Cx3: The Nimblists are coming

I came across an article in the Architects Journal today, ‘King’s Grove, Peckham, South London, by Duggan Morris Architects’ - completely unrelated, with the exception of a quote that stood out:

“The Nimblists are coming: architects who can spot an opportunity where others might not. They practice Nimblism, good architecture wrought from unlikely circumstances”.

Being opportunistically nimble is more relevant today than ever before (and not just restricted to the domain of architects). The number of business start-ups fell in 2011, and governmental schemes introduced in 2012 dominate an entrepreneurial tone for economic growth opportunities.

Applying nimblism to communications, simply turn to current real-time big data technology drivers that are transforming interactions with stakeholders. Targeted communications based upon speedy in-memory analysis, with the intention of leveraging a competitive advantage, and resultant shareholder value.

Our own nimblistic behaviour, driven by social media growth and a preference for mobile platforms has changed brand loyalty paradigms. Does value-based sustainable loyalty commitment exist any more? Or, is today’s loyalty driven by potentially spurious influence accessed on the fly?

Either way, the influence of nimblism in technology driven communications and consumer behavioural science, is speedily making its mark.

 
RELATED LINKS:
Cx3: The growth of cloud computing

Cx3: Burberry digital drivers

Angela Ahrendts, Burberry Chief Executive Officer, discusses the drivers behind the Group's performance for the full year ending 31 March 2012. Digital strategy maximising social channels and immersive digital environments still driving retail growth for the luxury brand.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3: Burberry digital runway 
Cx3: The digital renaissance of Burberry

Cx3: Integrating social media survey

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.

View the Social Media Integration Survey presentation on SlideShare including more presentations from Steven van Belleghem

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Transmedia storytelling
Cx3 blog entry: Social Media Content Grid
Cx3 blog entry: Conversation prism 2.0

Cx3: Transmedia storytelling

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."

Visit www.theconversationprism.com for more on this and other infographics in this series.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Social Media Content Grid
Cx3 blog entry: Conversation prism 2.0

Cx3: Steve Jobs

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.

Cx3: Growth of mobile marketing and tagging

View more presentations from Microsoft Tag.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: QR codes vs Microsoft tag
Cx3 blog entry: Connected devices from Nielsen
Cx3 blog entry: QR codes - the future of mobile channel communication?

Cx3: Social media marketing spend [infographic]

'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.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: 2010 Facebook and Twitter demographics
Cx3 blog entry: 2010 Social networking map stats
Cx3 blog entry: If Facebook was a country
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: Visualizing Facebook friendships

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.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: 2010 Facebook and Twitter demographics
Cx3 blog entry: 2010 Social networking map stats
Cx3 blog entry: If Facebook was a country
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: 2010 Social Networking Map - stats

Another map to communicate the social networking landscape (click on the map to enlarge), but I rather like this one - maybe it is the Tolkeinesque 'Middle Earth' expanses, just begging to be explored.

Last month, Cx3 blog posted 'If Facebook was a country'. The 2010 Social Networking Map adds 'populations' to a few more 'countries' - The estimated number of users per designated network as detailed on the map are as follows:

- Facebook: 500 million
- Habbo: 178 million
- Myspace: 125 million
- Bebo: 117 million
- Friendster: 115 million
- Twitter: 114 million
- Orkut: 100 million
- Hi5: 70 million

OK, Frodo Baggins is now eating second breakfast and all set for a quest.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: If Facebook was a country
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: Cadbury's spots v stripes

Cadbury's spots v stripes is my favourite advert on TV at the moment and is part of the wider integrated campaign tying in the reach of broadcast media with incentivised online data capture, game play and viral social media.

Which side will you join? Go on, give it a glass and a half and take a side - play the Cadbury's spots v stripes game.





RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Grow social capital and go guerrilla
Cx3 blog entry: Virgin Atlantic Still Red Hot video
Cx3 blog entry: T-mobile Liverpool Street advert - class

Cx3: 47% of investors read financial blogs

Stat of the week: 47% of institutional investors read financial blogs for investment research and ideas; 20% of them have even used blog research to execute a recommendation or investment decision. (The Brunswick Group).

RELATED LINKS:
IR Matters blog entry: Social Media and Disclosure – Minimizing the Risk

Cx3: The social media content grid

Our friends at JESS3 have worked-up another infographic to help demistify the ever moving social media landscape. It is meant to help organisations figure out (and work through) oft-asked, burning questions about social media such as:

1. Which platform works best for what we are trying to achieve?
2. Where does social media figure in the purchase funnel/sales cycle?
3. Who should "own" social media?
4. How can we utilize social channels outside of just Facebook and Twitter?

