News Update – Best of the Day

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Using a web analytics tool is one of the essentials when businesses want to get some insights on their customers’ movement around their websites. The Cosmos blog shows 10 useful website analytics tools. And before you ask: The tool I am using is Statcounter.

If your company has a fan page profile on Facebook, there are also some tools to track stats and monitor the traffic. The All Facebook blog offers 4 ways to monitor Facebook page traffic.

Some years ago, we were used to listen to street sales people in pedestrian areas downtown telling us how to get our vegetables, fruit or onions get cut and done. Now, all this can be done by just using a viral. Watch this Slap Chop sales guy and don’t tell this is not persuasive…

Study: Comparison Twitter vs. Facebook

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A recent study by Irbtrax, a SEO Internet Marketing firm, tries to determine which platform is the best fit for a particular business application or niche. So, the results of the study is not saying the one or the other is better, but the results give some good basic orientation for marketeers.

Category 1: Traffic ranking and user metrics
Traffic Ranking US and Global traffic ranking:
Facebook 2 – 7 day average daily time on site by users: 32.2 minutes
Twitter 12 – 7 day average daily time on site by users: 7.8 minutes
Facebook has the lead due to its sheer size, traffic volume, and time on site.

Category 2: Online destination for potential clients in the B2C market
Facebook offers more potential as of the option to include photos, detailed information, multiple outbound links, videos, and other business to consumer apps. The study states it is easier to build a larger network of followers in the shortest amount of time to help market a consumer product or service.

Category 3: Online destination for potential clients in the B2B market
The advantage is on Twitter as it provides more viral marketing flexibility while requiring less followers. Viral Marketing is a core business to business social media application for service recognition and other benefits. Popular industry related tweets are redistributed creating a domino effect even if you don’t have thousands of followers.

Category 4: market research benefits
Again Twitter shows more potential. Its search features can be efficiently used to monitor what people are saying about a company, service, product and competitors. Increasing or declining trends can be tracked effectively as well.

Category 5: internal viral marketing benefits
Facebook is top as it’s much easier to build a larger following. Plus, Facebook ‘wall’ feature is much more interactive than Twitter’s internal communication features.

Category 6: external viral marketing benefits
Twitter offers a greater external internet reach – no front door. Google’s ‘Real Time’ search feature often streams live tweets. A comparison of the number of tweets an independent article/release receives verse the number times they are shared by Facebook accounts appears to strongly favor Twitter.

Category 7: Use of each platform for direct internet communication
Facebook offers an instant message feature which allows you to communicate with other users globally.

Spot On!
The study concludes that in order to maximize your social media marketing results companies ideally create a presence on both. And I am happy that a study mentions this: Which platform a company engages first, or where to spend the most amount of available time or budget depends on your customers!!! Businesses should be checking their web-analytic metrics to apply the findings to your target group, and evaluate the potential and strengths of each platform.

Study: Twitter users not as social as they seem?

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A new report by Barracuda Networks on the company’s newly launched security research portal unveils a truth that was already found in this Harvard study some months ago: Twitter users are not as social as they might seem.

Although Twitter is probably the fastest growing social network, most of its 50 million accounts seem to follow other users – instead of posting their own messages. In some way this sounds positive, as it shows that we are not living in a pure self-referential world.

The Barracuda study states that in December 2009 73% of Twitter accounts have tweeted fewer than 10 times. Only 21% of Twitter account holders are “true users” as Baracuda defines them. The “true user”, according to their definition, is someone who has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people and has tweeted at least 10 times. Now, we may argue differently about that, but it definitely shows a trend.

Paul Judge, author of the report and chief research officer at Barracuda, thinks that Twitter is becoming more of a news feed channel than a social network. That indicates that most Twitter users “came online to follow their favorite celebrities, not to interact with their buddies the way they would on Facebook or MySpace,” said Judge.

The follow-only trend might be part of the is part of Twitter’s “red carpet era” when celebrities pushed their microblogging account into the mainstream during the six-month research period of Barracuda.

