Mobile commerce is reaching its tipping point

Just got some interesting results from a comprehensive study of european e-commerce by DIBS.

- The total e-commerce market grew 14% last year.
- 17% of the people aged 15-34 are using m-commerce.
- Best sellers on the mobile is media, services, travel and electronics.
- Norway are the top online consumers, followed by UK, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain and Poland.
- The largest product category is travel followed by household consumables. Electronics has shrunk.
- 61% of the e-stores have two or fewer employees, 35% get less than 10% of revenues from e-commerce and 26% rely purely on internet.

"Joakim read about hemmorhage..." Facebook changes and opportunities for brands

Facebook life, but how to live it.

Like it or not, Facebook is important for activating the market. The main reason is that everyone is using Facebook for socializing online. Telling their stories, meeting friends and getting new friends. Read more about what drives people on Facebook here.

What I like, pun intended, about the new changes is the new opportunities for brands. Brand pages was in my opinion not doing the job of activating people, even with a great strategy on how to use it. It was mainly for the core brand fans. Now Facebook with their open graph, new ads that shows recommendations and comments from friends, a new set of metrics - and which is not confirmed - probably a new timelinish brand page.

So what´s the changes all about and what opportunities do they provide?

LIVE TICKER: A real-time stream of information. Seems to me that most users want to remove it. I think it has potential. The question is if its too small and hard to browse. The top stories/highlights bugs me, I prefer Recent Stories. For now I use mostly this feature although it does not show everything that my friends are doing.

> This is a stream you as a brand would like to become part of. This is what is happening right now in a users network.

FACEBOOK GESTURE: Allows you to (any verb) a (any noun). Not only LIKE. This will have a big impact on the brand-user relationship. Spotify and Washington Posts Social Reader are the best examples using this feature as of now. Although I don´t like that everyone can see on my Timeline that “Joakim read Adele cancels US dates due to vocal hemmorhage on Washington Post Social Reader.”;

> This still is a big one for brands. People only LIKE once, but they read, listen, rides, eats all the time etc. The opportunities are endless, start creating.

Example: When you are drinking a Coke you are a consumer – you are just trying it out, to see how it works, like going out once with a woman/man When you like a Coke you are a customer – you now like it, so that’s a deeper relationship, now you are „dating“ the brand. When you put drinking coke in your timeline you are like a CLIENT, equivalent to the real world.

SUBSCRIBE TO PEOPLES FEED:You need to opt-in to allow subscritions to your profile. When you unfriend someone, they stay subscribed to your public updates.Finally, when composing updates you want your subscribers to see, be sure to set the privacy to “public”. They won’t see it otherwise.Only adults (age eighteen and older) can post public updates, so minors aren’t able to have subscribers. However, minors are able to get public updates from adults who have allowed subscribers.

Before the Subscribe button launch, it was either all or nothing when it came to blocking a person’s updates from your News Feed. Now you can control what types of updates you see from a person and how often. That means you can skip the virtual sheep without missing out on engagement notifications and puppy albums.

> The News Feed algorithm weights updates from friends as well as private posts more heavily than public ones.

PROFILE CAN ALSO BECOME A PAGE: Be aware that when you convert your profile to a Page, your profile pictures will be transferred, and all of your friends will be automatically added as people who like your Page. No other content will be carried over to your new Page, so be sure to save any important content before beginning your migration.

Migrating is irreversible at this time, so you may want to download your profile information - including photos, wall posts, messages and friend list - before making the switch.

> You can start to create a more personal Facebook profile page. If you´re a public figure – this is a nice opportunity.

TIMELINE:Coverphoto - For brand pages this will be a big improvement. New map – where you have been (FB places). Coolio. Fill in birth, add life events, such as getting married tgrough the publisher bar – and other announcements. Use the + icon to add this.

Change settings – add badges, apps.
People can browse your whole life... This can be the consequence:
1. Everyone, not only the youth, will now use FB only to stage their public life = Tremendous opportunities for brands.
2. People will talk/chat elsewhere = Opportunities for brands.

How people are using Social Media (US)

New research by NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company, shows the reasons US social media users visit sites like forums, blogs, FB, Twiter, video sharing, consumer rating and other social networking sites.

