The Strategy Web™

Facebook: Most Engaging Brands

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:02:56 +0000

On their way to the IPO planned for later this week, some new data released by the social marketing firm SocialBakers might boost the company valuation from Facebook to a new level. A new infographic takes a look at which global brands have the best Facebook presence.

With 901 million registered global Facebook users, the numbers show that only 17% of the Facebook members are based in the US. The impact and opportunity for companies is massive. The five biggest companies generate each more than 26 million fans with Coca-Cola being the winner, calling 42 million fans their territory on Facebook – more than 21%! The runner up are Starbucks that are best in the food retail sector and Converse.

The SocialBakers figures also show the winning countries where global brands are most engaging their audience. Although the U.S. might be ahead of other countries in population penetration with brands like Starbucks, McDonald’s or Xbox. Brazil is the number two with L’Oreal Paris and Trident (Kraft), India number three with Vodafone and Pepsi, and Germany at least number 10 with McDonalds as well.

It was interesting for me to see that the fastest moving global brands are Halls, Axe, and Nokia – brands that have left my scope of attention in the last three years. Now, it would be freaking cool if we knew which ones of the 488 million mobile users are the most active on brand engagement?

Which brands catch your attention most and where are you most active?

Tags:Brand, Facebook, Food, Infographic, Marke, Marketing, Mobile, Starbucks, User

Frequent traveler are the most connected worker

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:35:16 +0000

What is almost as important for business travelers as water and food? Smartphones and tablets. They are slowly placing themselves as top necessities. Being accessible at airports, at train stations, or on the tube is simply improving by mobile tools which make them the most connected power users of these tools. The question is whether mobile devices make them more effictient in their business efforts? I think they do…

Business Traveler’s Mobile Dependence Infographic created by PC Housing

Tags:Comparison, Food, Infographic, Mobile, Tools, User

Facebook, Twitter & Tumblr. When is the best time for sharing…?

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:53:47 +0000

Marketers always want to know if there is some secret sauce in the knowledge about sharing. Well, we have shared a lot already, from AddThis and ShareThis. Now, bit.ly released some insight on their blog which times on a day are most popular for sharing.

The link shortening and tracking service bit.ly found out that the most traction on Twitter is on a Monday between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. ET. This might result in the highest click through rates. Compared to the latest Addthis study, it makes sense as they see on Wednesdays, 9:30 the highest traffic sharing. Generally speaking bit.ly thinks the earlier in the week we share, the better for our output. Sending a tweet after 8:00 p.m. won’t make sense as well as pushing links after 3:00 p.m. on Fridays.

Now, let’s look at Facebook. The optimal Facebook posting times are between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., and on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. post on Facebook get the best traction all week. If companies post links after 8:00 p.m. and before 8:00 a.m. on Facebook, they won’t get the best click rates. bit.ly advices companies not to post the links that are meant to go viral during the weekend.

Companies that are using Tumblr should spread their content ideally 4:00 p.m. ET. to get most out of it. The peak traffic times on Tumblr are 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Sunday. However, posts that go live after 7:00 p.m. get the most clicks on a daytime period. Compared to Facebook and Twitter, Tumblr’s best day for clicks is the Friday.

“It’s easy to see that just like your neighborhood restaurants, each social network has its own culture and behavior patterns,” bit.ly stated in their blog post. “By understanding the simple characteristics of each social network, you can publish your content at exactly the right time for it to reach the maximum number of people.”

Picture Credit: © iQoncept – Fotolia.com

Tags:bit.ly, Click Through Rate, Content, Facebook, Marke, Share, Social Sharing, Study, Twitter, Viral

Curiosity – Brand anarchy is to create invisible advertising

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Thu, 10 May 2012 23:16:36 +0000

Curiosity is it what makes the world get mad. Whether it is IKEA’s smallest shop of the world put in a banner, some invisible commercial.

Lynx, in cooperation with Soap Creative, know how to produce some curious innovative digital art work. They have created this campaign which just went live in Australia. This is the world’s first invisible ad installation. It is using some special LCD screens that can only been seen with polarised glasses.

