Posts in Consumer & FMCG
GM and social media - a new day and a "new GM"
Connie Burke, Communications Manager of Social Media at GM, gave a good interview in CIO Zone and explained something of GM's commitment to social media and the impact it's having on staff and customers.
In a nutshell my take was that there were two main themes, one about monitoring, and one about reaching out to help people and place GM in a favourable front-of-mind when it came to a purchasing decision. That "meeting people" aspect wasn't focused on just those interested in an immediate transaction but in building the relationship in advance. Social media is allowing an "amazing exponential growth of meeting people," said Connie. More...
Influencing the Influencer
The competition for attention is focused on social networks as brands vie for awareness and consideration. Establishing a presence in Facebook and Twitter is as necessary as it is trivial. In the great social land grab, many organizations are missing true opportunities to connect with the fifth P of the marketing mix, people. It’s less about communicating with those individuals who are already following you online and more about those who aren’t.
To excel in social media, engagement has its rewards but it is through the acts of recognition, empowerment and reward that advocacy extends a brand’s reach across social graphs and social networks, online and in the real world. More...
Local Advertiser Supported Wi-Fi Hotspot Opportunity
eMarketer reports that mobile data traffic has grown because of the popularity of smartphones and unlimited-use mobile data plans for netbooks, laptops and other devices.
Coda Research predicted in March 2010 that data traffic from mobile handsets in the U.S. will surge to 327 petabytes per month in 2015, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 117 percent.
And ABI Research reported in May that smartphones and connected computing devices would contribute 87 percent of all mobile network data traffic in the U.S. market.
The mobile service provider response was tiered pricing plans. As an example, after years of offering unlimited data at a fixed price, AT&T introduced tiered pricing for new customers. More...
Starbucks, ask a simple question get 10,000 answers!
It's astounding that when Starbucks asked on Facebook "How long is your drink order?" they had nearly 2,000 answers per hour for the first 5 hours, and about the same number of "Likes". It only represents about 0.1% of their amazing fan base of 12 million on Facebook, but even so what a instant and huge resource for research.
You'd have to say (as we have been saying for a while) that the days of most "market research" groups are severely numbered. It's a bit like the disruptive shift of cloud into the computing landscape, social media is a disruptive shift for market research. More...
The future of newspapers could be the iPad
What has amazed me is that everyone that has seen it has been ooh-ing and ahh-ing as if I had a new born baby sitting on the table in front of me. As the proud father of a beautiful 4 year old daughter, I know what this feeling is like.
The number one question I get from people who both own the iPad and those that are thinking of purchasing one is “what do you do on it?”. More...
Social Media: a Corporate View (Video)
I had the pleasure recently of interviewing Annalisa Bluhm (from General Motors in the US) and Andrea Matthews (GM Holden, Australia) at an event organised by Social Media Club Melbourne.
Annalisa plays a day-to-day role in the GM social media team while Andrea is corporate affairs manager based in South Australia and social media lead for the brand in Australia.
Rare Opportunity
It was a rare opportunity to get two perspectives 'from the trenches' - one international, the other domestic - of managing social media marketing for a major brand.
Both Annalisa and Andrea were refreshingly open with their answers and generously shared key learnings. More...
Stop-motion walk across America in 2 minutes
And here’s the behind the scenes:
Bad Social: Impact of Social Media on the IPhone 4 & AAPL Stock
By Ryck Lent: "It's the antenna, stupid!"
Well, sure it is. But Apple's (AAPL) handling of this product problem in the new world of social media and social commerce is worth considering in detail. Here's the key statistic:
During seven trading days, from the Friday (July 9th) prior to Consumer Reports' confirmation of the antenna problem and the "Not Recommended" review (Monday July 12) through Monday, July 19th, AAPL stock dropped around $15 per share. With a little over 900M shares outstanding, this means AAPL lost $12 BILLION in market capitalization -- a 5% decline. More...
linkto.tv’s video hotspots drive web sales
I don’t know about you but I never use my TV’s tediously slow red button. Interactive it ain’t.
More dynamic interactive video formats are in the works. One example is linkto.tv developed by the How to TV.
I caught up with How to TV’s Russell Goldsmith yesterday and he explained how linkto.tv enabled a video producer to create linkable hotspots in video content.
Have a look at these videos for Jaegar, Pantene and the Westfield Shopping Centre.
The application is available as a tool to Brightcove and Ooyala users or as a do-it-yourself application on the linkto.tv site. More...