30. April 2018 /0 Comments/in Best Practise, Blog English, Content Marketing, Media, Mobile, Mobile Business, Social Business, Social Media, Social Media, Web Marketing, Webkommunikation /by Andreas Schulze-Kopp
What format will be the one with the biggest growth rate? What do you think? For many of us it will be video. In terms of handling, reach and simplicity. But what are the points we should think about when we produce a video? In his interview the host Christoph Magnussen gets some very interesting insights about these questions and other impressive statements from Richard Gutjahr. Read more
https://thestrategyweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/youtube-2617510_1280.jpg 853 1280 Andreas Schulze-Kopp https://thestrategyweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/strategywebLogo-300x139.png Andreas Schulze-Kopp2018-04-30 12:30:242018-04-30 10:55:473 recommendations when producing video by Richard Gutjahr [Video]
Report: IoT 2020 – Big expectations and cost savings
23. May 2016 /0 Comments/in Blog English, Featured Stories, Web Strategy /by The Strategy Web
Credit: © sdecoret – Fotolia.com
Just recently, we summarized the findings of Goldman Sachs' on the Internet-of-Things (IoT) report, and what they think where IoT might lead us to in the future.
Now, another report from Schneider Electric called "IoT 2020 Business Report" delivers some new findings on how large organisations will leverage Internet of Things technologies as a serious business tool by 2020. Their study is based on feedback by 3,000 business leaders from twelve countries.
According to their global survey, 75% of respondents were optimistic about the opportunities IoT presents this year. Almost every second out of three (63%) companies use IoT to improve their customer experience and analyze customer behaviour in 2016. They hope to solve problems faster, achieve better customer service and customer satisfaction ranking.
Furthermore, cost savings in automation seem to be high on the agenda, above all building (63%) and industrial automation (62%). As results showed the improvements in automation technologies almost half of the companies (42%) say they want to implement IoT-enabled building automation systems within the next two years.
The key driver for IoT is mobile for two out of three companies (67%). Thus, they plan to implement IoT via mobile applications this year, and 32% even in the next six months. Again, cost savings of up to 59% is the major driver for IoT implementation.
The confidence is the value of knowledge gathering and sharing already exists inside most companies surveyed. 81% feel that the data and/or information generated by the IoT is being shared effectively throughout the organisation. Fears are lower than expected. Only 41% of respondents connect cybersecurity threats with IoT business challenges.
"We're past the point of questioning whether IoT will deliver value. Businesses now need to make informed decisions to position themselves to maximise IoT's value in their organisation." Dr. Prith Banerjee, Chief Technology Officer, Schneider Electric
However, Schneider Electric does not only publish numbers of their study but also provides the following predictions that business leaders might take into consideration.
1. The next wave of digital transformation.
IoT will bring operational technology (OT) and IT together while fueling a mobile and digitally enabled workforce: As more companies both expand and deepen their digitisation programmes enterprise-wide, IoT will increasingly take centre stage. This new wave of transformation will be enabled by more affordable "connected" sensors, embedded intelligence and control, faster and more ubiquitous communications networks, cloud infrastructure, and advanced data-analytics capabilities.
2. Insightful data.
IoT will translate previously untapped data into insights that enable enterprises to take the customer experience to the next level: When thinking about the value proposition of IoT, most businesses point to efficiency and cost savings as the key benefits. Yet access to data – including previously untapped data – and the ability to translate it into actionable insights, the hallmark of IoT, will deliver greater customer-service transformation and new opportunities to build brand/service loyalty and satisfaction.
3. Premise-to-cloud confidence.
The IoT will promote an open, interoperable and hybrid computing approach, and it will foster industry and government collaboration on global architecture standards that address cybersecurity concerns: While cloud-based IoT solutions will grow in popularity, no single computing architecture will monopolise their delivery. IoT instead will flourish across systems, both at the edge and on premise, as part of private cloud or public cloud offerings. Making IoT available across heterogeneous computing environments will help end users adopt IoT solutions in the way that best suits their security and mission-critical needs while also offering entities with legacy technology infrastructures a logical and manageable path forward, allowing them to transform over time.
