Big Fish, Small Fish: Who will rule the pond in the UK?

A recent survey of office workers in the UK suggests they cost the country’s economy roughly £1.38 billion each year because they spend time on the clock surfing social media networking sites such as Twitter. A consultant for the company that commissioned the report said, “When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole.”

Sound familiar? Maybe reminiscent of the fears people had about email in the work place in 1994? It also sounds eerily like the concern that Internet access in the workplace gave rise to Cyberslacking in 1996. These days, it’s hard to imagine a day at the office without either email or Internet. Yet the fear of new communication technology in the Enterprise has surfaced again in the UK around Twitter. But why?

It certainly is not because of a lack of broadband Internet access. Data published at Internet World Stats shows that a high percentage of both US and UK citizens enjoy Internet connectivity (74.1% and 79.8%, respectively). So, with broadband Internet and tasty low-cost social media marketing dangling within reach, why aren’t UK businesses hungry for the bait?

One contributing factor could be that European businesses are slower to utilize social media applications such as Twitter to promote their companies than US businesses. According to Forrester Research’s Consumer Profile Tool, 82% of US citizens use social networks, compared to 63% of their UK brothers and sisters across the pond. US participants are more actively participating on social networks at every rung in Forrester’s ladder of participation.

Maybe less experience contributed to why a study conducted by Webtrends found that the rate of adopting low-cost social media marketing strategies, specifically Twitter, by Enterprise businesses in the UK was only 2%. These companies know about Twitter, but they might not know what to make of it.  “Many are simply not sure how to use it, and even if they could they wouldn’t be sure of what to say, and who exactly they would be saying it to,” said Webtrends’ marketing director Colette Wade.

The same cannot be said for the small fish competing with the big fish Enterprises. O2 recently did a study that found 17% of small businesses were utilizing Twitter. As bizreport.com put it “Cost-cutting was cited as the biggest benefit of tweeting by two-thirds of those surveyed, with 16% claiming they had saved up to £5,000 (US$7,300) since signing up.”

The 15% gap between Enterprise businesses and small businesses in the UK in their adoption of Twitter to market their companies is substantial! Enterprise “big fish” companies who are slow to see the benefits of social media might find themselves “Amazoned” when their “small fish” competition out-positions them in the marketplace by embracing social media marketing before they do.

It may be the same old pond, but the ecosystem is different. Will the small fish dominate the UK food chain with new media marketing strategies?

Had the clock just struck thirteen? Had I just been subjected to 2 minutes of hate? Was I living in a dystopian society?

The answer to all the above is no—I’m not Winston Smith and the year is not 1984. Phew! But, Big Brother IS following me on Twitter.

The Big Brother I am talking is not the totalitarian state (not is this blog anyway) but of course the successful reality TV show.

WHY?

In the UK certain events quintessentially define British summer time these range from Wimbledon and Royal Ascot to the Glastonbury music festival. Over the last 10 years the phenomenon that is BB has rowdily forced its way into this, creating a televisual feast of reality on our screens 24 hours a day 7 days a week for the entire summer period.

Rewind to the beginning of this years “summer”, Webtrends had just launched social measurement (if you haven’t seen it call your local rep and demand a demo! IT’S AMAZING) and I had been working through some demo ideas to show customers. I chose Big Brother for a topic idea as it has an element of community—stuff happens and the power of social media means that people want to talk about it instantly. One of my initial ideas was to compare traditional summer events with Big Brother and the results are of this are below:

Astonishing, but actually Big Brother gets far more mentions in social media than “traditional” summer events. I just guess sports events haven’t captured the hearts and minds of Twitterers in the same way reality TV has.

During the time of the MP expenses scandal exposed superbly by one of our customers, The Daily Telegraph, one of the housemates called “halfwit” (read here to find out why he is called that) had shown an interest in becoming a politician after the show. So I did a comparison of mentions for that week betwixt him and the major political figures in the UK today:

Amazingly again the housemate, even in these troubled times had more share of voice than the 2 leaders of the opposition parties in the UK and on one day eclipsing the Prime Minister himself!

I also made a conscious effort not to watch the actual TV show itself , but actually use mentions and conversation cloud to understand what had actually gone on within the house.

This sort of fun insight is better shared with the Big Brother community than locked away in a demo, so I started tweeting the outcomes of some of the trends I had discovered and two things happened…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKS2qV1FKVs]

Not too long ago, I asked a former colleague to give me his view on the implementation of a measurement tool.  While I had partially expected a response related to the technical implementation, his response aligned with an important truth–implementations are only as important as their inherent backbone–a measurement strategy.

