Blog of Ronnestam » Social communication

Answering 10 questions about the future of communication (in Croatia to some extent)

ronnestam — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 09:49:39 +0000

About 2 month ago I was invited to Best Internet and beautiful Zagreb in Croatia to host a full day workshop on the future of communication. Me another 85 people had a great day where I mixed speaking sessions with, what I love the most, open discussions.

Before this event I was contacted by the leading business newspaper in Croatia – Lider. They wanted me to answer 10 questions that they would base an article on. Today as I was cleaning my desktop on my computer I thought – since you probably understand as much Croatian as I do I thought this could be a good blog post. So here we go.

Johan Ronnestam answers 10 questions about the future of communication (in Croatia to some extent

1. Once you are on the internet your competition is whole world and people speak in one language (mostly english). How can local brands stay local or share national values while ‘living’ in virtual world?

Johan Ronnestam: By being just that – Local. In a globalized world people will look for the unique brand that delivers something beyond what you can shop in every parts of the world, every country and every city. The times when we all wanted Starbucks coffee is soon to be over. Everyone who’s been traveling the last ten years recognize the feeling. You travel all over the world only to find the same brands you can shop for at home. Branding and marketing has always been about differentiation – and that’s why building on local uniqueness is the way forward.

2. You wrote that brand should offer value, not just sell, sell, sell…They should teach consumers some skills or just share knowledge. I agree, but how to explain it to CEO or CFO? What and when could they expect return on investment?

Johan Ronnestam: First off. It’s really not that different from a non-digital world. The brands you wanna come back to are the brands that offer more than their product. Traditionally this used to be about well educated sales personel, customer magazines, cliniques and more. It’s time to move this knowledge online but with the understanding that online means transparency. It’s easier than ever to compare products and features. So – the online salesmen (sites) gotta focus on value over sales. Sales will follow. When it comes to return on investment I think the answer is long term growth in social networks, search and obviously brand recognition. The social and search part can easily be measured. The brand recognition is tough to isolate – but that’s always been the case. Hasn’t it?

3. Do we really know our consumers? I mean, which are the easiest ways to get to know them or test them?

Johan Ronnestam: No we don’t. We tend to think we know our consumers but the consumer (if you even wanna call them that today) today is not the same as yesterday. People are more like chameleons. We tend to jump back and forth when it comes to identity. We simply don’t wanna be tagged. Online however we can really know what our visitors do and how they perform tasks. But don’t fall into the trap thinking you know who they are. A 18 year old guy from the suburbs wont react the same way twice.

4. What are your predictions concerning investment in internet as a media? What is going to happen with traditional media?

Johan Ronnestam: In a near future I don’t think we’ll look at the landscape as a media landscape. We’ll look at it more as a formated landscape. What I mean with this is that TV commercial won’t be a TV commercial any more. A forced video message however will live on. We’ll always be in need of distributing messages containing products and brands that people never heard of – for that we can not rely on search, social media etc. Someone has to find it first. PR and ambassadors marketing will of course mean a lot for those kind of messages but there will always be a place for interrupted messages like the ones TV, Print and Outdoor deliver today. The effect of the digital revolution however is that the information gathering, the desire and even the sales part of the consumer journey will be digitalised and therefor transformed.

5. In Croatia experts talk about digital revolution, internet marketing campaigns etc, but still, none has the courage to invest or try those virtual project like those in western market. What should the do first (as beginners) and what are the things they should know before investing in internet communication? What are the biggest signals that market (consumers) are ready for that kind of communication?

Johan Ronnestam: Prototypes. Experiments. Failure. Success. Meaning – you’ll have to mark a certain part of your media budget, not your production budget, for experiments that might lead you forward. The internet is unique in the sense that no two solutions are the same for two brands. You have to find your own way forward. One thing is for sure – as we’re seeing a shift in how people consumer brands we’ll also see new winners and losers on the market. The looses, as always when a behavior changes, will definitely be the ones that doesn’t welcome change.

6. How to boost traffic and where does it come from mostly?

Johan Ronnestam: Great brands today and tomorrow are built on great products. If you got em’ people will find you. If you’re product doesn’t stand the competition. Start there.

7. You wrote that faces, copy and design are very important and warned that competitors are just click away. Can you tell us something about that?

Johan Ronnestam: In the real world if you’ve found your way to a car dealer and everything doesn’t meet your demand it’s still for you to get into the car, drive for 30 minutes and find that next dealer. Online that click is just one step away. If your audience doesn’t get your design, understand your navigation, like your tone of voice he/she will type a new search into Google and move to the next brand.

8. What can we expect in future? Boom of conversational marketing? What about virtual advertising?

Johan Ronnestam: I actually think we’re in a 10-15 year period where small brands can bloom. But once those large brands find their way online for real (yep I think most of them suck at online communication) we’ll see how Adwords auctions will be about money again – and large brands got loads of that stuff. However – I do hope some of those small brands find their way up on the global scene

9. What are your thoughts on trend of branded web-series?

Johan Ronnestam: If focused on value regarding the category in which their products exist – great. Otherwise mostly stupid.

10. Internet is all about speed…What about emotions?

Johan Ronnestam: Technology and user interfaces is not what the brand is about. It’s merely the means to deliver the consumer experience of the product. So, photography, video and copy equals emotions. The actual websites however should focus on conversion, usability. By doing so you’ll end up having consumers feeling positive. I think Apple proves that both can be achieved side by side.

