Thursday 30 September 2010
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Tuesday 28 September 2010
After the film now comes the comic strip..Facebook's Zuckerberg to be subject of a comic book http://goo.gl/lQzJ
Monday 27 September 2010
Harvard Business Review - Management Tip of the Day: 3 Types of Failure to Avoid - http://goo.gl/ABQB
Saturday 25 September 2010
Read my latest ezine article..Digital Marketing is Hard to Do For Small Businesses..howhttp://ping.fm/iv23u hard it is for you?
Lighter Later campaign could give UK a greater sporting chance..what do you think? http://goo.gl/qi76
The 5 Levels of Social Media Maturity. Where Is Your Company?
The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) has long been applied to measure the maturity of a company's software development processes. For many software development companies or in house development organisations, the pursuit of CMM or CMMI level 5 has been a necessary marketing badge - just like other quality metrics such as those from BSI. However, this article applies the same principle to Social Media Maturity in an interesting way. Read the full article from Tac Anderson here:
Social media continues to grow up and mature but we’ve got a long way to go. I’ve been talking to several clients and prospective clients and I’m seeing some very encouraging signs. One way to gauge the sophistication of your social media efforts is to use the Capability Maturity Model. Most companies somewhere between a level 1 and a level 3. Very few companies are at a 4 and I don’t know anyone that can truly say they’re at a 5 (although I know several companies that are aggressively working towards it).
Where do you think your company fits in? (Be honest.) Capability Maturity Model: You can see the Wikipedia entry for more context. Level 1: Initial – (chaotic, ad hoc, individual heroics) – the starting point for use of a new process. The typical behavior you see in an organization is heroics, where you have a great idea and a group of passionate supporters do everything. Everyone jumps on board every time there’s a problem. Level 2: Managed - A functional manager decides the heroics are not effective to build a business and puts together some processes. The team may use them but they are not adopted consistently throughout the company. Level 3: Defined - The organization realizes that things aren’t working, balls are getting dropped, employees are tired, additional headcount may or may not help there is a desire to fix the problem across the company. The process is defined/confirmed as a standard business process shared across the company. Level 4: Quantitatively Managed - A business process is in place and there is data over a period of time to establish metrics. The functional area has metrics and the metrics roll up to support the business goals and objectives. Level 5: Optimizing - Complaints, efficiencies are managed in a closed loop corrective action plan. Where these requests are tracked, business systems are changed to meet the needs of the business. Decisions are based on efficiency, creativity and voice of customer.How can WSI help your organisation move up through the CMM levels for Social Media Maturity. Let us know if you need any help by going to our digital marketing contact page.
Friday 24 September 2010
You may not be in the burger business, but every company can stand to take a few lessons from McDonald's, who managed to not only to survive the recession, but thrive in it.
For some businesses the recession is a threat but for others it is an opportunity. You may not be in the burger business, but every company can stand to take a few lessons from McDonald's, who managed to not only to survive the recession, but thrive in it. You can read the full article from Inc. below which is a great lesson for all business owners.
