Now that Social Media has established a place in our society and has proven to be a “fundamental shift in the way we communicate” and not just a passing fad, the inevitable question has been asked…
How do you measure Social Media ROI?
Whilst many businesses have embraced the power of social media for marketing by conversing and listening to followers, just as many businesses have shied away from the concept, at least for the time being.
According to Equation Research’s “2009 Marketing Industry Trends Report”, 37% of brand marketers claimed that “there is no established way to measure effectiveness”. And 37% responded that they didn’t know enough about Social Media to begin using it.
Even more interesting then, is the statistic claiming only 16% of professionals worldwide currently measure the ROI of their Social Media marketing.
FastFlip is Googlelabs’ latest offering, allowing users to view the latest news in easy-to-read image format, rather than standard news aggregator text format.
As the name suggests, it’s fast, and much faster than loading image-heavy news pages. Google appear to be placing the emphasis on being able to read online news as fast as you can in print.
It’s also available on Android-capable devices and the iPhone with tactile page turning.
This comes on the same day as Bing launched “Bing Visual Search” which displays rows of image content instead of your typical text search results, to help you search via visual information.
The kind of thing that would be useful if you wanted the name of someone, but could only remember what they looked like.
It's a promising concept, however, it only appears to be available to US users and it requires Microsoft’s Silverlight to work...
So far, responses on Mashable are mostly negative on the lack of information for non-US users and the mandatory Silverlight installation.
Google win this round, Microsoft.
Are there any alternatives? Leave your comments below.
So what’s next? Twitter and the big 3 are sure to keep on growing, but what will be the next big thing discussed on social media, spoken about in seminars, and misunderstood in the tabloid press?
In terms of technology, 3D television is rapidly approaching the consumer market, Augmented Reality is gaining in popularity from brands, and Google have announced that they will be launching an online Monopoly game using Google Maps…
Ok, so perhaps that last one won’t change our lives too much. Although it does sound quite addictive.
Let’s take a look:
3DTV Sony has announced that they will be developing an affordable 3DTV, and that it will be ready for release at the end of 2010. BSkyB have also announced plans for a 3D channel next year.
We can’t wait for 3DTV to pave the way for immersive and innovative advertising. All bets on Honda to come up with something viral-worthy in 2011.
Augmented Reality (AR)
AR is the combining (or augmenting) of the real world with a computer-generated image or overlay. This is a technology that is being rapidly caught onto by some fairly big names. Check out this video from Toyota which uses a normal webcam, some AR software and a machine-readable symbol printed on a piece of cardboard:
We expect this technology to really take-off in the next few years, but it’s already gaining ground with the big players.
Google Monopoly “Monopoly City Streets” is an online game of Monopoly which uses Google Maps as the game-board.
The game launches tomorrow (9th September – unsurprisingly, a popular day for product releases and promotional events) and will allow players worldwide to build houses, skyscrapers, rubbish tips and many more places of interest (!) on real streets.
Players apparently receive $3million game dollars with property prices varying between $50,000 and $100million.
[Update 09:00, 11/09/09: Get buying your streets, Monopoly City Streets is back online.]
In Other News:
OrangeT
As you’ve probably heard this morning, Orange has announced a merger with T-Mobile, which will place them in the lead in the UK market with a combined 37% market share. This will allow a “new force in the mobile phone market” and hopefully an increase in network coverage and quality.
And in keeping with the topic of this post, this may also mean a greater investment in new technologies and services.
Apple Event
Also using the portentous release date of “09/09/09” as a publicity tool is Apple. They started to fuel rumours last month of a special event, causing speculation about a possible product launch.
We reckon it’s the Apple tablet, but all will be revealed tomorrow.
The Events And never one to ignore a special date, illusionist Derren Brown launches “The Events” tomorrow with a live show where he attempts to predict 5 out of 6 lottery numbers. Not surprisingly, he's been banned from buying a ticket.
According to Equation Research’s “2009 Marketing Industry Trends Report”, 37% of brand marketers claimed that “there is no established way to measure effectiveness”. And 37% responded that they didn’t know enough about Social Media to begin using it.
Even more interesting then, is the statistic claiming only 16% of professionals worldwide currently measure the ROI of their Social Media marketing.
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