FaceTime chat with Ben Parr

The iPhone 4 is officially in my hands – woohoo! iPhone 4s have been flying off the shelves (and UPS trucks for those who pre-ordered), which isn’t a surprise since the iPhone has overshadowed the Mac computer to become the company’s largest source of revenue and earnings. Apple says it sold 600,000 in early orders and Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicts sales of 1 million to 1.5 million phones by Saturday. According to Munster, this is the largest sale he’s seen for a consumer tech device.

Sure people are having reception issues with the antenna, saying they don’t like the rectangular shape or you should’ve never purchased the phone on the day it came out because it’s the first generation of that new line. For the record, I’m not one of the Apple fan girls who stood in line the day it became available – but I did pre-order, and am happy I did. My favorite features?

• FaceTime video calling: Although it only works with other iPhone 4s, this makes phone calls much more social. And fun (though I will be avoiding this feature for any early morning calls). Think Skype video chat, but on the go and with your current device. From a PR perspective, this could serve as an alternative to face-to-face meetings or media interviews to make the calls more interactive and offer more personality. Check it out – FaceTime-d with Ben Parr from Mashable.

• High-definition video recording: The camera on the iPhone 4 records HD video, and by purchasing Apple’s iMovie software app, users can shoot, edit, add music and send a video clip on the fly via their devices. This will be beneficial for brands as they can film quick videos that can be leveraged for PR and marketing, such as at tradeshows, demos, customer meetings, etc. The videos can then be promoted on your brand’s properties, such as your blog or Facebook page, pitched out to traditional media and/or leveraged in promotional marketing materials.

Besides, if Hitler hates the iPhone 4, don’t you want to love it?

He’s Upset About the iPhone 4 Antenna from MG Siegler on Vimeo.

Here are some examples of questions that Web analytics can help you answer:

• Is our corporate Twitter account driving traffic to the right Web pages?
• Are our press releases or social media releases being cited by journalists and bloggers, and if so, do they drive traffic to our corporate site?
• Is Key Message A more effective at driving sales than Key Message B?
• Should we invest more resources in social or traditional media?
• Where do we find the audiences most likely to respond to our campaigns?

While some of these questions require advanced analysis and statistics, there are many straightforward questions you can ask your internal Web analytics team for data on:

• For starters, get some data on what unpaid sites drive the most traffic to your Web site. Unpaid traffic includes any Web sites that provide a link to you for which you have not paid (i.e., not ads or paid search). Many of these sites are influential publications that publish content about your brand, so you should know who is most effective at driving awareness and demand.
• Next, ask questions about what the traffic that these sites refer looks like. Do they tend to sign up for information or buy things on the Web site (or to put in Web analytics speak: “how well do they convert?”). Where are they located geographically? What keywords did they use to find the information, if any (this is great input into determining how you should write copy about your company)?
• Then you may want to do some benchmarking. How does earned media compare to paid media? How does Twitter compare to blogs?

Your internal Web analytics team should be able to provide you some of these reports out of the system or provide you or your analyst of choice access to the application. You can also talk to your agency or research vendor who can help answer your questions on how to get started. We frequently get asked by clients to do this and also help answer complex questions such as: what messaging results in more sales? Where are the untapped audiences with the most potential? Which audience segments should you target with various messages to get optimal business outcomes? There are many ways you can use the data to give you campaign insights, and if you combine it with other data sources, the possibilities are vast.

For more information on the subject of how to get started using Web analytics for PR, you should also take a look at this presentation, which Context Analytic’s Seth Duncan gave at IPR’s Measurement Summit recently:

Vance gives plenty of column inches to critics’ who characterize “Microsoft’s path as a long spiral toward irrelevance.”  Author Nicholas G. Carr says, “I think Microsoft is still moving pretty slowly as it shifts at least part of its business to the cloud.  Some of that is due to its corporate culture, but I think most of it is due to it trying to protect very lucrative businesses with high profit margins.”

