Due to some unforeseen circumstances, had to rush to India for a few days. Whenever am in India, blogging takes a hit. Never have the peace and calm I am generally comfortable with. Any case, should be back on the blogosphere soon…
2008 was a big year for Twitter users and 2009 promises to be even better. The micro-blogging site is a great social networking tool, putting individuals, businesses, celebrities and spammers on the same ground. Twitter is a micro-blogging tool which allows up to 140 characters of short messages to be broadcast from its interface, which can be read by any other Twitter user. Unlike Facebook or Linkedin, Twitter allows users to declare who they are interested in following. A User who is being followed by another user doesn’t necessarily have to reciprocate. In comparison with our regular blogging, which is limited to a few posts in a month, Twitter fulfills the need for a faster mode of communication as it demands very little need of time and thought for content creation.
It is far more easier to communicate with other users than through any other traditional means or by social networking tools. On Twitter, a majority of the users seem to be open minded and they are aware of their expectations from the platform, making it easier to connect with each other. The platform crosses all boundaries when it comes to Social Media interaction. While popular social networking sites like Facebook/Linkedin ensure people keep in touch with personal/professional acquaintances, Twitter lets users connect with almost anyone who has a Twitter account.
I have been on Twitter for very few weeks and I have actively started using it only from 26th November 2008, the day when Mumbai was attacked. Information dissemination capabilities of Twitter is incredible, which has been proved time and again during the Presidential elections, Mumbai attacks and recently during Apple’s keynote at Macworld Expo 2009. Couple of weeks before Christmas, Will blogged about how Arena Flowers newsletter was flagged as Spam by Messagelabs, resulting in fewer sales from the newsletter than usual. A few of our blog readers, suggested that the post made an interesting media story and we eventually featured on Daily Mirror. Following this, we decided to punt the story around to see if it could gain any more mileage. This is when I realised how powerful Twitter is as a communication tool as it was easier to interact with a few Journalists and editors of Technology News sites.
As a Sales and Marketing channel, Twitter has tremendous potential for businesses, although it is a common belief that social media marketing for businesses is hard to quantify, as a majority of the value is realised by creating awareness rather than directly translating it into profits. Recently Dell reported $1 million in sales from Twitter, which in effect sounds like a drop in the pond for the companye as it represents 0.0016 % of the revenue. At the time of writing this blog post, Dell had a combined total of 8550 Twitter followers from nearly 30 Twitter accounts, which is lower than Apple. True, Apple has a single Twitter account. However, $1 million from 8550 followers apart from the brand exposure Dell gets is incredible. Dell could do much more with Twitter if it could be a little more intuitive rather than being the bugle for the company. For example, if you look at all of Dell’s Twitter accounts, only two accounts seem to have a higher number of followers (Dell Outlet & Digital Nomads). Clearly, users like communication and both of these accounts seem to be doing great job in doing that. On the DellOutlet account, customers seem to be interacting with the company by posting questions and comments, while on the latter Dell interacts with all of its followers, which is explained by the number of Twitterers Dell follows back. This shows that it is vital for Twitter users be a part of the community rather than being one dimensional.
Facebook and Twitter, two of the popular forms of social media, may not be the biggest internet money making machines like Google. But people behind these companies as well as investors are backing it completely because these platforms are teeming with potential customers and an astonishing amount of data waiting to be mined by marketers. Just a question how these companies get to monetise it? Conventional marketing channels (Print, Television, Radio etc) are always limited to various resourcing constraints, particularly for small businesses. However, Web 2.0 offers a balanced platform and inexpensive advertising solutions for all entities irrespective of their size and might. This is why it becomes relevant for businesses and brands to promote themselves on such platforms.
Businesses are on the road to adapting newer forms of ever evolving media and the Web 2.0 offers tremendous opportunities for businesses to pursue. New media is certainly not same as the old web, where there was a one directional flow of information. It fosters a balanced communication between businesses and customers. It’s about every day lives of individuals and businesses connected to time. With interfaces that allow users to track lives of friends, families and acquaintances, social media has been registering an exponential growth in the recent years. Clearly for businesses, Twitter, along with other social media tools, will become pretty much the norm in the coming months and businesses will realise the need to have a recognised social media team to scrape out the opportunities it has to offer.