What you can learn from Ronald McDonald. You may not be in the burger business, but every company can stand to take a few lessons from McDonald's, who managed to not only to survive the recession, but thrive in it. As Mint.com reports, the fast-food giant saw store sales increase 4.6 percent in August, while competitors likeBurger King struggled to stay afloat. What's the secret? Besides its recession-friendly pricing, McDonald's has enacted a number of strategic business moves that have helped the business flourish despite the down economy. Some of the savvier moves include taking advantage of lower TV advertising rates as a way to increase their marketing efforts without a substantial increase in their advertising budget and analyzing store sales to rapidly adjust prices based on customer demand. When the Valley blew up. A full-fledged firestorm erupted yesterday when Michael Arrington of TechCrunch faced off against a group of Silicon Valley "super angel" investors. Never one to shy away from drama, Arrington actually walked into the very restaurant where he alleges the investors were colluding to fix company valuations, keep other investors out, and counteract competition. Such accusations could lead to serious prosecutions if they turn out to be true, but the "angels" are starting to fire back. 500 Startups founder Dave McClure agreed he was at the meeting, but vehemently denied Arrington's claims in a profanity-laced blog post. Other attendees have issued public and private denials, or have concurred with McClure that the meeting was very different than Arrington's account of things. For an even closer look at Arrington's in-your-face approach, check out this The Way I Work article. Not love, but Like. The question for small businesses today is not whether a customer likes their product, but whether or not they Like it. On Facebook, that is. In a Financial Times article published yesterday, writer David Gelles notes that more than 350,000 sites and retailers have begun to use the Like feature on their websites, which means that when a user clicks the button, a line of text is automatically displayed on their personal Facebook profile with a link back to the item they Liked. With good reason, this has become an ideal way for companies to increase traffic to their sites. Essentially, Facebook has given companies a way to quantify the success of e-word-of-mouth marketing. For example, Gelles writes that IMDB has seen traffic from Facebook double since it installed the Like button throughout the site. "Facebook is subtly compiling a map of the Internet," he says, whether you Like it or not. Creepy, crawly, and going green. Can the booming bedbug-infestation control industry also jump into the green trend? That's the question a post on the New York Times website ponders, as nearly 400 pest-control workers, entomologists, and inventors discuss the matter at an Illinois (anti-)bedbug convention. While the bedbug-zapping industry is keeping lots of people employed, there's no silver bullet to eliminating them in the post-DDT era. Popular ideas included freezing, heating, and vacuuming. The least-popular solutions involve potentially toxic chemical sprays or dusting. What's clear? This field is wide open for innovation. BlackBerry takes on the iPad.. We've already met the iPad and the Galaxy Tab, and now, the Wall Street Journal reports that Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry, is about to unveil its own tablet computer. The Journal's sources report RIM could introduce the tablet, which includes a seven-inch screen and built in cameras, at a developer conference in San Francisco next week. The company, which has faced some hard times lately, accounting for just 18 percent of the world's smartphone sales, will also be introducing a new operating system for the tablet. Though the tablets won't be available for sale until the fourth quarter of this year, the Journal says the new system could prove to be "a worthy competitor to Apple's andGoogle's platforms, and could go a long way toward addressing complaints that RIM's devices are slow, unstable and hard to program for." Need any help with marketing your business. Contact our digital marketing practice at WSI in Sussex and we can help put you on the road to increased sales.
Thursday 23 September 2010
England's Ashes selection for Australia has most bases covered..now the boot camp http://goo.gl/noB5
Wednesday 22 September 2010
Liking: The Socialization of Business: Your Dirty Little Secrets are No Longer Secrets http://goo.gl/BBmp
Meet Google's Resident Entrepreneur
From WSI Digital Marketing Sussex Inc is a great place to read up on the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Google is rarely out of the news on the Web. Here's an article from Inc today: Google's idea man. Craig Walker, the crafty upstart behind Google Voice, will be named Google Venture's first "entrepreneur-in-residence," The New York Times reports. Google bought Walker's call routing service,GrandCentral, for a reported $45 million in 2007 and turned it into what is now Google Voice. Essentially, as the Times writes, Walker will now be "paid to sit around and think about new ideas, and investors get the chance to join an entrepreneur early in a new project, betting that lightning will strike twice." What's more, he'll have the ability to bounce ideas off Google's experts in usability testing, back-end engineering, marketing and a host of other areas. Cuba experiments with capitalism. With the country's economy floundering and a bloated government bureaucracy that employs 85 percent of the workforce, Cuban leaders are hoping that an experiment in capitalism will revive the ailing island nation. As the Washington Post reports, President Raul Castro recently fired 500,000 state workers and is encouraging them to find work in the private sector or even start their own businesses. As no plans were announced for any capital injections or small business loan programs, the laid-off employees will have a difficult task ahead of them. But Cuba did recently change their laws to allow businesses like barbers, taxi drivers, and beauticians to work for themselves. As