89% Keeping in touch with friends
88% Keeping in touch with family
70% Find new friends
68% Read product reviews
67% Be entertained
64% Be creative

Social Media usage is driven by 3.000.000.000 new participants in the medialandscape´s urge to
- Enhance and create new relationships
- Strengthen and maintain identity
- Belong
All of these to create a better self-esteem.

Brands want relations with customers. Customers asks:
“Do I need this brand to survive?”
“Do this relatonship serve my needs?

If the customers to a brand have answered YES to both of these questions. It´s because the brand has either made them
- Feel good through sharing values, experiences, goals etc
and/or
- Made something that is experienced as useful in one way or another i.e news, exclusive offers etc

Mike Walsh, the slickest man alive, but great trendresearcher says we share because of these motivators (thanx @properator for link)
1. To be a network alpha
2. To be more attractive
3. To think out loud
4. To be part of something bigger
5. To build social ties
6. To get feedback
7. To be famous

My point is that billions of new participants in the medialandscape publish information publicly 24/7 everyday, nonstop. And they are in 24/7 need of social currency. Of something to create and share. This is what brands should provide to get better effect of their marketing initiatives.

Mass media + Social Media

As you know I have been preaching the importance of the combination of advertising in mass media and activation in social media.

According to new research from Nielsen, commissoned by Google, shows that advertising on multiple platforms substantially increases consumers ability to remember an ad campaign compared to when the ad is viewed on TV alone.

For testgroups that saw the ad across all screens – TV, computer, smartphone and tablet – the ability to remember the brand jumped dramatically from 50% to 74%.

But this is still all advertising. It would be fantastic to see the results of the test if the digital solutions activated people and made them participants – not only viewers, listeners and readers.

Nielsen link

Some old venn diagrams.

Went through my old paper ramblings from some years ago and found some venn diagrams. Funny to look at old stuff. I struggeled with remembering the brand focus one. I don´t think I did it. Was it you?

In short. This is the consequences of the Facebook changes:

1. Everyone, not only the youth, will now use FB only to stage their public life= Tremendous opportunities for brands.
2. People will talk/chat elsewhere = Opportunities for brands.

See why and how here: http://www.slideshare.net/joakimnilsen/the-marketing-revolution-caused-by-300...

People are not talking on Facebook

Everyone is on Facebook. And everyone, but especially the youth, are slowly starting to realize what it means.

That´s why we see more and more “perfect” profiles. People are increasingly using their profiles, with carefully selected conversations, photos and check-ins as a concious projection of how they want to be percieved. As Libby Copeland points out in her Slate column:

Facebook is, after all, characterized by the very public curation of one’s assets in the form of friends, photos, biographical data, accomplishments, pithy observations, even the books we say we like. Look, we have baked beautiful cookies. We are playing with a new puppy. We are smiling in pictures (or, if we are moody, we are artfully moody.

This, she claims, is making people depressed. This is a whole other topic that I am not going into depth of now – but it is interesting to see stats from Facebook showing that it is a clear correlation on what people say and act and what their network say and act. See attached chart.

So my 2 cents is that the private chatting is about to move away from Facebook and into private closed networks on especially smartphones where close groups of friends keeps in touch with each other 24/7 without worring about the “rest” of the world – its private. And although we now have Google + with circles and Facebook now allows posts to be limited to public, your friends and customized lists I still see these places as a more public space. And people want to be part of where other people are, but their most private conversations will be through email, FB messages, IM´s and new group chat technology. Which will thrive on special interests, close friends or people gathered around specific locations/events.

This is a great opportunity for brands:
1. Create and facilitate this solution. And make sure to add extra value within it. This is what its all about – give people something to do and someone to do it with. Assist people in doing what they are most interested in doing or already are doing – better. And you will also get extremly valuable insights based on their acivities.

2. Also, with 3.000.000.000 new participants in the medialandscape, people are constantly on the look out for social currency – something they can post to both their “public” and “private” networks. Brands can drive culture by creating content and solutions that give people something to do or content to share – and people to do it with.

I think this gives brands tremendous opportunities but at the same time it´s important to understand that people both want privacy and to be part of the public. The perfect marketingsolution combines both.

PS. Libby Coplands column is based on: http://psp.sagepub.com/content/37/1/120.abstract

Facebook but how to book results.