With that I would like to introduce Martin Cook, a Performance Measurement Consultant for EMC Conchango. Based out of London, England Martin has a deep background in measuring online behavior and helping organizations understand the benefit in producing sound measurement strategies as a basis for all digital investments.  Implementations and the software used are merely tools – while some are better than others none of them will do the job without proper application.

Next week at Engage we will be discussing implementations in my workshop, Planning for Success:  Implementation Strategies.  While the content will be focused around how WebTrends can be implemented on your website, I’d like to think of this idea of measurement strategy and ROI during our workshop discussions.

Why are measurement strategies so important?

Measurement strategies enable us to measure performance against business goals and justify the business case.

In this day and age how many clients still do not know how their online offering is performing? Especially in the current economic climate, it’s vitally important to understand your company’s performance against its goals and what is working well and more importantly what can work harder! Without this knowledge it can and has proved catastrophic to many businesses throughout the world. If your organisation is even the slightest bit slack at establishing an effective measurement strategy, your competition will be more agile at reacting in these times and capitalising on opportunities. We need to look beyond the credit crunch and economic downturn to focus on the opportunities that will arise, upon the upturn.

(more…)

The computer gaming industry has come a long way over the years and continues to make leaps and bounds towards becoming more accessible for of the masses.  While male video gamers still outnumber women 2 to 1; of the 117 million active gamers in the U.S., 56 percent play games online. Sixty-four percent of those online gamers are female and twenty-four percent of active gamers also play on cell phones. Studies show the usage across all age groups and demographics increasing.

I can see two aspects of this rapidly changing landscape: Casual console gaming with the advent of more creative user interfaces has definitely widened its appeal. From the palm held, stylus based Nintendo DS which features everything from your typical platform and adventure games, to brain training programs, foreign language tuition and even a cook book. Its size and device nature mean it can be found in the hands of all ages as both a learning tool and source of entertainment.

Then in the living rooms, bars, and office lobbies we have consoles like the Nintendo Wii offering high activity family and group fun with its wireless controllers and exercise pad. And let’s not forget the massively successful Guitar Hero and Rock Band found on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360. Who can resist the dream of playing your favorite rock ballads to an adoring audience along with your less appreciative friends?

(more…)

The computer gaming industry has come a long way over the years and continues to make leaps and bounds towards becoming more accessible for of the masses.  While male video gamers still outnumber women 2 to 1; of the 117 million active gamers in the U.S., 56 percent play games online. Sixty-four percent of those online gamers are female and twenty-four percent of active gamers also play on cell phones. Studies show the usage across all age groups and demographics increasing.

I can see two aspects of this rapidly changing landscape: Casual console gaming with the advent of more creative user interfaces has definitely widened its appeal. From the palm held, stylus based Nintendo DS which features everything from your typical platform and adventure games, to brain training programs, foreign language tuition and even a cook book. Its size and device nature mean it can be found in the hands of all ages as both a learning tool and source of entertainment.

Then in the living rooms, bars, and office lobbies we have consoles like the Nintendo Wii offering high activity family and group fun with its wireless controllers and exercise pad. And let’s not forget the massively successful Guitar Hero and Rock Band found on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360. Who can resist the dream of playing your favorite rock ballads to an adoring audience along with your less appreciative friends?

(more…)

The computer gaming industry has come a long way over the years and continues to make leaps and bounds towards becoming more accessible for of the masses.  While male video gamers still outnumber women 2 to 1; of the 117 million active gamers in the U.S., 56 percent play games online. Sixty-four percent of those online gamers are female and twenty-four percent of active gamers also play on cell phones. Studies show the usage across all age groups and demographics increasing.

I can see two aspects of this rapidly changing landscape: Casual console gaming with the advent of more creative user interfaces has definitely widened its appeal. From the palm held, stylus based Nintendo DS which features everything from your typical platform and adventure games, to brain training programs, foreign language tuition and even a cook book. Its size and device nature mean it can be found in the hands of all ages as both a learning tool and source of entertainment.

Then in the living rooms, bars, and office lobbies we have consoles like the Nintendo Wii offering high activity family and group fun with its wireless controllers and exercise pad. And let’s not forget the massively successful Guitar Hero and Rock Band found on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360. Who can resist the dream of playing your favorite rock ballads to an adoring audience along with your less appreciative friends?

(more…)