User experience // the influence of social media.

According to an article by Kevin O'Connor, president of User Insight, the social media shift has meant that now "the consumer really is king." In the current landscape, social media has been identified by many businesses as both a great threat and opportunity.
  

Successful and innovative companies are able to get over the initial overwhelming of the size and power of this platform, their inability to control the public messages that are communicated around their brand. Brands must work harder on an ongoing, current and personally-relevant strategy if they hope to receive mindshare of these consumers; the 'earned' media of word-of-mouth that they so desperately desire. And with 92% of consumers trusting earned media (NielsenWire, 2012), developing this relationship is crucial to the success of brands. This can require significant work but clever and committed companies can reap the rewards.
  
"Most of the social media interactions (chatter) are triggered by offline experiences, and these experiences give rise to word of mouth which is carried online." (Heather Albrecht, 2011). The conversations we are participating in have not changed, it is simply the context which has been updated, and the reach multiplied exponentially. Brand experience and customer satisfaction is still at the core and we need to listen qualitatively to our customers, how they interact with brands and what's important to them. Facebook offers an ideal platform for building this relationship in a participatory way.
  
I have discussed the current communication model of participation branding in a previous post, tied to this trend in the current media landscape is the growing importance of Social Influence Marketing (SIM). SIM hinges on the power of sharing and is defined by talented digital training professional Heather Albrecht as:
  

"a technique that employs social media and social influencers to achieve an organisation's marketing and business needs."

  
The infographics below show some of the key statistics driving marketers towards these social platforms and their continuing growth as an advertising environment. With 90% of all purchases being subject to social influence and over 150 million people engaging with Facebook on external websites each month (DigitalBuzz, 2011), it's easy to see why. 74% of CMOs believe they'll tie social media efforts to hard ROI this year, are you one of them?

Adaptation needed // Google+ continues to grow.

  

Google+ was the newest kid on the block not too long ago, a rival it seemed for the huge social network of Facebook, who already claims over 800 million users.

  

More and more companies are embracing social media platforms, as well as online search functions such as SEO and PPC, as integral to their campaigns online and broader marketing strategies. 

  

Not only have the initial functions of Google+ drawn attention, but rather how this platform is anticipated to grow and change has been the centre of many recent discussions.

  

The upcoming changes to the Google+ platform will have a large impact on businesses' SEO and the way we advertise, according to an article on the Business Insider SAI website. According to Business Insider writer Matt Rosoff, "Google+ could change the entire way we use the Web - and drive millions of websites who depend on Google to change how they attract customers."

  

Ranking highly in Google organic search results will depend more heavily on how people are interacting with the brand, particularly through Google+ and the +1 button function. This means that social media strategy will take prominence over SEO strategy in its traditional sense; brands will need to earn true engagement with their audience in order to attract new consumers.

  

Creative innovation and adaptation are the themes of the year so far, as brands large and small come to realise that staying ahead of the game is both a severe challenge and essential to thrive in this new media landscape.