Thursday, January 26, 2012

GE Study Proves Consumers Respond More to Shared Content Than to Paid Placements

Sharing Created Significantly Bigger Lift in Brand Attitudes

By: Published: January 25, 2012

Marketers have long assumed content shared by friends or other influencers carries more weight than paid placements. Now GE has some proof.

'The GE Show' on Buzzfeed

Working with social-media site Buzzfeed, the company commissioned digital-advertising measurement firm Vizu to test a campaign last fall in which the marketer distributed "The GE Show" video through Buzzfeed both in paid display placements and sharing, then tested how attitudes changed among people exposed each way.
People exposed via sharing had a significantly bigger lift in positive attitudes toward GE -- associating the brand with such things as creativity and innovation -- than people exposed via paid placements.
Overall, the "brand lift," which measured the extent to which consumers said they saw GE as "creative," was 138% higher for consumers exposed to via sharing through Buzzfeed than those who didn't see it at all. Specifically, 17% of people found GE creative after viewing the content via sharing vs. only 7% of people who made that connection without having seen the advertising at all.
Consumers exposed via sharing were also 83% more likely to rate GE "creative" than those exposed to the content via paid advertising on Buzzfeed.
The brand lift was calculated based on short online survey responses to the question: "What comes to mind when you think of General Electric (GE)?"
In all, thousands of people responded to short online surveys as part of the study, which broke them into groups exposed via paid media, exposed via sharing or not exposed at all to the content, said Jeff Smith, chief marketing officer of Vizu. While his firm has done numerous studies on brand lifts from paid digital ads and social media, it hasn't previously compared the two for the same content.
Overall, 42% of the responses about GE from people in the control group that didn't see the content were positive, compared to 55% of responses from people exposed via paid advertising and 77% for those exposed via sharing.
Obviously shared media has the advantage of being "free inventory," said Paul Marcum, director of global digital marketing and programming at GE. But he was also interested in knowing whether it actually has more impact on consumers than paid media.
"We all would intrinsically think that if you see something your friend has shared or a community you're part of has shared, you're more likely to value it differently" than paid placement, he said. "But no one we could find had actually tried to quantify the difference."
Though the study found earned media packs more punch than paid, Mr. Marcum acknowledged it's still hard to get one without the other. Marketers, he said, still "need to dial up the paid and hope the earned goes with it."
But for GE, the study was a lesson on "the value of advocacy, and that absolutely will inform marketing decisions," Mr. Marcum said.
Platforms GE has tried recently, including Buzzfeed and Instragram, "just have so much passion around them," he said, which should help stoke social sharing.
The value of earned media suggested by the study, of course, gives digital platforms that can demonstrate higher rates of sharing more value than those with lower rates. ShareThis late last year launched a program with Starcom MediaVest Group to rate online media based on the extent to which their content is shared through the sharing platform.
"A study like this where you can actually measure the perception lift from social sharing," Mr. Marcum added, is a "step in the direction" of determining the financial return on the media investment, but he acknowledged GE needs more research to determine the full ROI implications of sharing.

Mobile Payments: The Consumers’ Future Favorite?

As mobile commerce continues its rapid adoption by more and more companies, consumers’ comfort with paying by mobile will become increasingly important.

An interesting infographic released by mobile banking solution provider Intuit provides an informative look at consumers’ current payment behavior and preferences, and how these are evolving towards mobile payments.

The much of the world today is clearly moving from cash to non-cash forms of payment such as credit and debit cards. Currently, the use of cash is expected to decrease by some 4% per year in the US, and will be only about $1 trillion by 2015. At the same time, Intuit’s infographic explores a additional trend towards “cardless” payments such as mobile, online, and NFC. Amounting to about $740 billion revenue in the US today, these alternate payments are expected to explode to about $2.7 trillion by 2015, dwarfing the amount of cash transactions.
At the moment, mobile payments represent about 5% of purchases, but they are growing quickly.
The infographic provides several key reasons why consumers today might not use mobile payments and found:

64% had security issues
61% prefer other payment methods
46% only use their phone for calls and e-mails

The key thing for any new technology is to convince consumers that it will make their life better. The infographic suggest that while only 9% consider mobile payments to be mainstream today, 83% expect it to be by 2015. Furthermore they expect that consumers using mobile payments will increase from 1.8 billion today to 2.5 billion by 2015.

For a larger view, visit the original infographic site.

