Return On Investment on Social Media

This week topic is about Return On Investment (ROI) on Social Media, and also I will provide an example of a company invested in Social Media.

Firstlly, Return On Investment (ROI) is a measurement tool used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. There is a calculation formula used to calculate the benefit of an investment.

ROI Formula

 

The example that I am going to use is Joie de vivere hotels investment on Social Media, in particularly Facebook and Twitter. Joie de Vivire was found in 1987 and it runs more then 30 luxury hotels in California.

The company is using social media technologies to reach their customer, and within less than a year the Joie De Vivire has booked more than 1000 room night, which may stay empty without the use of social media.

So how did they achieve this?

By using a variety of social media platforms to dive sales, the company started to promote for deals and coupons for their more than 10,000 followers on twitter and more than 5000 on face book. For example, every Tuesday the hotel tweets an exclusive deal to their followers and they have only few hours to get this deal. In the past the hotel has offered a luxury room for only $79 in November and December. Also, the company offer exclusive deals for their Facebook fans every Friday.

JDV Hotel promotion tweet

Also, the company has  ran a social media competition which asks people to submit a video on YouTube and sharing why they love California, where the winners will win all-expenses California road trips with a stay in the company’s hotels.

Here is an info-graphic showing 10 examples of ROI investment on social media, and there is a video that I liked and I would like to share with you. in this video illustrate social media practices

 

 

BBM twitter account analysis using TweetReach

TweetReach Logo

This week topic is about selecting one of the social media monitoring tools, and then selecting an organization to monitor. I have selected Tweetreach, which is a tool that shows how many people have viewed a tweet for a particular Twitter account. It provides a comprehensive analysis for the twitter account (the account needs to be analysed). The analysis includes the estimated reach for a specific number of tweets. Also, it shows the number of contributors for those tweets with a chart showing how many followers those contributors have. TweetReach offersthree types of products that users can choose; TweetReach Pro, Historical Analystics and Snapshot. Also, TweetReach provide their customers with a free trial. The following is a YouTube Video about TweetReach.

I have selected one of BlackBerry’s twitter accounts, which is @BBM to monitor their account during the release of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) app for Android and iOS platform. Firstly, the BBM account has more than 190K followers and it was created in August 2013. I have done the monitoring on the 23^rd of Sep which is one day after the release of BBM on iOS devices. The report stated that it is analysing “50 tweets of an estimated 1500 total tweets”. But by checking the BBM account they only have 41 tweets in tota! I consider this as a drawback of TweetReach. The following is a screenshot of both the TweetReach analysis of BBM Twitter account and BBM twitter account details

TweetReach Analysis for BBM

BBM Twitter account details

 

TweetReach stated that 50 Tweets by @BBM has reached almost 30,000 accounts within 3 minutes. Also, 48 twitter accounts have contributed (retweeted) in these tweets, where the top contributor account has more than 14K followers.

BBM twitter account analysis

Moreover, TweetReach has shown in the report the most re-tweeted tweets with a number on the left side of each tweet, which I assume it’s the number of re-tweets. The top tweet among these tweet is an announcement of pausing BBM app for the Android platform with has got the number 5 next to it. I have checked this tweet using the Twitter app called TweetBot and this tweet has got more than 12,000 re-tweets, which means that TweetReach has provided incorrect analysis.The following is a screenshot showing the difference between TweetReach analysis and BBM account for the most retweeted tweet

 

Note if you are going to do an analysis about BBM twitter account using TweetReach the result you will get will be different from the results that I got.

 

 

 

C|NET and thier Enterprise 2.0 stratgies

This week post, I will select an Organization from the professional service sector, and then I will Identify and discuss how they are using social media to enhance their business.

The selected organization is C|NET Australia, which they describe them self as the trusted destination for people who want to improve their lifestyle using technology. CENT Australia provides information and professional opinions and reviews about the technology and electronics. Also, they provide tutorials and workshops for their visitors, where these tutorials can be watched as a YouTube Video or read as a blog post. Also, the user of CNET can download software and games.

CNET TV

CNET is using their main website as a blog, where they publish their reviews and tutorials, also, visitors can interact with these posts by adding comments and rating. Also, CNET using other social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In the Facebook account they post their latest blog post and provide links to more than 11,000 fans. The same happens in their Twitter account where they tweet to more than 31,000 followers. The YouTube channels used to publish video tutorials about recent technologies and video games reviews to more than 4000 subscribers.

