Outlook for Australian Social Business in 2012

Are you involved in marketing or social media from a business perspective? If so, I’d love to have your input on the outlook for social media, marketing and social business in Australia for 2012. It is a very quick survey that should only take about FIVE minutes of your time. I will publish the results here on the blog, together with some analysis and maybe even some insight.

AND if you participate I will send you a nicely produced PDF version of the report that you can use in your marketing presentations next year!

Social, Digital and Mobile in Asia

We Are Social Singapore are showing impeccable timing in releasing their Guide to Social Digital and Mobile in Asia – especially as I will be focusing more closely on the Asia Pacific and Japan region through 2012.

There are some fascinating statistics dotted throughout – but the most powerful aspect is the sheer scale of social media adoption that has already taken place across Asia. Just think – there are 750,000,000 social media users across Asia. And that accounts for over half of the population in Brunei, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore.

But if you are thinking social media in Asia – don’t think Facebook. It ranks a lowly fourth with 172 million members. That’s way behind Qzone with 536 million, Tencent with 310 million and Sina Weibo weighing in at 250 million.

And social is only part of the story. The clincher is mobile – with three quarters of the population (or almost 2.8 billion people) registered as mobile subscribers. Over one in five of these have access to the internet via their mobile phone – that’s 623 million people who use their phones to access online services.

But enough with the powerful, mind blowing statistics. Spend some time with the data in the report – but when doing so, think about behaviour. What is taking place with your customers in Asian markets? How does their usage, interest and even the limitations of mobile internet services impact the way you can engage them? What are the opportunities? And what shifts that lay ahead in 2012 can you use to surprise and delight your customers (and confound your competitors)?

Is the Average Day on Facebook Like Yours?

Do you consider yourself an average person? Do you do the average things that other average people do? Do you behave a little above or below average?

I only ask, because it seems that average people all over the world are spending a more than average amount of time on Facebook. And this infographic from the folks at JESS3 makes me wonder – do you consider yourself average in this same way? Does this social media diet sound like yours? And what, really, does this tell us about ourselves. Think I may need to get out more – as it seems there are all these friends that I have never met. Maybe we should meet for coffee. Let me know 😉

JESS3_AverageDayonFacebook

When 0.5% Is Not a Statistical Glitch

When you are dealing with statistics one expects a margin of error. You could be estimating a project and suggest +/- 10 percent. You could be waving your finger in the air and provide a rough order of magnitude “guesstimate” of +/- 200 percent.

So the thought of taking as little of 0.5% out of an equation should not be a problem, right?

But what happens if that 0.5% happen to control 38.5% of the world’s total wealth?

05-of-the-worlds-population-owns-385-of-its-wealth-this-is-insane (1)

The Business Insider shares 13 Staggering Facts About the Global Super Rich – and it leads out with this image of the global wealth pyramid based on data from Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Databook 2011.

Given these figures, there’s little surprise that civil protests like #OccupyWallStreet in New York are gaining momentum (including the local #occupysydney efforts). It makes for interesting times.

LinkedIn Statistics July 2011

The social network for professionals, LinkedIn, has gone from strength to strength during the course of 2011. There was a successful IPO and a sustained growth in membership which saw it overtake MySpace as the the #2 social network in the US.

This presentation captures some of the key demographic data for LinkedIn as at July 2011. Take a look.

Is LinkedIn part of your community engagement strategy? Take a look at slide 14 which details the LinkedIn membership by job function. You might be surprised to see that many of your key decision makers (especially in B2B) are represented. And if LinkedIn is part of your strategy – how are you using it? What tips can you share?

Mobile Youth Around the World – Key Statistics for 2011

There are some stunning statistics in this brief report from Graham Brown and Josh Dhaliwal. But it’s not the statistics that really concern me. It’s the impacts.

2011 is a line in the demographic sand. It’s the year that the Baby Boomers begin to retire. And as this happens, we’ll see massive shifts in the levels of expenditure and consumption. We’ll see the loss of vast amounts of corporate knowledge from our businesses. And our work, private and professional lives will never be the same again. I for one think this is great. It smells like opportunity.

The Future of Markets

A couple of times each year, about 4000 marketers at Fortune 1000 and Forbes Top 200 companies are surveyed about the future. This is the sixth in the series from CMOsurvey.org.