Are you focusing mostly on getting as many LIKES a possible. Are these the KPI numbers? Then please read on:

Unless a fan actively participates in a brand’s Facebook Page and their activity on the Page has been continuous, the brand’s status updates will cease appearing in the fan’s Facebook stream. You have 100.000 LIKES - sounds great, but the value is close to zero if NO ONE sees your posts.

Don´t be an echo. Lead! New article in AdAsia.

We need more Eros and less strife

Contributed by Joakim Vars Nilsen, Senior Creative Strategist, MediaFront – A part of McCann World Group.

The debate about the most fundamental changes in the market landscape the last 100 years is colored by sterile polemicists who focus on insignificant fragments of the whole that is magnified far out of proportion, instead of constructive sparring and curiosity. A debate filled with arguments that seem driven more by wanting to win and/or gaining followers on twitter, quora, blog traffic and linkedin – than being part of coming up with better knowledge.

The most important thing is to constructively identify what opportunities we have right now – that work. What can we do to get optimal effect out of our marketing initiatives today that supports a sustainable business model? And how do we do it?

Don’t be an echo. Lead!

The main challenge is to include different views on marketing and putting these into a larger theoretical and practical structure. There is no truth, which obviously can be a challenge to live with – but to base a marketing career by desperately holding on to principles can make you redundant and in worst case prevent desired growth for your business or the company you are working for. This goes for both old school traditional thinkers to new school social media hipsters.

It’s also a challenge that the industry seems to be mostly creating marketing solutions that is an echo of the culture, instead of driving it. Marketing and advertising is in most cases still used to make up for poor products or parity when the hash reality is that innovation and further development of existing products is increasingly important due to the fundamental changes in the marketplace. The hipster is dead. Time to move on. And it requires a different mindset and approach to marketing. But first of all, what is happening?

Become part of the stories between people.

Up until just a few years ago it was only brands, media and the state that could publish content publicly. Today it is every single one of us due to new technology that has enabled us to do so. We are evolutionary wired to share information and thrive on doing so – and have always been. But with new technology the world has gone bananas in regards to the amount of information published every single second. And it has just begun. This is the shift we are in the midst of.

This means that we have gone from a reality of scarcity of media to scarcity of attention, something that cannot be bought as effective anymore. So the question is how can a brand make itself worthy of attention in this new market landscape? Where one of the main consequences of this fundamental shift is that we are not competing against competitors stories alone, but the stories people share with each other. That is why we need to create marketing that ensures that the brand is being part of creating these stories and thus becomes part of the stories between people.

Invest, don’t only spend.

There is an increased understanding from marketers on the importance, and not least the effect, of launching 24/7, 365 days solutions that are a combination of product, platform and communication. In addition, there is an emergence of examples of a holistic approach to marketing where there is a clear focus on creating something people can bring to their networks or enhance the possibility of them contributing to it, by creating something of shared interest that makes people talk. Something that generates endogenous word of mouth. Where paid media is used for kick-starting 365 days solutions, maintain traction by showing what the brand is doing together with whom, and assisting people to after rationalize why the time they are spending and investing in the solution is of value. The model of a media neutral planning with one idea being expressed in different channels is dead. Invest in 365 days solutions and, again, spend on advertising to kick-start, keep momentum and influence after rationalization.

TCB – Taking care of business

Right now, the key for effective marketing is to create solutions that integrate customers and potential new customers even more so that the brand becomes a platform for rich interactions – this gives the brand unique valuable data that should be used to steer future marketing initiatives. It is what people are doing, not what they are saying in marketing research, that is important. These kinds of solutions are also key for building ambassadors. These are people who will sell your product by sharing positive experiences within their social networks both on and offline.

Although it is important to shift focus from the self-interested individual to group dynamics this requires being able to build relationships with customers and potential customers as individuals. There is no contradiction here. And just to be clear: Continuously building a customer base by building meaningful relationships is a win-win-win situation. Bigger awareness base for kick-starting new initiatives, continuously fueling advocates who creates new customers and gaining valuable insight in the culture for adjusting your strategy. Oh, and you can reduce your paid media spend, enabling you to invest more and the word sustainable starts to make sense.

Who are gaining market shares – right now?

Those companies that focus on communicating the emotional response to why they are in the market, rather than using marketing trying to differentiate themselves from competitors, are the ones that is succeeding in capturing market share right now. The more this ideal, the why, is cemented internally the better the effect of the external communication. And it needs to be based on values that the brand shares with its customers so that meaningful relationships can occur. These companies build a trustworthy position in the market. 24/7. 365 days a year. How?

