tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69530983832421184962024-03-14T05:42:12.640+02:00All Things DigitalHi, hello and welcome!
This blog is a collection of my personal thoughts, comments and ideas about all things digital.
I don't have a particular focus but write little bit about everything, such as reviews of marketing campaigns and methods I see being used, digital strategies, technologies and other cool stuf I come across with. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-60975044744120453712013-04-04T10:07:00.002+03:002013-04-04T10:07:36.780+03:00Social Media (and digital marketing) isn't rocket science, people!<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Marketers are really looking for the same old things from social media and digital marketing as they did from traditional marketing methods, so why should it be treated any different. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They are looking for:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Product lift – be on top of the consumers mind</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Revenue – increase share of the consumer wallet</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Brand building – the subtle science of knowing your customer and providing them what they need, when they need it and every once in a while creating that non-existent need – which takes-off and becomes a rage, a success. It is in the domain of building brands that the concepts of loyalty and trust reside – those un-measurable factors which makes marketing the art form it is and keeps it interesting at all times.</span></li>
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<a href="http://blog.affiliatetip.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/rocket-science.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://blog.affiliatetip.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/rocket-science.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At its most basic, from a marketing standpoint, Social Media offers us the insight we always wanted into our consumers’ minds, behaviors and thoughts – the challenge is harnessing it, understanding it and making it work for us. As a recent piece of <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/03/06/1218772110.full.pdf" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none;">research</a> about Facebook ‘Likes’ suggests that algorithms can automatically help identify, thus target, users’ personal attributes such as: ethnicity, religious and political views, personality traits, intelligence, happiness, use of addictive substances, parental separation, age, and gender. This is highly powerful in this day and age, where micro-targeting <em>aka</em> personalization and localization, has come to be expected rather than being treated with suspicion by consumers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A separate research <a href="http://technorati.com/business/article/technorati-medias-2013-digital-influence-report/" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Technorati Media’s 2013 Digital Influence Report</a> identifies some key factors about consumer behavior and trends that should be applied effectively to make marketing spend work more efficiently. To make the spend work harder, pull marketing – blogs and brand websites – continue to be significantly more relevant in buying influence than any other digital spend. It also identifies that while communities are effective tools, their size is inversely proportional to their effectiveness. This just bolsters the old known fact that deeper relationships are more efficient than having more relationships, that an active community participant is going to be a better brand ambassador than the multitude that signed up just cause they saw an interesting promo.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-82337399094449479572012-02-28T15:56:00.000+02:002013-04-04T10:14:17.953+03:00RFID technology – combine online with offline<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Combining online with offline has been challenging for marketers. For some it still is. In fact, most marketers still see digital marketing and traditional marketing as two separate entities with their own teams, strategies and budgets. What I've wrote before and still emphasises, is that this kind of old-fashioned thinking needs to be get rid off. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">The online environment is constantly changing and so are the opportunities, methods and channels of utilising it. What is still quite new in this environment, is seamless utilisation of online in an offline environment. One way to solve this problem can be answered with RFID technology.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">The first time I heard about RFID technology was in the 2010. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><a href="http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">www.digitalbuzzblog.com</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">featured an</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><a href="http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/ibiza-parties-rfid-facebook-sharing-integration/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">article</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"> with a video about a hotel in Ibiza that used RFID technology:</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27046532" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">Even though the concept presented some difficulties and issues, what I found really impressive was that the online an offline environments were very well connected.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><span id="more-66" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what is RFID technology? Quoting to Wikipedia: «<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Radio-frequency identification</strong> (<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">RFID</strong>) is the use of a wireless non-contact system that uses radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to transfer data from a tag attached to an object, for the purposes of automatic identification and tracking. Some tags require no battery and are powered by the electromagnetic fields used to read them.» (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Read here</a>) All in all we can find it in our everyday life for instance when use pass to get in office or at factories to check production stage of the product.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In my opinion RFID is a great opportunity for advertising, promoting and really attracting people to brands in new and innovative ways.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So how does it really work?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/36013553?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">(Case by </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><a href="http://redkeds.com/ru/about/en.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Red Keds Creative Agency</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">)</span></span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/35006879?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/35006879">Range Rover Evoque RFID Eng</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/redkeds">Red Keds Creative Agency</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So these are great examples on how to use RFID technology to really maximise your promotion and exposure during single events, but what about using it as a long-term tool? <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">In this next example it is service that is provided the whole season and brings the whole new experience to skiing and snowboarding.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/74y8NtUw3Zs?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">These are not the only cases where RFID technology has been used and I am pretty sure that in near future companies will apply it in a wider range. To get the best return on a digital marketing strategy requires traditional offline methods, and RFID technology for sure offers a great way of combining the two. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-85549972380318963492012-02-13T14:46:00.000+02:002013-04-04T10:14:59.366+03:00Blogging Trends of 2012<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In this video I interview by Social Media Examiner, <a href="http://twitter.com/technorati" target="_blank">Shani Higgins</a>, CEO of Technorati, shares information on the business of blogging and current blogging trends. Discover how much money bloggers make and <b>learn more about the opportunities brands now offer bloggers</b>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/35863267?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=B4CC27" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/35863267">Blogging Trends for 2012: What You Need to Know</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/stelzner">Michael A. Stelzner</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</span><br />
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Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:</span><br />
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<li><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How blogging is intertwined with social media</span></strong></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Current trends in who is blogging and where there is growth</span></li>
<li><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The state of corporate blogs</span></strong></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The average number of blogs bloggers have today</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How brands are blogging</span></li>
<li><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How brands are connecting with bloggers</span></strong></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why probloggers are approached up to a thousand times a week</span></li>
<li><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What brands need to know before connecting with bloggers</span></strong></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The average salary of bloggers</span></li>
<li><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The additional opportunities brands are offering bloggers to make money</span></strong></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What’s next for Technorati to improve the business of blogging</span></li>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-81916805234199074672011-09-21T16:10:00.000+03:002013-04-04T10:16:49.569+03:00Cool vs. ROI (RyanAir)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Okay, it’s been a while
since I’ve last updated my blog. There’s really no excuse even though I did
spent the last 2 months working, finishing my digital marketing studies,
graduating, moving back to Finland and looking for jobs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s been hectic. As an apology, please enjoy this snippet from the Ryan Air calendar :) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/11/article-0-026CB551000005DC-413_468x663.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/11/article-0-026CB551000005DC-413_468x663.jpg" height="640" width="449" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lot has happened since my
last post but I’m still not going talk about Google+ vs. Facebook, Google Wallet or any of the
dozens of innovative and creative campaigns that have been launched during the
last month or so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m starting again with a
soft post about something dear to my heart. ROI in digital marketing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With all the advice given on
how to be the most innovative, creative and extraordinary digital marketer out
there, we tend to forget that optimizing everything to perfection might be
nice, but not make any difference to your bank account. Well, actually it can
but it will be a negative one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A great example of this in
my mind is RyanAir. Their site is probably one of the ugliest out there, with a
very low usability. I could hire a 15 year old to do a better job. But that’s
not what the site is about. It’s not intended to be a cool visual explosion.
It’s meant to convey the exact same thing that RyanAir is all about. RyanAir is
CHEAP. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The thing evident for anyone
who has ever flown on their flights is that there is a reason why the tickets
are the cheapest around. Everything costs extra and the plane is packed with
small seats and large people. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The image you get of RyanAir
and of the service you get at the airport and in the plane is the same online.
