What I’m Reading
Shareworthy articles and content syndicated from other sites. These aren’t things I’ve written or necessarily endorse, for the record.
The 15 Most Detrimental Social Media Mistakes You’re Making
Marvin Powell, a Small Business Growth Consultant in Washington DC, posted a question on LinkedIn's Q&A section:
“What are the biggest mistakes that you find small business leaders make when using social media?”
More than 70 experts and professionals responded with their two cents. We scoured through the comments to find common themes and pulled out the best answers.
“Too much time spent on self-promotion”
“One big mistake small business leaders make in social media is to spend a lot of time trying to promote themselves. They also forget to keep an eye on their brand. [Social media changes quickly] and small businesses need to watch their brands [all the time].
“We found during research for a client that there were a number of upset customers posting on forums and social networks. None of these [complaints] had been looked into. Something like that can be actioned very quickly and you can quickly change a negative view into a positive one. Just think, “It can take 20 years to build a business and watch it be destroyed in 20 minutes!”
– Paul Collin, Business Relationship Manager at Holiday Inn Express Croydon
Source: LinkedIn Q&A
“Having unrealistic expectations”
“Expecting social media to be the only way to get results and trying to do everything themselves. This goes for other tools as well.
“In addition, having unrealistic expectations of what it can do.”
– Yok SooHoo, Business Development at JRS Recovery
Source: LinkedIn Q&A
“Not making it relevant to me”
“I don’t want to get ten tweets a day hearing about YOU. I want to hear things that are valuable for me and my life … and they need to be fast.
“And not too frequent: I don’t want to incessantly hear about your business. It won’t make me think of you more, it’ll just make me annoyed with you.
“So: short, sweet, pertinent, and valuable to me.”
Source: LinkedIn Q&A
– Laura Kowalski, Business Consultant for Business Owners and Senior Executives
iPad Business App Round-Up: Adobe SiteCatalyst, Rackspace Cloud 2.0 and More
Looking for an excuse to buy an iPad 2, which hit the streets today? The iPad continues to be used as a device for business as well as pleasure, and several enterprise apps were either released or updated since our last round-up. Take a look and see if any of them justify the expense of a new tablet.
Sponsor
Adobe SiteCatalyst
In addition to announcing its expanded social media analytics tools, Adobe announced a SiteCatalyst iPad app. SiteCatalyst is an Web analytics that Adobe acquired as part of its Omniture acquisition. It has a particular emphasis on e-commerce.
Bomgar
Bomgar announced its iPad Rep Console this week, giving IT and tech support workers the ability to use its remote desktop technology from the tablet. Although Bomgar’s competitor Citrix has been quick to release iPad apps, it hasn’t released an iPad version of its GoToAssit product.
Information Builders
Joining our list of business intelligence tools for the iPad is WebFOCUS from Information Builders. WebFOCUS brings dashboards to multiple mobile devices, including the iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android devices. Instead of native apps, Information Builders created a Web-based solution that autodetects the device a user is viewing the site on and adjusts its presentation accordingly.
Rackspace Cloud
We already covered Rackspace Cloud 2.0, the updated app for Rackspace administrators. It adds new features such as Chef integration, UK support and and the ability to manage OpenStack clouds.
VMware
We also covered VMware’s new iPad app this week. It enables users to access virtual desktops from their iPads, and competes with Citrix Receiver.
Marissa Mayer: Google Will Connect the Digital & Physical Worlds Through Mobile
Google’s recently appointed head of mobile and geolocation Marissa Mayer took the stage Friday afternoon at South by Southwest to discuss how Google’s maps and locations products are paving the way for a more digitally and physically connected future.
“The mobile phone acts as a cursor to connect the digital and physical,” Mayer said during her presentation in which she also discussed Google’s location and mobile products and strategies. She segmented the talk into three sections: fast, fun and future.
Mayer spouted off impressive product stats and the improved speed of Google Maps for Mobile, highlighted how the company is applying Google Street View to art and concluded by hinting at a future when Google marries its fast array of mobile-friendly products — Calendar, Hotpot, Google Maps for Mobile and Goggles — with location to make life smoother. This is what she calls the “power of here.”
