Sensis have issued the 2012 e-business report, and it’s full of interesting trends in the social and mobile spaces. CosmicVillage has been following these reports over the last 5 years which have reflected the increase in Social and Mobile activity in SME (Small-Medium Enterprises). Five years is not a very long time for the amount of change SMEs have had to endure, but this is the pace of technological change – and as such it’s adapt or suffer for most SMEs.

Below are a few highlights from the report with a commentary (the full report link is placed at the end).

SMB Social Media Presence

All SMEs showed a 9% increase in having a social media presence, with Facebook being the primary social networking site of choice.

Impact of Social Media

Many businesses fear using Social Media and with the recent ruling that Facebook pages can now become legal minefields, I have heard many businesses question using social media. However, the Sensis report shows that there is 50% likelihood of positive or zero impact vs. a 2% chance of negative impact.

Advertising in Social + Mobile

SMEs are now dedicating a portion of their advertising budgets to Social Media and Mobile, with almost 1/5 of advertising budget dedicated to Social Media.

Digital Strategies

SMEs are now incorporating both Social Media and Mobile into their digital media strategies. Not surprisingly, Mobile remains higher than Social Media as was the case in 2011. This may be due to SMEs recognising the shift from web to mobile based services and the development of apps.

Apps

SMEs are still reluctant to develop applications for their business, even though they recognise the importance of Mobile.  This was a rather surprising result and could be due to the high cost of application development and lack of knowledge from a SMEs perspective. Apple of course dominated the application market, however another surprise was the low rate of tablet applications being developed.

Internet Access Preference

The report indicates a growing trend that Australians are now accessing the internet through their mobile devices with over 55% of respondents affirming this.

Mobile Usage by Age

The majority of all respondents across all age demographics are now using mobile phones to access the internet, reflecting that we have now definitely moved into the mobile web and use it as a form of keeping connected at work, home and whilst out.

Social Network Usage by Age

Social networks are now also being accessed by all age groups with obvious results for Gen Y and under demographics, but also a large and growing portion of 50+ Social Networking users.

Frequency of using Social Networks

Two thirds of all respondents surveyed admitted to using Social Networks more than once per day, and 59% responding with at least once per day, indicating that we use our social networks to communicate and keep up with the latest news from our circles.

For the full report click HERE.

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At the beginning of 2012, I wrote about a new mobile social networking site called Path. Since then Path has grown in user numbers significantly, with a majority of my network of friends alone jumping onto the app.

The beauty behind Path not only resides within is multiple platform features and functionality (it’s a music player/store; it’s a phone camera with filters; it enables check-in and tagging; it can push updates through to other social networks) but also that Path is becoming what the new representation of personal social networking will look like – a more niche and limited network of connected friends and a social network based purely on a mobile platform.

These two factors are very important as we start to see a decline in growth in web based social networks (excluding micro-blogging sites) and a trend towards more visually stimulated content through mobile platforms (e.g. Instagram, Pinterest, Viddy).

Path has recently released their latest update, version 2.5 with a few new features:

Personal Content – Path users currently have the ability to share what music they are listening to, and now will also have the ability to share what books they are reading and what movies they are watching. The books we read, and films we watch are rather personal choices which in turn helps drive that core personal social networking within the platform as our connections engage with these content drivers. Book data is pulled from iBooks whilst Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster integrate into our movie selections.

Personal Engagement – To help users keep the network active, Path has introduced a couple of new features to ensure your community self-polices users who have become stagnant. With a new ‘nudge’ feature, similar to the Facebook poke, users can now remind people in their networks that they should come back to Path and share content on the network. User’s friend lists now provide details of when each connection was last on Path, but then also go on further to allow each user to send a ‘quick update’ request to the people in their networks by requesting to: (i) Take a photo (ii) Provide location; and (iii) request their current status.

Additional Filters – Path’s Instagram like photo filters have now also been upgraded with four additional features to allow users to capture their ‘moments’ and share this with their networks. The new functions available are Glow, Depth, Zoom and Cropping of images.

Overall, Path is simply heading in the right direction of ensure its customers are provided with necessary tools to make social networking more personal, and more efficient using smartphones.

How often do you use Path? Religiously or hardly ever?

As always, please share + enjoy!