Ah. And before you leave this post. Here’s the presentation I held:

110412 workshop in Zagreb

View more presentations from Johan Ronnestam

Art, Experiment, Inspiration or Plain Stupidity – Introducing Adlen & Ronnestam 24 Hours Live by Danehav

ronnestam — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 07:50:59 +0000

Me and partner in crime Göran Adlén, one of Swedens most hired and admired speakers on future trends, had a nice lunch a couple of weeks ago. Half way into a wonderful Pizza at Vapiano we suddenly cracked, what probably is our most stupid or…genius idea so far:

“Why don’t we lock our selves up somewhere and chat away about trends, communication, design, technology, the environment, the world and much more for 24 hours without any sleep or pause. NO SLEEP – NO PAUSE! and broadcast it – Live!?”

Seconds later I was off the phone with Robin Danehav, thincasting mastermind, who answered in seconds “I’m in!”.

Göran Adlén & Johan Ronnestam 24 Hours Live at Clarion Sign Hotel! Thincasted by Robin Danehav.

The event will be broadcasted live, both here on my blog and on the campaign website 24 Hours.se, as well as performed on stage at Clarion Sign Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden. So, mark the 6th and 7th of May 2011 in your calendars. Ah, almost forgot. If you’re on Twitter. Use the #24live if you wanna tag along.

Oh, and of course it’s all free. If you wanna pay something – pay me a Tweet or a Facebook link.

See you at lunchtime on the 6th of may!

ps. For you english speaking readers – the event will be held in Swedish but followed with 24 videos summarising the event – these will be text translated.

Stay Ahead Of The Competition – Here’s How I Do It.

ronnestam — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:36:17 +0000

Back in 1980, Michael Porter (most famous of creating Porter’s Five Forces) published the study Competitive-Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. It was more or less the beginning of what you today would call Competitive Intelligence - the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization.

Be Curious. Wonderfully photographed by Patricia Glogowski.

Personally I think that time has come for change. Organisation and brands today tend to believe managers are supposed to create business development departments that make sure the company stays ahead of competition. I don’t agree. In the complex world we live in it’s time to make each and every employee a part of that competitive intelligence process. In other words it’s up to you. You are the ones that can make it happen.

A constant flow of information.

The world is becoming smaller and smaller. The Internet has erased borders and will sooner or later erase even language barriers. As a result your company isn’t fighting the local competitor around the corner any more. Your brand and even you are going global. When you apply for your next job you’ll find yourself beat by someone who doesn’t even speak your language. On top of this the things you know might not even be worth knowing tomorrow. In fact, the half-life of your knowledge has gone from a lifetimes worth to three years according to research Fredrik Svensson referred to (YouTube in Swedish) as we (and my speech in Swedish) both spoke at Digdel some time ago.

As a result of all this we all have to listen, read and learn more about everything, every day, and every hour. It’ll be what your success depends on in the future.

Here’s Johan Ronnestam’s formula for keeping track of the world.

Back in 1996 I started to gather information online with different tools. It’s funny cause I’ve never enjoyed reading books on trends but online reading never seems to kill my curiosity. I guess it’s the fact that online information often is as fresh as it can come. It’s real time. So, here we go:

Netvibes – My hub of inspiration

My first and foremost tool is my Netvibes reader account that I’ve written about before. It’s filled with all kinds of things and to make sure I read the feeds I’ve entered the Netvibes site as my home page which means that every time I open my browser I’m being fed good things from all around the world – every day, every hour and every minute.

Netvibes – The source of my inspiration

Netvibes is simply an RSS reader that I’ve filled with about 350 blogs and websites that I think is necessary to keep track of. The content is a mix of both things I do have to read and other stuff that surprises me every day. When you’re looking to keep track of the outside world – make sure you’re constantly surprised by things you didn’t know you wanted to know about.

On top of that I’ve also filled it with filtered feeds. As an example I’ve gathered about 70 design blogs that are being pulled into one feed with the help of Yahoo Pipes. Another example is reading the top most saved bookmarks on Delicious. This way you’ll make sure that you read stuff you never dreamed of reading.

Netvibes is also the ultimate tool when it comes to creating dashboards in order to keep track of both your own brand and potentially your competitors. Head over to my other post on that subject.

Sharing is caring
Since I believe in sharing I also decided to post my Netvibes file here (right click to download) so that you can get going faster than you ever thought was possible. Then head over to my guide on how to install it here.

Twitter – Real time social P2P information distribution

Writing about things like this and not mentioning Twitter (here’s my Twitter account by the way) would be a crime. For many people Twitter seems like that stupid 140 character social network where people tell the world (that doesn’t listen) that they just brewed a cup of coffee. Nothing could be more wrong. Twitter, to me, is the ultimate combination of knowing what’s up in the world, keeping in touch with friends and other people who you don’t really know but might be interested what you’re up to.

Once you’ve registered an account you should of course start to follow a bunch of people. On Twitter there’s this thing called ‘follow friday’ where you more or less recommend your followers who to follow. Other people on Twitter tend to follow everyone back that follows them. In my case I actually try to read most tweets through out the day and given the fact that I’ve got more than 4000 followers it would be impossible to do just that. So in my case I’d say that my #FF are the 429 people I follow today.

In Twitter you can create your own lists (here are some I’m listed in) or follow other peoples lists. This is also unmatched. If you quickly wanna get updated (in real time) on a specific subject. Just go ahead and search for some authorities and then have a look at which lists these people are placed in. Follow one of those lists and you’ll be amazed how many great things you’ll learn in no time.

Don’t get stuck with the Twitter site. Use Tweetdeck or something similar.

When you start your Twitter venture. Don’t forget to download some kind of Twitter reader to your desktop. Using Twitter via their webpage just wont work over time. There are tons of different tools you can use. Personally I use Tweetdeck for my computer and an app called Osfoora for the iPad and iPhone. As with everything else – keep experimenting and try different tools as you get more used to this social network.