Moving slowly has been the death of many a lumbering giant, from the T-Rex to General Motors.  Is it even possible for a giant to be quick and agile?  If you’re Dwight Freeney, yes.  But if you’re a multi-billion dollar company, the issue is still an open debate.

In June, Chris Anderson wrote in Wired that “the next new economy, the one rising from the ashes of this latest meltdown, will favor the small.”  To underscore the point he quoted venture capitalist Paul Graham: “”It turns out the rule ‘large and disciplined organizations win’ needs to have a qualification appended: ‘at games that change slowly.’

And as we all know, tech can change the landscape overnight.  So why did the August 29-September 4 edition of the Economist declare in big, bold font on the cover: “Big is back.  The return of the corporate giant?”  Well, one of the reasons the giants “have the advantage again,” as the magazine put it, is because of “the emergence of companies that have discovered how to be entrepreneurial as well as big…..giants (that) are getting better at minimizing the costs of size…while exploiting its advantages.”

Entrepreneurial as well as big.  That feels like the crux of it to me.  But sometimes a company can have the desire, but the behavior doesn’t match.  How many PR pros have worked with clients who allocate most of the PR budget to today’s commodity cash-cow products, while leaving the innovative products–yes, the ones that can be tomorrow’s cash cow–tin-cupping for resources?  Unfortunately, it still happens all the time.

What I like about the Economist’s take is it’s not “either/or.”  Big can be entrepreneurial.  But it takes a lot more than professed desire and a great messaging document.  The question isn’t whether big companies can be big and agile; it’s more whether they will be as rare in the business world as the Dwight Freeneys are in the NFL.

]]> http://text100.com/hypertext/2009/10/can-big-be-fast-and-does-it-want-to/feed/ 0 http://text100.com/hypertext/2009/09/what-you-need-to-know-about-german-social-media/ http://text100.com/hypertext/2009/09/what-you-need-to-know-about-german-social-media/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:14:59 +0000 Lars Basche http://text100.com/hypertext/?p=469 Guten Tag! In the next segment of our regional social media snapshot series,  I thought I’d share insight from the Text 100 Munich office into the region’s unique online behaviors and cultural considerations: 

• Social media usage in Germany lacks behind other major European markets and globally compared to the USA or Asia/Pacific. According to the a recent report from Universal McCann, only 57% of the active Internet users in Germany regularly read blogs and 50% have created a social network profile.  A recent ReadWriteWeb story noted that Germany is five years behind the US in terms of social media adoption.

• While Facebook is seeing tremendous growth, the biggest social network in Germany is SchuelerVZ, a community of 7.4 million students from 12 to 18 years old.  In June, Facebook cracked the top three with more users than competitors StudiVZ and Wer-kennt-wen. Companies planning to launch a consumer social media campaign in Germany should keep in mind that Facebook isn’t the only place to target and SchuelerVZ has a bigger reach.

• Looking to make business connections in Germany? The most important German business network is Xing, which dominates LinkedIn in the German market. At the end of July Xing boasted more than 8 million users; among them are 635,000 premium users who pay for their accounts. Like LinkedIn, Xing has lots of different groups around targeted business topics like SMB or social media marketing, etc. 

• Interesting cultural tidbit: Germans are very hesitant to change and known for their habitualness. This translates to their lives online:  Each time Facebook introduces new features, Germans express their outrage.  Be sure to spend time listening before you launch your social media program in Germany to make sure you understand their social media preferences and patterns. The use of these norms will increase your project’s chance of success.

A few weeks ago Vodafone launched a marketing campaign in Germany with a large social media component (see Twitter, Blog, Facebook, Youtube, MySpace and Microsite),  one of the first of its kind in this region. Vodafone faced harsh criticism of the campaign for a handful of social media 101 offenses that you should always keep top of mind:

• Social media is a conversation, not a megaphone: Vodafone was criticized for purely taking its marketing messages and pushing them through this new channel, not tailoring their approach for the community or trying to start a dialogue. In addition, the company received more than 2,000 negative comments within two hours on Facebook, but did not respond or adjust their approach.
  
