Social Media trends 2012 - Happy Social Media New Year!

During 2011, the second most interesting tech story was how social media, made the Arabic spring possible with as little violence as possible and how demonstrations all over the world have been spread by the use of YouTube and other social media. The use of small handhold devices such as mobile phones and I Pads and other such devices will be even more interesting in 2012. Getting social Media to grow in 2012 has to be looked, upon, as Mark Zuckerberg from FaceBook described the social media to come “We exist at the intersection of technology and social issues”

Having this in mind for 2012, we will see a lot will happen to expand the use of Social Media both in the area of C2C but also B2B and B2C. I have chosen to divide the new trends in two categories:

·         Social technology expansions trends

·         Social issues trends

Social technology expansions trends

One of the platforms that social technology will expand on is the mobile platform. This platform is a cheap way for C2C to be in touch with their friends while on the go.  As mobile devices will continue to get smaller and cheaper and the integration with provider services such as Twitter into IOS5 will bring social sharing on the mobile device and secure that C2C will be even more interesting in sharing. Tablet and mobile computing, empowering our ability to stay connected to networks in even virtually ways, this will change the marketing game, and you will have the ability to move products and service via social and mobile. The combination of Social and Mobile will be a new game changer.

The next thing you will see is Social Media as a Service – SmaaS. One SmaaS that will be able to secure more openness in the world is the rapid translation function. This is a technological landmark, which will ease the collaboration among people in different geographies and herby help both C2C and B2C to sell services and products with the “word of mouth” that is when, Social Media ends up as a service, a SmaaS. The transition into 2012 is going to be about social service and product selling and social media as mobile platforms. Mobil is about the ability to be anywhere, at anytime getting the proper information for the social content in the proper social context.

Social issues trends

As Social media creates demand for real time and timely response from companies, who want to sell products to their costumers the issue is to be the company in their segment to be their first (first mover). The next important issue for social media costumers is the relevancy of content and context. As in 2011 the more relevant the information you produce to your costumers the “word of mouth” you will get and the bigger interest for your products and services. An evergreen will be an issue again in 2012 – Think before you engage – if you want to be judged, on you influence in Social media it is not the quantity of information you engage with it is still the quality that will make you a winner. Another issue we will have to learn is convergence between the world of marketing and IT. We need to combine resources of the two to reach costumers with relevant content on the platform they desire.

2012, will be an interesting social media year focusing on speed and handheld devices having rapid translation incorporated to make sure that you as a consumer get the proper content in a context that suites you in real time. This is Social Media 2012 – happy new year.

Using Social Media in your company - will that be rewarded?

What is Social Media? Social Media is like the old word of mouth concept. Studies show that the effectiveness of using word- of- mouth is huge. Word- of- mouth converts a sale order of magnitude more than paid advertising. You can even say that social media represents a source of competitive advantage.

Is social media “old wine on new bottles”?

The difference from word-of-mouth only is the use of digital technology and advanced analytics, companies can create a one-on-one relationship with every consumer. The more intimate the relationship, the more indispensible social media becomes. The digitization and herby the use of social media has its implications on the company people and culture, as it creates new relationships and interactions with your costumers, and your brand/products will get an awareness which in positive and negative way have not been seen before. As you get closer to your costumers, you need to be aware that you can’t, hide good as well as bad things for the costumers. The real time comments from costumers about products and services characteristics can be both helping and terrifying  for the company in, their us of figuring out how to best join in the discussion on social media.

P&G uses comments about their brands, which allows them to have knowledge of what is going on in the marketplace. Highly regulated products, with a challenge mission statement towards their target group, can have an extremely good outcome of using social media. These “troubled products” can by listening to what is going on in blogs and tweets creating forums and universes where their costumers can talk about products and the usability of the products.

Where is the reward?

According to a number of big companies in the FMCG sector the use of Social media and advanced analytics is:

• Better innovation
• Higher productivity
• Lower costs
• A promise of higher growth

This should be the outcome of having a closer dialog with your costumers and listen to their concerns and use of products and services. Social Media has a powerful impact on the entire structure of the companies.

Will the continuing complexity in Country structures eventually make a dramatically change in world and economic order?

I have recently read a very interesting article of a Clay Shirky who refers to a Joseph Tainter and his book “The collapse of Complex Societies”. In the article Shirky claims that when structures get to complex and difficult to understand for their “inhabitants” and only a little “elite” understands how to navigate in the complex structure, they will eventually collapse and new and more adaptable structures will rise from their ashes. My thesis is; will this be the reason for the European Crisis and for big enterprises?

