China. Ogilvy’s ‘Social Media Equivalents’ in China 2011.

Oktober 17th, 2011 • 2 comments Social
Tags: Agencies, China, Media, Ogilvy, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Tools, Touchpoints, visual, World

Ogilvy China has re-created the well-know Conversation Prism to show some of the Chinese local platforms thriving in place of major international equivalents. Practivally the diagram is actually as useless as the original Conversation Prism (‘Did anyone ever look at this diagram of 250 platforms to find the right one for his purpose?’) but it nevertheless gives you a good understanding of the vast Chinese digital landscape.

Do also check out Ogilvy China’s study ‘Connected’ on digital marketing in China.

via Penn Olson

15 Years Later. A Conversation with my first Creative Director, Steffen Herbold.

Juli 24th, 2011 • Allgemein, Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Agencies, Experimental, Germany, Interview, People, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Social Media, steffen herbold, Strategy, Trends, WOB

A couple of weeks ago I talked about first jobs with a friend.

WOB was/is the name of my first employer/agency. And before anyone asks: Yes, Werbung und Organisationsberatung sounds awfully German. But I still think this dedicated B2B agency from the south of Germany is one of the most professional agency brands I ever worked for. B2B is tough. B2B is rarely considered as cool. And even though marketing Supply Chain Management Software or Nanotech solutions is definitely not for everyone, I am still happy I took my first steps in the agency world as part of the team from Viernheim (yes, Viernheim). It was one of the best ‘schools’ for a young marketing guy like me.

Back in the days when I realized I am better in copywriting than in Project Management there was one guy who thought I might be right. Steffen Herbold is Creative Director at WOB (pretty much since God created the Earth). He is a great copywriter, a very, very smart man, and he is one of the people I definitely do not meet as often as I should.

I kind of rediscovered Steffen (sorry Steffen) two years ago. After not being in contact for a while, we connected on Facebook and hold a steady dialogue since then. I was really interested to find out about how a dedicated B2B agency like WOB perceives the challenges by the Digital revolution in general and the social web in particular. And Steffen was so nice to answer a couple of questions. I am sure if you leave a comment he will gladly answer your questions as well.

Hi Steffen. Which role does Social Media play for a B2B agency like WOB nowadays?
A big one.

How different are B2B and B2C in this regard?
Well, obviously buying a chocolate bar and a ERP software have absolutely nothing in common. Apart from one thing: There are emotions involved. But whereas the purchasing processes of FMCG’s are individual and impulsive by nature, the buying process in a btob context is collective and reflected – so it is no wonder that these differences become manifest in social media too. I would put it this way: In b2c social media are capable of creating something like a “virtual nearness” between a brand and its target group, in b2b they’re an adequate tool to truly deepen existing relationships. You might as well say: b2c is brilliant flirting, b2b is serious marriage.
Read more »

google Plus. Now for something completely different: Brands.

Juli 5th, 2011 • 1 comment Brands, Social, Tools
Tags: Brands, Business, Ford, google, google plus, Social, Social Networking, Starbucks, Strategy, Trends

High five Jeff Kwiatek. You asked the right question. But to be honest: Even though I want to be the first agency dude leveraging and embracing the hell out of g+ I still don’t know if it’s worth it. Well who knows?

My guess: Nice platform, it is not Facebook. But it’s a too little too late. And the worst thing: They don’t even offer the right tools to enable brands to give consumers the love that they need. Let me quote Jeff Huber, google’s VP of Local and Commerce (via Mike Blumenthal)

And pre-emptively answering a question — yes, we will have (smb) business profile pages on Google+. I can’t announce a launch date yet, but we want to make them *great*, and we’re coding as fast as we can.

Thanks god a couple of people are a bit more visionary. They know what the consumer wants and that is brands of course. Sean Percival has sketched a concept of how future brand pages might look like (exactly like Facebook but a bit uglier). And indeed one brand has already started to build a presence on google Plus: Ford and Ford Europe. Congratulations Scott Monty. First!

As most of us haven’t even got an invite to g+. And the rest of us still tries to figure out why they would need g+ it is highly speculative to talk about the future of brands there. I wonder what google will come up with to convince brands that building a presence there is a good alternative to Facebook other platforms.

Anyway, I am more than interested which brands are going to start experimenting with g+. If you know of some, please leave a comment.

google Plus. Why it’s not about becoming another Facebook.

Juli 2nd, 2011 • 6 comments Social, Strategy, Tools, Trends
Tags: Facebook, Foursquare, google, Social, Social Networks, Strategy, Tools, Twitter

Unless you have been hiding under a rock you probably have heard about google+ or you are already registered user. And just in case you hid under a rock, I let the guys from NMA News explain what google+ is…simply because I love their videos.

So after testing google Plus for two days I am as positive about it as most others I talked to. google simply built a platform with more Pros than Cons. Something you can imagine to use in the future because it combines some of the best features of everything you already use and wraps them in one platform. Ooooh…and a couple of nice new concepts come with the package: google hangout for example (definitely a winner). And I guess Facebook really jumpstarts now to get the Skype cooperation up and running. Among other things.

Stupid debates usually start with terms like (fill blank) killer. Can you remember one game changing product that was announced as the iPhone/Facebook/whatever killer and lived up to it? Not one product out there. And I think the industry has become smart enough not to put this into the focus of discussions around google+ too much. Simply because it is pointless.

Read more »

Study. The World’s Top 100 Prestige and Luxury Brands on Facebook.

Juni 9th, 2011 • Brands, Strategy
Tags: Brands, Facebook, List, luxury, prestige, Reports, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Study

Prestige and Luxury brands used to have quite a hard time to deal with this phenomenon called social media. It seemed like a contradiction to what high value brands stood for. Being very exclusive simply did not seem to fit right into this new all connected world in which everyone is included.