one economist explains, "It's a big deal, a big breakthrough, because for the first time the government acknowledges that the private sector, the small-business operators, are not bit players but a strategic part of the Cuban economy, that they are the solutions, that they will help save Cuba." No Facebook, only textbooks. That's what students at a central Pennsylvaniauniversity have been living with for the past week. As The Associated Press writes,Harrisburg University of Science and Technology this week blocked on-campus access to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. "Provost Eric Darr said the exercise that began Monday is not a punishment for the school's 800 students, nor a precursor to a ban," the AP writes, "but a way for people to think critically about the prevalence of social media." Sounds more like a publicity stunt to us. Want to do business with Bank of America? A new online portal called Supplier Connection is making it easier for small businesses to land corporate contracts and play in the big leagues. Through the portal, small businesses can submit applications to become vendors for major players like Citigroup, Bank of America and Pfizer. According to the Wall Street Journal, the corporations involved in this initiative dole out a combined $150 billion in contracts every year. And even if an application gets rejected, all small businesses are entitled to free feedback that can help them improve for the next time around. Your (digital) newsstand. Will expressions like "reading the paper" be soon defunct? Bloomberg reports that Apple is in negotiations with publishers to create aniBook-esque platform for the iPad, separate from the app store, in which users can purchase and download periodicals and newspapers. Apple claims this effort will help increase magazine subscriptions for the publishers, and, of course, help sales of the iPad. One hurdle Apple will face, however, is deciding who will land control of the subscriber's data, and what percentage of revenue Apple will take in from sales. Expect to see the Android, Kindle and other tablets enter the fray, too.
A closer look at pricing
Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here at WSI we are big fans. Here's an article that I found today that talks about an approach to pricing Breaking down your pricing. Ever wonder how the way you partition the pricing of your product affects consumer behavior? Well, the good professors at the University of Maryland have conducted comprehensive research that can tell you when it's smart to include additional costs like shipping into the base price of your product and when it's best to break everything out separately. Drive a CEO to the airport. That's the advice given to aspiring entrepreneurs on Seattle VC Andy Sack's blog, A Sack of Seattle. Most seasoned entrepreneurs are more than willing to share their experiences with up-and-comers, it's just that they are too busy to find the time. For an eager young entrepreneur willing to play the role of chauffeur, the 30-to-60 minute drive to the airport is the perfect opportunity for some quality one-on-one time with a successful mentor. Think of it as a win-win for everyone involved--the CEO gets a free ride to the airport, and the aspiring entrepreneur gets some free business advice from a proven businessperson. As Sack says, "You can call it aggressive, cheap, crazy...but you should also call it effective." Bridging education and the private sector. Today, President Obama is announcing a new CEO-driven education program called Change the Equation, in which companies like Facebook and Google will work to promote more science, technology, engineering and math programs in schools. According to Fast Company, the Change the Equation initiative aims to change the fact that, "out of 30 industrialized nations, the United States ranks 21st in science and 25th in math." The 100 businesses involved in the program will not only invest in education, as many of them already do, but they will also sponsor science and robotics competitions and teacher training programs. Sally Ride, who was the first American woman in space, is a founding member of Change the Equation, along with former Intel CEO Craig Barrett. Ride tells Fast Company, “Literacy is not just being able to read anymore. It’s being able to read, to calculate, to analyze--we as a nation need to change the way we think of literacy.” Buddying up and cashing in. Looking to reduce marketing and advertising expenses in these tough times? The Wall Street Journal suggests partnering up with bigger-named companies that can integrate your products in ad campaigns of their own. Take Mountain News Corp., which tracks snow conditions for ski mountains through its website. The company received a dramatic spike in exposure (a million new unique visitors each month to its site) after its mobile-phone app was featured in an Apple iPhone commercial, without costing them a cent. While Apple might not be on the other line any time soon, you can still consider opportunities to ride the coattails of larger companies as a cheap marketing alternative. There's a danger of diluting your brand too heavily, the Journal says, so be sure to choose your partnerships wisely. Why launch with product flaws? New York Times tech writer David Pogue asks that question about Vulkano, a device that's like a combination of TiVo and Slingbox. Developed by Monsoon Multimedia, a tech start-up founded in 2004, Vulkano records TV shows to its internal memory, and then lets you play them back on your Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, or BlackBerry. You can also watch the shows on your TV later, just like a DVR, or even watch live TV on your smartphone. Pogue points out that the video quality is good and the design is pretty unobtrusive, but the Vulkano has its shortcomings. "Unfortunately," Pogue writes, "the Vulkano box is nowhere near ready for prime time. It's riddled with bugs, problems, limitations and absurd design flaws." With all the flaws, Pogue wonders why the company decided to even launch the product. "The real question is," he says, "Why is the company selling it at this point?"
