Back in the day, online businesses claimed they had a strategic advantage over brick & mortar businesses because of the reduction in overhead and their ability to sell to anyone in the world. Think Amazon. With the rise of location based marketing, brick and mortar may now have the upper hand. As of today, unless it’s a brand you love, search is the key to ecommerce. You look. You find...
As companies continue to join the ranks of Facebook – realizing that Facebook 2011 = web 1997 – they’re continually bumping into the question of whether or not they need a more robust fan page or do they put more money into their site. After all, 33% of all Internet traffic in the US is on Facebook. Shouldn’t I be where my customers are? Also, if my customers are moving to...
It has been a while since I posted about the Corporate Social Graph and felt it was time for an update with a focus on transparency. The overarching premise of the CSG is that online businesses are expected to behave more like individuals and that they need to inhabit social outposts on the Internet (abiding to the established behaviors of that venue), in the end building a social graph for that...
Just talked to a friend of mine that recently joined a marketing organization and was told after he joined that he would have to stop blogging. When he asked why, he was told that it would take traffic away from the company blog. Again, this is a marketing organization, and one that sounds like it needs to get in touch with what is going on now. Most organizations hope to find someone with some...
In these economically conscious times (aren’t they always?!?!?), I keep hearing; How do I monetize my time on a social network? Well aside from advertising (which is the one obvious answer) there are several ways to ways to think about spending time and effort on social networks. To keep it simple and akin to something that the old guard is familiar with; think of it as a branding exercise...
Businesses don’t shape business any longer. Users do. I’m of course referring to the online world and am sure this will extend the tangible world. Some would argue this has always been the way, with businesses putting things out and then users dictating what is popular. Today’s paradigm is a little different with businesses following users examples. Examples are: Users on...
I was forwarded the video at the bottom of this post this past week. Some of you may have already seen it and I was impressed at how it illuminated the fact that we are building and refining the online world. Some examples of sites/functionality that embody this are: Sites like Digg or Reddit with its user generated content/voting enables a democratic way of highlighting articles that users...
I’ve been listening to DJ Danger Mouse’ Grey Album lately and thinking about how the mash-up culture Wired Magazine discussed several years ago will impact businesses. Wikipedia defines a mash-up in regards to music as: A mash-up or bootleg is a song or composition created from the combination of the music from one song with the a cappella from another The Grey album is an amazing...
I was recently having a conversation with a client about digital signage and how this could be used in different types of venues. Everything from retail to hotels could easily find a clever usage for this technology as it is. We then started to talk about the potential of digital signage as the “anchor” for location based services. In brief, these are marketing efforts provided by...
I have been talking about the Internet as the delivery mechanism for entertainment, information and communication. I now also think of these as the core of the Corporate Social Graph (CSG). But I also I recently realized that I had left out one of, if not the most important elements that the Internet affords, which is interaction. When I talk about interaction within this context, I’m...