Finally, using Flipboard as stated below, in combination with Twitter and Twitter lists is the ultimate laid back ‘keeping up to date’ tool.

Flipboard – Social Reading.

This app for my iPad is the most wonderful tool in the world. Not only does it let me read my Facebook accounts and my Twitter feeds as a book. On top of that I can enter other Twitter lists, searches, Flickr accounts and most importantly Google reader accounts.

Flipboard lets you read feeds relaxed and focused

What I’ve done here is analyzed my Netbives reading behavior and then collected the 50 most important ones. I’ve then imported these into my Google reader account that I personally don’t use in my computer since I think the presentation mode stresses the hell out of me and makes it impossible for me to stay on top of my content. But with the help of Flipboard that problems is solved.

By downsizing my Netvibes feeds into the most important feeds and reading these on my iPad I’ve got the perfect tool to keep track of the world when I’m on a plane, a bus, a train or just wanna lay down on the couch and consume inspiration.

Delicious – Social Bookmarking

Another tool of mine is Delicious. It’s more or less a social replacement of your bookmark manager that you’ve got in your browser. The difference is that it’s cloud based and therefor always accessible. Comment your bookmarks and tag them with keywords and slowly but surely you’ll turn your bookmark history into a searchable history. Personally I like to tag things with both keywords, client names that they might be important for and finally cases that I often use when I speak in public.

(Note. Yahoo has signaled that they might shut Delicious down. But it seems it wont happen any time soon)

Instapaper – Turning Internet Pages Into ‘Books’

Then of course there are always resource that might seem to long to read of the screen. The computer screen that is. The Instapaper combined with your iPad or iPhone is the ultimate tool.

Instapaper turns ugly websites into a beautiful read

When you end up finding yourselves short of time, simply save the link to Delicious and then click ‘read later’ that you’ve place on your bookmark bar once you’ve created an account over at Instapaper. Boom – now that site of yours is transformed into book-look-alike that you can open on your mobile device. Once there you can favorite, archive or delete the text.

Ouora – Ask And You’ll Be Answered

Got a question. Quora probably got the answer. Otherwise just go ahead and ask. It’s as simply as that.

LinkedIn groups – Social professionals

LinkedIn hasn’t really turned in to my favorite tool just yet. But I do like the groups in there. The best part of that are usually the summaries that are being sent to me via email. I’m a member of some 40+ groups at the moment and even though lots of them are filled with spam – every now and then a pile of diamonds pour out of that network.

Facebook – Reach more than 600 million people!

Last but not least. Let’s not forget Facebook in this post. Finally, tons of good things come to me via Facebook. Both from the people I’m connected with, but also through the groups and pages I’ve liked. Use the search in Facebook and find the groups and pages that match your interests.

So. That’s how I do it. Of course I could go on about podcasts, Slideshare, YouTube, Flickr tons of other sites. But the stuff mention above is what I constantly come back to every day.

Feel free to leave your own tips in the comment field!

AIDA Transformed By Digital Media. What Does It Mean To Your Brand Communication?

ronnestam — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:03:11 +0000

The other day I wrote quite a long post on the future of integrated communication from a digital perspective. I stressed the fact that in order for your brand to create and maintain strongs brand in the future you’ve gotta provide people with true values not just fun stuff that entertains. On top of that I’ve also written a quite extensive post on how all your brands belong not to you, but to the consumer. You might wanna tap into that one too before reading this post. Here we go:

You’ve lost control of almost all of your sales process. Accept it and change or die. (Had to go punk style)

That actually happens to tactical communication as we know it when all rules are changed? What happens to ads, prints, point of sale, direct marketing etc?

Let’s me elaborate on that based on an old communication model called AIDA, Attention, Information, Desire and Acquire, first described in 1898 by E. St. Elmo Lewis. Some people say it’s dead since way back. I say it’s more alive than ever but it’s transformed.It serves a great purpose when explaining to you guys and girls heading brands and companies out there how you’re supposed to rock your brands in the future.

Information, desire and acquire in the hands of the consumers

How your brand communication is changed on every level as we move into the future of communication.

A- Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer

Yesterday: Use creative advertising that intercept whatever the consumer is doing and make him/her crave your brand

Tomorrow: Here’s the good news. If you know branding, advertising and all that good stuff we’ve been doing for years. You’re in for a ride. Brands will realise that TV, Print, Outdoor, Banners – all those yummy above the line things – will rule the next 10 years. There’s simply now way to grab peoples attention but to shake them around in a medium where you cannot miss them. Of course, people say young kids does not watch TV, but they still do if it’s relevant. On top of all those old things you of course gotta get your shit together when it comes to the product. In transparent times – failure is not an option!

I – Interest: raise customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits.

Yesterday: When we tried to get hold of more information about products our resources were limited. Of course we could ask friends. But what were the chances of us having the exact same crave for a product. We then relied on newspapers, magazines and TV channels. Honestly. Who believes the reporter for a car magazine wasn’t bribed in one way or another when writing that excellent article about the new BMW 3 series you’re looking for. On top of that you can be sure the PR people did their best to make sure he was positive anyway unless he didn’t fall for fancy dinners and test drives accompanied with wonderful wines and spicy women in the south of spain. We even had use for the phone catalogue. That pile of paper served its purpose.

Tomorrow All changed. Let’s say the advertising agency has gotten your blood running in your veines. What’s next? Easy. Google or a status update in Facebook. And BAM – you’ve lost control. That Google search will turn up, not that brand that he or she is looking for. Instead we’ll land on review sites, price comparison sites, blogs, forums, social networks and more. The results in Google will all be based on the intelligence of the people, or at least the people that knows how to build brands for the future.