She also shared data on a few of Google’s applications: 40% of all Google Maps usage is on mobile, and Google Maps for Mobile has 150 million users. The app’s turn-by-turn navigation feature processes 35 million miles per day. Also, the newly added route around traffic feature is saving users two years of time every day, which equates to a potential $250,000 in fuel savings per year.
Mayer also talked up Google’s place recommendation product Hotpot. No specific metrics were revealed, but Mayer referred to its adoption as a success. She pointed to the fact that 20% of all Google searches are for local information to highlight why Hotpot — the product’s data is incorporated into maps and search as well — is quite significant.
Ultimately, Google’s aim is to tie the digital world to the physical world through mobile and bring to life the “power of here,” Mayer said.
More About: Google, marissa mayer, Mobile 2.0
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How brands should be attracting fans and followers
In the scheme of things, social media marketing is still incredibly new, and what I find fascinating is the new trend of strategies that companies employ to create a following in social media. New tricks get old very, very fast as consumers wise up, or simply get bored.
What’s becoming evident is that gaining a Like, follow or check-in is becoming almost a game in itself, as companies try newer ways to get the all important trade from their consumers. I believe this is largely a result of the fact that as people become more comfortable with following brands online, we realise that we can only realistically follow so many, before they take up a large portion of our newsfeeds. So your Likes or follows become even more valuable both to you and the brand. The solution that many companies are looking at now, is what you can offer users that makes the action of Liking, a game or challenge in itself, beyond the content you actually offer them in the long run that would draw them to you.
Rewarding Likes
Porsche were there early with their stunt to reward Facebook Likes by pledging to engrave its fans’ name on a custom car. All you had to do to get your name on the car was Like the page. Then Heineken followed by celebrating 1 million Likes with 1 million hugs. Heinz has explored this most recently, when it decided to release a brand new flavour of Ketchup, only available through its Facebook page, which you had to Like first in order to purchase.
From a user point of view, this adds completely to the experience of following a brand. You’re not just following to get updates, you get your name on a car, a hug, and the chance to buy a bottle of ketchup. What’s interesting among these campaigns is that it’s not about rewarding fans through anything monetary, it’s about adding to the social experience. They can get something that no-one else can, and this is how hard brands now need to work, to get that all important Like.
Points for Check-Ins
What’s interesting is that this concept of rewarding a virtual ‘follow’ is now very much extending into the real-world, when it’s no longer about what shop you walk into, but which shop is going to reward you when you check in. This is evident through Foursquare’s recently launched version 3.0 . They’ve learned very quickly that it’s not necessarily about sharing location with your friends, but the points and rewards you get from organisations in return for this. They’ve revamped their points system to open up the opportunities for businesses to reward customers, extending from just mayors to include groups, swarms or pretty much anyone. While Foursquare may no longer be the dominant player in location, the fact that the way deals or specials operate is such an important part of their update, shows the interest between both customers and businesses, for rewarding checkins beyond the social element.
It’s clear why a Like, checkin or follow means so much to brands : because of the entire community that comes with just one person joining your page. Heinz made the decision it did not only because it was a new marketing gimmick, but because of the huge potential social reach in return for taking the action on their page. Not just 3,000 bottles, but 3,000 bottles seen by 390,000 people. That’s serious numbers for a lot of brands, and it’s easy to see why the tactics to reach Likes or follows would be so extreme. There has always been competition between brands through social media, but lately it seems to be reaching new levels. Constantly more inventive ways to celebrate Likes or reach a goal, but what happens when you reach that goal?
The worrying thing of course, is that it all becomes too much of a game to get people to simply Like you, without that really meaning anything to a brand. There is a big difference between someone joining your page because they’re engaged with your brand at a meaningful level, and joining your page to get their name engraved on a car. The long-term effect of that, for many brands, will be painful. The quality of conversation, and value you get out of the page may be negligible. The long-term effect this really has on brand loyalty remains to be seen.