Tainter explains in his book that structures as the Roma Empire and the Soviet Union collapsed, even though these regimes had complex social structures and even advanced technology they could not survey. These regimes had developed a bureaucracy, which had a firm grip of the power structures and despite of that they collapsed. Tainter explains the collapses with the cultural sophistication of the societies. I will add two more dimensions into this explanation:

1. The lack of public support of these complex structures – “The people do not understand what it lead to”
2. The lack of proper communication and integrating of the people in the development of the structure

Do we have a similar story in the European Union?  

One can say that we have a structural crisis in EU as well as an economical crisis. Compared to the Roman Empire and the Soviet Union, EU has sought to create a structure that can accommodate all countries that just showed a desire to participate. EU forgot to ensure that Europe has different speeds in the development of democracy and other structures as financial accountability. To counter this, the "European empire" has built a complex of officer structure, which helps to define the rules and guidelines in all key areas. This complexly structure is not based on each member's cultural and developmental stage. It is a structure designed for bureaucrats, by bureaucrats. The complexly structure is one of the reasons that countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland has managed to participate in the Euro cooperation and with-out solid economic power has issued bonds for sale to the “hungry” European banks as they were told that it is solid gold. These countries has with their membership of EU developed a Society which when they entered was fare behind the other members and gained a similar society as the “old” members in a 20 year period. This has taken the “old members” more than 60 years to reach the same level of social and economic development. To move from a simple rural agricultural structure to a complex EU structure demands cultural and social changes for the new member states. This has been a problem for several of the member states south of the Alps. It is a fact a number of these countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal are in trouble. Some of these countries are, close to a collapse. The collapse of these countries threaten the solid countries north of the Alps, and herby threaten the entire European structure. According to Tainter complex societies collapse because, when some stress comes, those societies have become too inflexible to respond.  Could these societies just re-tool in less complex ways? Tainter answer is - When societies fail to respond to reduced circumstances through orderly downsizing, it is not because they do not want to, it is because they can’t. One reason they can’t is that the public opinion has turned against the complexity due to lack of understanding in the public. When this happens, the cultural difference in the member country and the Central EU has departed so much that it is inventible that a collapse will happen. This is the most appropriate response according to Tainter.

Is it possible to avoid collapses in complex structures?

Even though Tainter says that it is impossible to avoid a collapse when the structure is too complex, I believe that you can postpone the collapse by communicating the circumstances with your population as a country and as a company your employees.  Social Media is a good example of how complex situations become down scaled and easy to access problems, solved outside the complex organizations/structure by peer-to-peer communications.

The complexity problem will create new and simpler structures that will bring value to societies and organizations who adapt them. A new world order and another economic system will appear when the old and complex system turns negative and looses value towards its population an organizations. The Warsaw pact community is a good example of that. These societies was plagued by an inability to react and even communicate their message to the population, their complexity and efficiency had reached a point where it becomes suddenly and dramatically simpler up to 1989 – which was the moment of collapse.

Could a collapse also happen in an enterprise?

Big companies or enterprises do have complex structures and the bigger they get the more complex and process oriented they get. This lead to the situation that nothing (no costumer contact no sale) can be done simple.  The complexity increase with the size of the enterprise and the decrease of new ideas and employees happens. In the period of 1990 – 1994, small entrepreneurs (100 and less employees) generated approximately 8 million new jobs. At the same time, the complex enterprises (100 and more employees) destroyed more than 3 million jobs.

Take the case of selling a service to a costumer, how would the Entrepreneur react and how would the enterprise react?

The entrepreneur would look into the need of the costumer and make the service available for the costumer. The enterprise would start a process attaching an offering manager, to the case, to help it progress. Next step would be having the service price looked through by the company lawyer. A third step would be to tell the costumer that they needed 4 weeks to deliver the price and product. What happened; the complexity of the selling process has increased to a “monster of processes”. What will the enterprise do – virtually nothing until the costumer reacts and even then not being able to do anything, as they fail to respond to reduce circumstances through orderly downsizing, it is not because they don’t want to, it is because they can’t . The enterprise has build a process system where there is no way to make things a little bit simpler. The enterprise edifice becomes a huge, interlocking system not readily amenable to change. The scenario could end in two ways:

1. The costumer agree to wait for the enterprise to serve.

2. The costumer reject the order and starts buying from an organization with less complex structures. Neither scenarios; will in the long run suite the costumer and the enterprise will loose costumers. This will lead to a collapse for the enterprise. Could you as an enterprise avoid this collapse – you could postpone it by communicating your message to the costumers in a clear way. To avoid it, you have to change culture and actually have a collapse, simply to get a method to simplification.