Times are a changing and some of the planet’s really iconic (mainstream) brands are amongst the most successful players particularly on Facebook. L2 – a thinktank for luxury brands in New York – along with the guys from Buddy Media just published an extremely interesting piece of research: The L2 Prestige 100®: Facebook IQ measures the aptitude of 100 prestige brands from the Auto, Beauty, Fashion, Watches & Jewelry, and Spirits & Champagnes industries on the world’s fastest growing social media platform.

Key findings are:

• It is still not really about size: many of the brands that have been most effective at acquiring Facebook fans have fallen flat engaging them.
• Push only isn’t cool: Brands which allow their fans to post are more engaged Facebook brands than the 20% which don’t allow it
• Products are winning over promotions: Most engagement rates were achieved through product posts not promotions
• Facebook is still considered as an island: Too few brands integrate the social graph into their digital ecosystem
• F-Commerce? Nah! Only few brands are actively engaged in social commerce on Facebook

In short – if you deal with prestige and or luxury brands on Facebook this is the study to download. Get it here.

Social Strategies. Altimeter’s great & ugly compendium.

Mai 25th, 2011 • Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Altimeter, Diy, Presentation, Report, Social, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks

Charlene Li – one of the spiritual mothers of social media – has achieved two things with the following presentation: She simultaneously wins the award for one of the best and one the ugliest presentations I have seen on this topic in a while. Seriously Altimeter – I know you guys listen: I love your thoughts. But there are designers out there who can help you out with a Powerpoint template or a new logo or something… (via We are social)

Facebook. The 100 Most Engaged Brand Pages.

März 17th, 2011 • 3 comments Brands, Social
Tags: Analytics, Engagement, Facebook, Measurement, Metrics, Report, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Study

One of the tougher elements of my job is to benchmark client metrics against competing digital ecosystems. This is because it’s not very easy to keep track of competitor data beyond pure community size (such as engagement metrics). Allfacebook along with Wired and NYC based monitoring company FanGager have just published a very interesting overview over the 15 most engaging pages on Facebook, based on Feb 2011 activity. Well, thanks to @mitsuo it is actually the 100 most engaged brands. You can find the full list here.

Engagement is defined here as ‘fans’ (likers sounds too stupid) who either post, comment or like over the course of a month. Or in other words, the people who actually do something in your community. The brand pages mentioned here are huge players on Facebook. But as you can also see there is more than just a gap between their community size and the top of the pyramid which actually is actively posting or responding. It is not very surprising – but it shows once more that aggregating likes simply doesn’t make the world go round alone.

What do you think? Are you surprised by this quota as well? Did you expect that? Leave a comment!

Web Videos. Evian Rollerbabies vs VW’s The Force.

Februar 22nd, 2011 • 1 comment Social
Tags: Brands, Creativity, Evian, Experimental, Facebook, Sharing, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Twitter, video, Viral, VW, youtube

Even though I would like to shoot myself every time I hear the term ‘viral video’ there certainly is a social trigger that turns TV commercials into something users like to share online. Some of the most successful examples over the last two years were Evian’s Roller Babies and VW’s commercial ‘The Force’.

Check out how much reach these two ads generated. Particularly interesting – Evian definitely had more Youtube views, but interaction with VW’s film seems to be much higher (via Griffin Farley).

Platforms. A Fool with a Tool is still a Fool.

Januar 19th, 2011 • 6 comments Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Media, Social, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Tactics, Tools, Truth

Just in case you forgot…or your client forgot.

Thanks to Mark + @moral_apostel.

Quora. Twitter gets a Jeopardy Update.

Januar 6th, 2011 • 9 comments Social, Tech, Trends, Twitter
Tags: buzz, Quora, Social, Tech, Tools, Trends, Twitter, Viral, World

Quora. Currently my favourite example of an overbuzzed platform and I strongly recommend to follow the bizarre network effects that are taking place these days.

Quora is a knowledge platform that was founded in summer 2009 by Facebook’s former CTO Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever. Quora received some funding in March 2010 and is in closed beta since summer 2010. Quora basically is a polished version of a forum. It merges forum functionalities with social platforms such as twitter or Facebook to generate a new type of Q&A platform. That’s not dramatically new but it’s a nice, well presented concept.

Quora turned red hot in late December 2010 and early January 2011. And it seems everyone tries to get on board asap. On January 2nd Techcrunch mentioned Quora as one of the 7 technologies that will rock 2011. Quote: ‘Quora will have its twitter moment’:

…2011, which I believe will be the year Quora has its Twitter moment and start to really take off. Quora represents a bigger technology trend, which is the layering of an interest graph on top of people’s social graph. On Quora, you can follow not only people, but topics and questions. It defines the world by your interests, not just the people you may know or admire. This is a powerful concept and is not limited to Quora (both Twitter and Facebook also want to own the interest graph), but Quora is designed from the ground up to expose and help you explore your interests.

I agree that Quora is a great platform. It nevertheless is not the reinvention of earned media. And I don’t see how a Forum 2.0 + Digg functionalities should come close to a general, broad interaction platform. Anyway for a couple of days the tech press keeps on posting about Quora day in and out. Did you for example know that the former AOL chairman is posting on Quora as if there was no tomorrow? No? I didn’t as well. And I don’t care.

The reason why Quora is so successful is definitely related to it being a helpful, well set up platform. But the momentum behind the current craziness is based on some superstars of the scene pretending Friendfeed, Plancast, Foursquare Quora is the reinvention of anything digital. Oh, and if David Armano and Jeremiah Owyang are posting there as well…we all follow, right?

Read more »