SoLoMo is a term that has gained great currency since John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers coined it a year or so ago. The importance of the phenomenon was confirmed during the holiday season of 2011 by soaring m-commerce sales. In the U.S. alone, sales from mobile devices were expected to be over $10 billion in 2011, and the U.S. has been a laggard in the space.
The most startling statistic of all, however, is the fact that sales of smartphones exceeded those of pcs for the first time in the 4th quarter of 2010. The prediction has been around for awhile, but now it has been matched by the reality, and marketers must adjust their strategies accordingly. Much has been written about mobile strategies, but I think a lot of it misses a key issue.
First, the players, all of whom are well known, even if some are mere corporate infants. This infographic from Social Commerce Today positions them in the space.
Here’s my take, with the often-overlooked issue and implications for marketers. Devices are the facilitators but search, especially local search, is the fundamental driver. Whether people are looking for a present for Mom, finding where their friends are or locating a place to have Indian for lunch search dominates, and a lot of it is local these days. The fact that search ties it all together is a strategic marketing issue of great importance.
The other key marketing issue is the emergence of small local retailers as equal participants. Looking at the infographic above you see that all the players offer affordable marketing opportunities to small local businesses. Some of them are designed to cater to that market. Small businesses have to learn to take advantage of the opportunities and large enterprises will increasingly find ways to incorporate them into brand strategies. In this space the “level playing field” of the Internet has finally arrived, and its importance cannot be overstated.
How are marketers dealing with the challenges? A survey by Silverpop suggests that many marketers have a long way to go before they successfully integrate communications channels, including email. For additional data about which channels marketers are using and how, download the study here.
Marketers have a lot to learn as they deal with these strategic issues. How do we do this without harassing customers each and every time they are close to one of our stores? How do we do it with a level of privacy that is known and acceptable to our customers? And what about “deal fatigue?” It comes back to the fundamental SMM question: How do we play nicely in the social space and still accomplish our brand goals?
All questions that need serious thought, but the outlines of the space in which we are playing are becoming clearer. It’s called SoLoMo!
Advice to retailers on preparing for the holiday selling season has been around since late summer. I’ve been collecting it but was stimulated to write this post by an email from my friends at Unbound Commerce, announcing that there is still time (barely) to get a mobile site for the holiday season. Important dates are coming soon.
According to Media Post, in 2010, the top five days by conversion volume include Cyber Monday at 16% [Monday November 28 this year; the deals start promply at 12:01 am]; Black Friday at 23% [Friday November 25 this year]; Tuesday, Nov. 30, 17%; Sunday, No. 28, 17%; and Dec. 6, 17%. See their advice on integrating paid search and mobile.
Here ‘s a quick summary of some of the platform-specific advice I’ve found:
Email. Review your last year’s holiday email campaign reports to find out what went right and what went wrong. Here’s a set of tips with a link to a holiday email guide.
Paid Search. With Google far ahead as the leader in online advertising revenue, the importance of paid search can hardly be overstated. If you want to optimize your PPC holiday schedule consider developing a bid boosting plan as recommended by Search Engine Land. Online Display Advertising. Facebook is coming up fast as a purveyor of highly targeted display advertising. Large, multi-location merchants can target by demographics, lifestyles and activities. Small local merchants can make good use of the geo-targeting available on Facebook. Like Google AdWords, Facebooks ads are self-service and available to all.
MOBILE. That’s one place where all the advice givers find consensus, no matter what their industry. Mobile is going to be huge this year; retailers miss out at their peril. Leapfrog gives good advice that makes two points that many of the experts stress: 1. The holiday season is time for selling, making customer acquisition jump out front of retention for a few short weeks. 2. The LOMO (local mobile) part of the equation is due for a break-out this season as more consumers use their smartphones to search for stores and merchandise nearby. The website Entrepreneur has good mobile marketing advice; the more you can accomplish by the holiday shopping season, the better!