You get exactly what you pay for. The site is cheap but an airline competing almost
solely on price can’t afford, and shouldn’t put too much money into the site
when they can get the same results with the simpler one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fdfefa; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">RyanAir<b> </b></span><span style="background: #FDFEFA; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">has pretty much perfected their website’s
purchase funnel with cross-selling items and services. After choosing the your
flight dates you get to the passenger details page which offers a myriad of
additional things the passenger can purchase. Passengers have to pay extra for
pretty much everything that is normally included in the price of a ticket by
other airlines. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: #FDFEFA; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These include
priority boarding, travel insurance, SMS confirmation, RyanAir approved cabin
bag, special equipment, special assistance and method of payment. After booking
the flight, the customer is bombarded with hotel and car rental options. These
advertisements are specific to the location and date you’re flying so they’re
highly relevant. The pricing of the different items and services is also quite
low so the hurdle to add them to your purchase isn’t too high. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: #FDFEFA; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With ever increasing
profits RyanAir is doing something right (besides buy oil with a good price) and in my mind their approach towards
online sales is really helping with that. The whole company’s brand and
messages support the image of cheap and that's exactly what they should be doing. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-80620256537075775722011-07-11T22:37:00.000+03:002011-07-11T22:39:25.715+03:00First Direct's eCRM strategy setting the industry standards high<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The former telephone only banking giant has taken the online banking with a storm, focusing on market leading eCRM that has won it various awards for many years running. A quick glance at the website reveals just why this is. </span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">First Direct offers
several different types of channels that enable customers to access their
account. These channels include: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"> - Internet Banking <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"> - Mobile Banking and a Mobile app<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"> - Telephone Banking <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"> - Internet Baking Plus (compiles all finances under one
service)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">All the services provide
users with an overview and in detailed information as well as demos and video
tutorials of the different features. The site in general provides extensive
amount of esthetically formatted information on different topics related to
banking, investing, insurances and loans. Use of social media is limited to
recently launched Facebook page and Twitter account. Lack of physical branches
means that the information customers need, has to be clearly written and easily
found, which First Direct does well. The over all feeling of the site and it’s
extensive amount of different types of content creates a comforting feeling of
the reliability of the bank and ease of service. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">Six suggested initiatives for First Direct<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"><o:p>Even though the bank is kicking ass at award shows, there are few things it could improve upon. <b> </b></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">1. Social Media <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> -
</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Increase the amount of content
posted /published through social media<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">-
Seasonal tips (student loan information before semester, travel insurance
reminders before winter holidays)</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">2. “Human” Face to the site<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">- Take the First
Direct style / approach and apply it to a virtual assistant or “Live Help”
feature that would enable chatting with a service representative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">3. Extended security education <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">- </span></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Expand the
Online Security section to cover sections that are especially meant for the “elder
generations” with video tutorials. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">- Have an online
“Security training course” that will cover the things people should watch out
for and cover in detail how people can keep their account safe. (Videos and
pictures of different situations with multiple-choice questions)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">4. Instructions on how to manage
situations in life<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">-
Expand the information sections to cover more detailed information about the
different situations in life when people are in need of a bank. Provide
customers with more than just content directly related to its services (example
</span><a href="https://www.kiboo.com/know-your-money/category/college"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Kiboo</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">5. Using your phone as a debit card /
mobile wallet <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">- Enable payments using mobile by using NFC.
This would enable customers to make shopping more convenient and First Direct
to be on the forefront of modern banking as mobile payments become mainstream
(source </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/20/contactless-pay-till-mobile-system"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The Guardian</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">6. Proper budget analysis software<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">- Provide customers
with a proper financial tool with budgeted expenses weeks, months and years
(example </span><a href="https://www.mint.com/"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Mint</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">). The tool could work as an app that is can be synced with customers’
bank account. Expenses could be categorized (food, gas, entertainment) and
customers could make yearly profit estimation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">The profit estimation
would calculate customer’s net income and deduct weekly average expenses. An
unexpected expense deduction would be made based on customer’s hobbies,
interests ect. (skydiving car enthusiasts). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 28.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-13652257727486724272011-06-10T20:09:00.001+03:002011-06-10T20:28:59.761+03:00How to measure success in Digital Publishing?<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Let’s start by debunking any
notions that same metrics can be applied to different companies or even
different campaigns and goals in one company. As Kristina Halvorson points out
in her book <u>Content Strategy for the Web</u>, the first thing that should be
assessed is what constitutes success? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Depending on the company’s
goals, it can mean anything for generating sales, driving advocacy or improving
lifetime value of existing customers. Once the general goal of the project or
strategy is established we can get down to more specific figures. But even with
the more specific numbers it’s hard to clearly measure what constitutes
success. Benchmarking against previous campaigns run by the company is a good
start; also comparing against what your competitors and the industry leaders
are doing can help you estimate how successful you really are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Conversion is of course the
ultimate way to measure success but that can mean so many different things.
Conversion of what? To start with, measure at least the ultimate goals set for
the campaign or strategy. These can anything from making sales, getting people
to sign up for a website / fan page or their lifetime value. When taken to the
next step, publishers should measure how often newly acquired customers return
to the site and how effective the company is in retaining them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Measuring success is tricky
and blindly staring at different KPIs isn’t going to make much difference if
you don’t know what a chance something means. When in doubt whether you should
spend time analyzing a certain KPI, try asking yourself “SO WHAT?” three times.
If you can answer 3 times and see a benefit, you have something worth looking
into in more detail. You can use this “analysis” to determine whether a KPI is
actually worth measuring or if the change in a KPI is worth thinking about.
Trust me, it works!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-4767502959999453762011-06-10T18:03:00.001+03:002011-06-10T20:38:44.967+03:00Cohesive content strategy<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Digital
agencies have long had content strategists on staff, but a variety of
organizations are seeing the need to add someone to their team to be in charge
of “the practice of planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of
useful, usable content,” as Kristina Halvorson defines the job in <a href="http://www.contentstrategy.com/"><b><span style="color: windowtext;">Content
Strategy for the Web</span></b></a>,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">In her book, Halvorson identifies multiple steps in the
content strategy process; first audit the existing content, then analyze,
strategize, categorize, structure, create, revise, approve, tag, format,
publish, update, and archive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Key concepts</span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Audit</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
A review of existing content, how much there is, how well it’s organized, and
how accurate and how well it is produced?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Content</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
Content is much more than text. Multimedia elements such as pictures, graphic
elements, video and audio can help tell the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Content lifecycle</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
Content needs to be regularly evaluated. What needs to be refreshed, updated and
taken out? A website is in a constant beta stage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Message architecture</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
A hierarchy of the core messages that define an organization or brand, which
helps content strategists figure out the story they are trying to tell and what
content is not related to the brand and is unnecessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">“Don’t outsource your voice?”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Halvorson has a love hate
relationship with content strategies and explains that the decision whether to
outsource it or not isn’t that simple. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 35.45pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">“On the one hand,
that’s a really great quotable line. On the other hand, refusing on principle
to outsource content is just impossible for most organizations. If you can’t
hire anyone internally to do the editorial stuff, you’re going to have to
outsource because you can’t just publish Web content and leave it there. You
have to take care of it over time”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-27617192638308157962011-06-10T12:00:00.000+03:002011-06-10T20:30:08.683+03:00Social Commerce<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Social commerce is
definitely one of the buzzwords of 2011. </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Several
fully functioning Facebook Stores and storefronts that link to an external site
have been founded this year, and even predictions of Facebook surpassing Google
in terms of advertising revenue have </span><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/05/facebook-will-surpass-google/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">surfaced</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">. With all this hype and new
terms like f-commerce, m-commerce and the good old e-commerce popping up, one
might think that social commerce is something completely new and
revolutionizing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The fact is however, that even though the
technology and software are new, the social aspect of shopping isn’t. What is
emerging as the new trend in online retailing has already been done for over 50
years. Only the medium of the social aspect is changing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Facebook and social commerce<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">As an example where this is most evident, lets
examine Facebook. Using it as medium for engaging, creating relationships with
customers and building a better brand image, has become self-evident for most companies.