When I began writing the post, the intentions were to list out top British celebrities actively tweeting on Twitter Space, before I slacked on the weekend. By the time I got myself back to the post again, a fair number of celebrity lists as well as Twitter tips had been published on many popular blogs and sites. There are many interesting posts on how to benefit from Twitter, How to use Twitter, When to follow back twitterers etc. Caroline Middlebrook, an internet entrepreneur and blogger, has put together a comprehensive Twitter Guide, which is very useful for budding as well as established Tweeters. Also, there is a great list of top 100 influential marketer’s with links to their Twitter accounts. Over the last few weeks, ever since Jonathan Ross followed Stephen Fry into the Tweet space, he has effectively played a Twitter detective and authenticated the presence of many Celebrity Tweeters. Just yesterday, another list was published by Guardian. Although not Britain specific, It has a list of UK politicians on Twitter along with a US list and a generic celebrity list. So if you are looking for a list of famous tweeters who you would like to follow, you should probably head to one of these many links.
If you fancy, you could also checkout my Twitter account for some famous names and businesses.
Happy Tweeting!
Unlikely. There are many other likely contenders for Apple‘s final goodbye to Macworld Expo. A number of rumours as well as expectations from enthusiasts on what Apple could announce have being doing the rounds for the past few weeks, including some really weird and outrageous ones.
Personally, I have mixed emotions about Apple’s participation at Macworld. I am a recent adapter to Apple’s products and although I was aware of Apple’s presence at Macworld, I was a tad bit ignorant about the fact that new products are announced in every event. I have only realised the importance of these events to Mac enthusiasts after my last Apple purchase.
I got my first 5th generation, uninsured white 30 GB iPod in August 2006 which was stolen from right under my nose after 11 months of life. Within a week of loosing it I replaced it with another iPod and a month after my purchase, Apple restocked the entire range of iPods with a newer version. Then in December 2007 I bought an iPod Touch which was upgraded with new features in February 2008. In October 2008, I treated myself to a Macbook Pro, only to see a newer Mac come out a few weeks later. I have been keen on buying an iPhone for a while now, but I had decided to hang on with my otherwise brilliant Blackberry Pearl until the Macworld Expo. Just when I was adapting to the Apple Community, Apple decides to bunk Macworld.
Strategically, the reasons Apple’s decision to move away from Macworld Expo could be various. While Steve Jobs’ health has often been rumoured as one, I would like to believe that trade shows simply do not fit into Apple’s future vision. Also, it has always affected the company’s sales during the peak Christmas period, with a vast number of consumers staying away from Christmas purchases with an expectation of an announcement of improved Apple products during the event. The company has a loyal customer base and the social influence of its customers is unmatched in comparison to any other product in any niche. As per the company’s own statement, it is reaching out to customers in more ways than ever before and probably doesn’t need trade shows to strengthen its brand. Apple is a financially sound company with large cash reserves and has done exceedingly well even under the current economic conditions world over.
However, given the turbulent and dynamic environment, it needs to reassess it’s strategies and I guess by pulling out of Macworld is one of the many decisions the company had to make. As an event, Macworld, supported by customary keynote by Steve Jobs, offered an incredible opportunity for third party developers and vendors to showcase their products and Apple’s decision seems to be severe blow to their prospects.
Also, it is a huge disappointment for thousands of Apple fans who have faithfully clocked in hundreds to thousands of miles for the event with high expectations. Coming back to Apple’s final participation in Macworld 2009, the company has confirmed that Phillip Schiller, Senior Vice President of Marketing will be stepping into Steve Jobs’ shoes for the keynote. So would this mean that there are no likely announcements for new products? There could be two ways about this. Either there is no product or there is something as a parting gift for all Apple disciples. If it is the latter, which of Apple’s products are on line for an upgrade? A couple of my personal choices are listed below based on rumours circulating in the web world.
The first of the biggest rumours hitting technology publication sites and blogs on the webworld is Apple’s purported entry into the low cost mobile industry with the launch of a 4GB Apple iPhone. It could well turn out to be a killer move for Apple as it could end up selling a lot more mobile phones than any of the industry leaders. Despite Nokia, Motorola, Samsung & Sony Ericsson’s iPhone like phones, they all tend to be in expensive brackets, which has to bought with a contract to offset the costs. A 4 GB iPhone could give iPhone access to the lucrative PrePay mobile phones market.
