Social Media Insights

Editor's Notes

• #4 Its not just a gut feeling
• #6 The undercurrents that are driving change are mainly derived from the internet. Is Web 2.0 just another marketing channel? Well yes and no. It’s much more potent. Web 2.0 is Real Time, Interactive, Multimedia, eminently Measurable, if its Digital and its out there you can track and trace it, its all inclusive it includes Everyone and its Everywhere it has no boundaries. So the Web 2.0 has heralded a new world of consumer and society power. What was once published about your brand was mainly published by you. You were in control. But not now. Your consumers, your buyers have a voice. A very loud voice. Word of Mouse power that can spread like a contaigent, damaging or enhancing a brand’s reputation. So how do you formulate a marketing strategy that exploits the value of Web 2.0 whilst mitigating the risks? But what is a Web 2.0 strategy, what does it look like, what works and what doesn’t. More about that soon. What else can you do with Web 2.0 other than the obvious of using Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Well for example, there is crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing investments, crowdsourcing R&D, manufacturing, recruitment or being the centre of a brand hosted online community. Web 2.0 has brought about new business models and structures. Those companies that make an effort to see into the future and have a strategy for these waves of change will be those who thrive as did eBay, Amazon, Paypal and the Facebooks did when Web 2.0 rolled into our lives. But if we think that this is change then wait until Web 3.0 and Web 4.0 starts to kick in. With Web 4.0 bringing about free-range shop-bots on steroids. Transitioning from ‘you searching to ‘find for me and report back!’
• #18 [ KLICK TO SEE THE DIFFERENT USER JOURNEYS] The challenge is that we cant control all touchpoints, all the time. We cannot control the path the customer takes The focus must be to make sure that the touchpoints we can control is synchronized and that no matter where the customer enters the journey there is consistency and relevance all the way through. TALK ABOUT VALUE HERE
• #22 Engagement through user generated content. Fourteen years later and who'd have thought it would come to this? Mumsnet is now the UK’s biggest network for parents, generating over 60 million page views and over 10 million visits per month. Mumsnet is a business funded mainly by advertising and we try to be a profitable one but our overarching aim is not the pursuit of profits. We are independently owned and we endeavour to conduct business in an ethical manner. With this in mind, we do not accept advertising from a number of companies including Nestle, because of their aggressive marketing of formula in breach of international standards, and for a number of products, including formula milk, cosmetic surgery or anything that we believe does not sit well with our philosophy - namely to make parents' lives easier. 
• #23 Zazzle Zazzle is an online retailer that allows users to upload images and create their own merchandise (clothing, posters, etc.), or buy merchandise created by other users, as well as use images from participating companies. Zazzle's proprietary technology enables individuals, professional artists, and major brands, including Disney and Hallmark, to create and offer billions of unique products for customers worldwide.[1][2] Users are allowed to open their own shop for free and set the profit they wish to make on each item (Royalty). Zazzle was founded in 1999 by Robert Beaver, and his sons Bobby and Jeff Beaver. In 2005, Google investors John Doerr and Ram Shriram invested US$16 million into the business.[2][3] The site was recognized by TechCrunch as 2007's "best business model" in its first annual "Crunchies" awards,[4] and has been noted by industry experts, such as B. Joseph Pine, for its easy-to-use technology. In 2010, Zazzle was recognized as one of the "Hottest Silicon Valley Companies" by Lead411.[5] It is based in Redwood City, California. Zazzle.com offers digital printing, and embroidered decoration on their retail apparel items, as well as other personalization techniques and items.
• #24 Booz Allen Hamilton, Eli Lilly & Company, Life Technologies, NASA, Nature Publishing Group, Popular Science, Procter & Gamble, Roche, Rockefeller Foundation, and The Economist partner with InnoCentive to solve problems and innovate faster, more cost effectively, and with less risk than ever before.
• #25 Amex Open Forum is a great example of Segmentation Pull. Whereby Amex host on online community with SME’s Amex don’t broadcast adverts on this Forum in the sure knowledge that if they do they will lose their audience. What they do however is to provide compelling content to ignite UGC, they support, inform, educate and entertain community members. This way Amex gain front of mind, customer loyalty and improved life time value. A member of the Viapoint team help to master mind this community and is it working?
• #30 And the reason why organisations don’t have a social media strategy is that this is a new area and folk don’t know what a social media strategy looks like. But without a strategy you are directionless. I carried a some research project with two business schools Oxford Brookes and Henley. I interviewed scores of senior execs of major organisations across all sectors to find out how they were adopting Web 2.0. And the research found that those organisations who were getting some really impressive results from Web 2.0 (social networks etc) had been working on 8 business competencies. Needless to say that those companies whose board got social media were making the most progress, so leadership from top is vital. It ensures that the right skills and resources are assigned. Social Governance is a new discipline. Communications in social environments calls for a high level of openness and transparency. A worry for some industries. So openness and transparency needs to be set differently for each company according to the business they are in. So each company needs its own social settings or social signature.