People passing by in some street in Sydney got some polarised glasses which unlocked the curiosity of the invisible screens, scenes the normal eyes could not see by the naked eye. And finally, then the content was unleashed. Couples were to be seen while having their pleasures and random dogs swimming in a room of water. Actually in my hotel they are swimming on the television but that is another story.

Tags:Banner, Brand, Campaign, Content, IKEA, Vision

Facebook & Mobiles: 488 Million Mobile Users

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:22:53 +0000

Can we believe that? Yes, we can…!

Facebook rocks our mobiles with 488 million mobile users of their 901 million registered users! Facebook finds and engages 54% of all its users on mobile phones, thus smartphones and tablets according to socialbakers. There are many apps out there in the world but Facebook knows how to engage their users.

The iPhone (19%) and iPad (5%) together get a share of 24%, Android 19% and the Blackberry even 8%. Would have been interesting how much of the 32% of the rest comes from Windows phones. Bearing in mind that almost 95% of all tablet traffic comes from iPads, this makes an impressive iPad usage market share for Facebook.

The US with 105.901.000 user, Indonesia 28.847.140 user and India 23.383.240 users are the biggest Facebook mobile countries. However, the Facebook mobile penetration is amazing in countries like i.e. Nigeria, South Africa and Japan with 70-80%.

Tags:Ads, Android, Facebook, iPad, Iphone, Marke, Mobile, Share, User

How the digital revolution drives the millenial teenager…

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:21:31 +0000

We know that our teenagers are tech-savvy like we have not even been TV-savvy at the same stage of live. This modern generation is incredibly connected, wired and online these days. The digital world and technical devices seem to rule their daily lives. So, how far are they going with their digital communication engagement?

Some interesting studies and infographics might help us identify what drives the lives of the 18-34 year olds. The millenial teenager has…

- 319 online connections (versus 35-46 year olds with 198 online connections)
- 40% video chat with their friends
- 63% write daily text messages with friends
- 39% speak on the phone daily
- 35% interact face-to-face outside of school

The downside of all the digital consumption was found by a Kaiser Family Foundation study. It shows that heavy users (47%) were earning grades of C or below in school versus only 23% of the light users. And if the heavy users get in trouble twice as much as light users, it makes you think what all that digital overload is not making with us, and especially our young generation.

I know of friends and other people that passed my life who had bad grades and today have their own company, did fantastic start-ups, or help other people manage their business better. So, is the digital revolution really bad for this tech-savvy millenials?

An interesting infographic from OnlineSchools.com combined the Kaiser and Pew results and added some findings from Common Sense Media and some other organizations. This, and some another infographic from OnlineGraduatePrograms.com, will help marketers and the “older” generations understanding why technology is driving young peoples’ lives. This is not all the latest findings but seeing it on one spot always gives some thought-provoking statement which we all should think about and discuss…

Tags:Communication, Infographic, infographics, Marke, Media, Millenials, Research, Search, Start-Up, Studie, Study, User, Video

Study shows that consumers are frustrated with online paying

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:41:03 +0000

Harald Wanetschka / pixelio.de

How often do we stop our online purchasing process? How often do we not pay what is chosen to be in the basket? And how often do we leave an online shop frustrated?

In a recent study by Mastercard Worldwide conducted by Harris Interactive we acknowledge how consumers are feelings about online commerce, as well as their habits on mobile shopping. According to the report, U.S. consumers replied that one of their biggest issues is “entering payment, billing and shipping information.”

It is not surprising to anyone probably that the only other issue more annoying to online buyers is knowing still one that has not changed in 15 years: People would like to know how a product feels, fits or looks.

“Online and mobile shopping puts a host of new options at consumers’ fingertips, but the current checkout process needs improvement to fully realize the potential of these important retail channels,” Geoff Iddison, Group Executive E-Commerce and Mobile, MasterCard Worldwide

According to Iddison the study also shows that consumers want a simpler, faster way to enter account information and less time filling out forms.

The funny thing for me is that the world still wants something that does not exist (and which I have thought about inventing in the online advertising world, too): a trusted source that handles safely personal information in one place.

58% of online shoppers said they would like that easy access to information in order to simplify their online check-out experience across the Internet. Apart from that almost one out of four respondents replied they had abandoned a shopping cart before completing their online or mobile purchase.

