Byron Sharp: debunking the myths of marketing 3/3

[This report has been published in instalments, type bit.ly/sharpgrow in your browser location bar to display  the piece in its entirety]

myth number six : the 80/20 rule always applies

This isn’t a myth per se, but the numbers don’t quite add up. Sharp, on the basis of numbered evidence once again, shows that Pareto’s Law does apply but real numbers based on observation are closer to 50% for most brands and never reach 80%. This reinforces the need to acquire more customers.

myth number seven: advertising doesn’t sell

Sharp shows on the contrary that advertising has a clear (but mostly long-term) impact on sales… Provided your product is distinctive enough and that your campaigns follow a few simple principles amongst which:

• reaching all by categories
• no lapses
• clear brand links
• easily noticed and remembered

myth number eight: price promotions increase sales in the long term

That one is far less counterintuitive I find. Price promotions are quite effective in boosting sales. Evidence produced by Byron Sharp shows that promotion have no or little effect on long-term sales. Sharp sees little rationale for maintaining price promotions over time apart from maintaining a relationship with retailers.

myth number nine: loyalty programs are effective

In fact, loyalty programs work a little, but their impact on loyalty is minimal and in some cases, brands won’t even feel the true effect at all for many external reasons. My friend and colleague Prof Christophe Benavent from the Paris University has been a long-time contender that loyalty programs don’t work. He’s actually quoted in Byron Sharp’s book as well. One may have the vague feeling that conclusions might be different whether one looks at airlines for instance, or a company like AMEX which has built its distinctiveness upon its loyalty program (I even chose to get an AMEX card a few years back which is coupled with my airline frequent flyer program and I have transferred the entirety of my purchases to AMEX) but evidence is required before one makes any rash conclusion.

Overall, I really enjoyed Sharp’s approach which is based on fact rather than fiction, even though some of the most counterintuitive conclusions would benefit from a serious data update. I definitely recommend you buy this book and place it on your bookshelf.

Byron Sharp’s blog is available at http://marketinglawsofgrowth.com/

… to be continued

[This report has been published in instalments, type bit.ly/sharpgrow in your browser location bar to display  the piece in its entirety]

Byron Sharp: debunking the myths of marketing 2/3

[This report is being published in instalments, type bit.ly/sharpgrow to display  the piece in its entirety]

myth number two: heavy buyers matter, light buyers don’t

That is false too. A customer base is like a long tail , with few repeat buyers and a vast majorty of light or very light buyers; but the sheer mass of the latter makes their category very important in fact. These people are those which brands must convince over and over again if they want to succeed.

myth number three: targeting works

That one is really puzzling I must admit. Sharp points out that despite marketeers’ efforts in trying to “differentiate” through targeting, brands end up sharing “normal – looking” customer bases and those customer bases are supposed to be interchangeable. This is – once again – said to apply across all categories and countries. Yet, luxury products for instance, cannot be afforded by all. Sharp’s point is that segmentation within a subcategory doesn’t exist. It may exist between subcategories however. This item would however, in my mind, require further investigation.

myth number four: cannibalisation is a bad thing

According to Sharp’s findings, it’s not! What matters here, is not whether brands are differentiated, but whether they are “distinctive” (that is to say easy to recognise from others).

myth number five: consumers by preferred brands

Sharp contends that is just the other way round. One tends to favour one’s own choices; some sort of post justification of one’s own purchases in fact (I bought this, therefore I like it; or, I’m used to buying this etc.) That point he adds, also applies to iconic brands like Apple and Harley-Davidson. Basically, he means that Apple customers aren’t in any way, more loyal than PC clients for instance.

This chapter is probably the most difficult to sell. There is so much hype about Apple products that things do get very irrational. Sharp may well be right, but the evidence he uses to show that this is the case are rather outdated. Beside, Apple’s overwhelming success has, recently, put so many companies in such a bad position (Nokia, Sony Ericsson to name a few, not to name hp which withdrew from the Pocket PC (then Smartphone) market which it hugely dominated only a few years before). The evidence given here is a bit outdated on the one hand, and debatable on the other. This chapter requires therefore more investigation, even though mine Sharp may well be onto something (for other myth busting regarding Apple on this blog, click here).

Byron Sharp’s blog is available at http://marketinglawsofgrowth.com/

… to be continued

Chinese Internet: the global battle has begun (1/2)

In a previous series, Alban Fournier, a young French professional who fell in love with Asia warned us that China was the next worldwide International giant in the making. In this piece, he is expatiating on this previous report and delving into the details of what makes Chinese Internet players stand out from the crowd.

[this report is published in instalments, type http://bit.ly/albanchina2 to put all the pieces back together]

Fournier: the man who prefers QQ ID: 1557637787 to his Twitter handle

What is currently planned at Alibaba, Tencent, Sina, and Baidu is worth further investigation, hence this sequel to my initial piece on Chinese Internet. My duty is to continue the story published last year and called “Chinese Internet industry ready to grow beyond borders”.

People were quite sceptical in 2008 when I announced that China, as a country, was good at disruptive innovation following a trip in Beijing. At that time, I placed my bets on a Chinese Internet becoming almost the only alternative to its American predecessor. Who would have imagined that change would accelerate so much at the very beginning of 2012?

China: already an Internet giant

China has the world’s largest Internet traffic thanks to its population, the world’s biggest with more than 1.3 billion people. With the strong increase of its Gross Domestic Product, extraordinary engineering talent, plenty of venture capital, Chinese entrepreneurs and large firms now have the necessary resources to compete worldwide.

