tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21090450198441092262024-03-13T02:36:31.051+00:00Simon J. RyanHelping Great Firms Win More Business Online.Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-4335870444443470732015-11-03T23:15:00.003+00:002015-11-03T23:25:23.103+00:00Why Successful Marketers Outsource Their Content Production<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Technology, audience habits and our new attitude to money have changed how buying decisions are made. While consumers still respond to offers and deals, any significant purchase starts with online research.<br />
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Would you buy a car without test driving or at least going to see it? Well, 75% of decisions to buy a car start online, 99% end in face to face. In fact AutoTrader data shows we’ll spend over ten hours online choosing the right car. <br />
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The same applies to all major purchases, furniture, home improvements, holidays, mortgages and pensions. The principle applies to B2B purchasing decisions too. <br />
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It all adds up to the buyer being better informed and knowing the specification of their purchase before speaking to the firm that will supply it.<br />
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In online marketing terms, search, social media, websites, pay per click, remarketing and email all have a role to play in bringing that customer closer to buying from you. These are the channels through which someone interested in what you have, travels from curiosity to asking you a question in real life. <br />
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<i>At the core of this process is content. </i>Valuable, engaging and relevant content.<br />
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Without content, these channels are empty vessels that fail to fuel the knowledge driving your new customer’s decision-making. So you can see why take content creation is taken so seriously. <br />
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Content is personal. Compare a Dan Brown novel to one by Charlotte Bronte. The first is a page <br />
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turner (you can’t put it down), the second like sweet music. <i>Well to me anyway.</i><br />
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To showcase what your business has to offer, content is created with a personality that resonates with your customers. So it is easy to see how Marketing Managers start the process internally. Surely your customer facing teams know exactly how to speak to your customers. <i>Right?</i><br />
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Every company has a unique selling point. That thing you do best. Or your brand that is so clearly different from your competitors. Investing time on making sure you have this absolutely right is the core value of your head of marketing, not spending time crafting the content to represent it.<br />
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The awe I have always held for ad agencies is not their ability to create, but their inherent skill in understanding the value of what they are selling.<br />
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Hiring a team to produce your content allows you to deliver the best possible strategy and go to market approach. To test your view of the customer.<br />
To carry out analysis of the gap between what you think the customer values and what they really value. To get to know your customers and articulate how they want to be sold to.<br />
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Invest your time in being absolutely clear about what your clients are searching for online and what they need to find in order to choose to buy from you.<br />
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Then leave the production of quality content to someone else. And let me emphasise that a little more. <b>It is a production line. </b>Not like an old Model T Ford. More like a precision Tesla X. Breathtakingly beautiful crafted outputs; consistently delivered on time and to budget. Leaving you the space to focus on the big stuff, like strategy and all the fires that need to be put out too.<br />
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<i>There is an economic value to outsourced content production.</i><br />
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Yes, you have to budget for it. But consider the cost of a well produced and edited 90 second video at say £2,000. And the cost of providing your own filming facilities. Do you have an in house actor too and skilled script editor? And what about the post-production, mixing images, sound and music together? What will it cost to have all of those facilities?<br />
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The same applies for writing. Let’s say you hire a permanent writer. What does the recruitment process cost? If you recruit from an agency, you have fees too. Hiring from within means training costs. What do you pay them and how do you decide on a bonus?<br />
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You may also have someone earning a wage when they don’t have to produce content all of the time. Or worse still in my experience, the poor scribe that has to write about the same thing day in, day out. They eventually lose the sparkle, their creativity wains and then you’re just left with another pen pusher. <br />
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All this and we still haven’t touched on flexibility. What happens when you need lots produced at once and then long periods of nothing at all. How expensive do your in house resources look now?<br />
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That’s why successful marketers leave the how to the people with the skills and resources and focus on the what their customers want.</div>
Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-66003636109188538212015-10-26T06:27:00.000+00:002015-10-26T11:35:05.055+00:00Top 10 Tips On How To Keep Safe On Social Media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Social
media is an ever evolving – the main sites are continually trying to enhance
the user experience. Businesses use it to market their companies and connect
with their customers. Individuals use it to connect to others and their
favourite businesses. Like most things social networking was created to improve
our lifestyle but also has its own side effects. In this case social networking
has the ability to put you at risk if not used properly.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-krYlUz-4yEs/VizniC98HWI/AAAAAAAARVY/Bxi_dIWVf2M/s1600/IdentityTheftImageForWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-krYlUz-4yEs/VizniC98HWI/AAAAAAAARVY/Bxi_dIWVf2M/s1600/IdentityTheftImageForWeb.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Many
of my clients over the past 3 years have come to me with some considerable
wariness about the loss of control of social media, and so they should. Its
what we do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Given
all the distress I’ve seen about the Talk Talk identity theft situation over
the weekend, I thought I’d share my thoughts on staying safe using social
media.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">It's
longer than my normal posts, but it's important, so please take some time
review and share with your colleagues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>1.</b> <b>Have
A Brilliant Password</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Passwords
were created to protect your personal account. Having a difficult password
would do just that and make it hard for someone to hack into your account.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Are
you using a simple password such as 123abc? Do you have your password written
in multiple places? Or do your online accounts have unique and strong
passwords?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">If
your current passwords are simple you don’t need to worry, you can always
change them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27732266">Heartbleed</a> is a recently discovered
Internet bug that has put a bright spotlight onto passwords. The bug caused
most websites, even the most secure ones, to be vulnerable to hackers,
potentially exposing user names and passwords for your online accounts. No
matter how secure your passwords were, you need to change them for <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/">sites that were affected by Heartbleed</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>2.</b> <b>Don’t
Share Personal Information</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">If
you share your personal information such as your address and phone number on
social media, you open yourself up to all sorts of issues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">It
is very easy for someone to steal your identity and pretend to be you if they
have access to your name, date of birth, place of residence and phone number.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Keep
identification data off social media, except in secure fields where it is
necessary to share it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>3.</b> <b>Be
Aware Of Fake Friends</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">As
a business owner with a wide network of
contacts, an unknown friend request can be a common occurrence. But before I
accept any friend request from someone that isn't familiar, I do my best to
verify the person's identity. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">If you have a business page on Facebook it’s more likely administered
through your personal account, accepting an unknown person can put your business
page in jeopardy.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Not all unknown friend requests are malicious; they may be from
potential customers, people who are interested in </span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #f3f3f3; padding: 0cm;">your business or old friends. The easiest way to vet the person behind the
friend request is to get in touch directly. Send the person a direct message,
mention you don't recognize their name and politely request that they explain
how they know you.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>4.</b> <b>Make
Use Of The Security Settings</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Online
security is an essential safety measure for anyone using the web.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8nx37uhg9_o/ViznrL8YtaI/AAAAAAAARVc/W5Alfvzuies/s1600/moneymagpie_identity-theft-485x300.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
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href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8nx37uhg9_o/ViznrL8YtaI/AAAAAAAARVc/W5Alfvzuies/s1600/moneymagpie_identity-theft-485x300.jpg"
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">In 2012, <a href="http://www.wired.com/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/"><i></i> senior tech
reporter Mat Honan</a> lost more
than a year's worth of pictures of his newborn daughter after
his Google and Amazon accounts were hacked. Following the
attacks Internet companies are increasingly moving toward two-step verification
policies. The new verification policy requires a user to enter a security code
in addition to a password when logging in from an unrecognized device. The
security code is usually sent via text to a mobile device.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">The<b> “</b>two-factor authentication," security measures in
place. Both Facebook and Twitter has taken
different directions when it came down to where the "two-factor
authentication," will be on their site.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8nx37uhg9_o/ViznrL8YtaI/AAAAAAAARVg/VCRdCbCMpCA/s1600/moneymagpie_identity-theft-485x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8nx37uhg9_o/ViznrL8YtaI/AAAAAAAARVg/VCRdCbCMpCA/s320/moneymagpie_identity-theft-485x300.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Facebook's version of two-step verification is login approvals. To
enable Login Approval, go to <b>Settings > Security > Login
Approvals</b> and enter your phone number. Once you've enabled the
function, Facebook texts you a security code every time someone tries to access
your account from an unknown browser.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Twitter click the Gear icon in the top-right corner to access
the Settings menu. Scroll down until you see "Account security" and
check the box that says "Require a verification code when I sign in."