$4 Billion Paid to Developers by Apple to Date

In June 2010, Apple announced it had paid $1 billion to developers to date. Twelve months later, that number more than doubled to $2.5 billion. And today, Apple says it has now paid in excess of $4 billion to its dedicated army of developers.
Along with the growth of sales receipts is the growth of the App Store’s offerings. As of this writing, more than 18 billion downloads have been initiated through the App Store. And that number stands to compound exponentially in the months ahead as refreshed iOS-powered devices roll out.
Industry analysts believe the iPad 3 will arrive within 60 days, bringing with it a likely surge in app purchases.
Although Google Chairman Eric Schmidt predicted last month that mobile developers will soon make Android apps a higher priority than iOS apps, it’s doubtful that Android will wholly trump Apple as iOS continues to be the most lucrative and high profile operating system to develop for in the entire mobile space.

Restaurants Will Offer Facebook Credits Incentives: Plink

Posted by David Cohen on January 25th, 2012 4:48 PM

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Will meals taste better when accompanied by a side of free Facebook Credits? Loyalty program Plink intends to find out, with the help of several national restaurant chains.
Plink will announce a Facebook Credits-based loyalty program tomorrow, partnering with chains including Dunkin’ Donuts, Quiznos, Red Robin, and Taco Bell.
To earn Facebook Credits, users join Plink by logging on with their social network credentials and securely registering their credit or debit cards.
The more people purchase at participating restaurants and retailers, the more Facebook Credits earned.
Plink added that the process is simple at the point of purchase, as neither the customer nor the salesperson must perform any additional tasks.
The company said:

The program requires no point-of-sale integration; no paper coupons to be collected; no staff training; no interruption or slow-down to the normal customer transaction process; no tracking conducted by the restaurant or offline retailer; and no setup fees, print costs, or other merchandise to purchase. Restaurants and offline retailers simply pay Plink a percentage of the sales generated by Plink members.

And Co-Founder Peter Vogel added:

Facebook Credits is the missing ingredient that’s been needed to connect social media to offline sales. Now, with the glue of Facebook Credits, our national restaurant and offline retailer partners have a way to tap into the nearly 800 million users on Facebook, motivate them to become loyal customers, and reward them.

Our take: Why not? With approximately two-thirds of Americans on Facebook, and many of them playing games or using other applications that accept Facebook Credits, it can’t hurt, especially when no additional steps are added to transactions.

Tags:Dunkin Donuts, Facebook Credits, Incentive Programs, Marketing, Plink, Quiznos, Red Robin, Taco Bell

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Turns Out Consumers Really Do Care About the Data You're Collecting

Older Consumers, Especially, May Not Buy Because of Privacy Concerns

By: Published: January 25, 2012

Josh Bernoff

Forrester just published survey results intended to answer the questions "Do people care if companies collect their data, and does it affect their decisions about the companies?"
The short answer to both questions is, yes.
In a survey of 37,000 US and Canadian online adults, we first asked how concerned people were with companies accessing their personal information. More than 70% were concerned about social security numbers and credit cards. Less than half cared about their phone number, and only 19% were concerned about their online reviews. This proves people are at least thoughtful, and distinguish between extremely sensitive information and other information.

Forrester Data Survey

The second big conclusion is that age matters, and young people are more open. For example, 47% of 55-64 year-olds were concerned about access to their behavioral data, compared to only 33% of those 18-24. Young people were also far more willing to give up information in exchange for discounts.
Finally, 44% of consumers say they have not completed an online transaction because of something they read in a privacy policy. Again, this is far more likely to happen to older consumers, and the percentage has increased since 2008.
Marketers -- especially direct marketers -- love data. But now, over 15 years into the Web, consumers are becoming far more aware of how data collection can go awry, and are voting with their pocketbooks. You can collect and use this data broadly and hope you don't run afoul of an angry consumer with a lot of Twitter followers ready to destroy your brand with your own behavior. You can exploit young people's willingness to part with data -- they have so much less to protect, after all. Or you can adjust your policies based on this rising level of awareness. It's up to you.