[Baidu : screen capture by Alban Fournier]

From a social behaviour point of view, there is a fundamental difference between American and Chinese people: in the U.S.A. (and in Europe too) a majority of online users are “spectators” while a majority of users in China are “creators”[1]. China is therefore much more active market and its users generate a lot of UGC (user generated content) every day. This discrepancy is one of the reasons behind the success of QQ games, a Tencent service dedicated to free online gaming.

Now that Chinese Internet players are giants at home, aren’t we just about to see them thrive beyond borders?

Strategic investments before 2012

In 2011, Tencent formed several strategic partnerships in China: among them, Kingsoft Corporation Limited, an Internet security software editor and eLong, Inc, a leading online travel service provider in China. Outside China, in addition of being active in the U.S.A., Russia, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Tencent acquired a majority stake in Riot Games, a Los Angeles-based developer and publisher of online video games. [2] In 2010, Tencent invested $300m in Digital Sky Technologies (DST) of Russia, bringing two internet powerhouses of the emerging markets together in a long-term strategic partnership.

Alibaba prepared the future of Alipay reaching an agreement with Yahoo!, and SoftBank. Alipay is a leader in China in providing payment processing services. Alibaba also developed operations in the U.S.A. and formed a partnership with Turkey’s Logo Group to reach Turkish companies.

Among others, Renren and Dangdang are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. We can expect more US IPOs by Chinese companies. There are at least 10 Chinese Internet companies which have made confidential filings through the Security Exchange Commission. Those Chinese tech companies aiming at an IPO are also growing their business through innovation.

to be continued …

---

[1] http://blogs.forrester.com/gina_sverdlov/12-01-04-global_social_technographics_update_2011_us_and_eu_mature_emerging_markets_show_lots_of_activity

[2] http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2011-03/01/content_12095412.htm

Byron Sharp: debunking the myths of marketing 1/3

Once in a while, a business book appears which changes your perception on things for ever. Such business books are inspirational (Crossing the chasm in 1992 for instance), some are critical (such as Scott Berkun’s myths of innovation) and some just take you back to basics. This is the case with Byron Sharp’s “how brands grow” (Oxford – 2010), an opus which unfortunately didn’t get enough attention and is even sometimes wrongfully dismissed as scientific claptrap. I must admit that I enjoyed the book thoroughly, even though some of its conclusions did puzzle me a bit. I suppose that these will lead to more investigations, since some of the evidence presented in the book and some of the conclusions based on such evidence (mostly in chapter 7) are very counterintuitive. Here is what I learned and would like to share with you regarding this book.

[This report is being published in instalments, type bit.ly/sharpgrow to display  the piece in its entirety]

Marketers are used to believing their own stories but often fail to check the facts. This is what Byron Sharp and his Ehrenberg Institute have done and their conclusions can be summarised as follows:

myth number one: loyalty matters, acquisition is less important

How often do we hear that it is more worthwhile to retain existing clients rather than acquire new ones? Well… as far as I am concerned, almost on a daily basis. Sharp shows that this is wrong, that churn depends – mostly – on the size of your customer base and that customer acquisition is of paramount importance. This is what is known as the double jeopardy law: “sales are lower because they have fewer buyers who buy the brand less often”. That law, besides, applies to all sectors, and all countries. As a consequence of the double jeopardy law, it is not cheaper to retain an existing customer than acquire new ones. Acquisition, CRM pundits must be eating their hats now, is not an option, it must even be a priority for brands.

… to be continued

evidence on engagement rates on facebook shows little interaction

Just before I post a 2 part piece on Byron Sharp’s “brand that grow” marketing opus, here is a link he added on his blog to a facebook “fan” survey which shows that engagement rates are extrelmely small; a conclusion I’ve already made a number of times, underlying the “cyberbabble” effect on facebook.

Even facebook’s own fans don’t talk much about facebook (on facebook)

Posted on February 6, 2012 by ByronSharp

One of the questions asked of Dr Karen Nelson-Field’s analysis of facebook fans engagement with their brands on facebook is whether the result is simply due to slack social marketing by the brands in question.

via Even facebook’s own fans don’t talk much about facebook (on facebook) | Marketing Science.

Social Media in Corporations: social media week panel in Paris (Feb 15)

today’s selection…

Is the announcement of this upcoming panel discussion organised by IABC France on the subject of Social Media in Corporations. I will take part in this panel which will be hosted by the American University in Paris. 

Social Media in Corporations – Empowerment or Surveillance?

Wednesday, February 15 at 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM Add to Calendar

A panel debate (in English) organized by IABC France and the American University of Paris.

As social media use becomes more pervasive in business, it raises questions about the way it is used both by employes and employers. Should employees be empowered to use social media, should employers use public social media data in their recruitment and how do you decide to draw the boundaries? In this debate experts from different backgrounds wil discuss these and other questions, relevant to anyone in the corporate world.

Panelists confirmed so far:

• Tim Cawsey, Corporate Communications at Gemalto
• Yann Gourvennec, Director Web, Digital and Social Media at Orange
• Andrew Hennigan, Consultant, Speaker and Writer on professional communications
• Nicholas Vieuxloup, Director of Operations at Viadeo, Social Media Club France Board Member

Moderated by: Matthew Fraser, Author, Associate Professor at AUP, Social Media Strategis

ONLINE REGISTRATION AT THIS ADDRESS

the end of social media … as we knew it ( via @wcgworld )

Today’s selection is …

My 2 cents on the future of Social Media for enterprises after 5 years of field practice as Director of Digital Media at Orange Business Services and – more recently – the Orange group. All of this courtesy of Bob Pearson on the Pre Commerce blog. I will soon expatiate on these views in order to prepare for an upcoming event organised by usefulsocialmedia, which is due to take place in London on that subject. 

