6 social marketing truths executives must understand

(Editor’s note: Reggie Bradford is CEO of Vitrue. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)

With more than 20 years of experience as an executive in the technology and marketing spaces, I’ve learned a lot about how technology directly affects marketing strategies.

The arrival of sites like Facebook, Twitter and most recently Google+ have changed the way societies communicate. While many brand marketers have incorporated social into their plans, many still wrestle with questions like how much, to what degree, how to execute, and what is next? Simply “being social” is not enough. Here are six truths marketing executives need to know about this phenomenon:

The social sandbox is getting bigger: With 750 million engaged and active fans, Facebook is absolutely the most effective and important overall social network (and should be your main focus). You’ve probably heard the refrain about engaging on Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and emerging platforms, as well. But it’s foolish to not have an eye on Google+, which amassed 20 million users in only a month.

Despite its infancy, and some launch hiccups, Google+ has great potential – most notably its integration with other Google products, essentially creating a social layer across numerous properties. According to Experian Hitwise, 56 percent of Google+’s upstream traffic came from other Google properties, with 34 percent of that traffic coming from Google.com. 37 percent of its upstream traffic came from search engines, while 21 percent was driven by email. In the aggregate, Google+ could offer a valuable real-time multimedia content sharing and discovery social platform. Only time will tell.

Google+ also has promising features like its “circles,” a friend-grouping capability, as well as the “huddle” and “hangout” video-chat functionalities. And many have noted Google+ as simply offering consumers a place to “start over” with a fresh, a brand-new social slate. Smart brands have already taken notice, led by Ford, whose social media head Scott Monty noted: “It’s a priority for us to understand what’s on the cutting edge and where influencers are going and look at the technology shaping the way people are communicating. Normally we try to go where the mainstream are. In certain circumstances we’ll be an early adopter because we see the potential.”

Social networks are your best consumer connection: No other marketing channel offers such an effective, direct communication between your brand and your consumers. The two-way flow of that talk can lead to increased brand awareness and loyalty, which will drive your business forward. Buffalo Wild Wings learned this by combining a digital “Wall App” coupon strategy and traditional media. During a 27-day period, more than 179,000 coupons were printed, with almost 100,000 coming directly from the Wall App. The company had a 63 percent redemption rate of coupons from Facebook, helping to provide a healthy in-store sales boast for the promotional period. And they gained 57,000 fans during the promotion.

Don’t ditch traditional marketing just yet: Despite social’s power, brand marketers will need, for the foreseeable future, a solid execution of traditional marketing married with digital and social. TV still remains the dominant “branding” mass medium. And despite sagging readership, print newspapers, magazines and radio will continue to grab a share, albeit digital continues to erode the traditional “print” outlets.

Be strategic about integrating traditional, digital and social marketing to ensure consistent messaging and maximum reach. Social will continue to grow in importance, but it needs support of other marketing channels.

Great content trumps fan volume: A large fan base is good, but an active one is better. What you say and how you say it is more important than simply building a following. Publish content that garners engagement. Among those who are doing content right are: iTunes Facebook community, the NBA, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Tide.

These brands all take time to “know” their fans and deliver content that is exclusive and of value, whether that be follower-only specials, promotions and exclusives, rich video content or compelling information around their products. Philanthropic tie-ins cause consumers to associate your brand with social good and typically results in a higher level of brand loyalty. And social games can be an engaging, fun element that will give social audiences a reason to visit and interact with your brand.

You need to localize and target that content: Because the conversation is two-way now, it’s more important than ever to know as much as you can about your customers. As the space matures, marketers will need to deliver hyper-targeted, localized content –coupons, information, specials, stats, etc. –at the right time in the right format for maximum effectiveness. Learn to segment and put content into audience silos. MTV, for example, has separate Facebook Pages for each of its individual shows because the network knows that fans of “MADE” might not be fans of “Jersey Shore”.

Pay attention to key emerging trends: Changes in the digital world will affect what’s possible and relevant to your audience – and these changes aren’t mutually exclusive to your social marketing strategy. For example, mobile phones and tablets will likely become the main means of communication for the digital/social world, meaning brand marketers must have the sophistication and technological platforms to manage and deliver on those devices.