Tuesday 21 September 2010
Is your CIO ready for Social Computing?
Social Computing and social media represent a new wave of energy and both business and IT innovation that is sweeping through tradtional business and IT set ups. The growth of social computing, social networking and social media is impressive and looks unstoppable. All three phenomena are becoming all pervasive and are impacting on so many areas of business. So what are implications for corporate IT and the CIO?
2. A big Impact on IT and the traditional CIO role
So what is the impact of these new technologies on IT and the CIO? CIO’s have typically managed an environment where they have spent huge amounts of time and effort managing and protecting corporate data and building walls around that corporate data in the form of firewalls, secure data centres, controls over data, internal organisations, segregation of duties etc. The life of a CIO has always been taxing but through a carefully planned system of controls, he or she has been able to manage a huge diversity of corporate date. But now one of the biggest impacts of “social computing” is that much of the data about a company is now circulating outside these carefully built IT environments and is certainly outside the reach of the corporate firewalls and the CIO. Indeed unless your CIO is plugged into these social networks, he or she won't even know what is being said about the company. So my assertion is that the Social Computing revolution will have a huge impact on IT and the CIO.3. Is your CIO ready to position IT in a leadership role in the social computing revolution.
Social Computing is pervasive and has the power to transform business as much as the Internet did in the 1990s. CIOs have an opportunity to take a leadership role in how social will deliver competitive advantage for their organisations beyond creative marketing campaigns. This is the next big challenge for the CIO and the traditional command and control structure that has existed in the corporate IT world for so long is no longer applicable in a social economy.
Is your organisation and your CIO planning on how to respond to this challenge. We would love to hear from you so please get in touch via our digital marketing contact page.
Why it’s worth your while to join up online and offline marketing
Consumers continue to transition to using the Internet for business, purchasing, finding information, and a host of personal and networking uses. In addition, the continued rise of Social Media is changing the fundamental business marketing model from “advertising” to “engaging”. However, some businesses are still in online denial mode and believe that old media or offline marketing is still the way to market. So, they still use the telephone, the printed advertisement, the tradeshow and direct mail as the sole way of marketing their business. Therefore, the offline methods just mentioned are not obsolete. They can still be effective, but they should be adapted to the new media mindset of your customers and prospects. Take the best from both worlds to create a go-to-market plan that enables you to: There is still a place for traditional marketing and we advocate a blended or integrated approach. The key to your marketing success is taking a comprehensive and holistic approach to your marketing strategy. A holistic approach treats marketing as a single integrated strategy and process, rather than a list of stand-alone marketing initiatives. While you may still gain benefits from executing standalone marketing initiatives, the benefits of implementing an integrated strategy are well worth the effort. Your marketing strategy is influenced by a variety of factors and will be unique to your company. Even so, there are a number of core online marketing techniques that you should consider when developing your integrated go-to-market strategy: When combined with traditional marketing initiatives like print advertising, direct mail, telemarketing, and tradeshows, there is an even better chance of business success. So how do you decide what to include in your integrated go-to-market plan? Well, it goes back to basics and knowing your target market and answering some basic questions: Developing a go-to-market strategy isn’t something you do every day but executing it is and it is a process where you need to: One of the benefits of online marketing techniques is that they can be started, stopped, and changed almost immediately. This enables you to react to, and even anticipate changing market conditions, and get ahead of them. It’s not as hard as may sound but you do need to commit to the process. So, let's look at four offline marketing techniques and see how they can