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Archives for 2010

5 Great Infographics Tell the Story of Top Social Media and Online Brands

Infographics have become very popular of late because they have a tendency to go viral quickly.  If you’re not familiar with the infographics craze yet, then let me start by telling you what an infographic is.

Infographics is a fusion of the words information and graphics.  Infographics are visual representations of complex information.  Typically, they are very colorful and highly visually stimulating, and they deliver a large amount of information and data in a concise manner.

I often find links to interesting infographics in my Twitter stream.  People do share infographics with their own audiences, and they can be a great way to spread information about your brand or company or simply to educate consumers in an effort to provide useful content to them.  With that in mind, I found 5 great infographics from Infographicslab that quickly tell the stories of some of the top online and social media brands.  Take a look at the infographics included in this post and see for yourself why infographics are shared so often.  First of all, they just look cool.  Second, they really are useful.

The World of Facebook

Curious about how Facebook became a dominant brand in the world of social media?  Click on the image below to view the full Facebook infographic.


infographic-facebook-domination


The Meteoric Rise of Twitter

Few companies and brands have experienced the fast and amazing growth that Twitter has.  Click on the image below to view the full Twitter graphic and relive the explosive growth of Twitter.


infographic-twitter-rise


A Visual Look at Google

Who would have thought back in the days when Altavista and AOL were the dominant online brands that Google would become the powerhouse that it is today.  Click on the image below to view the full Google history infographic to see how it happened.


infographic-google-history


The World without Apple

Could you imagine a world without Apple?  A decade ago, such a thought may not have been that shocking.  Today, that’s definitely not the case.  Apple has infiltrated our daily lives, and if you click on the image below, you can view the full infographic that tells the story of life without Apple.


infographic-world-without-apple


A Close up of Zynga

If you’re not familiar with Zynga, chances are you’re familiar with one of the social games that the company offers.  In fact, Zynga owns 6 of the top 10 Facebook games, including Farmville, Mafia Wars, and Texas Hold ‘Em.  Click on the image below to view the full Zynga statistics infographic to learn more about why and how Zynga became a social web leader.


infographic-zynga-statistics


Now that you’ve seen how interesting infographics can be and understand their potential virality, start thinking of what kinds of infographics you can create for your organization.  Infographics can directly or indirectly promote a brand and company.  In fact, the exposure popular infographics get in terms of being viewed by and discussed by a global audience is huge.  Start brainstorming now about ways that you can get involved and harness some of that potential!

Images: Infographicslab

Teens Loud and Strong in Word-of-Mouth Marketing

teen-word-of-mouth-marketingA report from the Keller Fay Group, reported by BrandWeek, delivers interesting results related to a year-long research study.  According to the study, the hyper-social lives of teenagers helps brands.  It turns out, teens are responsible for a “disproportionate amount of word-of-mouth about products and services.”

What amazes me from this study is not that teens talk about brands and are a powerful form of word-of-mouth marketing but that the majority of those discussions happen in-person.  In a time in history when it seems teens are hyper-connected and the forgotten art of face-to-face communication is fading away faster than ever, a full 75% of word-of-mouth marketing generated by teens is done through face-to-face communications.  Just 13% of word-of-mouth marketing by teens occurs online and only 10% happens via telephone.

Another point that stands out in the Keller Fay Group study is the finding that tell us which brands teens are talking about the most:

  1. Coca-Cola
  2. Apple
  3. Verizon
  4. iPod
  5. Ford
  6. Pepsi
  7. McDonald’s
  8. AT&T
  9. Sony
  10. Nike

It turns out that teens involved in the study engaged in “significantly more” word-of-mouth marketing related to “all categories” than the total consumer audience.  Consider these statistics:

  • 78% of teens engage in word-of-mouth marketing related to entertainment and media compared to just 57% of the general public.
  • 67% of teens engage in word-of-mouth marketing related to technology compared to just 39% of the general public.
  • 63% of teens engage in word-of-mouth marketing related to telecommunications compared to 39% of the general public.
  • 59% of teens engage in word-of-mouth marketing related to retail and apparel compared to 38% of the general public.
  • 63% of teens engage in word-of-mouth marketing related to sports, recreation and hobbies compared to 42% of the general public.
  • 45% of teens engage in word-of-mouth marketing related to personal care and beauty compared to 26% of the general public.

Of course, it’s important to remember that a teen’s audience is typically not as broad as an adult’s, and a teen’s reach is not as wide as an adult’s.  Furthermore, a teen’s sphere of influence and credibility is not often well-established as an adult’s might be.  Therefore, the power of a teen’s word-of-mouth marketing is relative to his or her reach and authority.  However, for brands that target teens, this data should be considered quite compelling and used to support budget requests for brand-building, social media marketing, content marketing, and other activities that elicit word-of-mouth marketing.

What do you think?

Image: stock.xchng

Wildlife Trust Rebrands as EcoHealth Alliance

wildlife-trust-logoWildlife Trust is a nonprofit organization that began in 1971 with a focus on wildlife conservation, but over the past 20 years, the organization has expanded its focus to include conservation medicine based on research about the relationships between ecosystems and animal and human health around the world.