From November 2008 to April 2009, some celebrities, like Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey and John Mayer, joined Twitter. In these days the micro-blogging service grew 21.2% in the month of April 2009 alone.

Spot On!
The question remains if Twitter will be able to get more of these followers activated to become “true users” and to start tweeting themselves. Or if security risks will keep users away from becoming the active Twitterati. In combination with news about sites like Pleaserobme.com people have scared of users not to tell to much about their real-time privacy. In my eyes Twitter should be making the main benefit clear to their potential users and show some monetization strategy for companies and users. Why should someone use a platform that does not show a valid business reason?

News Update – Best of the Day

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Today, we keep this links list as short as possible…

Adam Singer tells us how to architect a social web marketing and PR strategy.

Ellen Davis interviewed Julie Bornstein (Senior Vice President, Sephora) about the ROI of social media – an interesting case study of a successful retail brand.

The new Apple iPad commercial shows all the features of the product in 30 seconds and with it the future of “infotainment” – and why it is better than Kindle and the likes.

LinkedIn – The importance of using invitation texts

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In the last months, all social business networkers on LinkedIn have shared the same experience. They have received different invitations from people all over the world with the following invitation text…

“I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.
– Surname Name”

Short, targeting, and easy to understand – for everybody all over the world. Hmmmm….?!

This raises some questions in my head on the importance of invitation texts. And I would appreciate your views and get some feedback of people who also use LinkedIn for social business networking.

Personalization
Is it ok to use the standardized version of the invitation text by LinkedIn? We are all marketers and we know that personalization is key. So, isn’t it better to re-phrase the standardized text version and write a short PERSONAL message?

Curiosity
If somebody is not writing a personal message, is it a sign that this person wants me to respond to him/her, and ask WHY this person wants me in his/her business social network? Even think about the impact on playing a psychological game on hierarchy thinking. Or is it just the peek a boo effect? Or is it just a hunters and collectors business?

Test
If somebody leaves the standardized personal message, the contacted person might think this is a TEST on his/her social networking capabilities. So, companies might check how serious job applicants take social networking, how quick potential employees respond, or how much somebody is engaged in social media in general. Or just to test if this person understands effective lead generation?

Spot On!
Should not LinkedIn change its service? The one who is contacted cannot see what the contacting person has ticked in the box in terms of the business relationship, he or she is referring to.

What is your view and experience on invitations by social networks – especially from a business perspective.

The funny truth about PR embargoes

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Embargoes have become very popular in the PR industry with the rise of personal blog publishing. This video made me laugh as it shows the funny side-effects of embargoes…

News Update – Best of the Day

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“Connecting offline and online is one of the biggest challenges in our today’s business world” – You might have heard my credo somewhere. Now, Willis Wee created the big social media marketing plan for those companies that need an easy visualization – looks nice to me.

How PR and social media can collide in one PR release tells us Ogilvy’s John Bell in his post “When is a social media strategy not a strategy”. Sure, I had to comment that…

The super market 10-11 is not well-known for some of my readers. With their new commercial “Always open”, which addresses their customers in Iceland, they soon will be. Isn’t it a funny and entertaining TV ad?

Social Engagement is Changing

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The web service company Flowtown has created a nice piece of visualization about the way in which social engagement is changing. You should also read the comments on their blog post to get some more numbers and insights on how the social web world is changing today.

Social Micro-Payment: Flattr = Paid Trend mit Zukunft?

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Die meisten meiner Follower und Fans werden mitbekommen haben, daß mir die Verwirklichung des Paid Service Gedankens sehr am Herzen liegt. Es wird Zeit, daß sich auch wertvoller Content vermarkten lässt.

Aber bitte nicht die Diskussion um Paid Content, sondern weiterhin zukünftig bei Paid Service bleiben. Was die Verlage nun über Jahre nicht geschafft haben, will nun Peter Sunde schaffen – Gründer von The Pirate Bay. Sein Projekt heißt Flattr.