On the MasterCard company blog, Brian Gendron -a company spokesman- said the poll shows consumers want a simpler online payment experience. He mentions…

“Consumers still find that a lengthy checkout experience can cause frustrations, which can sometimes mean lost business for merchants when consumers fail to click ‘confirm purchase. Consumers want a simple and fast process to complete their online transactions so they can spend more time finding the exact products that they want.”

So, how about you and your online purchasing experiences? Would you say the study is correct in their findings?

Tags:Change, E-Commerce, Mobile, Mobile Shopping, Online Shop, Shopping, Study, Survey

Nielsen study: People trust in peoples’ word of mouth

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:29:58 +0000

Now, I have used this Nielsen graphic in seminars and conferences for two years and always wondered when the next study is going to be published.

Finally today, I came across the latest Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising report. And again, the results are similar to what they where back in 2009. People still don’t trust advertising. Well, let’s say… at least not as much as they trust recommendations from people they know like friends, family and peers. However, it is still somehow scary to bear in mind that people trust consumer opinions expressed online… very often without verifying who say what in which scenario and which stage of life.

According to the Nielsen findings, which surveyed over 28,000 Internet people in 56 countries, 92% of the respondents said they trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising. This equals an increase of 18% compared to 2007. Consumer opinions posted online come in at the second place of most trusted source. Of the consumers surveyed globally, 70% indicated they trust messages from online platforms. This makes up an increase by 15% in the last four years.

Publishing houses and platforms still get a lot of trust from their users. Editorial content (58%) finished in the thread place, just before branded websites (58%), and opt-in emails (50%). The traditional platforms for advertising like print, television, and radio are significantly lower from a trust point of view. The drop in value since 2009 goes down by 24%.

Spot On!
The results show the importance of content marketing carrying the truth about your company, brand or products. Openness, authenticity and transparency are still rated very high amongst your customers. They want to “know what they get”. They want to engage with you but also being told the truth if there is something bad or uncertain to say about brands and their development. And above all they want you to respond to their input. They want you to give them some attention, some feedback, some credit for the time they spend. Then you will earn their trust, and then they will share your voice.

Tags:Brand, Content, Email, Marke, Marketing, Print, Publishing, Recommendation, SEM, Share, Study, Survey, User, Vision, Website, Word of Mouth

IKEA: How to fit the store portfolio in the smallest banner ad

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:00:19 +0000

What IKEA’s advertising team from Ogilvy Action creates is truly outstanding. Welcome to the smallest store in the world…! This store even fits into a banner ad… which makes it the biggest banner ad somehow. The creative is able to access all 2800+ products inside one tiny banner ad. So, every single product of the IKEA store is available in the banner. However, a challenge to find the product you are looking for. Still a fantastic production…

Via Adweek

Tags:Banner, IKEA

Study: IBM defines four categories for digital identities

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:32:17 +0000

In a recent study called Beyond digital, IBM analyzed the digital behavior of 3,800 respondents in six countries (China, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States).

The study explains how the digital industry changes with the evolution of the so-called “The Connected Consumer” how Saul Berman, author of the study, calls us today. Us? Well, everybody who engages online provides custom experiences, and thus the term was created. It makes clear that 78% identify themselves as digital device adopters – more than half of those read newspapers online.

Companies need to become a clearer picture of their consumers. These identify themselves as either Early Adopters 12%; Late Adopters 32%; Mainstream Consumers 35%, or Stragglers 21%. Over half of the “mainstream consumers” show a range of digital consumption behaviors. They check news onion. They watch video online. They access mobile services. They participate in social networking, or visit user-generated content sites.

IBM took a new approach to identifying the respondents in four different categories – although in my eyes categories will be difficult to hold as user cross category borders permanently these days. One of the reasons why I have created the Community Centric Strategy which I launched at the last IBM Social Business event IN Germany.

Still, the four digital personalities IBM found have more to do with their degrees of access to technology and content. Older target-group definitions like age come in second line.

The biggest group is the Efficiency Experts. They make up 41% of tech users, the largest portion of connected consumers.

The other three categories are…
Content Kings (9%) – dedicated gamers, newshounds, movie buffs, music lovers and TV fans.
Social Butterflies (15%) – have consistent access to networks, but engage with friends and family, rather than media-supplied content.
Connected Maestros (35%) – using mobile devices and Smartphone applications to access games, music, and video or to check news, weather, sports, etc.

