Two Things to SEE on a Monday

Seeing is believing.

OK, stop gawking and get back to work.

Margie

Social Dynamite

Bwoom, bang, kapow!!! The world is exploding on social media.

Psy has more that 8.2M hits on YouTube.

We want our data presented in Infographics, even about Christmas: http://www.balsamhill.com/Origin-History-of-Christmas-Traditions-Infographic-s/1466.htm

There are over 700,000 apps for the IPhone, and counting.
In March 2012 the numbers of apps downloaded reached 25B.

Companies and their marketers are also trying to figure out how to blow through the NOISE – the pinging and tones of alerts – to make relevant connections that produce sales. Smart phones have made us a mobile society, as in DOING BUSINESS on a mobile smart phone.

Consider this: In the old days, we didn’t “know” our retailers. These days, we shop in the space between acquaintance and friend – we have to “like” our vendors.  And we don’t hit the complete-the-purchase button unless the customer reviews give it enough stars on the rating scale.

Social media has exploded far beyond marketing. It effects customer services, IT (can you say CLOUD?), human resources, operations, sales and more. Organizations are social media enterprises despite how slow the internal business culture may be in moving to acknowledge it.

So put this on your New Year’s resolution and 2013 to-do list: It is time to educate executives, get them trained and build understanding for the immense power of our digital age. If you are not fluent in social media strategy, know that your competitors are or are getting there fast…and they are doing it by engaging your customers.

Onomatopoeias of the day: Badaboom! Ssssshblamm! Kaboom! That’s the sound of social media continuing to explode. Buckle in for a hellova 2013.

Now get back to work.

Margie

Things WE DO and Things we DO TOO MUCH

Things WE DO: We love video ads!

A new study from comScore finds that consumers watched 11 billion online video ads in October. According to the study, 183 million U.S. Internet users watched web-based videos in October. ComScore says that those viewers saw over 37 billion online content videos for the month.

Over 88 percent of web users watched at least one online video last month. The average online video was just over six minutes in length. While the average online video ad watched by web users was just under half a minute long

In the things WE DO TOO MUCH category, leading the list in my mind is:

Logging in, creating passwords, resetting passwords.

If I only had a nickel for all the times I  have logged in, set passwords, typed my email address, entered my user name. Geeze.

It is a function of accessing so many platforms. Even with cool tools like HootSuite that makes it a snap to manage multiple accounts, I’m still logging into my bank, giving email addresses for coupons and interacting in dozens of ways that require authentication.

Recently, passwords have gotten even more restrictive with specific caps, symbols and length rules. Hey, I’m all for a more secure website, don’t get me wrong. Companies are requiring more frequent changes in passwords…which seems mundane yet challenges my memory patterns. A cap here, adding new numbers there and I can launch myself into “password recovery hell” via questions, texts or emails with temporary passwords.

With all that said, I am grateful for this year – my cool company and job, my awesome son and a season sans a hurricane (sorry New Jersey and New York).  This isn’t a gripe. More of a cultural observation. Validate me (log in, password) and I can access the world (Welcome Margie!). That’s a good trade-off.

Now, get back to work…Christmas is coming.

Margie