Troubling News Questions

Some troubling questions were asked in several recent periodicals that are worth contemplating. They don’t reflect my opinion but will need to be considered as the debate progresses.

Afghanistan: Is the problem best solved by understanding the limits of what we can reasonable achieve, or, by sending more troupes. Some are saying our focus must shift from nation building to deal making. - They note literacy rates are 70% and the country has not had a strong functioning central government and viable economy in decades.

Medical Insurance and rationing: The question of rationing medical care becomes even more difficult when one asks the question, how much we should do to save the lives of premature births and babies with chronic medical problems that will never be able to live a normal life, and be very expensive to care for.

I do feel Tort reform is necessary if we want to stop the doctors from practicing “defensive medicine” intended to protect not patients from illness, but doctors from lawyers.

Roger Stix

Atlanta Business Video

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Measuring the Business Effects of Web 2.0

Video-sharing, social networking show biggest benefit

New Web technologies that generate buzz may seem attractive, but businesses must keep an eye toward measurable benefits before investing. ROI is a top concern of marketers, in tough economic times more than ever.

McKinsey Quarterly’s “Global Survey” polled companies about the benefits gained from using various Web 2.0 tools, both internally and externally. The study found that several technologies were a boon for relationships among employees as well as with customers and external partners.

When it came to customer-related benefits, blogs were the most useful tool, bringing measurable benefits to 51% of responding companies worldwide. That was followed by video-sharing and social networking, at 48% each, and RSS feeds, at 45%.

Technologies such as wikis, podcasts, ratings and tags were less useful, but still benefited customer relationships for about one-quarter to one-third of companies worldwide.

More than one-half of respondents (52%) said Web 2.0 tools increased marketing effectiveness, while 43% reported higher customer satisfaction and 38% reduced marketing costs.

Businesses in the high-tech/telecom industry were most likely to report customer-related benefits of Web 2.0, at 65%, followed by business/legal/professional services firms, at 60%.

Companies cannot simply adopt these technologies and expect their customers to use them en masse, however. Among firms reporting measurable benefits from Web 2.0, 74% said it was important to integrate the tools with other forms of customer interaction, and 52% said marketing the Web 2.0 initiatives themselves was a best practice.

An eMarketer article found by Roger Stix of Atlanta Business Video

Searching for the Highest Quality Video?

If you host your own videos, maintaining your video quality is not a problem because you control everything from start to finish.

However, if you use video sharing sites to host your videos, it’s a different story. Essentially, you upload your video and then give up total control over what the final product is going to look like. Traditionally, video sharing sites will “dumb down” the quality of your video to save on bandwidth costs (after all, YouTube spends an estimated 1 million dollars a day on bandwidth).

Due to ever-improving software code, video sharing sites are now able to host your videos in high quality formats. Sites like Vimeo,Blip.TV and now Dailymotion are leading the way. Check out this special video on Dailymotion that allows you to see the difference between an HD and standard def picture. The video shows, head to head, the difference between the “standard” web video formats and the new “high quality” formats. This is the best video I’ve seen that illustrates the difference. It’s worth a look and goes a long way in explaining (far better than I can do with words) what these new video formats actually look like.

You can watch the video here.

Regards,

Roger Stix, Atlanta Business Video

Job Candidates Both Hurt and Helped by Social Networks

Blurring the line between professional and private

Most social network users have heard of the consequences of having an unprofessional profile page, and know potential employers might look them up online.

A summer 2009 survey conducted by Harris Interactive forCareerBuilder.com found that 45% of US human resources professionals used social networks to research job candidates at least occasionally.

Respondents were most likely to use search engines such as Yahoo! or Google to check out job candidates online (41%), followed by Facebook (29%) and LinkedIn (26%).

The findings were more likely to get candidates rejected than hired: 35% of HR professionals said social networking content had caused them to eliminate a candidate, while only 18% reported deciding to employ someone based on a profile.

The top reasons for rejection were, unsurprisingly, “provocative or inappropriate photographs or information” (53%) and information about drinking or using drugs (44%). But job candidates were also hurt by negative postings about their previous employers, poor communication skills, discriminatory remarks and other faux pas.

On the other side of the coin, HR professionals also reported hiring a candidate because a profile page gave them a positive look into the individual’s personality, or because the profile was professional, creative or showed off the candidate’s skills.

Many social network users feel uncomfortable with the way online profiles can blur the line between personal life and work, and guard their privacy to avoid being seen as inappropriate or unprofessional.

In August 2009, blogger Marylene Delbourg-Delphis conducted an informal poll, asking what people would do if they were asked to pull up their Facebook page during a job interview. More than one-half of her admittedly self-selected respondents (55%) said they would ask why before agreeing to show their profile. Another 25.4% said they would refuse and 8% said they would simply walk out of the interview, showing how touchy the subject can be. Just 11.7% of respondents would willingly reveal their profile.

While the data should only be used for directional purposes, Ms. Delbourg-Delphis wrote on the Grade A Entrepreneurs blog that “there could be a real discrepancy between the workforce’s state of mind and the companies’ hiring practices.” And her commenters expressed concern that social network profiles often reveal information that is off-limits in a job interview, such as a candidate’s religion, political preferences or marital status.

An eMarketer article found by Roger Stix at Atlanta Business Video

Social Network Marketing Expands Sphere

A tool for every purpose

Though social network advertising gets a lot of attention, it is only one of many ways marketers can reach customers on social networks. Social networks can be used for branding, improving customer loyalty, lead generation, direct marketing and e-commerce.

“The beauty of social networks is that they are a place where nearly any marketing goal can be achieved, with nearly any marketing tactic,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Marketing on Social Networks: Branding, Buying and Beyond.”

Common wisdom over the past few years has been that people are interested in interacting with social network friends, not marketers. Not so, according to Anderson Analytics’ May 2009 survey—52% of social network users had become a fan or follower of a company or brand, while 46% had said something good about a brand or company on a social networking Website—double the percentage who had said something negative (23%).

In a December 2008 MarketingSherpa survey of social media marketing professionals, 92% of respondents said social media marketing was effective at influencing brand reputation and 91% said it worked for increasing brand awareness. These executives found it far less effective for generating sales leads or increasing online sales.

However, savvy marketers are demonstrating the effectiveness of using social networks for direct marketing and lead generation as well. Brand pages and applications can be vehicles to deliver coupons and offers to consumers to drive trials, store traffic and response. A July 2009 Starbucks promotion, for example, distributed coupons for a free pastry via Facebook and other social outlets. The chain was soon one of the top trending topics on Twitter and the top brand on Facebook, with more than 3.7 million fans.

In terms of e-commerce, few retailers are currently selling products directly through social networks. But the pending launch of Facebook’s virtual currency will make it far more appealing for this purpose. Meanwhile, e-tailers can take advantage of services such as Facebook Connect to allow users to share information about their browsing and purchasing activity on an e-commerce site with their social network friends.

Measuring social media success remains difficult for marketers. Many of the metrics that marketers can track on social networks today involve what is called “soft ROI”—which does not show up in the bottom line. But a study from the Altimeter Group and Wetpaint, along with a separate study from Razorfish, indicates that the stronger a brand’s social media presence, the better the brand performed—whether measured in conversations or in financial performance.

“Social networks are a constantly changing database of consumer sentiment, attitudes and information, and marketers today have only the earliest glimpse of the potential,” said Ms. Williamson. “Companies that want to maximize their presence on the social Web must take advantage of social networks in all stages of the purchase funnel, from awareness to learning to buying to loyalty.”

Found at eMarketer by Roger Stix at Atlanta Business Video