For small businesses specifically: Entrepreneur has good advice about integrating your email, social media and mobile efforts. Small Biz Trends has advice for preparing for the holidays—operations as well as marketing.
For social media marketers it must be about monetizing their social media activities. Part of the inspiration for this approach comes from Wilson Kerr who made a stellar presentation last week on the subject of monetizing mobile media—more about that later. David Carter’s presentation the week before, based on the Social Funnel ebook from Awareness, laid the groundwork. In my blog post I quoted Jeremiah Owyang as saying not to show engagement metrics to C-level executives; they are interested in business results, not a popularity contest.
I watch social media marketers in all markets struggle with this issue. So I decided to pick out one case study each from B2B, B2C and NP. I’ve intentionally chosen small, not terribly well known companies. It may sound easy for Dell to make sales with its Twitter program and Taco Bell to sell chalupas and burritos with coupons distributed on its Facebook page, although it’s less easy than it sounds. But my point is that small companies, even individuals, can do important things in social media if they keep their eyes on the prize—monetizing their activities.
The biggest monetization opportunity in B2B is far and away the generation of qualified leads. Breaking Point is a cyber security firm who says its products “harden the resiliency of vulnerable converged networks and train cyber warriors” to prevent and deter cyber attacks. Are your eyes glazing over already? It’s incredibly important but at first glance it may not seem to be a candidate for social media marketing. Using a corporate blog, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and a revamped PR strategy, they joined in the online conversation, staking out a position as a respected industry source. After 6 months, 75% of their leads were coming from the inbound traffic generated by these social media activities. Their blog is well organized—a video, a list of topics, the appropriate social media chicklets, and posts that only an IT security professional could love. That is their target audience, after all! Read the details and 5 other excellent B2B case studies in the HubSpot/Marketing Sherpa presentation.
Depending on your age and gender, you may be equally unmoved by the funky shoes that Canadian B2C entrepreneur John Fluevog sells online and from a growing number of retail stores in Canada and the US. According to Australian marketer Ginger, whose blog is credited with this captivating image, Fluevog reported that sales increased 40% in 2009, the year of their entry into social media marketing. If you search the corporate name, John Fluevog Boots & Shoes Ltd., you’ll find an array of social media activities including reviews and a lot of local marketing using Google’s Places. If you look at their Facebook wall, you see a few administrator posts but mostly customers showing off their shoes and loving them. On their Twitter page they cross promote offers seen on the Facebook page and actively respond to customer questions and issues. This nicely integrated social media program (see the links on their wall page) takes time, but not a lot of money. It’s within reach of any small business.
The social media space can be productive for non-profit (NP) marketers also. Dave Morin’s birthday wish is a great story of what a single individual can accomplish. His wish on October 14, 2010 was to raise $10,000 for the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital by the end of the year. He actually raised the $10k within 24 hours! The fundraising continues, with almost $14K to date and mention of a new initiative focusing on children’s health worldwide. In the interest of full disclosure, Dave Morin is hardly a novice. He was a Facebook executive and headed their Causes fund-raising function, which now operates separately. One can assume that he had a large network of Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections with whom to share his message. If you look at the list of contributors, though, most of the $14K has come from small donors. As you can see on the Causes page the largest donor is $1K and I only saw two of those. Reaching many small, often new, donors is the power of online fundraising. I look forward to the day when I see a case history of a NP who used traditional methods to grow social media small donors to traditional large donors and bequests. That should happen over time for NP organizations who harness the power of social media marketing.
There it is—a three market perspective on monetizing social media marketing. Questions, comments and links to other case studies welcome!
This email crossed my desk on Wednesday. I looked at it as possible spam, then I realized that the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce legitimately had my email address, so I read it. I had never heard of Try It Local, but it didn’t take me long to find it on the web.