• Don’t fake it. Always be authentic: Vodafone hired a popular Germany blogger to support the campaign. This blogger was well known as an iPhone and T-Mobile customer, so his work for Vodaphone was immediately seen as a shame.  Vodafone should have more closely evaluated their partners and insisted they be transparent about their involvement.
  
• Get to know your audiences likes/dislikes before you engage:  The Vodafone campaign used Denglisch (German mixed with English terms, in an attempt to sound cool and interesting), but some didn’t even seem to be sure how to pronounce the buzzwords they were using. This tactic backfired as Germans complained they would have preferred to be reached via German or English language, not a combination. 

Want to learn more about social media in Germany? Leave your questions in to comments or get in touch with me on Twitter or Xing.

Extending your social media strategy into new a country requires a strong understanding of that region’s online behaviors and cultural considerations. To help you build your strategy, I thought I’d share insight from Text 100’s Sydney office and provide a quick look at what makes social media engagement unique my country:

·      Australia currently lags behind other developed nations in what we consider to be fast Internet connectivity. Rural areas are waiting for their connection speeds to catch up their city counterparts. If you’re looking to reach people outside of the major metropolitan capitals, YouTube might not be your best bet. However, earlier this year the Australian Federal Government announced that it would invest $43 billion over 8 years to build a National Broadband Network. The new network is expected to deliver high-speed Internet access linking metropolitan cities, major regional centers and rural towns, eliminating existing ‘blackspots’ and in turn driving uptake of online video, e-commerce, online education and social networking.

·      Flickr use grew by 14 percent last year, making it the third most popular social media site in Australia by year’s end. Be sure to consider a photo stream as part of your strategy to not leave this audience untapped.

·      2009 really saw the critical mass adoption of Twitter in Australia. In fact traffic to Twitter grew by 1,067% in January, with Australia’s being the 4^th largest group on new users globally. However, Aussies still only make up 2 percent of the total Twitter users.

·      According to research by Forrester, Australians are more likely to be creators of social media content than their US counterparts and 41 percent have published opinions specifically about brands. You’ll see this trend in action the most in blogging. In fact, in the tech space the ratio of “journo bloggers” to true” bloggers who are simply passionate about their technology is beginning to change. More true bloggers are becoming more prominent in the social media-scape.

Interesting cultural tidbit: While Australians have long been known for their sense of adventure it doesn’t translate to their love lives. Aussies are very reluctant to use the Internet for online dating.

Want to learn more about social media in Australia? I’m happy to share a larger presentation on the topic or answer specific questions in the comments.

Image Credit: Forrester’s 2008 Australian Adult Social Technographics Report.

Big picture, I’m delighted we now have a Chief Technology Officer, and I’m heartened that he’s ostensibly focused on the right metrics, like how the U.S. compares to other countries in terms of rate of innovation, how we are using technology in government, and where we stack up in terms of higher education.  (If you want the details, see the full report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation here; if you want the short version: at present we suck on all of these rankings.  And if we keep going this way, we’ll be, well, suckier still.)

But I’m not convinced the work Chopra is embarking upon will turn those mega-trendlines back in the right direction.  Chopra is articulate, passionate and clearly “of the Valley,” as demonstrated by his resume and his penchant for moving fast.  But for me, some of his early examples of innovation in government fell flat.  In the works is a new U.S. Immigration web site, for example, where people will be able to see in much greater detail where exactly they are in this byzantine process.  I’ve no doubt this is needed and useful (I have a friend who is losing hair and sleep over this very issue).  But is it game-changing?  Hardly.

More compelling (not to mention inspirational) was Chopra’s example of how a group came together in Virginia and applied Web technology to create updated science textbooks in a fracton of the time it used to take (see more here).  Better still, that content is now being used in other states across the country, and the program certainly has the potential to make a greater impact.