Yann Gourvennec, Director of Digital and Social Media, Orange Group – “The end of social media … as we knew it”

Change is happening now. Four to five years of social media practice in the enterprise world have shown us that the social web is pertinent to business and – when used properly – it can enhance our online and even offline reputations. Yet, so many years later, social media can no longer be considered an “innovation”. We need to structure our initiatives if we want to get through the rough patches ahead and thrive beyond 2012. This implies that those who haven’t done so already cease to use social media as a standalone or lame advertising practice but integrate it into their core activities. For example, start with these good old websites of ours which need to be made social. I don’t believe that the Web is dead, but it is certainly being turned into something new, more interactive and more social, which encompasses social media; not the other way round. And it’s happening today.

via Insights for 2012 from Today’s Business Thought Leaders – Pre-Commerce.

Social Media Dashboard: Dec. 2011 version and Analysis

A few months ago, towards the end of 2011, as I delivered a pitch on social media ROI/ROE at the iStrategy conference in Amsterdam, I asked my team at Orange to put a social media dashboard together, one that would be monthly, more appealing to managers than the weekly slapdash XL fires were produce for ourselves, and yet would be a useful tool for decision-making. Here is – below – its December 2011 version.

As I pointed out in my presentation in Amsterdam, this dashboard is in work-in-progress mode, and will always be. It is not meant to be used to show that we are stronger, better or unduly proud of ourselves but on the contrary, that we aim at doing well and getting better.

to Klout or not to Klout?

A lot of the metrics in this dashboard are here, for want of a better purpose, to underline that new metrics are needed. Sometimes, these metrics merely require fine tuning. Klout for instance, has been heavily criticised, including by myself. We aim to use Edelman’s Tweetlevel as a replacement very soon, because of the level of noise and fuzziness around the Klout measure, and because nonetheless we need some kind of measurement. Edelman provides this, without the hype.

engagement rates … what are we measuring here?

As to engagement rates, this is yet another kettle of fish. We realised, in the course of our comparisons, that we were being penalised by social bakers for the wrong reasons. For instance, our account was filed as a British account (vs. global) which was penalising us. Secondly, we use polls a lot and they are supposedly not considered as part of the engagement rates by the system. Yet, we have found repeatedly that polls are a very valid way of engaging with our community and we have no intention to suppress them. Last but not least, our account is multilingual and multinational. This is perfectly normal for a company which is operating globally, that is to say in 35 countries from the B2C perspective, and 220 countries and territories from the B2B point of view. Whereas many of our competitors are not that global and therefore enjoy a much better engagement rate which is not justified, we actually choose to speak Polish to the Poles, Spanish to the Spaniards and French to the French-speaking audiences of Africa and other countries as well as English to everybody else, and to us this is perfectly normal ; yet, we are being penalised for this by social bakers.

note: no hard feelings against social bakers I think this is a very good tool, and a great company. I’m a happy customer. I am only aiming at improving the system/measure.

We are trying to work with them in order to correct this measurement, but might also introduce our own calculation in which we will introduce a new way of measuring engagement rates in order to correct this bias.

What we’re trying to prove here is not that measuring return on engagement and social media isn’t worth doing, on the contrary, but that there is a lot in our plates in order to correct all these numbers and systems, before we can rely on these numbers and move forward.

here is our Orange december 2011 dashboard:

a greetings card which reduces the digital devide

today’s selection is …

A bit of promotion for my employer but you won’t mind too much because the cause is just. The Orange greetings card is aimed at supporting its Foundation’s digital solidarity project. All you have to do is flash the following QR code with your smartphone and hey presto, this will be your first good deed in 2012. Easy! If you don’t know how to read a QR code on your smartphone, I recommend the I-nigma application for iphone or Android.

>> more info at http://oran.ge/orangegreetings

Making A List. And Checking It Twice; Gonna Find Out Who’s Naughty And Nice…

by Professor Lee Schlenker,
EM-Lyon, chair of emerging economics & technologies

[photos by antimuseum.online.fr unless stated otherwise ]

Years aren’t measured in just months and days, but in the intensity of our experience.

November 15th wasn’t quite a day like the others. Woken up in our New York City hotel room by an SMS alert at two in the morning, we learned that the police were evacuating Zuccotti Park.  We consequently changed our morning’s plans and decided to visit the sights of Lower East Side. The protestors were now everywhere but occupying Wall Street, the movement’s sympathizers and the curious provided quite a spectacle.  This circus atmosphere clashed sharply with the peculiar beauty and eerie silence of the 9/11 memorial just a street away. The dissonance between the two left us both dwelling on the past and wondering about the future, and convinced more than ever of the need to focus on what’s important.

[photo by OWS at http://occupywallst.org/]

The morning’s events led us inevitably to look for coffee off the beaten path.    We found a small convenience store on Lafayette that offered hot drinks a few tables and chairs to rest our feet. The store’s major attraction apparently was neither Starbuck’s nor Ghirardelli’s, but a myriad of conversations of the indigenous population around Chinatown.  The store wasn’t exactly packed at three in the afternoon, but the conversations about the day’s events, projects and challenges occupied every available space.  As we took in a few sips of coffee and several earfuls of conversation, we couldn’t help but think of Paul Auster and Wayne Wong’s film Smoke, and especially Auggie’s conversation with Paul Benjamin about his photo album. Although places are often haunted by similar people and events, their stories are continuously shaped and refined by experience.

