermöglichen würde. Ich müsse nur am Telefon in zwei Wochen alles erklären und dann wäre ich auf HD-Empfang.

Zwei Wochen später bestellte ich am Telefon das Angebot, welches die Dame eingab und mir versicherte, in ein paar Tagen sei der Empfänger samt HD-Empfang da. Ich nehme es vorweg. Nein, er kam nicht… Er kam nie.

Wie ich später erfuhr, hatte die Dame nämlich offensichtlich gar nichts eingegeben (oder vergessen zu speichern), denn im CMS gab es zu dem Telefonat keinen Eintrag, als ich zwei Wochen später nachfragte. Auch drei Wochen später, als ich einen zweiten Versuch wagte, klappte es nicht. Wiedermals kein Eintrag auf Nachfrage. Das Special war inzwischen abgelaufen und ich gab auf.

Als ich noch einmal zufällig im selbigen Media-Markt war, fragte ich einen neuen Verkäufer, was man eigentlich mit Premiere Kunden mache, die immer noch einen alten Vertrag haben. Der Sky-Verkäufer sagte stolz, dass im nächsten Jahr alle Verträge -und es seien doch noch zahlreiche- auf Sky umgestellt und die alten aufgelöst werden. Das zweifelte ich an mit dem Argument anzunehmender schwindender Umsätze und hohem Kundenrückgang. Das könne Herrn Murdoch wohl nicht egal sein, bemerkte ich. Zu meinem Erstaunen erwiderte er: “Deutschland ist ein Abschreibungsland für Herrn Murdoch. Da machen Sie sich mal keine Sorgen. Springen die Leute ab, macht Hr. Murdoch das wenig aus.” (Staunen meinerseits.) Aha…!

Ich werde also mal abwarten, ob mein Vertrag nun im kommenden Jahr ausläuft.

Das alles geschah vor ungefähr einem halben Jahr.

Die Gegenwart…
Nun war ich vor einer Woche in London im Hotel und wollte mich auf meinem iPad auf der App auf Sky einloggen. Es war ein Champions League Abend und ich wollte den kostenlosen iPad Service “Alle Inhalte jetzt bis 31. Dezember 2010 kostenlos.” nutzen.

Einloggen ging auch, aber mehr nicht… Nach dem Laden der App gab es lediglich eine Trailer von Sky und danach ging nichts mehr…

“Auf diesem Kanal wird zur Zeit nicht gesendet ” teilte die App mir mit.

Ein Anruf bei der Hotline sagte mir, ich solle schnell eine Mail schreiben, denn für alle Onlinebelange und -mängel sei der Online Kundendienst zuständig. Der Telefonservice könne da nichts machen. “Hier sitzen zahlreiche Menschen für Onlineanfragen vor ihren Rechnern, genauso wie ich am Telefon”, meinte die freundliche Damenstimme. Gesagt, getan – die Anfrage ging an die Online-Hotline. Das war an einem Dienstag! Ich wartete also auf Feedback per Mail. Natürlich wartete ich auf ein Feedback in gewissem Masse in Echtzeit…

Feedback kam – am Samstag darauf. 5 Tage später. Per Post…! Kein Scherz!!! Nachfolgend der Brief – lest bitte selbst…

Jetzt fehlen mir die Worte im Zeitalter Abschreibungsland 2.0…
(Aus Datenschutzgründen wurden bestimmte Nummern und Namen aus dem Schreiben von mir entfernt.)

Spot On!
Sehr passend kommt mir da eine Befragung von novomind heute vor die Augen. Offensichtlich ist Online-Kundenservice in Deutschland immernoch im Hintertreffen. Ergebnisse der Studie zeigen, dass es nach Ansicht der Befragten in 50% der Unternehmen keine Online-Strategie für den Kundenservice gäbe – geschweige denn im Social Web: Bislang würden im Schnitt gerade einmal 2% der deutschen Kontaktaufnahmestellen für Firmen in sozialen Netzwerken agieren, bei externen Dienstleistern wären es immerhin 5%.

Erscheinen nur mir die Zahlen für den Online-Kundendienst in Deutschland erschreckend niedrig? Ist hier nicht schnellstens Nachholbedarf angesagt? Oder greift der Deutsche noch gerne zum Telefon (wie auch ich zuerst)?

Bild: Ingrid Kranz / pixelio.de

The Social CEO – Study offers insight in Top 50 companies

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A new study “Socializing Your CEO: From (Un)Social to Social” by Weber Shandwick found out the majority of CEOs from the world’s largest companies —64%— are not social. The definition of “not social” means that the world’s top 50 companies are not engaging online with external stakeholders. It shows us that most of them are not doing publicly visible communications activities.

93% of CEOs in the world’s top 50 companies communicated externally in traditional fashion. These CEOs were quoted in the major global news and business publications and 40% follow the tactic to participate in speaking engagements to an external, non-investor, audience.

“Strong evidence exists that CEOs are not silent in these turbulent times. They are extensively quoted in the business press, frequently deliver keynote speeches at conferences and participate in business school forums. But when it comes to digital engagement externally, CEOs are not yet fully socialized, often with good reason.” (…) “As we continue to track the rise of the Social CEO and chief executives become more comfortable with the new media, we expect that this will change and change fast.” Leslie Gaines-Ross, Chief Reputation Strategist, Weber Shandwick

The key research findings of a Social CEO were…

– Social CEOs lead companies with higher reputational status. Most admired company CEOs in the study had greater online visibility profiles than less admired company CEOs (41% vs. 28%).
– Social CEOs are multi-channel users when they engage online. 72% used more than one channel (on average 1.8 channels).
– 60% of Social CEOs were American-based companies, 12% were EMEA-based.

