Some companies just won’t get on this train of social media and search. Some companies are just too ignorant, too arrogant and too self indulging to understand that the future does not lie in the past, but in the future. Adapting has always been the human beings way of survival. It plays out in all parts of our society. Europe was leading until the kings, church and queen stuff made the “janks” want to turn on us and become a republic. They then ruled the world until now when we see the Chinese take over as they change, they adapt and most of all, they adopt better practices instead of relying on best practices.

It is time for corporations to start listening up, start being radical and start making changes. It is time to start being available where people search for them, where people want to talk to them and where new business opportunities can be mutually arranged. I mean. If you are a corporate CEO and read this… I know there are a few of you out there. Are you REALLY going to tell your stock owners that there was a market buying stuff from your sector, but only not from you, and the only reason for this being that you didn’t understand it?

You conquered the offline world with success. You have opened stores in every diary desk in the world. Your growth has been fantastic and thus your stock price has reached beyond what was ever expected. Now the opportunity is for you to double it. Make it digital, make it easy, make it cheap and most importantly, make it available where ever, and when ever.

If you have supply chain problems, set up a franchise where people in different countries can establish their own online supply chain for that country. If you have problems with optimization, then use affiliates to do the optimization for you. If you have problems with data collection, then tap on into Facebook. If you have problems with knowledge then start reading a good blog, or even a book.

Most importantly!!! Being a part of the online community is NOT what many people say it is. It is not either or. It is not a zero sum game between offline IRL stuff and online stuff. It is a new market. Why not move into it. Why not take the corner spots on each street and why not put people in your stores? It is that simple. It is all the same. You know how to do this. A new format, yes, but you know the art of business and what’s happening truly is business. Keep the offline, add the online!

All I am asking you is to treat this soberly. Compare, prepare and try it out. But please do it now!!

//Jesper

Had some fun cutting down some clips I found on YouTube tonight. As I was playing around I thought of an idea to actually try to break down what differs companies that make money and the ones that do not make money from social media. This first episode deals with the fact that you have to set up goals that are connected with your business strategy and overall business goals as well as measure how you’re moving towards these goals with the help of Social Media KPIs.

Please comment for improvements!

//Jesper

Picture taken from another speach I made at Göteborg University to a bunch of professors.

I held a talk on social media perspectives on the 15th of April. The audience consisted of a group of web analysts engaged in the network Web analytics wednesday. Below is the presentation that I shared with them. (Now translated into English)

Three main voices of Social Media Debate
Basically my theory is that there are three major voices in the social media debate right now. There are the evangelists, the marketers and then a group I would like to call Dr Data. This presentation tries to tell the story of how these three groups communicate what social media is, what is its value and also how it should be measured.

Not really perfect
It is in no way a perfect presentation, and it is kind of plain in its format. But my main point is that there is too much pullet proof lines between the three groups right now. We need to co-operate with eachother in order to build a sustainable web for the future. Only then will we be able to really increase the values of our business online.

Let’s make loads of money
For you sensitive viewers out there… be adviced. I strongly argue that all activities a company does in social media should be aimed towards making money out of it. View this presentation as bullets. One perspective on three perspectives.

I know there are some parts of this presentation that needs explanation. Please make comments below and I’ll try my best to explain.

If you are looking to convert through social media, you have to recognize that it is a completely different task than converting traffic from a search engine.

In this post I will quickly run through two situations where the mindset of a person will enable you to make a sale through social media.

• The must have buy
• The viral buy

The mindset
First of all you have to take the mindset of people engaged in social media into consideration. Imagine the off line activity when you sit with your loved one in a restaurant and all of a sudden one of those flower guys shows up to harrass you.

In any circumstance other than this one you would probably flick him off and hope he/she goes to hell for intruding with a sales proposal whilst you are trying to engage in some quality time with your babe. However, you see your loved ones face, how desparately he/she wants a flower, whether or not he/she admits it, and so you have to bow to the intrusion and buy a flower. (Don’t try to tell me that you buy flowers cause you want to…)

Secondly, imagine if the flower sales man would come up to you, but instead try to sell you a car. Even though your loved ones desparate eyes might have some effect upon you, I am sure most of the worlds population would be able to resist.

The must have buy
The example above illustrates one of the strongest driving forces behind a buy in social media. The “have to” buy is the best situation you can find yourself in as a marketer. Many social networks have been successful in launching “have to” buys through introducing artificial value artifacts such as icons that you can buy to another person to show them that you like them. Generally these gifts are placed on your profile page of the social network and thus shows your status amongst friends.

Thus, when ever you can find a situation where your potential consumers can earn status from buying your product, you should try to use this in your marketing technique.

The viral buy
Another way of successfully working with marketing through social media is to work with “word-of-mouth” or viral marketing. Taking the example of the loved one again. Imagine if you are currently choosing between two different car models and your loved one says she perfer the one or the other. This will make you more likely to buy the car. Also, if your best friend recommends it, or if some kind of expert recommends it, it is not that drastic to assume that you will buy the car.

Now, there are two VERY important pieces of information in the pharagraph above. Firstly, the person you will be able to sell a car to through social media will have to be in a choice situation. Secondly, the recommendation has to come from a trusted source.

In this post I will not go through how to find people who are in a choice situation or how you become a trusted source, but I will cover this in later posts.