So it makes only sense that the gradual adaptation of shopping online should be
taken to the next level, by adding the social aspect. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">In his article about the viability of Facebook as a
commerce channel, </span><a href="http://www.internetretailing.net/2011/05/guest-comment-facebook-%E2%80%93-access-to-millions-but-is-it-a-viable-commerce-channel/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Stefan Schmidt</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> raises some valid points about
the payment system, limitations in having a separated silo platform and moral
questions about accessing consumer’s information. While I agree that these
issues need to be addressed, I still see them as only temporary hiccups that
are overcome by a growing consumer demand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Social shopping<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The reason why I believe this is because it simply
makes commercial sense for a retailer to sell, where customers spend their
time. Despite requiring time, effort and money to function properly, social
media platforms offer a cost-effective way for any B2C retailer to reach a
large audience. The added benefit to this is that it enables something called “</span><a href="http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-thin-slicing.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial;">thin-slicing</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">” (</span><a href="http://www.socialcommercetoday.com/downloads/CialdiniHBR.pdf"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Source 1</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">). This concept from social
psychology argues that people tend to ignore most “traditional ”information
available when making a purchase decision and instead base their decision on
“salient information cues” (</span><a href="http://www.socialcommercetoday.com/downloads/CialdiniSciAmerican.pdf"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Source 2</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">). In layman’s terms this
translates into behavior based on person’s social peers, which has been used in
marketing for decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Just one example of this is the concept of
“liking”. People tend to follow people they like and when applied commercially,
it means that people are more likely to buy something if an influential person
endorses it. Yesterday’s Tupperware parties are today’s “Like-button”. Even though this is already done outside of
Facebook, it can be taken further and have a greater impact if the purchase is
made possible within Facebook. Allowing influential and liked people to
influence purchase decisions can take different forms in social networks. News
feeds of your friends’ latest purchases and group purchases are just some
applications of how this could be done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">What are the company’s goals?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Different ways companies can approach Facebook will
depend on their goals. The store can only consist of a </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/JeffDunham?sk=app_262619313144"><span style="font-family: Arial;">fan store</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> that is meant to drive advocacy
instead of actually making commercially vital sales. Another way to go, is to
set up a full equivalent of the company’s website to drive sales, much like </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/ASOS?sk=app_11007063052"><span style="font-family: Arial;">ASOS</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> and </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/frenchconnection?sk=info"><span style="font-family: Arial;">French Connection</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> did earlier this year. The third
way to approach the Facebook store is to set up a similar site like </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/Starbucks?sk=app_338375791266"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Starbucks</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> and </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/o2uk?sk=app_186853441336889"><span style="font-family: Arial;">O2</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> have done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">These Facebook stores allow customers to top-up on
the Facebook page and even though they generate sales for the companies, their
main purpose is to improve customer service by providing a loyalty platform. This
kind of approach might prove most successful for companies, especially if they
decide to gradually rollout more features and items over time. It allows the
customers to get used to the idea of shopping in Facebook while increasing
their lifetime value.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Fear not the change<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Even though entering the social commerce era will
present new challenges for retailers, the same time-tested concepts from past
decades still apply. Separating commercial activities into different trendy
silos will not be commercially viable for long. A more unified commercial
approach will be the way to go, whatever tools and channels retailers decide to
use. And like it or not, as a social media platform, Facebook is the trendsetter
for practicing social commerce. As another generation of digital natives
graduates this summer and moves out to the real world, this trend is only going
to get stronger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-88394029831335820302011-06-04T22:24:00.001+03:002011-06-10T20:30:34.358+03:00Voice of the customer (my ecommerce analysis continues)<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">Continuing on my analysis a few weeks ago where I analysed the multichannel experience with Argos, I've now set my sights on M&S's customer service. This time I examined the ease and effectiveness of their review mechanism and the customer service via different channels. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">M&S lets their
customers’ voices be heard by making the writing of reviews for products easy and
by filtering out offensive and discriminative reviews. By doing so, M&S is
able to maintain a high level of quality within their reviews, provide actually
useful reviews for customers in order to maximize sales and finally improve
their SEO with extended product description pages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">M&S’s customer service
is a mixed bag of traditional, mediocre customer service, and ninja-level
interaction through social media. The overall quality of service is up to a
level, which will increase M&S’s brand image, increase the lifetime value
of their customers and improve their long-term profitability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p><b>Review mechanism</b></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The ease of using the
M&S review function is made slightly inconvenient with a compulsory
registration to the site. However, the process is compensated with cookie
tracking, which takes the customer automatically back to the product page after
the registration is complete.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Leaving reviews on the
M&S site is made relatively simple with their 5-star overall rating and
with four, more detailed, 5-dash ratings. The more detailed ratings change
according to the type of product being reviewed, providing relevant review
criteria. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The level of liquidity in
the M&S review system is high. Most of the products have been reviewed,
some over 20 times. There also doesn’t seem to be many products with only very
old reviews, but all have recent reviews as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Quick calculation shows that
the 1/9/90-rule applies to M&S reviews and this has not gone unnoticed by
the company The most active contributors get a “</span><a href="http://ugc.marksandspencer.com/profiles/1199-en_gb/db04f271e864092fa11cc189757f7f59/profile.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Top 25 Contributor</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">” statement under their username, which is a way of rewarding the contributors
and at the same time giving others something to strive for. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Getting a review on to the
site can take up to 48 hours, while it is being checked by M&S, but as far
as can be told, they are not censoring out bad reviews. Maintaining a certain
level of quality and keeping spamming away from the reviews increases their
reliability, which means better customer satisfaction. Also, the high number of
reviews improves their SEO, as users provide more keywords with their reviews
and make the product pages’ details sections longer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p><b>Customer service </b></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The M&S main website is
missing a “contact us” section, which makes sending them an email or filling
out a contact form difficult. Reason for this could be because<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>M&S is well prepared for customer
questions with their extensive </span><a href="http://help.marksandspencer.com/faqs/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Help</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> section and virtual assistant </span><a href="http://money.creativevirtual.com/msmoney/bot.htm?isJSEnabled=1&uid=1307043063462&entry=s%3Cbf&startcontext=FAQs"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Hannah</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">,
and try to drive traffic towards these services, instead of burdening call
centers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The </span><a href="http://money.marksandspencer.com/contact-us/overview/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Contact Us</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">
page on the </span><a href="http://money.marksandspencer.com/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">M&S Money-page</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> is well divided between different topics. This lowers the length of call
times and the number of personnel required to re-direct calls, resulting into
greater customer satisfaction and lowered costs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Customer service to my
question was a mixed result of good and bad. Calling the call center took less
than 5 minutes thanks to a direct phone number provided in an email, which was
sent to me immediately after sending the question via contact form. The
customer service representative was able to provide me with a very detailed
answer. It took M&S 4 days to finally answer my question via email but on
day 2 they did sent an email, notifying me of a delay in response time. The
final response was adequate but lacked in personal touch and detail. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Using Facebook and Twitter to
contact M&S proved to be the best way to get their attention and a
response. Within 12-hours after posting the question to the M&S Facebook
page’s </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=67341283611&topic=16857"><span style="font-family: Arial;">discussion forum,</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> I had a complete answer and a phone number for more information.
M&S also replied to my </span><a href="http://twitter.com/#!/marksandspencer/status/76210020001398784"><span style="font-family: Arial;">tweet</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">,
referring me to their answer on Facebook. This level of service was
exceptionally good and seems to be the standard that M&S wants to maintain.
Good service via email or on the phone should not be forgotten, but questions
asked in “public” spaces like Facebook and Twitter will leave behind a digital footprint
for everyone to see. The benefit of answering a single person in Facebook or
Twitter isn’t limited down to just that one person, but it can spread beyond them
and benefit the company much more. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Summa summarum</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">M&S review mechanism is
well executed and this shows on their website. The number of reviewed products,
the number of reviews per product and the activity of customers, are a
testament to a mechanism, which really helps customers and is bound increase
sales. The positive ripple effect created by the excellent service in Twitter
and Facebook is and will be a competitive advantage for M&S. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-68210530289592043772011-05-30T15:58:00.001+03:002011-06-10T20:31:27.021+03:00How news and information are accessed through digital channels?<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Being able to be connected
to everything you’re interested in, anytime you want has definitely changed the
way we consume media and information. Because we’re not bound to wait for the
morning paper or the hourly news update from TV, but have the option to access
information anytime that suits us, has resulted in new ways of accessing
information. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Apps, Search, RSS readers,
social media, news aggregator sites and of course traditional news sites, all
provide us with different ways to access and consume information. Let’s go over
the four main ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">1. Going
directly to the news site of my choice</span></b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">This is the
classical model of consuming news and the philosophy behind any newspaper. I
choose the media site I trust, click my way to the front page and study the
content the editors have chosen for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">This model depends on my trust in the brand and old media
habits. But it also limits how many sources I can follow. In the past you had
no choice. You subscribed to one or two newspapers and watched a couple of
television channels. Editors may be dreaming that I am happy only with their
site for all my needs, but it just isn’t so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">2.
Aggregation of news from many sources</span></b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">The web has
given us practically unlimited number of choices. But there is no way I can
visit every site I might be interested in every day. So I use aggregation
sites, which automatically pick up news from numerous different sources, either
selected by me or by the aggregator.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">Aggregation offers users the choice to follow many more news
sources than before, scanning through their headlines and quickly deciding
whether they want to go to the actual source</span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">. </span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">This is a major benefit if you are following
news from a particular niche. Yet the amount of stories quickly becomes too
much. The biggest challenge is what to do with the stories you did not have the
time to scan through.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">3. Search</span></b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">Search has
become so convenient and normal these days that we don’t even think about it as
“search”. </span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">Search is very good when you look for specific information – but
does not work as well when you just want to follow the latest news.</span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">There are some great
opportunities with tailored search alerts, for instance if you are following
the news about one particular company.</span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">4.
Peer-edited news stream</span></b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">Social
communities like Twitter and Facebook as well as bookmark sites like Digg,
Reddit and Delicious let users recommend news content to their peers.
