Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
A deeper look at the demographics of Social Media Users
February 19th, 2013
The Pew research Center has recently releases its U.S.- focused social networking report
which highlighted some interesting trends on who’s using social media most and which social networks are most popular.
You can download the full report here:
In summary: “The Demographics of Social Media Users 2012” study found that the most frequent social media users are women aged 18 to 29. Women have been significantly more likely to use social networking sites than men since 2009. In December 2012, 71 percent of women were users of social networking sites, compared with 62 percent of men.
Overall, 67 percent use Facebook, and 16 percent use Twitter, which is especially appealing to adults in the 18 to 29-year-old category. Key demographics are charted in the images at the bottom of this post.
Pinterest has practically caught up with Twitter, with 15 percent of adult U.S. Internet users.
Pinterest, which launched in 2009, has experienced explosive growth. Women are five times more likely to use Pinterest (5 percent vs. 25 percent) and almost twice as likely to be white and college-educated.
13 percent of U.S. online adults say they use Instagram, 6 percent say they use Tumblr, and 20 percent of U.S. online adults say they use LinkedIn as of August 2012.
40 percent of mobile phone owners use a social networking site on their phone, and 28 percent do so on a typical day.
The report also looked at Creators and curators, defining them as follows:
As of August 2012:
• 46 percent of U.S. adult internet users post original photos or videos online that they themselves have created. We call them creators.
• 41 percent of U.S. adult internet users take photos or videos that they have found online and re-post them on sites designed for sharing images with many people. We call them curators.
Overall, 56 percent of internet users do at least one of the creating or curating activities studied and 32 percent of internet users do both creating and curating activities.
Interestingly, not using social media may be an elite thing. Those with a college degree are slightly less likely than those with some college education to use social networks (69 percent vs. 65 percent).
Retailers have survived the first digital coming, but what’s next?
January 25th, 2013
(This post was originally published on Mob76 Outlook as a guest post)
HMV’s recent demise was hardly a surprise. The writing has been on the wall for so long that it’s been painted over and graffitied many times since.
If we rewind ten years to 2003, the conversation around retail was focused on the importance of the web , and although not all major retailers had made the move to reinvent their web presence, it was on the agenda.
In many cases this move took some time to happen and latecomers lost market share and revenue opportunities… but those up against the online leaders such as Amazon (launched 1995) and Play.com (launched 1998) lost much more. They eventually lost a business.
To read the full post please click here Mob76 Outlook
The Business Show – social communications, the myths and realities
November 23rd, 2012
Yesterday I attended The Business show, which is the UK’s largest business event, and continues today, Friday November 23rd.
I was also invited to give a presentation at the event, in the Telnames theatre, and based the discussion on my recent article for TechCrunch titled: social comms for start ups, the myths and realities.
On arrival at the show, two things struck me. Firstly the size of the event, which was impressive covering every possible element of business life for start ups and growing businesses. The second was the number of social media-based presentations. For example at 2pm (my slot), there were three social media related presentations and another that was search marketing related.
I feared I might have fallen into the realms of ‘me too’ with my presentation, and expected a low turnout as a result.
Thankfully, my initial fears proved unfounded as the theatre was packed for my presentation, and Guy Clapperton was also kind enough to introduce me to the crowd.
In brief, the feedback I received from the presentation was very positive. The purpose of which, as the title suggests, was to cut through the never ending social media myths, both from the social side and the corporate side.
As part of the presentation I tried to ‘out’ those corporate misconceptions about social, such as ‘social media will expose us to negativity’, ‘social media is free’, and ‘social media is a time waster’.
As well as remove the social media clichés such as ‘tricks’, ‘get rich quick’ and ‘short term wins’.
Instead, I tried to focus on the practicalities for growing businesses, and in truth these fundamentals are true for any business.
I then tried to break down the process of developing a social plan, including; listening, data, learning and engagement. See Liberate Media’s Social CRM whitepaper for further information. We will send this through to you if you request it via hello@liberatemedia.com.