CENT uses social media technologies to enhance their Marketing and Sales, as well as Customer Support. For example, if the user want to see a video tutorial to review in CNET website, there will be an approximate 10 – 20 seconds Ad before the actual video start. Also, some large companies may use CNET to advertise their new product by letting CNET make a video or a blog review on this particular product. For example, here is a review about the new iPhone C5 review, which may be apple has paid to CNET to “advertise” the new iPhone. This strategy is almost used by every community/website that similar to CNET. Also, CNET some positions in the main website blog allocated for companies to use it for advertisement purposes, for example the top middle of the blog there is an Ad for Galaxy S4.

Also, CNET uses Twitter and Facebook accounts to interact with their visitors, to provide them technical solutions or solve their issues.

 

Soucial Media and Non-Profit Organizations

Previously I have talked about the values levers that published by McKinsey. In this, I am going to talk about the Emirates Airline foundation and how they may implement social media technologies as well as applying McKinsey’s value levers.

Emirates Airline Foundation

The Emirates Airline Foundation (EAF) is a non-profit charity organization. EAF aims to provide improvement to the quality of children life regardless of political, religious or geographical boundaries. Also, the foundation aims to help disadvantaged kids realise their full potential by providing them with the basics such as food, medicine, accommodation and most importantly education. Some of the current projects that EAF is working on are the Emirates Friendship Hospital Ship in Bangladesh, Dhaka Project School in Bangladesh and the Big Pen School in Kenya.

I have visited the EAF website, and I noticed the foundation does not use any social media technologies at all. Just to make sure I used Google search to find any social media account such as YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, but there was nothing.

The EAF can benefit from implementing the social technologies, for example to attract donators by using some of the most popular social networks like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Also, by implementing social media technologies they can be in touch with current donators, where the donators can see how the foundation works and what they have done.

Moreover, using social media, will increase the public awareness towards the targeted benefited people of the foundation (which is children), where the social media will widely spread the information published by the EAF using the sharing functionality in social media, hence more donators will engage.

 

Commonwealth Bank Potential Social Media legal Risks

This week blog topic is

“create a blog post describing your selected organisation (its sector, their business, services etc…). Using the concepts introduced to you in the lecture, and also the reading and additionally those that you can find yourself, identify some of the applicable legal risks for your chosen organisation. Justify why those risks are particularly relevant (e.g. risks for QUT could be different than that of a Dental Practice) and provide scenarios of how some of these risks could apply and what the organisations Social Media Policy should attempt to address.”

Legal Risks

First I will introduce you to the legal risks that organizations can end up with when employing social media. These risks are:

• Confidential Information
• Employment: Wrong dismissal
• Technology Risks: Viruses and Malware
• Statutory Risk: Copyright, Privacy, TPA/CCA, Defamation and/or Fair Work Act
• Reputation Risks
• Occupation and organization specific risks

The chosen organization for this week is CommonWealth Bank. According to the Commonwealth bank website, Commonwealth bank Australia’s leading provider of integrated financial services, including retail, premium, business and institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and share-broking products and services. In terms of social media, CommBank has five social media accounts; YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. Also, they have their own social media websites, which are Blog. CommBank and Community Support. Also, CommBank has developed an smartphone application “Kachin“, which one of its features to make/receive payments using “facebook” account.

Kaching via Facebook

I have thinking of three Legal Risks that may face CommBank as a result of employing social media. The first risk can be “Confidential Information”, where using social media for organizations like Commonweal Bank makes Confidential Information become a big concern for the organization. For example, if mistakenly some confidential information posted in twitter or on their own community pages may lead to a loss on the annual revenue.

The second risk can be Technology Risk which include malware, phishing, click-Jacking, and data loss and bandwidth consumption of the information

The third risk is reputation, where the social media allows both employees and customers of CommBank to write, discuss and comment negative impressions on Facebook or Twitter.

Therefore, when Commonwealth Bank understands the risk of using the web 2.0 tools, and develop techniques for mitigate them by:

• Monitoring the social web so they can know what the employees are saying.
• Providing education on legal issues like copyright and anti-trust.
• Providing education on social media principles.