Instead of depending on the sources of the news, the users leave their trust
with who is recommending the content. Basically this means that your peers take
the role as editors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">Personally I
have found myself increasingly depended on the people I follow on Twitter and
Facebook. I have chosen these people either because I know them or because they
have a professional position, which is interesting to me. These people provide
an increasing number of the news stories I have the time to consume during the
day, especially in the niche areas of my interest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">And guess
what? They are so much quicker than the professional journalists! Breaking
stories happens so much faster in Facebook and Twitter because the distribution
is crowdsourced to the users and because people spend most of their time using
them anyway. It only makes sense that they should be the main medium of
accessing and consuming information in the upcoming years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-86411967068047903442011-05-30T14:17:00.001+03:002011-05-30T14:17:13.903+03:00Media consumption diet<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">My media consumption diet </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18pt;">Posting this just to make a little </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">reference</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18pt;"> for future, to see how my media consumption will change.</span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Media that I Buy</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ul type="square">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Music via iTunes downloads <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Random magazines for airline
travel (Men’s Health, National Geographic, The Economist)</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Media that I Consume</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Radio/Music- YouTube<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Newspapers (Helsingin Sanomat,
Huffington Post, Google News, Google Reader <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Television shows<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Facebook <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Twitter <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Blogs <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">RSS feeds (Indianapolis Colts,
Carolina Panthers, DePauw University News, BusinessWeek)</span></li>
</ul>
<ul type="square">
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Media Consumption Categorization:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial;">B2C: Specialist and Generalist</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ul type="square">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo4; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Facebook<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo4; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Twitter<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo4; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Magazines<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo4; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Movies<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo4; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Music<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial;">B2B</span></i></b></div>
<ul type="square">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">RSS<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Mashable<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">TechCrunch<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Engadget<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Digital Buzz blog<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Social Media Today<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial;">C2C</span></i></b></div>
<ul type="square">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo6; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Facebook<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo6; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Twitter<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo6; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Blogs<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-39620317354477320052011-05-28T16:14:00.000+03:002013-04-04T10:22:54.042+03:00Even "boring" companies can do great things with social media!<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">When you hear the words social media, what companies come to mind? Coca cola? Skittles? Ben & Jerry's? If so, it's not a surprise. These companies have been well publicized for their use of Facebook and Twitter to create innovative campaigns. But other companies are using social medias too. Even "boring" companies! </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The following best practice analysis is of Intuit inc. (an American software
company) that develops financial and tax preparation software and related
services for small businesses, accountants and individuals. The company is a
great example of how any company (not just the obvious, fun ones, like <a href="http://www.facebook.com/skittles">Skittles</a> or <a href="http://www.facebook.com/benjerryuk">Ben & Jerry’s</a>) can utilize social medias and communities in their
business models. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The online presence of the company is
quite impressive, especially considering the field of work Intuit’s in. Their
online activities cover everything form blogging, crowdsourcing, YouTube
channels, social networks to aTaxAlmanac, which is a free tax research resource
modeled after Wikipedia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Intuit’s online presence covers the following: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Blogging<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- <a href="http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/">TurboTax team blog</a> (General topics about
to taxation and accounting)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-meighan">Bob Meighan’s blog</a> (Vice President of
Intuit, company and industry topics)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Crowdsourcing<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="https://intuitlabs.com/">Intuit
Labs</a> (Site for product testing and customer
feedback)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Twitter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/IntuitInc">@Intuitinc</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/intuitcommunity">@intuitcommunity</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/IntuitUK">@IntuitUK</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/IntuitPayroll">@IntuitPayroll</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/turbotax">@turbotax</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/IntuitHealth">@IntuitHealth</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/TeamTurboTax">@TeamTurboTax</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/IntuitCareers">@IntuitCareers</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/IntuitAR">@IntuitAR</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/Intuit">@Intuit</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/intuitlabs">@Intuitlabs</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/QuickBooks">@Quickbooks</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/IntuitDeals">@IntuitDeals</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/IntuitTownHall">@IntuitTownHall</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
Numerous employee accounts to answer product questions<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">YouTube<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/IntuitQuickBooks">Intuit QuickBooks</a> – channel (Guides
about the product)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/turbotax">TurboTax</a> – channel (General news and help for individuals)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Ratings and Reviews <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://reviews.turbotax.intuit.com/7788/allreviews.htm">TurboTax reviews</a> (reviews of their
personal and business software’s)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Social Networks <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/intuit?sk=wall">Facebook</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1479087&trk=anet_ug_hm&goback=.gdr_1235072554676_1">LinkedIn</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="https://ttlc.intuit.com/app/full_page">TurboTax
Support Community</a> (targeted for
individuals)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://community.intuit.com/quickbooks">QuickBooks
Community</a> (targeted for
businesses)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://community.intuit.com/start_and_grow">JumpUp Community</a> (targeted for small
businesses and start-ups)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Wiki <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> -
<a href="http://www.taxalmanac.org/index.php/Main_Page">TaxAlmanac</a> (“Wikipedia” of
taxation and accounting)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">SWOT analysis of Intuit’s use of social medias<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Strengths<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Intuit’s greatest strength is in its
massive number of communities. Just one of their communities has more to offer
than many other companies’ entire online presence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Besides the official company blog (<a href="http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/">TurboTax
team blog</a>), which covers topics
from industry specific topics to topics relevant to individuals, and the blog
written by the Vice President <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-meighan">Bob
Meighan’s blog</a>, each community has a
blog of their own. Each community also has an expert locator map, calendar of
upcoming Intuit and other relevant events, forums, podcasts, videocasts,
webinars, whitepapers and user generated content. The communities are built
around the different Intuit products, which have their own specific user
segments. Having all this information and content made available for each
product makes sense, since there is little risk of cannibalizing their own
communities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Example of just one of Intuit’s
communities is <a href="http://community.intuit.com/start_and_grow">JumpUp</a>, which is a free
social networking and resource site for small businesses and start-ups. The
site offers numerous free tools and services, like an interactive business
planner, different cost and profit calculators, free templates and sample
business plans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Intuit is also
involving their customers into the development of new software and
applications. On <a href="https://intuitlabs.com/">Intuit Labs.com</a> Intuit’s development
teams share their ideas and products with users to have them tested and to get
feedback from them. All this is freely available for customers and the featured
applications cover everything from small businesses apps, to apps related to
personal finance and various mobile devices. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Finally, as a
testament to their commitment to providing people with all the possible
information they might need related to finance and taxation, in 2005 intuit
launched the <a href="http://www.taxalmanac.org/index.php/Main_Page">TaxAlmanac</a>. The site is modeled
after Wikipedia and is written by US tax professionals and combines legislative
information with practical examples and case studies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Weaknesses
and threats <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Intuit’s massive online presence can also be
seen as a weakness. The massive amount of personnel and operating costs
required to maintain this kind of system can easily cripple a company if
circumstances were to change. Because Intuit has established itself as the
number one software company for personal finance, accounting and tax return
software in the US and has created these huge communities around each of its
products, consumers will expect the same for every new product they will
launch. Every product will have to have its own site, with its own designated
experts and content, which means ever-higher operating expenses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Even if Intuit eventually does discontinue old
products, people will still be using them and will not take it lightly if
Intuit will also close the communities of these products. So the choice is
between saving operating costs or pissing of and possibly alienating their
customers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Intuit’s inability to expand to other
geographical markets is also a weakness. In most of Europe and around the
world, taxation is far more simple and automated than in the US. Average
citizens in these countries don’t need the type of software Intuit offers and
that means that the market the company is competing in is limited mostly to the
US. Spending in online marketing is the highest in the US market and if Intuit
wishes to stay as the market leader in their field, they need to invest
significantly time, resources and money to marketing and research. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Opportunities<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Even though the company is somewhat limited to
the US market for now, they could still expand to other geographical markets
with their small business and start-up software’s. Providing European markets
for example with information on the international legislation related to
finance and taxation, with software optimized for the European and UK
accounting standards could be a way to enter the market. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Intuit’s online presence is
a combination of high-level professionalism, mixed with a dash of fun and
lightheartedness, which can be seen on their <a href="http://www.facebook.com/intuit?sk=wall">Facebook
page</a> and on their <a href="http://www.youtube.com/turbotax">TurboTax</a>
– channel. Intuit has invested heavily on building communities around each of
their products. Each of these niche communities has a very active level of
engagement by the company’s specialists and the users. The company has
understood that just by providing people and companies with software to help
