Tag Archive for: Management

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…

dmexco 2010 – Flashback in Tweets & Quotes

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The main message of the dmexco 2010 can be concluded as follows…

Marketers have to face the fast dynamics of a changing advertising industry. The new topics they will be tackling in the future are predictive behavioral targeting, multiscreen targeting, augmented reality as well as mobile device advertising and … of course Social Media.

Facing the social web challenge, this means marketers have to look for conversation with their clients, whilst still being authentic, honest, human, friendly, open, conversational, responsive. Business relevant topics are not meant to cross their minds such as contact management and generation, quantitative ROI measurement or sales-driven aspects – and I am not even talking of lead nurturing. At least from a social media user-perspective…

Respect to all marketeers who can make this challenge happen in the future!

My flashback…?
Doing the co-moderation of the conference program was a very exhiting and interesting job. It gave me the opportunity to talk to great marketers (Sidney Mock, Spil Games and Manish Mehta, Dell Inc.), real thought-leaders of the Internet industry (Russell Buckley, AdMob Inc. and Tom Bedecarrè, AKQA) and just fabulous web personalities (Harry Huj, Pepsico Investment and Dean Donaldson, Mediamind).

As there was not much time to look around the halls and the booths, I would like to summarize the event with the 10 tweets and quotes that represent the value, the mood and the atmosphere of dmexco from my perspective.

Future
1. dmexco 2010: The vision of the leaders http://bit.ly/bRyrlQ via @MkDirecto

Augmented Reality
2. Never heard of “augmented reality”? Check out the Museum of London case study http://bit.ly/aucZ4Y via Kaizenadv

iPad
3. Study #iPad Effects: “80 per cent use the iPad predominantly at home” #dmexco #research (translated) via tomorrowfocus

Gaming
4. Sidney Mock, Spil Games, counts 650 million online gamers worldwide via dmexco (More gamers than Facebook users…).

China
5. Harry Hui (Pepsico): “Los consumidores chinos se mueven a otro ritmo”. http://bit.ly/czFA8x via lpittol85

Social Media
6. Great interview with @ManishatDell (my boss) about the value of social media for #dell from the dmexco conf. http://bit.ly/9pjxaF via DennisMSmith

Facebook
7. Joanna Shields: “Marketing develops from a one night stand towards constant connection and ongoing conversations.” #dmexco #Facebook via dmexco

Mobility
8. Dean Donaldson shows the relativity of the mobile progress, reading out a SMS he received during the Mobile Debate. It tells him how expensive roaming is and explains how ISPs limit mobile opportunities like in the AOL age some years ago.

Future Media
9. The future of the media is mobile. Shame *none* of the world’s design/PR agencies have realised: http://cot.ag/dolCIO via Adam Westbrook

Summary
10. Tom Bedecarré, #AKQA, is excited about #dmexco: “What a high energy event with so many people!” via dmexco

Spot On!
After sharing my view, I would appreciate to get your ideas and thoughts. What did you think of dmexco 2010? How did you like the conference program or the debate hall concept? What was positive and negative? Did any of you use the blogger lounge? If so, what did you like or miss? Looking forward to your feedback…

PS: Next dmexco?: Cologne, September, 21. and 22, 2011 !

Foto Credits: Horizont

Direct Messaging export – a missing feature in social networks?

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Some days ago, a Nielsen study said that in the US social network usage is more popular than email. This does not surprise me, when I think about Luis Suarez speech at the Web 2.0 Expo 2008 “Thinking outside the Inbox”. If we agree with him, then there is one feature definitely missing in social network…

How I came across this missing feature…
In my new job role I do a lot of business socializing which is quite normal when the business is done 90% with international business contacts. A lot of business brainstorming is being kicked off or happening on the fly and you don’t think where you communicate. Many of these conversations start via the direct messaging functionality -comparable to email communication- in social networks. Some of them end in nothing. Some turn out to be brilliant contacts which become interesting prospects. And suddenly these end up being leads or potential revenue drivers. And then there comes the problem…

Where is the direct messaging extraction functionality? Some kind of external saving or export module to save the content and communication? Not speaking of an “email archiving” technology?

If your business, or the business of the company you are working for, is meant to be compliant (and which is not today…?) how can you export a conversation that already started in a social network? OK, you could copy it, and send it via email again. Quite uncomfortable though, right…? Or you save all the emails that you get from the social network providers. A lot of redundant data saving…

In business networks like Bebo, XING or LinkedIn users are possible to export the database of their contacts in one go – … but not an email communication threat. Meaning, if you have had a good conversation and mentioned some kind of business critical data, pricing, or offering than you have to have the proof for tax or auditing service reasons – and ideally you can extract it in one go.