What to do: Start changing your mix. Head over to that post of mine that I mentioned above and study how to change your media mix. Build value. Make sure people benefit from linking to you. Set your prices so that Pricerunner and other comparison sites list your shop first. Spread content everywhere.

D – Desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.

Yesterday: You OWNED this one. Clever managers educated clever sales people. The consumer, stuck inside your defined space where you built up a POS (point of sale) presence that made him/her crave your products. Of course you spent money on industrial design and shit. But compared to today you relied on the retail channel to do their work.

Tomorrow I OWN this one. Me and my friends. As I’m getting closer and closer to deciding upon which product I’m gonna get I ask around. What does people think, what do my friends say, comparisson sites etc.

What to do: Make sure you focus ten times more on your product development, turn your industrial design department into GOD. They should steer the entire company forward. If you’re lucky we’re coming to visit you. But like a kid, armed with her/his wishlist for Santa Claus, the consumer of tomorrow knows exactly what she/he wants and what the right price is.

A – Action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.

Yesterday: Let me follow you to the cashier” – Remeber this one? To break free and decide not to buy your product when been given a 30 minute sales pitch is prettyd darn hard.

Tomorrow If you’re unlucky (or lucky depending on your digital competence) you’re looking at closing the deal online. Usability, language, design, visualisation, payment processes etc etc etc. Alone behind my computer or mobile device, that’s where I’ll be. And the second I feel insecure, doesn’t find where to go next and so on, that’s the second I leave without buying anything.

What to do: Get wired. Never again hire marketing people that doesn’t know how to convert people. Change Microsoft Office into A/B testing in your hiring profile. Send your troopers back to the school. Have them learn everything there is to know about online commerce – cause you’ll need it.

Last but not least. Of course there are brands out there that doesn’t have to give a shit about this. After all, we will not buy nuclear plants for some time still over the Internet. The rest of you – get going!

Why You Should Wait To Use Facebook Email

ronnestam — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 09:35:16 +0000

Yesterday Facebook mail was launched here in Sweden and it’s been said it’ll be a game changer. This morning I had to give it a go. After all, if I’m supposed to use it in one way or another it’s good to know how it works…or not works. After a quick analysis I’d say - not works.

I wrote an email to myself and waited

How Does Facebook Mail Work?

Send mail to Facebook – Check

1. The good part ›› I wrote a short mail to myself (ronnestamATfacebookDOTcom) that included some of the typical things you might do with mail.

The mail I sent to Facebook. Included most typical ways you can format an email + some specials such as specific fonts and CSS styling.

Then pushed the send button and waited. This was the impressing part.

3 seconds to reach my inbox

The red little notifier lit up in 3 seconds after the mail left my computer. Impressing push technology! Mail received. Check.

How did Facebook mail handle my content and formatting? – Not check…

2. The bad part ›› None of the mail formatting was included in the mail. Not even the bullet list. Even worse was the fact that it removed parts of the mail that was CSS formatted. Even stranger was the fact that it removed content close (look at my phone number) to CSS formatting. The image that I included was nowhere to be seen.

The same mail as above but ripped of both content and formatting.

Conclusion. Facebook mail. Nothing but text.

Nothing but raw text. To be honest I even think it’s scary to use since I don’t know at all what reaches my friends. To me this means we won’t see Facebook killing that dear old email of ours for some time.

Have a great Sunday!

Future Integrated Communication From A Digital Perspective

ronnestam — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:51:13 +0000

Leading a brand? Thinking about how to create a long term integrated communication platform? Think no more cause I’ll share the model I’ve been using for the last three years when leading brands into the future of advertising, communication and advertising.

Normally I’d work a company or brand through a series of workshops. We would then slowly start to follow this model over time. Changing how you, your brand and marketing organisation work with advertising and communication is not something you do over night. I would recommend brands to keep on doing what they do best – shoot fireworks -while slowly start to change their way of communicating their products and services from ground up.

Moving your communication into the future is also tough on your organisation as your moving from campaign based communication activities to instead building long term equity that will generate results over time. Send your entire marketing organization as well as your IT department and management team on several digital communication crash courses cause your CEO better understand what you talk about when you’re talking conversion, SEM, SEO, AdWords, H1, Keywords, Stats and shit.

Have a read. If you like what you read – get going. Change!

Here we go – The Key To Future Integrated Communication by Johan Ronnestam

The basis of your online communication platform

The first thing we’ve gotta agree upon before moving further into the model is the following: Your brand consist out of two things. The product/services you offer and the content you’ve created to explain what your product/service does. In the worst cases companies have more or less done nothing beyond publishing images of their products with accompanied product name. In the best cases they’ve done tons more. We’ll go in to this bellow. This is the essence of your communication presence online. Hopefully you’ve got this wired, however, you might actually have this presence online without owning it your selves.

Value and conversion leads to traffic and sales. Your objective and key performance indicators.

People don’t have time to read your shit. You’ve gotta provide them with a true value. After all, your products and services are nothing without the problem they solve. This is what you’ve gotta base all your hosted communication activities on.

Value first

The more value you provide your target group with, the more traffic you’ll gain. This is based on the simple principle of the link. If you keep bragging about your products without truly do something good for people you won’t earn any links. If you on the other hand share ideas, knowledge and solutions that helps your target group to be better you’ll see that people will come. Once you’ve opened up that stream of people you’ll have the opportunity to point the towards the products and services you market, the same product and services that of course can be used to do whatever you tought people to do.

Let me share one example – Michelle Phan. I started to follow this girl online already two years ago. Back then she was an independent girl who just liked to share her thoughts on how to wear make up. In November 2010, Phan became “the No. 1 most subscribed female on YouTube and the first female to reach 1 million subscribers. Michelle Phan joined Youtube on July 18, 2006, and as of November 2010, she has created 100 videos that have been viewed over 260,000,000 times. The one where she does a Lady Gaga makeup has a stunning 23,457,472 views.