Throughout the past two years, the organization’s board of directors, staff and alliance members have been working on rebranding Wildlife Trust, and today, the new brand was introduced officially via a press release.

Wildlife Trust has been renamed as EcoHealth Alliance with a new website and slogan: “Local Conservation, Global Health.”  The new EcoHealth Alliance logo is shown below.


ecohealth-alliance-logo


The goal of the rebranding effort is to more accurately present the organization’s dual focus on local wildlife conservation and it’s ongoing leadership in the area of conservation medicine and the relationships between animal ecosystems and human health.  The effort won’t stop with a new name, logo and website.  EcoHealth Alliance is also hiring new scientists, forming new alliance partnerships, and developing more programs to support the brand’s dual focus.

As the EcoHealth Alliance website explains:

“EcoHealth Alliance works at the intersection of ecosystem, animal and human health through local conservation programs and develops global health solutions to emerging diseases.”

Furthermore, EcoHealth Alliance is marketing its new brand focus with messaging that positions the organization as being on, “the forefront of informing the public, businesses, and the scientific community about emerging diseases, including potential pandemics.”

If it was the organization’s goal to shift its brand focus, then one would think that they made a wise strategic move in rebranding to better promote their efforts related to health and medicine.  To the average individual, the Wildlife Trust was very much rooted in wildlife conservation with the masses knowing very little about the organization’s other priorities.  The new branding puts health and medicine center stage with wildlife conservation taking a back seat.  It appears that this was the intent of the rebranding effort, and if that’s true, then the rebranding should work well.

What do you think?  Does the rebranding work?  When you look at the new logo and hear the new brand name, do you still think of wildlife conservation or has the entire brand promise shifted with this rebranding effort?  I’m leaning toward the latter.  I wonder if that was truly the organization’s intent.

Your thoughts?

More Skydiving: Adventures in Employer Branding with the U.S. Army


Skydiver 2

There’s anybody-can-do-it skydiving . . . and then there’s “Army Strong” skydiving.  Just take a look at  the illustration on the right for an example of that second category!

Here’s the photo caption:

At a zero angle of attack, better known as a “No Lift Dive,” Sgt. 1st Class Cheryl Stearns, from the U.S. Army Parachute Team Golden Knights, holds her position to build enough air speed to execute the “style set” in a competitive amount of time.

Even for someone (like me) who definitely plans not to jump out of a plane for recreational purposes, this description sounds pretty thrilling.  And it paints a vivid picture of the challenges and achievements offered by an Army career.

A recent post on Top Rank’s Online Marketing blog describes how the Golden Knights are making skilled use of social media.  The GK media gurus invited Top Rank CEO Lee Odden, along with a few other “digerati types,” to make a jump with the Golden Knights—and his account of the experience is great reading, both for armchair adventurers and for HR marketers.

In addition to this clever outreach strategy, the GK organization hits all the social media marks, with its own blog, YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitterstream, and Flickr gallery.  There’s also a Golden Knights section on ArmyStrongStories, where “Soldiers, Cadets and Veterans of every rank, background and MOS are invited to share their unfiltered perspective on daily life in the military.”  The varied materials work together across all these channels to create a strong impression of challenge and reward—exactly the message the Army wants to convey.  And the emphasis on video really strengthens the effect.

All in all, the Golden Knights offer a great example of how to dramatize and distribute a career story.

Still haven’t had enough skydiving thrills?  Visit www.skydive-tv.com for videos of the 2010 USPA competition.  And last—here’s a less-thrilling but totally on-topic blog post from skydiving HR pro Trevor Nagle, SPHR:  Leadership and Skydiving: Lessons in Informed Risk-Taking.


(Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army.  Caption by Cpl. Sean Capogreco.)

Target Precisely and Measure What Matters

I recently invited Hilary Briggs, an experienced company director and consultant, to give us her thoughts on media measurement. She asks:

Is your message really hitting home? Ignore the data at your peril.

target and measure results“Key messages don’t always hit the target group with the desired level of impact”.

Unfortunately this is far too common a problem in the world of Corporate Communications, PR and Marketing. Or as Richard Bagnall, Managing Director of Metrica, the UK’s largest PR measurement consultancy bluntly put it: “Too many PR professionals take a blunderbuss approach – firing out press releases to lists of contacts on a media type approach rather than investing the time to develop a target audience approach.”

It got me thinking… as a Management Consultant, with an Engineering background, I have a passion for solving problems. In particular, I like to collect data, analyse it and come up with ways to fix whatever the issue is. So I asked myself; “could data analysis help communications professionals hone their key messages and ensure they hit the right people with the real impact?”

I believe it can. And a good example of this is Darren LaCroix, winner of the 2001 Toastmasters International Speech contest. In order to become a World Champion public speaker he took advice from other Champions. One tip he was given was “Let no one out prepare you.” So, amongst other things, he presented his speech to 22 different audiences, and videotaped almost seven hours of his practice speeches to prepare for his seven-minute winning speech. One of the key things he was looking for was how well he was connecting with his audience.