Positive steps, to be sure.  But there was so much talk of “what can we do in 90 days?” and “what can we do without any need for new legislation or incremental budget?” that I couldn’t help but think of the “quick win” mentality that, while very often useful, is sometimes undertaken because the Big Stuff is just too damn hard.

Someone asked about the woeful legacy systems that pervade government; I didn’t hear a clear answer on how that will be addressed.  Robert Scoble asked Chopra how he would address things like the Marines banning Twitter (Scoble’s broader point being, of course, that such decisions might discourage innovation in government).  At first, Chopra brushed it off as not in his remit to get involved in military decisions about security, but then acknowledged that overall, the government is so behind he couldn’t access his own financial information from the White House because his browser was a decade old.  I couldn’t help but feel like his exasperation was the most telling–and unscripted–part of the evening.

Quick wins and proof-of-concepts are without a doubt staples of Silicon Valley and illustrative of good, old-fashioned tech entrepreneurial spirit.  But the real measure of success is whether those “POCs” take off–as in, become commercially viable.  Grab market share.  Change the world.

Aneesh and team don’t have to change the world of course–just the biggest and most powerful country in that world.  I got the distinct sense from this week’s event that the Valley is rooting for Aneesh, and ready and willing to help.  But let’s think big.  That’s ultimately what technology innovation has always been about.

Many companies with a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page are already looking for “the next big thing.” As a result, we’re getting a lot of interest from communications teams in learning more about building iPhone applications. Here’s our take on one of the best selling mobile devices from a comms perspective:

Simply having a Twitter account or Facebook fan page does not constitute engagement.
If your brand is just beginning its first foray into social media, then it makes more sense to build your community on whatever social networking platform you’ve chosen before investing the time and money to develop a smartphone application. 

The iPhone demographic constitutes only a fraction of the global smartphone marketplace.
That means you should begin by determining the company’s audience for this application. If the audience is global, then it might make more sense to explore the new Ovi store from Nokia and if it’s predominantly a corporate audience, the Blackberry app store might be more appropriate.

The most successful branded iPhone applications from companies enable more 
interaction with customers. 
This might include improvements in customer service, the ability to interact with the brand in 
a new way or a mobile experience that strengthens a brand’s connection to the end user. Our favorite applications illustrate this point:

The FedEx Mobile for iPhone application allows users to access up-to-date shipment tracking information via a very easy to use interface. Not only that, users can find the nearest FedEx location, creating shipping labels and get rate quotes. The company’s app facilitates a mobile experience that makes it easy for people to conduct business with the company no matter their location.

The Amazon mobile application does more than let you access their content on the go. It also has a feature that lets you take a picture of something, for example a computer, and send it to Amazon, which will then conduct a search and send me price comparisons from a number of online retailers.

Consider this alternative
The biggest obstacle for many brands with iPhone application development is the cost. A less expensive alternative is to create a mobile version of your Web site optimzed for viewing on the iPhone, such as these sites from The New Yorker or Nike.

Conclusion
While an iPhone application is an exciting way to demonstrate your brand’s commitment to new social communications platforms, it’s important to consider the size and demographic of the audience. For the majority of business users, a Blackberry is still the most popular smartphone option. If your brand does build an iPhone app, make sure it fills a void in the marketplace or enables a more interactive experience with your brand. Otherwise, you may find that the time and expense fail to meet your communications goals.

For further reading, check out this e-book titled, “Secrets of iPhone App Marketing: How To Get Your App Noticed & Increase Your Sales.”

Other news org policies can be seen here. The most commonsense of all of these seems to come from The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa:

• If you’re using an account for work purposes, identify yourself as an employee of The Gazette. 
• If posting something would embarrass you or the company, or call your professional reputation into question, DON’T POST IT.

