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søndag den 23. december 2012

Will Social Media continue to be a powerful communication channel in 2013?



During 2012 corporations and individuals, who have been in the social media market have discussed;

  1. To find the tools to get the measurement right, so the accounting people can see the investment in Social Media pays off.
  2. On the other side the communications people have been discussing context and content.
  3. And least but not last a lot of private people has started a “battle” to keep their integrity intact and secure that their information belongs to them instead as they claim to the corporations.

Ad1. From a corporate perspective there will still be a battle in 2013 to find the right measurement tools or more correct the best measurement tool available for the specific social media task you as a corporation want to present to the market.

Ad2. In 2013 Marketing and communication people will continue the discussion of content and context. This discussion purpose is to be able to reach the consumers in a better and more direct way to create a dialog with them to make them purchase more products or services in the future

Ad3. In 2013 the integrity battle will continue and maybe even grow among consumers and corporations. The interest in this subject from a corporate perspective is to secure that possible costumers do not lose their trust with a service; they will go find a different one.
To help consumers to have more faith and trust in what is going on at the social media at least two important actions must be implemented:
  1. We need to have a better privacy setting and an ethical default sharing options.
  2. Search engines, social networks and other data storing Medias need to provide ways for users to easily remove hide or at least curate their personal data that has been cached or stored permanently.
The social media presence in 2013 will have the dimension to keep the consumer more secure and faithful of being part of the social media. Consumers must not feel that the power of their social media presence is controlled by search companies and the social media it self.
I want to whish all people reading my blocks a happy and prosperous social media new year 2013.

søndag den 4. november 2012

Social Media sustainability in an enterprise is part of the value creation!


An increasing part of the enterprise value creation model is how sustainable the social media are. Both enterprise management and other stakeholders have numerous opportunities and challenges with the value creation and herby sustainability. The enterprise organization has a challenging job in creating a safe and controlled environment for the sharing of ideas and collaboration among its stakeholders. The whole idea is to improve the social and financial performance of the enterprise and creating more value to the organization.
To create a social media sustainable environment for the stakeholders, the enterprise will need to act and behave in a certain way to convince both internal and external stakeholders that the social media effort is real, honest, open minded and not guided and controlled in a specific way to enforce the enterprise values directly on the stakeholders.
When an enterprise want to create value using Social media it has to consider how it approaches all their stakeholders. Stephan Burckhardt wrote (Social Media and sustainability: Seven key lessons, May 8 2012) that there are 7 key lessons for social media value creation:

      1. Listen, Listen, Listen
To create sustainable value with your Social Media is less about managing downside risk and more about listening to your key stakeholders. Your stakeholders will bring emergent thought to the surface and tell you their truth if they experience reel collaboration. Listening to your stakeholders will create sustainable value to the enterprise business and make you stay ahead of the market.

      2. Be authentic
In the emerging social ecosystem authenticity is the key for making reel collaboration.  Feeding the enterprise line either falls flat, or worse backfires. Let the content and the context speak for itself, and create an open and honest collaborative environment.  Being authentic will also engage your stakeholders to give you the understanding of what questions to answer. (Source: Editor Matthew McDermott – Treehugger; Business, Politics & Energy)

      3. Be humble, self critical and willing to adapt
One thing an enterprise should not do is making self promotion which will be taken by the stakeholders as a social death-knell. What the enterprise should do is to show its humble attitude towards the stakeholders, this is when the social media model with the push/push effect is in use, that is collaboration and that is when you have the dialog with the stakeholders. The stakeholder can go all the way from awareness to interest to desire to action all in the same medium at the same time. The popular way of expressing this new communication style is mentioned in the  figure below.

This is when you as an enterprise should be willing to adapt and be self critical to get the best out of collaboration.


      4. Be a real person
What is real important when the enterprise want to be social, is when it has to have a real person to do the collaboration. Anonymous corporate voice with lingo and the occasional enterprise CEO quote do not get any hits nor engagement with the stakeholders. Stakeholders want real people to collaborate with, they want “to feel and have the picture and name of whom you are going to collaborate with.” Stakeholders want to know the personality they are collaborating with.