with their taxation and accounting problems isn’t enough, the support by Intuit
has to be top quality and can’t be limited to just product support but has to
encompass the entire process of accounting and taxation. By making all this
information and content free, re-enforces the company’s image as a reliable
source of information, and the customer engagement through the several
communities, social networks and crowdsourcing guarantees high-level </span>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-8986268421276459442011-05-23T11:36:00.001+03:002011-06-10T20:32:19.783+03:00A bloggers guide to digital publishing pricing models<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are almost as many variations of the different pricing
models as there are companies on the web. Everyone is trying to figure out
what’s the best model out there in order to maximize either conversion, traffic
or whatever they’re trying to do. In my previous post “To charge or not to
charge, that is the question” I explained my take on pricing of online content and
what I see as almost a paradigm shift in how consumer will consume information
and entertainment. Since we haven’t yet entered through the golden gates to
Shangri La, where content is freely available to everyone, I will now cover
different pricing models suited for modern publishers and content producers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To begin with what I won’t be covering here is the infamous
pay wall model. My personal view is that, even though it might work for highly
specialized publishers with their own niche audiences, it won’t work for 99% of
the companies out there. Not at least as a single source of revenue. If the pay
wall payment can be bundled together with for example my cell phone and cable
bill or if I have the option to specifically choose what I want to pay for,
then there is a change it could work. What the Finnish newspaper Helsingin
Sanomat does very well is that they’ve enabled the customers to choose exactly
what they want to pay for. In addition to receiving the traditional paper
newspaper, customers can choose to add the iPad and mobile versions of the
magazine to the order. They can also choose on which days they wish to receive
all this. So for instance for a busy future business man like me, the iPad and
mobile versions of the magazine might be enough from Monday to Thursday but I
could still have the paper magazine on Friday, Saturday and Sunday when I have
time to read. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During a time when publishers are becoming service providers
and service providers are more and more becoming publishers, the
differentiation into black and white is difficult and so is finding the best
possible pricing model. Different ways publishers can approach this problem is
by experimenting. If revenue from advertising isn’t enough, they shouldn’t
isolate themselves from the web behind a pay wall, but they should develop new
sources of revenue. Adding different services that meet the needs of different
niche markets into an existing business model is one way to go. Examples of
this can be found from the Daily Mirror’s MirrorFootball.co.uk, which provides
highly detailed information about football in the UK and around the world. The
page takes the sport’s section on the Daily Mirror site further by offering
users more content and a change to bet on games. Until the industry standards
and clearer game rules are established, the best bet for successful pricing
should be a mix of little bit of everything. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-11572793701125758582011-05-22T20:34:00.001+03:002011-06-10T20:33:03.958+03:00To charge or not to charge, that is the question.<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okey, so we’ve all seen the struggle the newspaper industry
has been facing over the last decade and a half, which is how to make money in
the digital world. Compared to traditional paper magazines, the pricing of
digital content isn’t as clear cut as deducting the cost of printing added with
the salaries of the journalists and operating cost of the magazine, divided
over the number of magazines sold. Of course even the old model isn’t as simple
as this, but the different components affecting the price you pay at the
newsstand for your morning paper are more evident and more easily discoverable.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When it comes to digital content the old approach doesn’t
really make much sense in a modern world. There’s not much incentive for me to
pay for news on one site if I can get the exact same news for free on another
site. Faced with this problem the publishing industry decided to go with either
of two different ways, free access to content supported with advertising revenue
or pay walls around the content. Arguments for and against both business models
have their supporters and so far no clear victor has risen. Where pay walls
might make sense for some publishers, for example highly specialized financial
magazines, they don’t make much sense as a standalone payment option for
general newspapers. It’s not that I can’t spare the few pounds a week it would
cost to get access to the news behind a pay wall, but it’s more on the lines
being fallaciously wrong. At this day and age, at the time of free information,
it’s just simply put wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m not saying that publishers shouldn’t get paid and be
able to make profit, but the way they do it should be revised. Holding on the
old believes of what and how people should be charged for content has changed.
In an interview by ORGZine, author <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI">Neil Gaiman</a> talks about the beneficial
effects he discovered piratism of his books had on their sales. Initially
irritated with the unlawful publishing of his books for free online, he later
discovered that it actually worked for him, especially in markets where he was
still unknown. Sales of his books took of after they were illegally translated
and distributed online. This discovery encouraged him to offer his latest book,
a book that was still selling well, free for one month on his web page. After
the experiment ended they discovered a 300% increase in sales of his books in
total. It was then that he realized that he wasn’t loosing money because of
piracy, but that people were actually sharing the books amongst their friends
who were then buying his other books and recommending them to their friends.
When asking audiences of how they discovered their favorite author, a rough 90%
of them said by lending a book from their friend. In his opinion he isn’t
loosing sales, he is advertising. He’s reaching more people and raising
awareness. “Nobody who would’ve bought your book is not buying it because they
can find it for free. “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So here is one example where embracing the freely
distributed content model works. Will it work for you or a large publisher like
the New York Times, that I don’t know. Nobody knows. There is no one clear
solution out there. What might work for one company could be out of the
question for another. The problems that the newspaper and music industry are
facing now, might be a problem that the movie industry will be facing soon. Of
course piracy is already an issue for them but the direction things are headed
towards might force them to search for new ways of making money. The same way
as the newspaper industry is seen as going either really cheap or really
expensive, might be happening in the movie industry by the end of the decade.
Just like the news industry and journalism aren’t going anywhere, neither is
the desire for entertainment. Only the medium of distributing and pricing it
is. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-17707523089332191782011-05-21T17:37:00.000+03:002011-06-10T20:33:36.569+03:00Innovation in the digital age<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So, how important is innovation these days to a company anyway? Can you survive just by actively copying what competitors are doing successfully or should you try to "strike gold" on your own?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Well, innovation used to achieve market dominance is
as important as it has ever been. The problems with innovative products and
software are that they’re not available to people in a way that sells. Mp3 players existed before iPods but it was Apple
that made the product user-friendly with the product itself and with the
iTunes store. Same thing happened with touch-screens, which weren’t so successful
until Apple’s launch of the iPhone. To come up with a “kick-ass” technology or
software isn’t enough (Friendster <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;">à</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"> Facebook), the finished
product has to be presented and made available in a way that is easy and
desirable to the consumers. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Companies are changing their approach to innovation
by involving the consumers and experts outside the company more and more in the
process. They need to understand what the real needs and changes in the market
are going to be, in order to respond to these needs. When Apple was faced with
thousands of jailbroken iPhones they opened up their system by releasing the
Apple software development kit (SDK) This has allowed thousands of professionals
programmers and amateurs to come up with their own apps in order to </span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">strike it rich with this modern day gold rush. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Innovative
new ways to develop products and start up businesses have become possible with
the use of crowdsourcing and crowd funding. Already back in the early 90s Linus
Torvalds, (one of the main developers of Linux OS) utilized the help of
hundreds software developers and programmers to come up with the first open
source operating system in the world. Crowd funding, even though still at a
quite moderate level, has enabled small companies to develop their products and
bands to fund their operations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;">Advertising
online has been made more efficient and targeted with the help of different
tracking programs utilizing cookies and more sophisticated tracking methods
like the one offered by </span><a href="http://www.cognitivematch.com/">Cognitive
Match</a><span style="color: black;">. Another innovation in online marketing is product placement in videos,
which has been in development for several years without much success. Now </span><a href="http://www.impossible-software.de/en/home/start/">Impossible Software</a><span style="color: black;">
has come up with software that allows inserting still images or videos into
videos (</span><a href="http://tcrn.ch/fwVNbL">http://tcrn.ch/fwVNbL</a><span style="color: black;">).
The idea isn’t new but the level of technology has taken a huge leap forwards
and the final product looks like a seamless entity. Combining product placement
with video advertising, and finally with the tracking data of the individual
user to allow personalized advertising, won’t revolutionize the digital marketing
industry but could be a big thing soon. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-55245340419465037792011-05-21T17:27:00.001+03:002011-06-10T20:33:51.491+03:00Customer Service support in the year 2011<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">Customer service taking place in the magical world of the Internet takes many forms and shapes. Anything from FAQs, discussion forums, live chats with the company representatives and utilising social medias like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are being used in different ways. Best-practise guides and blogs more professional than this one all emphasise the importance of customer engagement and listening what they have to say.This all sounds nice but how is it done in practice? How have some the best in the industry manage to sort this out? In this first posting on customer service I examine how Marks and Spencers is doing it on their Facebook page and what the whole "My Starbucks Idea" website is all about. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">M&S Facebook page:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">Facebook Wall postings should be abut two-way
communication and not just posting sales offers by the company. At M&S the staff is
answering people’s questions about different M&S services and product
availability as well as their features. They’re also providing tips related to
different occasions like St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Pancake day,
which are naturally more or less related to M&S products but still useful
tips. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The newsletter provides a condensed, one page
view of the latest offers, new products and tips / offers related to special
occasions (Pancake day).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The M&S Discussion board has a very active
presence by the M&S social media staff that are actively participating in the discussions and offering advice to consumers, who have had problems with
deliveries and with different M&S products. The staff comes across in a
very neutral way. They’re not advocating for M&S but have almost a role of
a mediator between consumers and M&S. In one discussion they even advised a
person to look for a dinner set from their competitors as M&S had
discontinued the sales of the product.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">They’re also continuing to convey this idea of
“helping out people” with their Prostate Cancer Awareness
Month boxers, that were designed by famous designers to increase awareness of
the issue with proceeds going towards cancer research. It provides consumers
with useful information, opportunity to help out and increase the positive brand
image of M&S. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">My Starbucks Idea: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">This site takes the customer discussion about Starbucks away from Starbuck's homepage and Facebook page, and gives fans of Starbucks a platform meant specifically to gather all their ideas and suggestions. It's the ultimate step in gathering feedback by a company and can by no means succeed without a large and active fan base. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The site gives consumers the opportunity to submit their
own ideas about Starbucks products and ways they could improve their service.
