A little experiment to see which way Facebook’s numbers are going in Australia.
Today – 11 November 2001
Australia – age 18 to 64 male and female = 9,290,380
Australia – age 18-24 male = 2,048,140
Australia – age 18-24 female = 2,096,240
Australia – age 25-45 male = 3,091,620
Australia – age 24-45 female = 3,560,300
Sydney – age 18-24 = 1,979,840
Watch this space – back in a month.
Tags: facebook
Dear CityRail,
I have lived in Sydney for seven years. During that time, I have commuted on a daily basis from the eastern suburbs to north Sydney, by train and by bus. Not so long ago, you introduced the My Multi ticket system, I am still not sure what new entitlements that provides and yes I read the leaflet.
Elected as PM of this fine country, I would take steps to outlaw your cheeky ticketing systems. If I buy a seven day rail card, I should be entitled to seven days of travel. This is my beef.
I expect you’re aware that the five day week is exactly that, most people don’t work at the weekends. I drive my car at the weekends, its a Subaru, it actually belongs to my wife who is in fact my girlfriend. While driving said car my weekly rail card dwindles away in my pocket. I am sure that a great number of Sydney siders find them self in a similar situation. Do some research, its one if those self evident things that research can be used to verify.
This is a great PR opportunity guys, you could do the research, identify the pain point and provide a solution, i.e. Tickets that ate only redeemed on the days that they are used. What you lose in revenue you will more than make up for in good will. Monopolies should be able to afford to do this story of thing.
So CityRail what do you think?
I find very little time to blog these days. Babies don’t leave much time for blogging, I have never been the most efficient blogger. But for a little while I will try blogging from my Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo using SlideIT. One blog post per money on the way to work each morning. Riveting.
Jamie Oliver goes up and up in my estimations (for what that’s worth).
Every child should be entitled to a healthy diet and I agree that repeated failure to deliver this is akin to child abuse, although its more complicated than that.
I love the fact that Jamie is prepared to engage in some straight talk about Sarah Palin, the crazy.
Number three in the Hack100 series. from the Brian Solis blog again; on the topic of social media in B2B industries:
Social media has a role to play in B2B industries. It can help us understand how buyers behave. We then alter our processes and content accordingly. The information is there you just need to get it. Most B2B companies are spending more on interactive programs and social media. Programs often direct customers back to a corporate website, which are ill-equipped to provide a continuous interactive experience. Facebook and LinkedIn are the preferred networks for business engagement. Social media can deliver benefit to B2B organisations, so go plan and launch your strategy.
Yeah, I agree.
In my experience, B2B marketers tend to see social media as a nice, warm and fuzzy activity. They struggle to join the dots between this and lead generation, which is their primary performance metric. This is one area that we are working on with a third party in Australia and its why Social and CRM are converging.
Here is the original post on the Brian Solis blog.
Social Media is often misconstrued as a medium for business-to-consumer or B2C engagement and discounted as a viable communications network for those companies focused on business-to-business transactions. However, B2B, as in any other field impacted by online activity, is faced with a prime opportunity to not only cultivate communities in social networks and other social channels, but also amplify awareness, increase lead generation, reduce sales cycles, and perhaps most importantly, learn and adapt to market dynamics in real-time.
Customers and those that influence them, regardless of industry, are migrating to the social Web at varying paces. While social or digital strategies do not replace proven means that are in play today, they do however, require augmentation and shifts in resources commensurate with the distribution of attention, where it’s focused and to what extent.
In my research, programs measured in hindsight are not the only views that offer 20/20 vision. Unobstructed foresight is now attainable and in some cases, predictable, based on our investment in time, energy and creativity in how we analyze online behavior, interaction, and ultimately influence. And, our ability to study and put research to work is only limited by our process for learning and adapting to earn and increase resonance within our target markets.
Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of listening to focused online interaction, is the ability to breakdown the decision making process and how customers and influencers impact behavior. To say it blatantly, social media makes it possible to identify and segment the specific stages of decision making online and how to in turn, respond in ways that steer interest in your favor. The results of these interactions also lend to the importance of adaptation. As we learn more about the challenges, considerations, and sentiment of our potential stakeholders, we can introduce those insights into future designs, processes, and communication.