The Social Media Cheat Sheet

[INFOGRAPHIC]

By Shea Bennett on January 25, 2012 6:00 AM

Social media is changing the world.
It’s true. Stop for a while and listen: everywhere you go people are singing its praises. They’re talking about how Twitter is this fantastic customer service and news-sharing tool. That Facebook is an incredible platform for raising brand awareness and building community. Corporations around the world are using YouTube to share tutorials and video blogs. And Google+ has a really nice logo.
It all sounds amazing. So: where do you begin?
This cheat sheet from those nice folks at Flowtown and Column Five Media takes a look at the pros and cons of each of these channels, alongside Tumblr and even Digg (why not Reddit? Who honestly cares about Digg anymore?), giving you advice on how to get started and letting you know the size of audience that you’re reaching.

(Source: Flowtown.)

Websites Trump Social Media for Finding Holiday Deals

Published on January 25, 2012

Tags: E-Commerce, Research Summaries, Social Media, Websites

When searching for the best holiday deals, one-quarter (25%) of surveyed consumers say they prefer visiting brand websites over other channels such as print media (15%), email newsletters and notifications (13%), and Facebook (3%), according to a survey from Crowd Science.

Talking with friends and family (9%) also beats out social media channels for finding holiday deals; one-quarter (24%) of consumers have no preferred method for finding deals.
Below, additional findings from Crowd Science's Shopitudes Study, which polled consumers during the 2011 holiday season.
Most consumers kept spending in line with last year.

Despite record levels of online spending in 2011—US online holiday shopping reached a record $37.2 billion, up 15% over 2010 levels, according to comScore—most (38%) consumers planned to spend roughly the same amount on holiday shopping overall during the season; 33% planned to spend less and only 21% planned to spend more on holiday buying in 2011.
The holidays are not a favorite time to venture into stores.
Nearly one-half (47%) of consumers disagreed with the statement "The holidays are my favorite time to shop in person," whereas 15% agreed. Such negative sentiment was more pronounced as time progressed, with disagreement climbing from 45% before Thanksgiving, to 49% as the holidays approached.

Nearly one-quarter (23%) of consumers preferred conducting all of their holiday shopping online.
Even so, 20% of consumers said they worry about security when buying online. Such concerns were more pronounced among lighter Internet users (those using the Internet fewer than 24 hours per week) than their more experienced counterparts. Those age 24 or younger were less inclined than older shoppers to prefer online shopping for the holidays.

Whether they shop in person or online, 17% of consumers admitted to doing nearly all of their holiday shopping at the last minute. Women, however, were less likely than men to be last-minute shoppers (51% vs. 38%).

About the data: Findings from Crowd Science's she study are based on a survey of 5,301 consumers, performed in two waves over the extended holiday season, from November 16 to December 29, 2011.