 The answer to the question; can an enterprise collapse the answer is YES.

What is the outcome would it create a new world order?

I do not believe in revolution or violent uprisings but when ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse there will be a possibility to create a new world order. When members of the old system disperse, abandoning old beliefs, experimenting with new things and making a living in a different way than members used to do, could lead to a new world order. There is a compensating advantage for the people leaving the old system: When the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, people who turn to a simple structure will be the new success and will be the one who would know what happens in the future. A new and simple world order has to occur, to get countries and enterprises, on economic growth again. We have seen it before and we will see it again new ways of communicating has already created enormous potential to create new jobs and possibilities. We have to participate in that direction, to be able to solve the problems of tomorrow.

Is social media better off with a better measurement of metrics?

When an enterprise organization should compare the success of its social media initiatives one important parameter is metrics. If your measurement show a positive indication with the metrics used your company management will properly let you continue using the resources on your Social Media project.

Is that really what it takes to have success to be able to show initial metric such as:

• Page views,
• Time on site,
• Number of comments 

Are these metrics valid for marketers, when comparing investments in other marketing activities?

There must be other and more intuitive toolsets that can enrich and enlarge our use of social media to another level. A company –Crowd Factory have announced that they have improved the analytics toolset of Social Media metrics. Crowd Factory claim, that they have given the marketers the ability to track;

                      Social sharing in real time

                      Social reach

                      Social impressions

You can now give your marketing campaigns a social lift and see the contribution that social enriches your marketing effort and bottom line. Crowd Factory claim that their new analytics available will include:

• Social Reach and Social Impressions:  Customers can use the “social reach” metric to see how many people were exposed to their campaign through social sharing.
• Share Rate. Crowd Factory’s new “share rate” metric provides a precise measure of campaign virality, showing what percentage of campaign visits generate a share.
• Click back Rate. While it’s important to understand how many people shared a campaign, an even better measure of earned media is Crowd Factory’s new “click back rate” metric: the percentage of people who actually clicked on the shared content.
• Influencers. Crowd Factory customers can now not only how many people generated a visit from their sharing activities, but also see the social reach and social impressions attributable to an individual influencer.
• Social Lift. This metrics allows marketers to see how much impact social sharing had on overall campaign traffic, by showing what percentage of people who visited a website or campaign came as a result of receiving shared content.
• Total Profiles. As marketers move beyond one-off campaigns and seek to build a social database, this new metric provides insights into how many people completed social actions and how many social profiles were generated from all Crowd Factory social campaigns.(Source: Crowd Factory 2011)

Does these new and promising analytics from Crowd Factory help us to become better social media marketers? 

One thing is for sure, if they work as promised it gives us a certainty to be able to present for C-level that our used money used on Social Media is done in a prober and accountable way. This gives the company a value of being on track if it is positive and negative you can just close the social media in the next budget round as metrics show it is not for us.

In a world of change, should metrics be the only parameter for developing of Social Media?

Nobody will doubt the value of measuring and using metrics. In all communication, you need to keep it simple to have the highest success rate. When you complicate the purpose of using Social Media in your communication, you will experience that the value, will be diminished and the interactive purpose of the communication will disappear. It is up to you as marketer and content developer and context finder, to make sure that the shift from persuasion to influence has to be with respect towards your costumers. To answer the headline of this blog - yes you will be well of having proper metrics getting the most knowledge of your costumers behaviour. To have success, you have to have other purposes if you want to develop your Social Media strategy.  You need to create the frames of interactive communication going from one-to-many to Many-to-many.

Does Social Media generate Social Selling?