Michelle Phan sharing the value people want

Michelle does what the traditional make up brand don’t. She shares value. While Michelle teaches young women all over the world how to do their make up, brands like Chanel, Biotherm, Clinique, Loreal and Lancome does one thing – sell sell sell. Michelle shares knowledge while these brands just throws a pretty girl in your face saying “you can look like me”. No wonder Lancome suddenly this year in February turned Michelle into their spokesperson. Today Michelle even got her own make up brand.

So, value first. Before selling. Make sure you think about your reason for being. Do you sell football shoes, teach people how to score, do you sell wine, teach people how to buy the right wine (like Gary Vaynerchuck does), do you sell cars, teach them about how to drive better and more cost effective, do you sell clothes, teach them how to style themselves.

The content you create should of course go social

Once you’ve decided how to provide your potential visitor with a true value. Make sure you spread that value across the net whereever possible and relevant.

Your Potential Customer Is Out There – So Your Content Should Be Too

If you produce videos send them to YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Blip and tons more. Use TubeMogul to handle the process. Your images on Flickr and others. Documents on Slideshare and Scribd. If you go live, use Livestream or Bambuser. Heck, head over to Brians and Jess3 Conversation prism and do the homework.

Once you got that value right – focus on conversion

So, this is the next step where tons of brands go wrong (as I’ve written about before). They simply haven’t got their conversion wired. In order for you to really know what you’re doing you’ve gotta set your targets right. Do you want people to buy online, should they download your product sheets, contact you or maybe just spend five minutes with your products online? Anything is right as long as it suits your needs. Once you’ve got that wired, set up your funnels right in your stat tools and start working those A/B tests. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING should serve a purpose if you’re looking to convert those visitors of yours to clients.

The funny thing is that once you start eyeing those performance metrics of yours you’ll end up getting insights about your traffic that you can never learn from anyone else. Business online is all about knowing your own audience and constantly improving your site. After all, a banner or button in the wrong place might kill your conversion or increase it by 400%.

5 things you can never forget when converting your site visitors into buyers

1. Usability is key

Usability is by far the most important thing to think about when you’re looking to convert your visitors into buyers. This means no funky animations, links should be easy to click on, preferably underlined, less is more, guide your visitors etc etc.

There’s tons that has been written about this area. Whatever you do, don’t buy any bullshit that people click thru a site if it’s cool. Ask anyone who’s been working with e-commerce and they’ll tell you. Why do you think Amazon looks the way it does? Go ahead and follow some blogs and you’ll be up and running in no time. Start with The UX Booth.

2. Product presentation

I don’t know if you read my post about the car brand SAAB the other day. Well, this recording below (excuse my bad english in this one) was actually done for this post. It got me worked up though and that’s why I posted that other thing the before this one.

We’re alone when surfing the web – compare that to the real world where a sales man is following us around in the store, always ready to answer any questions we might have, we’re all alone on the web. This means information, information, information, information and more information. If I’m looking to be convinced to buy a car online I’ll tell you right away – I wont be pleased with a freakin flash site that sings a song and let me rotate the car once. I want at least forty-five 60-second movies showcasing everything there is to know about your car. I want photos, not 5 wonderful photos taken by Europes most expensive photographer. I want 100+ photos that are showing that car from every angle. Of course you should package it all beautiful, but don’t have me loading any animations and shit.

Then, only then might I go to that buy button. Remember, your competitors are one click away!

3. Copy
Copy actually do matter. Write it good, write it well, but remember what I talked about in nr 2. I’m alone, so don’t go wasting to much of my time! I was planning to write a longer piece about this, but Smashing Magazine has done a great job already. Go there ›› (thanks Per for the tip)

4. Feeling secure
Logos from payment providers and other things like awards and shit. That’ll do the trick. After all. We’ve been monkeys in an earlier lifetime.

5. Faces
This might sound funny. But a face looking straight at you actually has proven to do good. Make sure you online presence contain humas, preferably not from actors, but instead from humans that you might actually meet in your office. Hire a great photographer and do them good!

So where does the traffic come from?

I have focused here on writing about prospects and not existing customers. Given that I’ve listed 4 traffic sources that more or less are the same for any company with an online presence. Above and below the line advertising, search engine marketing, search engine optimization and finally social media.

Above and below the line advertising

Here’s the good news. If you know branding, advertising and all that good stuff we’ve been doing for years. You’re in for a ride. Brands will realize that TV, Print, Outdoor, Banners – all those yummy above the line things – will rule the next 10 years. There’s simply now way to grab peoples attention but to shake them around in a medium where you cannot miss them. Of course, people say young kids does not watch TV, but the still do if it’s relevant. After all we’re pretty alone behind that screen when it’s time to click something. Being friend with a brand will help!

Search and The Social Internet – They go together like birds, bees, the flowers and the trees.

There’s two ways to pull traffic through search.

1. Adwords, at first glance it’s easy. However, if you’re running a business with mature competitors, say for example online travel it will be everything from easy. You’ve gotta get down with how to get your brand visible in the paid search areas. Either you know how or you start to study hard. Read books, books and more books. Then start to follow some of the high profile SEO bloggers in the world. Why not start with Seomoz, Searchengineland and Greywolfs SEO blog. Some Swedes I’d ad to the list are Jesper Åström, Nikke Lindqvist and Simon.

2. Search. The second way to get yourselves visible in the search engines is of course the SEO side of it. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people go on about their blog and the fact that it doesn’t drive traffic. But hey, it’s not that simple. If you’ve got a blog present, the chance is that other bloggers or maybe even a newspaper links to that blog. In the long run this will do good for your presence in search engines.