I also had a number of enquires at the end of the session in terms of specific social media tool lists and recommendations, so I have included a few links here from:
ViralBlog – 88 social media monitoring tools
Dreamgrow – 54 free social media monitoring tools
Social Media Monitoring Wiki:
I also referenced the Harvard Business Review analytic services report – The New Conversation: Taking Social Media from Talk to Action
The presentation is available via slideshare.
Let me know what you think.
Gartner symposium highlights the nexus of cloud, big data, social and mobile
October 23rd, 2012
This week you’re likely to see quite a few future-gazing tech stories coming out of the Gartner Symposium IT Expo, which runs October 21st – 25th in Orlando, Florida.
Of the stories I’ve seen coming out of the Expo so far, Gartner analyst David Cappuccio‘s presentation seems to be generating the most useful conversation.
On Monday, he presented the 10 critical trends and technologies impacting IT for the next five years, as reported in a number of titles, including Forbes.
To kick-off the presentation, David highlighted a number of statistics that reflect the current complexity and size of the technology market, confirming: “In the last minute, there were 204 million emails sent, 61,000 hours of music listened to on Pandora, 20 million photo views and 3 million uploads to Flickr, 100,000 tweets, 6 million view and 277,000 Facebook logins and 2 million plus Google searches.”
He then stated the focus of much of the discussion around the show will be on the “nexus” of cloud, big data, social and mobile, which was then backed up by his suggestions on the 10 critical trends that we will see over the coming years:
- Organisational entrenchment and disruption
- Software-defined networks
- Bigger data and storage
- Hybrid cloud services
- Client and server architectures
- Internet of things
- IT appliance madness
- Operational complexity
- Virtual data centres
- IT demand
Cappuccio added further insight by suggesting that before 2014, 30% of organisations using SaaS (or Software as a Service) will revert back to on-premise software due to poor service levels.
He highlighted low levels of customer service and BYOD demand (i.e. accessing SaaS from a range of devices leading to customer service being swamped and ineffective) as the key reasons for this trend.
Big data issues, which were flagged earlier this week by Oracle’s president will also uncover a shortage in talent according to Cappuccio. He suggests that by 2015, big data demand will generate 1 million jobs in the Global 1000, but only a third will get filled due to a shortage of talent.
He also went onto highlight the importance of Hybrid Cloud services, which are composed of services from multiple providers and a combination of private and public clouds.
Gartner believes private clouds improve agility and will dominate, as people look to the cloud as a way to accelerate business growth, particularly mobile apps. As a result, it is Gartner’s suggestion that we could end up with hybrid environments with dozens of specialty providers.
Cappuccio believes the focus has to be on increasing capability and/or capacity: “hybrid data centres will be in your future.” You can move non-critical work to the cloud to free up space, and the result can be incremental operating expense growth, but long-term capital spending deferral.
From a digital perspective, this window into the future is interesting as it backs up the move to cloud and mobile and highlights the importance of social, or as Cappuccio said, the “nexus” of cloud, big data, social and mobile.
Of course this flexibility in both access to data, and usage of disparate hardware places more pressure on the infrastructure both technically and from a human perspective. Although more choice offers better access to individuals, it creates more complexity and data from the business side.
We are likely to see more data and capacity issues, and related stories, as the existing infrastructure struggles to keep pace with the speed of development in these essential areas.
Traffic referred to FT.com from social media up 20% in the last 6 months
September 28th, 2012
Earlier this week the FT released the results of a survey that it carried out on the social media behaviour of its readers, or more specifically an online survey of 1,128 FT.com readers.
The results of the survey are illustrated in the infographic below and accessible here.
If proof of the influence of social media is needed, the survey confirms that social media is growing faster than every other traffic source to FT.com and traffic referred from this channel has grown by 20% in the last 6 months alone.
Furthermore, the FT has a global combined social media audience of 3.9m. 49% of which is based in the UK or US, with the remaining 51% coming from the rest of the world.