4. Innovations that leapfrog existing infrastructure.
IoT will function as a source of innovation, business model disruption and economic growth for businesses, governments and emerging economies: Just as the Industrial Revolution, birth of the Internet and mobile revolution have driven advancement, innovation and prosperity, so will IoT. Businesses and cities alike will deliver new IoT-enabled services; new business models will emerge; and, in particular emerging economies will have a significant opportunity to quickly leverage IoT without the constraint of legacy infrastructure, essentially leapfrogging old ways. In fact, McKinsey forecasts that 40 percent of the worldwide market for IoT solutions will be generated by developing countries.
5. A better planet.
IoT solutions will be leveraged to address major societal and environmental issues: IoT will help countries and their economies respond to the biggest challenges facing our planet, including global warming, water scarcity and pollution. In fact, survey respondents identified improved resource utilisation as the number one benefit of IoT to society as a whole. In concert with the private sector, local and national governments will embrace IoT to accelerate and optimise current initiatives to curtail greenhouse gas emissions in accord with the breakthrough COP21 climate agreement, whereby 196 countries pledged to keep global warming under the threshold of two degrees celsius.
The Internet of Things has been seen as the main revolution from a technology perspective. The hype seems to be at an all-time high. Real business value is not only saving money though. Customer service improvements, better process optimization and smarter work and life opportunities will have big potential to bring IoT business value to enterprises in the future.
What is your experience on the value of IoT for your business?
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Why fans and friends unfollow brands on Facebook, Twitter & Linkedin (Infographic)
18. March 2015 /0 Comments/in Blog English, Featured Stories, Social Media /by The Strategy Web
Some years ago, the guys at ExactTarget told us why people follow and unfollow brands on social networks and other communication platforms. Time for an update you think? Well, here we go…
The guys at BuzzStream and Fractl conducted some research, asking more than 900 people on why they unfollow brands on social networks. With their And the infographic The Unfollow Algorithm they share their findings with us.
First of all, the big winner seems to be Linkedin. Almost only half of all companies or brands (49%) need to fear that they get unfollowed by their users. More problematic seems to be Facebook: 25% of the respondents said that they unfollowed a brand's official social media page in the last month. And, also Twitter is losing out: 12% of Twitter users stated they unfollowed a brand in the last few days.
So what are the main reasons for the "unfollow algorithm"? Well, the main reasons is that content of brands becomes repetitive and boring – 21% made clear they will unfollow a brand then. The frequency of posting is also ritical for users. If a brand posts too frequently (over 6 times per day) people will unfollow the brand page.
And what do people want? Almost every one in four (22%) claimed that "images" is the most preferred content type posted by brands.
What is your opinion, and why would you unfollow a brand on a social network?
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Email Evolution or Revolution – From Goethe to IBM Verse
20. November 2014 /0 Comments/in Blog English, Featured Stories, Web Strategy /by The Strategy Web
Eyes wide open, the two IBM gentlemen look at me. They sit up right. Professional. Spot On. You can feel their enthusiasm, their expectations are high. Both are social collaboration leaders at IBM, evangelizing on the #newwaytowork. That's how the software technology company hashtags their latest journey to the revolution of the email as they call the launch of their new inbox communication software "IBM Verse". You can tell how excited the two managers in front of me are to talk about the IBM success story. The launch seemed to have gone well so far.
On my opening question both face each other, not sure who shall answer. They are professionals in communication, they are prepared. "The term Verse is historic for communication and conversation", replies Dr. Peter Schuett, Leader Social Business Strategy at IBM. "In times of Goethe, when carriers brought people hand-written letters, all the communication that went to and fro was written in verse." The answer surprised me as IBM's development sounds like a trip in the past.