(I know I know I know…affiliates, banners, bought links etc etc. I just don’t have time to go into all of that now. This post is a top level post)

Conclusion.

Future communication is all about relevance. Relevant product, relevant services, relevant content and advertising that support those things. If you’re creating brand communication offline – fine, your only objective should be awareness and making sure people understand what your brand stands for. But when you’re communicating products and service – make sure the actual products and services are top notch and then create relevant communication that makes people search for them. If they do you’re home free! (that is if you’ve made sure to be seen everywhere online).

But worth repeating. Create advertising that make people search for your product or service category. Then by making sure your digital activities are focused on value, spread over a vast number of social networks, your AdWord campaigns and earned search positions in place you’ll make sure to get people hooked.

A qoute from Jeff Jarvis, the writer of ‘What Would Google Do‘, is in order here: “Construct information (on your website) so it can be understood by machine and man. In a word, be clear. If you’re a dentist, say you’re a dentist, not a smile doctor. Use the word “dentist” in the title of the page, the headline, and the beginning of what you write – make it so obvious even a computer couldn’t be confused. This also means that when human beings come to the page, they’ll know what you do. Clarity is always beneficial.”

So how do you get going. How do you make sure your brand platform is ‘future proof’?

Move your media budgets!

Most brands today seem to think change can be achieved within the production budgets. This is wrong. There’s just not enough money in that pot. There is only one way to make this happen. You’ve gotta take money from that eyeball highjacking fund called media and instead spend more on earned eyeballs.

Move 10% of your allocated media budget in order to gain a long term digital effect

Of course you shouldn’t move it all today. Start small but start. The next time you’re campaigning. Cut the media with 10% and start focusing on value as I wrote about earlier. Do the Michele Phan thing, whatever that means to your brand, products and services. Boom – now you’ve entered the long term value creation communication process. Keep doing it for another 6 to 12 month and make sure you track what you’re doing. You’ll see change coming your way!

Come on! You can do it!

Social Media. It’s There To Give Your Brand A Body

ronnestam — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:05:53 +0000

We’ve all heard it before. A brand is not a logo, nor is it your products or services. Your brand is the sum of peoples feelings when they think about your brand. Or said in a more ‘techy’ way – An emotional translation of what first comes to mind when neurons fire in the brains around the world when your brand, products or services is mentioned.

As people spend more and more of their life socializing online and searching for products and services your brand is naked, exposed and on it’s own. There are no sales people telling people about your product anymore, you’re left with seconds to raise interest before people leave you and most important – your brand no longer belongs to you, it belongs to all those people online who either say good things about you or worse, tell people that your brand suck!

Here are 5 things to think about when keeping your brand together in the future social world.

1. Brand presence not brand site

I’ve written about this and that before. But it’s something worth repeating. You should not – I repeat – you should not focus on driving traffic to your website. Instead, focus on spreading your brand over as many social networks and websites as possible. If you do and do it good, people will end up finding you anyway. Funny, by not focusing on driving traffic you’ll end up driving traffic

2. Paint it all in green (or whatever you need to paint it in in order to create brand recognition)

Cover the social web as best described by Brian Solis and Jess3 with your brand colors

Socially spread content must always do good. This means you should create 2 second intros for all your videos, take the time to ad the right metadata to social sites like YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare, Vimeo, Viddler and more. If we like what we see, read, listen to and experience your content will enforce your brand in a positive way. Don’t overestimate that people will search for your brand. The attention span today is more or less null. So brand recognition is a must.

3. Share value not tag lines

Don’t think social communication is about advertising inside social networks. Focus on value creation. Once you start focusing on value your getting back into the digital value chain that now is being hijacked by your customers and other people.

For example, If your into consulting your best chance of getting new customers is actually to blog and share content on how people could do without you. That’s content the people will link to, share and promote. That way you’ll end up in top positions in Google, you’ll be shared on Facebook, Twitter and other networks. In the end you’ll earn new customer who does not want to do it themselves but intead hire a consultant that obviously knows what they’re doing – that will be you.

So, do what Gary Vaynerchuck is doing to promote his online Wine shop on YouTube, Viddler, Twitter and Winelibrary TV or American Express does with Open Forum – share value. Sooner than later customers that does not wanna do it themselves will find you – and they’ll of course choose a provider that knows what they are doing, something you’ve already proven.

Gary uses Viddler to create chapter value while YouTube serves traffic purposes

4. Know Your fans

Spend time tapping in to the constant flow of social interactivity. Head over to Socialmention and search your brand. In seconds you’ll enter a universe of conversations that revolves around you and your brand. Or better yet, set up a dashboard and automatize your brand monitoring like the big brands do.

Once you’ve cleared that step, start Googling keyword and phrases connected to your product and services. Aim? Find those closed forum and communities that Socialmention and other tools cannot find. This is probably where your true fans spend their time online. Now enter and listen – DON’T interact. It’s their arena not yours!

5. Make sure your organization truly lives and breathes digital communication

Education of course. But first and foremost – have your organization live and breath digital communication. No modern brand should have marketing people on board who doesn’t understand the Internet.

Why not implement things like Yammer internally to ensure that each and every employee truly understands how to interact socially. Even better – have employees start Blogs, Twitter and Facebook accounts and then help them/teach them to track the conversation. In the end, the only way to fully go social is to upgrade peoples knowledge about future communication.

That’s all for today. Gotta board a flight!

Common Sense Communication

ronnestam — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 07:46:35 +0000

In the offline world, if your customers didn’t find what they were looking for inside your store and left without shopping.

Would you:

a) Rethink the layout of your store today
b) Rethink the layout of your store next year
c) Rethink the layout of your store within the next three years

I think the answer is quite obvious. Then why the hell doesn’t more brands and companies care more about how people being converted through their online presence today, this hour and this minute.