Other trends to keep your eye on include the rising trend of alternative commerce technologies and the potential with NFC (near-field communication) technologies for mobile commerce is incredible. We’re also seeing the rise of sCommerce with fully integrated Facebook storefronts, and the potential is great. The jury is still out on sCommerce, but it’s worth keeping an eye on it.

The advance of social technologies has given consumers much greater access and, in turn, control. Brands now have to sprint to keep up with them.

Pulled from/sourced: venturebeat.com

Tags: facebook, google, linkedin, reggie bradford, SaaS apps, social marketing truths, social networks news, social sandbox, twitter, venturebeat

Top Reasons Why SaaS is at ‘Forefront’ of Recovery: SIIA/OPEXEngine Report

SaaS is emerging from the recession as a software sector “at the forefront of the economic recovery,” says a report by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). To find out more, IDN spoke with the report’s author, Lauren Kelley, CEO and founder of OPEXEngine.

SaaS is emerging from the recession as a software sector “at the forefront of the economic recovery,” and is enjoying a big jump in profitability while SaaS capital requirements are decreasing, according to an industry report.

The 2011 Software Benchmarking Industry Report was issued by The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and OPEXEngine, a leading benchmarking firm for small and mid-size software firms.

An excerpt from the SIIA/OPEXEngine report states:

Over the past five years, we’ve seen the SaaS business model mature and become more efficient. Five years ago, even many of the $100M+ public SaaS companies were unprofitable, unlike today where almost all are profitable. And SaaS companies are taking less capital to get to profitability.

This year, almost all of the small SaaS companies we benchmarked are venture backed with an average of $10M in investment capital under their belts, whereas the larger private SaaS companies had taken an average of almost $40M in venture investment.

To find out what’s behind these healthy cloud-driven numbers, IDN spoke with the report’s author, Lauren Kelley, CEO and founder of OPEXEngine.

“Overall, SaaS companies are achieving profitability earlier and requiring less capital to get there than five to seven years ago for several reasons,” Kelley told IDN.

One major factor is the improvements in cloud-based infrastructure for SaaS. Kelley called this improvement in cloud “a definite meta-trend affecting SaaS vendors,” which is the availability and improved services offered in the area of IaaS and PaaS. [This] helps bring down the cost of hosting and supporting an increasing volume of customers,” she told IDN.

These improvements have delivered measureable benefits to SaaS providers, most notably through their ability to minimize required capital and extend burn rates, Kelley added. “VCs that I’ve worked with estimate roughly that it took approximately $50M in capital to bring a successful SaaS vendor to profitability five to seven years ago, whereas today, depending on the software application, it can take only $25M-30M, or less, in invested capital,” she said.

“Definitely the cost of infrastructure for hosting a SaaS business is going down, but it is difficult to give concrete numbers as it varies widely with different applications and different security and redundancy requirements,” she added.

Kelley also noted these other important factors:

• SaaS Integration. The ability to integrate a SaaS application hosted in the cloud with on-premise assets, is improving all the time, she added. “Given the increasing acceptance of SaaS applications within the enterprise, many of the ‘soft’ integration issues are being overcome, such as resistance by internal IT departments to SaaS, security concerns, and so on,” Kelley told IDN. Despite the recent advantages SaaS enjoys from the maturing of cloud integration, Kelley said there are still many “hard” technical challenges to integrating SaaS applications with internal assets.

• Maturing Business Models. The SaaS business model overall has matured and evolved because there are more experienced entrepreneurs and VCs in the sector today, who know what metrics to track, how to build and execute on SaaS business models, and manage cash flow for a SaaS subscription business as compared to traditional software sales models where a vendor is paid largely up front.

• Discipline. The recent recession forced much greater spending discipline on software companies. “For example, most VCs told portfolio companies to sink or swim without expecting much more capital, and most swam pretty well,” she said.

In summary, two eye-popping metrics indicate that SaaS will continue to attract investments, from VC as well as legacy software firms.

“If you look at the software IPOs of the past couple years, almost all are SaaS vendors, indicating these are the most profitable and showing the most promise for future growth,” Kelley told IDN.

Moreover, research shows “sales to the enterprise are increasing all the time,” she added. “In the 2011 Software Benchmarking, we found that revenue growth rates for vendors selling primarily to customers with over $1B in revenues was a median of 20% from 2009 to 2010; and we expect that revenue growth rate to increase in 2011.”

