Why Thought Leadership Matters

"Thought leadership" really is important in the business-to-business buying process, says consultant Chris Koch. When we asked buyers how important good ideas are to the buying decision, 58 percent of executive-level buyers (people buying more than $500,000 worth of IT services in a single transaction) say that it is important or critical for making it onto the short list of providers. 


More than half of your buyers say that if you can’t demonstrate that you have good ideas for solving their business problems, they won’t buy from you. That's why "thought leadership" is important. 


When asked whether a provider with a good idea means a prospect is more likely to buy from that supplier, 30 percent of respondents said "yes." Of that 30 percent, 54 percent said they’d consider sole sourcing the project.  Buyers look for "ideas" first


The other important element is that information technology buyers rank "peer" advice and experience right at the top of all buying influences. Research, in other words, inherently is social. You draw your own conclusions about what that means for use of social media. 


In addition to talking with peers, buyers also rank talking to analysts and advisors as the second most important source of information. Information gathered from web searches ranks third in importance when IT buyers are conducting their research. IT buyers do their own research

Social Media Success Has Nothing To Do With Social Media

23 Questions from Google on "Quality" Rankings

Without disclosing anything about its algorithms, here are 23 questions Google suggests content creators think about when creating content that Google's algorithms will tend to rank favorably. 


The questions are analogous to what Google's algorithms try to do when assessing the "quality" of a page or an article.

"Our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google’s current ranking algorithms or signals," Google says . "Some publishers have fixated on our prior Panda algorithm change, but Panda was just one of roughly 500 search improvements we expect to roll out to search this year."

"In fact, since we launched Panda, we've rolled out over a dozen additional tweaks to our ranking algorithms, and some sites have incorrectly assumed that changes in their rankings were related to Panda. Search is a complicated and evolving art and science, so rather than focusing on specific algorithmic tweaks, we encourage you to focus on delivering the best possible experience for users."

Guidance from Google on building high-quality sites

ISPs add low-cost broadband access

Internet access provides including Comcast and CenturyLink now are offering lower-cost access to broadband for lower-income households that buy fixed-line broadband access at lower rates than higher-income households. The services generally offer access at about 1.5 Mbps for $9.95 per month to qualifying households. Low-cost broadband access: How do MSOs compare?

The obvious business logic is that it makes sense to convert a non-customer into a customer by offering products optimized for those non-customers. Having a customer relationship is always better than not having one, even if the gross revenue is not so great.

Netflix Reverses Course on Qwikster

Netflix has decided to reverse course on its plan to separate the "DVD by mail" business from its streaming business. "It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs," Netflix now says. 


Netflix says it is keeping the new price structure, though. Still, users who want both DVD content and streamed content will not have to navigate two websites, or pay two different bills. 


The reversal is the most-recent demonstration of the power of social mechanisms that let consumers voice their opinions, as Netflix was bombarded with negative reviews when the plan was announced. 

http://blog.netflix.com/2011/10/dvds-will-be-staying-at-netflixcom.html

An Additional Star on Yelp Can Boost Restaurant Revenues 5% to 9%

Reviews at the popular crowd-sourcing site Yelp.com are having a significant effect on the restaurant business, according to a study of more than 3,500 Seattle restaurants from 2003 through October 2009. But there is an interesting caveat: the effect does not seem to be seen for chains that already have spent considerable effort to create a well-defined "brand."

In other words, Yelp doesn't work for chain restaurants that already have spent heavily on branding. Chain restaurants in that category seem to be unaffected by changes in their Yelp ratings. If you were wondering whether content marketing can be an alternative to advertising, there is your answer.


Using data provided by the Seattle Department of Revenue, the study by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Luca found that a one-star increase in Yelp's five-star rating scale was associated with a quarter-to-quarter revenue rise of five percent to nine percent.

Luca combined Yelp reviews with revenues for every restaurant that operated in Seattle, Wash. at any point between 2003 and 2009. This suggests that consumer reviews present a new way of learning in the Internet age, and are fast becoming a substitute for traditional forms of reputation. Reviews affect revenue


Online consumer review websites provide more information to consumers than was previously thought to be cost effective, in large part because Yelp relies on user-generated content.


Consumer reviews also provide a substitute for more traditional forms of marketing, the study suggests. The study also suggests that other forms of reputation management, such as chain affiliation, may become less influential as websites like Yelp continue to gain traction. That means the value of a franchise might be less than it once was, for example.


Consumers rely on simple metrics such as the average rating and the number of reviews, and are more trusting of reviews that are written by "elite" reviewers. Yelp changes restaurant revenue

Mobile Ads $2.5 Billion in 2014

Mobile advertising spend is projected to reach $2.5 billion by 2014, according to Informa Telecoms. 


That still is but a fraction of online advertising, though. Analysts at Deutsche Bank say they are "highly optimistic" on the prospects for mobile advertising in 2011, and expect it to become a billion dollar segment (up from $400 million to $500 million in 2010). 


 Of course, that is a relatively small amount, compared to the U.S. online advertising market, which will represent $28.5 billion in 2011 spending. 


Revenue growth in 2010 was 14 percent, with a likely increase of 11 percent in 2011. Also, online advertising in total will represent only about 12 percent of total U.S. ad spending.

Citi and América Móvil in mobile banking venture

Citigroup and América Móvil have announced a $50m joint venture to offer mobile banking services to millions of people throughout Latin America, starting with Mexico. 

The alliance between the biggest providers of financial and telecommunications services in Latin America, dubbed "Transfer," will allow customers to use basic mobile telephones to set up bank accounts, transfer money, withdraw cash from automatic teller machines, make purchases in stores, receive payments and pay bills.

mobile banking by Citi, America Movil