It is not. For the first time, IBM has taken a new development approach. They made their customers think about the new software solution by inviting customer to their labs, by rethinking email, and by thinking design and customer experience first, based on real customer feedback, input and inspiration. Not the cheapest way to innovate. The product development cost 100 Mio. US Dollars according to them. It has got to be effective from a customer perspective.
For a long time, IBM has been a forerunner in terms of modern workplace technology. Their "Outside the Inbox" evangelist Luis Suarez has already been preaching for a business world with less emails. We all know the reasons why he was addressing this. People get approximately 127 emails a day. This means emails kills 28% of our daily work-time, and thus of our daily productivity.
With IBM Verse the software technology company wants to shift productivity. Creating a more effective business culture is the aim. From Ed Brill's perspective, he is IBM's social business transformation specialist, email should function as a transmitter. Email today should be serving notes like a private letter what Goethe used to do in hand-written form: delivering private information.
"Email is the service forever. But it needs to be a personal service." Dr. Peter Schuett, IBM.
Focussing on the new software solution, I brought up the question in which way this is a revolution to email communication. Ed Brill emphasizes that IBM did not want to reinvent the email. IBM wished for a better email. However, IBM wanted to create a new intersection of email, calendar, social media and analytics. That's what they have done with IBM Verse.
When I showed a bit of my disappointment around the new solution's capabilities in terms of being an aggregation platform for direct messaging and functionality as an inbox management system in general, Ed Brill rearranges my expectations in bringing the metaphor on suits which might all look different in design but are in a sense all alike from the amount of innovation in style and structure. And by the way, the power users of enterprise email are still personal assistants.
True, sometimes people forget where they stand in the evolution of modern communication. With their "People" and "Analytics" functionality, the modern way of a more personalized communication approach seems to get in that social direction in the future. At least, when we compare IBM Verse and Facebook from a superficial point of view. With IBM Verse people also move into the centre of the communication universe which is meant to map the efficiency form content to people. IBM Verse "People" learns to show the users dynamically who is important to their communication, by hour, meeting and topic of conversation. Obviously, users can also change that and arrange it according to their premises. The world of communication gets filtered more and more.
IBM Verse is definitely a big evolution step in email communication. Still, they could have made it a bit more of a revolution in delivering a multi-messaging and communication management platform in my eyes which integrates direct communication via Facebook, Twitter and others.
Brill agrees that when CEOs wanted to spread the word around some company, product or people changes in the company, IBM was about to use email for that communication. Today, via IBM Connections -the internal use of their own company community platform- gets 7 Mio. accesses a month, and the CEO messages will reach (and achieve more feedback) more people via internal social messaging than via email in the past.
Nevertheless, the two gentlemen did not want to commit to a statement whether IBM Verse and IBM Connections might become one platform in the future. But the approach to one collaborative workplace platform, serves the option to have fewer apps in the future. But hey, there is hope: "Rome was not build in one day!" summarizes Schuett in the quick Snapshot video interview in the end of our interview, and smiles.
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"I love advertising because I love lying."
8. October 2014 /0 Comments/in Blog English, Featured Stories, Web Marketing /by The Strategy Web
In a normal world, when people get the CLIO award, they thank the whole world, their parents and sometimes God for achieving the honorary trophy. Not so Jerry Seinfeld in New York during the Advertising Week. Although the award is seen as the "world's most recognized international awards competition for advertising, design, digital and communications," Seinfeld plays the honor down for having been the longtime spokesman for American Express.
"I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless, low-quality, misrepresented items and services is an excellent use of your energy."
What an honest statement. What a harsh reality. What a burst of laughter. Don't bite the hand that's feeding you, someone like his clients might have said. However, he just let's it all out and probably makes the whole celebration audience think for the first time in their lives.
Having moderated the dmexco conference some weeks ago, I have to admit that some people also asked, if I hadn't been too honest when I mentioned that most of the digital advertising companies can be happy that venture capital and private investors exist, as otherwise 80% of the digital parties today would not happen.