Social Media Learnings From the Front Lines

Robin Neifield | January 25, 2012 | 0 comments

There is nothing like experience to teach you some hard lessons. After numerous, successful social media launches, campaigns, and sweepstakes, our team has accumulated our share of well-earned bruises and scrapes. We have tried to learn from our experiences in order to alleviate some of the pain that can result and also to catalog a growing understanding of the best practices that drive brand results. Here are some of our social media life lessons.
Your clients (internal or external) are new to this and will react in predictable ways. They will be watching the pages intently, almost hourly, and may not know how to interpret what they see. They will expect daily or more frequent updates and reports on any metrics that they can't see, and they will need guidance. Is this a good response? Average? Poor? Be prepared in advance with a schedule of reporting that recognizes the need, particularly at launch, for regular updates and provide them with context on the results. Have a glossary of terms available to make your jargon understandable. Better yet, don't use jargon.
Plan for the impact of social media across channels. A social effort touches the website, the mobile experience, and most of the other social spaces. The strategy, budget, timeline, creative, and technology all need to be prepped in advance for those impacts. Don't forget to adjust your offline and digital media efforts to help support your social campaigns. Get a link and a line of copy into the print ad or FSI or even as a closing frame of the TV ad or radio spot. Produce new search ads and banner ads and rotate them into the digital media campaigns. Track the results.
Caution - good ideas tend to grow. It's critical to have the social media team and, in particular, the community managers who will be the face of the effort involved in the campaign strategy and formation. Have them map out all the touch points and implications of your core idea in advance of sign off to make sure you have accounted for all the impacts. It's very tough to resist the impulse to enhance or connect additional populations or channels mid-build when you could "just" add this one element to the campaign. That's how budgets are blown and unexpected consequences occur.
The technology will crack - just a little. Plan for it. Facebook will change something mid-campaign and consumers will mysteriously revert back to IE6 just to vex you. Be prepared to troubleshoot on an almost daily basis and think about posting the desired browsers and other environments that you built your app to support. Have your servers prepared for a ridiculous amount of traffic; more than you could ever hope for in your wildest dreams. Server capacity is cheap. Watching a promotion go down - even for a half hour - when response overwhelms the technology is a disheartening event.
Plan for the end of campaign before you launch. Does that app need to come down at midnight? Do you have the copy and graphics ready to transition? Did you change the corresponding images and copy on the website? Most importantly, how do you plan to continue to engage with your audience now that you have them fired up? Listening and collecting feedback will help you plan for what's next and apply your learnings as you move forward.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you're running a contest or sweeps, plan for more than just one grand prize winner with some instant wins, daily or weekly wins, or giveaways to spread the wealth and keep people engaged. If you have instant wins, make them something that has perceived value even if it's small. Digital downloads, screensavers, and ringtones may not fit the bill unless you have a truly passionate fan base or it's an entertainment brand.
Prepare everyone for the Negative Nellies. Clients struggle with a proportional response when they see some cranky person making negative comments about the brand, promotion, or campaign in the middle of their tightly planned social campaign. There will always be that one, probably several or more cranky souls if you have sufficient scale. Prepare clients in advance for this eventuality and let them know how you plan to handle the situation. Often other members of the community will begin to police and control the negative elements and, if at all possible, you should let them.
Be careful with absolute dates. Don't promise to announce something or do something on day X if you don't have 100 percent control of the timing. Winners of promotions, for example, often have a few days or a week to respond to notification in the rules. If they don't check their email or mistyped it in your form, you might need some extra time to get in touch with them or disqualify and replace them. In the meantime, your audience may be getting antsy waiting to find out who won. Awwkward…
Not all social media participants are created equal. If you're running a sweeps, you're going to draw some consumers who don't care about your brand, may unlike you shortly after you announce the winners, and who won't engage fully or at all with the community. To the extent that you are building a remarketing database, acknowledge and note those consumers who came to your brand through different doors so that you can create relevant messaging and promotions for them down the line.
Get your language squared away up front. If you play in a regulated industry or have other legal concerns, get clearance in advance for specific language you can use, but also ask for general guidelines that allow you to respond quickly in the unscripted world of social media. You simply won't have time to play phone tag with the legal team before you post responses. Even if yours isn't a legal concern, it's still a good idea to have some sample language vetted by the key stakeholders to make sure everyone has the same idea on messaging and voice. This allows your community managers the autonomy they need to react and respond.
Social media is a quickly evolving space, and consumers, vendors, partners, and brands are all learning and adjusting together. What lessons has social media taught you?

Everything Marketers Need to Measure and Prove Content ROI

Posted by Pamela Vaughan

Tue, Jan 24, 2012 @ 04:16 PM

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Marketing content creators have a lot of potential content assets at their disposal. But whether they're drafting an ebook, writing a blog post, or producing a webinar, they usually have different goals in mind for the content they're creating. And just as each content asset is associated with different goals, each must also be measured by different metrics.
After all, if you're using an ebook to generate leads, landing page submissions, not page views, should be your top priority metric. Let's examine some of the most popular marketing content assets -- ebooks and whitepapers, webinars, and blog posts -- and how you should be measuring their success.

What Does Content 'Success' Mean?

Before we dive into each individual content asset, the first question you'll need to ask yourself is, "What does 'success' mean for my particular business and each of its content assets?" This can depend on a number of factors, from the results your competitors are achieving, to benchmarks in your industry, to how each piece of content is being used in your marketing program. For example, a webinar or an ebook can be used as either a top-of-the-funnel offer to generate new leads, or a middle-of-the-funnel offer to nurture existing leads, all depending on the subject matter the content covers and when it's introduced to prospects. For the former, net new leads would be the focal metric, whereas for the latter, reconversions would likely be the end goal.
Before you create a new piece of content, keep in mind what your goals for that content are so you can effectively tailor it to suit those needs and be sure you're measuring its success as accurately as possible.

Ebooks/Whitepapers

Possible Goals: An ebook or a whitepaper is a long-form piece of content, usually offered as more premium content used in lead generation or lead nurturing. Typically, a visitor to your website must complete a form on a landing page to acquire the ebook/whitepaper, thus converting them (or reconverting them) into a lead for your business.