      5. Engage over time and on multiple platforms
It is important for any enterprise to engage social media on multiple platforms, as all platforms seems to serve stakeholders engagement in their own unique way. Some enterprises use Twitter for quick internal ping-backs and dialog uses YouTube and a wiki for prospective employees. An others uses Linked In and even Face book for checking on prospective employees.

      6. Be relevant
Stakeholders want value, especially in the B2B market. As an enterprise you need to be able to deliver a valuable content in an engaged context. What that means is that stakeholders seek expertise and want their problems and suggestions taken seriously. On the other hand the enterprise managers want to be addressed by specialists who know what they are talking about and can help solve their specific problems. What is important when  enterprises are working the Social Media they have to remember that they are “telling each other” which mean the enterprises have a dialog with their stakeholders and they have to find out how they can relieve their pain.  You have to be able to take your own and your stakeholders pain seriously and are able to use both suggestions and problems to solve the pain to the mutual benefit for both parties – then you can grow into an industry leader.

      7. Be fearless
It is important for the enterprise to dare do collaborate with its stakeholders. In the “old days” when the enterprise used the model of “Tell us what you think of what we tell you” approach does not make you fearless as an enterprise. With this approach you stay in your comfort zone and do not dare to engage with your stakeholders. We all know that it is risky business to start a dialog where you can get some critic from your stakeholders even some dislike which can make the enterprise internal shiver. It is easy to say that we should collaborate with our stakeholders but it is hard to convince the internal powers that be. But those enterprises who dare will suddenly feel rewarded with increasing reach, and value creation more leads and attention all the way up the credibility chain.  As social media are not a direct sales tool you as an enterprise will indirectly see the value creation in the sales funnel.
  
Following these basic guidelines developed in the trenches will get you on the right social path to credibility and relevance in fulfilling the enterprise social and environmental responsibilities, and create sustainable value to your enterprise. 


mandag den 1. oktober 2012

Social Media demands leadership to create real value!


In my recent post “How valuable is Social Media for the corporate business” I described that getting real social the corporate company needed a cultural change. The cultural change which is demanded depends on having an environment of openness, information sharing and trust. This sort of culture is acquired to create value out of the social media investment. To create such a culture you need to have top management in the leading position of being social acting social and communicating social.

How does CEO participate in Social Media?
In IBM latest CEO study, 1709 CEO around the world was asked if they were participating in Social Media. The answer to this question was from my point of view quite embarrassing for the CEO´s - only 16% (274 of the CEO) was participating in Social Media. This number will eventually grow to 57% with in a 5 year period. This question in the IBM CEO study actually pinpoints clearly that Social engagement is not seen as an important value creator for top management at the moment. Further more, if it should take 5 years to have a new leadership in place in the corporate companies to start participating in the social collaboration, I doubt that these corporate companies will be present in their size and shape we know them today. There is no doubt that the success of Social engagement demands active top management participation, this participation will have a significant impact on the culture of the corporate social collaboration.

How can we quickly change the CEO social participating?
It is obvious from the IBM CEO study that the CEO do not recognize Social Media and the collaboration as an important value creator for the company. How can this be changed?
First thing which always counts for companies is the impact on bottom line figures – so if you want the CEO getting social quickly he/she has to be measured on the social collaboration engagement he/she does?
Second thing to do, are getting Social collaboration as a part of the annual report, just like environment responsibility and other societal values. When you are making social collaboration visible towards the shareholders and the board, the CEO will be accounted for this parameter as well.
Third thing you aught to do is to have a direct access from costumers to the CEO – collaboration is needed directly from the top. A good example of social collaboration on top level is the former prime minister of Denmark Anders Fog Rasmussen who used face book to communicate whit his voters.

Will these steps work to get the CEO participating in Social collaboration?
You can not guaranty anything but first secure measurement of Social Collaboration, secondly have social collaboration as a part of the annual report, this will give some kind of pressure on the CEO to start acting on social collaboration.
If non of these will get the CEO in action on Social collaboration he will be one of the ones who will wait for 5 years to interact in being social and use social media to communicate with the company costumers, and properly out of his business.

søndag den 2. september 2012

How valuable is Social Media for corporate business in 2012 and ahead?


