9 Things Businesses Have Learned About Social Media

Someday, most businesses will use social media as they now embrace websites. Today, we are in the early stages of that transformation.

This is a reasonable summary of many of the issues organizations face only after they have started their social media programs, typically with Facebook or Twitter. Every organization experiments by adding new responsibilities to existing personnel.

Occasionally somebody gets "tasked" to do so, but almost always as an addition to existing duties. You can figure out what happens next. Organization executives are invited to help out, and that works for a little while, before the press of the business leads to waning participation.

Social media does not necessarily cost lots in terms of incremental out of pocket cost, But it takes time, and significant time if done properly.

In part, the generation of fresh content is part of the issue. A bigger issue is what happens when business partners or consumers actually start participating, or if an organization ramps up its optimization activities.

The other angle is that social media works best when lots of people within the organization are participating, and that can require a shift of organizational attitudes, support and practices that extend far beyond assigning somebody to "do it."

9 Things Businesses Have Learned About Social Media

Mobile Video Models Still Uncertain

It is easy to forget that Qualcomm, AT&T and Verizon have been offering subscription-based mobile TV since 2004, though the FloTV service will be shut down.

Some will argue that video subscriptions don't resonate with consumers, though cable operators and others tend to have a different view, suggesting that both on-demand access and subscription-based models have a role to play.

According to Yankee Group surveys, at the moment only 12 percent of smartphone users watch live TV through a service provided by a carrier, while 37 percent stream content through a Web site. That should not be surprising, since streaming from many websites, such as YouTube, is essentially "free." One might wonder why the percentage of mobile video usage is not even more skewed to "no incremental cost" sources, in fact.

When it comes to specific content consumers want, 58 percent of smartphone users buy or rent content through online stores and download it either directly to the smartphone or to their PC and transfer it to the smartphone.

That might be a more-important observation. Application-specific devices can succeed, of course. Personal navigation units and e-readers are examples. But Flo TV required a special-purpose device, though, and that might not match current user preferences for watching TV directly on smartphones.

With any content product, the availability of highly-desired content always matters. In addition to the apparent lack of interest in the Flot TV dedicated TV-viewing device, one might argue there were cost and choice issues as well.

Choice here meant that other devices could support video consumption, including iTunes matched with portable or mobile devices, plus availability on Flo TV of many content types users might have wanted, but could not get when using the service. Also, many users might have simply decided that existing game consoles, PCs and smartphones are reasonable substitutes for casual viewing.

Cost also might have been an issue. Few video subscription services aside from Netflix have gotten much traction, no matter which devices are used to support consumption

Yankee Group :: Research Report

Integrating Mobile with Existing Marketing Channels

Mobile doesn't make sense for any marketer if customers and prospects don't use the channel. But it is hard to argue with the proposition that just about everybody uses mobile these days, and more people are going to be using Web-enabled devices, meaning that more interactions with email and Web applications are going to be driven by mobile devices.

At the same time, there is little doubt that tablets now are becoming an established product category, meaning more overall usage will come from tablet devices that will offer different capabilities for marketers, both in terms of apps and apps using video and gaming.

Web analytics will inform a decision about how much mobile access a company's prospects and customers already are using.

If mobile visits are growing, consider optimizing a site for mobile. that generally includes advice such as removing JavaScript, Flash, ActiveX, and other proprietary technologies that might not support the mobile phone Web experience.

Site navigation can be tricky if it requires too many buttons and other "small" interface points.

Transaction-heavy sites might consider using WAP or smartphone applications that allow the user to complete regular transactions quickly and easily. The countervailing trend, though, is for heavier use of tablets. Tablets do not require such recrafting quite so much, with the salient exception that they encourage content consumption as well as mobile app access.

How Do You Integrate Mobile With B2B E-mail? | ClickZ

Analyst: Tablet Sales Will Triple in 2011

According to Caris & Co. analyst Robert Cihra, tablet sales will more than triple, rising 226 percent to 54 million units. And of those, Cihra believes Apple will claim 67 percent.

Which would spike iPad sales from 14 million this year to 36 million in 2011.

Analyst: Tablet Sales Will Triple in 2011, Apple Will Dominate | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Craig McCaw to Resign as Clearwire Chairman - WSJ.com

Craig McCaw is leaving the board of Clearwire Corp., resigning his position as chairman of the company he founded. It isn't clear what significance the move might have.

McCaw has not be active at the company for some time, it appears. McCaw's Eagle River Holdings LLC still holds a four-percent stake in the company. But that is no longer very significant. Google owns about three percent. Clearwire owns about 14 percent.

Intel owns about 11 percent. Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Brighthouse own ab out 15 percent between them.

Sprint holding 57 percent ownership, though the terms of its ownership agreement deny it control.

Clearwire's national network plan remains less than fully funded, and the company has enough cash to get it through the year, but obviously additional capital will have to be raised. Some continue to believe that Sprint will ultimately wind up owning the whole company. Most probably have believed all along Clearwire would ultimately be sold, one way or the other.

Whether McCaw's departure means anything special is impossible to determine, at this point. But all three Sprint executives resigned their seats earlier in 2010, a move that most observers thought was an indication of change.

Most executives in the wireless business would agree that one fewer national providers of 4G service would not be a bad thing, given the wireless market's maturation, as well as the existence of no less than five national 4G or 4G-speed networks.

Just about any way one looks at it, the Clearwire-Sprint relationship is complicated and unstable.

http://investors.clearwire.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=198722&p=irol-sec

95% of Twitter Accounts Created Since January 2009

Fully 95 percent of the current Twitter accounts were created after January of 2009, according to an analysis by Sysomos. That is some serious scaling.

The other significant finding is that roughly 22 percent of users produce 90 percent of the tweets.

If you are familiar with the Pareto Principle, that is precisely what one would expect to find.

95% of Twitter Accounts Created Since January 2009

Why Are Twitter Users So Attractive To Marketers?

Marketers like active Tweeters for a couple of obvious reasons. They are heavily brand conscious.

More than 40 percent of those who use Twitter monthly or more frequently agree with that owning the best brand is important to them — twice the number of total U.S. online consumers.

They spend more money, as well. People who tweet monthly or more report that they spent almost $870 online in the past three months, almost $300 more than the average U.S. online consumer.

They post their opinions. Not only are people who tweet monthly or more tweeting about products and services; they are also sharing their opinions much more frequently than the average U.S. consumer, and through a variety of channels.

This in and of itself is reason to invest in additional human resources to respond to tweets directed at your brand. While their reach may not be solely through Twitter, you can be assured that what they say will carry great magnitude as they infiltrate other social networks (both offline and online).

The Data Digest: Why Are Twitter Users So Attractive To Marketers? | Forrester Blogs