Tag Archive for: Facebook

Majority of Irish students favor use of private devices and Facebook…

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What will companies say if employees want to bring their own devices to work? How about security issues and support opportunities for companies? A real challenge for the future when we look at an Irish study that interviewed 164 students in secondary school and at third level in order to understand how this generation is communicating these days.

The study by IT distributor Data Solutions on behalf of Blue Coat Systems shows that more than 60% of young people expect their employers to allow them to use their own personal devices (i.e. smartphone, laptop, etc.) for work purposes in the future.

The argumentation behind their expectations are obvious: They know how to use our private devices, so they don’t need to learn new technology which saves the company time and money. The challenge for companies will be to establish a set of new policy and security guidelines, as well as data safety and storing options.

“More than 85% of the students surveyed own or have access to a laptop, and almost 40% own a smartphone. This facilitates the trend towards ‘bringing your own device’, and every business is going to have to learn to accommodate this trend while ensuring security (…) When today’s students enter the workforce they will be completely in tune with the new ways of communicating and collaborating online, as most are already using social networking sites, blogs, Skype or instant messaging. Employers now need to look at new ways to facilitate their needs and expectations.” Michael O’Hara, Managing Director, Data Solutions

The study also shows the bluring use of email comunication. 75% of Irish students favor social networking sites like Facebook as their main channel for communicating online these days. Just 6% prefer to use email.

Spot On!
The study findings illustrate that social media sites continue to be on the rise in popularity, and it indicates how older traditional online communication tools like email become less attractive. When 88% have a Facebook account, it is not surprising that they are not swappping to Outlook anymore when communicating with each other, not matter if business or private. And it seems that this will have the same effect on the hardware and devices they want to use. Maybe we just need a separate login on our computers in the future? What is your view on this development…?

Still smoking? I bet you can quit…

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About 5 years ago, I quit smoking. In those days, I stopped from enjoying one package a day to none – in only one day. Just by having a strong will and an appropriate reason, I was able to get away from it. We are responsible for our own health. We know it is not good for us with the risk of getting cancer but still we do what we do. If we can explain it or not…

So, sometimes it is better if your friends look after you. And maybe they give you a reason to stop smoking. The American Cancer Society created a Social Media approach that brings the power of friend crowdsourcing and Facebook straight to those of you who still cannot resist. I like the idea as we sometimes need to get the right push from those we trust most. Those who believe in us. Our friends…!

Hey smokers, would you not be proud of you if you could get away from the fags? Get your friends to bet on you…

The Social Travel Revoluton (Infographic)

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There is not one industry today that is not effected by the way we interact through Social Media. The Swedish start-up Tripl illustrates with a fantastic infographic how much the travel industry is influenced and effected via modern online conversations and check-ins. The necessity for hotels, airlines and restaurants to engage and understand Social Media is obvious: 50 Mio. reviews have been created on tripadvisor only 495.000 rated hotels!

Some key facts…
– On a daily basis, 72% of social network users access their social network sites while travelling
– The top 5 airlines have 2,566,000 fans on Facebook
– 200 Mio. passengers will board GOGO-WiFi flights in 2011
– Traffic growth of travel companies from social networks? Facebook 69% and Twitter 46%!

…and that is only 7% using mobile internet while tarvelling internationally!

Study: More companies succeed in recruiting via social networks

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Social Media is becoming the new talent aquisition tool for companies. A recent study by Jobvite states that almost 90% of companies are planning to use social networks to find job candidates. This is an increase of 7% to last year. Two thirds of employers said they had successfully filled a job position via social networking.

The study that polled 800 human resource staffers and headhunters in the U.S also illustrates the importance of personal branding which I proclaim for years now – also with the vision of a personal scoring index. Job seekers should understand the importance of having an active profile on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. However, this is essential and career benefitial, the study also warns that what you say and do on those sites has an impact on your career.

Running the survey in their fifth year, Jobvite is seeing a steady increase by employers in the use of social media.

“Employee referrals are the highest quality hires. (…) They last the longest, have the best match with expectations, and churn the least.” Dan Finnigan, CEO, Jobvite

According to Jobvite’s own client data, 70% of companies examine candidates’ social media profiles after getting a referral. Which means you never know who is checking your latest party pictures and how much you ruin your reputation by updating embarrassing information

“Don’t post any picture, say any words or take any actions that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see,” advises Finnigan.

Some interesting finding shows that Facebook is not the main place to look for job candidates. However, LinkedIn went up from 78.3% to 86.6% (inclusive of all possible usage like search, job postings, etc.).

Having said that, Jobvite also asked their own customers how many actually hired staff using social referrals from various social networking sites. 43% of referrals that resulted in hires came from Facebook versus 41% from LinkedIn and 16% from Twitter.