It’s an interesting concept. This program is specifically designed for Chambers of Commerce who want to bring business to their towns. Local marketing programs are ideal for the small businesses that make up the core of chamber memberships around the country, so that seemed reasonable.
The deal of the week floated into my inbox today. It’s for a well-regarded local restaurant, although I must admit that I found the size of the deal underwhelming. Many of the features are similar to Groupon (Boston page), Gowalla and other location-based services. The main difference is that there does not seem to be a minimum number of purchasers to establish the deal. I’ve gone back to the offer several times while writing this and people are buying it in numbers that seem reasonable for this resort area in the off season.
So this platform may not be as social as some of the others, but that also seems to suit the small business environment. There are, however, social elements. The ad for what I think is a chamber of commerce publication shows “likes.” It has icons that link to the restaurant’s web page and Facebook page. It has no easy-to-use Share icons, which I think is an oversight.
But all in all, it seems well done. It appears to me to be the ultimate local marketing (for now at least) because of the program sponsorl. Chambers of commerce know the small businesses in their area and should have the trust needed to get small businesses to participate. That may not be too much of an issue. At one promotion per week, I wonder if there will be a queue lining up to participate in what seems to be a business-friendly promotion , run by a local entity not an unknown firm somewhere. That seems likely!
And that may be the main downside. Are consumers becoming so accustomed to these deals that they won’t buy anything unless there is a promotion attached to it? It happened with cars. It could happen with local businesses also. And is that in any way different from the sales and promotions they currently offer? I’m not sure. What I am pretty sure of is that this email-based program costs them less than advertising in their local newspaper. The one that loses here is the newspaper.
Try It Local points out that the program offers benefits to the chambers also, so it appears to be a win-win for them and the local businesses. For the moment, it is the most truly local deal program that I know of. Do you know of others that have a similar model?
I’ve commented before that my post last February about Facebook advertising effectiveness, “Do Facebook Ads Work?,” is by far the most visited post on this blog and it continues to draw traffic. I followed with one on targeting that I think is important, though it hasn’t been as popular. Every time I do some research on Facebook ads I find something that I didn’t previously understand. This time it’s “social context.” I had seen it, but I didn’t really understand its source or its value.
What started me thinking about it was recent articles on the growth in Facebook advertising. Tuesday’s eMarketer newsletter pointed to huge growth in Facebook ad revenue. Commentary in AdAge that pointed out that, “what is surprising is the majority of revenue, 60% or $1.12 billion, was earned from smaller companies in 2010, those more likely to be using self-serve tools rather than work through a media agency. That's greater than the $740 million coming from major marketers like Coke, P&G or Match.com.” In November, ComScore figures had revealed that Facebook was now the largest online display advertising publisher, with over 23% share.
Growth, of course, only implies advertising effectiveness; it does not document it. The most compelling piece of research (full document below) goes back to April, and after I read it several times, I began to understand the “social context” issue. Nielsen has identified three kinds of ads—ads with and without social content and organic impressions. Facebook doesn’t use this terminology in any of their advertising material that I can find. Facebook simply points out that all Facebook ad formats have the Like icon at the bottom to encourage social content. This page shows a homepage ad that has no social content. It also shows a homepage ad with social content; that happens if one of your friends has “liked” the brand. The final type is what Nielsen has termed an “organic impression,” a notice on the page of a friend of a user who has liked or engaged with the brand. Facebook uses the phrase “may appear on the news feed.” I couldn’t find out what “may” means here.
This chart from the same study shows that both types of ads with social content are more effective in recall, awareness and intent. Personally, that doesn’t surprise me because I tend to find myself paying attention to the names first and only secondarily to what they liked! Isn’t it human nature that when we see names of people we know, we pay attention? The study is brief, so page through it if you need more detail.