During the last seven years the internet has changed from an interactive information tool where you as a costumer could tell the corporation about what they have told you. This was a one–to-many communication. The change which made all social and made the social media, was when the communication changed to many-to-many and went out as collaboration between costumer and corporation.

Corporate value creation from Social technologies
Corporate business is still not using the fully potential of the social technologies. An estimated 1.5 billion[1] people around the globe have a social network account. Corporations are not using this potential fully to collaborate with this huge amount of potential costumers. The reason for most corporations not fully using social media and networks is the lack of control towards the costumer – this is not only a one- way communication where the corporation informs the user of their products it is a new arena where you as a corporate business will get immediate feed-back on your product, and performance a collaboration will occur between corporation and costumer. It is here the value creation appears from social media and technologies – you get a feedback, which can generate new opportunities for your business.

Costumers part of the value creation due to social technologies
The costumers has created a new and more powerful role in the entire world of sale and marketing – today you must not expect that costumers just buy your product, information. Costumers starts putting questions about your product and services; they even create news and make regimes fall (the Egyptian spring 2011). The important question for a corporate business is how will social media create value for the corporation?
Thousand of corporate business has found that social media and communication can generate rich new forms of costumer insights – at a lower cost and faster than conventional methods. Products as perfume and services are being re-launched to costumers on YouTube and in blogs to cut cost and trying (with success) to engage costumers directly on the social platforms.  The value created is unfiltered feedback and behavioral data – do people like your tweet your YouTube video or even your brand. Corporate business are beginning to discover that social technology platforms, provides a much more efficient way of communication and collaborating. A further benefit is that on social platforms, communications become content – forming a searchable archive that can be continually enriched with comments from costumers, experts and other stakeholders. The latest example I have heard on this is by open up service platforms, where costumers are able to check service status on their own equipment on a social platform. This creates a much more efficiently and effectively use of the data opening up for the costumers to use the corporate business collected data. Further more opening up for data is creating value to both the costumer (Easy to access data) and time consuming for the corporate business not sending abstracts on email to costumers on data they can get by themselves.

Corporate value creation on social media demands openness.
Participation on social media using the technologies, in turn, depends on having an environment of openness, information sharing and trust. This sort of culture, that is acquired to create value out of the social media investment, is not established fully in many corporate organizations. This change of mindset in behaviors and in corporate cultures to get the value out of social media and technologies demands an openness and sharing which is a challenge to corporate organizations.
The award for the ones who really creates the conditions of openness and trust in the corporate organization and are able to let this openness and sharing reach the costumers in real collaboration, will find that the value and benefits from using social technologies and media, will make the corporation more adaptable to changes and crisis in their business and in the society. The ability to absorbing and acting on new ideas and possibilities and even threats is another value of this transforming from an information corporation to a collaboration corporation.  


[1] According to Mckinsey latest research 2012

tirsdag den 7. august 2012

Social Media in big events – how should corporate react?



It is quite obvious that Corporate has an opinion on how and when members of an organization react during a big event. During the London 2012 Olympic Games Twitter, Face book personal blogs and other Social Media, are becoming a more important part of the promotion of the individual sport performer. The International Olympic Comities are trying to form rules of engagement for the individual performer to make sure that corporate (The Olympic concept) will be respected.
But can you make rules from Top management (IOC) and is it the proper way to control or try to control social media?
"The International Olympic Comity (IOC) objective is to secure that each of the athletes treat each other respectfully and live up to the Olympic ideals perceived as restrictive."
In my opinion there is no problem in advising your employees or Athletes in how corporate want to be presented in the public room.  If you are part of a corporation or an athlete in the Olympic Games you have to apply to the rules as long as these rules do not limit the individual’s freedom of speech and expression.  The rules made by IOC do not in my opinion limit the athlete’s right to express them self. All athletes are encouraged to use Social Media to tell their fanes about themselves and how they progress in the games. The rules/objective made by IOC; is do not use Social Media to express your feelings about other athletes and do not report directly from the competitions.