“These respondents use digital devices and services to simplify day-to-day activities. Efficiency experts send emails rather than letters, use Facebook to communicate with others, access the Internet via mobile phones, and shop online.”

Spot On!
Companies should take a close look at the Connected Maestros as they are providing tailored customer experiences. They require brands to build insightful profiles and continually update them as consumers evolve their digital content consumption behaviors. They are eager to get to know more about brands, companies and products. Assuming they are more likely to get engaged with brands, or to become brandvangelists.

Would you agree…? Where do you see yourself?

Tags:Brand, Brandvangelist, Change, Community, Community Centric Strategy, Content, Efficiency, Email, Facebook, Media, Mobile, Networks, Social Business, Study, User, Video

How the Fortune 500 use Social Media in 2012

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:28:42 +0000

How do the Fortune 500 use and evaluate Social Media sites? Please find a great infographic by Go Gulf that illustrates some of the key Social Media statistics for the biggest corporate players.

Here are the key points…
- 23% already have a corporate blog.
- 58% have an active corporate Facebook account.
- 62% have an active corporate Twitter account and have tweeted from in the past 30 days.
- The biggest number of blogs is in specialist retail industry.
- The insurance industry gets the highest number of Facebook pages.

The next two years will definitely show some massive changes in the adoption of Social Media in big enterprises which we acknowledge in different meetings and seminars these days.

What do you think about this adoption of “Social” in companies?

Tags:Change, Corporate Blog, Facebook, Infographic, Media, SEM, Social Media, Twitter

Study: Social Media Use Helps CEOs Build Trust

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:37:54 +0000

We already know that Social Media use confers a wide variety of benefits for the average company. It can work as an effective platform for marketing a new product. It can act as a focus group to gauge consumer opinions. It can be used to reinforce brand image and community engagement on a day-to-day basis. And, for most basic uses, social media is free, easy, accessible, and convenient. From a business perspective, there’s really not much to dislike.

Now research has revealed another reason for businesses to use social media: credibility.
According to a study released recently by BRANDfog, a social media consulting firm, CEOs that use social media are perceived by consumers as more credible.

A full 82% of the respondents in the survey said that they trust a company more when its top executive actively uses and communicates via social media. Furthermore, 77% said that they were more likely to purchase a product from a business that has a socially-engaged CEO. These findings fall in line with earlier credibility studies, although they are the first to consider the CEO’s role in particular.

The strong preference given to CEO engagement is likely a testament to the power of informal, personalized communication in the digital age. In the past, an executive might have given a human face to his or her business by writing individualized letters with custom pens or by making a point to speak with small shareholders at the annual meeting. These days this appeal to personalized informality is best found on Facebook and Twitter, where the CEOs communicate just as we do and may actually respond to our individual comments or complaints.

At the same time, social media is perceived as an “honest forum” where people can speak candidly and where companies cannot stand behind layers of advertisers, consultants, and brand managers. By putting its brand message on Facebook and Twitter – and by keeping that message the same across traditional and non-traditional platforms – companies can appear more transparent and dependable. A brand message coming from the CEO only boosts that perceived transparency.

A minority of top CEOs currently use Facebook and/or Twitter to connect with consumers. Is this about to change? If companies are paying attention to this study, the answer very well may be yes.

This post is a guest post from Inkhead.

Tags:Brand, CEO, Change, Communication, Community, Consulting, Facebook, Manager, Marke, Marketing, Media, Research, Search, Share, Social Media, Studie, Study, Survey, Twitter

Study: Coupon user shop more, and more frequently than others

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 05:18:05 +0000

Credits: © karenkh - Fotolia.com

People like shopping. People like deals. People like coupons. This hasn’t changed in a hundred years. And as coupons follow some certain sales tactics, companies always ask whether digital coupons make more sales, or not. Here is an answer…

Some results from a Coupons.com research conducted by GfK Knowledge Networks offers some insights. The results show that digital coupon users shop more frequently and spent more money than the average shopper. The digital coupon users spent 23% more per grocery shopping trip than the average shopper ($55.05 vs. $44.87) which is almost $1.500 more annually. These findings were based on a representative study that monitored over 150 coupon campaigns representing a cross-section of CPG categories.