So how do you get more people to like your brand so they can appear in these ads? (Facebook’s privacy policy seems to give implicit permission for your name to be used when you like the brand. There is supposed to be a way to disable this feature, but I don’t know anyone who knows how to do it.) That makes the strategy issue for marketers getting more people to like their brand in the first place. And the best advice seems to be the simplest—just ask them! That’s what Virgin America is doing on the ads above. Going a step further, you can create something called a “reveal tab.” That allows you to make a members-only offer—to ask people to like your brand in order to get an incentive of some kind. These are two simple strategies that can add to your fan numbers.
And the point of all this is that the more fans you have, the more likely they are to show up as social context in your ads and as items on their friends news feed pages. That gives your ads the aura of being recommended by a friend of the viewer. And it has a high probability of making your ad more effective!
And so it goes in the wonderful world of Facebook!
Recently a social media marketing colleague asked me for a good source for best practices information in this space. When you know that question is coming from a small business that probably cannot afford much subscription research, it’s hard to answer. It’s information that many businesses are willing and able to pay for, so it’s usually paid content.
I had already used and cited the usual suspects. Marketing Sherpa does good executive summaries of its benchmark reports, Forrester releases some information on its blog, and Altimeter is following an open research policy. I’m sure there are others, but for the type of information I’m looking for, those are my usual go-to sources.
Consequently, I was pleased the other day to get a notice—blogger outreach, I assume!—of a new venture that is going to operate in that space. It’s not social media per se as best I can tell. Gleanster says it “benchmarks best practices in technology-enabled business initiatives.” That would seem to include any aspect of Internet marketing and quite possibly some initiatives that play out in the physical world.
Their early publications suggest considerable focus on the social media space. For readers of this blog the summaries of their Social Media Monitoring and Online Customer Communities research are well worth downloading. The communities paper contains a case study of Best Buy that makes my point about their focus. I’ve written about Best Buy and its retail Twelp Force campaign which uses Twitter to provide customer support for their retail customers. More detailed paid reports are the basis for these summaries.
I’ve been tagging posts with “best practices” when it’s relevant, so I hope I’m making a contribution to this important discussion. Maybe a good resolution would be to make more best practices posts; it’s a topic of concern to all of us!
Have you already walked into a retail store and thought, “Christmas decorations and gifts already—and it’s not even Thanksgiving!!!” If you haven’t, my guess is that you haven’t been shopping for the last couple of weeks. It appears to me that as soon as Halloween decorations went out, Christmas merchandise came in. Whether you like that or not, it is time for retailers, large and small, to get serious about planning holiday promotions if they are not already in high gear. See a good article from Ad Age Digital (free registration required).
I recently ran into a good post on how to prepare your social media channels for the holiday season. Here are the recommendations:
1. Give your social media profiles a makeover. That includes making sure your profiles and maps are complete and correct on Google Places and Yahoo! Local Search. 2. Build your followers and connections. They are valuable themselves; they also offer connections to their networks. 3. Get more reviews. Product reviews are incredibly important, whether on your site or on third-part review sites. Encourage your followers to review your products or services and to share them. 4. Special offers for your followers. What can I say? The Target site already has offers up. Many of these are appropriate to both large and small retailers. It’s interesting that they seem to be focusing on Cyber Monday instead of Black Friday. 5. Engage in the conversation. Do you have a Facebook page? Are you responding to customers when they complain or ask for information? Take a look at some of the recent traffic on the Hanes Wall on Facebook. They answer information requests, apologize for things like out of stock items and thank people for compliments. All good! 6. Integrate social media with other marketing. That’s essential, whether it’s your website or broadcast or print advertising, or some combination. Integration is key to getting the message out and experiencing positive results. 7. Commit to creating some quality holiday content. I was in a local retail store over the weekend and heard a video featuring Ming Tsai, one of my gurus. I think he was promoting a line of cookware. The one-unit local retailer has a good website, but I didn’t see any evidence of product videos. My guess is that Ming would have been glad to have them link to or upload his promotional video. Make use of whatever good content is available and create your own when necessary. This store also has some acceptable local TV advertising; no ad videos seen on the site. Opportunities missed!