Before you set up two-step verification on Twitter, you must confirm your email
address and add a phone number to your account.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>5.</b> <b>Don’t
Click On Unknown Links</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">The
best security software can’t protect you from the headaches you’ll encounter if
you click an unsafe link. Unsafe links are masked with normality using
shortcuts to funny videos, shocking news stories, awesome deals, or “Like”
buttons, but are really designed to steal your personal information or hijack
your computer. They appear to be normal everyday links to the point that your
friends can unknowingly pass on unsafe links in emails, Facebook posts, and
instant messages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">You’ll
also encounter unsafe links in website ads and search results. Sometimes a link masks the website to which it links.
If you hover over a link without clicking it, you’ll notice the full URL of the
link’s destination in a lower corner of your browser.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>6.</b><b>Educate
Yourself</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">If you've been using media for as little as two hours, you have probably
noticed that things change fast and without warning. No matter your reason for
using social media, it's important that you continually educate yourself on social
media.</span></div>
<o:p></o:p>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Having
some sort of education in social networking puts you ahead of the game and
helps you tackle problems appropriately. Prevention is better than cure, have
you also heard of that saying? Having a rough estimate of what could go wrong
when networking is very handy because if it does happen to you it won’t be
something new or unexplainable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>7.</b> <b>Maintain
A Good Reputation</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Everyone
strives to stand out online but there are two ways this could happen ether with
a good reputation or a bad reputation. The Internet doesn't censor your life or
filter out items you don't want other people to see. If a client
enters your name into Google, the search engine will deliver the most relevant
results.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Be
proactive in guarding your privacy and your reputation. This process can be
time-consuming, but dedicating time every week to finding and removing dubious
content is well worth the effort. For example, if you’re tagged in an
questionable photo on Facebook, you can remove the tag yourself. If for any reason
you can't remove the tag, nicely ask your friend to do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Joining
professional sites, such as LinkedIn, create a business fan page on Facebook
and write a blog. You can connect all of them together through links and
favourites lists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>8.</b> <b>Signs
Your Account Has Been Hacked</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">You
may not know for sure if your account was hacked, especially if this is
something you haven’t seen or experienced yet, but there are tell-tale signs of
a hacked account. Here are few indications to keep an eye out for:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Unexpected posts from your
account<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Unexpected private messages
sent from your account<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Unexpected email notification
from the site stating that you recently made changes to your account<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Other behaviours you didn’t
make or approve (liking, friending, following, unfollowing, or blocking,
for example)<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Keep
in mind that unexpected posts can sometimes happen due to a new app you’ve
installed, which you’ve given permission to post to your account. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>9.</b> <b>Know
What Action To Take If Your Account Was Hacked</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">If you
notice that your account has been intruded, there are a few things you’ll need
to do:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Scan your
computer for malware<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">If you find malware, remove it
and follow procedures for recovering from identity theft<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Change your password on the
hacked site<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Revoke permissions for any
third-party apps and services<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Change your password on
any other sites where you used the same username and password<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Report any spam or scams that
have been sent out from your account to the social networking site, so
they can help stop it from spreading<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Notify friends and family
(especially if the hack was due to malware, or unexpected messages or
posts include potentially-malicious links)<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">If you cannot follow any of
these steps because your account details have been changed, you will need
to contact support for the website that provides your account so
that you can regain control<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>10.</b> <b>Know
What To Post</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Have
you had to scrap something together, but felt you were not being creative or
original, and your posts received no response from followers? You don’t need to
worry, you’re not alone. This is a common problem for social media managers and
anyone else who needs to tackle day-to-day social marketing. If someone tells
you to “just post something” or “do social media,” you may find yourself
wondering what to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">It
can be very tempting to post anything that comes into your mind. It might seem
like a good idea but it isn’t always. You’re entitled to your own opinion but
do it in moderation and with caution. Don’t post something your mother or
youngest child wouldn’t find pleasant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Posting
things like <i>“I hate my job,” </i>isn’t good in many ways. Even
if you do hate your job, keep it to yourself and your family or close friends.
Don't tell the world, because the wrong person is probably going to see your
post, it could be your employer, client or co-worker.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Remember
you have a reputation to keep. I hope you have find this tips helpful. </span></div>
</div>
Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-80742883054813034042012-12-12T07:01:00.000+00:002012-12-12T07:01:34.215+00:00How organisations can manage change in their staff’s subconscious<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rJ9j4sfAhf0/UMgqv50_JBI/AAAAAAAABYc/tQvM9Ex1NIk/s1600/change+Ghandi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rJ9j4sfAhf0/UMgqv50_JBI/AAAAAAAABYc/tQvM9Ex1NIk/s320/change+Ghandi.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most of my 20 year marketing career has involved managing
change. In fact, I would go as far as to say that understanding change has been
more important to my career than learning marketing theory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Change means new processes, new metrics, different organisation
structures, ground breaking technology, outsourcing part of the value chain and
focusing on different customers or customer needs. Ultimately, change means we
need people in our organisations to do different tasks (or tasks differently)
because we are being forced to or because it will lead to greater success.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every major marketing initiative from my first ecommerce
website, through implement an automated dialler, several CRM solutions, social
media and analytics right up until the IPad applications that I have launched
have relied more on managing change than marketing. And not just technology
based marketing projects, rebranding, putting customer insight at the heart of
planning, establishing lead generation campaigns, all require major change management.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course customer insight is part of these developments
DNA, but the initiatives success is comes from managing the change effectively. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So we educate, explain, make time for stakeholders to
question, we are open to shape the change by those most impacted. We produce
robust documentation, governance and risk management. All of these ingredients
are baked into most organisations change or project management processes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet what nearly all firms ignore is that our behaviours are
driven by our values and capabilities, and they live in our subconscious.
Organisations rationalise change, just as they do redundancy. They say ‘it’s
not you being made redundant, it’s your role.’ Which of course rationally is
true, so why does it feel like bereavement to the majority of people affected.