Metrics to Track

Landing Page Visits: Tracking the number of visitors to your landing pages is a great way to see how much traffic you're driving to your content. If you notice your landing pages aren't driving a significant amount of traffic, you maybe need to increase your page's visibility in social media, search, and in calls-to-action on your website. To do so, make sure your landing pages are equipped with social sharing buttons and that you're actively sharing it via your social channels, optimize your landing pages with the keywords you want your page to get found for, and make sure every web page and blog post you create includes a relevant call-to-action for your landing pages.
Conversions/Submissions: This metric refers to how many people actually completed the form on your landing page and downloaded your content. Depending on the goals of your content, submissions can also be categorized as new leads (if lead gen is the goal) or reconverted leads (if lead nurturing is the goal). This number is probably the most telling indicator of your content's success.
Conversion Rate: This metric provides insight into the percentage of visitors that turned into conversions/submissions. It's important to track this percentage to identify problems with your landing page. For example, if it's generating a lot of traffic but isn't converting visitors into submissions, your landing page may need to improvements, such as better communication of the offer's value some A/B testing to identify problem areas. In addition, boosting your conversion rate will help you generate more submissions from existing traffic.
Social Media Shares: How many people are sharing your ebook's landing page on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+? Social media shares is a great secondary metric to analyze how well your ebook offer resonates with your audience and the sentiment of your audience toward your content. Plus, the more social shares, the greater its reach! If your ebook isn't generating a lot of shares, again, make sure you're sharing it yourself in social media and that your landing pages include social media sharing buttons.

Live & Archived Webinars

Possible Goals: Webinars are typically live, online presentations about a particular topic. Businesses can use them to educate attendees about a number of things, from industry best practices to the capabilities of their products/services. Webinars can be recorded and archived to be distributed to those who could not attend the live event.

Metrics to Track

Landing Page Visits: Whether you're trying to gather registrations for an upcoming live webinar or encouraging downloads of a recorded, archived webinar, landing pages will again be the primary page by which you can track success. (Tip: Use the same landing page to capture registrants and archived downloads; just re-purpose the page to include the recording when it's available. This eliminates the need to create a brand new landing page and also capitalizes on the traffic the page will already generate organically through search and social sharing.) Evaluate webinar landing page visits just as you would ebook landing page visits (see above).
Social Media Shares & Hashtag Engagement: Social media shares can give you a pulse of how much visibility your webinar is getting in social networks. Hashtags allow you to monitor the conversion happening before, during, and after your webinar, and helps you identify the audience's sentiment toward your webinar in terms of topic, production quality, and content value. It's a best practice to create a hashtag for your webinars so you can track this conversation, join in, and enable attendees to engage with each other. It also enables you to generate some buzz around your event and encourage non-attendees to catch the archived version later.
Registrations: Registrations is the number of registrants for your webinar. These are people who completed the registration form on your landing page to secure their spot in your upcoming live webinar. You want to generate as many registrations as possible, since only a fraction of registrants will end up actually attending your webinar.
Live Attendees: Live attendees are the number of registrants that actually attended your live webinar. You can also calculate your registrations-to-live attendees conversion rate to identify the percentage of registrants who actually showed up. This can show you how well you were at getting registrants not just to register, but also to attend. It's important to identify which registrants actually attended so that you can nurture these leads differently than those that registered but did not sign up. For example, in your follow-up email to non-attendees, you might want to include the webinar recording and mention that it could be useful since they weren't able to attend live.
Submissions/Downloads: For archived webinars, this number shows how many people downloaded your webinar after the live showing. Offering archived webinars is a great way to extend the life of your webinar content and generate more conversions and views post live event. (Note: For some middle-of-the-funnel focused webinars such as group demos or product-focused webinars, it might not make sense to put this content behind a lead gen form, as views, not leads, is likely the goal.)
Conversion Rate: A webinar's conversion rate could refer to the rate at which landing page visitors converted into registrants (for live webinars) or the rate at which landing page visitors converted into downloads (for archived webinars). Again, as with ebook conversion rates (see above), this percentage can pinpoint problems with your landing page, and an improved conversion rate could help you generate more submissions without increasing traffic.

Business Blogging

Possible Goals: Business blog posts include any content you publish to your business blog and usually serve as shorter-form content. Business blogging can contribute to a number of goals -- establishment as an industry thought leader, improved search engine optimization, lead generation, social media reach, or lead nurturing.