Also be sure to inventory your search marketing, whether optimized pages or PPC. According to a recent report: • More than three-quarters of respondents search to learn more about a product or service after seeing an ad elsewhere.• Before moving on to a different information source, searchers will modify their search and try again (89%), try a different search engine (89%), and go through multiple search results pages if necessary (79%)
Is this all worth the effort? According to Ad Age:
Nearly 80% of consumers plan to do at least some of their shopping online this season, according to the National Retail Federation and BigResearch. One-sixth will do more than half of their holiday shopping online.
Ed Note: We've had many great speakers in this spring's Social Media Marketing course. I've blogged about some of their messages. Jeff Dunn, who in his other life is the Web Coordinator at Harvard Law School, did such a good job with this one I asked permission to post a shortened version. You can see the full post on his blog.
Dharmesh Shah (@dharmesh, VentureBeat, LinkedIn, Amazon) is a whirlwind speaker with an obvious love for what he does. Despite Dharmesh’s claim that he is not a gifted speaker or marketer, his presentation in our social media marketing class was fantastic. His body language may have shown that he was a bit uncomfortable (holding an arm behind his back while staring at the ground) but his language and presentation zoomed along at a frenetic pace. I found myself scribbling keywords and shorthand notes just to keep up with the great wisdom that was being imparted upon me and the rest of the class. A self-proclaimed “hackpreneur,” Dharmesh (I use his first name because I feel comfortable doing so after his friendly presentation) says he has earned this title because he stays up late at night (often until 2am or so) writing code and wearing his Chief Technology Officer hat for HubSpot. He is also the co-founder of HubSpot, thus the entrepreneur part of his “hackpreneur” title.
“Everyone and every business should blog.”
Dharmesh had some great nuggets of information that rang true as I thought about them after the presentation. I was far too busy trying to scribble down these gems and didn’t have enough time to digest them. When discussing who should blog, it was clear who Dharmesh thinks should take part. I agree with the caveat that everyone should be willing to put in the effort to have a relatively steady stream of useful content. Thanks to the latest web technologies, you can start a blog and have it filled with gossip and pictures in under a few minutes. (Visit wordpress.com to see how!)
“Talk about the industry’s issues, not your solution.”
I really love this one. There are too many websites out there devoted to their own personal fix for their specific industry’s problems. If you want to really have a site that gets traction by engaging your audience in something they can also participate in. You’re not going to get a very engaged audience if you offer your solution for something without giving others a chance to offer their solution as well.
“Non-profits should be benefiting from causes, not for-profits!”
This is a sad-but-true quote we really enjoyed. It’s hard to deny that companies like Starbucks have really had a bigger impact on raising funds for charities and causes. I understand that this is because companies typically have more infrastructure (financial and personnel) to make these types of campaigns actually work, but the Internet is supposedly leveling the playing field for everyone. Let’s hope causes and charities can come up with some more interactive and viral (we hate that term viral but it applies here) campaigns that generate some real interest.
“Measure what works, what doesn’t, then double down.”
This one’s pretty self-explanatory and deserves to be put in super duper bold letters here. Being successful in marketing, especially social media marketing, is all about taking risks and figuring out what works. When you don’t do both of these things, you’re destined for failure. While it’s very hard to measure what works, there are ways. In fact, HubSpot has so many Graders like TwitterGrader and WebsiteGrader, they’re already on the bleeding edge of figuring out how to measure what works and what does not.
“Remove the friction in marketing.”
Making it easy for someone to actually purchase stuff, sign up for something, or just take part in any way is something that would seem like a no brainer. Sadly, it’s not. Many places spend all their time and effort raising interest in their website…only to find users get confused and leave the site, never to return.
“Kittens always work.”