Jim Jelter, corporate news editor with MarketWatch, said during a panel discussion on Thursday in San Francisco that some of his journalists view Twitter as distracting noise and yet another channel to pay attention to. I’m inclined toward the same viewpoint: The ratio of information to nonsense is too skewed, at least for my work purposes, and I tire quickly of trying to use it as a communications medium over a sustainable length of time.

But maybe I just haven’t made the effort to make the tech work for me, instead of me working for the tech. We’ve seen plenty of journalists soliciting story ideas/pitches/questions through it. And more power to them — there’s no doubt as to the appealing nature of using a 140-character limit to force PR people right to the point. Others use it as an additional promotion vehicle and tool to drive traffic, so there is defintitely value there.  

And even Twitter seems to be getting its own value proposition together. Dell said last week it logged $3 million in sales through Twitter followers clicking through to its site so maybe there will be revenue opportunities for Twitter in the enterprise space. Interesting to note, too, the newest AP Stylebook — released on Thursday — added Twitter as one of 60 new or updated entries to the guide (fyi, new food entries: baba ghanoush and chipotle).

If it’s hard for him, it’s hard for anyone. And, of course, the still evolving media landscape bears witness to this fact. No need to rehash the lowlights of the last half decade in news, but the lack of a frontrunner for a sustainable business model for the news industry is evidence that more turmoil is still to come.

In thinking more about Scoble’s and others’ comments made during last week’s panel discussion on the future of communications (see initial post here), an underlying current throughout it all was the quest to add value for whatever audience you’re speaking with.

Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee acknowledged that what she was doing wasn’t much different from what newspaper columnists have traditionally done and Chris O’Brien of the San Jose Mercury News and the Next Newsroom Project acknowledged that the printed paper likely won’t be the core of what the Merc eventually becomes (he also made an interesting observation that the radio remains the place where Bay Area commuters consume most of their media yet radio is frequently omitted from these sorts of discussions).

On the hunt for value...

Remove the delivery vehicle (the paper, a blog, the radio, TV, etc) from the conversation and what remains of news is the information itself (which you could argue is as it should be). And with no barriers to entry and general information overload, the information needs to add value. Anything less and relevancy will wane, no matter who you write for.

Richard Brewer-Hay, principal blogger for eBay over at eBay Ink, said to me afterward he’s most intrigued how newer communications channels have enabled two-way dialogues (or even many-to-many) rather than the traditional one-to-many. That, he said, fundamentally changes the value proposition for journalists and audiences. This works great for Richard because he’s able to leverage his role into a true dialogue with eBay’s community. Letters to the editor just don’t cut it anymore. The letter to the editor presents a voice, but it’s a voice that isn’t replied back to and doesn’t spawn other conversations. It’s the tree falling in the forest and no one is quite sure if anyone else is around to hear it.

Post into any story and you’ve now contributed to a “live” conversation, and impacted the rest of what’s to come and can see how it all plays out. Likewise, fully formed conversations can get built up through many voices all riffing on whatever original content gets posted to the Internet.

But this doesn’t necessarily equate to value. Wading through a hundred comments on a story is rarely fruitful. I would rather have Seymour Hersh writing his stories for the print New Yorker in a 1-to-many conversation as there is absolutely no value I can add to his content. I am in listen-only mode when he’s talking.

Indeed, the construct of news doesn’t need to change. Journalists still need to be able do what they’ve always done best: Find the facts, find the viewpoints, and distill them down for the audience in a compelling manner. But a journalist who can’t add value beyond a press release essentially becomes commoditized by the press release itself.

Journalism today can be as biting as any time in the past, but the amount of information currently accessible and the number of viewpoints being thrown at us from experts and non-experts alike has had the effect of shortening our collective attention spans and reducing our tolerance for status-quo deliveries. The voices who have the greatest impact and can cut through the noise with impactful analysis – no matter whom they write for – will be the ones we seek out. Everyone else will just fade into the background as white noise.