Our eyes slowly focused on a police officer sipping his own coffee at the table next to ours, seemingly oblivious to the conversation around him.  Alone, of medium build, perhaps in his fifties, and not exactly fashion conscious, his weathered skin and uniform seemed to underline the troubles of the day, or perhaps of a lifetime.  We were struck not only by the fatigue that seemed heavily draped over his shoulders, but by his intense concentration in filling out some kind of list. We imagined how hard his day must have been, and asked him if he was glad that it was almost over. He looked up from both his paper and coffee, his weary smile and drained eyes seemed to welcome the opportunity to tell his story.

He explained that his day was pretty much hundreds of others in the past – trying to insure that the pain, the energy, and the commotion of the City didn’t get too far out of hand. Much more important in his mind  was the list he was compiling of his favorite songs that he wanted to record for the end of the year.  As he saw that we didn’t quite understand, he filled in the details.  His life had never been easy, but his girlfriend’s condition was even worse – he feared that she would not make it through another year. His work as a traffic officer differed little that of his colleagues: he didn’t want to be just another uniform.  Decorating the house for the holidays, playing the music his girlfriend loved, and by doing so piecing together their collective memories, was his way of making a difference.  The stories people share  when we take the time to listen….

This chance encounter certainly couldn’t compete with the more media-ready headlines that day. To put things in perspective, the jury is out on whether the events of that day will ever “make” history. I’m not even sure that I could find that coffee shop again on Lafayette, let alone recognize the fellow that took the time speak his mind. Yet there was something profoundly human in that fleeting exchange. I hope I will long remember what he was doing his best to share.

With our warmest wishes for the holidays.

about “tweetable” marketing “truths”

today’s selection is …

Pamela Vaughan‘s highly enjoyable “truth vs. myth” tweetable piece on Marketing at Hubspot. Enjoyable for sure, but you should take some of these facts and figures with a pinch of salt. Much as I believe in the power of social media, my field experience has shown that Facebook is not a catch-all tool for B2B for instance. There are many more effective ways of attracting leads when you are in B2B than writing up a Facebook post: Blog posts, affiliate marketing and well crafted, really meaty whitepapers (not those slapdash “bought from someone else” things but the real mac Coy which tell the world you are a true expert and know what you are talking about). Instead, you might want to recycle this idea of a safe tweettable piece with real myths and truths such as those taken from Scott Berkun’s Myths of Innovation opus.

42 Tweetable Facts to Squash Marketing Fantasies

We hear a ton of marketing myths everyday that have no basis on research or facts. They’re simply made-up fantasies that people have come to believe. But let’s face it, we marketers can’t afford to live in a fantasy world. Instead, we need to rely on cold, hard facts to guide is in the right direction toward inbound marketing success.

That’s why we’ve released our newest ebook to help you separate marketing fact from fantasy. Download your copy here, and tweet some of your favorite facts below! Some of them might surprise you.

Inbound Marketing

• Fantasy: Inbound marketing focuses exclusively on top-of-the-funnel objectives like attracting prospects & leads.
• Fact: Inbound marketing helps attract leads & also helps convert those leads into paying customers. (Tweet This)

Social Media

• Fantasy: B2B companies don’t need to waste their time on Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn.
• Fact: 39% of B2B companies using Twitter & 41% using Facebook have acquired new customers from it. (Tweet This)
• Fantasy: Facebook may be great for building buzz, but it has yet to prove itself as an effective channel for generating sales.
• Fact: 41% of B2B companies & 62% of B2C companies using Facebook have acquired a customer from it. (Tweet This)
• Fact: 51% of Facebook fans are more likely to buy brands they ‘like.’ (Tweet This)

via 42 Tweetable Facts to Squash Marketing Fantasies.

5 tips for organising social media teams in large organisations (5/5)

This is part 5 of the synopsis of my Figaro Digital presentation in London on November 23, 2011. In order to gather all parts, click or use the following short link: http://bit.ly/figaroyag11 

[all photos by Yann Gourvennec: http://bit.ly/picasayann]

5. building a community of community managers

Once all the above principles have been implemented, there is a requirement for all in the organisation to get themselves organised and this is what we have been doing for at least three years now, with a community of community managers which was started by my predecessor, and is known as the “come’in” community. This community of community managers exists online on our internal collaboration platform named Plazza, but mostly, it is a community of people who actually meeting person every two months. In a well-established process now we gather all these people together in a room anything between 50 to 100, we invite renowned industry professionals who give us some of their time and knowledge in order to share with our community. This community of community managers is also working on new projects, building a repository together, establishing the tools which I described earlier on, and last but not least launching campaigns together and exchanging on best practices. In December, we will be going one step further by inviting some of our peers from other corporations in order to exchange and broaden the scope of our discussions.

We see “come’in” (one of our meetings in the above picture) as one of our most important assets, a forum in which we can devise new projects and launch new initiatives a place in which we can exchange and debate and move forward and implement the dandelion organisation. Our most important goal now with regard to this community is to internationalise it and we will be taking “come’in” to Tunisia in order to kick-start this process.

Key to our new programmes is also the so-called “social media champions” programme which is going to enable us to distinguish the people throughout the organisation who are actually better than others in social media. As I said earlier on, I don’t believe in social media experts. It’s more a case of “the blind leading the blind” and helping the company to move one step at a time and succeed in its business endeavours via social media and improve the way it communicates online as well as its e-reputation.