In my eyes, this is a missing feature that at least all social business networks should be offering. Don’t you think?

News Update – Best of the Day

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Have you ever though on the impact of your logo and your web design? Why do they matter? If you haven’t, read Jennifer Schiff’s post on this topic and profit from great storytelling – and it is also a nice piece of content for enterprise brand managers.

PS: The story of the logo creation for The Strategy Web can be found here.

Every brand manager wants to know what is the ultimate Facebook fan page success code. The answer is, there is no blue print for it. It is driven by humanity and the humanization of brands. Now, Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang published 8 success factors that make your Facebook strategy more powerful. Interested on your views…

Though the football world cup is over, the spirit of the game is still alive. Managers took their learnings with them. And those football freaks that have to wait for the next season to be kicked off, they can enjoy this great commercial…

Die 3-Säulen-Strategie: Erst Marke, dann Mensch, oder andersrum?

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Credits: Pixelio

Credits: Pixelio

Nachhaltigkeit in Social Media fordert Unternehmen

Social Media hat sich innerhalb kurzer Zeit zu einem neuen Element im Mix der Unternehmens-Kommunikation etabliert. Unternehmen und Agenturen erkennen zunehmend mehr Chancen, die ein Social Media Engagement bietet. Sei es in der Marketingkommunikation, in der PR, im Vertrieb, HR oder Sales. Über die neuen Möglichkeiten wird nicht nur diskutiert, es finden sich immer mehr Unternehmen, die Social Media in mindestens einem Bereich installieren. Auch wenn sich viele Engagements noch in der Versuchsphase befinden, so ist bereits zu erkennen, dass Unternehmen Social Media ernster nehmen als noch vor einigen Monaten.

Viele Unternehmen lagern ihr Social Media Engagement an Agenturen aus, bei anderen werden neue Abteilungen und Verantwortlichkeiten geschaffen. Von Social Media Beratern, Social Media Managern und Evangelisten ist die Rede. So manche versuchen, auch eine Hybrid-Funktion aus traditioneller Jobbeschreibung und „soziale Zusatzaufgabe“ zu erschaffen.

Social Media Verantwortliche erhalten weitreichende Verantwortlichkeiten, die es in dieser Form selten vorher im Unternehmen gab. Sie können meist ohne vorherige Abstimmungen über das Unternehmen im Netz sprechen. Sie werden zur Stimme, zum Gesicht, zum Aushängeschild. Doch was passiert mit dem Engagement, wenn Social Media Verantwortliche das Unternehmen verlassen? Verlieren Social Media Aktivitäten damit ein „Gesicht“, eine „Stimme“ im Netz?

Social Media sollte unserer Meinung nach daher immer auf drei Säulen aufgebaut sein, um es nachhaltig im Unternehmen zu verankern. Ob die Konzentration auf eine Person vorteilhaft, bzw. das Auslagern der Aktivitäten auf Agenturen sinnvoll ist, steht hierbei als Frage im Mittelpunkt.

Marken (statt Personen): “Vermenschlichung durch Authentizität der Personen”, oder kann die Marke das selbst?

Social Media soll authentisch sein, transparent und dialogorientiert. Um diese Bedingungen erfüllen zu können, bedarf es nicht nur einer Strategie, sondern Menschen, die eine Marke leben können und der Marke im Netz eine Stimme verleihen, die Unternehmenswerte vermittelt. Oftmals ist die Stimme eine Person, die auf Kommentare, Retweets etc. reagiert. Dieser Mensch verleiht der Stimme im Netz einen eigenen Charakter. Wie reagiert die Stimme auf Kommentare? Wie geht sie mit Followern um? Inwieweit lässt sie sich auf einen Dialog ein? Natürlich kann man versuchen, alle Maßnahmen genauestens zu konzipieren, Social Media ist aber schnell, schneller als jedes Konzeptpapier. Und zu viel Konzeption schadet dem Engagement, sowie der Authentizität. Also muss ein Unternehmen nicht nur auf eine Person setzen, sondern auf die Vermenschlichung der Marke.