 It is important to understand what Social Media generates and what it can contribute to Social Selling. Social Media in itself does not generate Social Selling and is not supposed to do so. As mentioned in a previous blog (The shifting power from enterprise to consumer) Social Media is supposed to create an advanced dialog between the costumer and the company. As been discussed before, Social Media is a dialog between “Many-to-Many” and NOT a “One-to-Many” speech. The influence of the buying process has changed as the dialog and conversation has change from the company to the costumer. The Costumer is in “control-Costumer empowerment” and it has an effect on the buying and selling process. If you want to participate in the conversation and want to have influence on the costumer network and influence the opinion of the costumer, you need to be able to deliver a valuable content and place it in the context, which will give sense to the costumer. Social selling is based on this new reality – you cannot fool the costumer and don’t even try. Start to recognize that your costumers is more knowledgeable  and even better informed that you used to think – the costumers is connected in social networks where they discuss everything- and this could be your advantage if you deliver the content which will give the costumer and advantage. The expectation from the new Social costumer is that;

• There is a demand of relevance from you as a seller – content in the right context in an honest and open way.
• There is a demand to the seller that you know about your costumer, their companies and their needs before engaging with them in any sales.

Sales are not able to come with a standard “elevator pitch” where the common problems, is addressed.

Using the social media for sales, demand that you actively listen, and engage and add value to the costumer conversation – content in the right context. What costumer wants is a strong collaboration where they get the feeling that they are being, taken seriously and maybe even taken into the development of new products. Your costumers expect you to know as much about them as they know about you. The company need to have its sales intelligence in place to be able to catch the knowledge, which is, presented in both traditional data and from Social media from their costumers.

As a company you need to be aware of that the Social Costumer would only use your marketing material for a second opinion, and instead turn to their peer network or to people they know to evaluate the vendors product or service and even diagnose their news collected before taking a buying decision. The new reality is that costumers will formulate their opinion without the company and sales persons influence if they cannot deliver a valuable content to the costumer. A growing number of business in especially the B2B segment, is started and closed without any face-to-face meeting as costumers are collaborating online with the company they are buying from. This demands openness and flexibility from the companies, which is difficult as you are, exposed to your competitors looking into your business, as that is a demand from costumers.

Using Social Media in a corporation during a financial crisis, will that create competitive advantage?

 

The global crisis which we are in should “jump start” our brain to think “change”. It is not just financial change but change in:

• How we do business?
• How we consume?
• How we communicate?

It is not an easy task, we have to change behaviour, which we have been used to and have considered as fundamentals and essential for our life especially in the western hemisphere. We are facing enormous challenges.

We have to change the way we do business. Today corporate economy has a strong focus on profit maximization in order to satisfy shareholders. This is not a sufficient path to solve tomorrow's challenges there is a need to think differently. Thinking differently is likewise to think out of the box, change habits and taking in themes such as social and environmental responsibility and innovative thinking into the company's way of communicating with its customers.

We have to change the way we consume. The growing population consumption will within a short time span gives us a lack of fossils fuels, lack of clean drinking water and food sources. We have to think and change to green technology for energy consumption, water cleaning and even food production.

We have to change the way we communicate the messages to the population and how we want to secure that our companies can continue to produce sustainable products and service, which is beneficial for business for consumer and for the environment. A communication model, must be chosen.

How do Social Media fit into this quit complex reality facing the entire population on our planet?

A way of getting change is to communicate with people and get a dialog among people. There are several layers of using Social Media, both on a Macro (governmental) and Micro (company) level in economical terms. In today’s challenging world the communication must be more unified which mean that the Micro level economy – our companies -  will have a responsibility to communicate business messages on a more responsible and sustainable way – taking into consideration how our product/services will affect our social and environment behavior. If this should happen in a positive way the companies has to benefit from it and the consumer and state has to benefit as well from this change. To create this change in communication, a number of questions, must be asked  from a company perspective;

• The change, which happens, during a crisis will Social Media in a communication perspective create competitive advantage?
• Taking advantage of social media’s high value and low cost, will that benefit the company in a changed world?
• Could the change to a Social Media infrastructure help the company through a crisis into a new changed world?

To create competitive advantage a company has to do things different from its competitors and secure that it catches the newest trend in the consumer segment the company is working in. First, you should not drop all you other marketing activities just to use social media. You should use Social Media in coherence with your other marketing channels and secure that you start get the collaboration and dialog with your costumers. The strong thing about Social Media is when you get the peer-to-peer dialog up running. if you as company have been able to create a good content of your product and service and have placed in a context where it naturally explains what you can do for the consumer the peer-to-peer conversation will take it on from that and spread the message. In that perspective, your company will have competitive advantage.

The next level you as a company have to consider is even though Social Media create high value for a relative low cost you have to develop the environment for social media to happen and create the dialog and collaboration, and this is not an easy task, it takes time and internal resources to get there. If you have the resources and time, internal in the company, you would have the possibility to benefit from Social Media in a changed world.