Spot On!
For the Social Society in which we are living social engagement become an asset bonus but also a challenge for job seekers. Today, it is still difficult to understand for many recruiters why you have a personal brand. In the future, this will change and show your affinity to a topic, to brands and to modern business tactics. People might be addressed or recruited by younger hiring managers who are more tolerant of social media failures or side steps but the more senior a position gets, the pickier recruitment managers are getting.

How do you see the future of personal branding and how recruiters are checking your capabilities via social networks?

Google Plus – When the leaders chase the leader's strategy…

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As Facebook and Twitter are becoming stronger and stronger, the search giant Google had to do something about it. Especially, after Google Buzz did not really take off. Google more or less had to announce some new social networking tool as a leading technology company.

Now the baby is born. It is called Google Plus… So we are going from Google Buzz to Google Plus. Sounds similar, doesn’t it? However, it isn’t…

With Google Plus the brand wants to “make sharing on the web more like sharing in real life”. A video explains how Google Plus works and you can decide if this is for the classic user, or just for the advanced web nerds…

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This example illustrates how leading tech brands are challenging the success of other leaders from leading tech companies. It looks as if they cannot afford to miss out on a leading trend, need to start and copy, and then create their own “Me too” product or solution. However, the challenge is to create the simplicity, design, user friendliness and fascination around that new platform. And if a companies strength is technology and development of software, then it will become difficult to challenge a leader’s strategy that relies on the ease of human behavior, their conversations and interactions… and vice versa.

Still, they all do…

Spot On!
Google Plus offers a bundle of exciting and interesting features that other platforms don’t have in that evolved technological perfection (yet). The technology is good, no doubt. It has great functionality. OK. However, the question will remain if it will become a killer for Facebook as another challenging social network platform? Google’s leaders will definitely chase the strategy and tactical efforts of the Facebook & Co. to be part of the social networking game in the future. Nevertheless Bruce Lee once said: “Simplicity is the key to brilliance”. From a strategic business perspective, I would add: If simplicity of a Me Too product cannot trump the leader, ask yourself if the users will benefit from it. For Google Plus, I personally doubt it…

What happens in 60 seconds on the Social Web? A comparison and the value of "infographics"…

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There are different ways to illustrate how fast the Social Web is growing these days. For two years my favorite “real-time” resource -based on studies and research data- was Gary Hayes Social Media Count. And I am sure, you have all seen this great little widget already…

However, we also have to keep up with the pace and realize that -although people already hate them- infographics are sometimes a nice way to grab facts quick and easy. The Shanghai Web Designers created an infographic which illustrates how fast conversations, comments and content are produced on social networking and online platforms in only 60 seconds.

60 Seconds - Things That Happen On Internet Every Sixty Seconds
Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

Now, although I honor the work of the Shanghai Web Designers, it lacks some information on where the data was generated from. Gary Hayes explains nicely how the app data was put together and how actual it is (having said that I think Gary needs to refresh his links as I found links ending in 404’s).

A comparison could be interesting, I thought. Why not compare the 60 seconds data from the Shanghai Web Designers (SWD) versus a “one-minute-momentum” of Gary Hayes (GH) counter…? I started the counter and waited 60 seconds, and there you go. Here are the results…

The comparison will just focus on the essentials Google, Email, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. You can still do your own comparison afterwards…

Google
Search queries: 694,445 (SWD) versus 1,393,519 (GH)

Emails
Emails sent: 168,000,000 (SWD) versus 204,255,455 (GH)

Facebook
Status Updates: 695,000 (SWD) versus 696,758 (GH)
Comments: 510,040 (SWD) versus 512,100 (GH)

Twitter
New accounts: 320 (SWD) versus 208 (GH)
Tweets published: 98,000 (SWD) versus 62,707 (GH)

YouTube
Hours of content uploaded: 25+ hours (SWD) verus 36 hours (GH)

LinkedIn
New members: 100 (SWD) versus 60 (GH)

Spot On!
The comparison makes clear that the Facebook figures are similar whereas for the rest of the figures there is a massive discrepancy in numbers. Facebook is sharing their latest actual figures, for the other technology platforms the data probably comes from third party sources (or at least as far as I can see). If all platform and technology owners would share their latest data, those discrepancies won’t happen. The lack of source information from Shanghai Web Designers makes it difficult to argue which data is the latest, where the differences in the comparison are coming from, and so on. Maybe this is the reason why some experts don’t like infographics any more. “Don’t like…” might be wrong when I see how many people have shared the infographic in the last days. They appear very nice and compelling in social networking accounts and “illustrate” thought-leadership in presentations. Right…?!

Workspace 1.0 versus Workspace 3.0

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Is this be a workspace 1.0 versus 3.0 software tool? Or just remain a downloadable app for PC and MAC? Or just a brilliant marketing, or should I say buzz branding idea…?