Dharmesh’s presentation featured slides with interesting images and very little text on the screen. This is my favorite style of creating presentations since it allows the audience to focus on what you’re saying, not reading tiny print on a screen. No one remembers the fine print anyway. Dharmesh’s presentation had a picture of a kitten and it got a bit of laughter…to which Dharmesh replied that kittens always work. Everyone seems to love them and have the same reaction to them.
“Even normal people use Twitter now.”
In its infancy (just a couple years ago), Twitter was a way for a small number of people to micro-blog. It has slowly been able to begin shedding this reputation after it got embraced by celebrities and Facebook users. Facebook went through a similar reputation issue but has now actually been embraced by middle-aged women (another point brought up by Dharmesh). So when asked if its worth using Twitter, you can simply reply using Dharmesh’s words: even normal people use Twitter. He even has the proof over at HubSpot. Dharmesh says that Twitter has been delivering “real dollars into the door.”
“It’s not about the number of followers. It’s about having people who listen. I’d rather have 50 active people than 5,000 deaf followers.”
I absolutely agree. A couple years ago, I started the @Harvard_Law Twitter account (it has a 99.8 Twitter Grader ranking) with a very small but attentive audience. The non-academic world seemed to be clamoring for any news about what’s happening inside the walls of Harvard. The follower count for the account was not enormous, still isn’t, but it’s obtained a very attentive and vocal following who are happy to @mention, DM, or retweet any question or update posted on the account. Dharmesh has a great point and it’s not an easy task to cultivate a high quality following. It happens over time. It took nearly a year and a half to develop a devoted fan base for me.
“Tweet and retweet from 1pm to 5pm”
HubSpot is all about data. They have examined the best times to tweet something and have it noticed. That time period is any weekday from 1pm to 5pm. That’s why this post was published around 2pm on a Monday, one of the busiest times on the Internet. People seem to be bored at work or just back from lunch, not ready to embrace the week.
“The more you tweet about yourself, the less others will.”
If Ashton Kutcher weren’t a celebrity, would anyone be following him? Dharmesh makes a great point that, from a marketing perspective, it’s all about engaging the audience. It’s hard to feel engaged when someone is tweeting about something you can’t relate to. If, instead, that person were writing about their passion for a broader subject, it’s more likely to engage followers. I personally think people need to stick with their preferred style of tweeting since followers will notice if your style has changed. Just ask @ComcastCares, the account who people revolted against when the main administrator went on vacation and put someone else in charge!
“When you’re getting star talent, you’re renting not buying.”
Dharmesh understands the world of obtaining the best and brightest for his business. There are so many options in the world of technology that it is very hard to make someone’s job everything they could ever want. Dharmesh elaborated on this point, saying that “nothing is forever” and that it’s important to keep in mind who owns what when it comes to employees. For example, does HubSpot own an employee’s personal Twitter account? Of course not. Was it used to promote HubSpot? Probably. It’s a tricky situation and not something to ignore.
“Google Buzz was a data play to head off Facebook.”
It really doesn’t matter if Google Buzz overtakes Facebook. It will probably never happen. The reason Google introduced Buzz was so they could get at the tremendous amount of data currently hidden behind Facebook’s server walls. This way, Google can get a taste of what their users are doing socially and not just on GMail, Docs, etc. Conclusion
I enjoyed Dharmesh’s presentation and was so amped afterwards that I posted a job listing I would have loved to apply to. I am happily employed and doing this blog in my spare time (not much these days!). If you’re interested in working for someone like Dharmesh, check out the posting. In the meantime, there is a lot of info out there about Dharmesh, HubSpot, and social media. Happy surfing!