These simple rules will not destroy the power of Social Media but just prevent the media to be abused in the way to create hate towards officials and competitors. The idea with Social media is not to use it as a smearing media not in the Olympics nor in corporate context.  When a corporation or and individual uses social media it is important to take into consideration that you have the proper content in the right context. Social Media is about creating communication and interaction among the creator of an activity and the fans you have as an athlete. So every initiative you as an athlete or an employee create should, at a minimum, track three key social metrics:

  • Activity is the amount of outbound activity you as an athlete or your company brand share, publish and communicate with online users.
  • Reach serves as the measure of how large a community you as an athlete or an employee are reaching through your social media activity
  • Engagement represents the overall interactions you as an athlete or an employee are experiencing in social channels.
If the athletes in the 2012 London Olympic Games look upon the IOC Social Media engagement rules it should be easy to aligned their own Social initiatives with the IOC objectives - that each of the athletes treat each other respectfully and live up to the Olympic ideals perceived – and herby secure that the athletes do not have any limitations in their ability to express themselves freely.

mandag den 2. juli 2012

Will Social Media have any positive impact when acting in a financial crisis?


There is no doubt that the world is in a crisis, in Europe we have the Euro crisis, in US they have a debt crisis and even growth markets as china and India are declining in growth. Companies all over the world have to fight harder to get the attention of their costumers and make them want to purchase their products and services.
The question is; will Social Media have any impact on company’s ability to turn revenue and profit into positive figures?
Social Media has gained a new purpose at the same time as technology has become available to everybody, everywhere at anytime. This has shown in;

  • The ability to reach new target groups
  • The ability to use mobile devices

Reaching new target groups
As the technology has become cheaper the target groups for consumers has changed to even getting in contact with younger people. Further more you can now get in contact with people in rural areas which have not been an option in the past. Mobility has been a key word – the increasing number of smart phones and tablet computers has increased the availability and contact possibility to people all over the globe. The increasing use of medias as Face Book, Twitter, Google + , LinkedIn and  Orkut has changed the way companies do communicate with their costumers and even move marketing budget from traditional communication to Social Media communication.

Using mobile devices
The availability of mobile devices in rural areas and among people with minimum incomes has increased the use of Social Media. Another target group is the young people who use the social media on their mobile devices as more mature people uses the internet for mails and communication of messages. Companies can now reach new target groups in a much more direct way and either get credit for their social engagement or get punished if the product services do not get accepted the way it is communicated.  In other words the receiver of the social engagement decides if he/she like or dislike the engagement from the company – the power is at the consumer.

In my mind it is obvious that in a crisis the social media will be a very good tool to get your message out to a much broader target group. But one thing you as an enterprise must remember it is not possible just to go out there and save money on your marketing expenses if you can not provide a proper content in the right context.  On the other hand can you provide the consumer/costumer with a proper content in the right context, Social Media is a very powerful and direct tool which can give you direct contact to new and interesting costumers/consumers in a crisis situation.

lørdag den 2. juni 2012

Making sense of and understand Social Media better!

Communication on different levels are difficult and time consuming but a necessity for any enterprise company to send the proper messages to their costumers and partners who are the foundation of their business. Among the communication tools you as an enterprise can use is the Social Media platform. The Social Media platform gives you as an enterprise the opportunity to listen to the Word of Mouth from your costumers. The costumers will, if you are communicating the proper way – the collaborative/many-to-many communication – make you as an enterprise, create a forum which could give you numerous information of how your product and services affects your costumers and hear how costumers marketer and discuss your products among each other. 




















