LinkedIn has introduced a new feature for companies to be able to engage directly with their followers and potential customers. Now this will encourage more interaction online from corporates and companies are able to update their status on their company page and share with their network.

How it works:

1. You post a status update to share information which could be anything from announcements, product releases, promotions, or just news articles straight from your Company Overview page.
2. Your status update is then posted directly to each of your followers’ homepages where they can comment, like or share your update with their entire network. (Companies will need to be very active and provide interesting and relevant updates to their followers to really reap the full benefits of this feature.)
3. You can also monitor engagement metrics of your posts to see what type of posts best work for your business goals and through this analysis you could optimize your conversations.

This feature could generate lucrative leads to companies that use it smartly and also acquire a loyal clientele.

You can learn more on how to set up your company page effectively to best benefit from this feature by studying the How-To Guide, for all the do’s and don’ts.

After reading an interesting press release by Gartner a market research firm, it has been noted that by 2013 the mobile phone will have overtaken the use of personal computers (PCs) worldwide for accessing the web, with over 1.8 billion smartphones and browser-enhanced cell phones in use. This is an astonishing prediction which will influence the ways in which brands communicate with consumers on a daily basis. Mobile apps have therefore gained in importance as consumers spend more time on their phones, making it clear that mobile phones have more power for the brand than ever before.

Interesting mobile facts for South Africa:

• 57 percent of South Africa only access the web through their mobile phone
• In South Africa cell phone banking is used by 28 percent of the total population whilst only 16 percent of the population utilise Internet banking
• In South Africa 65 percent of all smartphone owners use apps to improve their lives
• On average a user spends 9% more time using mobile apps over the use of the Internet
• Games and social networking apps combined are equal to 79 percent of consumers overall app usage time

The Mobile App
The trendy word in mobile today is the App. As consumers move into the notion of the super consumer, many feel the need to be in control of everything they see, view and interact with. Applications have thus gained a greater importance with apps for almost everything from fun apps (which may have no real use, like the infamous broken screen app) to business related apps which improve overall mobile operations speed and performance.

Mobile apps are creating more possibilities for the mobile phone, and brands like for example; LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have taken advantage of this trend, by creating their own personalized apps. Mobile apps assist in brand integration and allow the consumer to stay connected whether it is off-line, online or though mobile and many brands will start developing apps as a way of communicating with consumers.

What is hAPPening in South Africa?
Vodacom has recently decided to create the brands own app store with over 140000 applications.  ”We think that this will drive the growth and innovation within an already thriving local South African mobile ecosystem,  ” they said.

MTN seems to have picked up on this new development and has announced that their own app store is “currently in the works,” with an apparent launch in less than six months time.

This trend has not only risen within mobile networks, as 5FM has created an app for BlackBerry which allows users to listen and stay connected to 5FM where ever they go, and FNB have launched both FNBConnect (used to locate ATM’s and has some of the VASP functionality) and the first South African integrated mobile banking application.

Conclusion
The growth of apps in South Africa and worldwide, continues to be on the increase and why not take advantage of it? Smartphones and browser-enhanced cell phones keep consumers connected 24/7 and it seems only obvious that to stay connected with the consumer is to talk to them where they already are.

Apps allow for greater consumer-brand interaction and consumers like to download different apps that make their lives easier. Apps may assist brands to break through endless ad clutter and to connect directly with their target markets. Who would have thought that smartphones and browser-enhanced cell phones would surpass the capabilities of the computer, but it seems that targeting of consumers on smartphone apps is the smart choice for brands today.

Welcome to another interesting Journal Debate and this month’s marketing breakfast takes an in-depth look at Social Networking with a range of experts. As always, the hour long debate will be hosted by Jeremy Maggs.

Global numbers released about 6 weeks ago about Social Networking sites:

• 47% of online adults using social networking sites
• 1.5 million businesses have active pages on Facebook
• Average user is spending 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• 73% teens are members of at least 1 social network
• 50 million tweets sent a day on Twitter

The interesting points from the morning debate include:

Mike Stopforth – CEO – Cerebra

• Begin by examining our motivation for engaging in social media
• Brands need to have a compelling business reason for being on Social Networks
• Problem with social media is that it’s not just applications and platforms. It’s actually more an evolving role of the consumer towards brands.
• I believe that we have to realize that consumers are no longer recipients of messages but are now participants
• People are going to complain because you are doing a bad job, bad service, not because of Facebook. So risks have always been there.
• Community self-regulate, brand advocates will come up for the brand
• Everybody is the media, every digital citizen has a platform and an opinion

Ingrid Rubin – MD – Virtuosa

• Social media is not about campaigns
• Social Media is an evolving technology
• Brands aren’t using the medium correctly because they are trying to advertise
• Use social media to the extent of integrating it into your business
• Take from social networks what is meaningful for your brand and filter out the rest.
• Mistakes that brands are making – start engaging without doing the necessary research, but need to first do research to see what is out there.
• Not just about marketing, it’s about business processes and how you facilitate this online.

