InSites Consulting conducted a quantitative online survey among 400 senior marketing managers.
Markets included are the US and the UK.
The goals of the study are: understanding the current adoption level of social media among corporations and getting insights in the integration of social media in their business processes.
Some of the most interesting findings relate to valuable performance indicators. As social media increasingly becomes integrated into strategic communications, benchmarking of performance is going to be key in winning-over the adoption laggards. Those considered the most valuable performance indicators include:
52% - Leads generated via social media 46% - Volume in online reach 34% - Adoption of social media by employees 34% - Impact of online conversations 28% - Influence indicators
To the right is a useful infographic (click for full size) that gives a summary of the findings.
Fry's Planet Word - The inimitable Stephen Fry provides expert curation on language and the written word across the world that has driven communication. If you have not already seen it, I do recommend you take the time to watch.
The series provides fascinating insight into the evolutionary (and revolutionary) characterisation of language and the essential development of the written word that supports interaction, engagement and technology. Without it, we would not be where we are today.
In last night's programme, "Stephen discovers the earliest writing - cuneiform - at the British Museum, and learns how our alphabet came from the Phoenicians. As part of his exploration of the diversity of scripts, Stephen visits 106-year-old Mr Zhou, the inventor of the Chinese phonetic writing system called Pinyin, who relates how literacy increased four-fold after its introduction under Mao.
There are echoes of Steve Jobs' passionate story about taking calligraphy classes upon dropping out of college, which retrospectively turned out to be a 'connecting dot', introducing multiple typefaces and proportionately spaced fonts to the Apple Mac.
Stephen Fry has carved his niche as an expert wordsmith and an influential voice on Twitter. He curates the programme with a down-to-earth raw passion that cannot help but draw you in. Watch Stephen Fry's Planet Word on BBC iPlayer.
I'm always impressed by the collaborative infographics created by Brian Solis and JESS3...and the 'Social Media Brandsphere' is no exception. It illustrates a transmedia approach to storytelling connecting brands with audience groups spanning five media landscapes:
"Social networks and channels present brands with a broad array of media opportunities to engage customers and those who influence them. Each channel offers a unique formula for engagement where brands become stories and people become storytellers. Using a transmedia approach, the brand story can connect with customers differently accross each medium, creating a deeper, more enriching experience. Transmedia story telling doesn't follow the traditional rules of publishing: it caters to customers where they connect and folds them into the narrative. In any given network, brands can invest in digital assets that span five media landscapes.
1. Paid: Digital advertising, banners, adwords, overlays 2. Owned: Created assets, custom content 3. Earned: Brand-related conversations and user-generated content 4. Promoted: In-stream or social paid promotion vehicles 5. Shared: Open platforms or communities where customers co-create and collaborate with brands
Any combination of the five media strategies defines a new Brandsphere where organisations can capture attention, steer online experiences, spark conversations and word-of-mouth, and help customers address challenges or create new opportunities. Each media channel connects differently with people and thus requires a dedicated approach integrating tangible or intangible value. Doing so ensures a critical path for social media content: relevance, reach and resonance."
A while since my last post, but the demonstrable influence of Steve Job's death has reignited my Cx3 blog posts - and in tribute, written and posted in totality using my iPad.
In the past few days, since Steve Jobs died, there has been an unprecedented global outpouring of grief, tributes and reflection. He is labelled a genius in parallel with Einstein and labelled the creator of the 21st century.
Steve Job's Apple empire touches the world, quite literally, as it shapes the way we behave and communicate today - providing platforms to connect, share, inform, inspire, influence, educate, perform and entertain.
I myself (as did many others) found out about Steve Jobs death via my iPhone and actively shared the news appropriately - via my iPhone, which can only be a fitting tribute to a man who revolutionised communication. Twitter recorded 10,000 tweets per second on news of his death - the highest ever.
Clips of Steve Jobs were shared including his Commencement speech at Stanford University 'How to live before you die' and multiple i-product launch performances, which have a presentation style of their own. The 'opportunity in death' that Steve Jobs actively talks about, provides the world with the opportunity to 'save to memory' recognition of a man's leadership genius, and a not-to-be-forgotten creative visionary.
Burberry's 'holographic' runway show in Beijing is one of my favourite videos on YouTube at the moment. There are only six real catwalk models in this show and it is quite mesmorising. The full show (see video below) also includes avatar models and an Inception based environment that has Burberry models parading up walls and on the ceiling. Full credit to Christopher Bailey's genius.
Yesterday, there was the royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. The day was declared a bank holiday in the UK, we were glued to the television and there were thousands of very British street parties up and down the country...hurrah for the happy couple!