5 tips for organising social media teams in large organisations (4/5)

This is part 4 of the synopsis of my Figaro Digital presentation in London on November 23, 2011. In order to gather all parts, click or use the following short link: http://bit.ly/figaroyag11 

[all photos by Yann Gourvennec: http://bit.ly/picasayann]

4. using tools as platforms for change

Social media is a difficult discipline which requires many different tools for management, monitoring and statistics. Using your team’s expertise, you can build credibility and offer tools which could exponentially equip your entire organisation, therefore improving cross channel communications and mutual help. These mutualised tools can therefore serve also as a basis for the implementation of the multiple hub and spoke organisation. At Orange, we have been able to work in those directions more than once.

First and foremost, we have worked on the standardisation of processes and the industrialisation of moderation around our social media platforms. Because our teams cannot be behind their screens all day long, let alone speak all languages and especially difficult or rare tongues (even though we already speak three or four), we are resorting to external teams in order to moderate the comments and posts by our audiences on social media platforms, in order that each and every customer (this is our ultimate goal) gets an individual response by the Orange helpers teams in the country relevant to the customer who has an issue.

We have been able to work beyond this though, with the equipment of the entire organisation with a social media platform Administration tool which we are using to help teens better communicate between each other and respond within platforms across the organisation. With this kind of platforms (many vendors exist) you can very well ask somebody from, say the Orange helper team, to take ownership of your twitter platform any time somebody has a problem which needs to be solved. Slowly but surely, we are improving the process, and the equipment of our entire organisation with tools like this is making it possible.

Beyond social media (but including social media), we are implementing what we call a websites factory, based on the popular open source software CMS EZpublish in order not only to establish consistency throughout the group, but also to achieve the merger between social media and web platforms. In essence, this is undoubtedly the topic which is the most important in my eyes, a lot more important than just an merely growing one’s fan bases on Facebook and other platforms, because through this websites factory, we will be able to establish governance, enforce consistency, make social media work for the company and its business and eventually, establish this decentralised, dandelion organisation which I was talking about at the beginning of my pitch.

It is possible to enforce organisational change through the implementation of new tools, even though the tools in themselves do not really matter. They can be changed one-minute to the next, but in the same way that we do business process re-engineering through tools i.e. that we encourage people to change their behaviour by mimicking those of others which have been translated into Information Systems, we can use this tools as platforms to help people communicate with one another and better respond to our customers and audiences.

to be continued …

@lbret: “LinkedIn is adding 2 new users every second”

[this post was originally written for the live.orange.com blog]

LinkedIn is aiming at keeping its users happy

In terms of Social Media, Facebook springs to mind with its 850 million users and growing every day. Yet, there is another social media behemoth which launched in 2003 and has only – even though only in this case is very relative – 136 million users worldwide and it’s LinkedIn. With nearly 140 million very high-end, affluent users, the business to business pure player has changed the recruitment industry for ever. Today at Le Web Paris 11, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop facilitated by Laurence Bret Stern, marketing director for the EMEA region at LinkedIn and what I liked most about their presentation is that – despite its staggering success, the company is sticking to its original mantra: “let’s keep our users happy”. And I have to admit I have been one of them since the inception of the service, and that I find it to be an invaluable business tool.

big and growing bigger …

LinkedIn has become a real social media phenomenon, worldwide and in Europe in particular. The proof of that is that the Netherlands is the country for which the penetration of LinkedIn is the highest. And it’s not finished. The increase in member uptake is staggering, namely in countries like France which are in catch-up mode.

Picture this, “LinkedIn is adding 2 new members every second” said Laurence in her opening pitch at Le Web this morning.

And it’s not just any kind of members but very high-end, affluent and influent people: Indeed, 15% of higher management functions execs who are managing more than €150k and managing 10 people or more are using LinkedIn and the B2B social media site is now getting “even more popular amongst such segments than well famed news websites like the FT or Le Figaro” Laurence added.

80% of LinkedIn users aren’t looking for jobs.

50% of LinkedIn revenues are made from selling services to recruiters (on how to find candidates) and advertisers . A vast majority (80% of users) of LinkedIn users aren’t looking for new jobs. This is a clear signal that they are getting business benefits from the service. LinkedIn premium subscriptions are reserved for expert users. For the above mentioned 80% users, LinkedIn is mostly a tool for doing business and working on one’s e-reputation.

Usage of LinkedIn on mobiles has rocketed up; an iPhone application has just been launched and is a success (a demo of the app is available here)

[above picture: LinkedIn today, a new information curation feature by  LinkedIn]

establishing your company & employee identities

Company pages are free. Laurence added went on saying that “LinkedIn is a no brainer for companies which need to promote their brand and image”. It isn’t just a personal system, “if you are a business, you should make sure you are on LinkedIn” she added a bit cockily.

a search engine optimisation (SEO) beast

“30% of Google searches are carried out on people’s names” Laurence added and therefore, LinkedIn has become an “SEO machine” and enables employees – and therefore companies – to become more visible.

review of the main LinkedIn services

• The free directory: The core of the LinkedIn experience is free access to the directory, and the mission statement of the company isn’t to make people pay upfront but to make them happy about the service (and then let them pay for extra services if they want to).
• LinkedIn today: a b2b curation tool
  • LinkedIn today chooses your vertical and presents a list of articles based on what people with profiles similar to yours have looked at. It’s available at Linkedin.com/today and is very accurate
• LinkedIn Groupsare a
  • Philips for instance is running a group on hospital lighting material, very specific and very successful.
• Alumni: LinkedIn.com/classmates
  • using this new feature, you can see where your old classmates are working. This is working for university and college graduates
• Stats about companies are made available from the company pages and all for free. This makes it possible for job seekers to prepare an interview for instance. Polls can be launched from company pages too in order to establish thought leadership around brands.
• Talent acquisition: As seen above, most of LinkedIn’s revenue is coming from job search services sold to businesses. Recruitment ads are based on profiles. LinkedIn’s flagship product is called LinkedIn recruitment. In 2012, a new free service will be launched; it’s called “Talent Pipeline” and will be used by large companies which will build a pool of candidates and the novelty is that the pool in question will also include profiles from other services.