The above model show how the interaction among costumers/consumers (red arrows) is leap forging the enterprise. This is why the enterprise should create a social room to be able to monitor the discussion, be able to respond to the discussion, be able to amplify the discussion and last lead the discussion by launching products which uses the discussion from the social media forum. (Source: Mikael Thorsen  2012)

What are the enterprises Social Challenges?
What an enterprise must learn is that the costumer has taken the control of the dialog! Costumers are learning from each other, getting to know the brand and its product and services and they are discussing it among each other, exchanging experiences – now the discussion is out of reach for the enterprise company. It is actually now the enterprise has the ability to show their costumers how passionate they are about their product and services. The opportunity and the social challenge for the enterprise are to interact in the word-of- mouth discussion NOT interfere the discussion. A starter is to have created the good story about your product and service – Nike has done that with the “running chip in the shoes” – another company who have created or reinvented their product is - Old Spice, they have created an universe of what men’s hygiene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE) purely made for Social Media. 
How can the enterprise get into the opportunities?
If the enterprise management should benefit from the Social Media trend, it is important for them not just use the entire marketing budget on Social Media ad once.  It is important to make a simple approach to Social Media starting creating a social discussion forum where employees also can participate and developed this start into having blogs, tweets and links on
Face book and linked-in.
Executives from enterprise companies understand that Social Media is important. But how do they realize the potential of Social Media, hand-to-measure, the costumer-controlled media and how to drive sales and strengthen brands?
Now getting the full advantage of the costumer discussion the enterprise must start going into action using the following means of getting knowledge and take part in the discussion. Enterprises must be able to react 24/7/365 on any kind of discussion good or bad with all the risks it includes. 
  • The enterprise must monitor the discussion.
  • The enterprise must respond to the discussion.
  • The enterprise must amplify the discussion with relevant information.
  • The enterprise must lead the discussion by launching products that have taken inspiration from the discussion.
This is not an easy task but the key word for the enterprise and the entire staff of employees is KISU – Keep It Simple Understandable for the employees and even more important for the costumers. Then the enterprise management will be able to experience how they can benefit from Social Media and understand the importance of the collaboration model it self.

tirsdag den 1. maj 2012

Should enterprises encourage their employees to be available on company Social Media 24/7 on their smart devices?


There is no doubt that everybody with social media and new smart devices have gained a completely new world with a numerous possibilities for getting information and communication with who ever they want to get in contact with on any time in any geography. When you suddenly reach a level where you live and work 24/7 on your smart device getting tons of information and communication, from the Social Media private as well as business, will that give you as an individual a better work life balance,
and will you be more productive in your work?
Research has been published arguing that people who “take time off” from the social media and leave their smart devices disconnected at night feel more satisfied with their job, compared to people who stays on 24/7. A natural thing which happens when you are on 24/7 is that you believe that you should be able to answer all incoming “questions” private as well as business wise immediately. This creates a stress factor giving the individual the impression that he/she can not fulfill his/her duties private and business wise without always being connected. This feeling can lead to a decrease in working moral. Your costumers do not understand that you can not fulfill their demands and privately you will continue to not being able to absorb the information which you reach every day from your friends and the one you follow on the social media - a stress- full situation can occur.  The new Social World and the smart devices have managed to blur the boundaries between work and private life to make their work life balance out of balance.
Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow´s research in the phenomena of “how to break the 24/7 habit and change the way you work[1]”. Her conclusion is that enterprises need to help their employees to unplug. She gets to the point that employees have to work smarter not blindly faster. I am sure that Leslie Perlow are right in the way that we need to get time off from our work to be more productive, but the problem is that our working and private life are melting together due to the fact that we work and communicate privately with the same smart device 24/7. We have reached a situation where we as private and on work are living in the “fast lane” and since everyone is doing it, it’s considered acceptable we need to change the way we work and the way we act on the social media privately. As a trial talk to your family and agree to shutdown all your smart devices tonight – you may feel the benefits in the morning both on your work but also on the private front!