The findings state that Coupons.com shoppers made 21% more trips than average shoppers with 69 trips per year (vs. 57) and 1.3 trips per week (vs 1.1). Another on-site survey by Coupons.com with almost 4,000 users in January 2012 shows that 43% replied they would visit the grocery store either the same day as offline coupons or storing for the next day (25%) or in 2 days (19%), and keeping them to a loyalty card (18%).

Interestingly enough, the study made clear that Coupons.com shoppers made 48% more stock up trips (trips above $75) in a 52 weeks period than the shopper average (18.6 to 12.6). The heavy Coupons.com shoppers even more than doubled the amount of trips (27.2 to 12.6). On their stock up trips, Coupons.com shoppers handed in an average of 3.6 coupons per trip (vs. 1.4 for other shoppers).

Spot On!
However, these findings are essential from an upscale position, they need to be obeyed from a brand management perspective in order not to affect the brand positioning and pricing structure of a company. Another study on clothes by CouponCabin conducted by Harris Interactive shows that US adults say that they only buy clothing on sale (41%), look for a deal or coupon first that will decide on the purchase decision (10%), and find the item they want to purchase and then look for a deal or coupon before making a purchase (7%). So, coupons have a massive effect on our purchase decisions. And just imagine the opportunities companies have when using those coupons detecting tablet users…

Tags:Brand, Campaign, Change, Coupons, Management, Networks, Research, Search, Shopping, Study, Survey, User

Why retailers need to focus business on tablet users

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 05:57:54 +0000

It is kind of an open secret that tablets make you spend more money than you want. Some new infographic by Milo gives the proof, and it makes clear that tablet users are often more willing to spend more than shoppers using their desktop device or their mobile phones. The infographic relies on data from insights by eMarketer, comScore and Adobe. It states that by 2014 one in three US internet users (approximately 89.5 million) will have access to a tablet.

Obviously, young internet users are even more open to tablets and willing to use them for online spending. Already today, 79% of 18-34 year olds now using their tablet to go on online shopping trips. In the category of the 35-54 year olds this makes up 50%, and 43% for those 55 years old or older.

Although the laptop is still the online shopping device, the tablet wins against all the other mobile devices fur online commerce across all groups. However, tablet users are willing to spend more than mobile and desktop shoppers according to the data sheet. What is even more interesting for retailers, tablet users are more willing to make a quick emotional purchase than smartphone shoppers.

The average tablet user spent $123 in terms of visitors by average order value on online goods. Desktop and smartphone buyers in comparison spent $102 or $80. What is also interesting to see is that 31% of tablet users do price comparisons on their tablet before spending money in offline stores.

How about you? Have you experienced some similar tablet spending attitude for yourself, or your family?

Tags:Comparison, Comscore, Infographic, Marke, Mobile, Online Shop, Shopping, User

Survey: How Top B2B companies generate more leads via Social Media

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:26:25 +0000

The challenge for all B2B companies is to find the balance between inbound and outbound marketing today. And the main question is how to generate leads with Social Media. A new study conducted by Aberdeen Group sponsored by Silverpop and Eloqua, offers some insights in how Best-in-Class B2B companies generate leads through Social Media platforms.

The findings of the study “B2B Social Meeting Marketing: Are We There Yet” show that on average 17% of the Best-in-Class B2B companies generate their leads via Social Media channels. Compared to their peers, this is almost 230% more marketing-generated leads through Social Media than other companies (5%). 84% of the responding B2B companies were using social marketing in some form.

The study differentiates between Best-in-Class (top 20% of aggregate performers) versus the industry average (middle 50%) and laggard (bottom 30%) organizations by using the following metrics…

1. The average annual company revenue growth of 20%, compared with 8% for Industry Average and -3% for Laggard firms.
2. An increase of 10% year-over-year improvement of marketing leads in average resulting in closed business – versus 3% for the Industry Average and -1% for Laggard firms.
3. A lead pipeline of 44% in sales-forecast generated by marketing – versus 10% for Industry Average and 5% for Laggard firms.
4. A 73% annual customer retention rate – versus 27% for Industry Average and 7% for Laggard firms.