LinkedIn’s targeting very rich targeting capabilities are a fantastic asset and shows that social media has now become entirely mature, at least in business to business.

5 tips for organising social media teams in large organisations (3/5)

This is part 3 of the synopsis of my Figaro Digital presentation in London on November 23, 2011. In order to gather all parts, click or use the following short link: http://bit.ly/figaroyag11 

[all photos by Yann Gourvennec: http://bit.ly/picasayann]

3. structuring your own social media approach

… is a must, but it has to be performed in stages. First one has to foster usage and establish credibility, second educate, evangelise and support. Social media guidelines are made for that. They are a tool aimed at encouraging best practices, rather than a weapon of mass destruction of your enterprise team spirit. This is why I didn’t want to have Social Media Guidelines posted at the beginning of our Social Media endeavours. Instead I thought it was best to foster usage, gather a number of like-minded people who would contribute to the same platforms in a collaborative manner.

It is any wonder that the strongest community on our internal collaboration platform is that of our experts who are blogging on the Orange Business Services platform (http://blogs.orange-business.com)? Right from day one, we started to structure this initiative in a decentralised way, ensuring that our experts were empowered in order to create user generated content. Now, this has created motivation and enthusiasm amongst the teams who are more than ever determined to keep this new media. Once and this empowerment has been established, then and only then can we deploy our social media guidelines, as was done in early October 2011; they are also made available to all viewers at http://orange.com/smg.

to be continued …

5 tips for organising social media teams in large organisations (2/5)

This is part 2 of the synopsis of my Figaro Digital presentation in London on November 23, 2011. In order to gather all parts, click or use the following short link: http://bit.ly/figaroyag11 

[all photos by Yann Gourvennec: http://bit.ly/picasayann]

In Social Media as in many other areas, we are learning as we go along, but we have discovered that there are certain methods which worked well for us and I will be sharing them with you today. We aren’t probably doing everything right, but we are learning every day and experimenting a lot. As I keep saying, there is no such thing as a social media expert, we are just social media practitioners.

2. it all starts with your team

Team involvement is key. It’s the foundation for sound change management. First, one has to establish credibility, then find change agents, and last but not least, ensure that one educates, encourages and supports employees. The coordination team is at the centre of the hub and spoke approach.

Our role in the Web and Social Media team is to develop and promote our corporate website Orange.com (2nd largest French Corporate Website), to coordinate Web and social media efforts, at home and Worldwide.

As a matter of fact, our role extends beyond Facebook (or Twitter, G+ etc.) page management, it’s a coordination effort. And coordination starts with practice. How on earth would we be able to share best practices if we didn’t practice ourselves?! Tools are interchangeable, but people and knowhow aren’t, and some if not most of the knowledge has to be developed in-house, this is something I am very keen on.

Our tasks therefore extend beyond social media monitoring, we actually master (or try to master) all the facets of Social Media engagement including Digital Brand Content creation – there is someone in my team dedicated to the facilitation of the http://live.orange.blog which is more than just a blog, but a platform for both internal and external partners to exchange. This involvement turns us into internal consultants so as to be able to advise people on their Social Media Engagement and presence. Our job is not to artificially manage fan pages but to fit these tasks into the overall picture of Web communications. Over the years, we’ll see more and more of that knowledge and knowhow applied to other fan pages than our own, and devoted to the networked promotion of other entities. This is indeed starting now.

to be continued …

LeWeb Paris 11: don’t miss a thing thanks to our blogging team

From December 7-9, I will be taking part in Le Web in Paris and leading an international team of bloggers from and outside Orange

Readers who are not able to make it to the event will nonetheless be able to keep in touch with what happens in Paris at Le Web thanks to our twitter handle @orange, which will lead them to the right resources on blog and other media. The #leweb hashtag will also be funnelled through Orange Timeline so you can see, not only what we are going to tweet and post during the event, but all the content provided by all users talking/writing about the event.

Discover our Social media team’s members

Glenn Le Santo
Writer. Journalist. Broadcaster. Photographer. PR. Social Media commentator. Speaker. His specialties are social media, mobile, people, travel
Twitter @lesanto

Camille Bouiller
High Tech enthusiastic, he writes regularly on Presse Citron High Tech blog to talk about web news, and to share his developper work experience
Twitter @nephthys

Camille Jourdain
Social Media Manager at Up 2 Social, blogger (his own blog and a collaborative one, Locita). Social media enthuastic
Twitter @camj59

Laurent Moulinier
Mobile Marketing Strategy Marketer (at Orange France) – SoLoMo evangelist. His specialities are social, local, mobile, mcommerce, etourism, startup, entrepreneurship
Twitter @laurent_local

