From Corporate Report Wisconsin

Thanks Mary for sharing this article with me.

Atwitter over Social media

We have been discussing the use of social media in the marketing mix.   We had been looking for specific examples of success with including Twitter in the marketing mix and we find two in this article.

From the article “The Tweets drove recipients to a Web site where they could receive more information,“We scheduled 14 surgeries because of that Twitter cast.”

Here is one example of what appears to be a pretty good ROI on a social media investment.

What examples do you have?

From Corporate Reports Wisconsin

Atwitter in the NEW North

The survey of companies in the “New North” supports that Social media is on the rise in Wisconsin among businesses.

From the article “Of those who do use social media, they tend to use it to connect with/communicate with others in the community or their industry (39 percent), to connect with/ communicate with clients (31 percent) and to gather information or research specific topics (27 percent). Just 22 percent indicated they use social media to find or connect with potential new clients.”

The article also states that of the companies using social media 79% feel the networking has benefited their firms.

Is your organization using social media?  What are you using? Is it helping? How?

From OPEN Small Business

10 Small Business Social Media Resources

The link above has comments and links to some really great (IMHO) ideas for small business’ use of Social Media.

As for adding Social Media to the marketing mix, fantastic!

What do you think?

From Fast Company

Google Unveils Real Time Search

From the article……

“But it’s clear that Google’s execs have tapped Twitter as the real winner in real-time status, despite Facebooks half-billion userbase, as these two were presented right at the end. You might think that’s about as real-time as you can get, but the team noted they won’t stop until the speed of light around the world is the only barrier to getting real time search data.”

Look out BING!

Are they now up-to-date?  What next?

Thank you Sarah for your suggestion of this webpage.

Social technologies have been discussed in a number of classes from a technology standpoint as well as marketing and management perspectives etc.  Forrester Research has published a tool that helps describe the potential audience in terms of (Social Technographics).  The page has an interactive tool where you add Age, Country, and Gender of the audience and it characterize the audience.  A presentation is available to describe the levels of social interaction (my words).    Presentation LINK

So, what do you think?  What are you?

Zipcar — Best New Idea in Business says FORTUNE Magazine

People saving money ($600 per month says the article), GREEN, convenient, and easy to use.  Could it get any better?

We discussed in class how this company has built a business model that could not really exist without the web and m-commerce (well it could, but it would not be as cool).  From the article “the company’s mission statement still pledges to “change the world through urban and environmental transformation” sounds all good.

Zipcar Website

What do you think?  Could this exist without the web?  Will this catch on?  Will rental car agencies take over?

According to Forbes, in an article entitled “New Revenue Waves for Google”   there are at least three ways for GOOGLE to generate revenue with upcoming WAVE.    Posting about WAVE

What do you think?

What do you suggest?

According to an article in Strategy and Business  there are over 6,000 IBMers in virtual worlds.  According to the article, ” An estimated 300 million people worldwide have registered for participation in some form of this activity, according to Kzero, a virtual world marketing and development company. In 2008, according to trade group Virtual Worlds Management, venture capitalists and other investors bet nearly US$600 million on more than 60 software producers involved in the fledgling technology.”    Wow.  Just a fad? 

Further, the article states, ” IBM estimates that, with an investment of roughly $80,000, it saved more than $250,000 in travel and venue costs for a recent corporate Academy of Technology event and enjoyed more than $150,000 in additional productivity gains, because these virtual participants were at their computers and able to dive back into work immediately at the conclusion of the meeting.”   Wow, a payback too?

What do you think?  Ready to go virtual for business?

As a member of PDMA I am emailed notifications of the articles in the latest issue of VISIONS.   One article that caught my eye was the article on online communities and New Product Development (NPD).  The article called “How Online Communities are Changing the NPD Landscape ……”   We of course have been talking about this for years in our classes, however this article points out some very good points as well as including a number of links and examples of companies using the tools.  There is a promise of a second article talking about the issues with online communities. 

Of particular interest to me are the points made about the “goals” which are summarized in Exhibity one.  The goals discussed are: listening, observing, speaking, energizing, supporting, and embracing.  Each goal has an example and application.  The article does describe what an online community is and some of the defining characteristics.

What did you find interesting?  What did you learn from the article?  Do you think that you will undertake any of these actions or employ these tools at your company?