Whenever you have questions about your online marketing and communication activities simply ask yourselves – What would I do in the offline world. The answer to that question can always be translated into a digital solution. It goes for marketing, design, online events, social communication, choice of technology and more. I call this Commons Sense Communication.

Common sense really!

Mitt svar i sin helhet till Tobias Brandel på Svenska Dagbladet

ronnestam — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:11:10 +0000

Today there was an article in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet where I together with another six people ranked how Swedish politicians behaved in social media. Here is a short post to let my Swedish readers in on the background.

Idag hade Svenska Dagbladet en text om politiker och sociala media. Jag tillsammans med Joakim Jardenberg, Björn Falkevik, Marie Demker, Therese Göterheim, Sofia Mirjamsdotter och Brit Stakston uttalade oss.

Både Joakim och Brit har publicerat sina svar till Svenska Dagbladet så jag tänkte göra detsamma. Jag hade däremot lite svårt att överhuvudtaget lista några politiker (ni som följer mig har säkert läst min åsikt om politikerna och sociala media tidigare ) därför skickade jag följande svar till journalisten Tobias Brandel som stod bakom artikeln:

Hej Tobias! Nu har jag kollat igenom hela den här listan och kan bara konstatera att samtliga politiska bloggare borde gå följande grundkurser:

1. Kommunikation.

Hur får man människor att intressera sig för något som man inte redan har en relation till. Alla bloggar (utom möjligen Philip Wendahl) saknar totalt unikitet och intresseväckande text, bild eller filmer på första sidan som gör att man söker sig neråt. Självklart lägger man några extra sekunder på bloggar där bloggaren är en stor profil redan från början (Läs Carl Bildt, Maria Wetterstrand osv) men så är ju inte fallet i 95% av alla bloggar.

2. Photoshop eller annat motsvarande bildbehandlingsprogram.
Att enkelt kunna beskära bilder och se till att innehållet går att ta till sig på ett smakfullt sätt borde alla som har en blogg lära sig.

3. Fotografi
Att själva dokumentera saker som i mina (och säkert dina) ögon blir unikt och därmed intressanta indragare till artiklar borde alla kunna. Detta borde såklart ligga under Creative Commons så att det i vissa fall också hamnar i tidningarna med referens till bloggaren som fotograf. (Johan Büser utgör ett litet litet undantag. Kursen i fotografi och sociala media skulle han ändå behöva gå men han fotograferar åtminstone.)

4. HDKamera
Att i princip all utom någon enstaka ( exempelvis Magnus Andersson som helt saknar kvalité ur ett produktionsperspektiv) person helt avstått att använda sig av en kamera är helt otroligt. Istället skriver man sida efter sida med text som ingen utom de närmaste och de mest initierade orkar sig igenom. Jag har själv sedan länge talat om Gary Vaynerchuck och hans arbete med WineLibraryTV

Varför har ingen av politikerna en egen jingel. Varför har ingen av politikerna en kvalitativ video kanal. Varför använder sig ingen av politikerna av video för att kommentera andras bloginlägg.

5. Sociala media
Visst. Flera av politikerna har öppnat en Facebook Fan page där man kan “följa” dem. Exempelvis Maria Wetterstrand hänvisar i sin sista blogpost till sin Facebook Fan Page där sista inlägget just nu är från en Salmonsson Ann-Kathrine som frågar “Varför svarar du inte på frågor här på loggen????” (jag tyckte hela den grejen var så lustig så jag bifogade en skärmdump av den delen)

Maria Wetterstrand talar tyst på Facebook. (Uppdaterat: Marias medarbetar har kort besvarat frågan. Men det är ju i sig ett smått tragiskt sätt att hantera sina ‘fans’. Särskilt när det gäller just en sån fråga)

Jag saknar fortfarande helt en närvaro på Bambuser, Slideshare, Delicious, Livestream, Flickr, Vimeo, Viddler, osv osv osv. Det vill säga alla andra kanaler där människor finns.

Min slutsats är helt enkelt följande. som en god förebild hur någon gör video av sin passion.

De flesta politiker, helt säkert med några undantag jag missat, ser sociala media och digitala kanaler som ännu ett medium där de kan skrika ut sin information till andra och där syftet inte alls är att komma någon närmre. Visst. Man svarar ofta på kommentarer i sina bloggar. Men det är väldigt få kommentarer som kommer från människor utanför den politiska bloggkretsen utom i de fall där dessa är hatkommentarer. Man lyckas inte beröra oss vanliga människor och det är nog inte bara jag som aldrig fått ett tips i hela mitt liv om en politikers intressanta blogg.

Jag känner att jag inte kan ge dig en lista på 10 eller ens 5 intressanta politiker ur ett digitalt perspektiv. Det döljer sig helt säkert några där inne men de kräver att jag sätter mig och läser deras innehåll. Och chansen för det är lika stor som att jag lusläser riksdagens motioner för att se om något intressant poppar upp. Det är helt enkelt för svårt att sätta in sig i så mycket textmassa när inget sticker ut vid första ögonkastet. Troligen känner jag precis samma som övriga väljare.

Ja, där slutar mitt svar till Tobias. Själv tyckte jag det var riktigt intressant att se vad som kom ur det. Som vanligt blir ju saker och ting tagna ur sitt sammanhang, men den här gången blev åtminstone det mesta (det lilla som valdes ut) intakt.

Intressant är dock att artikeln verkar ha väckt känslor på alla möjliga sätt. Tokmoderaten, Jonas Sjöstedt, Arkelsten, Thomas Bohlmark, Johan Westerholm, Mina Moderata Karameller, Mina Tre Kronor och Niclas Strandh tycker alla till. Uppdaterat - Magnus Blogg hänger på tåget. Och så även Peter Andersson. Också opassande.