My personal favourite is a Product (Red) branded iPhone. (Red) is an initiative by U2 front man Bono and activist Bobby Shriver, to raise money for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. If announced, I might even forego my existing contract with Vodafone and move over to O2. Product (Red), despite it’s criticisms, for the campaign has cost nearly five times more than what it has raised so far, it appeals to me for its vision as well as it’s value as a brand.
Either that, or a 32 GB iPhone with HD capabilities. If announced, that’ll surely rock the event. Clearly, Apple already has a 32 GB iPod touch which is based on a similar NAND flash based memory used in iPhone. However, iPod Touch uses two units of 16 GB rather than a single unit used in iPhone, making the iPod Touch slightly bulkier than the iPhone. However, in the recent days, Toshiba, Samsung and other companies have released 32GB single unit NAND memories, which fits in easily into an iPhone. Technically, a 32GB iPhone is not far off. Just a matter of how long it would take for Apple to come out with one. I am sure to go either on a (red) iPhone or a 32 GB iPhone. It would be an incredible bonus if Apple launchs a 32 GB Product (Red) iphone.
Anyway, there are a number of other rumours, including an updated version of a Mac Mini, a new iMac and an extended range of Apple Cinema displays, as well as an improved version of Leopard, Apple iLife or even Snow Leopard.
As a parting note, the legacy of Apple brand continues to grow (literally) in uncharted territories. A Japanese farmer has grown a new kind of Fuji apples with Apple and iPod logos inscribed on them, by using stickers to shield the sunlight. More about that here and there’s a picture of Apple branded apples below (Courtesy: Gizmodo).
I am mighty impressed with Facebook Connect. It offers a tremendous potential for businesses and individuals to improve their visibility on the web. Of course, both Google’s Friend Connect and Facebook Connect came out of their test phases at the same time, but at the moment Facebook Connect seems to be holding the sway, largely because of its impressive 120 million user base. MySpace too has a fairly large user base which matches Facebook, but the growing popularity of Facebook, coupled with a cluttery feel and template heavy profile pages makes MySpace a bit messed up in terms of aesthetics. With Facebook hungrily adding new features by the day, the longer term prospects of Facebook look much more attractive than that of MySpace unless it does something drastic to counter this.
MySpace certainly is not idle. It has constantly sought to improve it’s platform, and now with all the internet majors looking at data portability as an option, it comes as no surprise that it has tied up with Google for friend connect, along with the existing partnerships with Yahoo, eBay, Twitter & PhotoBucket. However, what MySpace really needs to do is to keep it simple and appealing to users. It really has to move away from its cluttery offering.
Google’s Friend Connect offers similar data portability as Facebook Connect, but again lacks in appeal and a popular social networking platform. Google has really failed in coming up with something as smart as either a Facebook or a Twitter. It’s very own Social Networking Platform, Orkut, has failed to catch-up with sufficient audiences and is limited to users largely from Brazil and India, failing in the first hurdle itself.
Facebook Connect, on the other hand, seamlessly integrates with a site or a blog with a one click login and allows users to interact with the site, which gets fed into the Facebook News Feed on the user’s Facebook Profile Page, making it visible to the user’s close community. This helps in increasing the brand and product awareness among Facebook users. Social influence in marketing is the key to succeed and Facebook offers this social influence in a surprisingly simple way to a very large user base at absolutely no cost. I am certain that in the coming months it will be a standard feature with many popular commercial/non-commercial online models as well as personal websites and blogs adapting to Facebook connect!
There is an early release of a WordPress Plugin for Facebook Connect developed by Six Jumps and I have been experimenting on this to get it live on my blog and should hopefully done on the weekend. It is incredibly simple to set up, with a little help from extensive tutorials by Six Jumps and I highly recommend getting this working soon on your blog. You will instantly have an army of friends marketing your blog to a wider audience.
Do They Make Any?
Facebook’s courtship with Twitter in the past few weeks has officially ended after Evan Williams, the founder and CEO of Twitter confirmed on Tuesday that there would be no marriage with Facebook. The web world has been abuzz with news recently about Twitter’s reported refusal for a $500 mostly stock offer from Facebook. Both social networking platforms are yet to turn profitable and this raises several questions about how viable these are as propositions for investors. There is certainly a point in a way Mr. Williams envisions Twitter’s prospects in the coming years. He has clearly stated that Twitter would be looking to monetise its platform before such an association and if his strategies to turn Twitter profitable work, then there could be a higher price tag on Twitter than what Facebook is currently offering.