Organisationskultur: Mehrere Personen im Unternehmen stützen den Social Media Auftritt

Social Media Aktivitäten sollten niemals auf eine Person fokussiert werden, sondern immer mehrere Personen aus verschiedenen Abteilungen einbinden. Im Idealfall gibt es einen Markenauftritt im Social Web, der von verschiedenen Personen betreut wird, die wiederum selbst aktiv als Person auftreten können. In der Kombination Marke / Person können vielerlei Synergien entstehen, die den Auftritt als Ganzes ,als “unternehmerische Menschheit”, stützen. Fällt eine Person aus, können die Maßnahmen schnell vom Social-Media-Team übernommen werden, ohne dass ein Bruch in der Transparenz der Kommunikation zu befürchten ist. Besonders in Urlaubszeiten scheint das Problem der Verlagerung bzw. des Management von Social-Media-Aktivitäten durchaus brisant zu sein. Wir hören bereits von mehreren Seiten, dass aufgrund der Umsetzung von nur einer Person hier ein eklatantes Problem entstehen kann. Denn eines ist gewiss: Auch Social Media Betreuer brauchen eine Auszeit.

Automatisierte Prozesse, oder… Das perfekte Zusammenspiel zwischen Mensch und Technik

In der beobachtenden Analyse setzen viele Unternehmen bereits erfolgreich auf Social-Media-Monitoring-Tools, die wertvolle Ergebnisse zu Tage bringen. Die Reaktion selbst auf bestimmte Anlässe wird aber immer noch vom Mensch bestimmt, definiert, organisiert und orchestriert. An dieser Stelle sollte unserer Meinung nach, automatisierte Prozesse Unterstützung leisten, wie dies zum Beispiel auch Online-Marketing bereits erfolgreich eingesetzt wird. Dank Targeting, Frequency Capping oder dynamischen Updates werden Online-Kampagnen schnell optimiert und damit auch erfolgreich. Für Social Media sind solche automatisierten Prozesse zwingend zur Entlastung und taktischen Optimierung notwendig und dienen der Unterstützung der Verantwortlichen. Sie lassen Social Media auch langfristig ein wertvolles Instrument der Kundenbindung zu werden.

Spot On!
Diese 3-Säulen-Strategie soll Unternehmens- und Abteilungsverantwortlichen einen Denkansatz beim Einsatz und der Optimierung von Social Media im Unternehmen liefern. Der sinnvolle Einsatz von Social Media Entschleunigung im Unternehmen (Slow Media Manifest) sowie produktivitätssteigernde Wex-Experten in Unternehmen (Personal Web Manager) sind hierbei zukunftsweisende Visionen für eine effiziente soziale Online-Unternehmenskultur. Denn nur, wenn wir sinnvoll mit unserer Zeit umzugehen lernen, kann eine 3-Säulen-Strategie das Social Media Engagement eines Unternehmens unterstützen und sich im Sinne der Wertschöpfungseffizienz manifestieren und dieser sinnvoll nützlich sein.

Über die Autoren…
Für die Idee zu diesem Post haben Heike Bedrich und ich die Köpfe auf dem Internet World Kongress zusammengesteckt. Uns hat die 3-Säulen-Strategie gefallen und ist unserer Überzeugung nach, ein guter Schritt für Unternehmen in eine erfolgreiche Social Media Welt.

Heike Bedrich ist seit vielen Jahren in der PR- und Marketing-Welt zu Hause. 1998 gründete sie mit Talisman ihre eigene Agentur für Kommunikation und Imagebildung. Sie betreut Kunden aus der IT- und Medienszene und hat sich auf die Themen PR, PR 2.0, Corporate Communications und Online Reputation Management spezialisiert.

My 5 learnings for management from the WorldCup

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The FIFA WorldCup is over. The matches are played. Spain is the new World Champion. The team really has deserved to get the Copa del Mundo (…not only because they won against Germany.. ;-)… ). Now that the tournament is over I thought about it and asked myself, what were my management take-aways from the last five weeks…for me.

1. The team is the star. Worldcup 2010 was like Enterprise 2.0: Teams with top stars fail (Rooney, Ronaldo, Ribery, Kaka, etc…), real teamwork wins.

2. A scarf seems to be a team managers fashion guarantee for success. Though, managers who wear a scarf built world-class teams, it’s no guarantee to make a world-class team win the cup (Jogi Löw, Bert van Marwijk, etc.).

3. Managers need to have the courage to change long-serving systems in favor of integrating young players techniques, visions and ideas (Mexico, Germany, Uruguay, etc.). Nevertheless, the accompany of “old stars” as motivators is a great back-up…

4. Management stand-still is a killer. The market-competition for the “on-paper” leading countries is increasing. Globalization, new training opportunities and new markets offer countries great opportunities to become a challenging competitor for the old market champions (England, France, Italy, Brasil).