The Best-in-Class companies show an outstanding adoption of various social technologies…
- 51% use website social sharing tools, versus 36% of Industry-Average firms.
- 49% use keyword-based Social Media monitoring, versus 39% of Industry-Average firms.
- 21% use social sign-in, versus 8% of Industry-Average firms.

Best-in-Class companies have experienced the opportunity of utilizing Social Media for the sales funnel, and know how to generate leads through social engagement.
- 80% of Best-in-Class companies are more actively engaged in Social Media marketing – versus 73% of Industry-Average firms and 60% of Laggards
- 47% of Best-in-Class companies see expanding lead generation as their primary strategy with Social Media marketing, and 13% cite generating leads as their secondary strategy.
- 23% of Best-in-Class companies said developing clear business processes for social marketing as their top strategy, and 8% cite process development as a secondary strategy.

Spot On!
All-in-all, the study shows the challenge of creating the right Social Media strategy for business when you want to succeed with lead generation via Social Media. But it is not only strong engagement the company needs. It is also the clever combination of using Social Media alongside the right communication techniques like email and SEO, and how Best-in-Class companies succeed here. They are 27% times more likely to integrate email with Social Media than Industry-Average firms, and 33% more likely than Laggards to do so. And they are also 24% times more likely than Industry-Average firms to integrate SEO with social media (even 69% more likely than Laggards).

What is your experience in lead generation through Social Media? How did your company perform, and what else could you add? Looking forward to learning from you…

Tags:Ads, B2B, Communication, Email, Lead Generation, Marke, Marketing, Media, Rating, Revenue, SEO, Social Media, Social Sharing, Social Sign-in, Study, Survey, Tools, Website

Study: Working remotely = Telecommuting

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:48:11 +0000

The trend towards smarter working is on the rise. More and more companies think about trends like Bring-your-own-device (BYOD), and some even start talking about telecommuting which means working remotely.

No matter which phrase companies are using, managers start to trust in the productivity of their employees. They let them work from home. If this is a cost-issue, we don’t want to argue…

Now, the collaboration software company Wrike has published some insights about people working from home in a survey with 1,074 respondents. They were asking them a variety of questions about working from home. The key findings are…

- 89% of respondents said they consider the opportunity to work remotely as one of the three main perk…next to salary and reputation.
- 83% replied they work remotely from home – at least part of the day…
- 66% think their office might get fully virtual by 2015

Being an evangelist of the mobile and flexible workspace, there is a lot of experience about the Pros and Cons of the mobile workspace that will rule our future business. It takes some serious commitment and self-discipline to work from home and in mobile offices like coffee-shops. Nevertheless, it inspires your work, gets you in a new centre of attention in front of clients, and as it is new, some will be envy as you can be so flexible to go playing golf midday.

However, it is still a challenge as you can see from the infographic and the study results…

Tags:Collaboration, Future, Infographic, Manager, Mobile, Productivity, Studie, Study, Survey, Telecommuting, Trend

Study: What makes Twitter users trustworthy?

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 06:10:50 +0000

We all want to know what makes us trustworthy, especially when we tweet something. What is the secret sauce that makes others believe in the importance of our tweets? What makes those tweets better than those of our competitors?

The answer comes with a study “Tweeting is believing” from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University. In their research the two parties find how companies and individuals can feed their tweets with more credibility, and giving them some of the secret sauce.

So, ok,… the results were no really the deepest insights, but somehow they undermine what many of us might have expected: Gain followers, receive retweets, include URL’s in your posts, set up a profile picture alongside a serious bio with information that correspond with your tweets.

In order to get the right findings the researchers surveyed more than 250 Twitter users factors to understand what makes up credibility in Twitter accounts. These factors got scored from one tot five, five being the highest.