Raphaelle Laubie
Health 2.0 Serial Entrepreneur, Corporate Affiliate Lecturer at ESCP-Europe, operating on Soft Skills, Organizational Behavior, Web 2.0 and Open Innovation topics
Twitter @raphaellelaubie

Kevin Dicop
Social Media Manager, Blogger and Community Manager for MyCommunityManager – Former Mba EBusiness ESG student. Web, travel, street art and cooking geek enthusiastic
Twitter @KDicop

Lise Janody
President and chief content strategist at Dot-Connection, a small, fully bilingual consultancy based in Paris, France. Content and web management
Twitter @lisajanody

Stewart Baines
Co-founder of Futurity Media with Anthony Plewes. Stewart’s focus in Futurity Media is in emerging technologies, social media and future gazing. A graduate of philosophy & science, he has studied futurology & foresight to post-grad level.
Twitter @stewartbaines

Orange Group social media team

Lionel Fumado, Social media manager at Orange Group
Twitter @lionelfumado

Céline Louis, Live blog chief editor and blogger at Orange Group
Twitter @celine_louis

Alexandra Operto, Social media project manager & community manager Orange Group
Twitter @aoperto

Yann Gourvennec (yours truly), Director, Web Digital Media & Social Media at Orange Group
Twitter @ygourven

5 tips for organising social media teams in large organisations (1/5)

This is the session synopsis of my keynote presentation at Figaro Digital in London on November 23, 2011. I only used a few slides which I will provide later on. In this presentation I gave my tips for organising social media teams in large organisations, based on my current experience at Orange.

This is part 1 of this presentation. In order to gather all parts, click or use the following short link: http://bit.ly/figaroyag11 

[all photos by Yann Gourvennec: http://bit.ly/picasayann]

1. the social media strategist’s dilemma

Jeremiah Owyang, industry analyst at Altimeter Group, gave us a presentation in Paris in December 2010 which rang many bells at the time. In that presentation, entitled the Career Path of the Social Media Strategist[1], he described the dilemma that every social media strategist in my position is facing: either we scale and industrialise our job or we crash! The volume of requests is staggering, the number of new platforms ever increasing.

November 2011 is a critical month for instance: Google+ released its business pages on November 4th, 2011 and everybody in Socialmedia.org and everywhere else is asking themselves whether to dip or not to dip a toe in the water … It may seem trivial but how do we get ourselves organised? Do we have to throw more budget onto this – and if so for what purpose? – Or more resources, or do nothing and then run the risk of being a laggard? Decision-making has to be brisk, and the consequences aren’t minimal. Building a new network of fans/followers/likers … whatever you call them is the basis for doing community work and practice word of mouth marketing, and it is a job which requires many efforts and resources.

Even on existing platforms, one has to improve the way in which we are responding. It is particularly true at Orange, because we are a popular service provider with millions of clients and like any other service provider, one has to pay a lot of attention to customer service. It is therefore of paramount importance that we – at Corporate communications – understand that.

Jeremiah with Stan Magniant from Publicis

As a conclusion to his presentation, Jeremiah demonstrated that there were 4 potential organisational models and that the only viable one in a large organisation, the only one which scales, is the one called multiple hub and spoke or “dandelion”, in which empowerment is enforced, and the focus is on education, delegation, cross-organisational work and best practice sharing.

From our own perspective, this is easy to understand. Not only do I manage the Corporate Orange Website (Orange.com) and social media engagement with my team, but I also have to coordinate other initiatives in other entities and other countries (we have presence in 35 countries) as well as define the Governance that goes with this.

Now that we have established that there is a strong requirement for implementing the “dandelion” organisation, how do we do that? And how do we do that in a mostly de-centralised organisation. Most organisations, a fact I was able to witness throughout my career, are de-centralised. De-centralised organisations are more creative, but they are also more challenging with regard to how one implements programmes across the board. If your organisation is more regimental, and all you need to do is press a button this presentation isn’t for you. Having said that, even in the Army when I was part of it, I witnessed a lot of de-centralisation which gave us leeway to do things and innovate at our level.

We have been busy working on Social Media at Orange for a long time now. Even though it’s only 4 years, Internet[2] years are said to be longer than ordinary years, only Internet pioneers remember that though. When I started working in this industry this is what used to be common knowledge. Internet years were likened to dog-years, i.e. supposedly 1 year equalled 7 years. Although there is nothing scientific to back this statement up, it is true that a lot has happened in just 4 years and sometimes I realised that everything we have learned has to be re-learned time and time again. 4 years later, approximately 200 people – the number was officially quoted by my colleague who is in charge of our digital HR strategy – are working in and around social media at Orange worldwide. This is a lot of people, but not out of proportion (we have 169,000 employees worldwide[3]). Yet, the challenge described by Jeremiah Owyang in his presentation are really pertinent.

So, how are we trying to tackle this challenge?

… to be continued

---

[1] Jeremiah’s slideshare presentation is made available at: http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/keynote-career-path-of-corporate-social-strategist

[2] see “how old are you in Internet years”: http://joesummerhays.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/how-old-are-you-in-internet-years/

[3] check http://orange.com/leaflet for details

Red tape is good for business!

Today’s selection is…

An article published in the “briefing” section of Time magazine dated November 14, 2011 (“The Deregulation Myth: Ignore the rhetoric, nations with more rules grow faster).

Time Regulation diagram

In this article, Time magazine have produced their own info-graphic from data taken from the World Bank, OECD and the IMF.

Their diagram (thumbnail picture on the lefthand side, buy a reprint for details) shows that it’s easier to do business in many countries in which it is customary to say that it’s not easy to do business.