Finally, and perhaps most impressive, 58% of the FT social media audience agree social media enhances its reputation and 40% read the FT more as a result of it.
Plenty of other interesting stats below:
Trust in Paid media continues to fall
September 21st, 2012
It’s unlikely to shock you to discover that the latest research from Nielsen suggests that consumers do not trust paid media. We’ve known for some time that recommendations from friends and online reviews are much more valued than adverts and paid media, but it’s the scale of this gulf that makes these latest figures interesting.
To kick-off with, here’s a quick definition of earned, owned and paid media from Forrester:
- Earned media encompasses everything that doesn’t require a payment to deliver a message such as videos, comments, pictures, stories, conversations, feedback and ratings.
- Paid media includes advertising, TV, web, paid search and deals.
- Owned media would be the brand’s website, microsites and so on.
As part of the research (summarised in the image below) Nielsen looked at all forms of paid advertising; TV, print, digital, radio and the findings highlighted a gap in the “trust factor,” with the majority of respondents reporting that they don’t trust each type of media.
Mobile Text ads came bottom with 71% not trusting the medium, closely followed by display ads on mobile (67%), banner ads online (67%), ads on social networks (64%) and ads on online video (64%).
Television ads came in at 47% trust.
Overall, most forms of traditional and digital paid media are not trusted by more than half of consumers.
At the other end of the scale, 92% of those surveyed indicated that they trust personal recommendations, and 70% indicated that they trust reviews.
Owned media, such as brand websites, scored higher than paid advertising but lower than social recommendations.
Nielsen’s Global Head of Advertiser Solutions, Randall Beard, commented: “Since trust in advertising lays along continuum that moves from earned (highest trust), to owned, then paid (lowest trust), it stands to reason that brands should want more earned and owned. But can paid be given up completely? For most brands, that strategy isn’t really feasible given both the broad reach and historical success associated with paid media.”
He suggests that: “we need to start thinking of how paid, owned and earned can work together to improve trust and deliver better results.
“why not build social into your paid advertising (where possible), use your paid ads to drive consumers to your website and optimize your site to drive maximum on or off-line purchase? Why not experiment with the myriad ways to engage your consumers across the paid, owned and earned continuum?”
Nielsen’s advice follows similar recommendations from the likes of Forrester that have been advocating the use of paid media to support or boost earned and owned media. It’s this change in thinking that has pulled brands away from Paid media as the staple, and realise the real value is in earned and owned media. Albeit slowly and with little budget allocation.
This movement is backed up by the likes of Coca-Cola, which recently stated that 20% of its marketing budget will go elsewhere, specifically citing inbound marketing and social media.
You can read more of my thoughts on Earned, Owned and Paid media in my recent article for eConsultancy.
Live TV piracy has risen by 61 per cent in the UK over the last year
July 6th, 2012
If you took a guess at which media segment was the fastest growing in terms of piracy in the UK, the most likely response would be music. However, according to a report commissioned by Google and Performing Right Society for Music (PRS), unauthorised live TV streams are actually the biggest form of web piracy in the UK, and the fastest growing.
The report, conducted by BAE Systems Detica, confirms that in the last year alone, illegitimate live TV streaming has risen by 61 per cent with just over half of the sites examined as part of the research offering links to live TV streams.
BAE Systems Detica identified six distinct business models behind online copyright infringement, with each one having clear commercial purposes. The other segments include; the P2P Community; Subscription Community; Music Transaction; Rewarded Freemium and Embedded Streaming.
Of the 51 sites reviewed, each providing or linking to illegal streams of television content, both free-to-air and paid, 33% are based in the United States and two-thirds are ad-supported.
Most visitors come to these sites directly or through referrals from social networks, and unsurprisingly Premier League football streams seem to be driving this growth, prompting the Football Association to get involved in the research by providing a list of sites it suspects of infringement.
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), PRS for Music, Publishers Association and UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE) also provided suspects for the examination.
Google’s Theo Bertram, a former Downing Street adviser, commented: “Our research shows there are many different business models for online infringement which can be tackled if we work together.