Customers have the opportunity to share their idea with other users, have them vote
on the ideas and finally see the ideas in action once Starbucks has implemented
them. The site has become a total customer feedback driver for the company with
active users posting new ideas and discussing the company on the site,
providing Starbucks with invaluable feedback. The site has also a leaderboard
scoring users based on the number of ideas, comments and votes submitted. This
is to further incentivize the users to actively comment and participate on the
site. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Starbucks has managed to create a “small”
online community dedicated to improve pretty much everything Starbucks does.
They're utilizing the active follower group they have without giving them
anything more than credit for the ideas they come up with. Despite only getting
a “virtual handshake” for their ideas the site has a very active community with
new ideas being submitted round the clock. The latest ideas are displayed on
the front page with some of the ideas actually implemented just below them. The
site is a great example of utilizing consumer power and willingness to
participate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">My Starbucks Idea takes eCRM to the next step of engagement and
activity. The site isn’t trying to seem like a compromise between products and
ways people can use them (like M&S Facebook page), but its just a site
purely for improving Starbucks. The site is simple and provides an easy
medium for people to engage with the company. Even though this might be hard to replicate by other companies, it still shows something to strive for. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-64424896151987197472011-05-21T16:56:00.000+03:002011-06-10T20:34:09.538+03:00Would you like fries with that?<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In conjunction with my previous post on promoting trust <a href="http://www.blogger.com/(http://ollilainto.blogspot.com/2011/05/promoting-trust-online.html)">(http://ollilainto.blogspot.com/2011/05/promoting-trust-online.html)</a>, I've taken the analysis a bit further and dwelled into how the previous companies I've analysed, manage in cross-selling. I've also added a few new examples of what I see as good and bad examples. Cross-selling items and services is vital for many companies in order to maximize sales and since the customer is already planning on buying something from you, why not offer them highly relevant and "necessary" items / services to bundle together with the original purchase. Let's see some recent examples of the do's and dont's of cross-selling.
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Good:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In-application cross-selling is a great way for companies to
get people to buy add-ons to their games and software that can be even used on
several apps. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It also makes it easy for to the companies to promote their
other games and software. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Zynga</b>
is an example of company that not only uses in-app promotions but also allows
users to get exclusive in-game items for cross-app use in games like Farmville,
Cityville and Mafia Wars. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.75pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.75pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Godzilab's </b>"StarDunk" is a free game but users can
get in-app upgrades and game items if they download other Godzilab apps. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.75pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.75pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Tapulous’</b> TapTap Revenge series has just adopted the freemium
model and the in-app promotions offer additional song packs and the company’s
other games.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.75pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.75pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is good about these examples is that the prices of the cross-sold
items are close to the initial purchase price and they are highly related to
the user (Appendix 1). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.75pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.75pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">RyanAir </b>has
pretty much perfected their website’s purchase funnel with cross-selling items
and services. After choosing the your flight dates you get to the passenger
details page (Appendix 2) which offers a myriad of additional things the passenger
can purchase. Passengers have to pay extra for pretty much everything that is
normally included in the price of a ticket by other airlines. These include
priority boarding, travel insurance, SMS confirmation, RyanAir approved cabin
bag, special equipment, special assistance and method of payment. After booking
the flight, the customer is bombarded with hotel and car rental options. These
advertisements are specific to the location and date you’re flying so they’re
highly relevant. The pricing of the different items and services is also quite
low so the hurdle to add them to your purchase isn’t too high. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Bad:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">H&M’s </b>new
website received a lot of criticism after its launch last September and for
good reason. What is even more appalling is the cross-selling used by the
company. I browsed the website for a while, going through only men’s clothes. I
browsed through all the men’s categories and paid special attention to Jackets
& Blazers. After choosing a blazer for purchase and proceeding to checkout
the site offers me women’s tops and a dress! This is just ridiculously poor.
The site even says “Something for you!” but there’s nothing in my browsing
history to indicate any interest in women’s clothes (honestly). I guess it’s
good that the items offered are significantly cheaper than what I was planning
to purchase but they could not be less relevant and interesting to me. And I
sure am not going to risk buying stuff like this to my girlfriend. It’s clear
there’s not much optimization and tracking going on on the H&M website.
What they should cross-sell to me? Nice shoes, pants, shirts or ties for men
(Appendix 3).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the Ugly:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Expedia.co.uk</b> is
trying to take advantage of cross-selling in their trip booking funnel by
offering people the opportunity to purchase a travel insurance with their
holiday. The relevancy is there and the price isn’t too bad either. The
execution however is horrible. The whole site too “busy” and displays too much
information whatever the customer is doing. With the travel insurance example
they just make the purchasing of it look difficult unpleasant. What they should
do is first of all redesign the whole site but if that’s not possible, then at
least they should take out most of the information related to the travel
insurance part. I would approach it like it was the thing I was actually
selling. They should have few key bullet points visible and if customers decide
to purchase the insurance, then they would receive all this information in the
form of a popup window or something like this.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-76455686308429867042011-05-21T16:47:00.000+03:002011-06-10T20:34:38.419+03:00Promoting trust online<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">This week I'm looking into how different companies are promoting trust on their websites in order to assure potential customers to spend their hard-earned money online. This analysis compares 3 different companies to give you an idea of what to do, and what not to do. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The Good<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Bridge55 (</span><a href="http://www.bridge55.com/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">http://www.bridge55.com/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">This menswear site gives instant perception of
credibility with “real world aspects” and tremendous ease of use. The site
demonstrates its expertise with the company blog covering various topics
related to the site, clothing and dressing up in general. Trustworthiness is
build through pictures of the people who blog and are responsible for the site.
On the bottom the shopper can see easily all the accepted methods of payment.
Even though shoppers can’t “Like” or tweet about specific items, they can join
the Bridge55 Facebook site and follow them on Twitter. The site also let’s you
see the items you’ve previously viewed adding to the “tailored user
experience”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The ease of use is done through clear product
categories separated to clothes by categories in one bar and clothes by brands
in another one. The site has a professional feel and looks, and it’s not over
selling items to shoppers. On the other hand it’s not utilizing cross-selling,
which could be implemented on the site in a tasteful way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The Bad<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">H&M</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"> (</span><a href="http://shop.hm.com/gb/start"><span style="font-family: Arial;">http://shop.hm.com/gb/start</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The launch of the new H&M website last fall
has become a great example of what not do. The key issue to pleasant shopping
experience is clear navigation, which H&M doesn’t have. The categorization
of clothes is fairly adequately done but it has categories like “DIVIDED” in
the top horizontal bar and L.O.G.G in the vertical bar which don’t mean much to
a person who is not fairly knowledgeable of fashion or H&M. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">- The site doesn’t have breadcrumbs to help
users track theirs steps back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">- The site doesn’t have search to help people
to find exactly what they’re </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">looking for
quickly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">- Doesn’t scale to
appropriate screen size (fills roughly 1/4<sup>th</sup> of my 23inch widescreen
dispplay)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The site doesn’t offer any
means of sharing through social medias. “Likening” clothes or tweeting about
shoes would go a long way in making the shopping experience more sociable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">What is even more appalling
is the cross-selling used by the company. I browsed the website for a while,
going through only men’s clothes. I browsed through all the men’s categories
and paid special attention to Jackets & Blazers. After choosing a blazer
for purchase and proceeding to checkout the site offers me women’s tops and a
dress, with a slogan “Something for you!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Points for relatively clean
design, which might deceive people into believing the site is credible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">(</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">I could probably write a dissertation on the mistakes, problems and
issues I have with this site)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The Ugly<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Ryan Air</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"> (</span><a href="http://www.ryanair.com/en"><span style="font-family: Arial;">http://www.ryanair.com/en</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">When it comes to website
design, I think a 13 year old could do a better job in designing a website for
an airline. The sit looks messy, it’s confusing to navigate and the different
tabs don’t make sense or are overlapping each other. The initial credibility
feeling from this site is probably as low as it can get, and I think that’s all
a carefully planned strategy by RyanAir. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The colors, the layout and
the display ads all give an idea of a cheap website and I think all gives users’
subconscious a perception of “this airline has be the cheapest choice”. The
whole “Lidl” look of the site combined with cheap and anesthetic display ads is
meant to, in my opinion, to convince people of the cheapness of Ryan Air and
built credibility of that competitive advantage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">RyanAir has also pretty much
perfected their website’s purchase funnel with cross-selling items and
services. From the main page to having chosen your flight dates you get to the
passenger details page, which offers a myriad of additional things the
passenger, can purchase. Passengers have to pay extra for pretty much