5. It’s all about communication, authority needs to be defined anew. There is no right or wrong in leading until the communication is not aligned with the culture and mentality of the players (France, France, France,…).

What are your key-findings, take-aways from a management perspective. Share them with us… And by the way: If it is serious fun you would like to share, just go ahead…

Product strategists think social innovations could increase

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If there are more and more people engaging with brands on the social web, the opportunity to collaborate with the social community becomes a lucrative meaning for brands – and their product strategists. These managers could open up a new “external R&D department” when they use social technology in order to increase product innovations by integrating their customers in the process of product creation and development.

A recent Forrester study of 181 consumer product strategy professionals from companies around the globe states that product strategists in companies strive for social innovations. Though Forrester makes clear that social innovation is not yet where it should be from the product strategist’s point-of-view. The study shows the familiar picture that we see in more or less all departments in companies: It is still early days also for product strategists to work with social media. And only some leverage social media in favor of social innovations.

Still it seems to be a big challenge for companies to find their way from being engaged with their customers on the social web to understanding the impacts and chances to social innovation management. This becomes clear when we see that 83% of the companies use social media to drive customer conversation but then not even half of those have product teams that influence product design, creation, or strategy by using social media.

It is also surprising for me to acknowledge that it is not the resources that are lacking. More than two-thirds of the responding product strategists have dedicated social managers or teams. On the one hand, it lacks the right technological connection bridges between the different company departments. On the other hand, when not more than one-fifth have formal policies in their companies for sharing data from social technologies with product teams, the road to succeed with social co-creation efforts seems to be long.

Spot On!
The best way to produce the right products for your customers is to ideally let them inspire a business. In the past, we had focus-groups which were cost-intensive, time-limited and time-consuming. The concept of social creation and social innovation can work on a day-to-day innovation platform. Just think of Dell Ideastorm, MyStarbucksidea, Adobe’s ideas lab or the IKEA Hacker approach. Nevertheless, companies should be aware that customers very often need or want some kick-back for their inspirational efforts. So, in my eyes the point of giving away some form of incentive will be necessary to get such communities started and make them sustainable.

Or will customers in the future co-create for free to receive better product-price-quality? What do you think?

Das Social Web – eine dreiteilige Webinar-Reihe

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In dieser dreiteiligen Webinarreihe wird der Fokus auf der Beziehung zwischen dem Web als Kommunikationskanal der Zukunft und Social Media als modernem Tool für Kundenbeziehungs-Management liegen.

Das Social Web wird in den nächsten Jahren zahlreiche Veränderungen innerhalb der Unternehmen als auch im Umgang mit Kunden hervorrufen. Um den verschiedenen Abteilungsleiter innerhalb eines Unternehmens einen Eindruck zu vermitteln, inwieweit ihr Bereich davon betroffen ist, wurde die Webinar-Reihe in drei Bereiche aufgeteilt: Sales & Marketing, Human Resources/Personalwesen und Unternehmensführung.

Die Webinar-Reihe wird unter dem Motto stehen…
“Das Unternehmen haben früher Executives geleitet. Morgen wird es der Kunde sein…”

14. Mai 2010
Verkaufsförderung mit modernen Sales- und Marketingstrategien

11. Juni 2010
Employer 3.0 – Online Reputation, Personal Branding und Produktivität

18. Juni 2010
Unternehmensführung – Vergessen Sie die große Sorge um den Kontrollverlust!

Die Vorträge dauern eine Stunde. Teilnehmer haben danach noch 30 Minuten Zeit, Fragen zu stellen. Alle drei Webinare beginnen um 11 Uhr.

Es steht eine begrenzte Anzahl an Plätzen zur Verfügung. Anmelden können Sie sich derzeit noch hier.

The end of the future of advertising agencies?

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An apocalytic vision of the advertising future? A prevision of advertising mistakes? Or just a gag of a digital event-organizer that wants to wake up the advertising industry? Or does the event need more attendees? Maybe it is just a simple commercial clip? Or is it even meant to be spread the viral way (well done then, it seems to work, right…)? A video clip that allows so many questions, is worth being mentioned.

This video commercial could also be just a short film to demonstrate the creativity of the co-production companies FITC, Saatchi & Saatchi Canada, Lunch, and Tool. For their next flash event in Toronto the FITC has started a remarkable commercial ad that will make the advertising agency world think… hopefully.