The top-rated factors that make tweets more trustworthy…
1. Tweet was retweeted by someone you trust – 4.08
2. Tweet from a verified subject expert – 4.04
3. Author is someone you follow – 4.00
4. Tweet contains a URL you clicked through – 3.93
5. Author is someone you’ve heard of – 3.93
6. Account has verification seal – 3.92
7. Author often tweets on topic – 3.74
8. Author’s tweets frequently include similar content – 3.71
9. Author’s user image is a personal photo – 3.70
10. Author often mentioned and/or retweeted – 3.69

These were the lowest five credibility lowering factors for tweets…
1. Weak grammar and/or punctuation 2.71
2. Profile picture equals Twitter’s default user image – 2.87
3. User image is a cartoon/avatar – 3.22
4. Author follows many users – 3.30
5. Author’s user image is a logo – 3.37

Spot On!
In many seminars, companies and managers have asked me whether a weak language and incorrect tweeting is destroying the credibility of the brand. They wanted to know whether avatar pictures or brand pictures might affect it. In my eyes, companies should worry more about their general company Social Media standards, their way of collaboration external and internal, and ask themselves why and what they are tweeting about. Tweeting is just a tiny part of your Social trustworthiness….
What are your own experiences? What makes you trust a Twitter user? Any ranking similarities you can see as well?

Tags:Brand, Collaboration, Content, Manager, Media, Microsoft, Research, Search, SEM, Social Media, Study, Survey, Twitter, User

What happens in 24 hours on the Internet?

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:26:41 +0000

We have had the 60 minutes infographic and we have had the dynamic Social Media Count. Now, we get to know what is happening in 24 hours on the internet with a great infographic by MBAOnline.

As we know from the elder illustrations mentioned above, there is a hell of a lot happening these days on the net. The time people spend publishing status updates on Facebook and Twitter, writing on their blogs, or watching videos on audio-visual platforms like hulu or YouTube is unbelievably high.

See some of the facts that we think are quite impressive…
- Facebook as the biggest social network sees 4,7 billion minutes spent on their platform…
- Although some companies like Atos proclaim the end of email, there are still 294 billion emails being sent…
- With the importance of Google+ for business and the increase of blogs, it is not surprising that 2 million blog posts are written every day…
- The evolution of the audio-video world – 864,000 hours of video uploaded to YouTube.
- The explosion of Mobile – More iPhones sold than babies born on!

See, what else is happening in 24 hours on the Internet…

Tags:Email, Facebook, Google, Infographic, Iphone, Media, Mobile, Publishing, Social Media, Twitter, Video, YouTube

Google+ for Business (Infographic)

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:19:10 +0000

Although the world is discussing how Pinterest becomes the next Social Media rockstar and how it will revolutionize the world of social networking, it might be worthwhile seeing how far Google+ has become a valuable social networking platform for business.

Chris Brogan and the guys from Blueglass have created a nice infographic which give some good insight and tells you why Google+ is the place to be and why business pages are taking networking to the next level.

Tags:Google, Infographic, Media, Social Media

iKnow – Let’s foresee the future

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:14:21 +0000

We all want to know how the future looks like? What are key trends? What is the next bid thing in technology or our industry? The challenge is… How can the future be foreseen? Well, maybe there is a way if collaboration succeeds as the new imperative of humanity…

A new European research project by the EU Commission is challenging the unforeseeable future. The platform iKnow Futures aims at interconnection knowledge via an “innovation, foresight and horizont scanning system”. And ideally it will help companies, societies, political systems, science but also individuals to identify upcoming risks and dangers as well as potential opportunities long before the next economical crisis, the next virus, or the next weather desaster.

The platform is meant to give insights in new tools and technologies which could change the future. It displays latests projects and research which could foresee trends in science. And it shows first signals via “weak signs” when there is some danger, threat or risk on the horizon that might affect a country, a county or a just some cities that already can be made out as critical.

The long-term EU project collects insights in academic research and collects data to make the world easier for interpretation and economical planning. Whether this is a new form of common knowledge that might revolutionize the world’s approach to common intelligence needs to be seen. Nevertheless, everyone of us can participate and help to make this place a better world with less unpleasant surprises.

Spot On!
Collaboration for a better world sounds somehow fantastic, and the project is definitely deserves a closer look. Imagine someone could have predicted 9/11 attacks with a Wild Card? And what if they become Weak Signals? Would this have saved the world from a nightmare, and would this have changed the ecosystem of planes and traines? How could collaboration platforms become the next “chaos prevention radar”?

PS: And let’s hope Apple won’t try to claim and aim for the name…

Tags:Apple, Change, Collaboration, Future, Research, Search, Tools, Trend

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