Twitter, a simple micro-blogging platform built on Ruby-On-Rails, has been gaining popularity since early 2007. Started with a $20 million capital raised from Venture Capitalists, Twitter allows users to broadcast messages up to 140 characters through its platform. With an estimated 6 million global users, Twitter is fast catching up with some of the other popular social networking sites although it lags behind miles in comparison with the massive 120 million user base of Facebook. Moreover, of the 6 million estimated users, only a fraction of them tweet regularly. Despite a fairly decent subscriber base, Twitter like most social networking platforms, is struggling to translate its success into profits, although Mr. Williams foresees the opportunity to monetise the platform in the next couple of years. However, one of the first tasks Mr. Williams has identified is to stabilise and improve the Twitter platform.
Facebook has its own challenges to turn profitable. Despite having 120 million registered users and consumer data which is extremely valuable for marketing, Facebook has failed to achieve the desired levels of success. It offers a great platform for businesses to market themselves by leveraging the options of setting up free business pages to interact directly by fostering communities with the target base on a personal level. It also offers an opportunity for businesses to advertise for a fee, although businesses might find that Facebook offers little return on money spent on advertising.
Given the current economic climate, it’s a huge surprise that Facebook is throwing $500 million weight of stock and cash on a smart tool which has, for the moment, no revenue potential. The $15 billion valuation, when Microsoft bought into a piece of the Facebook pie, seems to be extremely overvalued. If Facebook’s stock were to be revalued now, Twitter would loose much of the value of the stock, considering bigger technology companies like Google and others have seen their stock values eroding in the recent past. And the biggest irony is, Twitter refusing such an offer! This, despite Mr. Williams’ assertion that there are no business people among Twitter’s 25 strong team, which could actually put it on the path to economic success.
If past successes are anything to go by, then Google certainly is a beacon of hope. As most of us would already be aware, the seeds to Google’s growth were sown back in 1998 when Google developed an incredible product – a better search engine. And for nearly two years, they ran from pillar to post trying to convince venture capitalists to invest in an idea which absolutely had no revenue channels. Of course, it did benefit from the dotcom boom and fortunately, their revenue potential was realised through another smart product – Adwords, which literally is the driving force behind Google today.
Undoubtedly, both Facebook and Twitter have been successful in capturing user attention. How successfully they translate this attention to bank balance is a matter of curiosity, which depends on efficient leadership and only time will tell this. One thing is certain. They might not make any money for their founders but it certainly does make you less productive in the workplace!
I can’t remember who said it, but whoever did is certainly a major dude. I guess it must be John Lasetter, the CEO of Pixar in one of his interviews for Harvard Business Review in September. Not the exact words though:
“You give a good product to a mediocre team, they will mess it up, you give a mediocre product to a great team, then you are bound to succeed”
I am certainly not implying Obama’s mediocre…he’s superior (More about it later…), but he’s had an incredible marketing team. Too few words to describe, but probably, I will do a long post about this some time…
Anil Kumble’s already bid farewell to Cricket. Living in the same neighbourhood as Kumble, I feel privileged for the gentle giant. He’s put in long yards. He’s not naturally talented, but his perseverance is a lesson in many senses. Another one’s biting the dust on Sunday…he’s had a raw deal, seen ups and downs…but his final words does leave a lasting impression. During the felicitation ceremony on the final test match of the Border-Gavaskar trophy, the man in question had pretty simple words…but it struck me as the wisest…
“Over the last 13-14 years I’ve made some friends and I’ve made some enemies. One thing I would like to say that it’s all been for the good of Indian cricket. Hopefully you’ve walked the part with me and enjoyed the journey”
Way to go Sourav…you certainly did change Indian Cricket…and I did enjoy the journey. It’s a pity that you had to quit this way!
