All around the world digital and social media has introduced a new form of communication. Social media has shifted control of the corporate message  from the organization  to the consumers and other stakeholders, It is high time for corporations to learn the lessons offered from this new reality and accept the challenge of open dialogue rather than keep on hiding behind their corporate walls.

 Many organizations are monitoring great numbers of social media and blogs, and others are engaging in this direct communication with news, information and promotional messages  utilizing the proliferating social media channels. It is through engaging with its stakeholders online that an organization can strategically conquer a fair share of voice and manage its own reputation.

I strongly believe that it is high time for companies to embrace, not fear, this new form of communication because there  is no other way to remain competitive.  Social media allows for a true dialogue in ways never before possible. The benefits for research, brand building and the creation of loyalty and trust are limitless As the recent study by Burson Marsteller correctly points out “The value of social media is that users are highly engaged and want to be heard. So, by listening to them and approaching them from their own point of view, it is possible to have a positive impact on beliefs and perceptions.”

read the study at Burson-Marsteller 2010 Global Social Media Check-up white paper

 About this Study:

Data was collected between November 2009 and January 2010 among

the top 100 companies of Fortune’s Global 500 companies. Sample size

for countries/regions: U.S. = 29 companies, Europe = 48 companies, Asia-

Pacific = 20 companies, Latin America = 3 companies

An estimate given by J. Bernoff of Forrester Inc.a year ago indicated that only 16% of online consumers who read corporate blogs actually trust them. I believe that this is absolutely true because corporate blogs that talk about their products are not worth the time required to visit them and read their content. Blogs and especially corporate blogs make sense if they are “usable” and exercise “thought leadership”.

Here are some universal blogging thruths:

• Corporate blogging is not about companies and their products or services it’s about the customers.
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• If we are to rise above the crowd our corporate blog should be about the customer’s problems.

• If we can bring value to our present and potential customers by talking to them about their problems and needs, then they’ll become loyal visitors to our blog.

• If our offering is known and liked, then we can mobilize those loyal customers with our blog. As a result:
our customers are gradually organized into an interest group with common agendas, then we can encourage them to connect, through our blog , with one another and create a “snowball effect” in our favour.

• If the corporate blog is B2B, it should not be written by a communication expert. The only way to do it is to involve the marketing and sales staff who are in a position to understand the customers’ needs. Only then will our customers participate in the dialogue and trust the content of the blog.

In conclusion:
Standing out from the crowd becomes a very difficult job and those companies that shamelessly blog about their products and services are just adding water to the mill of those who argue that corporate blogs cannot be trusted.

On the other hand, honest and transparent blogs that address the customers needs will definitely attract appreciation and awareness.

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Hot Business Issues in four recent posts, Nov 21st and 14th and October 19th and 15th, presented new prevailing views of the changes we are facing affecting the importance and role of digital and traditional advertising. The subject created a lot of interest and heated discussions and on many occasions opposing views were put forward. The recent study and forecast for interactive media constructed by Forrester, sheds some further light on this argument and points to changes and what we might expect to experience in the near future.
The main conclusions can be summarized as follows:
Interactive media will further cannibalize traditional media.
This trend will be intensified because of poor economic conditions,
the boom in interactive customer relationships,
the increased power the marketing is gaining within the organization,
and the prevailing belief and proof that interactive marketing works.
As a consequence, only in the US interactive marketing expenditure will more than double exceeding $55 billion by 2014. The same robust increases will be realized around the world with investments in e-mail marketing, search marketing, on line display ads, social media and mobile marketing taking over substantial parts of the marketing budgets.

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=140549
It seems that the debate for the roles of traditional, digital agencies and recently the role of the production shops is raising the players’ blood pressure. Advertising Age is leading the debate with some eyeopening stories. Up to now we were experiencing the rising importance of the digital agencies who are challenging traditional advertising. I believe this challenge should be seen in a positive way and lead us in finding ways of fruitfull cooperation rather than jumping on each others throats. On the other hand recent developments as the recent AdAge article points out digital production aencies seem to be on aspree trying to eleiminate the “middleman” and appeal directly to the client/advertiser. The pot is boiling and we will watch with great interest of the outcome.

Advertising Age Why Digital Agencies Aren’t Ready to Lead
On two of my earlier posts I dealt with this issue concerning the changing form of communication. (On Oct 17th: “Advertising will not be the same a few years from now”, and on Oct. 8th: “Traditional vs Digital Advertising: and the winner is..”)
Both posts analyzed and presented new evidence on the overwhelming influence exerted by the web on the advertising industry. On the quantitative side I pointed to evidence that in many countries digital is growing fast and overtakes traditional ad expenditures. On the qualitative side I presented the way the web and digital advertising is leading the way in creating needed content and building close relationships with the customers.
But only a few days ago a great article in Advertising Age points out to a simple truth.
Digital agencies are excellent in Exploration, that is thinking and creating new things, uses and applications for communication while advertising agencies are excellent in Exploitation, they are accountable and systematic and on target with the marketing needs of their clients.
It remains to be seen which of the two will improve on their weaknesses and build on their strengths.

With the emergence of social media, consumers are looking for greater personal relevance in the media they use. Today consumers want information and services that are relevant both to their place of residence and to their stage of life. It’s hard for centralized communication to do that, especially advertising. Even services like Google’s sponsored links and Amazon’s recommendations don’t feel personal, even though they are in many ways personalized.