be better integrated with an online marketing plan: Telephone The best use of the telephone is to call all the leads you develop through your online marketing strategy. However, the telephone is still a powerful way to reach new prospects and can be used in more innovative ways. So instead of just cold calling for sales prospects, think of some more creative ways to use the telephone. For example, call people to conduct a survey on a trending industry topic. You can invite them to take a survey on the phone or online. If they prefer the online survey get their email address and send them a link to your online survey. Be sure to offer them a free copy of the survey results. Once you have their email, then keep them informed by email in the future. Don’t just use the telephone for selling to prospects. It is better to try and engage with them so that the prospect will remember the content experience about your brand and possibly buy from you when he or she is ready. Print Advertising Many businesses advertise in print but have no idea if the advertisement is working for them. If you are advertising in a relevant publication, put a clear call to action on the advert and make this call to action accessible online via a unique landing page that you can link back to the advert. This way you can measure it and work out if it is working for you. Remember, you can't manage what you can't measure. If you have a phone number in the advert, make sure it is unique so you can measure the results of the advert. For many businesses, the main aim of print advertising is to build or strengthen brand awareness. However, make sure that the reader can engage your brand online in a way that can be traced back to your ad. Tradeshows Tradeshows are still a great way to get your products and services in front of your customers and prospects and they usually offer up a great networking and learning experience. Tradeshows work better for some industries than others. There is a great opportunity to blend and integrate your tradeshow marketing with your online strategy. For example, if you are exhibiting or even just attending a tradeshow you should always talk about the event online before, during and after the event. If you use LinkedIn, you can communicate to your connections that you are attending a particular Tradeshow. Make sure that you use your online PR, your blog, Facebook and Twitter channels to discuss your contribution to the event. You can use Flickr and YouTube to share photos and videos from the event. When you meet people at the tradeshow, then make sure that you connect online to keep the relationships going after the event. Direct Mail Direct mail still has value in an integrated marketing plan. Similar to print advertising be sure to have a measurable call to action. Consider linking the call to action to personalized URLs or landing pages. This will allow you to measure the results of your direct mail campaigns very clearly with online interaction attributable to your direct mail campaigns.
This post is part of the #JUMPchallenge, a blogging competition designed to raise awareness of how to join up online and offline marketing, launched to support Econsultancy's JUMP event.
Monday 20 September 2010
Sunday 19 September 2010
Organisations Must Ensure That Employees Taking Confidential Information Out Of The Office Does Not Result In A Data Breach http://goo.gl/KLY3
Google Is Introducing Social Networking “Layersâ€â€¦ Wait, What Does That Mean? http://goo.gl/cXcy
Saturday 18 September 2010
How Social Media Will Transform Organizations: Book Review of “The New Social Learning†http://goo.gl/QpwD
Friday 17 September 2010
Thursday 16 September 2010
Wednesday 15 September 2010
How are you marketing your biz. Video Is Over 50% Of Bandwidth Consumption In US http://www.reelseo.com/video-50-bandwidth-consumption/
Tuesday 14 September 2010
Monday 13 September 2010
Pew Research Centre - Here's How Digital Media Is Changing The Way We Read And Watch The News http://ping.fm/459nT
Sunday 12 September 2010
Reading:(R)evolution Episode One: Empowering Your Employees and Customers with Josh Bernoff http://ping.fm/i3NDB
Saturday 11 September 2010
Friday 10 September 2010
Thursday 9 September 2010
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Monday 6 September 2010
Sunday 5 September 2010
Friday 3 September 2010
Thursday 2 September 2010
Video Marketing to Dominate Search with Video
via animoto.com
Take your commercials online and dominate search with video
Wednesday 1 September 2010
JMR UK and IDIT Technologies are Partnering to Offer a New Breed of General Insurance Solution in UK http://ping.fm/ksTka
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