I wrote my first in-depth post covering Twitter in March 2007 saying that Twitter would be the “message heard around the world.” Since then, we learned that Twitter has become a human seismograph where news no longer breaks it tweets. We learned to speak in 140 characters or less. We’ve witnessed Tweets erupt into revolutions. Hashtags are now a way of life. And, we now live in a world where if it wasn’t tweeted, it didn’t happen. Life unfolds in a digital river where experiences and common interests are the ties that bind us. Twitter is indeed part of the fabric of how our world communicates and connects and it contributes to the evolution of our #digitallifestyle.
Behold The Untapped Big Data Gap
As we close out 2012, one topic that got a lot of “airtime” in 2012 will surely stay on top of many marketers minds as we enter 2013: Big Data.
The title of my article is a paraphrase of sorts as it comes directly from a study done by IDC which revealed, among other things that in “2012, 23% of the digital universe would be useful for Big Data if tagged and analyzed. However, currently only 3% of the potentially useful data is tagged, and even less is analyzed.”
The “even less” part comes out to less than 1%, 0.5% to be precise.
The Decline of Machines – Why Social Media is not Technology and Vice Versa
Originally posted at Collective Bias Blog
by John Andrews
Most of today’s senior business leaders and marketers developed much of their perspective during the dot com boom of the late 90s and early 2000s. It is little wonder then that when approaching social marketing the solution for most folks is rooted in technology. The same with most start-ups that are still pursuing the model of aggregating a huge audience, using “Big Data” to spot patterns of groups and selling ads. People buy more stuff and we get a ridiculous valuation.
Learning how to see
If you want to make something new, start with understanding. Understanding what’s already present, and understanding the opportunities in what’s not. Most of all, understanding how it all fits together.
Watch the last two minutes of the classic film, 2001. Today’s technology would allow someone to make a short film like this with very little effort. But could you? The making isn’t the hard part, in fact. It’s the seeing.
Would you have the guts to go this slow? To use music this boldy? To combine iconography from three different centuries over two millenia?
Where is the explosion of the death star and where are the hackneyed tropes of a hundred or a thousand prior sci-fi movies?
Stanley Kubrick, the film’s director, saw. He saw images and stories that were available to anyone who chose to see them, but others averted their eyes, grabbed for the easy or the quick or the work that would satisfy the boss in closest proximity.
When everyone has the same Mac and the same internet, the difference between hackneyed graphic design and extraordinary graphic design is just one thing—the ability to see.
Seeing, despite the name, isn’t merely visual. I worked briefly with Arthur C. Clarke thirty years ago, and he saw, but he saw in words, and in concepts. The people who built the internet, the one you’re using right now, saw how circuits and simple computer code could be connected to build something new and bigger. Others had the same tools, but not the same vision.
And all around us, we’re surrounded by limits, by disasters (natural and otherwise) and by pessimism. Some people see in this opportunity and a chance to draw (with any sort of metaphorical pen) something. Others see in it a chance to hide, to settle and to sigh.
The same confidence and hubris that Kubrick and Clarke brought to their movie is available to anyone who decides to give more than they ‘should’ to a charity that has the audacity to change things. While others believe they can (and must) merely settle.
In our best possible future together, I hope we’ll do a better job of learning to see one another.
Some people see a struggling person and turn away. Others see a human being and work to open a door or lend a hand. There are possiblities all around us. Not just the clicks of recycling a tired cliche, but the opportunity to be brave. If we only had the guts.
Seth Godin
When It Comes To Social CEOs One Group Is The Clear Winner
There are many – myself included, who believe in the adage “it starts from the top down” when it comes to leadership in a company or business. I don’t care if it’s a professional sports team or a business that has just a few employees. How the leader of that company acts, thinks and carries his or herself on a daily basis goes a long way to ensuring the overall success or failure of that company.
And when it comes to the use of social media – or lack thereof, it appears one group of CEOs is not doing their part or carrying their load or whatever catch phrase you happen to prefer.
As a follow up to their report done earlier this year on CEOs and social media, Domo and CEO.com just released the findings of another report or study. However, unlike their earlier report which focused squarely on the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, this one was “designed to compare and contrast social media habits among leaders of America’s largest companies (Fortune 500) and America’s fastest-growing companies (Inc. 500).”
Looking Back, Looking Ahead – CMOs Weigh In
This is such a great time of the year isn’t it? I mean with all the parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow. This time of the year is also time for fearless forecasts, the ones where everyone dares to boldly go where no man, or woman has gone before.
Or something like that.
What I am referring to of course is it’s the time of year when people make predictions for the coming year about this and that. And while I wanted to pen such a piece myself, I wanted to put a little different spin on it – I am a big fan of spinning, as it were.
When It Comes To Mobile Marketing, Integration Is Key
As a long-standing proponent of marketing integration I can speak to the fact that many marketers still have difficulty in putting it into practical use, including many chief marketing officers which was the basis of my piece aptly titled The Eleven Letter Word That Continues To Elude All CMOs And Marketers.
Based on recent research it would appear many in the mobile marketing space would be wise to integrate their marketing messages, especially this holiday season and in particular across two specific mediums.
The research comes from Responsys, AKA the company I work for, and reveals some very interesting and intriguing findings and shows a clear correlation and opportunity for mobile marketing folks.
According to the research almost 40% of consumers who previously opted in to receiving promotional emails from a retail marketer are also interested in getting promotional messages from these same retailers via SMS or text messaging. The findings alone would be significant but when you factor in that this past Cyber Monday saw an increase of 96% in mobile sales year-over-year from 2011 according to IBM, plus mix in the the fact that the percentage of emails being read on a mobile device are growing steadily literally as we speak –
QR Codes: Fad, Marketing Trend or…
I read a post last week debating whether QR codes are a fad or a marketing trend ripe for growth. My thought was… REALLY?
Twitter for Sharing and Syndication
Many misunderstand the current power and relevant scale of Twitter. It is not about how Twitter has scaled to the general public. The most important thing about News, Content, and anything else published via Twitter, is that a great deal of the influencer community “is” utilizing Twitter for news, communication, and discovery. This information then finds its way to other publishing mediums be it Blogs, Traditional News Media, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, the water cooler, or whatever other mediums exist. Twitter is a tool that leads into other forms of social sharing.
What Mobile Marketers Can Learn From The Papa John’s Lawsuit
“With nearly 86 million Americans now shopping on their smartphones, this pronounced shift in consumer behavior is simply too large for retailers to ignore, with the future of their business depending on how well they adapt to the new environment.”
The above quote is from an article I penned back in September titled appropriately enough Mobile Marketing Too Large For Brands To Ignore.
It was said by Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of mobile and I found it so telling I repeated in a column I wrote about a month later Mobile Marketing – The Elephant In The Room For Marketers.