Somewhat unfortunately, the tolerance for any slippage in this area will be minimal. If Robert Scoble is not adding value to the conversation, the collective public will banish him immediately and without remorse. Someone else will be ready and waiting to take his place, and we’ll be ready too. It’s a vicious turn, but it’s the world we live in currently. Here’s hoping that the people who deserve to be heard find their audiences and financially-viable platforms to support them.

Photo credit: Paul Keleher

1. Second Life is empty: The land mass of Second Life is equal to that of Greater Boston with more than 1.7 million residents as of this writing, but there may be less than 20,000 users logged in at any given time. Nights and weekends usually see more traffic than weekdays, as most users log in during their free time. Wednesday night, more than 1,000 avatars gathered across 18 sims to witness the virtual tree lighting in Rockefeller Center.  Well-publicized events draw crowds for many reasons: sometimes it’s the content, but often it’s because people want to connect with other people in world around a fun activity. If you can create a dynamic environment, people will stick around. But let’s remember: it’s not just about the quantity of visitors, but the quality as well. The residents of Second Life are early adopters with an interest in new technologies. They are enthusiastic about the immersive nature of SL and the experiences they’ve had. If you provide something for these users to do, they will share their opinions with friends as well as discuss it in the blogosphere. If you continue to give people a reason to visit your SL location, they will do so.
2. Residents don’t want RL businesses entering SL: While there are some residents who fear RL companies will transform the SL environment, the majority of residents understand that there is room for everyone. I think it makes more sense to say that residents don’t want RL companies to simply buy land, put up a building, and declare that they are the “first” in their industry to do so, only to walk away touting that accomplishment. If your business objective is to generate traffic for your virtual office, you can do so by hosting participatory activities or creating opportunities for people to meet, which is the whole point of SL to many. Make sure that your activities resonate with the community. However, if that’s not your business objective, then you’re not obligated to host events for the public. You can use your location strictly for internal purposes and still reap value for your company with SL. Another excellent way to use this space is for a promotion or event that spans both RL and SL. The key is to avoid making promises that you can’t deliver on.
3. It’s too hard to join SL: Users often cite the laborious sign-up process as the biggest obstacle for more widespread adoption of the platform. Once you fill out the web form and choose an avatar name, you have to wait for the confirmation email, download and install the client, then go through the orientation process after you’ve logged in for the first time. Also, many companies have firewalls that prevent employees from downloading the software to their desktop. Yes there are glitches, as there are with any emerging technology. However, passionate users simply don’t care. Look at all the amazing architecture, clothing, vehicles and other content that has already been created in Second Life and you’ll see that it is enthusiasm that is driving the platform forward. The experience of participating in  virtual world environment makes the effort of learning the controls well worth it.
4. SL is really just a primitive video game: SL residents take offense to this comparison, and for good reason. The only similarity between Second Life and a video game is the graphical interface. In reality, the two are nothing alike. Second Life is not about winning or losing. It’s not about saving the princess, defeating the enemy or completing the level. If anything, SL more closely resembles a social network like (gulp!) MySpace or Facebook in that the focus is on building communities of interest. Many people believe that Second Life represents the next major shift in the way users will access the Internet. The platform offers the opportunity for individuals all over the world to interact in a more immersive way than any other medium we know. Each release of a client update brings another level of sophistication to the software. It will continue to evolve and improve thanks to the dedicated team at Linden Lab as well as the enthusiastic user base intent on enriching the SL user experience.
5. There are no statistics to gauge ROI: In fact, there are several resources available for tracking statistics and other user information in Second Life. This includes stats updated in real time on the Second Life homepage and the economic statistics page provided by Linden Lab. There are also many user created scripts that allow you to learn more about the traffic to your sim. And with the abundance of talent in Second Life, it shouldn’t be difficult to find a scripter who can help you track whatever information you’re looking for.

Second Life isn’t a sure bet, and I wouldn’t counsel otherwise. However, there is this cool window of opportunity to engage both the new publics of SL and the existing brand loyalists in ways that were never before possible. Drop by Text 100 Island to learn more.

- Aaron Uhrmacher