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami
Google+: Rami Mandow
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Website: www.cosmicvillage.net

There has always been a bit of a gap between Social Media & Selling through Social Media. Too many in the industry, to do both together is somewhat a bit of a taboo. But as Social Networks grow and flourish with users (Customers), businesses must learn to adapt to this market and have the ability to be able to not only use these platforms as a form of communication, but to monetize them.

Many people will read the above paragraph and think, “Social Media is not for sales” and simply not read on. However, we are fast entering a phase of Social Media where Social Commerce will become just as important as the media itself. Look around, we are already moving into a world where Mobile Wallets are being used, Social Media data is used for targeted advertising and big players like Amazon, Facebook and Google have implemented their own commerce facilities.

Recently, I was invited (and happily accepted) to participate in the beta release of a new Social Commerce Platform, called community engine.

What struck me first about this platform was the beauty of all being about me. If I wanted to follow a business, I would see its offers and notices. This has a deep connection with consumers such as myself, because frankly, I tune out to all the white noise online and only watch, listen, see, read and engage with the content that is relevant to me.

Coming from the world of Social Media & operating a Social Media company, I have used many platforms in my day to day activities. My phone has 32 Social Media related apps that I use at least once per day for both business and pleasure. But community engine seems to link all the pieces of the puzzle together in a perfect symphony that appeals to every one of my Social Media Receptors as a Consumer and a small business owner.

For the small business side – I am able to create my own piece of real estate on community engine and explain everything about my business. Surely this feature is available on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ but it is only on community engine that you are able to integrate this with a sense of Community amongst other businesses in your network. Be that current stakeholders or new invitees!

In fact you can build a community from scratch around your business, by creating the space and sending out invites. There is no intrusive ‘adding to a group’ feature like Facebook, or the constant begging of people to follow your business profile like that on LinkedIn. A simple email is delivered to the recipient and if it is in line with their interest, they accept and become part of your Community.

Think that none of your customers will want to visit yet another Social Platform? Here is where community engine has made it very simple. Import your existing mailing lists / database into community engine and the invite is sent automatically to them.  Such simplicity derives such beauty in the connections we need to make but struggle to find the time to do so in our daily activities.

community engine is not like a Facebook page where you can leave a post and your fans have to visit the page or see the post in the active news feed to interact with. No. community engine offers a real-time communication network with your community, your members through the usage of the noticeboard and newswire.

The newswire behaves like a status feed of all your connections recommendations and posts – be that news, a special offer or a notice. The left hand column provides a chronological history of real social qualitative data that your network has communicated – this ticks the first box because it reduces the white noise of everything else you really do not want to read about. The right hand column still gently reminds us that we are part of a network of businesses that have products / services we are interested in – deals, offers and promotions in an easy to digest presentation.

The Noticeboard, which behaves much like a Pinterest exploration tab, gives the user an overall easy to scan view of all the output the communities they follow have shared on community engine. This helps me as a time limited business owner to review visually the right information I need to make that engagement possible. No fluff, no time wasting.

To make this platform even more social, each business can claim their own business (most are already preloaded for you) and use the platform to customise their profiles, message, receive feedback and obtain recommendations from customers, in addition to the general social media buttons we have grown custom too (‘Like’ & ‘Recommend’). This completes the circle of Social Interaction between business and Customer. A direct social channel to help all forms of communication is now open through the community engine Platform.

And if you think all this has nothing to do with Social Commerce – community engine once again integrates the perfect facilitation of transactions between business and customer. The platform contains an online payment facility driving the customer to purchase from the business (through community engine) with the click of a few buttons. In the past many companies have struggled to obtain a merchant facility that can help drive this revenue back from the digital platforms into the ledger books. In fact attempting to obtain a merchant facility can prove to be bigger than Ben Hur these days. But the community engine platform has just revolutionised this with one quick step that when linked to offers and promotions. These purchases are based on offers directly created by the business and not based around the terms of a deals conglomerate (e.g. expiry date, limitations) with the intent on making a quick dollar.

Sure these might be a special offer, but as they are not created to be sold on mass, they won’t create a negative experience. If a business has a special deal to place, it places it directly, and within a 1 week turnaround time, Community Engine facilitates a smooth payment transition between business & customers. Goodbye Groupon. Hello respectful Social Commerce.