So the tough question is; how much effort do you put into testing and refining your messages before launching them in a crucial presentation or article? How well defined are your objectives? How will you measure success?

If success comes from doing appropriate research up front, what could be learnt from the Market Research sector itself? Recognising how using a systematic approach can improve the consistency of results, the industry has put in a lot of work over the last 15 years with bodies such as the Market Research Standards Board and British Standards Institute to develop methods to ensure this happens and that quality levels are raised as well. In a nut shell, market research is about finding out what a particular target group are thinking or doing. Hence I would argue that it would be worth considering some of their approaches in the PR and Corporate Communications field.

It’s fine for them you say, they have much bigger budgets. Maybe – if the projects that are requiring the research represent major investments by the clients. But what tools might there be though to test messages in a cost effective way? For instance, on-line methods are fast, cheap, and effective – as long as they will reach the particular target audience you’re after. The key is to ensure you are clear about what you want to achieve, what success looks like, and then develop appropriate Key Performance Indicators. As Richard Bagnall told me, “many of the measures that people use can be meaningless – the best practitioners measure what matters”. For instance, percentage of the target audience reached (this requires a tight definition of who they are) and what actions they have taken as a result of the communication – e.g. did target investors actually invest?

Still unconvinced? Then turn the question around and consider the cost of failure in the Corporate Communications arena. The last 12 months has seen massive swings in the share prices of the likes of BP and major Banks. Extreme cases you argue – but what if the impact was just 0.1% of share price? For the average FTSE100 company, even that would be worth over £10m! And for smaller companies that have floated only recently, the success or failure of regular corporate communications can mean the difference between the company establishing itself with analysts and investors – or not…

Thorough analysis of each communication activity can yield useful insights to allow refinement and improvement for the next one. For instance, companies like Metrica can help to identify how much of the target audience was reached, as well as who was not reached – which can then be further studied to improve the effectiveness of future campaigns. Adopting this kind of approach consistently will lead to more impact with less waste – handy when budgets are under pressure.

There are signs that more and more companies are starting to adopt this kind of approach, evidenced by the number of companies working in the measurement space. They have their own trade body, the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), established in 1996, which has set out to define and develop the whole industry of media measurement.

Audiences in every field are becoming more sophisticated. And the attention spans are ever shorter. “Right first time” communications is hard to guarantee, however you may only get one chance, so it’s worth doing everything you can to make it count. In my experience you’ll reap huge dividends if you invest the time and resources to test approaches in advance, have clear KPI success measures and to set up a feedback loop for ongoing improvements in the methods.

As Darren LaCroix also learnt, the thing that marks out true professionals is that they think differently. He gave me the example of what another World Champion public speaker did after winning his title, “The minute Craig Valentine stepped off his plane, he went and bought a book on public speaking!”

Thanks Hilary!

Hilary Briggs is Managing Director of R2P (Route to Profit) Ltd and Chairman of the Academy of Chief Executives in London. Hilary is passionate about helping businesses grow.

Hilary has been Logistics Director for Rover Group Large Cars; European Product Marketing Director for Dishwashing, Whirlpool Corporation and Managing Director of Laird Group plc’s German-based Car Body Sealing Division, with a turnover of £200m and over 4,000 employees worldwide.

Contact: hilary.briggs@r2p.co.uk / www.hilarybriggs.co.uk

Two Colors Dominate Web Branding

social-web-logos-2In a recent article on ColourLovers.com, the two most popular colors for brands on the web were determined to be blue and red.  In fact, blue and red aren’t just in the lead — they dominate the web.  Take a look at the image showing just a handful of logos for major players in the world of social media to see for yourself!

Interestingly, the research done by ColourLovers.com also found that brands in similar categories use similar color schemes in their branded online destinations.  However, it appears that for most of these brands, color palettes were chosen in a far less technical manner than you might expect.

Most of the popular online destinations started small with no budgets for logo development.  Colors were chosen not based on research but rather on what leaders of these technology start-ups thought looked good.

Sometimes branding really is that simple, and sometimes that simple approach actually works.

The popularity of blue and red online isn’t really surprising if you look at color branding offline.  As ColourLovers.com points out, a study conducted a decade ago by Wired Magazine revealed that blue and red dominated brands and logos of Corporate America at the time.  This was years before brands like Twitter and foursquare became household words.

But what do blue and red actually mean?

Blue: Cool blue is perceived as trustworthy, dependable, fiscally responsible and secure. Strongly associated with the sky and sea, blue is serene and universally well-liked. Blue is an especially popular color with financial institutions, as its message of stability inspires trust.

Red: Red activates your pituitary gland, increasing your heart rate and causing you to breathe more rapidly. This visceral response makes red aggressive, energetic, provocative and attention-grabbing. Count on red to evoke a passionate response, albeit not always a favorable one. For example, red can represent danger or indebtedness.

What do you think?  Are blue and red the best choices for online brands?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.