Metrics to Track

Page Views and Overall Traffic: Because each blog post you publish lives on its own web page, page views will give you an idea of how many visitors viewed a specific post. This can provide some powerful insights into the types of content -- subject/topic, format, etc. -- that resonates with your audience. It can also help you conduct deeper analysis into which factors make killer blog posts for your blog. Use this knowledge to write more about the topics your audience responds to and less about the ones they don't. In addition, track the traffic to your blog as a whole. You'll want this to steadily increase over time to ensure that your blog is effectively contributing to an increase in traffic to and exposure for your business' website.
Keyword/Search Rankings: One of main benefits of business blogging is an increase in your website's search engine rankings. Be sure you're tracking if your business increases its ranking for the keywords you're targeting over the course of your blogging career. And make sure you're optimizing every blog post you publish for those keywords to ensure you're steadily moving the needle. Increased search rankings lead to increased traffic, and increased leads!
Inbound Links: While also a driver for SEO success, inbound links into your blog content can give you a powerful indication of which posts were valuable enough to link to from another website. Analyze which of your posts received the most inbound links to get an idea of what types of content generally gets rewarded with an inbound link. Then apply the lessons learned to future content.
Submissions/Conversions: How well is your blog contributing to lead generation? Again, submissions/conversions can be segmented into new leads or reconverted leads. Both are valuable, but depending on your goals, you may want to track one more closely than another. If you can attribute few leads to your blog, make sure each post you publish includes a relevant call-to-action (CTA) to a landing page for one of your more premium content offers like a webinar or an ebook. If you've already done so, conduct some A/B testing on your CTAs to maximize conversions from your blog.
Comments and Social Media Shares: Just as with ebooks and webinars, social media shares can be a great way to gauge your content's success. Shares as well as blog comments can also serve to indicate your audience's sentiment toward your content. Be sure you leave comments open on your blog and make sure every blog article published includes social media sharing buttons to encourage visitors to share you content with their networks.

Pulling It All Together

As we all well know, a marketer's job doesn't stop at lead generation. So it makes sense that marketers should also analyze how their content assets work both individually and together to achieve their business' bottom line: customers and revenue. Using closed-loop data, marketers should analyze which content assets are most successful in generating customers. Is one content format (e.g. ebooks vs. webinars) more successful at generating customers than the other? Does one content topic tend to produce more customers?
Using lead intelligence, marketers should also identify whether leads who consume multiple types of content become more qualified customers. That analysis in itself is fodder for a more advanced post, which we discuss here, but at the very least, marketers should understand that many prospects and leads will likely engage with your content in more ways than one.
Marketers who effectively leverage the data at their fingertips to gather insights about their content's performance have the opportunity to significantly improve their content strategy. Are you making the most out of the data available to you?

Pinterest: When Curation Becomes Meaningful for Anyone

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Posted January 25, 2012 with 260 reads

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Curation made a big fuss in 2010-11, while many start-ups rose in order to better structure the web for the end-users.
In an attention economy, a gap exists between an abundance of contents, signals, paths, and a very limited time to filter all these data. Some digital tools try to help us filter all these chaotic contents. But until now, curation was either a high-level skill (because it requires a strong knowledge + a lot of time to structure for example your Pearltrees), either very disappointing as automatic curation tools are sometimes very biased or partial. Curation as a concept is one of the keys for any business. Brian Solis made this relevant statement:

The interest graphs they weave within social networks serve as qualified information networks that can amplify information with unprecedented speed, efficiency and personalization. It creates a human algorithm that brings to life an awakening and revolutionary reality; we are now reaching an audience with an audience of audiences.

Source: thenester.com via Cindy on Pinterest

But "curation" lacked 3 pillars until Pinterest:

accesibility: not anyone could find a value in spending time with digital tools
fun & pleasure: you need some "lol" when you are on a social network. Curation should not be reserved to bookworms
usability in a daily routine: the best digital applications are the ones that amplify real-life. To be provocative, one of the most popular app for iPad is the Calorie tracker

And Pinterest has many assets in each of the requirements.