Thus there are many features that businesses can use on the community engine platform that help make life for business owners, in one word, simple. Yes as a business owner, it’s my favourite word to hear on a daily basis too.

As a consumer, I can tell you that these features are so in line with what I want. I don’t want to be harassed by business in any way, shape or form. This includes my Social Media newsfeeds being flooded with constant invaluable information or selling from companies. I don’t want to have to go through a middle man such as the Daily Deals companies where I may or may not receive the end product with ridiculous clauses and restrictions. I don’t want to have to scroll through a never ending feed of jargon that doesn’t apply to me.

I simply want to glance over the things I’m interested in, have special offers capture my attention, communicate with the communities I’m interested in (on my own terms) and use Social Media in my own way. After all, this is also my piece of digital real estate. I am your customer, but I am not just another statistic on your social metrics.

Speaking as a Social Media professional and as an everyday customer, community engine offers an extraordinary experience that feels respectful of my needs and wants. It has bridged the gap between Social Media, Social Commerce and the customer in a way that allows Social Media to be used as a selling tool without having to do the selling.

Most importantly for me, it opens up the doors to small business owners around the country to a new tool that allows them to harness the power of Social Media to something more than a communication channel. And teaches our customers that they are the biggest influencers and assets our businesses will always have.

Simple.

As always, Share + Enjoy.

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Lately, I have noticed that Social Media has begun to slowly sink its many tentacles into traditional media.

It has begun to utilise these mediums by linking back social metrics about our likes, habits, behaviours and wants into mainstream media, that brings a strong need to connect with brands, due to the way our brains are wired after the Social Networking revolution (circa 2004 - current).

Here our brains make the connection between: Familiar Advertising Methods (e.g. TV) and Social Media Data (e.g. Our ‘Likes’).

Over the weekend, I got to preview some new technology coming out towards the end of this year. For many, this is going to blow your mind. But before we get into this, let’s highlight the current context of Social Media infiltrating traditional media.

It all began as businesses started to get on board that good old beast called Facebook. Suddenly, adverts in print, radio, billboard and TV started appearing with “Find us on Facebook” … this slowly evolved to “Find out more about this deal on Facebook”.

Twitter came along and with our mobiles, allowed us to converse in real-time with brands, on the spot if we had to, rather than having an experience, getting home, writing a letter / email and sending it off to the customer relations team. No, these days the complaints letters are tweets and updates on Social Media against your brand (hence the importance of Social Monitoring).

There was also a time not too long ago when print ads asked you to call a number or visit a website. These have now been replaced with QR Codes, which deliver the user straight to the appropriate destination.

Australian twitter users would probably see lots of online conversation with the hashtags #qanda #thevoiceau in their streams …. Oh yes – we’re all already hooked on Social TV!

But the best is yet to come. This year, we will see a revolution that will more than likely have impacts on the way we watch TV, gather information, do our shopping and generally interact with brands and businesses.

As mentioned, over the weekend I got to preview some new technology around the Social TV. As this was not an official release, I will not advise the source or the stakeholders. I won’t even advise on all the new features. I will advise that it did most certainly WOW me.

One feature I really enjoyed was the Multi-Screen Feature.

Imagine watching your favourite cooking show. This is the first layer in your multiscreen. Along with the usage of Hashtags and Social Polls, it will pretty much contain what you know as TV today.

Now comes the beautiful technology integration.

The second layer. This sits behind your first layer, and can be accessed very easily. This layer now contains all the information you will need to make an informed choice about purchasing whatever has been placed into the first layer. In our cooking show example, this is the recipe to the dish being made. The method on cooking and the required ingredients.

But it doesn’t stop there. The third layer, sitting comfortably behind the second layer, is that list of ingredients with prices. That list links straight into your local / favourite grocery store. And with the press of a few buttons, your credit card is debited, and you have just purchased the items you have selected on the show you are watching.

Oh yes, the future is certainly here. Still a bit more tweaking to go with these features, but they are well and truly existent. I got to play around with them and am already hooked.

And as I said – that is only One of many brilliant, futuristic and mind boggling features coming out with Social TV.

As always, Share + Enjoy!

