Wide Angle

A few weeks ago, I pulled 10 nuggets from The Economist’s special report on social media. Fittingly, The Economist followed that this week with a special report on managing information.

Managing and making best use of all the data trails that consumers create via digital and social media is critical for marketers (see this prior post on managing information richness). This capability is one of a few that will separate winning marketing functions (and even enterprises) from losing ones in the next 3-5 years.

So, without further delay, here are 10 of my favorite takeaways from the report. Read More »

We thought we’d use our budding blog and social channels to identify candidates for this new spot on the MLC team—Social/Digital Media Analyst.  At the same time, it’s a great opportunity to share our thinking on this with the broader membership, as we’re striving to implement our own advice here.

Why are we looking for an “analyst” profile? We’re big believers in social media as a powerful listening tool.  So, we’d like the kind of analyst skillset that can make sense of structured and unstructured information.  That means blending traditional, deductive web analytics with the more inductive comment surfing and pattern finding characteristic of social media.  In a phrase, we’re looking for someone with “creative analytics”.

Why not just “Social Media Analyst”? We’re putting into practice the Return-on-Objectives approach to measuring social media, as detailed in this blog post by Doug Hutton.  Digital is critical here, because website engagement is the intermediate objective that will bridge us from social media activity to financial outcomes.

The Social/Digital Media analyst’s primary objective will be to drive member web engagement, which involves building and integrating a powerful social experience for members with the member web experience.  We believe clarity on this objective will help the Social/Digital Analyst make smart decisions about where to focus energy in a social world that offers thousands of ways to spend (and burn) time.

So, if you know of someone who might fit the bill, check out the Social/Digital Media Analyst job description on CEB’s jobs page. Search keyword “digital social”.  Or, pass it along via Twitter, LinkedIn or your social platform of choice.

Friday’s Wall Street Journal showed a delicious contrast in innovation approaches in side-by-side articles (yes, I’ve just revealed I still read a broadsheet from time-to-time).

On the one hand, you have P&G launching the latest, feature rich, premium-seeking version of its Fusion razor.  Blade edges so fine you need a microscope to see them.  Anti-hydroplane technology.  And an even more ergonomic grip. 

(Wait.  Backup.  My razor blade can hydroplane? On my face?  Scary… Does my auto insurance cover that?)

In contrast, the neighboring article details GE’s plans to launch a handheld ultrasound device.  Price point: under US$10,000.  Compare that to $25-50k for laptop-based machines, or $250k for a cart-based ultrasound.  Of course, the handhelds won’t have the functionality of the others, but for many situations, they don’t need to.  Cutting out features in favor of portability and low price actually opens up new markets.  That’s smart, “good enough” innovation in a tough economic environment. Read More »

Plenty of Council members are asking us questions about social media ROI.  As our research team scans all that’s been written on the topic, we occasionally come across little gems.  One that may have escaped your attention is a section of a larger 2007 study, Never Ending Friending, which may provide some valuable rules of thumb and benchmarks for those of you diving into social media ROI.

The study was commissioned by MySpace which, at the time, was on the top of the social networking heap.  You’ll likely want to skip the first 34 pages (unless you have a keen interest in MySpace circa 2007), and get right to the meat.  Read More »

You’ll find an extended report on social networking in this week’s Economist.  You may have seen it on the newsstand—it shows Steve Jobs, in Biblical raiment with nimbus, bearing the fabled tablet. 

Clever.  And glorious.  Or blasphemous, depending on your point of view. 

If you’re well-versed in social media, you won’t find the report mind-blowing, though it is characteristically well-reasoned.  If you’re newer to social media, I’d recommend it. Read More »

So, you’ve decided to bring some analytics hotshots onto your marketing team.  What should you do first? Whatever you do, don’t let them near the data!

Not yet.  It’s too dangerous.  More peril than you could shake a stick at.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a huge fan of analytics to improve marketing decision making. I spent four years leading a team in CapitalOne’s marketing and analysis group.  I have a deep appreciation for organizations that have built competitive advantage on analytics.  In fact, one of my “must reads” for marketers is Davenport’s Competing on Analytics (good introductory excerpt here). 

But what I have also observed with high-powered analytics is real-world myopia. Read More »

One of the themes we’re picking up from Council members is a reckoning that new product development and innovation approaches are badly in need of an overhaul.  What’s driving it?  Here’s what we’ve heard from marketers at Global 2000-sized companies: 

• The recession has fundamentally recast customers’ hierarchy of needs, priorities and in some cases core values, giving rise to the “New Normal” customer
• The “Good Enough Revolution” (an important read) has demonstrated that, in many categories, the returns curve on adding new features has flattened or even inverted
• The increasing participation of our target audiences in digital and social media has presented an opportunity to dramatically reduce innovation cycle time
• The source of consumption growth is shifting to BRIC countries, which is putting more pressure on innovation processes to produce discontinuous innovation for those markets Read More »

Mountain: Post-Mountaintop Removal

2009 was a year of taking sledgehammers to budgets, not least agency spend.  Many marketers have relied on the equivalent of mountaintop removal to get at those agency savings.  They’ve launched agency reviews or have consolidated agency relationships.  These approaches are imprecise, crude and unsightly—but can be effective in reducing spend. 

However, most of these marketers will be under continued budget pressure in 2010.  The problem with mountaintop blasting is that, once you do it, you can’t play that card again (uh, the top of the mountain is gone).  So what are marketers to do to find additional cost savings that won’t harm communications quality?  Read More »

Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo!, recently identified the volume of information flow as one of the largest challenges facing corporate leaders today.  In marketing, the issue is not simply one of volume but of information richness.  Well beyond the reams of rational data about customer click-thru rates, viewing behavior, etc., the emotion and human insight embedded in unstructured information available via social media (e.g., dialogues, comments, ratings) elevates this challenge for marketers above volume alone.  Read More »

There’s a bubbling, burgeoning cottage industry of social media vendors out there.  Some are traditional agencies claiming social media expertise.  Others are small shop upstarts with very clever automated solutions and workflow tools.

Having now conducted dozens of consults with members who have completed their social media maturity diagnostic, we noticed a real appetite amongst members for help navigating this kaleidoscopic (is that even a word?) vendor landscape.  Read More »