What’s encouraging to see is improvements in key business areas, including:

  • Overall optimism about the economy (while focused on the US economy, there are obvious flow-on effects for Australia and the rest of the world)
  • Customer interactions, including higher purchase volumes and better customer retention, are expected to improve
  • Broad financial and marketing KPIs are on the rise – indicating business confidence doesn’t just sit with marketing and brand
  • Marketers themselves will be in-demand with CMOs expecting to grow their teams by up to 50%

The report is very broad – which is great – but it means you will need to spend some time reading through and applying the data to your business. Think through your own strategic planning for 2011. Where are the correlations? Where are the differences? Why do they occur? Check, for example, slide 14 which investigates the top three reasons for growth strategy and see how closely they correspond to your own. Is there something you are missing? Is there something you can add to the execution of your marketing program this year? Can social media amplify this?

Most importantly, think about how your markets – your customers, partners, suppliers and other stakeholders – are moving. What are their futures. Use this information to make sure that those futures all intersect!

The State of the Internet in Australia – one size doesn’t fit all

It is rare to see Australia-specific internet usage statistics freely available, but ComScore have released a grab-bag of aggregated data that you can use to impress your boss, your client or your nerdy partner. Sure you have to register before you download, but it’s well worth it.

The data is for November or December 2010 and includes:

  • An in-depth analysis of the online audience in Australia and how we compare to other countries
  • Overview of key trends in use of social networks (we are loving photos and shifting away from instant messaging)
  • Retail has grown year-on-year and we DON’T always go to offshore sites for ecommerce
  • Travel planning continues to grow strongly – with the Qantas website leading the way
  • We may like to visit entertainment/video sites, but we consume less than our global counterparts. Expect this to change as the NBN amps up our download speeds

One aspect that surprised me, is that our consumption and usage of finance and business sites is growing and at 52.1% has higher reach than the worldwide average (which sits at 45.2%). It’s a wonder that we are NOT seeing more innovation on these corporate/finance sites given such usage.

comscoreOz2011There’s some great information for marketers in the report – so do download it.

The one thing that is clear is the correlation between heavy web users and what they do online. The top 20% of web users consume 61% of online page views and 61% of all time (minutes) spent online. This means that you need to DESIGN your digital strategy around these behaviours (and activities) in ways that activate and engage these audiences in quite different ways and in different places. It’s not a one-size-fits-all world anymore.

Where Are You on the Trust Barometer?

Whenever the social media conversation shifts to “influence” – who has it, how you can get it and what it’s worth, you know we’re talking trust. After all, what we perceive as “influence” is simply a combination of trust and relevance – a heady mix of the right audience, a trusted shepherd and a call to action.

Don’t believe me?

Nicholas Christakis has an interesting post on the power of twitter and its ability to influence a large following. As he explains, Alyssa Milano with her celebrity and her 1.3 million strong Twitter following would normally be considered “influential”. But when she tweeted out a link to the Amazon page of a book called Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks & How They Shape Our Lives, the roar of social media silence was deafening.  There was not ONE clickthrough. Not one sale.

It seems – finally – that we are seeing the reality of trust and the power of relevance. That’s why I am particularly interested in this report from Edelman Australia – the 2011 Australian Edelman Trust Barometer.

Launched today (see the Tweetstream), this is the third survey to be carried out in Australia, but we are already seeing some interesting trending:

  • Coming out of the GFC, we saw an upswing in trust in government (54%) and businesses (52%)
  • Trust in NGOs (65%) is the highest of any Australian institution, with the Media well down at 32%

The full report is embedded below and can be downloaded from Slideshare. It makes for interesting reading.

But what does this mean for brands and marketers?

As one of the launch panellists, Vanessa Hall, pointed out, trust is created through the interplay of the message or story the brand wants to tell, the expectations of your customers/stakeholders and the promise that exists between the two (my interpretation here). This is where the challenge comes – after all, our customers are rarely interested in the brand story, and their interpretation of your brand promise is often different from where you (on the client or agency side) tend to see it.

And with social media, individuals are now well equipped to engage with brands in a public (and searchable) sphere. Positive and negative brand experiences can be published, shared and amplified around the world in minutes – and this makes “trust” all the more important. As the report points out, “Trust is a protective agent …”. And yes, it can lead to tangible sales.

But, we need to consider the following trends:

  • Aligning our business purpose with a greater good (CSR is a good start)
  • Strong support for NGOs (consider partnering with an NGO to build your trust profile)
  • Multiple voices in multiple channels (while CEOs have increased level of trust and respect, use expert voices across your business and in multiple channels to build a network of influence)

Perhaps, most importantly, you need to think about all this in relation to YOUR business. Where do you sit on the trust barometer? And how are you going to improve?