Sometime, it is just good to keep the spirit of self-reflecting sarcasm up to drive the future business growth. So, have fun watching Jerry Seinfeld making almost everybody in the room laugh…
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Social Network Leaders for Business
28. July 2014 /0 Comments/in Blog English, Featured Stories, Social Media /by The Strategy Web
Adobe's CMO.com did a great job in summarizing the leading social networks for business in one nice infographic alongside their CMO Guide to The Social Landscape. The marketing technology company checked each of the platforms according to four criteria: brand awareness, customer communication, SEO and traffic generation.
Obviously and not surprising, the leading platforms are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. From our experience not all marketers are aware of the importance to change the contents for each platform and not just run them in different timings. The target-groups on the various platforms may be quite different, thus their interests in content and context as well as their wants and needs might vary extremely – although they might be the same people sometimes.
YouTube will probably become the leading platform when the whole world is more driven by Millennials and their input. Although you might be thinking about funny videos, going viral now, most of the business content can be manuals, employer branding stuff, or even product explanation videos. The opportunities are massive and it is time for marketers to realize.
In the B2B space, Slideshare might be a new platform for marketers. The chances are big here as well, as companies and brands get the option to show presentations from various standpoints. Especially, if the company is addressing different stakeholders in a purchase process, it is sometimes good to open up some thoughts before the meeting, so stakeholders can prepare. And, how often did presentations before meetings not go through as of company email file restrictions…?!
Obviously, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest play a role from a corporate brand perspective. And Google+ especially from a SEO and content marketing point of view. However, we are still at the beginning and every case needs to be evaluated on its own.
Any important platform you are missing in the top 8 social networks?
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Facebook & the "Freemium". What if Facebook charges one dollar a month?
20. May 2014 /0 Comments/in Blog English, Featured Stories, Social Media /by The Strategy Web
Stop reading this blog post if you are a Facebook fan. You might hate it. You might like it. Stop it! You won't? Well then, don't try to be a consultant and just read this and act like a Facebook user. This is our idea how Facebook could become even better…
When I wrote about The Social Globe -a world of paid social networks- some years ago, people called me "mad" and "crazy" teasing such "wild" and "early" paid ideas around social networks. Sometimes, I wondered why The Social Globe – a "network" of social networks like the broadcasting network Sky (earlier Premiere in Germany) never kicked off, bearing in mind all big social networks needed revenue. Maybe it was too big an idea. Maybe too superficially explained. Maybe… Whatever. I never found an answer. Well, maybe one. All major networks want to outplay their competitors. Collaboration is out. Although, we all have the social media philosophy in our heads: Sharing is caring. It does not count for social networks it seems.
Some years are gone since, and we all think about and discuss the value of Facebook. We wonder about it's algorythm deciding what we see, watch and read. And we blame their advertising programs which often don't make the user happy, nor does it seem to meet the personal targeting criteria. Well, in case people even notice the ads.
Traveling a lot, I have discussed a new monetization approach with social media and social networking insiders all over Europe. What happened if Facebook would change their business model according to the following "freemium" scenario. Yes, I know that Mark Zuckerberg has said, Facebook will never cost the user anything.
But what is the value of restricted and filtered content? What if I cannot see the content of my real friends? What if I don't see (the ads of) my favorite love brands anymore on Facebook? What if Facebook loses it's personal benefit and value for me more and more?
So, this is the moment of truth. Users get two account options on Facebook in the future…
a) Free Account
Filtered user account. Ads and branded content to be displayed according to Facebook's targeting system. Facebook decides what content the user sees. Who your "real friends" are is decided by the algorithm.
Costs: 0 EUR per month
b) Paid Account
Unfiltered user account. Opportunity to personalize the own stream. Ads and branded content of the user's favorite brands will be displayed according to their love brand personalization. The users decide what content they see. Who their "real friends" are is decided by the user.