Connect with CosmicVillage.net:

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CosmicVillage.net on Facebook
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CosmicVillage.net on Google+
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CosmicVillage.net on Pinterest

So we’ve finally hit the year 2012. And as at the time of writing this piece there are over 550 Social Media sites out there. Social Media has well and truly taken a firm grip on our lives and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be letting go. In fact, it will be the opposite, as our daily activities become more and more digitized and social media managed.

There are certain things Social Media does for me to help me with my personal daily activities.

Facebook keeps me in touch with everyone around me. Twitter keeps me in touch with not only friends, but my extended circles of interest. iTunes helps manage and play my music. Foursquare helps me keep up to date with all the latest local deals and in friendly competition with my friends. Instagram helps me become the perfect photographer. Tumblr is where I express my thoughts in my blogs (like this one!).

But now, there is a new Social Network on the block, and it allows me to do all this through one beautifully designed and presented user experience and user interface.

Path.

Path’s beauty lies in not only its clean simplicity, but also in the fact that  it allows me to share my personal story, my life journal of daily activities not with the world at large, but only the people who are within my inner network.

The Path interface is smooth and makes everything look like it is in HD quality. When scrolling down through the Path timeline, and it really is a timeline with time stamps, the user is presented with a history of ‘moments’ that each user connected to your Path has posted. This provides the rich content of being able to keep up with the latest or previous ‘moments’ your network has to offer. Arguably, this is similar to looking at your friends Facebook Timeline. However, Path has taken everyone’s timeline and made it into a social timeline, rather than a news feed.

When selecting the action functionality on Path, the user is presented with 6 options:

Photos – this function opens up the Path camera and allows the user to switch between photo/video and record a new image / video or upload one from your phone. Once selected the user is given the option to use one of Path’s in-built filters, much like Instagram, to enhance their images. 

Tagging – When the user selects the Tag option, they are first presented with their friends lists, and then offered the option of leaving a comment and tagging a location. Path has now made it easier and presented the user interface so beautifully, that the user wants to share their ‘shared moments’ with those around them.

Check-In – As with the Tagging feature, users can select their location then input a comment and tag friends with it.

Music – This feature allows users to let their network know what they are listening to. The first selections of songs that appear are based on what your network has previously listened to, and the search functionality allows users to select artists and their music. Once again, the ability to leave a comment, tag a friend and location are also present. Like what someone in your Path is listening to? With Path, you can now purchase music directly through the Path network.

Comment – The comment feature on Path is the exact as it is on the Facebook Status update or Twitter Tweet post. Without the character limitations though.

Asleep/Awake – A wonderful new feature that allows your network to see if you are available or not, this stunning function tells the world you are awake and ready to interact or you are asleep and not to be disturbed.

Once any of these features are used, the user then has the ability to post the update into their other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare, helping manage all these networks from the one platform.

One of the features I do find a little creepy about Path is that when you look at someone’s profile (their Path), that user is notified that you have reviewed it. Whilst this is nice to see who is interested in you, it can present a problem with the online stalkers who keep returning to your Path. However, it is understandable, because with Path you are not meant to add the world to your network, only those you want to share your personal journal with.

There is a theoretical number which states that our human brains can only sustain a maximum number of social relationships that are considered ‘stable’. This number is roughly 150. Path seizes the opportunities that Dunbar’s number presents and makes the user want to only build connections with those who they want to share their most personal experiences with.

We all got caught up in the Facebook craze of adding people to our networks who were not a part of our current lives. School friends we haven’t seen in 10 years, business contacts who requested to add us but we couldn’t say no, friends of friends we only ever met once – and yet we share so much of our personal activities without hesitation. Not to mention with all the information that Facebook provides to third parties.

Whilst I still think Facebook is an amazing social network, I have come to realise that Facebook for me now is more about business than it is about personal. Using Facebook as a cornerstone of your business’s social media strategy is a winning formula. Using Facebook as a person is becoming more and more difficult each day with the rapid changes, the thinking twice before posting your thoughts and sifting through Facebook’s terms & conditions / privacy policies which has become harder than learning quantum physics.