everything that is normally included in the price of a ticket by other
airlines. The pricing of the different items and services is also quite low so
the hurdle to add them to your basket isn’t too high. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-47300574254568133292011-05-20T19:57:00.000+03:002011-06-10T20:34:57.868+03:00Analysis of Argos' multichannel purchase experience<b>Argos Website </b><br />
This analysis reflects my first-hand experience with Argos and how they've executed their multichannel experience. The products I chose to buy were two ink cartridges for my printer. Despite the clear layout and structure of the Argos website, I could not find suitable cartridges for my printer based on the available product descriptions. After searching for the printer I own, the site provided a cross-selling option with the suitable cartridges for the printer. These cartridges were the same ones I had previously browsed but the product description was still missing the model of my printer (Canon MP250). After a search in Google confirmed that the cartridges were suitable for my printer, I was able to proceed with the purchase. The product descriptions might be adequate for casual shoppers but could use some improvement still. Buying “blindly” over the web without physically seeing the product is of course always risky, but when purchasing for example furniture or something else that needs to suit the customer’s style and apartment, the Argos site could provide more product information and pictures from different angles. At the moment they loose by a mile when compared to competitors like Best Buy or Comet.<br />
<br />
The “Buy or Reserve” call-to-action button stands out against the white background and is logically placed in the left side of the page. Above this is a box that allows customers to check the availability of the product in their neighborhood with buttons enabling again reservations but also the home delivery option with an estimated delivery time. To me this seems quite clear-cut at this point, I have the option to have the cartridges delivered to me, and I can buy them and collect at the store. However, when I get to “My trolley” I discover that the online payment option is only for those who decide to have their purchases delivered. The ones choosing the store pick up option can only reserve the product online but actual payment has to be made at the store. Now, this isn’t a huge problem but it’s still misleading to me.<br />
<br />
The home delivery and store pick up options are clearly separated from each other with different call-to-action buttons but I still don’t see why I have to subject myself to unnecessary tasks when making a purchase. Paying at the store is few minutes of my life I could spend waiting for the green light at the crosswalk or for my BigMac, and if I’m already at the online store then it would make sense to get the money then and there. Forcing customers to come down to the store for their products is bound to lower the conversion rate, as people miss their collection period or get buyer’s remorse.<br />
<br />
The online reservation is made based on my postcode to the nearest Argos store. The reservation details required are limited to only an email address and a mobile phone number, which is optional. I can even choose to have only a plain text email sent to me instead of a fancier HTML one. After placing the reservation I immediately receive an email with my order details, reservation number and how long my reservation is valid, and finally detailed store information with opening hours and a map of the area around the store. At least the reservation is made simple, quick and the confirmation email provides me with all the information I would think to require in order make the pick up.<br />
<br />
<b>Store pick up </b><br />
When entering the store I see piles of the somewhat famous Argos catalogues that have every product the company is carrying at the moment listed in them. Quick research online (Yahoo! UK and various discussion forums) showed that people are still actually excitedly waiting for the release of every new catalogue, but as a medium for selling, it is inevitably going to die out. People holding on to the nostalgic paper catalogue will eventually switch to browsing products online and Argos will have to find a new way of differentiating their huge stock of products from competitors. One way of doing this is to take the catalogue and launch it in the similar layout for tablet computers. This would be more cost-effective for the company while providing people with a somewhat traditional layout of a catalogue with interactive and updatable components. <br />
<br />
The catalogues in the stores could be removed as well, at least the ones meant for in-store browsing and replaced with monitors that enable quicker browsing and that would enable users to limit the search options to the stock available in the store.<br />
<br />
The collection process makes me feel like I’m in some kind of a spy film. Typing of secret reservation numbers, collection of packages from shady looking teenagers and quickly existing the crowded store takes me about 15 minutes. Not exactly quick service, especially when there were only a handful of people in front of me waiting for the collection. I understand that Argos can save money with their unusual store layout solution, but it doesn’t really give me any benefit besides the slightly cheaper price. The service is as good as you would expect from a teenager working in this kind of a job, selling the kind of products Argos does. As consumers become more and more educated on how to browse the web for the cheapest offers, Argos will have to take a serious look at its business model. The only way the can survive with their current model of selling low quality products is if they sell them the cheapest. If they cant’ compete on price they need to change or they’re going to be run out of business sooner or later. At the moment they can get by because of the massive volumes of products they move but this won’t keep them in the clear forever. Specialization in terms of products, services offered with them or differentiation in terms of product delivery could be different ways to go about it.<br />
<br />
<b>Benefits to Argos </b><br />
Purchasing products online and having them collected from the store has clear advantages for Argos. It takes the efficiency and cost-saving aspect further than doing the whole process offline, which still enables Argos to save on costs that competitors have to bear. The showroom can have a very limited number of items on display and customers are pretty much left on their own to browse through the catalogues after which they can purchase the products they want and have them collected from the mysterious backroom. Cutting cost on the design and look of the store (and service) and putting emphasis on the stock room in terms of size and volume it holds makes sense to me. They make the customer do all the work (browsing for products, reserving them and paying with the ATM looking machine) and all Argos has to do, is have one teenager pick up the product and have another one hand it to me. Cost cutting can be seen at each step of the process and its very evident at the store. The design is just nice enough for average consumers but nothing to write home about.<br />
<br />
What I don’t get is why Argos won’t let me pay online before a pick up. I know the company did the purchase and collection thing offline before they enabled it online, but I can’t but help to see mostly negative aspects with this. It’s old-fashioned, ineffective and must result in lower conversion as well. Some forum discussions mention cases where Argos has had products on sale on the day of the reservation but when customers have gone to the store for the collection the sale has ended and the price has gone up. In some cases there has been a sale but nearby Argos stores have had no stock left according to the online store. The day after the sale has ended the stocks of these stores have magically gone up. In one case this happened right after (08.00 am) a bank holiday when simultaneous re-stock of items to these stores would have been unlikely. This seems a bit fishy to me and seems more like a way to get people excited about a product with no intention of selling out the entire stock (<a href="http://bit.ly/mBly9L">http://bit.ly/mBly9L</a>).<br />
<br />
It’ll be interesting to see how Argos will be able to change its business model in the upcoming years. The rebranding of the stores and the website in 2010 left much for desiring and can partly explain the decrease in revenue. Interestingly multichannel sales counted for nearly 50% during that year and are expected to grow again this year (<a href="http://bit.ly/goiyOz)">http://bit.ly/goiyOz)</a>. So it looks like the “click and collect” service is working for Argos. The question is for how long?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-59816419596839387812011-05-10T22:54:00.000+03:002011-06-10T20:35:27.268+03:00Why traditional media organizations aren’t going anywhere<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The digital revolution has created much concern over the future of the traditional media organizations responsible for publishing, producing and providing people with their favorite books, movies, music and news. The first industry to really panic was the music industry, which began battling piracy at the turn of the millennium. The movie studios weren’t far behind as weren’t newspaper publishers, who saw the Web and free sharing of content as a threat, rather than a new opportunity. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">The core purpose of these </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">organizations</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"> is to inform and entertain us in different ways. This core function hasn’t changed in any way; only the meth</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">ods of publishing, producing and distributing this content have changed. Social medias and the sharing they enable shouldn’t be seen as something to fight against but rather something to be taken advantage off.</span><span style="background-color: #6aa84f;"></span><span style="background-color: #6aa84f;"></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-42971583185884804492011-05-10T22:45:00.000+03:002011-06-10T20:35:43.506+03:00Traditional publishing vs. Digital publishing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s been a year now and the battle rages on. Digital publishing was unable to deliver the killing blow even though it did manage to make the headlines more than ever. So what’s the deal really? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I stumbled (with StumbleUpon) upon a <a href="http://kriswrites.com/2011/03/16/the-business-rusch-trust-me/">blog posting by Kristine Rusch about her book “The Business Rusch: Trust Me”</a>. In her book she explores the traditional publishing industry and compares it to the electronic publishing. The post goes over various very enlightening examples of how the traditional publishing industry operates and what the major faults are in it. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For example, when a book is actually printed, the printer is allowed to deliver the ordered amount plus or minus 10%. So if you order 50,000 books from printer A, printer A by his contract could give you 45,000 books or 55,000 books. This isn’t because printers are inherently lazy or shady. It’s because shutting off the older presses at a precise number was impossible. You had to guess and let the machine either short the run or add to the run.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Doing short print runs (of, say 100 copies) was next to impossible. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This, by the way, is one of the technological changes that has enabled cheap and easy print-on-demand books. Now a printer can print as few as 100 or as many as 10,000 and do so accurately. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But remember my post on how Big Publishing actually works? Many Big Publishers have printing contracts that predate the change in technology, so they still get the print run plus or minus 10% from their printer, and accurate information is still impossible. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Remember that this print run problem is compounded by the returns system. And human error. Exact numbers up until a few years ago were impossible to get.