Because our subconscious has developed values and capabilities that have always
worked for us and no matter how much we try to rationalise at a conscious
level, our subconscious holds these values to be true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>So how do organisations manage change at the level of their
staff’s subconscious? <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly they must recognise that continuous change is the
reality of their business. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Secondly, they must ensure that change management is
monitored among their leadership as a core skill on which promotion is
predicated on demonstrating it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, and most importantly, they stop looking at branding, staff engagement,
culture and their stated values as nice to haves, but essential to the firm's survival. They stop talking about these
pillars of successful change management as fluffy, but hard edged measures
that will ensure the sustainability of the business models to deliver
shareholder value.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Change comes everyday,
anyone that says otherwise is a kidding themselves. Any business that doesn’t
embrace it is on borrowed time.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-44379682172612778192012-11-13T07:48:00.000+00:002012-11-13T07:48:53.256+00:00The most fundamental role of social media for B2B is listening<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HrT1veaalRQ/TbAik3x4x4I/AAAAAAAAAK4/di9_iwr7UOM/s1600/active_listening.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HrT1veaalRQ/TbAik3x4x4I/AAAAAAAAAK4/di9_iwr7UOM/s200/active_listening.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #19366d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Business marketers increasingly
understand the value of a content led marketing strategy. <o:p></o:p></span></span>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #19366d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Engaging current and potential
clients through thoughtful and useful content is now more powerful than any
other form of marketing for establishing and growing sustainable commercial
relationships. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #19366d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have found that an effective content strategy needs a clear picture of what content to publish where and when – and that’s
needs insight. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #19366d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #19366d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my recent webinar for BrightTalk I spoke about two important
activities for extracting that insight from social media, reporting and
analysis.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #19366d;">Reporting is a regular time
based activity – setting out volume data what topics, users, channels are most
active?</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #19366d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Analysis goes beyond reporting,
helping you to become conscious of the conversations about your brand that your
organisation is currently unconscious of. An essential part of social media for
enterprises; its power is going to help organisations that master gain a real
and tangible competitive advantage in the 21st century.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #19366d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I hope you find this rerun of my
8<sup>th</sup> November 2012 webinar useful. I love hearing your views on how
to effectively collect insight to drive a B2B content strategy, please comment
here or through <a href="http://www.blogger.com/uk.linkedin.com/in/simonryan">Linked In</a>.</i></span></span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #19366d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-22466162474609059452012-11-06T08:15:00.000+00:002012-11-07T14:45:19.227+00:00Pay sales and marketing people the same to get the best results<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In <a href="http://simonjryan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/what-gets-measured-by-marketing-gets.html">my last blog</a> I introduced the importance for marketing to have meaningful metrics in order to justify its performance. In short term sales driven cultures (yes they do still exist), marketing needs metrics to justify its very existence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Effective marketing throughout the mix has a meaningful and sustainable effect on the long term sustainability of the business. Yet the outcomes we measure seem obscure to the rest of the business, especially the two axis of power in any enterprise, finance and sales. These functions measure their success and the success of the business using currency. ‘A Mark, a Yen, a Buck or a Pound’ are a lot more universal than conversion rates, share of voice and recall. ‘Money makes the world go around.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But just as marketing needs to move the way that it measures to reflect what the business values, so sales has to evolve to recognise business is no generated at the point of sales but over months and years beforehand. Sales start when the product concept is tested and evolved or when the brand vision is planned and introduced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sales people generally believe all the hard work happened at the deal close. They choose to ignore there wouldn’t have been a deal to close without credible brand positioning and competitive products.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Interestingly, I was sent a video by a consultancy called Software Advice that shares my view. You can see the video at </span><a href="http://www.crmsoftware.tv/" style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-auto;" target="_blank">CRMSoftware.TV</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I led a sales channel of nearly 100 people, I worked closely with the product people to ensure my incentive schemes gave larger rewards for the most profitable products, or products that generated the most customer loyalty. Not a scheme to meet my phenomenal targets that rewards the bulk sale of the easiest to sell products. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My approach led to dramatic falls in customer churn within 6 months of its introduction and although I made new friends with the product managers; I disappointed the acquisition-marketing people. They wanted to lead on discounts and promotions to drive customer volumes, and not a sustainable share of wallet approach. Had we all shared objectives and incentives I have no doubt we would have been more focused on collaborating to deliver the overall business outcome, sustainable revenue generating customers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ever since that time I have been a strong advocate for product managers, sales people, marketers, and indeed fulfilment (operations) teams working to the same objectives with a shared bonus pool. Everyone across business development, including the teams that have to fulfil and service goods and services should put their compensation at risk and share in the success. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I predict that businesses that fail to grasp the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration will soon grasp the fact they are failing customers, themselves and their shareholders.</span></i></div>
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Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-38974224812294231232012-10-26T11:55:00.000+01:002015-10-25T10:32:51.204+00:00Successful investment management businesses formula for social media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: orange; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my second blog for Visible Banking, following an event I chaired at London Social Media Week.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I share two shining examples of investment management firms that demonstrate their formula for achieving success in social media. <a href="http://www.visiblebanking.com/leading-uk-social-advisors-bond-vigilantes-mallow-street-social-media-week/" target="_blank">Click here</a></span></span></span></div>
Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-27599114157776098982012-10-23T09:00:00.000+01:002012-10-24T13:08:12.393+01:00What gets measured by marketing gets valued.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of my all time management hero’s, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch">Jack Welch</a>, often uses this quote from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker">Peter Drucker</a> <i><span lang="EN-US">“Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business has two – and only two – functions: Marketing and Innovation. Marketing and Innovation produce results. All the rest are costs.”</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone in marketing recognises this to be true, but few follow through with the responsibility it places on us <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have relied on this quotation on more than one occasion to help protect mine or a client’s marketing budget with varying degrees of success. In each instance, my success came down to how effectively I could demonstrate the value of the activity produced to date.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">B2B marketing teams must be able to measure the things that lead to sales, just as sales must understand they have a responsibility to marketing to provide valuable insight and genuine feedback on leads. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most obvious (and I would suggest minimum) metrics that all B2B marketing functions should publish are:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The number of leads generated from marketing activity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The number of opportunities generated from marketing activity and<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The number of revenue generated from marketing activity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I know this can be difficult for some businesses. Different lead times and buying cycles mean that a sale today can be from lead two years ago and <span lang="EN-US">reporting is rarely perfect at first attempt. But we can’t let these challenges become excuses not measure. We can all get bogged down in figures and statistics but we have to rely on some metrics everyone buys into to demonstrate the value being delivered. The process can crafted over time with input from both sales and marketing. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While this collaboration to report with sales is going on, marketing can get to work on benchmarking how many interactions or reach £1 can buy. This doesn’t measure the things that lead to sales, but does indicate the value for money on the volume of the activity being delivered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have done this for an entire marketing budget in the past by taking a base year of activity and budget to cost a primary lead, interaction and reach. It works something like this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s say you are planning to attend a major trade show that will cost £100k, excluding travel, subsistence and time. The event will have 10k visitors, of which you expect 500 to visit your stand over 3 days.