Apple‘s approach to product innovation, marketing & branding is legendary. Despite having a minimalistic presence in the advertising Arena, the company evokes sufficient interest from people who matter the most, customers. Apple’s customers are usually early adopters and if you give a high quality, well designed product to early adopters, then you can certainly expect others to follow them, which has always played a central role in Apple’s success. It has done a wonderful job of creating an Apple culture, where people are waiting to take cues from the company and advertise repeatedly through the simplest forms of advertising – social marketing, in other words word-of-mouth.
For me I believe, social marketing is the most successful way to reach out to your audience. Even before a product’s purported launch, there are whispers in the market, prompting people to speculate about it, write and even review without getting their hands on to the product. There has always been speculations on every generation of iPods Apple has launched, there had been plenty of talk about an Apple phone, years before the iPhone was launched, and of course people have anticipated newer versions of each of Apple’s products, be it a G4, Macbook, iMac, Mini or even indigeous add ons such as the Time Machine and the Apple TV. On top of this, it also offers an incredible operating system and some clever applications such as the iTunes. The latest buzz among apple disciples is the launch of a new product code named “brick”. What exactly brick is, nobody knows for certain. But it has garnered significant marketing attention world wide, with bloggers making various conjectures about the product, which includes a newer version of Macbook, an all new Apple TV and even an updated Mac Mini. Some blogs even claim that Brick is a Dual Screen foldable Net Book.
A leading Apple community on the web quoting an unnamed resource has reported that “Brick” is not a product, but a radical new manufacturing process, which apparently will carve out the newer versions of Macbooks and Macbook Pros from a single aluminum block. However, Apple has put an end to all speculation by launching improved thinner version of Macbooks with faster graphics processors and an iPhone like all glass trackpad and an extended battery life. Of course the lower part of the new Apple chassis is made from single aluminum blocks. Whatever the product, it has created enough buzz already. People are certain to queue up in stores either to get their hands on to Apple’s new offering or to catch a glimpse of it.
So what is the secret of Apple’s success? The company has always relied on extending the customers digital lifestyle by offering products which reinvents the way people look at those products. Above all, the company’s business strategies are based on creating products as a support system to its core rather than exploding the market with a wide spectrum reinforcing the company’s brand perceptions. For a technology intensive industry in which Apple participates, keeping a fresh image is absolutely imperative as products evolve constantly. The Apple brand is leveraged in such a way that it can expand from computers to music players and phones because they are known for “thinking different” and therefore setting an expectation of originality. Consumers don’t just buy an Apple product; they buy the idea of what Apple stands for. It is a known fact over the years that much of the success of products or services derives from the effect consumers have on one another’s decisions. Apart from anticipating what features individual consumers might find desirable, Apple has adopted strategies that take social influence into account. Macbooks, IPods & iPhones have managed to get more exposure among average consumers, which could be attributed to social influence and these average consumers are more likely to consider other Apple products, which further enhances the brand image and values associated with the product. Unlike other companies, Apple has always created products which are add ons to its core product. An iPod or an iPhone needs iTunes, Apple TV needs needs an iPod, and of course for the related applications to work, you need an operating system and Apple again stands out with its offering. To run the operating system, you need hardware and for that you have a sleek range of iMacs, Macbooks and Minis.
Consider this, not many would have thought that iTunes would be product on its own. It is an application, which many would have believed was developed to support the iPod range of MP3 players. But today, it is a market place contributing handsomely to Apple’s profit share. The strategy here is simple. Sell an iPod worth £200 which holds 30, 000 songs and sell songs on iTunes for 79 pence. Ideally (If there’s no piracy) to fill up the 30000 capacity iPod you would need £23000 worth of songs and as of September 2007, 150 million iPods in different capacities have been sold worldwide. Consider the average iPod sold is of a 5GB capacity and do the numbers taking into account people buying music from other sources and downloading pirated music from the internet. Although conventional wisdom states that Apple is loosing money on iTunes which it is making up by selling iPods, at a 30 % margin on every song sold, the profits are still enormous. Not to forget that it is expected to increase its market share to 85 % this year. Here’s a company, which believes in designing and developing superior products with innovative industrial design and and markets it with a similar level of creativity to profit from it. It is an ideal example of marketing success.