The spot introduces an advertising agency that does not exist but might have been the last agency on earth “mps+c worldwide”. And the story is told just after the last employees have left the agency. A nice idea, right?

Allow some remarks…
If I had had the idea, I had tried to set up a community website for this fictional agency (the creators did not… at least for now) and created a charity story or some alike fiction around it for all people working in the ad agency industry.

It could have been a nice approach. Especially for advertising people to get ideas out of the cultural advertising change trap. Agencies could have collaborated and networked. Agencies could have… But, do agencies really want that? Collaboration, communication, creativity in an open world?

I had tried to integrate social comments function to enable, engage and enter the conversation directly on the website. If you understand how the customers are moving along the web, then why not living the idea with the viral… (is the reason a lack of resources and community management for such a sustainable idea?)

The increasing trend on the web is described quite well and companies should be thinking about this customer change in web use: “Internet Viewing, Facebook Updating and Obsessive Blogging”.

The production companies of this video clip could done much, much more with such a nice idea. Oh yes… But the message sounds great. Should we say that agencies should really, really, really wake up? Oh yes… And I am asking myself what comes after the last advertising agency has gone? Oh yes… Produce another film? Why? Success is never final! (Winston Churchil)

The change we see is a cultural one with high social impact on the world we live in. And companies should start seeing the web from a business-strategic point of view and understand, find and align their web-strategy with it. Companies should stop producing TV ads or banners without any call-to-action. And starting Twitter streams like “clowns” is definitely not the right way to approach the future of customer communication…

The Last Advertising Agency On Earth from FITC on Vimeo.

Social Media and Advertising – how to explain an antithesis to C-levels?

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social-networks-sepia1Facing the pure intention of social media versus advertising, we have to admit that we are talking about an antithesis – no matter if you can book advertising on a social networks or not. Social Media is conversations while advertising is the monologue from company to customer. And in between lies some undefined (or shall we say unqualified) customer dialogue that we have been through for years of online advertising.

So, how can we explain this type of modern ‘customer engagement setting’ to C-level executives? How can we bring these two anti-poles together? What could have been a better idea than asking to the people that have been through this process of explaining, evaluating and engaging C-levels from both sides – platform owners and brand companies.

Maybe you want to listen to their thoughts…

Blake Chandlee, vice president and commercial director EMEA, Facebook (recorded after the DMEXCO panel ‘social media and advertising’) – sees the biggest challenges in the evolution from their traditional management roles of strategy and investement thinking towards a new business world called ‘social networking’.

Tony Douglas, Innovation Manager, BMW Group – advices to make senior management aware of the potential that social media offers, and knows off the trial-and-error process companies might be going through.

“Firstly you have to get the channels on the agenda that means you have to convince/demonstrate to senior management that the channels are relevant i.e. they are a valuable addition to the marketing communication mix. Just because you have a new channel does not mean you have more budget so you have to prove that this “new” channel is better than some “old” one only then will you get a shift in budget.

Social media and “advertising” are two very odd bed fellows…you cannot do a traditional banner campaign in social media it does not work you need to target and get your context and content right. “Targeting” is also a new science so you have to educate the C-level on what this is. The content is not one size fits all as is often the case with ATL content….here we are talking a mass of niches. However the really tough bit you have to be social now that can be a real challenge. I think it’s fair to say that not many professional marketers have been schooled in how to be social (in marketing). This is new ground for many marketers and brands and like all new stuff it takes time to adapt and learn.

So start early, start small, learn by doing and adapt quickly and if you demonstrate success and a greater return on investment you’ll find those obstacles and challenges will disappear. They are disappearing in the BMW Group.”

Tim Meier, Brand Manager, Bacardi – focuses on the customer dialogue as the main point for his argumentation.

“Generally speaking, it is necessary to enhance top management understanding of social media as a qualitative target group related dialogue communication opportunity. Any figures to measure social media ROI need to be accompanied by the level of qualitative consumer references. In how far are you able to define the GRP level of a positive brand related post from a celebrity/opinion leader? Social Media will certainly emancipate as an equal part of the marketing mix to support future brand campaigns on the image level. Nevertheless you´ll be rewarded with additional coverage if you´re doing a good job and offer a consumer relevant content.”

Spot On!
It would be interesting to get some more views on how we can help making C-levels understand the values of social media quicker, better or more accurate. If we don’t do it, your customers might become the teachers of modern successful customer engagement – but this might be painful for your companies brand. So maybe you and your company are in the same process of evaluating social media and advertising. Wanna share your knowledge with us…

Looking forward to it.