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"> £100k ÷ 10k visitors is a potential reach of 100 from a £1 unit cost.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> £100k ÷ 500 visitors is a potential interaction of 2.5 from a £1 unit cost</span></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can now bench mark this event against all activity in the previous period/year. Let’s say all the activity last year including direct mail responses, web visits over 3 minutes, social media posts and PR cost £600k. Let’s also say it generated reach of 900 and 2.8 interactions for £1 cost respectively, we know the event is in the ball park and is worth investing in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope that helps. Of course the one thing that all B2B marketers know that the text books will never tell you. You only have to generate one lead per year that generates a big enough deal for you to have no trouble securing your budget next year. The trouble is, you have to rely on the sales team to admit it came from marketing. <a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/220535712974084730/" target="_blank">Infographic</a></span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-74190251090669060862012-10-18T09:00:00.000+01:002012-10-18T11:16:19.319+01:00What to do with ideas when you step out of the shower.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tTxAY8AKbJA/UHKa8ZOVHII/AAAAAAAABXc/SxJBfsA2L8Q/s1600/personal-hygiene-shower.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tTxAY8AKbJA/UHKa8ZOVHII/AAAAAAAABXc/SxJBfsA2L8Q/s200/personal-hygiene-shower.png" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When we think about innovation at work, we most often start with the idea generation process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The best ideas come when we let our subconscious run free. I find this happens most when I’m running, driving on the motorway and when I’m showering. My wife often finds me, much to her annoyance, sitting on the bed dripping wet and scribbling notes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed I provided two more ideas on how to generate innovative ideas at work in a recent <a href="http://simonjryan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/my-3-tips-for-successful-innovation.html">blog</a> and touched on <span lang="EN-US">successful innovation being mainly about delivery. In this blog, I want to explore the value of evaluation stage of innovative ideas that comes after we have the idea and before we start on making them a reality.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">As the great actor </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Harrison">Rex Harrison</a> puts it better than me <i>"exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realise what is wrong with it."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Being critical of our own ideas is essential, but if we find ourselves continually ruling out our new thoughts, this can lead to creative paralysis. So how do we carryout a meaningful evaluation of ideas without preventing our ability to go on to and create more. Well, here is a great model I recently learned about that not only addresses this dichotomy, it can actually lead to more sustainable ideas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Any list of the great innovators of the last 100 years includes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_disney">Walt Disney</a>. Walt Disney by any measure was an extraordinary creator. Not just artistically, but commercially too. He understood the value of his art and how to present it in a way that we could all enjoy it most and he could build a business from it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Academic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dilts">Robert Dilts</a> analysed Disney’s approach and modelled a clear separation between his state as a dreamer, a critic and a realist, called the <a href="http://www.nlpu.com/Patterns/pattern7.htm">Walt Disney Pattern</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After having your idea in the shower, you need to see the process as a storyboard and then step back into it in 3 different roles, or mind states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly as the realist - think<span lang="EN-US"> very realistically and devise a specific plan to put your new idea effectively into action. Secondly, become the </span>critic. Find out if anything is missing or needed and turn the criticisms into questions for the dreamer to address.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, step back into the idea as the dreamer (take another shower if this helps). Think creatively to come up with solutions, alternatives and additions to address the questions posed by the critic. Repeat as many times as required until you go all wrinkly, run out of water or have a blockbuster idea.</span><!--EndFragment--> </div>
Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-43353200604929101112012-10-15T10:05:00.001+01:002012-10-15T10:05:26.806+01:00£1.65bn is the cost of denying customer choice.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I imagine that Santander is as disappointed as RBS, that their plan to acquire 318 branches and 250,000 small business customers from UK’s state owned bank has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9606927/RBS-hopes-dashed-by-one-phone-call.html" target="_blank">collapsed</a> due to a technology issue; A technology issue that most utilities addressed almost 20 years ago.</span><br />
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UK telcos started planning for number portability in the mid 1990’s as they knew they would never grow with out it. After lengthy consultation by UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, all telcos, including the fledgling start ups and mobile companies had to offer customer portability of their telephone numbers from <a href="http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/publications/numbering/port0100.htm" target="_blank">19th January 2000</a>.<br />
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The deregulation of gas and electricity regulators delivered a similar protocol, enabling customers to switch easily between providers within the terms of their contracts.<br />
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While telecoms and utilities companies have come and gone, customer portability being enabler of success or failure, not the root cause. Businesses with the best service and value proposition thrive, regardless of the industry.<br />
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Yet the UK retail banking sector has closed its ears to consumer group’s calls for account number portability, and now the whole industry is paying the cost; £1.65bn in RBS case. Had RBS enabled account number portability, the challenge they are facing today in preparing to transfer customers would have already been solved. <br />
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This is the ROI case for customer experience and brand. This is the case for delivering the best you can for customers to deliver shareholder value.<br />
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So isn’t it time, the <a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/fin_stability_regreform_structure.htm" target="_blank">new banking regulators</a> take up the mantle for customer choice? Even if it’s just to save the UK retail bank’s shareholders from themselves.</div>
Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-49130437131706158822012-10-10T09:00:00.000+01:002012-10-10T09:00:02.214+01:00The meaning of communication is the response you get<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--45bMrhu-w4/UHK2oZBGUHI/AAAAAAAABXs/77wfpYiCw9E/s1600/JP_OB_Fish&Chips.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="144" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--45bMrhu-w4/UHK2oZBGUHI/AAAAAAAABXs/77wfpYiCw9E/s200/JP_OB_Fish&Chips.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Charles
Green, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trusted-Advisor-David-H-Maister/dp/0743207769/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349693949&sr=1-1">The
Trusted Advisor</a> says <i>“Valuable
content is the focus of all successful marketing today.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Engaging current and potential customers through thoughtful
and useful content is more powerful than above the line and direct mail. It can
be delivered through channels that customers have opted into, removing its
disruptive nature, and can much more effectively targeted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I accept that
writing a blog can seem like producing popcorn if are used to delivering more
detailed white papers and magazine articles. I accept that a single blog can
never give justice to a large and complex topic. I know that blogs are as transient as the paper we use to wrap fish and chips in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I firmly believe the meaning of communication is
the response you get, and o</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ne of the most effective ways to get an immediate
response to a business idea is to publish it as a blog that will resonate with your
customers.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not for a moment advocating
producing blogs for the sole purpose of provocation, but obtaining a response
is a valuable outcome for blogging commercially.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Longer written pieces have their place, and
sometimes anything less may seem vacuous. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are writing to stand out and generate
business, a series of
regular blogs focused on the audience you want to engage with is powerful way to start. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blogs are low
cost, fast to produce and an effective way to get some personality onto your
business brand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don’t just take my word for it. Last week I attended a <a href="http://www.koganpage.com/about/events/marketing-trends-a-kogan-page-and-british-library-event">super
seminar</a> at The British library arranged by Kogan Page. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The highlight for me was two experienced and talented
commercial content producers <a href="http://www.valuablecontent.co.uk/about/sonja-jefferson/">Sonja Jefferson</a>
and <a href="http://www.valuablecontent.co.uk/about/sharon-tanton/">Sharon
Tanton</a>, who’s new book <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Valuable-Content-Marketing-Quality-Business/dp/0749465808/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349693813&sr=8-1">Valuable
Content Marketing</a> is much longer than this blog, and even more informed.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-72043896800206105222012-09-28T15:26:00.003+01:002012-10-08T12:22:46.090+01:00The social media formula for a successful investment management business<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my first blog for Visible Banking, freshly back from a productive week and a successful event in Australia- I share with investment management firms my formula for achieving success in social media. </span></span><a href="http://www.visiblebanking.com/social-media-formula-successful-investment-management-business/" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Click here</a></div>
Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-5122050648752744432012-09-21T08:30:00.000+01:002012-09-24T09:02:26.362+01:00My 3 tips for successful innovation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are lots of blogs, articles, academic papers, seminars and conventions dedicated to explaining how enterprises should innovate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are even experts, consultancy firms and people like me that have innovation in their job specification. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In fact, a whole industry has been built on the topic. Yet still it eludes most managers and their firms. So just to add to the noise, here are my top three, yes, just three tips on how to innovate in your department.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Innovate when everyone is at his or her cleverest.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We all know, without any shadow of a doubt that <i>‘we are all clever after the fact.’</i> So can there possible be any better time to innovate. When something isn’t working or has gone wrong, put your thinking caps on. I know this may sound obvious, but there is a subtle difference in thinking innovatively in this situation and just working out what the heck are we going to do to sort this mess out:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The milk has been spilt, so there is no point crying about it and it can’t get any worse. So let’s get creative, let’s ask whether we should be using milk in the first place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ask the people that know best what we should do.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I recently found an amazing piece of insight about a product my firm supplies through analysing unstructured social media data. I validated what I found with the last two years complaints records and found a correlation to inform a business case to change the product feature that caused all of the negative sentiment. Proud of myself I was telling a couple of colleagues in the contact centre about it, and instead of telling me how clever I was, they said <i>‘oh yeah, we knew that.’</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We spend lots of management time and resources trying to figure out how what our customers are thinking, when those people that interact with them every day know. They understand how they feel about us and what their perceptions of us are – but do we ever ask them? Do we spend as much time asking our front line colleagues what they think our customers would think is pretty amazing instead of trying to figure out 40,000 feet from the front line?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It doesn’t matter how many ideas you have.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Successful innovation is not in having the ideas, the insight or data to support the ideas, the business case or the ROI models – it’s in the delivery. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Give the innovation task to the people that deliver. The best innovations in the world are the ones that get delivered; the ones that weren’t delivered are probably all OTE, overtaken by events. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They don’t have to be huge innovations; incremental change is the way of things. It works for Apple and Dell, 3M and GE, some of the greatest innovators in the world. Great leaps like landing a man on the moon relied on hundreds of small incremental innovations, like a pen that works in space (a pencil of you’re a Russian astronaut).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So innovation is simple:</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do it when it’s all gone tits up, ask the people closest to the most important people in the business, customers, and ask someone you know can deliver to do it.</span></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-6860932610559050832012-09-16T08:00:00.000+01:002012-09-16T08:00:06.192+01:00Making investment decisions from Twitter insight – Part Two<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next study in my review builds on using social media data to inform investment decisions. It is based on the assumption that sentiment towards certain brands and goods affect a firm’s earnings and therefore inform investment decisions. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><strong>A Dynamic Model of the Effect of Online Communications on Firm Sales. (Garrett Sonnier, Leigh McAlister and Oliver Rutz)</strong><br />
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The <a href="http://mktsci.journal.informs.org/content/early/2011/06/06/mksc.1110.0642.abstract" target="_blank">McAlister Study</a> found a strong connection between online chatter and a firm’s daily sales. Making social media chatter a valuable resource for investors open to making investment decisions using customer insight to make money in the stock market.<br />
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Now as a marketing practitioner, this paper really resonates with me. <br />
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<em>Firstly, it speaks right to the principles for Value Based Marketing that the late Peter Doyle set out in his <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Value-Based-Marketing-Strategies-Corporate-Shareholder/dp/0470773146" target="_blank">book</a> of the same title.</em> The book incidentally that motivated me to want to study an MBA. <br />
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The governing objective of management in all of today's leading companies is to maximise long-term returns to shareholders. Value Based Marketing defines marketing's role as contributing to the task of shareholder value creation. <br />
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<em>Secondly, it quantifies what marketing professionals have always known, word of mouth is powerful. </em><br />
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If customers are saying good things about your brand to their network (friends, family, colleagues etc), more people will buy that brand’s products. If customers dislike your price, product, promotion, people, processes or place of business, they will not only not buy from you, but tell everyone too.<br />
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<em>Thirdly, it puts customer experience of a brand at the top of the leadership team’s agenda. </em><br />
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McAllister et al found that there is a significant effect of positive, negative, and neutral online communications on daily sales performance. They make the case for executives to listen to customer insight and to act on it. However, one caveat on this final point, from <a href="http://simonjryan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/8-steps-to-get-most-from-social-media.html" target="_blank">my own experience</a> - combine social media insight with all the other data you have collected into a single view of those topics.<br />
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<strong>Conclusions</strong><br />
Listening to what is being said in social media and twitter in particular is still a relatively new development. What we are finding out about an organisation’s performance from it is not. <br />
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The single biggest take away for the C-Suite is – there is no longer anywhere to hide. Your customers and stakeholders have a collective voice and they are learning how to use it. <br />
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Your investors will recognise poor customer experience in your share price.<br />
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<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/simonjryan/using-social-media-analytics-to" target="_blank">Click here for supporting slide deck</a><br />
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Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-11115438417606420002012-09-13T08:00:00.000+01:002012-09-14T19:21:04.712+01:00Making investment decisions based on insight from Twitter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Predicting individual shares and stock market movements is one of the oldest professions and there are people far better qualified than me to assess the validity of the models used. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/business/23trading.html?_r=1" target="_blank">Automating</a> this process is also not new.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tech-savvy traders have been sourcing data from reports, press releases and corporate Web sites for years. Genuine advocates of automated predictive models use powerful computers to speed-read content and then letting the machines decide what it all means for the markets. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, using Twitter is still a relatively new phenomena. In this and my next blog, I will explore how two studies I have come across can inform our thinking on social media and share price. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Twitter mood predicts the stock market. (Johan Bollen, Huina Mao, Xiao-Jun Zeng)</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />The <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.3003" target="_blank">Bollen et al</a> study results indicated that the accuracy of DJIA
predictions from Twitter can be significantly improved by the inclusion of
specific public mood dimensions. They claimed an accuracy of
87.6% in predicting the daily up and down changes in the closing values of the
DJIA and a reduction of the Mean Average Percentage Error by more than 6%.</span><br />
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<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The study investigated whether measurements of collective mood states derived from large-scale Twitter feeds are correlated to the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) over time. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They analysed text content of daily Twitter feeds with
tracking tools that measure positive vs. negative mood and mood in terms of 6
dimensions (Calm, Alert, Sure, Vital, Kind, and Happy).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Now I’m not convinced by this study.</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It seems to me, if the mood is being reflected in the Twittersphere, everyone probably already knows how it will move markets, so there isn’t a whole lot of competitive advantage. Unless of course, it’s insider information, in which case and putting aside the regulatory and moral minefield that comes with this hypotheses; Investors would need a high risk tolerance to act on it without verification and the opportunity cost of seeking verification would render the Twitter news obsolete.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If that isn’t enough to be wary of, as a researcher posted on <a href="http://www.quora.com/Stock-Market/Can-Twitter-sentiment-analysis-guide-stock-market-investment" target="_blank">Quora</a> “There's also a paradox: once there are enough tweets about the inside information it's no longer really inside information. Twitter is probably best used for assessing the herd mentality. One strategy might be to look at all the dumb stuff people are saying and then bet the opposite.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my next blog, I will look at the sales effect of the volume of positive, negative, and neutral online communications captured by social media monitoring technology and classified by automated sentiment analysis.</span></div>
Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-61608461505712686252012-09-10T08:00:00.000+01:002012-09-10T08:00:06.828+01:00Social business, not social media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A conversation that seems to repeat itself with my colleagues from our industry is: <em>How many corporate twitter feeds or Facebook pages are the right number?</em> It suggests a certain amount of indecision that it keeps boomeranging, which is never a good thing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More importantly that it comes up at all. The principle of marketing engagement, and indeed social is quite simple. It’s niche. Social is all about communities that share an interest, no matter how fleeting, coming together to discuss it. Successful marketing is based on focusing propositions to as specific customer group as possible. So the principle is simple, you need as many channels/feeds as there are identifiable, substantial and genuine interest groups.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The harder question then becomes: <em>Should everyone be engaging with customers through social?</em> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, probably not. Not everyone at my cable company answers my calls – that’s obvious by how long I have to wait on hold. However, we will all need to be able to engage with our colleagues, suppliers and other stakeholders using social media platforms. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not everything is needed right here, right now, but as demand increases it will need to be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A looming demand is increasing in our enterprises that mean that the whole business needs to be social. That is, have access and be adept as using the different tools and platforms. That means a single interface for managing multiple platforms, at the desk and on the go. With a single view of the customer, a simple robust access system with all the knowledge of the business at the user’s finger tips.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that’s what I call a really hard question: <em>How do you build a digital business like that?</em></span></div>
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Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-41043417445625267062012-09-05T10:19:00.000+01:002012-09-05T16:24:20.533+01:00Delivering a fast customer experience isn’t everything.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ocFk0UnnXXM/UEcYfInjeMI/AAAAAAAABTs/tG7HK7IHsSw/s1600/Woman+taking+an+eye+test.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hea="true" height="132" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ocFk0UnnXXM/UEcYfInjeMI/AAAAAAAABTs/tG7HK7IHsSw/s200/Woman+taking+an+eye+test.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Earlier in the week I headed to Vision Express for my bi-annual eye test. Having just come back from fabulous family holiday and dropped my daughter at her new ‘big’ school I was in a pretty buoyant mood.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The quality of the eye test, the price charged and the speed at which it was executed were exemplary. It should have been, the optician’s was empty and I was the only customer. My issue is not with the service, but with how it left me feeling.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now my wife accuses me of being a demanding customer and expecting too much. You may agree, but before you do, let me explain why I don’t think I am.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the whole time I was there, none of the staff I interacted with smiled at me. When I was asked how I was, the inquisitor wasn’t really interested in the reply. Beyond the factual questions about my spectacles, no one asked how I felt about them or how I chose them. No one asked me what I liked or disliked about them. I was treated like I was on a conveyor belt to be processed as quickly as possible. I was left feeling like an inconvenience, someone to tick off the list.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Treating customers quickly and efficiently is important, and I would guess that most customers would value it. I know some people that would value it above all else. However, I was looking for a little more. Some small talk, a little chat about my holiday, the weather - the whole back to school phenomena. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Customers are not just units to be processed quickly. They have feelings and if they didn’t branding wouldn’t work. Taking a little time to connect with me would have transformed how I had felt about my relationship with Vision Express and I would have considered them for my new sunglasses. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consider how differently this blog would have turned out and the value of the order they have missed out on.</span><br />
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Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-39232521821122943372012-08-28T09:30:00.000+01:002012-08-28T09:30:00.844+01:00More of the 6 fundamentals of enterprise social media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Part Two – 4 to 6</span></strong></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IVa-WsO3SQ8/UA5SpT1DxdI/AAAAAAAABSk/X-gCGxrfNO0/s1600/At-the-Depth-Animated-Wallpaper_1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><em><img border="0" height="160" sda="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IVa-WsO3SQ8/UA5SpT1DxdI/AAAAAAAABSk/X-gCGxrfNO0/s200/At-the-Depth-Animated-Wallpaper_1.png" width="200" /></em></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>So to recap briefly on Part One;</em> We have a shared understanding that our enterprise is in social media so we put in place our governance team. The first thing the governance team was articulate the endpoint and how it is measured and set out their road map. We defined what we wanted from a social media platform and procured it.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Managing expectations</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While all this was going on we were managing eh expectations of the business.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This means explaining to the senior leadership team what is going to happen next, how you will report on it and what their role is in this. It's worth working with the Corporate Affairs chief on this, they have been through it all before with Execs for PR.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You explain to your own staff what you are doing and how they are involved. This means setting out a simple social media policy. A paragraph should do it. Explain why what they say and do in social media can impact the brand and them in the long run. HR and Internal Engagement should be able to help with this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speak to your customers about what you are doing, what you are providing and why that’s good for them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Make sure everyone on the social media leadership team understand what role social plays and ask them to articulate to each other, their teams and their senior sponsor how social fits into their channel strategy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>In all cases, ask for feedback and act on it.</em></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reporting and analytics</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly, these are two different things. Both have a place and both need to be addressed contentiously and with stakeholder involvement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reporting, or MI, is regular time based activity. Weekly or monthly reports that set out volume data how many etc. But most importantly, what are the most important topics, users, channels and how are they and their sentiment changing with time?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Analytics is still evolving and you may need external help to get your head around this to start with. Don’t let that put you off, this data is dynamite. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Social media analytics will help you to become conscious of the conversations about your brand that your organisation is currently unconscious of. It will allow your business to understand real sentiment around share price. Or, imagine tracking responses and views on an above the line campaign in almost real time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not just counting the conversations and reporting some sentiment like in the weekly reports, but analysing unstructured data to get behind how a social media crowd is responding the proposition, not just the presentation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Analytics is not just an essential part of social media for enterprises; its power is going to help organisations that master gain a real and tangible competitive advantage in the 21st century. Maybe not in the next 2 years, but certainly beyond that.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Scale and depth</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now your enterprise has everything in place, it needs to scale it by embedding it in every part of the business and every market. This is what we call social business. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Social businesses that use social media to learn from and engage with their members will develop more consistent financial performance. </em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They will overcome reputation challenges easier, build more brand equity and customer loyalty through trust, see higher productivity through internal collaboration and continue to evolve to serve the communities around their brand: Customers, staff and shareholders.</span><br />