“There are several reasons why CEOs are not more Social. Time is better spent with customers and employees, their reputations are at an all-time low among the general public, the return on investment has not yet been proven, legal counsel tends to caution against it and anything that smacks of ‘celebrity CEO’ is a no-win. (…) In this increasingly digital age, CEOs should embrace the value of connectivity with customers, talent and other important stakeholders online. With 1.96 billion Internet users around the world, CEOs should be where people are watching, reading, chatting and listening,” said Gaines-Ross.

Spot On!
In their study Weber Shandwick recommends “six rules of the road” for CEOs to enhance their social reputation and interactivity.
1. Identify best online practices of your peers and best-in-class social CEO communicators. Then establish and stretch your own comfort zone.
2. Start with the fundamentals (e.g., online videos or photos). Inventory and aggregate existing executive communications for repurposing online.
3. Simulate or test-drive social media participation. Understand what you’re getting into before you go live. Start internally although recognize that internal employee communications spreads externally seamlessly.
4. Decide upfront how much time you can commit to being Social. It can range from once a week to once a month to once a quarter or less often. Be your own best judge of what feels right.
5. Craft a narrative that captures the attention of audiences that matter and humanizes your company’s reputation.
6. Accept the fact that Getting Social needs to be part of your corporate reputation management program. Purposefully manage your social reputation as well as your corporate reputation.

Is customer orientation and focus the strategy for a succesful CEO future, or the social approach gaining reputation? Are there other rules you would recommend? How about the efficiency topic – gaining or losing time and productivity? Either way, let us know…

News Update – Best of the Day

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A recent international survey of 2,200 mothers shows 81% of children under the age of two currently have some form of online presence — ranging from photos uploaded and shared by their parents, to a full-fledged profile on a social networking site, writes Mashable.

What is the futre of social networking? Everyone would like to know that. Social networking technology becomes more advanced and increased online activity makes more robust data sets available. Social networks are changing the way we interact, yes. But what does that mean and offer to people from a strategic point of view. Greg Satell shares his interresting insights.

Sometimes I don’t know whether commercials are creative or not. Make up your own mind about this Japanese blood pressure ad.

The way to the real-time future of marketing mix

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When you hear the term “marketing mix”, what do you think…? Pause! Think… Pause!

Does that sound familiar to you? For some of you it might. To others it blurs as they follow the hypes as new marketing topics that are shouting at them. Or did you listen to their silent tones? Isn’t it better to varify and understand the client before start creating a new marketing-mix.

Watching the latest videos on your Youtube channel, talking to “friends” on Facebook or following the latest conversations on Twitter is one thing. Drawing conclusions out of these conversations on the social web world is another. And taking actions like evaluating adwords versus email versus social network marketing or blogs versus micro-blogs) for your marketing mix afterwards is a third step.

Conclusions might also be that marketers realize that B2B people still read print preferably to online or love real face-to-face conversations. They might find out that these business decision makers think twice before they engage in conversations. Reasons might be social media guidelines or policies. Steps are needed (like social media monitoring) before you start understanding your own marketing mix could pay out (i.e. online and offline focus groups).

Other marketing opportunities have never died although social media still hypes. And there is a reason why the “marketing mix” phrase was created by Neil Borden some years ago. Not only as it is an easy to understand phrase. More as we use it in our daily business as marketers without even noticing anymore. It is in our DNA. It is a necessity. Will it ever be removed? I doubt it…

Isn’t it interesting that we never had something like “The ultimate approach to market your products and services”?

Obviously, there is none. In over 50 years nobody found one. Why that is? Well, the world is driven by human beings and their attitudes to become familiar and aware of new things is a dynamic process. Some people adapt quick, other slower. They prefer to get informed via paper. Some like online (via publisher platforms, social networks or blogs). Some still stay offline (as they are often on planes or trains). Others record TV news programs and watch them on-demand with their iPads. And then others use mobile readers or apps to stay up to date with their favorite brands.

Seeing the social hypes in our business world from an outside perspective, I sometimes get the feeling that marketers have to refocus on where users are in their “adaption of technology evolution”. And not invest all their money in one horse race. Or to use another business anology from a tactical HR point of view: Never let the whole sales team be on the same flight.

Where is the difference in marketing?
Is there one? If all your marketing budget goes on airport billboards and then an oil crisis comes up, the invest equals zero in terms of earn out. Or if you buy just one ad in a service provider catalogue on the web but the world uses Google and cannot find the provider in the first ten results, the budget might be wasted.

Some companies think investing in Twitter or Facebook saves their brands awareness in the future but forget that these sites go down once in a while. And then the data is gone or not accessible. Lucky are those who can be approached from other access points then – be it via a phone call (at most companies I am searching hours for a phone number), at an event promoted with social media maybe, at their corporate website, or the self-hosted community that is not on the popular social networks.

The cocktail of having different access points available, and those interacting with each other, is the marketing mix of the future. Although they might have a single target or focus the are aiming at, the marketing mix should be aligned to one common strategy: Engage the client.

Spot on!
As we are automizing our marketing more and more, we always have to keep an eye open which tools and trends are coming up. As technology evolves quite quickly, human beings tend to forget that they need to adapt their marketing mix accordingly. Having said that it does not mean they have to switch their marketing mix approach immediately. Watch out for the tipping point when your power buyers, your brand vangelists, start using different technology. This is the time when the “adaption of technology evolution” happens…