The SIIA/OPEXEngine 2011 Software Benchmarking Industry Report surveyed firms with up to $350 million in revenues. OPEXEngine’s benchmarking reports are key tools used by senior operating executives to support the budgetary, strategic planning and investment processes.

Pulled from original/Sourced: idevnews.com by Vance McCarthy

Tags: cloud integration, Cloud-Based SaaS Solution, ISVs, SaaS, saas integrations, SIIA

Apple Pushes Past Exxon To Become The Most Valuable Public Company In The World (Temporarily)

Well, I didn’t expect it to happen until the fall — but I also didn’t anticipate the stock market collapse. And yet, here we are. After yesterday’s plunge, and today’s rally, Apple has just overtaken Exxon as the most valuable public company in the world.

The feat happened briefly this morning, before Exxon surged a bit ahead once again (update below). As of right now, the two are separated by under $500 million. That’s remarkable when you consider that just three weeks ago, at the time of my post, the two were $60 billion apart.

But again, this is already a different time. Three weeks ago, Exxon’s market cap was at $410 billion. Today, that market cap is just a hair above $340 billion. The share price has plummeted from $85 down to $70. And with the broader market collapse, Exxon’s price fell nearly $5 yesterday alone. That wiped out nearly $25 billion in market cap in one day.

Apple got hit hard as well yesterday, but not nearly as bad as Exxon. And today, while Exxon’s stock remains depressed, Apple’s has been rallying. Hence, the changing of the guard.

We’ll see what the stocks end up closing at, but it seems pretty clear at this point that Apple will be formally crowned the most valuable public company in the world at some point shortly.

Update: Apple is now ahead of Exxon again. And the gap seems to be increasing — Apple has over a billion dollar lead.

Update 2: As both stock are now falling, Apple’s lead is increasing. Now over $3.5 billion.

Update 3: About an hour til market close, and Apple now over $5 billion ahead.

Update 4: And with just 30 minutes to go, Exxon has pulled back ahead, with a huge surge.

Update 5: And the massive last-minute surge sees Exxon close the day just ahead of Apple still in market cap.

Sourced: techcrunch.com

MG Siegler has been writing for TechCrunch since 2009. He covers the web, mobile, social, big companies, small companies, essentially everything. And Apple. A lot. Prior to TechCrunch, he covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan. He’s previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where… → Learn More

Tags: Apple, exxon, software company, techcrunch

Facebook Conference: Adaptation to Social & Mobile Is Matter of Survival

As Bonin Bough, global head of digital at PepsiCo, said at PR News’ Facebook Conference in San Francisco on Aug. 9, “we’re drugged out on technology while computers are getting smarter.”

We’re increasingly hooked on social and mobile technology as computers lead us along and change the way we actually think and act.

This is not a value judgment—it’s just the way things are.

Bough’s concern is actually with the widening gap between where society is with social and mobile (addicted, strung out) and where organizations are (flatlined digital evolution). The reason for organizations’ slow adaption? Fear, according to Bough.

And being gripped by fear can be fatal for organizations. “Failure to adapt to the digital evolution is written on the balance sheets of companies,” said Bough.

I spoke to an attendee after the Facebook Conference who works at a large utility. He told me that he was asked by other attendees why his organization needed to be on Facebook at all.

“Were they at the same conference as me?” he asked me. “We have no choice but to adapt. We might have a monopoly in what we do, but there are still conversations about us on social networks, whether we’re involved or not. We have to be there. And the higher-ups are finally starting to get it. They were real resistant for a long while.”

Much of this resistance takes the form of higher-ups wanting to see a quick return on their investment in social media. That’s a legitimate request, but it’s also a stalling tactic. This is not a fad. And as Bonin Bough said, it’s up to communicators to see to it that their organizations don’t go the way of the dinosaurs—or Borders.

—Steve Goldstein

Sourced: prnewsonline.com

Tags: facebook conference, mobile media, PR News, saas news, social media, social news

Cloud computing, latest buzzword? Or glimpse of the future?

The odds are good that within the next five years, the popularity of Cloud Computing within the enterprise and government would grow significantly. Yet Cloud Computing alone is not the answer.

Cloud Computing has steadily been growing in popularity in the IT industry since early 2007. In non technical terms, I would define a CLOUD as a (C)OMMON (L)OCATION- INDEPENDENT (O)NLINE (U)TILITY on (D)EMAND SERVICE.