There are certainly some benefits to have a social media infrastructure in place before you have a crisis either internal in the company or external in the form of a global financial crisis. It takes time and energy to build a well run and function Social Media infrastructure. A Social Media infrastructure where you have the collaboration with your costumers, and where your company organization, have accepted, the new way of communicating with the costumers. When these two factors, are in position the Social Media can help the company through a crisis, because you get a lot of information from the market and end-user consumers, which will help you take the correct decisions.

It is very easy to say that using Social Media in a corporation in crisis times will crate competitive advantage this will not do for every company. As described above, you have to have certain criteria being present, and you should have a corporation, believing in change to get real competitive advantage. But if you have these criteria’s in place you will benefit from Social Media in a financial crisis as present today.

Can the CEO of an enterprise, benefit from Social Media?

Most CEO according to Forrester is not very social and do not have a profile on Twitter, FaceBook or do blogging on the social platform. Some CEO see Social Media more as a place where you can brag about your latest “achievements, get attention, approval and applause from an audience which is a place for non achievers to be”.

So in a CEO objective do they need to be social?

It depends how they and you look at it. From an enterprise CEO point of view, people want to communicate with him or her and if he or she has to work the social media, they will have just another platform to present their companies view and benefits towards their costumers.

Could it benefit the CEO personally?

Again, it depends on how well known he or she is in the public room. According to head hunters they will look for activity on the social media. Is the CEO is a public person and knowledgeable in his area the CEO will be found, by the right people for the right job anyway.

Should the CEO recognise Social Media as a “Buzz-word” campaign?

Many CEO feel disappointed from their past experiences,, with other new products, protocols, portals where they have been promised increased revenue, better efficiency and optimization of the utilization. The CEO feel that non has performed, as advertised from the various marketing and sales departments.

Why should the CEO work the social media anyway?

If Social Media is a part of the enterprises communication strategy it will be a good signal from the CEO to be a “first mover” in the company and herby draw attention to the enterprise with his collaboration with the costumers. Even though he/she has been disappointment in the past, they should look at Social Media as different approach. In the past, the CEO was not necessarily part of the campaign. The difference with social media is that the CEO is a very active part, of the campaign he she is the face of the campaign, he she participate actively and get an unfiltered feedback from the costumers if he get their attention and trust.

Could every type of CEO use the social media?

Yes if he or she knows how to create good content and be able to present it in the right context where it creates good purpose for the enterprise and its costumers. The lazy CEO could always go to the marketing department and make them handle his blog, tweet and even his LinkedIn account, but he will be easily spotted by the audience and the one he want to collaborate with – and then it will not work it is not authentic.

Is their a lot of cost using Social Media for the CEO?

The difference from previous times marketing campaigns is that using social media is low cost from a money investment point of view. It could be time consuming and costly for the CEO in that perspective if he/she do not take proper percussions of getting the right content. As a CEO you are in the campaign you are addressing the costumer and you are changing the one-way approach, which marketing could be to a many-to-many approach where you get a profitable conversation and connection with your costumers.

What is the Bottom Line to the CEO and the enterprise with Social Media?

The CEO has a very simple purpose he has to make sure that the shareholders are content this is where the CEO must look into the fundamentals of the enterprise and make the changes, which could make the company be prosperous in the future. One area where change must occur is marketing. Fundamentally, marketing must refocus away from selling product and toward creating relationships. Customers don’t like to be ‘owned’ if that implies lack of choice or freedom. But they do like to be ‘owned’ if what that means is a vendor taking ongoing responsibility for the success of their joint ventures.  Ownership in this sense means an abiding commitment and a strong sense of mutuality in the development of the marketplace. When customers encounter this kind of ownership, they tend to become fanatically loyal to their supplier, which in turns builds a stable economic base for profitability and growth.”

 This is where Social Media can help developing this way of communicating with the costumers. CEO´s should use their position to create and maintain relationships with costumers and prospects. This should be an important part of the CEO job description, and in that perspective the CEO could really benefit from Social Media.

Does Social Media create Social change or “revolution”?

There is no doubt that Social Media can change the opinion of a topic or a product/service if the peer-to-peer communication creates context and content which moves the people or the consumer. The technology power, which Social Media gives to the people and in a business context to the consumer, demands great responsibility from all parties. The positive disruptiveness, which we have seen Social Media has made in the uprising of the Egyptian people towards their leaders, and which have helped Syrian show the upraise in their country has shown the power of social Media communications in driving coverage of conflicts. You can say it has helped showing the surrounding world that governments cannot suppress their people with force without been known to the world. As a tyrant you cannot make genocides to your people without been exposed.