Give people something to do, and someone to do it with.

There are two things that are important for success. And both can be done right now. One is to create an integration strategy for social media in your organization that blend social media activities with the existing work being done to ensure that the company’s mission, or better ideal, and business goals are met – instead of creating a social media strategy. The second thing is to look at marketing in traditional and social media as a 100% necessary merge and as a consequence create an accompanying marketing strategy. A constructive strategy, and/or for the bold ones: Build a philosophy.

Then increase the effect of the marketing budget by creating marketing solutions that organize information, by giving people something to do, and at the same time puts people in touch with each other. Facility and help people to share and create in order to help yourself sell more. A marketing solution where people not only like your brand better, but like to get you more customers.

Give people social currency.

An example of this would be if an energy provider sent me a message that I had used less power than expected and was giving me the choice to donate the surplus to someone who needs it i.e. a social project in my neighborhood. The same aligned message in paid media. The energy company then follows up with information about how many people have contributed together with me, how many people have received help and what it has accomplished through i.e. email, FB page updates, their smart phone app, website and paid media to help after rationalize and influence group dynamics. Maybe they let me choose or propose different projects that will benefit my community and put me in touch with others in the neighborhood that also are involved through this. Then they invite and build a co-create 365 day platform, communication, product where the advocates are invited to evolve and/or create new projects. Supported by paid media. And on it goes…

This would have created a meaningful relationship between me and my supplier of electricity. A company I would recommend to others. It’s a marketing solution that is built on a social graph like Facebook so that people will have the opportunity to post their involvement to their social network and talk about it on their blogs, tweets and offline with their friends, neighbors and family.

This is valuable social currency for people. It all provided and facilitated by the company. Which now has become part of the stories between people.

Joakim Vars Nilsen is a strategist, copywriter and entrepreneur who currently work as a Senior Creative Strategist at MediaFront – A Part of McCann Worldgroup. Feel free to follow-up Q&A on twitter: http://twitter.com/joakimnilsen
Link to the article: http://www.adasiaonline.com/2011/08/we-need-more-eros-and-less-strife/

New article (In norwegian)

Ærede markedsføringskollegaer

Jeg leser med undring kommentarene til de respekterte bransjekollegaene Jon Håtun og Heidi Lunde. Jeg kjenner begge som for kompetente til at jeg vil beskrive kommentarene som å “kaste stein i glasshus” da jeg er sikker på at de kan vise til en rekke vellykkede konkrete eksempler som er et resultat av deres rådgivning. Derimot sliter jeg med å forstå motivet for deres utspill.

Hva er vel lettere enn å rakke ned på eksperter som snakker mer enn de skaper og hvis "claim to competence" er antall følgere de har på twitter og reproduksjoner av råd basert på universelle sosiale medier prinsipper. Hvor det hersker en gjensidighetskultur som er kontraproduktiv og en til dels politisk korrigerende atferd på bekostning av nysgjerrighet og innovasjon. Er motivet med å hentyde til dette å skape debatt, mener jeg utgangspunktet er lite konstruktivt. Kanskje viktigere å definere hva begrepet “sosiale medier”betyr og med dette som utgangspunkt i felleskap tilegne og utvide sin kunnskap? Og hva er det man har å hente ved å “vinne”?

Det er vanskelig å være uenig i innleggene, selv om det kanskje hadde vært mer spennende om de hadde dyrket flinke folk i bransjen. Mest av alt hadde det vært veldig spennende å lære mer om hvilke konkrete muligheter markedsførere har i dag og hva som kan gjøres for å få best effekt av markedsføringsbudsjettet. Hva skribentene mener skal til for å utvikle markedsføringsfaget videre, hvordan Heidi Lunde ser på merkevarebygging i det nye markedslandskapet og hvilke spesifikke råd om det sosiale menneskets orientering i den nye digitale virkeligheten Jon Håtun ser viktigheten av.

Personlig har jeg en lidenskapelig tro på at markedsføring kan være en positiv kraft i verden. Jeg tror også innovasjon er den sanne kraften bak evolusjon. Ved å kombinere disse ser vi aktører som har klart å skape merkevarer med større resonans i markedet. Jeg har derfor latt meg imponere av en haug med bransjekollegaer som...