Along the X-axis, they've plotted the purchase funnel: from awareness to consideration (and ultimately conversion and advocacy). Along the Y-axis, they've plotted to what extent their should be organisational input, oversight and control - and to what extent employees should be leading the charge to create content.

More information on the content grid can be found on JESS3's blog.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: The conversation prism 2.0

Cx3: BBC iPlayer and Facebook link

The BBC will forge closer links with social networking firms this week when it unveils a new version of its catch-up television service iPlayer that integrates with Facebook and Twitter.

The corporation is trying to strike a more conciliatory tone over its digital expansion plans after coming under fire from commercial rivals, which accuse it of attempting to colonise the web.

The BBC is proposing to close or merge half of its sites by 2012 and cut its £135m online budget by 25%. But the launch of a range of iPhone applications has been held up by the BBC Trust after the complaints.

The iPlayer remains central to the BBC’s digital push, however. There were 118m viewer and listener requests to the service in March, including 84m to watch television programmes. The new version will let users share what they are watching with Facebook friends or comment via Twitter.

“We want to do fewer things even better,” said Erik Huggers, the BBC’s director of future media and technology. He added that the new iPlayer would be more “simple, personal and connected”. “We must no longer try to do everything online but focus on delivering genuinely world-class services like the BBC iPlayer.”

Last week Project Canvas, a BBC-led plan to bring internet television to the masses, avoided an Office of Fair Trading investigation despite being attacked by BSkyB and Virgin Media. By combining Freeview with a broadband connection, catch-up services such as iPlayer and ITV Player will be more widely available on television sets.

RELATED LINKS:
BBC links iPlayer to Facebook

Cx3: Who is Gio Compario?

Absolutely loving the 'Who is Gio?' PR campaign to support Go Compare's ATL advertising starring the coffee shop opera singing wonder that is Gio Compario (and he's only a tenor/tenner...oh how we laughed!). Inspired by the Google Latitude stunt, the search for Gio is on, 39 people, 39 locations...But who is Gio?



The rising Go Compare star introduces his own Gio Compario campaign site. You can join his many fans on Facebook, and also follow operatic antics on Gio Compario's Twitter.



Following this one closely to see where Gio goes next.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Grow social capital and go guerrilla
Cx3 blog entry: Virgin Atlantic Still Red Hot video
Cx3 blog entry: T-mobile Liverpool Street advert - class

Cx3: Big Brother's social media future

As an unashamed Big Brother fan (I indulge in its banality), and knowing for a while that Endomol's contract with Channel 4 was due to end in 2010 the recent spin targeted at Joe Public raising the prominance of a ratings slump was an amusing move in managing expectations.

I was interested to read Wildonion's insider thoughts on the subject and I totally concur with the opportunities mentioned that Endemol has for social network affiliation.

As Wildonion says "It [Big Brother] has a young audience. That audience don’t really watch too much TV", therefore, target the channels that they do access - does Endemol even need a traditional TV broadcaster to facilitate this? What we see today are managed bite-sized chunks of happenings in the house of what a Channel 4 producer wants a TV audience to see that supposedly makes good television and is an attempt to sustain TV viewing figures - but for what audience?

Big Brother started as a social experiment - a group of people cut off from the outside world and how they behaved over a period of time. As we all know, the programme became a perceived avenue for celebrity stardom. However, two interesting things happened this year that should not be overlooked:

- Firstly, the outside world came into the house for the first time in the form of a few 'celebrity gossip magazines', within which housemates were featured - their reactions were televised and it was a refreshing flashback to the original social experiment ethos of the first series.
- Secondly, conversations were encouraged by allowing housemates to discuss nominations.

In the future, why not give housemates ongoing access to social media whilst in the house so that they can view the conversations being said about them in the outside world - would this change an individual's behaviour in order to manage their own self's brand reputation? Housemates could engage with social media by recording their own diary-cam videos to upload to YouTube, they could write blog posts or interact with Twitter.

Ten year's after Big Brother started, social interactions have changed with the advances of social media. Therefore, it is these social media interactions that Big Brother needs to experiment upon again.

RELATED LINKS:
Big Brother - end of an era. Don't be so daft

Cx3: Powerful social media stats

Some powerful stats demonstrating why social media is not just a fad - if Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world...plus many more.

Cx3: Nielsen Iran social media stats

Nielsen has undertaken snapshot search results analysis from Google for Iran focussed key phrases (Iran; Iran protest; Iran election; Moussavi and Ahmadinejad) over a two week period. A number of insights have emerged about how the Internet and social media continue to be a transforming force for the news industry.