The latest example of this is an article on CNN by Andres Monroy-Hernadez (Mexico Murders show the influence of Internet) which shows the power of Social Media on drug cartels. The drug cartels murder numerous people in Mexico but the latest development where they hang notes to the corpses telling the world to stop using the internet to expose their destructive behaviour will create more dead people. This show, the power of Social Media and show how frightened these criminal organizations are for being, exposed in a bigger context. This is how social media create social change on a geopolitical level, helping opposition and minorities to be taken seriously.

On a business level, we have seen products having been condemned out of the market and has made it’s way back into the mindset of the consumers, by using exceptional content in a extraordinary good context. I am talking of the product Old Spice. Old Spice is in my mindset a product, which was modern in the 1960 and early 1970. It is a product, which my farther used and a product with no appeal to a younger generation. The Social Media change is here the reinvention of the product, in a humoristic context with appeal to the women, instead of the men using Old Spice. The change is not the target group that was change but the change of media and the cheapness of production – the commercial, was on YouTube. Next step in the communication/collaboration with costumer, was when they was asked to post questions directly to “The Man” and getting answers back in video format on YouTube. This was part of the tactics in the campaign. Together with the use of other Social Media as Twitter and FaceBook Old Spice body wash was, reinstalled as a product to be used, in the 21^st century by men. The commercial result has been impressive as Old Spice is the #1 body wash for men. The commercial with all the humour has been the all-time most viewed commercial on YouTube. The traffic on Oldspice.com has increased up to 300% all very impressive. This is Social Media change in rebrand a product – this is a revolutionary change in how to get a conversation among peers on the social media.

I would argue that Social Media create social change, in the geopolitical environment it even create social revolution. On the business level a smaller revolution are created – here we are not talking life and death but survival of products in a new and interesting content. I hope that Social Media will  continue to create change on numerous levels and on different platforms, this will help to change the world for the better.

Social Media and Mobility

Getting social, on a mobility platform demands the right strategy. As in any other aspect of your marketing mix, you need to look into what kind of strategy the market prefer, and which segment and region you want to attend in. It is old knowledge that content and context is tow of the important strategy parameters when you want to have success with social Media.

Now where do you want to set your social media foot prints?

This is the next question you want to ask yourself making your strategy. One thing is for sure that the majority of people in rural districts of the world want to participate in the social conversation and exchange of goods and knowledge. Devices like mobile phones, I-pads have in the recent years, become more important with the development of new and innovative functionality on these devices.

In the emerging markets like Brazil, Argentina and other Latin American countries, the popularity for attending Social Medias on mobile devices has exploded. The Latin American countries are not just following the western world on social media on mobility they are leading.

To me this is a very positive surprise, as I can see how people in Latin and South America connect to the web and get social via their mobile devices. The readers of my blogs are increasing in the use of mobile devices and coming from emerging markets the use of mobile safari and mobile phones has during the last 6 month increased from 1% to 6% and the emerging countries has increased from 3% to 10% of the readers.

The current trends on mobility and Social Networking include:

• Mobility can provide a competitive advantage, as solutions become more business critic.
• Mobility solutions have increased in complexity—before, during and after deployment.
• Additional device functionality and connectivity demand enhanced information security.
• Mobile solutions require full life cycle management to accommodate changes and updates.
• Social networking is up 58% on mobile devices.
• Services on mobility platform must be simple.
• For 26% of the mobility product user, ease of use is critical.
• 43%, of the mobility users are prevented from using services due to ease of use issues.

Due to various analyses, this is only a start more users in other geographies than Latin and South America will connect via mobile devices.

Why has the social media on mobile devices been so popular and developed that fast in Latin and South America? According to an anthropologic the culture and the history in these regions has developed the use of getting social. The price of mobile devices has decreased rapidly and the need for ease of use devices has increased. Still 43% of the consumers in emerging markets, are prevented from using services due to ease of use issues.

Is it now you as an enterprise company, wanting to sell and marketer your products and service, would approach the emerging markets?

Not necessarily, you need to take into consideration how does these markets use the Social Media and what is the purpose of the use. According to market specialists in Argentina and Brazil, the main purpose of Social media is as the Latin culture in general is to hear how others are doing – friends and relatives and just have a small talk of the current situation – exchange of information among each other. This is not necessarily bad for doing business if you can “turn” the conversation into another subject which suites you as a business. This is where Content and Context starts. Content gives Social Media the depth. Context, create the social interactions and relations you create social identity.