However yesterday, the royal wedding also re-positioned the popular 'William and Kate' brand past a superficial excuse to have a party. The new 'Duke and Duchess of Cambridge' brand, for a day, lead the nation (and the world) with values of awareness, relevance, accessibility and acceptance that will be influential in shaping the future monarchy in the United Kingdom.
It was an uncompromising marriage meme connecting tradition with modernity, regal with common, youth with wisdom, Smiths with Beckhams, Grace Kelly glamour with fascinator fad, respectful etiquette with carefree abandonment, serious with fun, old with new...I could go on with the dichotomies, but the message is clear.
Accessibility to the royal couple's wedding day embraced today's technology. Live streaming records were broken as people around the world watched the wedding over the internet, topping 300,000 concurrent users on Livestream.
Social amplification of the event dominated trends on Twitter, Facebook and Google. 65% of the conversation came from the USA and 20% from the UK.
Loving this infographic from BLITZ that simply illustrates the daily channel touchpoint lifecycle of a sample consumer. The graphical concept easily translates across any specific audience demographic to identify high-value touchpoints when approaching targeted channel communications.
In the wake of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, the maturity of digital networks and social media is being demonstrated.
Less than an hour after the earthquake, Japan's phone system was knocked out and Twitter became the go-to place in the emergency - the number of tweets coming from Tokyo topped 1,200 per minute according to Tweet-o-Meter.
Google has set-up its Person Finder service so people can look for others, or post information saying they are safe - more than 4,000 records were posted in the first hour.
On YouTube the Japan tsunami channel hosts official news and user generated videos. The video below has already been viewed more than 3 million times.
No-one can say that the devastation of Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant explosion isn't shocking, and the essential need of digital and social channels for connecting people and connecting the world with information is clear.
There is renewed interest in businesses leveraging the internet and the power of 'the cloud'. Although conceptually, the virtual office has been around for a while, it is only now that the convergence of technology connectivity and the economic climate as business drivers that a virtual reality is raising to the fore again.
But is a paradoxical virtual business reality a viable option? And can technology and digital communications sustain a virtual business?
The economic climate drives global operational economies and digital communications facilitates cost-effective management of those operations. No secret there.
The full-time/remote workforce split. Again cost effeciencies minimise full-time workforce overheads and temprorary on-demand remote-working specialist 'suppliers' make-up the balance that enables a business to negotiate beneficial rates. However, relationships with these temporary specialists is now the connection for a driven and motivated workforce. Cloud computing and social solutions are connecting stakeholders digitally, and nurturing loyal relationships.
There will always be grounding forces. Finance, corporate regulation and compliance. Growth may necessitate a physical reality, and can a virtual brand and its values be sustained?
Also, layer on top of this a generation of digital natives' natural virtual persona multiplicity, which is now grown-up - technology giant Microsoft is already exploring avatar technology for conferencing (interesting sign of the times). Going forward, the business drivers for virtual working may not be solely economic and technological, but behavioural.
Yahoo! launched MarketDash this week, their new iPad app that brings all of the real-time stock and financial data of their existing iPhone app, but optimised for the larger iPad screen.
The MarketDash app for iPad allows you to display real-time stock information for any company in your portfolio and see trend data and a stock's history over time period or stock performance and closing price on any day with a single tap.
If you use Yahoo! to track your finances, you can import a watch-list of your portflio and access real-time data also. Once markets close, you see closing price and access relevant news.
Another example of the tablet platform potentially finding a corporate niche with 'on-the-go' investor and analyst audiences? As the Yahoo! MarketDash app promo video says 'Money never looked so good'. One to watch.
News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch is extending his media empire once again - this time with a digital newspaper for the iPad called the Daily.
Mr Murdoch told an audience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York that he hoped it would be an "indispensable source of news" in the tablet era.
The Daily will cost 99 cents (60p) a week and will be sold exclusively via Apple's iTunes store.
The paper will initially only be available in the US.
News Corp has hired about 100 journalists to work on it.
The Daily will feature news articles, interactive graphics, HD videos and 360 degree photos designed to work with the iPad's touchscreen.
It will add Twitter feeds into some articles and offer personalised content.
"Our target audience is the 15 million Americans expected to own iPads in the next year," said Mr Murdoch.
"In the tablet-era there is room for a fresh and robust new voice. New times demand new journalism," he said.
He promised that the Daily would combine the best of contemporary technology with "shoe leather reporting, good editing and a sceptical eye".
According to Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of internet services, 200m news apps have been downloaded and there are 9,000 different news apps to choose from.
Revenue share
It is believed that Apple will use the tie-up with News Corp to change the way it charges for subscriptions.
