Greater than @briansolis but less than BrianSolis.com
Join me on May 29th at 10am PDT for a free webinar hosted by VMware's SocialCast, "Lead the Way - Steps for Evaluating & Selecting an Enterprise Social Solution"
As social media pervades the foundation of business, it will inevitably transform every department within the organization. While the benefits for social media are clear for marketing, sales and service, one of the most important business trends is still on the horizon. The value of social networks isn’t just relegated to outside activity. Deploying social networks inside your organization is not only inevitable, they may already be in use within workgroups now.
Enterprise social networks are the “next big thing.”
Today, social media most likely lives in your marketing department. But, enterprise social networks affect the entire organization and as such, a centralized approach to assessment, selection, and deployment is critical. Like Facebook and Twitter, enterprise social networks present challenges to IT as low barriers to entry facilitate decentralized deployment. It’s time for IT to lead the charge to help the enterprise and its employees harness the value of social. Doing so empowers a new collaborative, engaged and transparent workforce.
So often, businesses deploy new technology without designing goals, processes, and reward systems to promote new engagement. Additionally, decision makers or rogue agents miss the importance of assessing needs, communicating value, or empower stakeholders to drive adoption. At stake is employee support, an understanding of value, and ultimately organizational adoption. Thus, the potential for ESNs is challenged right out of the gate and requires both leadership and management to unlock the potential of a more connected and informed workforce.
This is your time to lead transformation from within.
During the webinar, I'll cover…
How to manage the emergence of disruptive technologies such as enterprise social networks
How to identify and rally key stakeholders to weigh needs and expectations against business objectives
How to evaluate and prioritize new technologies at the enterprise, Line of Business and the functional levels
How to assess organizational and employee readiness
How to introduce processes for ESN deployments and usage
How to improve adoption rates and increase engagement
A look at what companies do right, wrong, and the best practices to take away for successful rollouts
In almost every business interview I’ve conducted about Facebook, I’m asked whether or not Facebook is “cool” anymore. The discussion naturally progresses toward Myspace, which I feel is counter productive.
Comparing Myspace with Facebook is like comparing Saab to BMW or Saturn to Ford. Competing for relevance becomes part of the leadership regime and it’s why on the eve of its IPO, Facebook chose to host an all-night hackathon rather than throw the usual rooftop party made popular in the days of Web 1.0. I guess in its own way, Facebook is trying to stay cool, or more importantly, stay true.
I joined Al Jazeera for a discussion of Facebook's struggle for relevance post-IPO. To close the discussion, I shared that in an era of digital Darwinism, you have to compete for relevance in real time, almost faster than real time. This is true for Facebook and all businesses today.
Post IPO, Facebook has some work to do. Here are four places to build and ship...Search, Mobile, Relevance & Culture. Doing so, Facebook can create a new genre of ambient social networking.
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The End of Business as Usual is officially here…
In honor of Facebook's IPO and as my way of sharing my thoughts of whether or not Mark Zuckerberg's attire will affect his ability to run a successful company, here's a picture of my hoodie...I guess I need to have one made for Facebook though ;)
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The End of Business as Usual is officially here...
I recently participated in a study published by Smart Service in Germany that focused on the state and future of Social Commerce and Social CRM (sCRM). The team recently released a series of snippets from our interviews that I wanted to share with you here.
Question 1: Customer behavior is changing quicker than the ability for companies to adapt. What is the key game changer and which industries are bound to die?
Question 2: Let’s discuss the experience loop (customer journey) of the connected customer. Please give us a short explanation of this experience loop and how companies should act on that knowledge.
Question 3: What do you mean by content commerce?
If you want people to talk about you, you have to give them something to talk about. If you want people to find you, you have to give them something to find.
Question 4: Deliver value to your users, peers or customers – how does that work in practice?
#EngageorDie
Download the study here.
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First, Levis introduced the retail world to an integrated shopping experience that combined the social effect of Facebook with traditional e-commerce with its Friends Store. Consumers appeared to not only Like the approach, but also found the shopping experience to be entertaining and self-expressive. Considering the role of social proof and influence in the 6 Pillars of Social Commerce, it was just a matter of time until a real world retailer experimented with in-store Likes to affect decision-making.
Fashion retailer C&A in Brazil debuted Fashion Like, a new campaign that displays the number of Likes that each article of clothing earns on the company's Facebook page. As I've always maintained, "engagement ain't nothing but a number." While this strategy is certainly innovative, it may not be enough to sway consumers in a favorable direction. Perhaps adding iPads in each section allowing people to see what people are saying or how they're interacting or introducing an in-store app that ties virtual and the real world with the social graph of shoppers will bring this strategy to Like.