Now you have to create your content and context so you will get the most out of the target groups in the geography you choose. Take an emerging market as Brazil, here women use 39 hours per week on social media on their mobile devices, you want to get into the conversation and secure that you get both content and context which suites this target group. To get your fair share of these markets you need to fine tune and simplify your services so these consumer groups will choose you for the ease of use and get social with your company.

Measuring Social Media, does it give competitive advantage?

No doubt that everybody doing any marketing activity, want to see if it is successful and want to document the success. The documentation is not only for one self but also for the c-level in your company.  Using time and energy measuring the Social Media, one can ask does it give your company any competitive advantage?

Numerous reports, discuss the topic measurement of Social Media and there are many angles how to do the measuring. One thing is certain do not engage in Social Media if it is not a part of your marketing strategy. Do not engage if you do not have a plan for how to get a competitive advantage out of the use of social media.  With the advance technology we have today, it has never been easier to engage in Social media.  With the easy access to Social media, you need to ask yourself some important questions before you will be able to get the full benefit of the competitive advantage:

• What part of your company will be able to use the competitive information you can gain from Social Media?
• What is the timeframe for using the competitive information?
• How will the competitive information affect your company choices?
• How willing would you be to change your company plans if the competitive information show you that your plans will change to negative?

If you find a positive answer to the above questions, you should take the next step. You need to start using your social media for competitive intelligence. You should start listening and engaging in the dialog about your own brand, and competitors brand. It is vital in this competitive world we are living in, to know and analyse what costumers say about your brand but even more vital what costumers say about your competitors brand. To go out there and collect the competitive intelligence you need to at least three areas of your competitors:

• Collect Information from your competitors and their costumers
• Marketing initiatives from competitors
• Product announcing from competitors
• Costumers interactions
• Analyse the competitive information
• Share of voice
• Share of conversation
• Trend analysis
• Build your business decisions on the above intelligence
• Base your decisions on the data above.
• Do not over react on the facts evaluate them and alter your planning if needed but in the end stick to your plan as long as it is sustainable.

You have metric for the above and even free metrics as Google analytics.

When you start to gathering intelligence on your competitors, you should be aware that your competitors are gathering intelligence on you. Be aware in you social media presence to have a footprint which do not damage your business but will help you expand your business even though that your competitors will learn from you but you will still have the competitive advantage.

How to measure the success of Social Media

There is a growing demand of measuring everything so the enterprise can see where to spend the marketing resources on the best possible way. Social Media is not an exception from this and should not be an exception. The importance in the measuring and monitoring of Social Media is not just measure something but measure the right thing according to the business objectives set for the social media campaign. What is important is to measure the success and you can’t do that without having the proper business objectives and goals set.

Choose Measurement tools for tracking

Having formulated the business objectives and goals in a clear way, you want to measure your goals and tactics you want to use your analytic tools to do the tracking. Before you choose one of the many tools, you need to learn how to measure your progress. My advise, choose one of the free platforms first. A good and easy tool to choose is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free platform, which gives you the ability to build exactly the report you want, showing only which information you need, presented directly to stakeholders and clients in a neat package.  By using Google Analytics you will be able to capture the KPI (key performance indicators) from your Social Media campaign such as;

• Traffic – Quality and Quantity
• Engagement level
• Goal conversations
• E-Commerce direct sales
• Cost savings by comparing Social Media with other marketing channels

With enablement in place, you can start using the tagging in Google Analytics and fine tune them according to your campaign, because your goal of the effort is to be able to demonstrate ROI.

Do we have fully developed measuring and tracking tools?

A challenge is to use and find proper tracking tools created, to engage your audience. I am talking about content and channel metrics. There is no doubt that content and channel metrics, will be more developed in the years to come, and they will be even better in engaging with the audiences that are on the content-providers web. According to Marshall Sponder (2011, Social Media Analytics) there are a number of online content analytics tagging tools that can measure audiences behaviour on content. You want to track your progress so you can get management to support your further progress. To get into the stage of further progress you have to share your knowledge with management and key influencers that is why you need to know if you can find other tools than Google analytics, which visualize how social your costumers will get. Newspapers uses a tool called VisualRevenue this tool uses real-time analytics to evaluate profitability on front page and section page in the paper. There are many more of these new social media measurement systems to come.