It's easy for anyone to curate, as it takes the best of what TumblR allows you (bookmark a content you like) and optimizes the way it's archived (boards are far more intuitive & explicit than scrolling a blog)
It's fun because it lets users lose themselves in the depth of boards (for explorers, like on WeHeartIt) but also helps people in a hurry to easily find relevant contents, depending on their needs (the boards are categorized, and you can "follow" either an indiviual either a specific board aka center of interest: you get notifications when there are fresh contents, and that's all, less noise than on twitter)
It's useful on a daily basis, and I've tried to identify 5 first usages:

Pinterest for pupils & students:
Teachers could quickly adopt Pinterest to arrange some home-works. For example, pupils could have to create some boards as herbariums. Young scientists could have to analyze some cells on specific boards
Pinterest for Powerpoint aka for marketers
Tired of looking for the same old pictures that perfectly fit an idea? Well, you could structure some moodboards and update them
Pinterest for non-profits: Beth Kanter made a great summary on how Pinterest could fastly be a vector for them
Pinterest for e-business: as you can add some social features to products, you can "pin" diverse items around a topic. It is good for editorial (you give meaning) but it's also powerful to mobilize communities (they can give opinions and make an item "trending")
Pinterest for live-events: once something big happens, it's highly complicated to follow an event and get the best of it. Either pictures are the same (see the Arab Spring: we were massively watching the same videos and the same photos), either there are so much contents that you don't find any meaning.

There are good reasons to believe in Pinterest. First because of its specific demographics: it's not populated with Sillicon Valley insiders, but with real people with real needs.

Pinterest Caught Your Interest?

Posted January 25, 2012 with 419 reads

Keywords: pinterest, Social Networks

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It seems in the space of just a few weeks Pinterest has risen from a little-known site to a front-of-mind social media platform. It’s certainly now considered one that should be in the tool box of any savvy social media pro.
So what really is the significance of this picture-sharing site, and how are people deploying the use of it as part of the social stack?
For those new to the platform, it can be described as a stylish way to share, like and group, images and infographics. You can ‘pin’ content on boards, categorizing and naming in any way you like. You are able to upload images direct from your phone and computer, or simply use images from other Pinterest users. With an estimated 7.2 million unique visitors already pinning content it’s undeniably growing in popularity, despite still having an ‘invite only’ admission policy. (Not a user yet? Drop me an email and I’ll happily send you an invite.)

Pinterest is being used well by brands like Whole Foods

There are limitations for brands using Pinterest, and it seems that users are prevented from simply sharing images of products that are deemed directly promotional. However, creating communities around the ideas or lifestyle of your brand is acceptable. For example, if you’re a property company specializing in seaside properties in England, then you could create a series of boards showcasing some spectacular coastal scenic views to whet people’s appetites.
A good example of creative use is by Whole Foods who have created a series of boards around recycling matters, art initiatives and more as a way to promote its brand values and demonstrate is commitment to relevant associated issues.
I could imagine a brand like TOMS shoes – who, upon purchase, give customers a branded flag, encouraging them to take a picture of it at a unique location – using the best submitted pictures here, offering incentives to users whose pictures are selected. Or perhaps you might consider a series of ‘how to’ infographics that relate to your product and that cover set-up, Q&As and trouble-shooting. What will you do with Pinterest?

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Measuring The Business Impact Of Social Media

Written by Martin Michalik on January 22nd, 2012 | 2 comments

ROI, CTR, engagement rate, fans increase,…Also the social media activities must be measured for analysis and details on the impact of your business.

Measuring The Business Impact Of Social Media

As more companies understand that social media is about long-term and strategic approach that goes hand-in-hand with other marketing channels, it’s no longer perceived as a single shot into the dark.

Wildfire in cooperation with Column Five conducted in November an ROI survey of over 700 marketers from all around the world and compiled the results in the infographic below.
Some important key facts:

97% of the surveyed marketers believe that social media marketing benefits their business;
75% intend to increase media spending this year;
brands and market is currently focused on growing the fan base to engage and monetize in later phases.

The interesting part is, that there’s currently no standardized method how to measure ROI of social media success. For all the details, have a look.

The Great Return - Measuring The Business Impact Of Social Media Infographic

How is the ROI and success of the social media approach measured in your company and how do you set your KPIs based on them?

12 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2012

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Introduction | This year, much as in previous years, some brands may be staring into the abyss, while others will do exuberantly well. And while we can’t offer any help to defaulting nations or bankrupt companies, we do believe that there are more opportunities than ever for creative brands and entrepreneurs to deliver on changing consumer needs. From Canada to Korea. Hence this overview of 12 must-know consumer trends (in random order) for you to run with in the next 12 months. Onwards and upwards:

In 2012, department stores, airlines, hotels, theme parks, museums, if not entire cities and nations around the world will roll out the red carpet for the new emperors, showering Chinese visitors and customers with tailored services and perks, and in general, lavish attention and respect.
Read RED CARPET in full (including examples from Hilton, Starwood and Harrods)