Findings from an Internet snapshot from June 18, 2009:
- CNN rarely shows up in the top five search results for select Iran Election terms, mirroring criticism from consumers that the global news network’s coverage of the Iran Election was lacking (#CNNFail).
- Wikipedia emerges within the top two search results for 4/5 of the leading topics.
- At least one social media source emerges within the top 10 search results for every term. In most cases, the social media sites emerge directly above a traditional, major news source, such as WSJ.com.

Findings from an Internet snapshot from June 24, 2009:
- YouTube emerges within the top 10 search results for all search terms in the second week.
- Wikipedia remains within the top three search results in the second week for four of the five search terms.
- Twitter emerges within the top 20 search results in week two, specifically the Twitter results for Moussavi and Ahmadinejad. Of course, traditional news sources such as the BBC (and CNN, in week two) bubble to the top of search results, as do general information sites such as Yahoo.com and Infoplease.com.

Nielsen say that it is "yet another watershed moment in the ongoing evolution of news and media, further blurring the lines between being, reporting, and following the story". Read full findings from Nielsen: The Iran Election and Social Media: The New News Revolution

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Iran's social media voice

Cx3: Iran's social media voice

The elections in Iran and the unfolding events in Tehran have demonstrated the growing power today’s social media vehicles have over traditional news reporting. Despite frequent attempts by the Iranian government to block ‘controversial’ communications (including the BBC website), it has been the blogs, the Twitter posts, and the video and picture uploads that have been the voice of Iranian citizens and the source of content for traditional media broadcasters.

On the back of the events in Iran, the debate has opened again on traditional broadcasters using social media as credible sources of information, in particular in the context of international news reporting:

- Broadcaster's acceptance of social media for international news reporting where areas may be inaccessible to journalists (e.g. governmental restrictions; geographical location; environmental barriers).
- The growth in mobile internet connectivity in remote locations enabling the two-way dissemination of information and greater reach of news content.
- The verification of information from more prominent ‘semi-professional’ journalistic sources, which require monitoring.

The BBC embraces the value of blogs and Twitter, and over the past week, BBC World actively called upon Iranian audiences to post links to videos, pictures and comments to a BBC email address, as their journalists were having difficulty accessing the streets of Tehran. Citizen-generated content was broadcast by the BBC, however, a ‘semi-professional journalist’ disclaimer distanced themselves from the content source.

There is recognition from traditional media broadcasters that social media has value in future news reporting and the Iranian elections have concreted this, however, content verification and editorial control are still hurdles having to be jumped before true journalistic synergies will be realised.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world

Cx3: Grow social capital and go guerrilla

‘Citizen Journalism’, ‘The Conversation’ and ‘The Buzz’. These are 2009 buzzwords that describe mainstream consumer behaviour of interacting with social media, the social media vehicles that interact with each other to carry a voice, and the amplification of the voice by social media influencers.

Powerful stuff if the voice is talking positively about your brand!

Growing social capital enables a brand to more easily and cost-effectively influence via social media networks. Creative guerrilla tactics are becoming increasingly commonplace as brands start to leverage social media and grow their social capital. ‘The buzz’ has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is creativity that attracts the attention of 'citizen journalist'.

The Sony Bravia Balls campaign is a well documented case study as the benchmark for how to successfully use social media on the back of simple guerrilla creativity. This was complimented by the consistently creative Bravia paint explosion on a Glasgow housing estate.



T-mobile’s Liverpool Street flash mob dance campaign is another example of guerrilla marketing generating a social media buzz.



Both of these examples leveraged upon today’s consumer behaviour of recording videos and taking pictures on their mobile phones and sharing these via social media. Both brands listened to the unfolding conversation and encouraged the buzz by feeding consumers with more of what they wanted to hear. As a result, the social capital of both Sony Bravia and T-mobile brands established.

Social media communications are now mainstream and fully integrated into consumer behaviour, and it is this evolved and powerful consumer behaviour that brands need to be aware of and leverage upon. So Brands, what are you waiting for? Venture into the concrete jungle and go guerrilla – your citizens are waiting for you with their mobile phones!

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone sales grow despite market downturn
Cx3 blog entry: Social media heads are round, is yours?
Cx3 blog entry: How social is your conversation?
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Cx3: The conversation prism 2.0

Brian Solis and JESS3 have evolved the conversation prism since its first release in August 2008. The conversation prism 2.0 places brand at the centre of the prism and introduces a workflow rotation of concentric circles assisting in the establishment of rhythmic value-added engagement.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: The Dominos effect - reputation management
Cx3 blog entry: Social media heads are round, is yours?
Cx3 blog entry: How social is your conversation?
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter, Stephen Fry and halibut
Cx3 blog entry: The growth of Twitter