Source: The Verge
While I was in Las Vegas recently, I spent some time on camera with Hunter Boyle of AWeber.
We examined in detail the rise of the connected customer or Generation-C and explored how organizations of all sizes and focus can reach this new breed of customers by engaging them in new touchpoints throughout the buying cycle in more authentic ways.
I hope this helps answers some of your questions...
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I have a standing policy...if your education facility uses Engage or The End of Business as Usual as a class textbook, I will stop by via skype or sometimes live to talk to your students and answer their questions.
I do this because educators are important to the future of our economy and they struggle with student engagement. In fact, educators are among the most active groups, along with executives and creative professionals, that reach out to me asking for direction, best practices, and anything that will help them better connect with an audience of audiences.
The infographic below takes a look at how schools are using social media, what's working and what's not, and where opportunities lie for effective engagement (and marketing) in the future.
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Today, Facebook ammended its S-1 filing. What would have been a non-event turned out to be quite a series of revelations that are making the headlines and driving trending topics everywhere.
Here's a rundown...
Global Population:
Facebook is rapidly nearing the 1 billion user mark. In today's amended S-1, the social network revealed that its population of global denizens is now at 901 million.
With 7.009 billion people on earth, the country of Facebook is now the digital home for 1 in 7.7 people in the world
526 million people are daily active users, up from 483 million at the end of 2011.
In March 2012, Facebook had on average 398 million users who were active on six out of the last seven days.
Mobile:
Facebook now has 500 million daily active mobile users gaining 12 million since its initial filing in March 2012.
As of December 31st, 2011, Facebook listed 488 million active mobile users.
In March 2012, 83 million monthly active users accessed Facebook solely from mobile, up 435 from the 58 million in December 2011.
Instagr.am
The social network paid $300 million in cash plus 23 million shares valued at $30.89 each for a total of a pre-IPO value of $1,010,470,000.
The deal is expected to close next quarter. If for some reason the deal falls through, Facebook will pay a $200 million termination fee.
Per Facebook, "We have agreed to pay Instagram a $200 million termination fee if governmental authorities permanently enjoin or otherwise prevent the completion of the merger or if either party terminates the agreement after December 10, 2012."
Revenue
Facebook made $1.058 billion in revenue in Q1 2012.
As good friend Josh Constine over at TechCrunch observed, "if Facebook maintains its current revenue rate, it would make $4.69 on each of its 901 million users each year."
Advertising made up $872 million of Facebook's Q1 2012 revenue.
Fees and payments accounted for $186 million.
Between Q4 2011 and Q1 2012, the company's revenue is down from $1.131 billion.
Between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012, revenues are up $327 million year over year.
The growth between 2010 and 2011 equated to 88% with growth slowing to 44.7% between Q1 2011 - 2012.
Social Activity
Facebok receives 300 million photo uploads every day, that's just over 208,000 images per minute.
125 billion frienships define the global social graph, up from 100 billion listed on December 31, 2011.
Facebook denizens Like and coment 3.2 billion times per day, up from 2.7 billion on December 31, 2011.
The social network is home to 42 million Brand pages, up from 37 million
Patents
Microsoft has agreed to sell 650 patents it recently purchased from AOL to Facebook for $550 million in cash.
The company now has over 1,400 patents.
Media
If you're in the media or blogosphere and need commentary or perspective, please reach out to us at press@altimetergroup.com.
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USA Today recently ran a detailed article on the value of Facebook's upcoming IPO. Aside from interesting data points, I found the interactive "milestone" graphic an important reminder of Facebook's rise to social pervasiveness. If you run the cursor over each Facebook icon, you'll learn about key events in the history of the world's largest social network.
Thanks Jon Swartz, Kevin A. Kepple, Jeff Goetzen ad Anne Carey!
Please consider ordering The End of Business as Usual today…
In an era of Digital Darwinism, no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed...this is your time.
Many follow, but very few lead.
Many compete to survive, but few compete for relevance.
Do we listen to our customers? Do we truly understand them?
Do we create experiences or do we simply react?
The future of business comes down to one word…change.
This is a new era that redefines everything.
An era of empowered consumers and employees.
Will we fall to natural selection or will we rise to lead the revolution.
This is our time to make business relevant.
Because people, after all, are everything.
#AdaptorDie
Please consider ordering The End of Business as Usual today…
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