“The evidence suggests that one of the most effective ways to do this is to follow the money, targeting the advertisers who choose to make money from these sites and working with payment providers to ensure they know where their services are being used.”
MIT and Harvard offer a glimpse of future opportunities for higher education with edX
May 3rd, 2012
Earlier this week, Harvard and MIT joined forces to launch the edX platform, which will offer educational courses and content for free online.
The platform, which was originally developed by MIT, will include video lessons quizzes, immediate feedback, student-ranked questions and answers, online laboratories and student-paced learning.
EdX has also made the decision to release its learning platform as open-source software. As a result, MIT and Harvard expect that over time other universities will join them in offering courses on the edX platform and because the learning technology will be available as open-source software, other universities and individuals will also be able to help edX improve and add features to the technology.
This is a smart move as it encourages the knowledge base that is normally spread across numerous universities to come together in this single learning platform. This is not just a move to take learning online, but also a strategy to enhance the global reputation of these already respected learning centres.
It is no secret that further education has been through a number of changes in recent years and has also faced criticism that methods and courses have not moved quickly enough in line with current techniques and opportunities. Although it would be hard to level that criticism against these two giants of the education sector, it is a strong sign that they wish to lead from the front and take learning to a more open and accessible level.
MIT and Harvard will also use the jointly operated edX platform to research how students learn and how technologies can facilitate effective teaching both on-campus and online. The edX platform will enable the study of which teaching methods and tools are most successful. The findings of this research will be used to inform how faculty use technology in their teaching, which will enhance the experience for students on campus and for the millions expected to take advantage of these new online offerings.
The platform will be overseen by a not-for-profit organisation, which will be owned and governed equally by the two universities. MIT and Harvard have already committed to a combined $60 million ($30 million each) in institutional support, grants and philanthropy to launch the collaboration.
Anant Agarwal, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, who has led the development of the MITx platform under the leadership of MIT Provost L. Rafael Reif, will serve as the first president of edX.
At Harvard, Provost Alan Garber will direct the Harvardx effort and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith will play a leading role in working with faculty to develop and deliver courses.
It is anticipated that initial course offerings from a range of Harvard and MIT schools will be included on the edX platform, and the first courses will be announced in the summer, and are due to begin in the autumn of 2012.
Here’s the edX video:
Social CRM: Stop thinking about ownership and start thinking about culture change
April 13th, 2012
This post was originally published as a guest post on Monty’s Outlook
Who owns Social CRM? This debate continues to divide opinion, but I believe it is the wrong question. Ownership is not the issue, and only echoes the ‘who owns social media’ tedium, which I have ranted about for longer than I care to remember.
The social media ownership debate has been perpetuated by a range of marketing and communications agencies with the objective of grabbing budget from each other and squabbling over whose social services are ‘better’.
This misses the point. Ownership of what is fundamentally a conversation is irrelevant, and as parts of the same marketing/comms machine it’s a waste of everyone’s time. Social is not and was never a marketing focus alone, it’s so much bigger than that. As David Meerman Scott said: “Nobody cares about your products, people care about their problems. Customers do not want a relationship with your business, they want the benefits a relationship can offer to them”.
So is the ownership debate around Social CRM the same? Well, in many ways it is. The customer owning Social CRM is a crucial point, we are talking about putting the customer at the centre of the business. However that doesn’t give a company the structure needed to build a Social CRM mechanism, so it’s back to the ‘debate’: What tends to follow is that no one or everyone owns it, and ‘ownership’ is the wrong term.
As Mitch Lieberman says: “Social CRM is about bringing ‘me’ (the social customer) into the ecosystem… It is not about the technology, it is about the people, process and cultural shifts necessary to support and grow a business.”
Let’s take this back to basics. Who or what is the social customer and why is change needed? Put simply, the social customer is dynamic, hyper-connected and can define an organisation’s value, relevance and reputation. It is not about the company’s reputation, it is about the reputation of its customers, they are the ones who will form opinion of that company.
