After many conversations, articles and researches about Social Media, the conclusion is there’s still an educational and impact gap with regard to Social Media on exec-level which partially is sustained by the overly interest and hype around the phenomenon.As a guide in this article I will refer to an article by eMarketer which is published on the 10th of September. According to the article “Executives and Social Media“, executives value but have concerns towards Social Media. Read the rest of this entry »
A strategic principle, as defined by Harvard’s article Transforming Corner-Office Strategy into Frontline Action, is:
“A memorable and actionable phrase that distills a company’s corporate strategy into its unique essence and communicates it throughout the organization” and has as goal to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.
I strongly believe that for two reasons, strategic principles will become crucial in todays and future’s business:
* Generation Y
* Collaborative & co-creational economy
A diarchy is a form of governing by two rulers, diarchies are known for instance from ancient Sparta and Rome and is one of the oldest types of government.
The Spartan diarchy is suggested to be a solution for: a struggle between two Spartan families or to stay away from an absolutistic ruling.
The distribution of power amongst content and context is meant to prevent a struggle between two forces and meant to avoid focus of attention and power of either content or context exclusively. Emphasis, focus and importance on both intertwinedis the key.
When reflecting on diarchies and thinking about it in relation to the current phase of the Internet evolution, not only the Content is King (as often is written), but the Context needs to be acknowledged and treated equally influencing as the second valid King in the diarchal rulership over the Internet and business landscape.
This evolution is certainly not new, business already undergo these transitional phases.
First there was the production oriented era, then the sales oriented era (think of Ford and his quote in his autobiography “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black“). Then came the realization and insight that marketing management was needed to have a clearer understanding of the context (marketing oriented era).
Marketing evolved from inward focus (organization) to outward focus (consumer), this is exactly what the Internet evolution is going through as well and forcing businesses to adapt. Read the rest of this entry »
Article: “Who Finds Twitter More Effective, Advertisers or Consumers?”
Source: eMarketer
The graph on eMarketer shows that both advertisers as the consumers are not perceiving Twitter as effective.
The advertisers’ results: “In addition to the 8% of advertisers who said Twitter was very effective for promotion, 50% said it was somewhat effective. More than three in 10 (34%) said it was not very effective and 8% felt it was not effective at all.” The consumers’ results: “8% said it was very effective, 42% believed it to be somewhat effective, 31% said it was not very effective and 19% felt it was not at all effective.” Read the rest of this entry »
* Real-time enhancement of reality, connecting the “offline” world with the “online” world.
* Real-time creation of a more integrated experience between those two worlds.
* Real-time enriching our surroundings with meta-data through our mobile devices.
I do believe these are the oppertunities and purposes where Mobile Marketing and the role of mobiles devices have been waiting for, enabled by: Augmented Reality. Read the rest of this entry »
An extensive report with a global (meta-) insight on the evolution of marketing, the E-conomy, the conducting of business and the role of the consumer.
The title is suitable due to the fact that the marketing ecosystem (as the article calls it) is at an evolutionary threshold.
The transformation is occuring rapidly, those who adapt fast, who understand the new environment and the place of their prosumers will thrive, those who adapt slowly will encounter many challenges and possibly won’t survive.
Much has been written on this subject, the ‘new’ marketing transparency and co-creation by prosumers are affecting the rapidly changing landscape.
What I do find interesting in the article is the model which is created by the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing that is called LEAD. The model suffices as a roadmap which can be applied to the constant changing environment.
The Online Strategy encompasses those elements of the business- and marketing strategy that must be employed to contribute efficiently and effectively to its goals.
As for all strategies, the Online Strategy should consider the brand, the target audience, products & services and the positioning of the brand. ( read also The Content – Context Diarchy to understand the relation between offer and context in the online landscape )
Be it on an overarching level or on execution level (see the three parts below), consistency is key to achieve brand recognition.
It’s tempting to divert from this focus because the Internet offers lots of possibilities which can be applied, but not neccesarily relevant and this non-relevancy might cause a distanciation of the target audience.
The online strategy for your business can be divided in three main fundaments:
* Website Strategy
* Internet Strategy
* Social Strategy Read the rest of this entry »
Article: “The consumer decision journey”
Source: McKinsey
McKinsey did an extensive research on three continents, several industries and 20000 customers.
The cyclic Consumer Decision Journey isn’t groundbreaking, I’d say it’s an affirmation -from a company as McKinsey- of what is already known for a while but not carried out in mainstream business strategies. Read the rest of this entry »