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is no wonder Seth Godin decided not to publish traditional books. In his interview with <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a10978.asp">Jeff Rivera from Mediabistro</a> he stated “I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread”</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can’t but help agreeing with him. The revolution in the publishing industry that began with the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg almost 600 years ago enabled the sharing of knowledge at a pace never seen before. The pace now is something like the speed of light compared to then</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is also different in digital publishing is the way we want to pay for it. <a href="http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7025-traditional-publishers-just-don-t-get-consumers-report">Survey</a> conducted by Harrison Group revealed that publishers are blissfully unaware of what consumers want.</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to the survey, 74% of publishing industry professionals think that a standard subscription model is just dandy, while 87% of consumers prefer other models, including unlimited access at one price, one-off purchases and micropayments.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What we as consumers also want is to be able to share things with out friends. If I’m paying for something, I want to be able to share it across my own devices as well as with my friends. And I don’t want to have to pay for the same thing several times. Having to pay for a newspaper, to get past the paywall to the site and for apps for my phone and tablet isn’t very efficient for the publisher or me. Treating these publications as separate silos is unfair to consumers and will be hopefully gotten rid of once the industry standards began to shape properly.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-51092918342812151272011-05-10T20:24:00.001+03:002011-06-10T20:36:13.392+03:00Publishing in the digital age<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link> <link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_themedata.xml" rel="themeData"></link> <style>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I read today an article by John Batelle “<a href="http://www.federatedmedia.net/blog/2010/03/toward-a-new-understanding-of-publishing-part-1/">Toward a New Understanding of Publishing</a>”, where he talks about the new definition of publishing and how it has evolved to it’s current state. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Think of publishing as speaking – a<a href="http://battellemedia.com/archives/2006/12/packaged_goods_media_vs_conversational_media_part_one_updated"><span style="color: windowtext;"> conversation</span></a> – it’s clear that publishing means far more than printing. Publishing means connecting a community through the art and science of communication. And nowhere is publishing more vibrant – and conversational – than through the medium we’ve come to call the Internet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">He talks in this article about how brands can have a voice of their own, and how they can also participate in these “conversations ”. To me the idea isn’t groundbreaking. Yes, any brand can become a “publisher” producer of different types of content that enables them to interact and engage with their user communities. The trick is to do something more, something different than just transporting the analog way of doing things into the digital world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The launch of the iPad brought up this problem very clearly. The savior of newspapers worked fine as a device and had (still has) loads of potential. The magazines released as apps for the device however lacked in standard, usability and features. But the worst of all they didn’t bring anything significantly new to the table. Consumers pretty much got the same exact thing they had gotten before but with few gimmicks and videos added to it. It felt like what paper publishers would have come up with if the iPad was launched 30 years ago. There was nothing groundbreaking or significantly new about the app magazines despite the huge potential that could be done on the new tablet devices. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What were suffering now from, a year after the launch of the Apple’s iPad, is a big myriad of different publications’ apps for different devices that all work more or less differently. The industry standard is yet undefined at it makes it a pain for the consumers and publishers. Entering this market means you’re probably going to be investing a lot of money and time to keep yourself in the “constant state of beta” like Juan Señor of Innovation Media Consulting recommends. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Until some industry standards are defined it’s going to be risky for publishers to enter but there is hope as well. Magazine design icon Roger Black is currently working on his latest project called the “Treesaver”, which is “a HTML-based project aimed at dealing with device fragmentation”. Magazine publishers will be able to lay out their articles once onto the system and have them readable across a myriad of platforms and devices such as tablets, PCs and smartphones. The HTML format also enables publishers to separate themselves from the app stores and by doing so, make more money for themselves. (<a href="http://treesaver.net/">Treesaver</a>)</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-36992902160087014362011-05-10T19:42:00.001+03:002011-06-10T20:37:41.788+03:00Analysis of the Wired magazine’s iPpad App<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okey, so this is my review of the Wired Magazines app for the iPad. Currently the magazine only offers their US version in the iPad form, which is a bit of a shame since I personally prefer the UK version. The ads in the magazine are basically meant for the US market and the magazine has a lot of video clip ads that increase the file size of magazine quite a bit. The magazine I’m reviewing is over 500 megabytes. Of course this is good for the advertisers since they can rest assured that there won’t any connection issues with the viewing of their ads. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The content of the app is structured like a traditional magazine. I use swipe to get from one page to another and in some cases I can interact with a piece of content to pinch and zoom in to see it better. The pages are balanced between static pages that don’t allow any user action with ad pages and pages with some interactive elements to them. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The layout of the pages follows the paper magazines layout a bit too much. The paper magazine contains some thin lines / frames, which work well in the paper version but here they simply seem unnecessary and at times little confusing to me. The style should be kept simpler in my opinion or the lines could be replaced with something else. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All and all it’s one of the best iPad magazines I’ve come across but it still lacks in innovation and differentiation. Most of the content in the app is also available on the website that is free. Paying £2.99 for doesn’t make much sense to me since most of the interactive stuff in the app are nothing more than little gimmicks that make the magazine more interesting but not worth paying for. If the amount of ads won’t wear you out then the lack of innovation will. Some of the videos and sounds are cool and at some points you see the potential the magazine has. As it is though I wouldn’t recommend it.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-50526991662034911012011-05-10T18:03:00.000+03:002011-06-10T20:37:25.345+03:00User behavior shaping how digital media is consumed and delivered<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link> <link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_themedata.xml" rel="themeData"></link> <style>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The way we consume content now has changed drastically over the 20 years since the Web became available for the general public. Already during the Persian Gulf War reporters were using ICQ to provide news organizations with updated information on the situation there and this sharing of information online has now become the norm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The pace that we consume information now has increased to the extent where news organizations are so scared of loosing the scoop on a particular piece of news that they will rather tweet about it before they’ve got an article with more information together. An example of this was done by a Minneapolis / St. Paul TV station WCCO that tweeted about the two-year deal NFL player Bret Favre had signed with the Minnesota Vikings. After tweeting about the news a few times they had the actual news on their site and WCCO had become a trending topic in Twitter. The TV stations website got over 100,000 page views within the first hour of the news being tweeted, compared to the usual level of the site averaging at about 30,000. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The power of social sharing has been also in the news with the recent revolutions in the Middle East and Africa, where Twitter and Facebook have been deemed as some of the tools used by the revolutionists to organize their demonstrations and report news to the outside world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">It’s all about being able to provide people with the most recent news through the mediums they prefer. Traditional news organizations can’t expect people to come to their sites to search through the entire site like was done with traditional newspapers. People get their news from variety of different sources besides news sites. Twitter, Facebook, link aggregators and RSS feeds play larger parts in the way people want to receive the news. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">It is impossible to say with certainty how the content publishing industry will look like during the upcoming years but it is certain that we, the consumers, will have a much larger say in it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953098383242118496.post-59093817891872726582011-05-10T17:06:00.000+03:002011-06-10T20:36:53.346+03:00Digital revolution disruptions to media<link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link> <link href="file://localhost/Users/ollilainto/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_themedata.xml" rel="themeData"></link> <style>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">So what are the main disruptive forces that are now forcing publishers and media companies to change their business models and ways of doing business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">Content Aggregation</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">Creation of quality content is as vital as it has ever been but by allowing this content to be freely distributed has become standard on which should be built on. News aggregation sites like the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post have become immensely popular and are not a threat to the journalism industry, even though some experts would like to argue so. Content aggregation has broken down the traditional newspaper bundles by making every piece of content count. The significance of the appealing front page has diminished, as people are no longer required to base their purchase decision on it. (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="http://adage.com/article/digital/web-3-0-s-content-king/126364">Someone else's content is king</a>)</span></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">Economies scale</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Economies of scale was the main limiting factor in the creation of different content before the digital revolution. Now anyone anywhere, with relatively low barrier to entry, can set up a site where they can provide people with the content they want. The problems of producing and distributing are no longer limiting you in reaching your audience. Crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and freemium business models have made it possible for anyone with enough determination to succeed (before being bought out or run down by someone doing it better).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">Social power</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Power to share anything with all of your friends in the blink of an eye has completely changed the way we as social beings interact with other. Recommendations and opinions shared in the different social medias by you and your friends are affecting everything from the success of the latest Hollywood blockbuster to the overturning of the government in Tunisia. This is all allowing us to consume information at a rapid pace to the extent where even online news organizations are having difficulties in keeping up with it and having to resort to social medias when they get theirs hands on a yet unbroken story. (<a href="http://on.mash.to/15xLAY">http://on.mash.to/15xLAY</a>)</span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10525496484845535884noreply@blogger.com0