 

Social Technology value levers & Windows

In this week post I am required to select an organization to identify and discuss some of the major benefits and values levers associated with the implementation of Enterprise 2.0. Hopefully, in this post will cover two of the five function areas and its relevant social technology value levers published by McKinsey Global institute, 2012. These function areas and it relevant value levers are demonstrated in the figure below:

I have chosen Microsoft to demonstrate how Microsoft has applied some of the value levers mentioned in the above figure.

 

Microsoft is an American multinational software corporation headquartered in Washington, USA. It develops, manufacture, licenses and supports a wide range of products and services, particularly in computing area. Microsoft has been founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and now it is considered as the world’s largest software maker.

 

Microsoft is applying two at least two the function areas that published McKinsey Global institute; Customer Services and Marketing and sales. In this post, I will demonstrate how Microsoft has successfully applied these areas using social media.

 

Customer Service

Microsoft is using social media to provide its customers better customer services. Microsoft has launched its blog called “Community”. The community blog allows customers to post inquires or issues, where some expert and other customers can   response to the issue and provide solutions.

Also, Microsoft is using social media website for customer service. For example, Microsoft has lunched a Twitter account for their all Windows related products. In this account customers can mention this account to get quicker response. Personally, I have mentioned the Windows Twitter account to get some help regarding some issues for my Windows Surface RT, and it was an excellent customer service I have ever experienced.

 

Marketing and sales

The second function area that Microsoft using is marketing and sales. The Twitter account is not only used for customer service, but it also used to promote their product. The following is a screenshot of Windows Twitter account promoting the new and improved apps for Windows 8, and you can see the number of Retweets for this tweet.

Also, Windows is using YouTube to promote their products. Microsoft has lunched two TouTube accounts for their products, these youtube account are WindowsVideos and Surface and the number of subscribers for the accounts are 185,200 and 37,915 respectively. The follwoign is a YouTube video from Windows promoting their Surface RT by comparing it with the iPad

 

 

Enterprise 2.0 in Action

For this week’s blog, I have chosen the second topic which is:

“Identify further examples of companies using Web 2.0 to achieve enterprise objectives or organisations using Enterprise 2.0 principles in a significant way. Discuss these examples in relation to the Wikinomics business models presented in lecture 3.”

Briefly, according to Tapscott, Wikinomics business models is based on four basic ideas, which are being open, Peering, Sharing, and Acting Globally. Using mass collaboration in business environment can be seen as an extension of the trend in business to outsource.

For This blog I have chosen AirAsia and Eptica as an example of an Enterprise 2.0 in Action.

AirAsia is considered as one of the Malaysian airline companies. AirAsia has won Skytrax in World’s best low-cost airline award in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 and they has achieved many others. Therefore, Customer satisfaction is one of the biggest concerns for AirAsia, so, they has been focusing on online social media strategies to achieve customer satisfaction.

Eptica is a British based company that focuses on multi-channel customers’ interaction management software. It provides AirAsia with a software called Eptica’s Self-Service. The integration of this software has been implemented into the AirAsia website and Facebook page in order to answer all customers’ inquires much quicker. Also, the software interacts with customers by allowing them to get access to useful information and answering questions.

Moreover, By appling Wikinomics business models to AirAsia’s collaboration with Eptica, we will find:

Peering: The software was provided by Eptica insures hat customers’ inquiries are answered. Also, implementing the software on both the website and Facebook account, in order to harness collective intelligence from their customers to get fast access to any information they need.

Open: The software is generally open for customers to place their queries, which can be viewed and answered by other customers. Moreover, the Facebook account has created a collaborative platform between customers and staff.

Sharing: Both the company and the customers can share information easily using social media websites like Facebook and twitter.

Global:  Now, AirAsia has reached the globe using the technologies of social media. Also, as AirAsia operates in different regions such as Australia, India and Indonesia, there are Facebook pages for each region in order for customers to get information much quicker. AirAsia Australia, AirAsia Indonesia, AirAsia India

References

http://www.eptica.com/Social-Customer-Service-at-AirAsia.html

http://www.airasia.com/au/en/about-us/awards.page

 

Blogging Strategies

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog.

This blog is used for the INN346 Enterprise 2.0 unit, which requires students to post a weekly article in different topics throughout the semester.

I love blogging

This week’s topic is To Extend Community Knowledge on What Makes a Blog a Success and to Introduce Your Blogging Strategy.

There are many factors that make a blog a success such as being honest and transparent. But I think the most important factor is focusing on a specific topic (e.g. Technology, travelling… etc), which will attract readers that have the same topic interests. Furthermore, you need to be original as there are other blogs about the same topic, so you need to be different, creative and add value to your blog.