Expect to see consumers take advantage of new technologies and apps to discreetly and continuously track, manage and be alerted to, any changes in their personal health.
Read DIY HEALTH in full (including examples from Jawbone, Ford and Lifelens)

In 2012, not only will consumers continue to hunt for deals and discounts, but they will do so with relish if not pride. Deals are now about more than just saving money: it’s the thrill, the pursuit, the control, and the perceived smartness, and thus a source of status too.
Read DEALER-CHIC in full (including examples from American Express, Nokitum and Daitan)

Brands will increasingly take back all of their products for recycling (sometimes forced by new legislation), and recycle them responsibly and innovatively.
Read ECO-CYCOLOGY in full (including examples from Dell, Nike and Garnier)

Will coins and notes completely disappear in 2012? No. But a cashless future is (finally) upon us, as major players such as MasterCard and Google work to build a whole new eco-system of payments, rewards and offers around new mobile technologies.
Read CASH-LESS in full (including examples from Google, PayPal and Square)

The majority of consumers live in cities, yet in much of the world city life is chaotic, cramped and often none too pleasant. However at the same time, the creativity and vibrancy of these aspiring consumers, means that the global opportunities for brands which cater to the hundreds of millions of lower-income CITYSUMERS are unprecedented.
Read BOUP in full (including examples from PepsiCo, NCR and Aakash)

Anything that makes it downright simple- if not completely effortless- for consumers to contribute to something will be more popular than ever in 2012. Unlocked by the spread of ever smarter sensors in mobile phones, people will not only be able but increasingly willing, to broadcast information about where and what they are doing, to help improve products and services.
Read IDLE SOURCING in full (including examples from Street Bump and Waze)

Why to consumers, brands that behave more humanly, including exposing their flaws, will be awesome.
Read FLAWSOME in full here.

Thanks to the continued explosion of touchscreen smartphones, tablets, and the 'cloud', 2012 will see a SCREEN CULTURE that is not only more pervasive, but more personal, more immersive and more interactive than ever.
Read SCREEN CULTURE in full (including examples from Sky, 8ta and Huawei)

It’s never been easier for savvy consumers to resell or trade in past purchases, and unlock the value in their current possessions. In 2012, ‘trading in’ is the new buying.
Read RECOMMERCE in full (including examples from Decathlon, Amazon and Levi’s)

While cultural differences will continue to shape consumer desires, middle-class and/or younger consumers in almost every market will embrace brands that push the boundaries. Expect frank, risqué or non-corporate products, services and campaigns from emerging markets to be on the rise in 2012.
Read EMERGING MATURIALISM in full (including examples from Diesel, Johnson & Johnson and Sanitol)

Consumers are used to being able to find out just about anything that’s online or text-based, but 2012 will see instant visual information gratification brought into the real and visual world with objects and even people.
Read POINT & KNOW in full (including examples from Starbucks, eBay and Amazon)

For many of you, our free content is enough to keep you going. And yet, this Trend Briefing is just a snapshot of what we track. So, if you need access to all the trends we’re tracking in 2012, including our exclusive 100+ page 2012 Trend Report, then please check out our Premium Service »

Don't forget...

Now, with 'trends' meaning everything from 'Ageing population in China' to 'Fall 2013's felt mania’, we need to clarify that:

We’re tracking consumer trends. Not macro trends. Well, actually, we do track those, but don't publish them. So, for 2012's ‘geo-political-environmental macro picture' check out sources such as McKinsey’s Global Institute and Global Trends.

Obviously, trends don't just 'emerge' on 1 January or end on 31 December. Professionals craving Top Twelve lists is something we gladly cater for, but all trends are constantly evolving, and all of the content above is one way or another already happening. Major consumer trends are more like currents than one-time killer waves.

We’re also not saying there are only 12 consumer trends to track in 2012; there are dozens of important consumer trends worth knowing about and applying at any given time of the year. We merely bring you a selection to get going. If you crave more, do check out other trend firms' lists or check out No. 13 above ;-)

All of the above means that many trends we’ve highlighted over the last years will still be as important next year as the ones we discuss in this briefing. From CITYSUMERS to BRAND BUTLERS.

Oh, and none of these trends apply to all consumers.

Last but not least, trend watching is about applying. About innovations. It's hands-on. And about making money. So forget ‘Nice to Know’ or ‘Pie in the Sky’. See the below for how to apply these trends straightaway.