Costs: 1 Dollar per month
Facebook has opened up a new field of communication, a new way of bringing people closer to each other. No matter how far separated they are. It is a great way to make us aware how close we are living, breathing and experiencing our daily lives.
The idea of paid for Facebook accounts is out there to being discussed. Go ahead and give us your thoughts.
Maybe this is the start of a new way of thinking about Facebook. Maybe we can start a real discussion on how to make Facebook a better social networking place with more personal value, less self-glorification, and so on. One that leverages "real" personal connections.
Would you use such a paid version, or stick with the old free account?
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Infographic: How Google Ranks Your Website's Relevance
1. April 2014 /0 Comments/in Blog English, Featured Stories, SEO /by The Strategy Web
This is one of those secrets that is discussed in every single seminar we do: How does Google rank websites? Why does my website not rank higher than my competitors? What could be the best SEO strategy so that Google ranks us under the first three results?
The Google's algorithm is one of the biggest secrets in the marketing world. The 200+ ranking features make it very challenging to find the right web strategy of your content and website structure. So, what's the best way to develop a "Google-loves-us" strategy?
Neil Patel has created a nice infographic that illustrates the main components of the Google algorithm. Let's see what he comes up with…
The main challenge to drive more traffic via search lies in understanding the holistic approach of Google's algorithm. Obviously, it is about the final user that works with the website, reads the content and shares it through their own social communication platforms. Over are those days when people though the "link-in-link-out" game will solve the SEO war, when companies got paid for building link farms, and people got money to bring more links in. In the end, the user decides on what they need, and finally the Google Algorithm reflects that.
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History of Hashtags (Infographic)
20. November 2013 /0 Comments/in Blog English, Featured Stories, Mobile /by The Strategy Web
Whether you use hashtags "#" or not, they have made their history since first introduced in 2007 by Twitter. They became the filter, not only for Twitter – also for special topics, for branding, for trends, and for what not.
Although many people ignored hashtags from the beginning on the social platform, they find more and more acceptance today, now that people know why they are in the world of social web communication. Their real increase in use cam with the year 2009, when the 140 character network decided automatically linking anything preceded by the pound sign.
Nowadays, if you want to get retweets, you better use hashtags as these tweets are 55% more likely to be shared than those without any #. Even Google+, Facebook, Instagram or Vine have started to accept the hashtag value. And Offerpop now introduced an interesting infographic which shows the history of the hashtag.
PS: Interesting to see that more people use hashtags on their mobiles than on their laptops or desktops. Mobile information is consumed in short time periods, so you better make sure people grab your information when they jump on the bus, the train or at a break at an event. Hashtags are the access keys!
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Study: Online forums still popular and leading community option (Infographic)
11. October 2013 /1 Comment/in Blog English, Featured Stories, Social Media /by The Strategy Web
According to a recent "2013 Social Media Survey" by Proboards the interactive communication preferences across platforms are still heading towards forums. Although you might think that they asked their own users (which is probably right), the survey still shows the importance of forums and communities. For their results the company promoted the research toover 150 respondents via Facebook, Twitter, and the ProBoards customer support forum.
The study claims that online forums are still popular. What was interesting for me to see is that they were even preferred compared to social media platform for interactive communication. Two out of three respondents (67%) stated that forums were the social media tool they found most valuable. Obviously, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and Google+ follow but the question here could be asked whether most people realize that all these platforms are also forums if used in the right way. That LinkedIn did not figure in as a significant social media tool is in my eyes not correct as the forums there within, are very powerful and interactive, plus they generate very valueable input for managers.
"The survey results do not surprise us since platforms such as Facebook and Twitter do not give you the level of control that forums do," said Patrick Clinger, founder and CEO of ProBoards. "Forums provide greater customization and more options…"
Forums -although we would define them as communities according to our Community Centric Strategy– offer a great way of engaged communication, and probably with better and deeper quality than any other social network. There is more information in the infographic attached…
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