The term “Personal” requires the existence of a real person. Marketers have always known that personal recommendations and word of mouth are the most powerful forms of brand advocacy. Today interactive technologies make personal recommendations no longer limited by physical constraints. With the multiplicity of social media consumers can create their own networks. As more and more people participate in these networks, they will begin to compete directly with traditional media..
A recent trend topic researched by JWT predicts that millions of influential individuals will develop their equivalent of a personal CPM rate card. A personal CPM assumes that people are their own media properties and, as such, should be applied some worth by the brands they advocate. As the JWT report indicates “the larger and more influential their social networks, the more valuable these individuals are and the higher the CPM they will be able to command. But as their influence grows, they will need to remain truly objective—consumers are too savvy to trust those who recommend the brands that pay them the most”.

Facebook is now amplifying this trend via a new advertising plan. The social networking site is combining user recommendations with hyper-targeted advertising for what it calls SocialAds. As an Advertising Age article describes it, “Under the system, actions users take when they’re not on Facebook, can be broadcast to their Facebook friends. Brands also can create Facebook pages users can interact with, and those interactions are communicated to their networks. This was also reported by Ad Age: “the more you enable person-to-person communication, the more opportunities there are for individuals to influence each other.

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The next few years will bring more change for the advertising industry than the previous few decades did. With the advent of social media consumers will be more empowered than ever, advertisers less dependent on traditional media. New technologies will be changing the way advertising is sold, created, consumed and measured. A recent IBM Global Business Services research points to four future scenarios. Traditional advertising industry players may well face problems unless they can successfully implement consumer, business model and business design innovation. As the advertising model changes, broadcasters, advertising agencies and media distributors will need to innovate in three key areas:

1. Consumer: There will be great need for more creativity in traditional ads, while also pursuing new ad forms across all media to attract and retain customers.

2. Business model: There will be need for changes in the ways advertising is sold and bought, the type of partnerships required, different revenue models and measurements.

3. Business design: There will be great need for consumer and business model innovation by redesigning organizational and operating schemes across the advertising lifecycle. The overwhelming trend for control of attention, creativity, measurements and inventory will reshape the advertising model and redistribute the power among the traditional players.
It’s obvious that the future of advertising will look radically different from that we know today.
Request the full report at iibv@us.ibm.com

During a recession, marketers are often forced to reduce budgets.
A recent study showed 53% of marketers a determined to increase their social media budget during a recession, and 42% will keep it the same, for a total of 95%. The reasons are obvious to me, it’s inexpensive and the opportunity to benefit from cost-effective word-of-mouth, are quite promising.
Of course this doesn’t mean that expenditures are huge, since this is a ‘new’ media, with small budgets. Just keep in mind that 75% of marketers spend up to $100,000 for social media marketing.
Although budgets are small and growing, I believe that in order to be successful, one should approach social media marketing seriously and put the right process, and measurement and human resources in place. We should always remember, the most expensive cost is not technology, the most expensive part is the soft costs: strategy, education, process, roles, measurement).
Read more
• Adweek’s Brian Morrissey: Notes that the budgets are quite small, in his piece Social Media Outlay Still Small
• Read Write Web: Despite Recession, More Than 50% of Marketers Increase Spending on Social Media

If there is one issue that has been at the forefront of the advertising industry’s collective consciousness over the last few years it is to do with the word “digital”. Advertisers, agencies and media owners have been attracted and at the same time scared off by it. Nevertheless, there is no denying that the word Digital and all it represents is here to stay.

According to many studies the value of internet advertising will probably overtake that of TV by 2010, the mobile phone is
becoming, if not man’s best friend, then certainly someone he likes to spend a lot of time with. The digital revolution is in full swing. The question is how do advertising agencies make full use of the digital capabilities and who has the right approach?

What everyone aims to achieve is a successful multimedia campaign: one that crosses platforms to reach consumers on TV and in print as well as on digital platforms.

“For me, 360 campaigns are the great campaigns,” says Jimmy Maymann, chief executive of GoViral, a digital media agency. “They are the ones where you’re not just thinking about how the idea will work as a TV spot but how it might work on a social networking site like Facebook or how it can work with a tool like [social bookmarking service] del.icio.us.”

The bigger question is, what is the creative approach to a multi-platform idea? And what platform, if any, takes precedence?

“I think that sort of thing is challenging a lot of creatives to think about how they approach their work,” says Maymann. “There’s no doubt that TV commercials have been the priority. And I’m not saying that traditional media is going to go away, because of course it’s still very important, but we need to open our minds a little bit and consider what it takes to cut through some of the new channels.”

Much has been made of the new digital agencies taking on the established, tried and tested TV and print agencies.

But are the digital agencies able to compete on the ideas front and can the traditional agencies catch up technologically? What’s becoming apparent is that for either to succeed, there needs to be a meeting of minds.

The creative director at a brand entertainment agency, says that there is a key difference between what his agency and a “traditional” agency does. “Traditional agencies produce advertising and what we do is produce content. Advertising is a TV commercial, a radio commercial, a printed poster, but what we do is create content which can be a TV show, a live music event or a digital asset which might be a computer programme or a widget.”

The general feeling on how digital creativity will progress is one of co-operation and of employing media neutral ideas. “It doesn’t matter if something goes in a website, or a social networking site or if it goes on TV. We just need to engage people and we need to do it in different ways.”