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Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-7468243382255753762012-08-21T09:30:00.001+01:002012-08-21T18:21:40.153+01:00The 6 fundamentals of enterprise social media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><em></em></strong></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uAZUF0lCnSg/UA5JRDk-ZOI/AAAAAAAABSY/daYaHrsqDyo/s1600/imagesCA21O85J.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="104" sda="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uAZUF0lCnSg/UA5JRDk-ZOI/AAAAAAAABSY/daYaHrsqDyo/s200/imagesCA21O85J.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong>Part One – 1 to 3</strong></em></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If my own experience is anything to go by, every large enterprise in the world has reached the conclusion that it is in social media, like it or not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I estimate that every FTSE company with a UK consumer brand receives at least twenty thousand social media posts about it every month. From corporate news through product/service comments, sponsorship to marketing activity responses. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So now that playtime is over, what do corporate businesses need to handle this and future social media demand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Governance</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marketing doesn't own social media in an organisation any more than any part of the business owns the telephone. However, it does, or should, own the voice of the customer, so it's a good place for governance to be initiated and led from.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The social media steering or leadership team must include executive representation of key markets and include senior responsible owners from service, sales, corporate relations, internal engagement and business continuity (risk management in financial services. The team should appoint a manager that has the authority to act and clear accountability to that governance group.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Roadmap not strategy</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like so many things that technology touches, social media continues to evolve. Therefore, large enterprises don't have time to hire expensive external advisors to carry out a social media audit that will only have a short shelf life and set a grand plan that will become obsolete as the ink is drying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Set a course of action and move towards it. </em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As competitors, technology and your customers blow you off course, change it. The end destination will remain pretty fixed anyway. It will be described as something like: Creating a digital channel that £x generates incremental revenue, or y% brand awareness, or my favourite a z% promoter score.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Single management platform</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is harder than it sounds, not least because it involves IT people and procurement. You need a social media </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">monitoring, analytics and reporting platform.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are plenty to choose from and at a basic level, all do the same thing. But it's not until you have lived with it and the supplier that you can realise what you actually want is something else.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can and will write a whole blog on this, but in the meantime, here are the most important things to consider:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does it categorise posts as they are received?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does it monitor all of the platforms you need?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can it measure and reporting the metrics that are important to the business easily?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does the vendor understand the difference between social media monitoring, analysing what has been monitored and just counting conversations?</span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong>Part two of this blog will be here next week – 28th August 2012.</strong></em></span></div><br />
</div>Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-80349387905770441042012-08-14T08:30:00.000+01:002012-08-14T08:30:03.858+01:00Which would you rather be, a client or a member?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Being a client is certainly better than being a customer. It suggests I am valued by my advisor or supplier, our relationship is based on more than transactions. So why not go one step further and have members?</div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Membership suggests I belong. I am part of something bigger than me. It may even suggest exclusivity, unless we are talking about the Coop.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">If I am a member I feel obliged to share, to have some involvement with how my club runs. To read the newsletter. To take my turn to do the teas. To listen to the other members. To help my fellow members.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I may even feel obliged to buy from my membership </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">organisation</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">.</span></div>
</div>Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-90830026345199630892012-08-07T08:30:00.000+01:002012-08-07T11:35:37.223+01:00IFA Trust: The most valuable 21st Century commodity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">The year 2000 promised us the end of third world debt, to save our planet from us and the end of boom and bust economic cycles.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><em>What the last ten years has actually delivered is:</em></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Going to war on dubious evidence, fraudulent MP expense claims, our largest financial institutions becoming illiquid, shareholder value consistently eroded by highly paid executives and central banks printing money to stimulate economies regardless of the consequences for pensioners that have saved all their lives.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So is it any wonder that trust for corporate leaders, politicians and financial institutions are at an all time low?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet simultaneously, consumers trust each other in ways we haven't seen since the traders of the earliest </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">civilisations</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Imagine buying an expensive product from someone using a false name, without knowing their exact location and paying in advance. Well that's exactly what thousands of people do on eBay every hour.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So while trust has diminished for our leaders and many leading brands, it has not disappeared completely. We still trust each other - our friends, our family and our colleagues, well some of them anyway.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><em>So where's the opportunity?</em></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is in the advisors that can find a home not just in completing a transaction for their client, but in becoming part of their network and adding value to it. That is a Social Advisor.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">RDR provides the opportunity for advisors that are sincere about their profession and to weed out those that are not. Simultaneously, it creates the challenge for advisors to find ways to efficiently and effectively manage more close customer relationships and maintain a low cost base.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS 明朝'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Social Advisors </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS 明朝'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">= </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS 明朝'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Successful Business <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS 明朝'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">= </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS 明朝'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Trust </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS 明朝'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">X</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS 明朝'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> Network </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS 明朝'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">/</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS 明朝'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Low Cost Client Relationships</span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></div>Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-26435091094837042172012-08-01T08:20:00.000+01:002012-08-01T08:20:41.232+01:008 steps to get the most from social media monitoring data<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Regular readers of this stream or victims of my speaking events will know I have a low tolerance for anyone calling themselves a 'social media expert.' </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe the medium and it's adoption is evolving too rapidly for anyone to claim to be a true expert, yet. Some people have a better insight on what is being delivered and some have mastered executing social media using the current knowledge pool, but experts, I'm afraid not.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My view was reinforced by something I read recently in a industry body's monthly journal. A so called expert proclaimed that 'social media offers brands an opportunity to have a dialogue with its customers.' In isolation his statement is correct. In the context of an article that suggested that any brand not actively monitoring social media was some how irresponsible, is misleading.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Monitoring social media is useful but not a panacea. Counting how many times your brand is mentioned in social media conversations adds little to the sum knowledge of an experienced marketer. Using un reliable automated sentiment scores even less.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Analysing unstructured data does deliver valuable insight into the conversations customers want to have with you about your product or service performance. But so does analysing complaints, contact centre conversations, emails, analysing web traffic, focus groups, industry surveys, I can go on.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Customer insight is key to making good marketing decisions. Social media monitoring and analysis plays an important role in developing that insight, but it is not the only data set available. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>To get the best from social media monitoring and analysis, brands need to </strong></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Analyse the verbatim of social media posts to identify topics important to you and your customers</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Combine social media insight with all the other data you have collected into a single view of those topics</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. Differentiate what is trending in that data now and what are long term/fundamental themes using time series analysis</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. Prioritise what improvements can be tackled now according impact or available resources </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. Address those improvements</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. Monitor the improvements you have made</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7. Monitor the low priority topics you are yet to tackle </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8. Return to point 1</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-46476769092686796162012-07-27T09:00:00.000+01:002012-07-27T09:00:06.712+01:00Amazing tech usage data from the UK's Ofcom that will affect how we consume the Olympics #2012<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FJB1IDXIwMA/UA1GyXLJAGI/AAAAAAAABSM/c8QN5JCGfBA/s1600/london-2012.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><strong><img border="0" height="106" sda="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FJB1IDXIwMA/UA1GyXLJAGI/AAAAAAAABSM/c8QN5JCGfBA/s200/london-2012.png" width="200" /></strong></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Countdown to London 2012</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to <a href="http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/" target="_blank">Ofcom</a> research published this week, the UK's communications industry regulator, it is anticipated that at least 38 million adults in the UK will tune into the <a href="http://www.london2012.com/" target="_blank">London 2012</a> Olympic and Paralympic Games on TV. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One quarter of working people plan to follow the Games while at work, with 25% planning to watch or listen to the Games during office hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More than half (53%) of adults agree technology makes accessing coverage easier, with around one fifth (19%) likely to follow developments on many different devices.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Social networking sites will also be used by some viewers to keep tabs on results and medal tables, with over one quarter (26%) of respondents claiming that social networking sites will make following the Games easier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Beyond the Games</strong></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"></span></strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Text-based communications are surpassing traditional phone calls or meeting face to face as the most frequent ways of keeping in touch for UK adults. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The average UK consumer now sends 50 texts per week - which has more than doubled in four years - with over 150 billion text messages sent in 2011. Almost another ninety minutes per week is spent accessing social networking sites and e-mail, or using a mobile to access the internet, while for the first time ever fewer phone calls are being made on both fixed and mobile phones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Teenagers and young adults are leading these changes, increasingly socialising with friends and family online and through text messages despite saying they prefer to talk face to face.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">96% of 16-24s are using some form of text based application on a daily basis to communicate with friends and family; with 90% using texts and nearly three quarters (73%) using social networking sites.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Talking on the phone is less popular among this younger age group, with 67% making mobile phone calls on a daily basis, and only 63% talking face to face.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Traditional forms of communications are declining in popularity, with the overall time spent on the phone falling by 5% in 2011. This reflects a 10% fall in the volume of calls from landlines, and for the first time ever, a fall in the volume of mobile calls (by just over 1%) in 2011.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The change in communication habits reflect the rapid increase in ownership of internet-connected devices, such as tablets and smartphones - making access to web-based communications easier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">UK households now own on average three different types of internet-enabled device - such as a laptop, smartphone or internet-enabled games console - with 15% owning six or more devices.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The full <a href="http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/market-data/communications-market-reports/cmr12/" target="_blank">Communications Market Report</a> website including breakdowns by medium and UK region.</span></div>
</div>Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-14720701411509999712012-07-23T08:30:00.000+01:002012-07-25T09:14:53.623+01:00The power behind social media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The power behind social media is not the tools. It’s not the hash tag, the update, the Zuckerberg or the follow. It is the evolving way we are approaching collaboration.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">eBay created trust mechanisms such as public feedback that played an important role in its growth. But fundamental to its success, and the success of all sorts of crowd purchasing platforms is the diminishing trust of big brands to offer a fair deal, and consumers own self interest driving them to collaborate in groups with people they largely know nothing about.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Self interest is driving us to work together to achieve a better deal. Not solving our community's needs, although for some of us that is an important outcome. Adam Smith understood this in 1776, Ricardo in 1809 and more recently encapsulated in popular culture with Gordon Gheko's proclamation that 'greed is good.'</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We know inherently that the crowd is wiser than us, that's why we naturally follow it. But we follow it for us, not for the crowd's sake. Social media and the commerce that has become associated with it comes from our own self interest. Which when you think about about it, and the language social media 'experts' use, that is quite an irony.</span></div>
</div>Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-22652155836056456742012-03-03T08:51:00.001+00:002012-07-20T15:57:21.473+01:00Is your Exec becoming obsolete?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jWCSgdtfPv4/T1HaE_r6kGI/AAAAAAAAA_4/PT901GR5H4U/s1600/obsolete.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jWCSgdtfPv4/T1HaE_r6kGI/AAAAAAAAA_4/PT901GR5H4U/s200/obsolete.gif" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A friend of mine asked me how they should engage their
senior leadership team is social networking. I said tell them that ‘if they
don’t get on board they will be obsolete in 5 years.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is of course is as ridiculous as the claims made around
the turn of the century about e-commerce. It has in fact taken 15 years for
e-commerce to threaten high street spending. There is no such thing as a high
street retailer or supermarket without an integrated e-commerce infrastructure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before e-commerce, the same was said of corporate
e-mail.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">IT Director’s, as they were
called then, said ‘why would every member of staff in say a bank or insurance
company need access to email?’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I once said the same about text messaging (SMS). ‘Why would
I need a mobile phone that can send a text message when I have a perfectly good
pager service?’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">New communications tools come, and they go. The issue for
executives that want to lead well performing organisations is not whether they
should engage with new technologies, but how, and social media is no exception.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t know an Exec that doesn’t use email, text messaging
or e-commerce, even if it’s only to collect an e-ticket at the airport. Social
media is more disruptive to organisations than any technology to date, because
it is social. Social media is about people and groups of people interacting
more openly than ever before, while the boundaries of the organisation blur.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I do think that Execs that don’t get social media will
become obsolete, if not in this decade, then the next one.</span></div>
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</div>Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109045019844109226.post-58780994014513194152012-02-16T16:00:00.000+00:002012-02-23T08:44:36.581+00:00A New Stimulus: Quantitatively ease my mortgage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ztjHLUeyKiY/TzwprBGdu-I/AAAAAAAAA84/v3gA1uHxTuk/s1600/QE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ztjHLUeyKiY/TzwprBGdu-I/AAAAAAAAA84/v3gA1uHxTuk/s200/QE.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">As we are coming up to budget time and the UK economy continues to go to hell in a hand cart, I thought I would take a little time out to help Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gideon Osborne, get the economy going again while simultaneously winning some votes. I’m not going to list all the economic leavers, or opine on the theory of fiscal and monetary policy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am suggesting just one way to put money in the pockets of families that will make a significant contribution to increasing aggregate demand and getting our economy moving again. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a kind of quantitative easing that will not just work, but actually feel like it’s working.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A large number of my colleagues were just told they are likely to be laid off. As relieved as I am not to be directly impacted, I was laid off in December 2009 and also faced something similar about 18 months before that. But despite this, like many other white collar middle class homeowners I have done everything I can to make sure my mortgage is paid. We have sold our second car and settled for short, domestic holidays. We have scaled back every utility and every luxury. We don’t go out, we and we make do and mend.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While my gross salary has remained static since 2008, I estimate my net salary as reduced by around 12% in real terms. We have lost our family allowance and we have paid our increased direct and indirect taxes. Our credit rating is intact and we continue to be net contributors to the exchequer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So now it’s time for our payback, and it won’t cost the Government a penny. The mortgage I have worked so hard to cover is provided by RBS. The bank that the Government holds around 80% of the shares on my behalf. I have a fixed rate mortgage at around 5% because when we took it out we were curiously optimistic about the economy and thought interest rates could rise. I know, not the best decision with hindsight. If we were on the bank’s tracker rate we could be saving around £300 per month. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s around £7,000 per annum in gross salary we could have made available to us. However, to access this deal I would have to pay more than that in penalties. Now RBS and the other virtually nationalised bank, Lloyds HBOS, represent about 40% of the UK mortgage market. So imagine the aggregate demand that could be generated if people like me could simply remortgage, keeping the same term, but at a lower interest rate and without the penalties? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I’m not completely naïve, I know there are counterparties to my mortgage holding bonds etcetera. But it strikes me that buying their paper is a wholly more popular and real use for the £50 billion the Bank of England has just spunked on buying back Government debt form pension funds that they call quantitative easing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it doesn’t have to stop with these two banks. If the Government hadn’t shored these institutions up Barclays and HSBC would have gone the same way. I can’t think of a better way to offset the unpopularity of the bonuses of all banks than by rewarding those people that have done everything they can to keep their heads above water in one of the toughest economic environments for several generations.</span></span></div>
</div>Simon J. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04023402950355826251noreply@blogger.com1