I’ve been working on some local advertising issues lately, so the 5 Mobile Trends article in AdAge last week grabbed me. Here are their trends:
1. Mobile will completely revolutionize the way local advertisers can connect with potential customers. Ad Age’s subhead captures the issue perfectly: “How the Computer in Your Pocket Is Changing Your Business.” Smartphone and apps users of the world have united to change your business—attention must be paid! 2. Growth in adoption of mobile shopping applications will continue to alter in-store consumer behavior, increasing the significance of mobile in point of sale decisions making. I wrote about my UPC code scanner not long ago. It really works! What’s funny is that when I’m at a store I like and where I know the people, I’m embarrassed to use it (unless I can hide behind a shelf so people won’t see me!). If I’m at a store where I don’t know people or don’t care what they think, it’s fine. 3. Brands and agencies will continue to build branded apps, but will also have more attractive display media options, thanks to Google. Keep reading—more below. 4. Advertising's outdoor real estate is fast becoming another connected channel capable of delivering high-fidelity digital experiences as unique, varied and measurable as more well-established mediums. That’s worth further exploration—does anyone know of a good recent posting? 5. Consumers have new power to express their opinions through social technologies from anywhere, anytime. Smart marketers will do all they can to encourage and act on this feedback. A lot of marketer content ought to be focused on generating customer content. How to accomplish that is one essential element of social media strategy. More on consumer reviews soon.
One of the things I did recently was to update local listings for the local wildlife sanctuary (that’s grammatically redundant, but both are necessary to my meaning). A local business needs to look at all the local media. There are many that offer free links to your website. Requesting listings is not much effort and worth the $$ it costs, since that is $0. Also free are Yahoo! Local and Google Maps/Business Center listings. There are value-added services on Yahoo! but the basic listing is free; links to both are on this page. The Yahoo! listing is simpler, note that it includes opportunities to upload photos and write reviews—both good promotion for the local business.
The Google listing is typical Google with more options. Google Maps gives you a stripped-down listing and map location. Google Business Center allows you to add the bells and whistles like I’ve done here. Images and videos are great promotion tools. What I really love is the Coupon option. As you can see, I’ve added a printable coupon to this listing. What you can’t see is that if a person is searching from a mobile device, they get a savable mobile version of the coupon. So cool! Cool, but not perfect. There is an option to create a link so you can link the coupon to a website, a blog, a personal page. Great idea—unfortunately it doesn’t work at present. They also have a Google Maps button for your desktop toolbar and a Mobile app. Their Favorite Places program offers smart-phone readable badges for heavily-searched stores, and there’s more on the drawing board. Read a good review on ReadWriteWeb.
This chart of collaborative tools was sent to me by a colleague in the Netherlands—thanks, Ailsa! It’s informative itself and it leads to an interesting collaborative platform. Note that you can attach notes to the title bar, which is useful.
I copied 3 categories that were of most interest to me—platforms that allow you to create a private network, work group sites, and presentation sites. The map is huge; for the rest of it you’ll have to look at it for yourself. I’ll bet you agree that you had no idea there were all these platforms for collaboration of various types—Ailsa and I certainly didn’t!
Take a look at the MindMeister platform and some of the domains that are being mapped with it. Does it remind you of something you’ve done in a more ad hoc fashion on an easel or a whiteboard? The platforms listed here make something we’ve been doing all along easier, and being able to update it publicly, but in a controlled fashion, is real collaboration.
If you’re interested in collaboration, either as a small business person or as a project or team leader, you should take a look at another site. The App Gap blog, which I found courtesy of a Tweet by Ivana Taylor at Strategy Stew, talks a lot about collaboration and covers other topics of people who manage teams or small businesses. One correction though. Looking carefully, it’s not a blog from Intuit; it is from Beeline Labs and sponsored by Intuit QuickBase. Take a look at the blog. Is it a good promotional move for Intuit? I think so. I’d suggest that they connect it somewhere on their site; a new section for sponsored blogs would make sense. The Intuit site already has a lot of good resources for small businesses. Why keep this one secret?
How are marketers dealing with the challenges? A survey by Silverpop suggests that many marketers have a long way to go before they successfully integrate communications channels, including email. For additional data about which channels marketers are using and how, download the study here.
