... advice on developing a social business strategy
If your work involves planning how social media and social business can support your business I recommend following the Ogilvy Slideshare channel.
Current trends in social media marketing
A recent share from the sister Social @ Ogilvy channel caught my eye recently. It's short, sweet and impactful with each current trend in social media supported by a visual.
Social Business Strategy
Also recently posted by John Bell, Global Managing Director of Social@Ogilvy, this outlines a "plan describing a simple and practical way for business leaders to think about gaining the benefits of social behaviors (and the technologies supporting those behaviors)".
Social media for financial services
Only relevant if you work in this challenging sector, but…
A summary of Ofcom International report comparing consumer use of the Internet in 17 countries
Value: [rating=5]
Recommended link: New Ofcom International Internet usage statistics
Ofcom’s seventh International Communications Market Report was published on 13th December 2012, this examines take-up, availability, price and use of broadband, landlines, mobiles, TV, radio and post across 17 major countries.
If you’re involved in reviewing changes in consumer and business demand for online services as part of planning for 2013 it’s worth a look - some statistics will be useful for presentations to convince colleagues or clients...
While the focus is on the UK since the research is produced by Ofcom, its purpose is to compare with other countries particularly Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States. So it also has data if you're based in these countries and I have…
It’s the message not the medium, stupid!
Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian Philosopher of communication strategy, famously coined the expression “the medium is the message” which, whilst being right in suggesting context is important, managed to brainwash generations into thinking that the medium mattered more than the message...
Being on telly makes all the difference. True or False?
Increasingly, I hear people talking about the media strategy or about integrated marketing rather than what the campaign needs to achieve. One big FMCG company I know placed greater emphasis on their trade marketing than on anything else. The trade had to be convinced that the campaign was big and long-lasting. This gave social media an unusually important role in putting “x’s” on a media schedule.
There are pages and pages of stuff looking like lots of hits….of what?
Barking? Not really. Trade support is a key but please don’t argue that this was a decision based on…
Trends in marketing with the best potential for commercial growth
Update: My review of 22 Digital Marketing Trends 2014
Throughout the year I’m asked about What’s New, What’s Hot and What’s Next. This is one of the reasons why we’ve created the [What’s New in Marketing" updates, to give a monthly summary to help people working in marketing and using digital technologies see the latest developments which really matter. So much of what’s discussed daily in digital marketing is useful or interesting, but just noise.
In this review I will focus on the major trends which we think will be significant in 2013. What’s "significant’? These are marketing activities where we expect to see the most increased investment and focus in 2013. The activities will gain the funding since they will have the biggest impact in creating additional leads and sales and strengthening brands. It doesn’t focus on the latest new Ecommerce…
The latest in marketing from November 2012
November is now synonymous with Movember in many countries. Have you heard the story of Movember’s growth? It’s been great to see the growth of this cause in recent years. This year it seems that every other person is supporting it. It’s an interesting story of how Movember has grown from 30 Mo Bros in Melbourne, Australia in 2003 to 854,288 Mo Bros and Sistas worldwide in 2011.
Our friends at First 10 have a Movember team page, one of over 30,000 teams in the UK taking part to raise money. With the Dads of two of the Smart Insights team members affected by Prostate Cancer it’s close to our hearts too.
Strategy and planning
There’s a diverse mix of free tools available to support analysis for planning; one of the enjoyable aspects of working in digital marketing today. In…
Social Business Index 2012 shows Top 20 Social Businesses worldwide
Through 2012 there has been a shift from discussing narrow social media tactics such as engaging audiences through social networks to broader strategies of integrating social interactions between customers, employees and partners across business processes as social business. At the start of the year, as one example of a social business leader, we shared this video from Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts where she explains her vision of how Social Business will transform her brand.
This new infographic shared by Forbes shows the World’s Top 20 social brands as rated by the Dachis Group Social Business Index. Most of the organisations are US-based, but there are some European and Asian businesses further down the list.
To find out more about the scope of social business see this post from Jim Hamill, where…
Is that really the case?
This headline from Business Insider has to be the most misleading of the year for me. It’s certainly engaging, but what's it based upon? When Andy Lloyd Gordon shared it through Twitter yesterday I couldn’t resist clicking to see what this claim was based on.
The report by Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research showed that less than 1 percent of the online transactions amongst US customers could be traced to a social media post.
The article states:
"Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers.
While the hype around social networks as a driver of influence in eCommerce continues to capture the attention of online executives, the truth is that social continues to struggle and registers as a barely negligible source of sales for either new or repeat buyers.
In fact, fewer than 1% of transactions for both new and repeat shoppers could…
How should companies align their marketing activities with business goals?
By Jim Sterne, Founder of The eMetrics Summit.
Source: Gartner Hype Cycle for Big Data
Big Data, as the name would suggest is, well….big. With so much you can measure, what should you measure? With so many measurement options, the more difficult question is no longer about standards or technologies, but about goals. What are you trying to accomplish?
You can answer that question as a business: raise revenue, lower costs, increase shareholder value, etc. You can also answer that question as a profit center: increase profit, grow market share, increase customer satisfaction…
But the real attention-getting question to ask about goals is personal.
How are you compensated?
The manager who will only make his annual bonus if customer satisfaction goes up X% doesn't seem to mind going a…
Some quick Bootstrapping tips to get you started!
Simply put, bootstrapping is doing something with nothing, and that ‘something’ usually refers to running a business.
The origins of the term bootstrapping are up for debate (it’s from the legend of Baron Munchahusen if you believe Guy Kawasaki), but it is generally agreed that it refers to ‘an absurdly impossible action’.
So if bootstrapping a business already seems like madness then why would you try it while working full-time?
I’m sure many people working in digital marketing have fantastic business ideas and think ‘If only somebody would give me £1million to get that business underway.’
Well, the sad fact is that isn’t going to happen, but when you can become an instant worldwide publisher for very little cost then digital bootstrapping is an appealing option for many fantasist millionaires.
So where to start?
Trees and acorns
All businesses take investment to grow and if you…
Are they The Real Thing?
I read yesterday that Coke have a new revamped corporate website, a nice example of responsive design. Not your average corporate site and a major step in implementing their 2020 vision for marketing. It's a site that's much closer to being a consumer magazine title than what we might expect from a large corporate website.
Are Coke a little late?
I've mixed feelings about Coke being positioned as pioneering in modern marketing, listening to them you'd be forgiven for believing that their Content 2020 vision is somehow leading edge, world changing stuff. They are "ahead of the game" compared to some corporates on one hand, I guess, yet on the other hand, especially given their size, they're way behind the pace.
To top it off, they're…