In recent times, I’ve been engaged in discussions on Social Networks, most especially on Facebook, as regards Cloud Computing because I’ve been a cloud evangelist a little over a year now and I’m dismayed by the pessimism a lot of Nigerian techies posit in these discusses.

First and foremost, there have been myriad variations on the definition of the Cloud. Everyone has a different perspective and understanding of the technology and the misconceptions surrounding the subject matter was obvious when Steven Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, had problems communicating his company’s cloud strategy & infrastructure, Microsoft Windows Azure, to a select group of C-level executives last November.

The vagueness surrounding this ‘phenomenon’ is largely attributed to what I call the ‘hype cycle’. Since February 2007, Cloud Computing has been a buzzword for enterprises and governments that are looking forward to saving costs and reducing their energy usage and carbon footprints.

For my non techie audience, Cloud Computing is basically an outsourced, pay-as-you-go, on-demand and a somewhere on the internet experience that is always offered as a service. Even if you are not a good technology adopter or in technical parlance a ‘digital immigrant’, you would be surprised at how much you interface with the ‘Cloud’.

The mobile phones we possess, the email addresses (Yahoo!, Windows Hotmail, Google Mail etc) we have, the Instant Messengers (Blackberry Messenger, Yahoo, Windows Live, Nimbuzz, Meebo, 2GO, eBuddy etc) we use to communicate on the go are typical examples of Cloud Computing services.

It’s as a result of the fact that the physical layer of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnect) model has been abstracted. In plain sense for instance, it means an Airtel subscriber should not be concerned about where the server serving him/her is located but his/her focus should be geared towards the service that’s been delivered.

Neither should a Gmail user bother about where Google server is located because it’s completely unimportant. This generation is a serviced generation. Everything is now being offered as a service and the benefits of being serviced is too indispensable to avoid.

From a technical perspective, Cloud Computing is divided into 3 major tiers namely:

1. Software as a Service (SaaS): This is basically what everyone already has in form of Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Wordpress, the various search engines, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter etc.

2. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This is an offering Amazon pioneered as the grand-daddy with the Elastic Compute 2 (EC2). Developers and system administrators obtain general compute, storage, queuing, and other resources and run their applications with the fewest limitations. This is the most powerful type of cloud in that virtually any application and any configuration that is fit for the internet can be mapped to this type of service. Microsoft’s Cloud Infrastructure is known as Windows Azure.

3. Platform as a Service (PaaS): This is the newest entry where an application platform is offered to developers in the cloud. Developers write their application to a more or less open specification and then upload their code into the cloud.

Highlighting all of these, the benefits of Cloud Computing to enterprises, individuals and governments cannot be over-emphasized. Cloud Computing in every facet frees up budgets handcuffed by IT expenses. Instead of purchasing software licenses for new employees and locations, businesses simply add accounts to expand computing capacity.

Governments would benefit from it because it pools all disparate sectors as a whole and it would ensure openness, accountability and prudence. For instance, the Nigerian Government can create a cloud where citizens pay their tenement, water and electricity bills on a central platform. The Nigerian Police Force can create a Cloud Infrastructure we would name in this instance, The Nigeria Intellipedia® that would have sub cloud systems like The Police Reporting Software® which advertently takes away statements from being on paper to a central database and makes crime management a less cumbersome issue.

In moving with the times and trends, some young Nigerian entrepreneurs are creating overtly ambitious private Cloud infrastructures which is beginning to generate positive ripples. First is the Naija Info Bank ® which when completed would be the largest Human Resources database in Sub-Saharan Africa with a capacity of over 80 million users and secondly www.traffic.com.ng which is still in its Beta Phase and after completion would offer descriptive traffic report with GPS Coordinates of every nook and cranny of Nigeria. All you have to do as an end-user is to plug into the cloud and enjoy these services.

The odds are good that within the next five years, the popularity of Cloud Computing within the enterprise and government would grow significantly. Yet Cloud Computing alone is not the answer. The key to achieving great success is for enterprises and governments to use efficient software to integrate their existing on- premises infrastructure with the Cloud.

Pulled from/Sourced: dailytimes.com

Tags: cloud, cloud computing, cloud computing news, Internet Azure Services Platform Business CEO Cloud computing Cloud infrastructure Company Technology computing eBuddy energy Everything as a service Facebook forward Gmail Google Infrastructure as a , platform, SaaS, saas news, saas technologies