Flattr ist ein Social Micro-Payment Vision, die bisher noch nicht am Gedankenstart war. Aber sicherlich nicht nur den Micro-Content Anbietern gefallen dürfte…

Flattr läuft in der Beta und man kann sich als Content Anbieter um einen Account bewerben – Email Adresse abgeben genügt. Gleich vorweg: Reich wird man damit nicht!

Wie funktioniert Flattr?
Der Internetnutzer zahlt einen fixen monatlichen Obulus. Wer die Seite eines Content-Anbieters besucht, findet neben den Inhalten einen Flattr-Button. Wenn der Inhalt gefällt, wird geklickt. Am Monatsende werden die Klicks des Nutzers gezählt und der eingespielte Betrag entsprechend dann unter allen Empfängern anteilsmäßig verteilt.

Spot On!
Die Idee klingt gut. Der Teufel steckt in der Umsetzung und die hat es in sich. “Every month the Flattr User pays a small fee.” Wer bezahlt denn da eigentlich? Eine Vorauszahlung für Content, den ich vielleicht gar nicht bekomme oder konsumiere? Soll das eine Art Donation-System sein? Hmmm, ist das ein gangbarer Ansatz?

Und dann mag ich gar nicht ausdenken, wie sich das auf die positiven Kommentare in Blogs und RTs auswirkt. “Hey, ich hab schon bezahlt. Lassen wir das mit dem RT oder Kommentar mal…”

Oder liege ich mit meiner Sichtweise falsch…? Nochmal die Idee ist irgendwie cool, aber auch bis zu Ende gedacht?

Augmented Reality – the future of customer service?

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The customer service world around us is changing with the social web, new technologies, and especially mobile apps. The question is how much this is effecting our perspective of the real offline world around us. A new technology is evolving that is beginning to connect the offline and the virtual world from a customer perspective as it will offer some new form of customer service. The term is Augmented Reality (AR).

It is a technology that brings your visual experience and information from the web or networks together, and by doing this enriches daily situations with relevant data from the web – and in more and more cases the information provided will come from the user.

The competition for users and companies has already begun. We have augmented reality browsers like Layar, explaining us instantly which famous buildings are surrounding us. Or, another AR browser named Wikitude that starts to become one of the most-wanted AR browser apps (not only for iPhone users) and gets nominated for one award after another. With wikitude.me shops and service providers of all sorts can already use this cool service to make themselves visible in the offline world by geo-tagging their office or location with simple online entries. If somebody is new in a city, this person can find a laundry or the next wine shop much easier in the future – just by using an AR browser app.

There are products like T-shirts projecting interactive games with AR. Digital cosmetic mirrors where women in cosmetic shops can see in real-time what a new eye-liner or make-up is looking good at them without testing it in reality. Adidas will launch a series of shoes, each printed with an AR code on the tongue which give you access to an interactive game that changes on a montly basis. Is this the customer service of the future?

Now, just imagine what this technology could do for customer service in the future. Wouldn’t it be a positive effect when we get immediate feedback on health information about the food and drinks we consume?

The following short film, called Augmented (Hyper)Reality, shows us a world some time ahead, where augmented reality is part of our daily offline life. We see what the actor sees, from his own perspective, and get to know the oppotunities that AR might offer to our daily life. OK, if we agree to getting networked completely…

The interesting acknowledgement for companies will be the advertising part of the film – although in some way it might be shocking…

Spot On!
The complete overkill seems to be the massive sea of logos flooding our sight in the beginning. Although the above examples might seem an exaggerated view of a futuristic branding scenario, it gives some idea on how the world might change customer care in the future. And you never know if this will be really happening, or not. Today, this all might sound strange to us but just think about how common the use of artifical medical help is for us, or how often we use the navigation system in cars today.

And then, think about the options when combining location based advertising with augmented reality. This opens a complete new world of customer care…

Don’t you think?