Some people are worries their bosses might catch them “facebooking” at work. Some people might jut not be able to work with Facebook, or get adapted to getting their brains around working with Facebook. With Excel they know how to do their job. Diesel presents Excellbook. This app is masking FB as an excel chart. Fantastic or best stupid at work?

Will it blend? What is going to become famous? The app, the technology or the brand? Or the workspace 3.0? If the later, then tell me what it looks like, this workspace 3.0!

You decide…!

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What is Social Media? – Famous quotes from the istrategyconference Amsterdam

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After the first day of the istrategyconference in Amsterdam, I briefly wanted to share some insights in how Twitter caught some famous quotes about “What is Social Media?”. The people who brought these quotes up in their presentations, or the people that (re-)tweeted those might forgive me if I am not quoting and linking back to every single tweet, or Twitter account where it came form.

Why I am not quoting? Apart from having to listen to Power Point presentations, the challenge for presenters and moderators is to attract the attention of a crowd. And for the audience it is becoming more and more some massive workload to do multitasking, and participating an offline event in a 2.0 manner. A thought I have explored in a German post, and definitely need to translate when I find the time for it.

“Sometimes it makes you mad to listen to speakers and keynotes, write tweets, and respond to mails and Facebook at the same time. Not to mention blogging… How do you handle this?” A question I asked my friends on Facebook today. And I know from studies that multitasking is becoming more difficult the older we get, and that we are only able to do maximum two things at the same time. I don’t know how you see this but participation 2.0 is nearly impossible if you want to be share the way people would love you to do it.

This is just a random collection of different quotes that shows how Social Media was defined at the conference. Maybe you add some more quotes…?!

“Social Media is like sand: you can play with it and have fun but sometimes it gets into your underwear and becomes very annoying.”

“Social Media is like gardening: the real hard work starts after the seeding and planting.”

“Social Media is like … a dance with the right music (content) and partner (fan). It never needs to end!”

“Social Media is like an icecream, it’s delicious, everybody wants it, but it melts if you are too slow.”

“Social Media is like teen sex. Everybody wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it’s finally done its a surprise it’s not better.”

Spot On!
In the B2B SocialMedia panel, which I had the honor to moderate and talk to Ed Bezooijen (Citrix), Paul Dunay (Networked Insights) and Menno Lijkendijk (Milestone Marketing) I also mentioned a quote that I think is going to be the main challenge for B2B marketers in the future. The relationship of content, distribution and perception which was (and in my eyes still is) the advantage of publishers to other content producers and curators. Publishers have all three of these as main pillars of their business…

“Content = King – Context = Queen – Community = The Empire”

If you see it different, tell me. If you like it, do so. If you want to add something, go ahead…

PS: THX to a great team from istrategyconference in Amsterdam for the good organization and the diner yesterday night.

UK Study: Facebook versus TV (Infographic)

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When you are working in the UK, you want to get more information about the people who are your colleagues, especially from a social point of view. And I found an interesting study on how the inhabitants of a very much digital country is changing their habits. A recent study by eXpansys of 3,000 people in the UK states that Britain prefers Facebook over TV. Britains spend an average of two and a half hours going on Facebook every day. And TV only gets two hours of their attention…

Is the future of positive social approval changing?

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Almost two years ago, I have written about the development on Twitter that positive comments are not rated in a way they should (in my eyes). Those days I asked the question if the RT (Retweet) becomes a killer for the positive blog comment. Many people tapped my shoulder virtually and agreed with my observation.

In some way the RT “button” is similar to Facebook’s LIKE button. It is a given opportunity to automize a process of agreement. And I am asking myself if Facebook’s LIKE button -launched one year ago- has the same “negative influence” on our positive comment on reviews in the future. Although it was meant to give its members an easy way to show approval for products, services, content and thoughts. I am coming back to these thoughts as I stumbled upon an interesting local study.

According to a recent study released by CityGrid Media, conducted by Harris interactive, that did some research on Web properties focused on local merchants, consumers prefer the “Like” button to writing a positive review for a local business. The study polled 1,006 adults in the U.S. over the phone between March 16 and 20.

OK, this is restricted to local only. But do we doubt that there is a difference in the regional and global attitude and behavior of humans? Especially as 52% of respondents said they visited more than two websites before visiting a local business, and Google plus Facebook were the most popular first sites those people accessed.

The study states that 20% of respondents say they show support for local businesses by clicking the “Like” button for that business on Facebook versus 13% who write reviews. The offline way is still the most successful method according to the study. The verbal way of telling a friend was the most popular method (75%). Not surprising as most of the consumers are still more listening than telling.

However this is just a local research, I asking myself if this s a good development, for us, for retailers, for brands and for the Social Web in general. Bearing in mind how much our written reaction on products and services influences our buying behavior, I think, it is not good if only the negative comments get (negative) credits while positive comments and reviews just find the automated, lazy “push a button” credit – no sentiment, no conversational reward, no tapping on the shoulder virtually…

How do you see this development?