If we are not part of the decision making process, we are then absent from the decision.
To help make the case, Outsell recently published its “Annual Advertising and Marketing Study” and in the report, Outsell states that B2B advertising and marketing spending will increase by only .8% to $129 billion. Interactive spending, on the other hand, will escalate by 9.2% to $51.5 billion this year.
As Social Media becomes pervasive in workflow and influence, Outsell’s study shows that spending is following the trend. To that end, B2B marketers will increase spending in social networks by 43.3%. While it’s not necessarily as alluring as social, company websites are only receiving a boost of 7.5%.
When we study engagement in interactive media, we find that we captivate attention in a very dynamic environment, but we lose them with each click that we either intentionally or unintentionally introduce to lead their experience post engagement. Many times, the click path is aimed right at the company site, and if we were to analyze the design and effectiveness of B2B websites today, we might just find that a large number are stuck in time, representative of an era more aligned with Web 1.0 than Web 2.0. Opportunity clicks, and without defining a rich and rewarding click path as well as an enriching experience, which most likely requires the renovation of the corporate website, all online activity associated with increased social spending, will bear the brunt of defining and capitalizing on attention, within social networks, the moment it’s captured.
As part of the study, Outsell surfaced preferences for business engagement and activity in social networks. When asked to rate the effectiveness of particular networks, more than one-half of respondents claimed that Facebook was either “extremely” or “somewhat” effective. LinkedIn ranked second with 45% surprisingly (and not so surprisingly) ahead of Twitter at 35%, which of course, ranked higher than MySpace at 25%.
As eMarketer noted, when HubSpot ran its B2B North America survey, it found that businesses ranked LinkedIn on top at 45% ahead of Facebook at 33% as most effective in lead generation.
B2B, or any business or organization, must evaluate and implement interactive strategies in order to earn relevance and hopefully resonance in order to compete for the present and the future.
Gosh, there’s a lot to read on the World Wide Web.
Trying to keep up with the rapidly changing world of new media is a full-time job. The long posts take even longer to read, and sometimes you wonder why you bothered. It’s increasingly hard for the ‘Social Media Experts’ (so called) and industry thought leaders, to find things that are genuinely new and different to say. That doesn’t always stop them posting though.
So I am launching a new series of posts (which may go nowhere) entitled ‘Hack 100′. I will condense recent and landmark blog posts down to less than 100 words. I will identify the point that I feel lays at the core of the posting by underlining it. I think this will usefully provide you, dear reader, with the gist of what is being said and give you the option to click through to the full-length post if you so wish. Hopefully, you’ll find the ‘Hack 100′ version sufficient and will be inspired or in agreement with my brief thought or question posed at the end of the hacked post.
The inaugural ‘Hack 100′ post looks at a recent contribution from the wordy Brian Solis. I regularly read the Brian Solis blog and find it useful from time to time. I have also spent time, which I’ll never get back, sorting through the flowery Brian Solis language to get the nub of the matter, sometimes without success (maybe it’s me).
So here goes (fanfare please)…
Hack 100’s intepretation of… Brian Solis: With Social Media Comes Great Responsibility
Social media is a revolution for business. With it, brands become media and form communities. External forces pique interest in social media. Like email, it has no single owner. Ultimately, social media should permeate core business, with each department maintaining a social presence. Looking ahead, companies will use social media in new ways. This is necessary as sound relationships are earned, not acquired. Aligning departments and conversations is good planning process. Social media can improve culture and competitiveness, when supported. Social media challenges us but those that rise to the challenge will benefit.
Thanks to Brian Solis for this contribution (original post).
I agree with the sentiment of the post but I don’t feel that its saying anything new. The emphasis on the impact of social media is over stated but I agree with the general point that social media becomes more powerful when the conversation is hosted by the relevant department or expert. I also agree that a flat comms structure within a business represents mature social media strategy but its not as easy and evolutionary as Mr. Solis might have us believe.
So what do you think, dear reader?
Tags: blog, evolution, hack100, socialmedia, solis
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