I have been using Xobni (for inbox spelled backwords) for a couple of days and I must say its an incredibly handy addon. It transforms the otherwise torpid Microsoft Outlook into a powerful email client. And for a feature rich add on like Xobni, it’s hard to believe that it’s being offered free. Started by Adam Smith and Matt Brezina in 2006, with investments from several reputed venture capitalists and a few angel investors, the company has created ripples in the recent months owing to $20 million acquisition rumours by Microsoft. Apparently, after a series of discussions Xobni walked off the deal.
Nevertheless, it is a clever software which integrates with Outlook and does clever things. Xobni’s viewing panel is a revelation. It features a lightning fast search option, people profiles, message threads etc. Xobni’s search is a million times better than the native functionality of Outlook. For every e-mail a user receives, it displays information about the sender including who else they communicate with regularly. It even scrapes sender’s phone numbers from their e-mails and also looks for their Linkedin profiles attached to that email. It displays all conversation threads between the sender and the user along with the attachments they have exchanged, making it easier to track attachments, a feature I feel is extremely beneficial, for I have always struggled to locate attachments in Outlook. Not just that, Xobni also acts a small email analytics tool which not everyone will find much use for. For example, it tells you the top ten people you communicate with, the time you/they take to respond to each other, the number of emails exchanged, average number of emails you get in a day, week, and month etc. You could say it is an Analytics version for the email. These features may be worthless, but its fun. To top this all, it doesn’t reduce Outlook’s functional capabilities or speed even a bit. Xobni has accomplished what other softwares haven’t been able to, to reside on the Outlook platform without eating up its resources.
Xobni also has tremendous potential as a software in the Social Networking Arena. Clearly, social networking is still in its infancy and how companies offering social networking align themselves will define the future. There are hundreds of networking sites out there, but Facebook seems to be running away with the crown. In the coming years, it is obvious for individuals and businesses to adapt to winning social networks, just like they did to Operating Systems of Microsoft and Apple and more recently to Search Engines, Google and Yahoo. Moreover, social networks have access to an incredible amount of user information, giving them the edge to serve advertising which matches an individual’s needs and tastes. So, Xobni’s ability to reside on email clients and disseminate information which not only helps the user but also helps them connect externally will undoubtedly be a winning feature. Unless companies which develop email clients, start bundling it as a package, Xobni has the headway. Xobni’s strength is its platform. Can its platform be replicated by companies which make these email clients? This remains to be seen.
But the issue drills down to one fact…why is Xobni free and why did it walk away from the Microsoft deal, although Microsoft clearly rated the software has top notch?!?! As I understand, Xobni has broader goals than being a plug-in company to Outlook. Xobni’s beliefs are based on developing platforms rather than developing plug-ins. The company is keen on developing similar apps for other popular email clients as well as web services which will also foster creation of new products, which will ultimately show the money. Reminds me of Google in the early days, when it went on to develop a search engine without focusing on the economic side. Today, Google has stood time. Good luck Xobni!
Online retailers often face a huge conundrum. Although their primary objective is to drive traffic to the site and ultimately sales, they have to battle with a variety of mediums to achieve this. From the site development and maintenance to user experience, occupying enviable spots on search engines, and reinforcing the companies presence on various forms of online media, is all a massive challenge particularly in a web 2.0 driven age. Despite the surge in internet users, online shopping is still a distinct experience from visiting a high street retailer.
Consumers Shopping online not only get a cost advantage, but they are also served with an incredible amount of information helping them make the right decision. With many price and product comparison sites, blogs, product reviews, feedbacks etc, online shoppers, usually are equipped with product knowledge prior to their purchase. However, despite a wealth of information, consumers often bank on search engines to help them make a purchase. This is where, a company’s approach to its online presence comes into play. User engagement plays an important role in the performance of a website, therefore emphasising the need to develop a site that aids consumers in making a right decision.
Arena Flowers has recently been used as a case study in a forth coming text on Internet Marketing. We are quite pleased with this new development and we feel that we are doing things right. However, there’s always room to improve and enhance customer engagement and we constantly strive to understand internet marketing in its entirety to achieve this. We do rely on customer suggestions and feedback to improve our offering. However, since we are being used as a case study in an internet marketing text, we feel that it would be wise to take suggestions from one of the authors of the text on improving our website. So we approached Dr. Dave Chaffey, a leading Internet Marketing consultant and trainer and the author of best selling books on online marketing for an interview and he gladly agreed. Watch this space for tips on optimising a website for better customer engagement.