a little blogging ecosystem

Wow...I can't believe that my experiment in blogging is coming to an end. Over the past 9 weeks, I have found starting and maintaining a blog to be like nurturing a fragile ecosystem. With an infinite number of interdependent parts, losing focus or paying too much attention to any one aspect of the blog jeopardized its growth. While best practices emerged, there was no singular formula for success or set of directions to follow. Instead the challenges of content, user experience and objective-integration, lead to a broadened perspective on the life of a blog. Perhaps the greatest lesson I learned was the need to develop/find a voice that is authentic and consistent. Without authenticity readers won't respond and without consistency the blog cannot transcend itself. 

GroupOn GroupingOn

 It looks like everyone loves a good deal, but especially those with a little more cash. Recent data released by GfkMRI shows that Groupon.com is used by all generations and more frequently by those with higher incomes. Among adults who visited Groupon.com in March, 38% were Millennials (born between 1977 and 1994), 29% were GenXers (1965 to 1976) and 29% were Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964). Additionally, Groupon.com users are more than twice as likely as non-Groupon.com users to live in households with annual incomes in excess of $100,000.  Further, Groupon.com users are 73% more likely to live in households whose net worth exceeds $1 million!

 

While the innovative couponing platform has motivated high income households to visit Groupon.com merchants, serious unintended consequences are surfacing.  Researchers from Boston University conducted a study which shows that while the number of reviews increases significantly due to daily deals, average rating scores from Yelp! reviewers who mention daily deals are about 10 percent lower than scores of their peers. As emerging media and commerce sites reach expanded audiences, it will be interesting to note resulting dissonance between intended and actual outcomes. 

Something new or just a better mousetrAPP?

I use to have a Polaroid camera. It was awesome. A chunky, but profoundly innovative photo making machine. Then, digital technology came along and this once mind blowing piece of technology found its permanent resting place in my basement. I had evolved and moved on.  Polaroid photos were a thing of the past. They were blurry, faded and impractically sized.

Recently, Facebook acquired photo-sharing app, Instagram, for $1 billion. Ironically, these digital pictures look an awful like Polaroids. The acquisition has made me wonder about the true nature of digital innovation. Sure photos can now be taken, shared and reproduced at an unprecedented rate, but is there really anything that different?

A report from Flurry Analytics shows that the fastest growing app categories are photo and video, music and productivity.  Are these category leaders surprising? Secretly disappointing? Would love to hear your thoughts…  

The difference between a YorkiePoo and a customer

This is Jack.  He is my dog and I love him, really I do, but Jack is needy. More specifically, Jack craves attention, my attention, all the time. He loves to play and constantly wants to engage and interact. Admittedly, a lot of times I just don’t have the energy to respond. As a result, Jack gets sad and barks at me. Thankfully, all is forgiven in a matter of seconds.

Like Jack, consumers love to engage and interact with brands online. Unlike Jack they don’t forgive and forget when brands fail to respond. While this may seem like Online Customer Service 101, brands still aren’t getting it! A recent report by STELLASERVICE found that “one out of four companies failed to respond to a customer-service question posted on their Facebook wall, and even fewer replied to questions asked as comments on their posts.”

More than just being rude, a brand’s failure to respond severely alters consumer attitude and behavior. According to Conversocial 49.5% of consumers said that they would be “far less likely to buy anything from that company” if their question or complaint on a social media page went unanswered.

So, as our brands gain followers online, we can’t get lazy. All will not be forgiven. Go fetch! 

Do we like to vote more than we vote to like?

It was the Fall of 2004 when political philosopher and thinker P. Diddy told me to “Vote or Die.” Here’s the truth: I didn’t vote and I didn’t die. In fact, a lot of nonvoters miraculously survived the election. In fact, nearly the same percentage survived in 1992 when there were no electoral bounties issued.

Election	Voting Age Population	Turnout	Percentage
1992	189,529,000	104,423,923	55.10%
2004	215,694,000	122,267,553	56.69%

  

If the threat of death doesn’t even get over 40% the population to vote, what will? In truth, probably nothing. If we go by the numbers, we will likely never see a dramatic change in the nonvoter percentage. I wonder too, if we will or are already seeing a leveling off of the social “voter.” A recent study by Visibli reveals that even the most engaging Facebook pages receive only about 23% of likes per post.  Currently, Justin Bieber has about 44 million likes of Facebook out of a total voting population of…well, the world.  

While new media is an exciting and powerful tool, it’s important to keep perspective and context for online initiatives and campaigns. 

Double Twitter All the Way Across the Sky

Last week I was reading about the success of Delta Air Lines in meeting customer needs and expectations through Twitter. Notably, in addition to its corporate Twitter account @Delta, Delta also maintains @DeltaAssist, an account completely dedicated to service issues. Delta Vice President of Reservation Sales and Customer Care, Allison Ausband, noted how the company quickly realized that “real time conversations” would require “real time responses.”

She’s absolutely right. This agile approach allows Delta to maintain a positive and persistent web presence that can avoid viral catastrophes. This case made me wonder - has maintaining multiple Twitter/Facebook accounts to address specific consumer concerns become best practice?

For example, the college that I work for maintains two Facebook accounts. One account is dedicated to admissions and the other for all college information and updates. Again, this approach has worked well. Alumni and current students receive and talk about information that is relevant to their lives post-college and high school students easily find engaging content about applying to college.

Digital "Self" Control

The rapid growth of emerging media would seem to suggest that the world is becoming faster, smarter and more efficient. However, the surfacing of “productivity applications” ironically suggests the opposite.  One app, for example, “Freedom,” locks users “away from the internet on Mac or Windows computers for up to eight hours at a time.”  In fact the only way for the user to regain internet access is to completely reboot the computer. Fundamentally, the app gives users freedom to focus free from digital distraction. Perhaps it’s a self created need, but it’s a need nonetheless.

Another digital time management assistant is StayFocused. An “extension for Google Chrome, StayFocusd allows you to restrict your time for specific websites. Indicate how much time you can spend on a particular website, and once that time has passed, the extension blocks that site on your computer for the rest of the day.”

While the irony of creating more digital platforms to be less distracted by current digital platforms is profound, these types of automated controls hold an important place in the emerging media landscape. When entrepreneurs remain focused on a goal, quality innovation occurs. Consequently, what will sustain digital expansion is what will limit it.