Does that mean I’m going to leave Facebook? No. Facebook has become an extension of my brain. It helps me keep up with all the latest events, it helps me remember everyone’s birthdays, and it helps me converse and engage with businesses. Not to mention all the benefits it provides my business, CosmicVillage.net,  on the world’s largest social network. As such, I will keep Facebook and continue to enjoy its growth and what it offers as the more open Social Network (i.e. use Facebook as I would use Twitter – as a business communication tool).

For me personally, Path will be the journal I want my inner circle to see, and engage with.

Path is measured in moments, which makes each of the posts something you shared more special. Path allows me to achieve all my personal activities (Check-ins, music, photos) with those closest to me, so that they can interact with me on the personal level I know them for. And when I want to share something with the bigger world, Path allows me to post directly to Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Foursquare from the one application, avoiding having multiple accounts to manage.

I don’t work for Path, nor am I a representative of them. I just find Path a truly richer and more in-depth personal social network for all those personal moments.

The world doesn’t want to hear about or see what I’m having for breakfast. My personal connections do.

Over the next few weeks I will be delving into the booming world of Daily Deals Sites with my blog series. I have been interviewing people, seeking lots of feedback through social networks, gathering articles and learning about this new craze that according to one report will be a $400M industry in Australia alone by the end of 2011.

This morning I woke to 3 articles about Daily Deals sites in my stream.

The first is written by Rita McGrath in today’s Harvard Business Review. Rita writes how Google dodged a bullet by having Groupon reject their $5.3Billion offer. Since then we have seen lots of speculation about Groupon, and an IPO that seems to constantly be postponed. Could there be more than meets the eye to the rapidly collapsing walls within Groupon, or is the deals industry as one of my interviewees put it: “The world’s newest and most successful shams”

In the same article, Rita cites research conducted by Thumbtack that many daily deals in local service industry are actually priced equal or higher than the average local price of the service. Could our need for ‘finding a saving’ in tough economic times be clouding our ability to think logically and rationally?

The second article I read this morning was by Noah Davis at Business Insider restating the research conducted by Thumbtack, and presented some interesting graphs (from Business Insider):

Approaching this from a consumer perspective it is rather disappointing to see these results when in one hand Deals companies are bragging about their value, their worth, their contribution to providing an ‘solution’ to our woes, and on the other hand consumers trying to find the best value for money in a tough economy, still getting ripped off.

From a business perspective, this would only make me angry. As a business owner, in tough economic times, and thanks to the internet a highly competitive market for all industries, Daily Deals sites make more money for their own wallets, and leave the business with the overwhelming task to managing brand loyalty, customer service, quality and responsiveness.

The last update from my stream is not directly related to the daily deals industry, but rather a social network platform that is doing it right with Daily Deals.

Today Foursquare launched a new service called Foursquare “Radar”. Foursquare is all about location, and in the not too distant past Foursquare introduced “Explore” which is features local deals and venue information for businesses, and the ability for businesses to add ‘Specials’.

Foursquare Explore also features trending and popular destinations around the Smartphone user’s location.

Now with Radar, Foursquare have added a whole new dimension to the Daily Deals Industry. Radar now allows user to set customisable alerts and lists to notify them of all the Daily Deals and specials offered within the Foursquare explore platform. Users set their parameters, and this information feeds through as a push notification when within proximity of the deal or special being offered.

This is the winning formula for daily deals sites. Consumers don’t want mountains of emails to sift through, and businesses don’t want to have to spread their services so far across large masses that it destroys their customer loyalty or experiences. This tool still allows consumers to catch daily deals, when they are most relevant to them and more importantly who they are most relevant too. Consumers have their own brand preferences, and by setting up their lists they can capture the same daily deals and specials offered by businesses, that they would through daily deals sites, with half the time and effort.

American Top-Grade Deals companies Bloomspot  and Groupon offers their customers products and services from the top end of the market. This first-class offering helps consumers select the brands they are mostly loyal too, and doesn’t detriment the business by hoarding the masses. Now, with Radar, every company can utilise this service offering by creating brand loyalty to the customers who are interested in their products / services as per consumers’ selections when setting the parameters in their Foursquare Radar application.

Foursquare have today revolutionised the daily deals industry, and it will be interesting to see what the daily deals sites do to adapt to this radical shift.

Next week’s blog is on how businesses can avoid using daily deals sites, and still obtain equivalent or better results.

As always, Share + Enjoy!

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