[1] Sleeping with your Smartphone : How to break the 24/7 habit and change the way you work, publication date May 29, 2012

onsdag den 4. april 2012

“We shape our Social Media; thereafter Social Media shape us”


The above headline is first time said by Winston Churchill in his wording concerning buildings, but the truth is the same analogy can be used on Social Media. If we discuss the rising mobile area and look at the development in Social Media on these devices the situation is as described. The users have shaped the Social Media and thereafter the devices which we use them on have shaped Social Media to fit these platforms. This also means digital content strategies for mobile social media will need to be reconstructed based on how content is consumed on these platforms. Unlike the PC/notebook era, mobile devices come in a dizzying array of screen sizes, platforms and user interfaces. Add to that the context in which the user is accessing the content. Context could be a mash up of any or all of the following:
Device: Smartphone or tablet. (Size of screen etc.)
Location: Where is the content being consumed...at home, while commuting, in an outdoor environment, in a noisy indoor area like a restaurant or a mall?
Time: When is the content being consumed and what would be the most relevant information at that time?
Social Relevance: What is their network consuming probably at that time and location? Also what are other people in their vicinity consuming?
Personalization: To what degree can the content be tailored to an individual? One way of doing this would be through data analytics of user and group behavior to serve up increasingly relevant content. It is going to be a tough game for corporations to get into the loop and create the proper platform to the user and with both right content and context we will need another shaping of how to present the content message to the user without making him or her out of focus and board. The reality is that:
·         You as a provider of content has less than tree paragraphs of text
·         You as a provider of content has less than 30 seconds of audio
·         You as a provider of content has less than one minute of video
Mobile social media has to be reshaped by enterprises to make sure that the consumer will embrace the content. The content has to be shaped to the device and give the consumer a compelling reason to act positively to get their message out to the proper users.  An example could be restaurants giving consumers details of its breakfast or lunch menus depending on the time the data was accessed. This could be followed by a discount coupon valid for a couple of hours and directions to the nearest restaurant. Today you do not see any restaurants trying to shape their costumers eating behavior to be on a specific time and location with a personalized touch to the individual and with a good social relevance.  We can all look forward to be shaped by social Media due to the devices used to bring us content in the right context.
(Smartphone user survey 2012)

søndag den 18. marts 2012

Is Social Media blinded by few communication platforms?


Is the Social Media “revolution” limited to be placed on platforms like Twitter, Face Book, and LinkedIn and operated from Smart phones and tablets? If this is the issue, a lot of enterprise owners have been blinded and assured that only the new and fast moving platforms is only Social Media durable. The purpose of Social Media for an enterprise is not about which platform or device it is run on – it is a matter of how to get a proper content delivered to your target group. To state it more clear – The principal goal of social media is not to make friends but to tell other people what to do!

Which target groups do the enterprises have to turn to?
Most enterprises have to realize that the social era has changed the world and how we create value to our consumers. The 21st century consumer searches the internet to gather information of what to buy and get knowledge of the new trends. The consumer’s uses, the fast growing platforms like twitter and Face Book to speak to their friends and get recommendations from them on products and knowledge of trends but other means of information gathering are used heavily. Consumer groups are still heavy users of on-line forums such as blogs and other sights where they could be told what to do and where to go with out being directly influenced by the commercial from enterprises.

What should the enterprises do to participate in the dialog and at the same time tell people what to do?
The recopy is simple for the enterprise, it isn’t the social media per se, that they should be attending to; it’s the media used by the target group of the enterprise that care most about what they do and what the could help to solve. The recipe is simple but the way to get there will demand changes in how the enterprise, want to communicate and how open it can and will be of its products and services. There is no doubt that you as an enterprise can learn what people think of their company on Facebook. And the enterprise can get followers on twitter. But do not make the potentially mistake of thinking that you have covered your social platform with these few medias. There have been stakeholder media before twitter, facebook and LinkedIn and they have been worked on other devices than smart phones, tablets and other fast moving devices. Be aware that the stakeholders are still expanding in reach and resources and you as an enterprise have to consider how to work together with these stakeholders to be able to create the value you want to sell to the market.

fredag den 17. februar 2012

Is it possible to leapfrog mobile devices to enter Social Media topics?

T
Today more than 40 millions Americans[1] are using their mobile devices to get social. Young people live with their mobile devices as a part of their social and knowledgeable network. People in the 3rd world uses, mobile devices to get information and knowledge which their less developed infrastructure can not give them. Due to the fact that mobile devices are cheaper and easy to access the 3rd world user are able to get the information from abroad. The fact is that Mobile Social Media (MSM) is already main-stream in the delivering of being social. MSM gives the enterprises the possibility to tap into consumers, intrinsic motivation and herby increase the influence of their buying behavior with extrinsic motivation factors. Last but not least all mobiles are going social.  
  