Arthur Goldstuck – CEO – World Wide Worx

• Facebook is the mainstream 6.6 % of South Africans are Facebook members – need to use a combination of services to get to your market.
• Must listen and must engage
• Brands must have a social media policy – says what type of communication will happen from the brand and who is responsible for this interaction.
• Social media is no longer a youth platform, the age curve is becoming older every day

Brent Shahim – MD – Aquaonline

• Brands don’t need to regain control of their brand, key opportunities to gain insight. Consumers can talk to each other and the brand can listen in on this.
• Real opportunity to gain invaluable insight into the brand.
• Social media is just visible word of mouth.
• Social networking is a cheaper form of communication
• Organizations needs senior people to be responsible for social media
• You need to look at digital as a whole not just social networking

Toby Shapshack – Editor – Stuff Magazine

• Live in a brand new age, where brand belongs to consumers
• Brands have no choice but to be there listening to conversations
• A good social media strategy is not going to change the fact that it’s a screwed up company
• People want to be heard, ultimately they want acknowledgement

Pierre Odendaal – Creative Director Jupiter Drawing Room

• In the digital space you can cost effectively get your message out there and have a more profound effect on the brand
• Social Networking has a lot more punch then people think
• Digital is face to face contact, it’s just in a digital world
• Digital is the most dominant communication of our time and will shape our future

The next Journal of Marketing Debate: “Design and Packaging” -Thursday 28 October.

Whether you like it or not they’re talking about your brand. Not only in supermaket aisles and in restaurants but on Facebook and on Twitter; on blogs; on YouTube and in chat rooms.

Brand managers no longer control the message, customers do – finished and klaar.

All of this requires a massive shift in mindset and an implicit understanding that brands need to take on and embrace the inherent risk.
Apart from the brand chatter, social networking also opens new channels of communication and distribution and that’s good for the bottom line.

Join Jeremy Maggs for another power breakfast marketing debate as he’s joined by a panel of leading thinkers on the subject as they explore where social networking intersects with brand development – the new brand frontier.

When you leave you’ll know more than your competitor, increase your brand awareness, make more money, get famous and eventually retire to Barbados – where you can social network for fun.

The panel:
• Mike Stopforth – CEO – Cerebra
• Ingrid Rubin – MD – Virtuosa
• Arthur Goldstuck – CEO – World Wide Worx
• Brent Shahim – MD – Aquaonline
• Toby Shapshack – Editor – Stuff Magazine

Bookings: Contact Megan Larter on megan@thefuture.co.za

If you are unable to attend the morning in person be sure to follow the live updates on Twitter and eMarketing Trends.

If you can remember a couple of months ago the media was flooded with reports about The Best  Job in the World. The job to be caretaker on palm-fringed Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia for six months with a hefty salary, a villa and a very modest work schedule made headlines on the news, radio and all over the internet. After months of interviewing Ben Southall, an 34-year-old British man,  landed the job by fighting off competition from 34,000 other applicants.

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Econsultancy’s Lynchpin’s 2009 Online Measurement and Strategy Report reveals that only 40% of companies are looking at data in relations to their online reputation.

This shows once again that although there is much talk about this subject online reputation monitoring is still very much in the early adopter phase.

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Deloitte’s recently conducted a Survey in the US that examines social networking and reputational risk in the workplace. I found some of the findings very interesting especially in light of the rapid growth of social media and the different opinions about use and access. Here are some of the results that got my attention: Continue reading

Every time a new report by Hitwise or Nielsen Online is released we continue to see amazing data in terms of Search usage growth and increased interaction with Social Networking tools. These trends should come as no surprise and it could be expected that we will see more astonishing data being released in the few months ahead.

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Today, my inbox has been inundated with articles all related to Twitter. About 70% of the newsletters and RSS Feeds I’m subscribed to is covering this topic. Twitter has gained much ground as a social networking tool and with Twitter profiles now included in search results, it is a major tool for marketing yourself or your company online.

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Vincent started his presentation by covering what Social Media is : web 2.0, social networking, user-generated content, the prosumer, attention economy, flattening time and space.

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