Also, another important factor is having an interaction with the blog visitors. For example, linking to another blogger’s post, allowing comments and replying back to commentators. Also, it is important to give your visitors a way to contact you by creating a Contact Me page.

Make your blog Attractive. It is important to take care of your blog’s design. Make access to your blog and posts easy by categorising your posts, adding tags to your posts and having pages for different sub-topics. Also, it is important to have a nice and comfortable design, which will make visitors come back to your blog again.

Personally, my blog will focus on the topics provided in this unit. Each post won’t be longer than 500 words, which I think is not too lengthy for the readers. Also I will use social networks website such as Twitter and Facebook to advertise my posts. Also, I will interact with other students’ blogs by commenting on their post and discuss their topic.

In terms of attractiveness, I will use a WordPress blog as it is one of the easiest blogging platforms for both readers and bloggers. I will use a free theme provided by WordPress with comfortable colours. Also, all post for the unit INN346 Enterprise 2.0 will be categorised under “Enterprise 2.0” page. And in each post I will use some images and videos that related to the topic.

References

http://www.theminimalists.com/blog/

http://blogforprofit.com/28-days-to-build-a-better-blog/

 

Lightweight Models and Cost –Effective Scalability

This is the last blog talking about Pattern Eight, which is Lightweight Models and Cost –Effective Scalability. In the past and during Web 1.0 businesses were using the idea of “get big fast”. This idea will result in losing the business in the long term. However, Lightweight Models and Cost –Effective Scalability means that “doing more – with less”. That means people now can start their small business with no need to use the idea of “get big fast”.

The example of this pattern is Evernote.  Simply, Evernote works as a personal assistance for the user to remember things “notes” such as things the user like, hear, or see. To explain more how Evernote, the user of Evernote can highlight anything in the web browser and add it into Evernote cloud. Also, Evernote can store text, images taking by phone, camera, or screenshots. The good point in Evernote and the most I like is the ability of recognizing and reading text inside images.  For example, If the user saw a good perfume and wants to remember it in the future, just take photo of it, and upload it in Evernote. Then simply search by its name in the image. Moreover, Evernote have the ability to read handwritings notes that. For example, when the user took a photo of a handwritten note and stored it in Evernote cloud, the user can simply search using some words inside the image. To be more clear I have embedded a Video demonstrating how Evernote works.

The growth of Evernote its really amazing. It was opend in 17/02/2008 and it surpassed 3 million users in 17/04/2010. The following graph shows the growth of Evernote. Furthermore, Evernote has two types of memberships. The first type is Free, which the user is limited to 60MB/month, limited file types “images, audio, ink, PDF. The second membership type is the Premium membership. It cost 5/month or 45/year, where the user has no limits on the file types and can upload up to 1GB/month.

According to Todd Sattersten who have interviewed Evernote CEO Phil Libin, in January 2010, Evernote have had 2,335,676 total users, and 41,598 premium users. The total expenses in this month including hardware, software, hosting, network, operations staff, and support staff were $64,641. The total revenue from active premium users was $145,000.

This week question is, Are you going to use Evernote to help you in your study? and would you go Premium or Free?

 

The Long Tail

The Long Tail is a theory that described by Chris Anderson. According to Chris in his blog who stats that the culture and economy is shifting from focusing on small number of mainstream products and markets into a large number of niches, where the mainstream is the head and niches is the tail. The following graph will describe it better:

One example of The Long Tail is Etsy. Etsy is a global web site have its users coming from more than 150 countries. The user have the chance to buy products or sell their products. There are three different products that the user is allowed to sell, hand-made by the seller, old products (age 20 years or older), commercial and handmade supplies.

The three types of products allowed in Etsy

There are three steps to sell a products. First, listing the item in your account and give it a cost. Second, getting paid directly from the buyer. Third step, shipping the item to the buyer.

The three types of products allowed in Etsy

When buying a product, just search for the needed product, see the location of the product, then read the feedback of the seller, if every thing good just add it to cart and pay yousing PayPal, or Credit Card.

When commparing Etsy with other famous websits like eBay, we find Etsy is very limited to three types of products. While eBay users can sell whatever they want as well as the user can choose whether to sell the product or make an auction.

So, this leads us to this question, Do you use online web sites to sell a product?