Does Social Media contribute to the revenue stream in an enterprise?

There has been a debate among economics how much and when and where Social Media contributes to the revenue stream of an enterprise – some have the opinion that such thing as creating a  peer-to-peer conversations and other exchange of information and knowledge do not generate revenue to the enterprise. Others have seen the value of Social Media and how it on a daily basis create a revenue stream to the enterprise – when it is used properly and with the right content which enlighten the consumers knowledge and creates their interest for a service or product.

Getting revenue out of Social Media is not a short-term investment, which will give you a quick ROI. Most of getting Social is a matter of creating a relationship with your costumer. So getting revenue out of Social Media is a long-term investment in your brand. I have seen that social media makes a difference in how you can and will earn your revenue. There are several enterprises, which have increased revenue due to active dialog with costumers by being social. Enterprises integrating their social profile insights with existing insights about costumers and prospects will gain increased revenue, as the integration will become a source of competitive differentiator in most aspects of the business. One aspect all enterprise managements would ask for is how you measure your revenue stream from being social?

My answer will be measure;

·         Costumer engagement

·         Costumer likes and dislikes

·         Costumer clicks

·         Costumer comments

Then study what content works, and what does not work, and remember the golden rule; “The more engage you are with your costumer the greater possibility for increased revenue for your enterprise”. The more top-of-mind you are with your costumer, the more lasting and deeper your interactions with your costumer will be, this will contribute to your brand support and increase sale and revenue generating.

Social Media is not the answer to all problems of your enterprise revenue generating. Social media

Is a matter of strategic business investment – treat it with the same rigor, dedication, and governance you treat your other strategic investments. When you go into social media, you must remember that it will affect most aspects of your enterprise – revenue will be one but other marketing areas, costumer service, product development and innovation will be, influenced by going into Social Media.

How do you get the best connection between your Key Performance Indicators and your Social Media?

Do you consider that your company are in business?

Do you use Social Media in your marketing strategy? 

Have you thought of what the cost is of engaging in social media?  

This could be, considered as a bunch of odd question. The real question you should ask yourself:

What is the cost of NOT engaging social media?

Then when you have taken your decision to engage in Social Media and made it part of your Marketing strategy, you will have to consider what I have mentioned in my previous blogs and how important it is that;

• Social Media have a proper and qualitative content.
• Social Media is about exchange of information and communication among peer to peer.
• Social Media is a matter of listening, communicating and trusting your costumers.
• Collaboration in Social Media is very important.
• Social Media must be, worked with care and advices of how to engage in Social Media is important.
• Social Media is not a sales tool but a communication tool in the overall marketing strategy of the enterprise.
• Social Media is a part of the Social Cloud as you concentrate to do your social engagement instead of how to work the hardware and applications.

Now the time has come to look at how you choose your, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) when you are working with Social Media.  The endpoint for you is to have success with Social Media and that demands a proper strategy of;

• What do you want of outcome, as a company using social media?
• How do you get in position to get there?
• How would you measure tangible and In-tangible, successes using Social Media?

There is a lot of hype around being in Social Media, and companies forget to take the proper precautions described above before rushing into using social media with sometimes, fatal consequences for their brand and company. What you need to do before engaging in Social Media, you need to dig deep into your company culture and make sure that your culture, do care about your costumers and their needs. Start to describe the three things you want out of your Social Media approach and choose your means of engagement with care.

To have the best connection between your KPI and your Social Media you must be as quantifiable as possible. A quantifiable approach could be;

1. Increase online sales by 10%.
2. Increase the number of positive posts each month on all Social Media channels. Goal: 1000.
3. Increase the number of Social communities to 5000 social matter experts or evangelists.

This is specific KPI for your social engagement, which is easy to quantify and with a qualitative aspect, which is measurable. The next step is to decide which analytical tools you will use to measure the above progress with and how often you want to do it. Some love to see a day-to-day basis other want a weekly basis. What ever you choose you need to secure that your tactics are working or you have to change your approach. It is important for your success with social media to continue to measure and refine your measuring points to secure that there will be a qualitative outcome of your effort. As a marketer, you know that if your social media approach do not generate a positive outcome the channel, will be closed and other marketing approaches will be used. One thing is for sure if you define your KPIs properly and combine them with the other suggestions in my previous blogs you will have a success. But as said before there is no conclusion list which you can take from your top drawer you have to work with what is best for your business.