Uppdaterat: Tobias Brandel följer upp med Twitter intervju av Fredrik Federley och Göran Hägglund i dagens SVD. Strålande!

I’m On The Jury ›› The First International Social Media Award Show. The Bees Award

ronnestam — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:06:15 +0000

I am pretty darn proud to announce that I’ve been picked as a member on the jury of the first international social media award show for communication and marketing professionals. The award show called The Bees Award will be held in San Francisco on November 9 later this year and it’s open for submissions as of today.

The Bees Award have gathered some of the leading social media experts from around the world to judge this award and I’m honored to be included in that list. Apart from the honor it’s also a great opportunity for me to scan some of the best case studies in the world when it comes to social media. I’m sure once the 9th of november has passed I’ll be packed with inspiration to share with you guys.

This new buzzing contest will award winners in the following categories:

Best 140 Characters (SMS, Tweet)
Best Use of a Micro-Blogging Platform
Best Use of a Social Media Platform
Best Use of mobile
Best Relationship With Bloggers
Best Conversation with Customers
Best Use of Alternative Tool(s)
Best Use of Media Press Room
Best Writing
Best Art Direction
Best Social CRM
Best Student Work
Best Innovation
Best Campaign
Agency of the Year
Client of the Year

And besides me, here’s the jury and their twitter accounts and blogs:

Liz Strauss – Chicago, USA (@lizstrauss)(Liz’s Blog)
Gary Goldhammer – Los Angeles, USA (@g24khamr) (Gary’s Blog)
Paul Hoffman – Woodstock NY, USA (@hoffmanpaul) (Paul’s Blog)
Mitch Joel – Montreal, Canada (@mitchjoel)(Mitch’s Blog)
Helder Araujo – Sao Paolo, Brazil (@haraujo)
Jesus Hoyos – Mexico City, Mexico (@Jesus_Hoyos)(Jesus’ Blog)
Ralf Rottmann – Dortmund, Germany (@24z)(Ralf’s Blog)
Matt Rhodes – London, UK (@mattrhodes)(Matt’s Blog)
Eric Maillard – Paris, France (@PRland)(Eric’s Blog)
Gaurav Mishra – New Delhi, India (@Gauravonomics)(Gaurav’s Blog)
Rajiv Dingra – Mumbai, India (@rajivdingra)(Rajiv’s Blog)
Andre L. Pan – Shanghai, China (@popoever)(Andre’s Blog)
Isaac Mao – Boston, USA/Shanghai, China (@isaac)(Issac’s Blog)
Li Ang Wang – Shanghai, China (@WebLeOn)(Li Ang’s Blog)
Gao Ming – Shanghai, China (@gaoming)(Gao’s Blog)
Toru Saito – Tokyo, Japan (@toru_saito)(Toru’s Blog)
Alister Cameron – Melbourne, Australia (@alicam)(Alister’s Blog)
Dave Duarte – Cape Town, South Africa (@DaveDuarte)(Dave’s Blog)

So, what the heck are you waiting for. Make sure me and the other jury members eyeball your social ideas!

What Transparency Will Do To Your Brand

ronnestam — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 01:11:09 +0000

Today when you market a product and actually manage to make an impact the first thing that happens is that people go online, not to your brand site but to Google.

Have you Googlified your brand and business?

A search on your product or service reveals everything there is to be found related to that brand of yours. You might think they’ll head over to one of your campaign sites but think again. People who search for your brand online have already gotten past the attention phase. They want information that is not tampered with by that marketing department of yours. Since the web is constructed of links and those links usually don’t give a shit about advertising you can be sure your potential customer will go for user-generated content first.

Google ›› Search ›› Results ›› Bam ›› What will they find?

If you’re one of the lucky few who actually do create kick-ass products – Then you can be sure they will find good stuff about your brand. But most brands out there don’t since they’ve spent the last 50 years getting used to cutting costs and advertising their way into the mind of the consumer. Well, not any more.

The Nielsen Company bring some clarity to who people trust

User reviews and recommendations like Yahoo Answers, comparison sites like Pricerunner, crowdsourced customer support like Getsatisfaction, Social buying like Blippy, forums, online experts on About.com, Facebook content, blogs, fan or hate sites, tweets, wikis, professional bloggers, video sites, photo communities like Flickr, online newspapers and even books via Google books. All of these provide an alternative and often more credible point of view of your products. Even more important – they all show up in that Google search result and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Media companies no longer filter information. You and your friends do!

Once your potential customer has learned everything there is to know about your product the competitors are only a click away if your products aren’t up to the right standards.

So what does transparency mean for your brand and business?

Develop every product and service with a potential comparison in mind.
Good is not enough. Your product has to be the best
Move your media money from bought media to earned media in order to grow an online presence that creates true value for your customers.
Don’t create websites. Create web presence.
Don’t advertise things your products can’t live up to. Potential customers will be disappointed when they find out. If it’s bad they’ll even spread the news.
Everything communicates (as I’ve said before)
Don’t just look for potential threats on your local market. The web is global and your competitors will be too.
All that content generated by others can be your friend. Find it and learn about your strengths and weak spots.
Treat your digital fans like any offline VIP customer – give them stuff before other people get it and make sure they can share it.
When sustainability becomes key greenwashing is not an alternative.
Constantly innovate your products to beat your competitors to the finish line.
Constantly surprise people and they will love you for it.
You can’t hide bad news from people.
Don’t take credit for things you didn’t do. Praise people who’ve inspired your brand.
Finally stop creating complex products and services. Take Clay Shirky’s word for it.

Word!