The On-Going Conversation

The Nature of Cell Phone Usage

Cell Phone Trends in 16 Countries: Source: Pew Research Center. The median % of people who own a cell phone has increased by 36% since 2002; the current median is 81%.

Will Advancing Technology Destroy Interpersonal Communication?

I remember a more simple and un-embellished time, even unpretentious as far as I am concerned. A time when people weren’t constantly updating their Twitter accounts, communicating with their friends via Facebook, staring at a small screen with intrigue and arguably isolating themselves from the tangible world.

Personally, I cannot judge because I constantly fall into this trap and even find myself updating various social platforms simultaneously. Even though I continually use social media, I can still see the potential for digitalization to destroy the nature of interpersonal communication.

With individuals constantly expressing themselves through digital channels, will they even be able to connect with people on a personal level, aside from the barriers of digital concealment?

Furthermore, with more and more people utilizing innovative technology, we will eventually see the destruction of personal communication skills? What do you think? Have you ever considered this possibility?

I am not sure if this question has ever come into your own mind, but I thought it was a valid one to consider.

Anyways, this day and age it is hard to go anywhere without seeing evidence of digitalization. We cannot seem to escape the social and technological revolution, even if we try. Whether it’s an I-Pod, I-Phone, I-Pad, Blackberry or opposing personal hand-held device — people just cannot seem to function without a constant connection to the multi-media world.

Moreover, individuals have the ability to stay in contact with people like never before. At the same time, we continue to ride the wave towards increased technology and maximized innovation. Time will only tell what will happen and where the road of technology will ultimately head.

I am by no means questioning the advancement of technology; I am merely pondering the end result of this new obsession. Will there be a down side or will it remain optimistic?

Can we continue down the road and maintain the yielding of benefits for society? Or will the reality of communication amongst individuals be eventually tarnished?

Please join the on-going conversation and let me know what you think.

The Importance of a Social Media Strategy

Social media continues to become increasingly connected to business and the way in which it is conducted. Despite the juxtaposition of social media and social businesses, the phenomenon remains relatively new and wasn’t even part of the picture ten years ago. As a result, it can be challenging to decipher what is to come and where the world of social media is headed.   

Regardless of the implications, I am intrigued by the possibility of what’s to come and where the trends will ultimately lead. However, even with excitement there comes a degree of obfuscation. One can never truly predict the course of time and we will have to wait to see where the developments in digital technology occur.

Nonetheless, social media has already brought about innovation and has even changed over time to become more user-friendly. Individuals now have the convenience of updating one aggregate site, which will post a message on a collection of different social environments.

Who would have thought this could become a reality in the digital world, especially considering the social media advent is to some extent, still in its youth? Even though it may seem unexpected, the ability to cross-post is evident and I don’t believe it’s going anywhere in the near future; at least as far as I am concerned.

For example, I facilitate posts with HootSuite and Ping.Fm, which allows me to maximize efficiency, by taking less than five seconds to express my ideas on approximately fifteen social websites, simultaneously. In my case, the updates generally include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, Digg, GoogleBuzz, Delicious, Friendster and LinkedIn, just to name a few.

 Social media has also continued to become more interconnected. This means that most platforms have the option of syncing with other sites. I even have the option of connecting my blogs to HootSuite as well, which can create a haven for news aggregation, information and continual communication.  

Moreover, social media junkies can continue to update their status and post a message on as many networks as they would like. This can even be more beneficial for businesses; they can have one individual responsible for social marketing and allow that individual to do it with utmost convenience and efficiency.

HootSuite even allows you to schedule messages periodically. This means that businesses can determine a network strategy and post messages automatically, regardless of the time of the day. With this in mind, organizations can specifically target messages to individuals that are time-sensitive and relevant to the business itself.

The reason this is so important, is because social media doesn’t necessarily influence sales or participation; it is more of a vehicle to increase recognition, awareness, web-influence and potentially SEO (search engine optimization).

Business can also establish credibility, integrity and a degree of trustworthiness, merely by interacting with a niche portion of the population on-line. Obviously, it needs to be in a positive and helpful manner, to yield the results that companies are striving for. Nonetheless, a companies’ approach is generally dependant on their particular organizational mantra and overall goal structure.

All-in-all, businesses should consider commencing a social media strategy, if of course they haven’t already. The strategy doesn’t necessarily need to be perfected from the onslaught either. Through time and social participation, businesses can literally generate a social prescription for the company, which speaks from experience and contains a frame of reference for comparison.

Basically, this prescription will become a remedy for the company and involve a transformation, once businesses have an understanding of the landscape they are working with. Just remember, there isn’t necessarily an incorrect way to conduct social marketing – just give it a try and see what happens. There are no rules to abide by and the conditions are still relatively new.

 

Twitter : @RJSchoenefeld

Contributing Blogger on Social Email Marketing

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The Nature of Social Media Measurement

Unless you have the budgets to use the best web analytics, social media management and social media measurement apps in town and, even better, to couple them with CRM, marketing automation, email marketing etc., it’s often less obvious to find the best way to combine and integrate solutions that enable you to couple online analytics with social media metrics and analytics. And I’m not even talking about customer data. Of course there are several ways to include specific social media metrics within a “free” platform such as Google Analytics. And, yes, there are some free or, at least affordable, social media management solutions that enable you to combine the typical engagement, interaction and other features they offer with Google Analytics. But there is no “ideal” combination. The reason is simple: it depends from what you want to achieve. Take this blog for instance. Our aim is to inform, share and engage, it is not a corporate or “branded” blog that ultimately wants to generate leads. If, however, you are a business and want to combine the data about the interactions people have with your blog and web site, data from other digital channels such as email, social media monitoring and social engagement metrics (starting from simple things such as the number of times a post is tweeted, bookmarked or “liked” and how much clicks these tweets etc. generated), you’re in for a quest. Again, if you don’t have the budgets. Or in other words: when the investment in decent solutions, can hardly result in a positive ROI for your activities, even in the long run. I recently started looking at all possibilities that exist and solutions that don’t exist yet but are in private beta. It is a diverse landscape and integration is not obvious. On top of that, many vendors have their own methodologies to track and calculate engagement and integration with web analytics is often missing. As a simple blogger a lot also depends from the blogging platform you use. What will Google and the social networks do? Undoubtedly the market will evolve. What will Google Analytics do for instance? And, obviously, what will the social networks themselves do? We know what Facebook has been doing and since end of last week we also know a little about what Twitter might be up to. The company has acquired Trendly, a cloud hosted web analytics application from Smallthought Systems. With the acquired technology and team, Twitter wants to provide data and enable businesses to filter the Twitter signals that matter to them from the endless stream of tweets, noise and clutter. Good news: it seems that integration with Google Analytics is foreseen. Trendly: not for you and me (yet?) However, it doesn’t look as if you, me and small businesses will be able to use it to have a better and more integrated view on all online channels. Because for now, the acquisition should be seen in the perspective of Twitter’s promoted tweets advertising solution and will thus benefit the advertisers and media planning people. It seems that the promoted tweets ad solution receives positive feedback from both advertisers and Twitter users. But it also looks as if all the others will have to keep testing and using other ways to have a better analytical view on Twitter in the overall online picture. For all those that try to find an optimal solution for small budgets, like us: let us know what your findings are. We will gladly share ours once we have finished our exploration. Source: Social Email Marketing