Category Archives: digital media

August 9, 2012 · 9:07 am

What’s The Most Valuable Social Network?

Like many of you I’ve been following the ups and downs of Facebook‘s recent IPO and the stock’s performance subsequently. I thought about it again this morning as I read a release from The Incyte Group (via Research Brief) that states consumers want deeper connections with brands – but open social networks are not where they want to build these connections.  Facebook is the biggest of the bunch and while marketers put over $3B on to Facebook’s revenue line last year, if you speak with many marketers the ROI on that spending is unimpressive.  The notion that sort of pops into my head about marketers searching for the best social network to reach consumers is that of a drunken sailor bouncing from bar to bar, spending a little cash along the way, looking to get lucky.  Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest to LinkedIn.  Turns out that’s not what holds the most promise when we’re talking about reaching them via social networks:

(Consumers) do not expect, or even want, these communities to be part of an existing social network like Facebook or LinkedIn. Instead, their preference is for customer communities that are:

  • Run separately from open social networks, but have strong linkages to them so they can easily share information with like-minded friends
  • Proactively managed by companies
  • Tightly integrated with the company’s website

So what, in my mind, is the most valuable social network?  Amazon.  Think about it – much of the time when I’m on Amazon I’m not  actually sticking things in a shopping cart.  I’m researching.  I’m reading reviews to discover new books or music.  I’m commenting in things I’ve bought or used that are for sale.  When you look at the research findings, Amazon meets all the criteria plus it closes the circle by offering products for sale.  It’s not an ad-supported model but their sales were over $12B.  For a quarter. Several times what Facebook or any other social network’s were.

Amazon is the most valuable social network for marketers because it is for consumers.  Now ask the next logical question:  what’s your strategy on Amazon and is it the best one when you think about it as social and not as commerce?  Do you agree with my thinking here?

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August 7, 2012 · 10:43 am

Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

U2 provides the succinct summary this morning of some research published by the folks at Lynchpin and Econsultancy.

English: The content of tweets on Twitter, bas...

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Those two concerns examined how companies are using and learning from analytics and their Online Measurement and Strategy Report brings us back to a theme we’ve explored previously here on the screed.  In brief, companies are finding out more and learning less.  What I mean, and what the report shows, is that companies have more data than ever about consumer behavior and yet because of a number of factors they find the data less useful and without context.

Here are a few findings:

A majority of marketers worldwide say that less than half of all the analytics data they collect is actually useful for decision-making. Just one in 10 companies thought a strong majority of analytics data was helpful, and less than a third said somewhere between half and three-quarters of all data was useful.

While finding the right staff has been also highlighted as a limiting factor in the report, one other issue that emerges after looking into the responses is that organizational issues are another common frustration.  These demonstrate themselves in ways such as :

There is one team in charge of web analytics – not a marketing team – so for the marketing colleagues it is a fight to try to extract data from the analytics team.

Huge and siloed organisations, complexity of aged infrastructure and sites, legal policies

Getting management agreement on goals.

Education of senior management in understanding the benefit of an integrated digital performance management process.

Once again we find that a lot of data isn’t necessarily a lot of information.  For that to appear we need to formulate actionable business questions that are concerns of as many stakeholders as we can involve and then seek out the appropriate data to answer them.  The more we know the less we understand, apparently, and many businesses still haven’t found what they’re looking for despite drowning in data.   I think that’s kind of amazing and a bit sad.  What do you think?

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August 2, 2012 · 10:20 am

Another Marketing Disconnect

Orwell’s 1984is (or used to be) required reading

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in many high schools and maybe that’s what triggered the findings of a study I’d like to share today.  As you’ll recall, in Orwell’s Oceania, there is no privacy.  Most people’s apartments are equipped with two-way telescreens, so that they may be watched or listened to at any time. Similar telescreens are found at workstations and in public places, along with hidden microphones.  Maybe this notion of having one’s privacy disappear lingers in the back of our minds from having read the book.  We could have a long chat at this point about how the non-fictionalized world in which we live is approaching this but I’d like to focus on some research instead.

The folks at Berkeley have released a study on mobile phones and privacy.  I’ll let them tell you what they found:

We found that Americans overwhelmingly consider information stored on their mobile phones to be private — at least as private as information stored on their home computers. They also overwhelmingly reject several types of data collection and use drawn from current business practices. Specifically, large majorities reject the collection of contact lists stored on the phone for the purposes of tailoring social network “friend” suggestions and providing coupons, the collection of location data for tailoring ads, and the use of wireless contact information for telemarketing, even where there is a business relationship between the consumer and merchant.

Respondents evinced strong support for substantial limitations on the retention of wireless phone usage data. Respondents also thought that some prior court oversight is appropriate when police seek to search a wireless phone when arresting an individual.

The Media Post summary of the specific data shows how civilians (proles?) really do NOT want app makers and marketers crossing over the privacy line:

Eighty-one percent of cell phone owners surveyed by UC Berkeley said they either “definitely” or “probably” wouldn’t allow an app to collect a contact list in order to suggest more friends. An even greater proportion, 93%, said they definitely or probably wouldn’t allow an app to collect friends’ contact information in order to offer them coupons.  The study also found that people aren’t thrilled with the prospect of location-based ads. A staggering 92% of survey respondents said they either definitely or probably wouldn’t allow a cell phone provider to use their location to tailor ads to them.

We as marketers see convenience in suggesting friends or tailoring messages.  Our customers see an invasion of privacy.  That’s a pretty big disconnect.  Where do you stand?

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