But how do we define MSM is it as simple as online social networks on mobile devices or are we talking about something quite different?
It all ends up in how the mobile user will be motivated and this is both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. One aspect which appears again and again in the blogs and papers written about social media is the importance of proper content. There is no difference in MSM intrinsic motivation for the user.
  • The MSM users are motivated by:
  • Share content via social channels
  • Connect mobile sites and apps with social networks
  • Sharing and streaming content
  • Social gaming
The purpose for a marketer is to create a demand for his products and services and to increase this, the marketer offers extrinsic motivators (money, goods among others) to the consumer/user. What the marketer must take care of is the risk of depleting consumers, intrinsic motivators by overloading the consumer with to many extrinsic motivators. By getting the MSM user/consumer to seek only for “what is in it for me” will affect the consumer behavior to wait for awards instead of being attached by the content. The effect from the marketer will be short-lived and end in a dead-funnel of demand for more and more awards to react on information from the marketer. So the definition of MSM is not only being online it is also to create the right perceptions for the user of the mobile device and secure that he/she is motivated to use the mobile device on social media and networks.

What will increase the Mobile Social Media in the future?
Let us, state one important factor for the future – it is not possible to leapfrog mobile devices to get into social media fast. Second there has to be an increasing possibility of selling goods and services to MSM consumers to get increase the investments in the technology that can expand the future trends. Speed is an essential factor for MSM to be even more popular so;



·         5G faster broadband will accelerate MSM
·         Think beyond the phone and I-pads – the next generation of technology is the helmet    screen in a fighter pilots helmet – an eye tracking device which will get information even quicker to the user – actually with a blink of the eye.
·         RFID – Radio Frequency Identification Devices – the replacement for barcodes where you suddenly can store huge amounts of information that apps can bring to live by connecting your mobile device to the RFID tack. An example is: Marketers who are interested to promote their low fat products can give the consumer the possibility to check the product via the RFID tack and the mobile device for example fat percentage.
·         The increased MSM information that will be brought to the consumer/user will both bring advantages and scarifying information. The speed of information will give the consumer the opportunity to act on the right time in a buying/selling situation. The scarifying stories come with the same speed but not necessarily bring any benefits to the consumer.
·         Eventually all media becomes MSM.                                                         

The future will bring an increasing use of mobile technologies to a much wider range of devices and therefore the point is it will be difficult to leapfrog the mobile devices when you are talking of social media, the two things are closely combined.


[1] From comScore press release October 2011

onsdag den 18. januar 2012

Social Media Mobile will grow in 2012?

The trend from 2011 has shown, if you want to have your content and context out to the broadest possible audience, no matter how they use the devices to get your content you have to make it usable on mobile devices. The South American region has taken mobile devices in use to get information and to get content from all over the world. The Arabic spring has shown how despotic leaders can not survive in a world where access to news and information is fast.
The success of enterprises social media production is to produce content that can easily, be used on a mobile device both in size and shape and without destroying the content. Mobile devices will be the winner in 2012. The devices are cheap and easy to get and easy to use. This creates the possibility to get in touch with an enormous market. The technology getting into place will be very interesting to follow.

Apple will continue to get the apps developed to their platform and continue the integration; they will try to stay in the high-end of the market, but will properly face a declining interest from the trend setters as their platform has not changed in the last 4 years. New platforms will be developed by Microsoft with the windows phone which will be more intuitive than ever seen before. Microsoft have developed a product which is a mobile with a Windows phone system to a price of 50$ for the Android market. Google has taken their apps and made them available to the phone market. Social Media has gone from the few to the many getting mobile and it will get even further.
Will their be any boundaries coming up – for sure but the development of new technology and the increasing use of Social Media on the B2B market will secure that these boundaries will be diminished and even disappear over time.