As a result, social customers force organisations of all types to be more customer-centric and have transformed the way in which organisations need to communicate with and, most importantly, listen to their customers.
The key here is taking CRM beyond a marketing or customer services specialism, and building a philosophy that translates across the organisation. Customers can intersect and engage with an organisation at many different points and do not follow traditional channels of communication.
Therefore, A Social CRM strategy must be implemented across the business to succeed. As with any area of social media, or any conversation for that matter, the best place to start is by listening. In terms of CRM, this is essential. Organisations should only engage and add value when they have listened to and understood the problems, challenges and issues that customers are experiencing.
So where does this leave the ownership debate? As I said earlier, thinking of Social CRM as something that can be owned is a dangerous path as it means the organisation is trying to remove the customer from its central business focus, and neatly packaging it off to a single department.
From the conversational point of view the customer owns Social CRM, but from an organisational point of view Social CRM is the result of a cultural shift that needs to take place in an organisation to focus the business around its most important element, its customers.
So, if we really need someone to own Social CRM, it should be owned at management level, as these are the correct individuals to guide and develop the business into cultural change. The Social CRM approach, related strategies, tactics and technologies stem from there.
If you try to implement Social CRM tactics and technologies without this cultural change you will fail.
The Fifth Wave: mobile revolution and mobile futures
March 9th, 2012
The Fifth Wave: A Strategic Vision for Mobile Internet Innovation, Investment and Return caught my attention last week and I blogged briefly on it.
The book, by Robert Marcus and Collins Hemingway, deserved a more detailed read – there were enough hooks to warrant it and I’ve spent some time this week working out the weight of the ideas they put forward.
The Fifth Wave is written for anyone who wants to know where we are going online: mobile network operators, mobile companies, entrepreneurs, governments, media companies, content owners and distributors, mobile evangelists, mobile experts… the list goes on.
But the book, to my mind, is much more than a rapid excursion around the mobile terrain. We’ve seen more than enough tomes that promise more than they deliver, rehashing old ideas in new clothes.
Robert Marcus and Collins Hemingway (who, with Bill Gates, co-authored Business @ the Speed of Thought) have written a volume that I think is rare – because it picks up on a defining moment that is obscured for most people, explains this in detail and then draws lessons from which it then lays out a path and process for the future.
The authors call this defining moment and what will follow the Fifth Wave. They use an ancient Greek concept, kiaros, to explain the idea. I urge you to read the book if only for this, because their explanation of a convergence of rapidly evolving but disparate forces – technical, cultural and economic – to form a revolutionary time is exceptional.
The Fifth Wave is, of course, mobile in every sense. Robert Marcus and Collins Hemingway run fluidly through the first half of the book, setting the scene and explaining the revolutionary conditions that we live with right now.
The second half of the book is if anything better than the first because for the first time it offers a clear exposition of what is needed and an astute strategy for everyone touched by mobile internet, from the biggest mobile operator to mobile manufacturers from Apple to Microsoft and from Samsung to HTC, to the mobile apps makers and the movers and shakers in the global market and to every mobile handset user (around 2 billion now – 6 billion soon).
I am old enough to have read Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital, published in 1995. That book changed the weltanshauung of an entire generation with its definitional, cultural view of technological developments led by the Web/Internet.
The Fifth Wave: A Strategic Vision for Mobile Internet Innovation, Investment and Return is a book from the same cast and should be required reading in schools, colleges and universities. While the book should stand on its own merits, Robert Marcus was the architect of Microsoft’s early mobile internet strategy and solutions and was a director on the M&A team and now leads QuantumWave Capital, which means he’s qualified.
If you want to know where we’re at and where we’re going, then read The Fifth Wave. You could even do as I did, download it and read it on your iPhone (.. or Kindle, Android, laptop, notebook…). If someone had told me 10 years ago that I would be reading books on my mobile, I would have laughed out loud. How times change.
You can follow Robert Marcus on Twitter @RobertMarcus5W