5 posts tagged “new media”

Corporations: Using Social Media for Long Term Gain

Sep 10, 2008
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I've been curious to get a better understanding of companies in Australia that are using social media in some way, shape or form as part of an overarching business strategy. I'm not really seeing too many brands using consistent and long-term social media as a vehicle for communication with their audiences.

This is not to say that there aren't companies operating in this space. However, I am finding that companies in Oz are mainly using social or new media in short-term campaigns to meet short-term objectives. For example, there are companies using social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace to launch products or make announcements. What we need to keep in mind here is that once we create a network such as this, it really needs to be maintained. You need to be in it for the long haul.

This thinking sparked after a conversation I had with a journalist earlier this week. I think [and emphasis on 'think'] we both came to the conclusion that there is more that we can be doing in this space in Australia. We need to see more companies here using long-term social media activities such as corporate blogging for long-term gain.

Social media can be a successful tool when it is used as a long-term vehicle. Most importantly, it lets you listen to what conversations are happening online around your brand. Once you have a listening strategy in place it provides you with an opportunity to build relationships with those influencers that are having those conversations - and finally, it provides you with the platform to directly engage with them.

And in the wise words of The Cluetrain Manifesto - "markets are conversations". Today is about building and maintaining relationships with your audiences and the best method to do this is by engaging in direct and ongoing conversations with them.

An excellent example is Telstra's nowwearetalking. The site is a platform for open and direct dialogue between Telstra and its audiences. It lets the public have its say and voice any concerns on issues affecting Australians and the telecommunications industry. This site is a long-term tool that has been implemented to increase Telstra's transparency, ultimately enhancing its public perception, reputability and credibility in Australia.

The other great aspect of this site that seems to be working in Telstra's favour is that it provides a vehicle for Telstra to tell its own stories and announce its own news first. Thanks to this site, Telstra is able bypass the gatekeepers and rather than relying on the media to communicate the news, Telstra is able to do this itself. In fact I think Australian journalists' even regularly frequent the nowwearetalking site to collect research for their own stories.

I also recently read about what Nestle is doing with social media in Australia. Nestle will be solely relying on social media advertising to launch a new character for the Kit Kat Chunky. According to Lara Sinclair, "Nestle confectionary will not use any traditional media to promote the brand."

The reason for this - social and new media allows you generate fast word of mouth and peer-to-peer recommendation. Furthermore, it allows you to act local and reach global! And as we know, statistics these days tend to be tipping in favour of peer-to-peer recommendations as trust in traditional advertising and corporations is on the decline.

I'll be tuned in to this space. If you have any case studies that you can share with me of Aussie companies using social media for long-term benefits - please let me know. Also - are there any tangible results that you can share? Examples of companies that have used social media and it has positively impacted on the bottom line?

Frocomm New Media Summit: The shift to work life integration

Sep 2, 2008
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Andrew Maiden from Telstra made a comment at this morning's Frocomm session on CEO perspectives regarding the importance of new media. The comment was around how it is no longer about 'work life balance' but that it is about 'work life integration' these days - and I couldn't agree more.

We are noticing this shift more and more thanks to new technologies such as smartphones and the plethora of other mobile devices that provide you with the capabilities to access email, IM, social media applications such as Twitter, social networking sites and other emerging technologies that are making it easier than ever to connect with work and friends from pretty much any environment.

Ultra-portable, ultra-light notebooks such as the Toshiba Portégé R500 or MacBook Air are also making it easier to take your work with you. The exciting thing here is that technology is actually keeping up with the changes of today's lifestyle. The iPhone and other MIDs are perfect examples of this.

I could spend time going into the debate about whether or not these devices and technologies are infringing on our personal lives and making it impossible to balance work and life but I’m not going to. Reason being – I don’t think this is a relevant debate anymore, at least not entirely. Thanks Andrew for point this out.

I’m not sure that people are still seeking work life balance these days. It’s idealistic and rather utopian if you ask me. By the way, feel free to slam me here if you completely disagree but I am more inclined to believe that today’s workers are happy to tip the scales one way or another from time to time. Let me put this point to life using me as an example:

I wake up early in the morning and check my email when I’m still in my pyjamas or house clothes (call it what you will). I then drive into work, get a coffee, read the Fin Review, the technology headlines and log on to my PC at the same time. I tend to emails mostly, action the important ones, talk to my teams regarding priorities, and then I review and respond to emails some more. It’s then on to client meetings, conference calls, internal and/or external WIP meetings and that will quite safely take me to the end of the day when I head home. Sometimes I go home and log on to email after dinner to do a quick check to see the emails that have hit my inbox from the APAC countries that I work with – but sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and tend to emails before heading to work. Once at work I check my emails and do more of the stuff I talk about above. I then have lunch for an hour, come back and do some work and then leave at 3pm to take my grandma to the doctor – and no, I don’t come back to work and sometimes I don’t even log back on to work emails from home.

I’m a good example of a worker that integrates work with life. I don’t try and squeeze or build my life around work instead I make sure that both complement one another. Some days I may work longer hours but such is the nature of work or responsibility, and any responsibility for that. A relationship takes time and effort – you have to put in the hard yards in these too.

I have the flexibility at my workplace to do these things and I think we are starting to see this happen across more organisations and industries.

Anyway, this is my rant. I’d love to get your thoughts on the shift from work life balance to work life integration. Do you agree/ disagree?

Why New Media? CEO Perspectives

Sep 2, 2008
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