It means that any publisher offering content via the iPad will have to use Apple's payment method, known as in-app purchase, which in turn means Apple will get a share of the revenue made from any subscriptions.
"That is quite a big deal," said Adrian Drury, principal media analyst at research firm Ovum.
"The specific terms News Corp have negotiated are unknown, but every other publisher now faces paying 30% of their hard won application subscription revenue to Apple," he said.
It follows a tightening of the rules around e-book readers, which will also now be required to offer customers the ability to purchase books from within the app as well as from other sources.
News Corp's move onto the iPad reflects a wider industry appetite for selling device-specific exclusive content, Mr Drury said.
What sets the Daily apart is the fact that it has its own editorial staff.
"Others re-use content but the Daily has hired expensive US journalists and has its own editorial staff," he said.
"Its parent has deep pockets, and this is going to buy it time to build an audience and refine its model," he added.
Others who have already gone down the iPad route find it a difficult road, he said.
"Anecdotal evidence [suggests] that such publications have strong download sales when they first come to market, but when it comes to subscriptions, getting people to repeat buy, it gets really tough."
It also faces stiff competition from free apps such as Flipboard, which allows users to pick the websites they want to create a personalised magazine.
Paywalls
Mr Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to get consumers paying for news on the web.
The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Sunday Times, all owned by Mr Murdoch, have introduced paywalls for their websites.
The Times has since revealed that it has seen a 87% drop in online readership.
In November, Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson launched his own iPad publication, called Project.
Unlike the Daily, it is a monthly magazine dedicated to style and culture. It costs £1.79.
Other paid-for newspaper apps for the iPad include Esquire, Glamour, GQ, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired.
Always love a good flashmob and especially like this one from 2009 featuring the Black Eyed Peas in Chicago - if only for the expression on Oprah's face! ;-)
'Infographic boy' - an interesting Superhero name that has unintentionally come my way. But why disappoint, so here is another one...Social media marketing spend - some 2010 numbers.
London's spectacular 2011 New Year firework fantasia demonstrated to the world the vibrance and confidence of a city commanding contemporary modernity, integrating seamlessly with its solid heritage foundation. A powerful and explosive message (excuse all the puns) against a backdrop of austerity, political coalition and global economic uncertainty...but a necessary one.
Digital communication turned a transitional corner in 2010. Economic escapism embraced 'Club Apple' and 'Club Google' feeding an uncontrollable behavioural craving enabling us to dance with the seductive iPhone, iPad, Android, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare brands...the hedonisitic 1980's revival relived for a new generation as they indulged - ordering another bottle of digital Veuve, posting their Facebook status, Tweeting when the Champagne was corked and uploading a brand reputation damaging video of complaint to the world on YouTube.
Joking aside, 2011 does have a more serious corporate tone - Relationships; Partnership; Performance; Delivery. 2010 was also a transitionary cornerstone for businesses as they too played with new ways of communicating through emerging digital channels, however, it's now time for the maturity of digital to be realised and strategic long-term commitment to enable the returns of nurtured stakeholder relationships and sustained growth to be fulfilled.
The complexities of corporate communications are such that traditional communication channels will not disappear from the mix, however, the focus of reaching and fulfilling stakeholder audience demands will be key. Maximising performance will result in appropriate targeting to reach 'the right' stakeholders using their preferred communication 'channel of choice' - even if that is now a 140 character dialogue on Twitter.
So the prospect for digital corporate communications in 2011 is positively coming of age. A solid strategic communication tradition is the foundation for confidently commanding new channels (including digital) to realise sustained performance and nurture ongoing stakeholder relationships and reputational brand loyalty.
London's New Year fireworks chimed positive sentiment for London to be sustained throughout 2011 as the world's eyes become focussed on the city as the stage (and worldwide tourist destination) for the marriage of Britain's future King and Queen, and on the upcoming London Olympics in 2012...oh my, I've embedded a YouTube video of the fireworks into my blog post - Let the digital games begin ;-)
This was posted a couple of weeks ago and passed me by, but better late than never as it is a pretty impressive bit of work (you could almost call it art), representing global Facebook connections.
It has been created by Facebook engineering intern Paul Butler and visualises the geographic friendship connections from available data. Paul writes in his article Visualizing Friendships that what emerged was
"a surprisingly detailed map of the world. Not only were continents visible, certain international borders were apparent as well. What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn't represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships. Each line might represent a friendship made while travelling, a family member abroad, or an old college friend pulled away by the various forces of life".
Quite noticeabley China is missing from the map (but then Facebook does not have a presence there), and parts of central Africa.
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