Marketing

Sarah Worsham / Apr 28, 2009

Social Media is Already Affecting Business As We Know It

In his post yesterday, The Future of the Social Web: in Five Eras, Jeremiah Owyang summarizes a larger Forrester report on how the social web will impact businesses for the next fear years. Of particular interest to me are the 5 eras and how they are defined:

The Five Eras of the Social Web:

1) Era of Social Relationships: People connect to others and share
2) Era of Social Functionality: Social networks become like operating system
3) Era of Social Colonization: Every experience can now be social
4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content
5) Era of Social Commerce: Communities define future products and services

Forrester has era 5 starting around 2011, but I don’t think the eras are so clear-cut. Many companies are already tapping into the social web to define future products and service (era 5) through the concept of co-creation. Through it’s Nike+ iniative, the company engages runners and uses information and feedback to produce products they want. Brother has tapped the social web for hobby sewers to provide products and services for both its customers and for its dealers – leading to more sales of its high-end hobbiest sewing/embrodiery machines. Comcast has famously used the social web to improve customer service. I believe there is quite a bit of cross-over in the eras, with business leaders already jumping into the 5th era. The nice thing about the social web is that any sized company can jump right in, without the need for expensive research tools. I do believe, however, that the social web will also force these eras to happen and businesses who have not entered the fray will be left behind.

(photo by cloudzilla)

Technorati tags: social media, strategy, social media strategy, business, marketing strategy, marketing

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Sarah Worsham / Apr 20, 2009

Tr.im – Twitter Stats You Need

In my effort to find or create the perfect Twitter utility, I’ve been experimenting with various url shorteners to see what kind of statistics they can give me. Today I started playing with Tr.im and, so far, I’m pretty happy with the results. One of my requirements is that it work with Twitterfeed, which I use to send RSS feeds directly to my Twitter account. What I’m looking for in terms of statistics is how many clicks each url gets, and then an overview of clicks for all links.

Tr.im isn’t quite my perfect Twitter stats service, but it’s the best I’ve seen so far (other than getting some 503, service unavailable errors, which may be related to Twitter issues). I’m able to see the clicks on up to 15 tweets – or tr.immed urls, as they call them – from the dashboard, along with aggregated country information for those tweets.

The exciting part is when you drill down into one of your tweets. From the summary you can see the breakdown of humans vs. bots for the clicks (at least in their estimate), along with more detailed information about each of the human visitors, including location, operating system, client/web browser, and how long ago they clicked. On the timelines page, you can get a visual representation of when clicks happened for the first 72 hours (or at least you should, but it wasn’t working for me). Referrers will give you known websites that are referring to the url. Agents shows a breakdown of visitor browsers and operating systems (platforms) and the locations page will give you a breakdown of click location, similar to the summary (although now it includes bots).

Tr.im, which is part of the Nambu network (a twitter client, currently for Mac and iphone), also offers some additional features, including a Firefox extention, a Mac dashboard widget, bookmarklets, and ubiquity scripts. For Mac users, the dashboard widget is a really nice addition which frees up a tab in your web browser. I’ve only been using Tr.im for a few hours, so we’ll see how it handles my tweets throughout the day – and whether something better catches my eye.

Technorati tags: social media, twitter, business, trim, marketing

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Sarah Worsham / Apr 17, 2009

Social Media Use Case: LEPFA – Lansing Entertainment & Public Facilities Authority

The Lansing Entertainment & Public Facilities Authority (LEPFA) manages the Lansing Center, Oldsmobile Park, Lansing City Market, as well as other local/regional events. LEPFA works to enhance local and regional economic growth by providing safe environments and developing strong relationships with clients, sponsors and businsses. Public outreach and marketing is important to LEPFA to gain awareness for its venues, events, and supporting businesses.

While many people recognize the venues and events managed by LEPFA, most people are not aware of the existance of LEPFA. When Amanda Snook, Marketing Manager, came to LEPFA, there was no social media use at all. Now, LEPFA is utilizing Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr to reach out to the community.

My goal is to get people not only KNOWING about the things that LEPFA does and the places we manage, but to get them talking to their friends about Thirsty Thursday at Olds Park. Maybe they will share with their coworkers about the great conference they went to at the Lansing Center. For me, it’s a new way to meet people, to get feedback about our properties and events and to encourage name building of the LEPFA brand. – Amanda Snook, Marketing Manager, LEPFA

Amanda is also trying to give the authority a face. To show people that LEPFA is run by people, individuals who care, not a bureaucracy. That caring face comes through on LEPFA’s twitter account, run by Amanda. She has conversations, promotes other businesses, helps people, and generally has a friendly, optimistic personality. She wants people to see LEPFA events as a family-friendy with a large economic impact on the region.

Connections and conversations are also important in LEPFA’s social media use. LEPFA uses a Facebook group to connect with people in the region. While LEPFA post news and information about their events and venues, group members can also post links and have discussions with the Authority and each other.

Social media, for us, allows interactivity between what LEPFA does and what people want. It’s an instantaneous way for me to know what we are doing right, what we are doing wrong, who is hearing our message and which people are the champions of our town. – Amanda Snook, Marketing Manager, LEPFA

Amanda has recently started using Flickr to post and share photos of the area and hopes to eventually use YouTube to post tours of facilities and event coverage. By using social media, Amanda has raised awareness of LEPFA and the venues and events they manage, as well as given people a individual that they can connect and interact with to make LEPFA’s services better for all involved.

Is your Michigan business using social media effectively? Send us an email and tell us about it.

Technorati tags: social media, strategy, social media strategy, business, marketing strategy, marketing

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