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Are brands overestimating the value of social data?

Brands love social media, and as evidenced by the number of high-dollar acquisitions of social media monitoring and analytics firms last year, they love the data that social media generates.

And, on the surface, there’s a good reason for that: popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter give brands a front-row seat to the collective conversation consumers are having about their products and services. From that conversation, brands may, in theory, be able to gain valuable insights that help them connect with consumers and serve them better.

Five things Diageo learned from using QR codes to personalise whiskey bottles

One of the loftier goals associated with the increased adoption of smartphones is the creation of the ‘the internet of things’.

More than just a catchy phrase, the idea is that digital technology can be used to connect everything in the physical world to the web with smartphones acting as a universal remote to control our surroundings.

The opportunities that this presents for brands were discussed by Evrythng’s Andy Hobsbawm and Diageo’s Venky Balakrishnan at Econsultancy’s JUMP New York event.

Hobsbawm began by highlighting examples of products that are already blurring the lines between real life and digital, such as a central heating system called Nest that learns to control the temperature of the owner’s home based on their previous behaviour.

#TheDigitals Leaderboard: Get involved and help judge the biggest awards in digital

https://assets.econsultancy.com/images/resized/0002/8488/thedigitals_2-blog-half.pngOver the past few days, you may have noticed #TheDigitals hashtag popping up regularly on Twitter. 

If you don’t know what The Digitals are then go find out now! (Don’t worry, we’ll wait)

We love it when people share our stuff, but there’s more to this than just an engaged audience; We’re running a leaderboard to help spread the word about the biggest, brightest awards in digital and we want your help! 

Of course, this is social media we’re talking about, so there has to be a prize right? You betcha there is…

Facebook drives most social B2B traffic, but Twitter is top for conversions: report

Despite the huge attention lavished on social media, it still accounts for only a fraction of the traffic and leads for US B2B websites according to a new report from Optify.

Overall, social accounts for 1.9% of traffic compared to 41% for organic search, however there is potential for it to become a more important and effective channel.

This is a topic we touched on recently in a post about how to use social media to widen your sphere of influence in B2B and in an infographic looking at how B2B companies are currently using social.

Optify’s report found that companies that actively manage social media campaigns (as measured by companies who had more than one lead from social or more than 10 visits per month) have seen comparatively high conversion and engagement rates.

Responsive design: the problem with mobile ads and how it can be overcome

Responsive design is widely considered to be the future of web design as it allows site owners to adopt a user-centric and mobile-first approach.

In a nutshell, responsive design allows websites to work from a single set of code that resizes itself to fit whatever screen a particular visitor is using, thereby negating the need for a separate mobile site.

It’s a topic we’ve looked at in more detail in posts about why sites should consider responsive design and another citing 10 great examples of ecommerce sites using the technology.

But while there are many benefits to using responsive design, there are still major problems to be overcome in regards to advertising.

At the moment ad formats are generally incompatible with responsive design, forcing site owners to either find hacks to rescale them or hide the ads altogether on mobile screens.

MVCs: five metrics for identifying your most valuable customers

A business can’t thrive without customers, and for that reason, the efforts of marketers are often focused on new customer acquisition.

Unfortunately, many companies neglect their existing customers and one of the reasons this happens is that they don’t ask a simple question: who are our customers?

Do brands need to care about Vine?

It launched, like no other social network before it, with instructions on how to create the perfect steak tartare and very quickly, became all about spam, pornography and regulation. 

Vine is one of the raft of new launches from Twitter. It’s novel, it’s got some spammy teething problems and it’s already had its first #fail. 

But, assuming that all of this can be fixed (and this is social behemoth Twitter we’re talking about, so that’s a fair assumption) what does Vine mean for brands?

83% of online shoppers need support to complete a purchase: stats

Online shoppers expect to receive assistance within five minutes, otherwise will either head elsewhere or abandon a purchase altogether. 

This stat comes from LivePerson’s Connecting with Consumers report, which is based on a survey of more than 5,700 online consumers from the UK, USA, Australia, France, Germany and Italy. 

The report contains some interesting stats. Here are a few highlights… 

Pinterest changes its look. Can it do the same for social commerce?

https://assets.econsultancy.com/images/resized/0002/8410/pin_1-blog-third.jpgImage sharing social platform Pinterest is currently testing a new look, granting access to a ‘select few’ users before rolling out changes to in the near future. 

So far, so-so. Not a day passes without social sites tinkering with their layout or functionality, but given Pinterest’s incredible performance in the realm of ecommerce referrals, this could be an important one.

Let’s take a closer look…

Mind-blowing smartphone stat: NFC in Australia to grow 450+%

The number of NFC-enabled smartphones available in Australia is expected to rise dramatically, growing from 375,000 in Q1 2012 to 2.125 million in Q1 2013 – a growth of 467% year-on-year – according to Tapit. 

It has also been forecast that by Q4, the number of NFC handsets in Australia will reach some 4 million – or 30% of all smartphones on the market.

J.C. Penney relents, brings back sales

When former Apple SVP of Retail Operations, Ron Johnson, took over as the CEO of American retail giant J.C. Penney, he had hoped to do for his new employer what he had done for Apple, where he led the development of the Apple Store and its Genius Bar.

Unfortunately for Johnson, the revolutionary tactic of ditching discounts and offering consumers straightforward low prices every single day of the year, turned out to be more disastrous than revolutionary.

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