Beyond the obvious first two contenders (US and UK) we find countries not always hailed for their lack of regulations like Saudi Arabia, Australia, Germany, Japan… And France!

Despite what whingers are saying, it is therefore easier to do business according in those countries. The criteria set by Time magazine used to determine this index are a mix of  tax code, loan availability, and numbers such as “the number of days to build a warehouse”; this index is set against the growth of GDP.

From this diagram we can conclude two main things:

• Firstly that we have to debunk the myth about deregulation is making it easier for people to do business. There are other criteria in fact. If it takes “311 days to build a warehouse” as in does in China for instance, deregulation might not be very helpful to you. There are other factors such as corruption ,
• Secondly, it shows that the the ease of doing business is in fact, even if this is counter-intuitive, not really conducive to important increases in GDP. Another way of looking at it would be to say that the countries in which growth is slowing down need to make it easier for people to do business, but those which are doing well don’t.

As a conclusion, entrepreneurs may be reassured that going through the red tape may in fact be probably good for their own business.

Welcome to the API jungle – part II – what Brands should do

Welcome to the API jungle or why developers must learn how to find, select, integrate APIs and contribute to their improvement and evolution (part II)

by Martin Duval, CEO, Bluenove

The API landscape is extremely dynamic. The following 2 diagrams taken from ProgrammableWeb describe the most common APIs which are used in order to build mash-ups. They show the dominance of major historic players (check the “see all time” diagram) but also the more recent rise of new players such as Twilio in the recent past (last 14 days), as well as the convergence of Cloud Computing and Telecom.

There is yet more evidence of the emergence of this new ecosystem; it is indeed interesting to notice the emergence of new players offering the technical support to manage API infrastructures such as the new Application Enablement Services Business Unit from Alcatel-Lucent (the one that acquired ProgrammableWeb in 2010), Mashery, Apigee, Aepona or 3Scale.

But let’s come back to the relationship between Apps and APIs.

After all, aren’t applications mere channels? To support their promotion, we can reasonably bet that Brands will also create APIs in the future, with probably a more obvious way to demonstrate Return On Investment through the number of innovative apps created by third party creative developers than through the number of downloads KPI[7] of their own app. Brands could therefore propose APIs in order to extend the reach of their products and services.

Here are some suggestions for a few popular Brands[8].

• Nike could create a “Just Size It” API that gives the perfect shoe size from the photo of your feet,
• Evian could create a hydration API that calculates the quantity of water a person needs to drink daily and reminds her when rehydration is needed,
• Netflix has proposed an API to tap into its customers’ creative capabilities, and even organized a contest [9] so as to crowdsource ideas leading to the improvement of the algorithms of its movie recommendation engine,
• French off-licence chain Nicolas could create an API that allows its customers to find and leave recommendations about the wine they buy.

How could these companies support the use of their APIs, and therefore the promotion of their Brand? This would be done by the developers who would make sure to make APIs accessible by the end users on different interfaces, and who would find ways to remunerate themselves through the proposition of new business models.

Of course Brands can still develop some specific applications themselves, but the decision to propose an Open API will offer an unparalleled way to boost exponentially the reach of their promotion.

A lot of marketing managers are sometimes the victims of the ‘gadget syndrome’: they follow the trend getting on board the last fashionable feature to include into their marketing plans. One year it is the ‘Facebook Page’, or the ‘Twitter account’, and the year after the ‘Mobile App’.

But as part of a more sustainable marketing and innovation strategy, the best solution may very well not be an application but rather an Open API.

Another trend to take into account as a booster for the number of APIs, is Open Data. The opening of public data by the administrations (After initiatives in the US with Data.gov and in the UK with Data.gov.uk, Etalab[10] is also about to launch the Data.gouv.fr portal of data sets in December 2011) and French cities such as Rennes[11], Paris[12] or Montpellier[13] have already exposed some data sets with some of them as APIs.

Open Data for businessese

The concept also appeals to businesses as shown by the Bluenove white paper (in French)  entitled “Open Data: what are the issues and the opportunities for the enterprise?” with sponsors such as French railways SNCF, French Post Office Group La Poste, SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT and the French confectionary giant Poult group. The Civil Service, local governments as well as businesses will have to learn how to attract, engage and manage a community of developers but also of entrepreneurs, researchers, academics, students and companies from other industries to motivate them to use their APIs and boost their innovation.

as a conclusion: the fundamental role of developers

Martin Duval, CEO, Bluenove

One the one hand major platforms continue relentlessly to open themselves to to more and more end users thanks to more open developments. On the other hand, developers will try to invent new applications but will also have to use an increasing number of available APIs and use new skills to detect, select, integrate them but also contribute to improve them and even ask for new ones.

One sees new types of requirements, services and skills emerging which keep the collaboration and innovation momentum going between the members of these complex ecosystems among which developers have a fundamental role to play.

__________________

[7] KPI : Key Performance Indicator

[8] Examples from this article on Mashable by Adam Kleinberg : http://mashable.com/2011/01/04/brand-open-api-developers/

[9] One of ’the 12 levers of Open Innovation’ : see http://www.slideshare.net/Bluenove

[10] EtaLab : http://www.etalab.gouv.fr/

[11] Rennes Open Data : http://www.data.rennes-metropole.fr/

[12] Paris : http://www.bluenove.com/publications/revue-de-presse/bluenove-fait-parler-les-donnees-de-la-ville-de-paris-et-le-web/

[13] Montpellier Open Data : http://opendata.montpelliernumerique.fr/Le-projet