Archive for 'Business'
Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? (watch the video)
Posted on September 2, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, Insights, Trends, Videos.
Welcome to the World of Socialnomics
Key Stats from the Video:
By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers… 96% of them have joined a social network.
Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)… Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months… iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction — 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
80% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees.
The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices… people update anywhere, anytime… imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé… In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen.
What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
Wikipedia has over 13 million articles… some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica… 78% of these articles are non-English
There are over 200,000,000 Blogs — 54% of bloggers post content or tweet daily
If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
78% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Only 14% trust advertisements
Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
90% of people with DVRs skip ads
Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video… on their phone
According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle
24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media
More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy — Listening first, selling second.
Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertisers.
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The 4 kinds of CEO’s… Which one are you?
Posted on August 16, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, Insights, Journal.
I constantly push myself to be a better leader. The single most important rule I follow is give my staff the freedom and autonomy to succeed. This was one of the hardest things for me to learn… Accepting that there are several ways to accomplish the same thing — not just my way. My way might be the best for me, it may even be the most efficient and effective all around — but that doesn’t mean that my way is the best approach for you.
In my continued search to improve my leadership skills, I came across the following article written by Eric Kurjan, President of Six Disciplines Northwest Ohio. He basically states that all CEOs fall into 4 basic categories…
Although I strive to be CEO#1 — I probably fall into the CEO#4 bucket.
In my line of work I see all kinds of CEO’s. Young and old, male and female, decision makers and decision avoiders, leaders and shrinking violets. The bottom line is that the personalities, skills, abilities and success factors vary by CEO just like they vary in their shapes and sizes.
My experience has shown me that you can group CEOs into four basic categories. Call it “profiling” if you like, but as I look at the businesses that are truly successful and those that need help (and more importantly, those who will accept it) the differences in CEOs becomes clear.
CEO #1 The True Leader – this CEO gets it. He or she has a clear vision for where they want the company to grow. They have communicated it effectively. They set the expectations, they measure the results, and they hold their people accountable. They demonstrate compassion for their people and have built a culture of earned trust. This CEO is open, honest and transparent. They know they will gain more by sharing information than by withholding it. Their employees, or in these cases, “Associates” or “Team Members”, work diligently toward the goals of the company. There is an uncompromising, mutual respect being exhibited. Their goals and plans are pursued with passion, and the results are strong and consistent. Unfortunately, this is a rare breed. I have only met a handful of these CEOs.
CEO#2 The Know-It-All – this CEO thinks he/she gets it. This group is too smart for its own good. These are the CEOs who pride themselves on having never asked anyone for help, guidance or assistance. They tend to be ego-driven, arrogant, controlling and intimidating. They “rule” with the iron fist and make “employees” or subordinates nervous. They may or may not be quick to solve problems with staff. Some will fire with the swiftness of a hit squad in the dark of night with or without justification, while others can’t confront issues and only demonstrate chest-beating and bluster, leaving the problem “employee” in place to continue to contaminate the work environment. There are some who really are more fear-driven and put on the “tough guy/gal” mask. They fear making a bad choice and in most cases are lacking the leadership skills needed to truly run or change the business. They surround themselves with weak, low-horsepower leadership teams in an effort to make themselves appear “smarter”. Unfortunately, this is a common breed. There are tons of these CEOs out there. Many actually run, reasonably successful (based on revenue and/or profit measures) organizations in spite of their behavior, style and methods. But think how successful they could really be with goals, a plan and a defined process for getting things done.
CEO#3 The Heart Attack – this CEO has had one. Hopefully just in the figurative sense. They have been running the business and they are seeing things get worse and worse. They don’t work to change the behaviors, actions or direction — they just fret as the business begins to tailspin. Then, some sort of major catastrophe hits, loss of a major client or two, the bank calls in the note or the line of credit is gone and they determine the need to make a change. This is much like the individual who ignored all the warning signs of an impending heart attack: high blood pressure, overweight, high cholesterol. They’re sure the bathroom scale is wrong. The heart attack is a big “surprise” but now they are going to straighten out their lives. Under a doctor’s supervision they begin to manage their diet, start working out and change the behaviors that led to the heart attack. There are lots of lessons learned (by the CEO and the company) if they survive the heart attack. They realize that the ways they have “led” the business were ineffective and that they need to get help from the outside to get them back on course for survival and fitness. By the way, no surprise here: CEO#3 almost always started out as a CEO#2 Know-It-All.
CEO#4 The Humble Leader – another fairly rare breed. He or she is actually a good leader. They’ve built a successful business and possess many of the same traits and behaviors as the “true leader”. They have not honed their skills to the degree of CEO#1, but they aspire for more. They are not satisfied with the status quo and are looking for every advantage to build a better team, to grow their business, to deliver higher, bigger and better. They look to outside resources and advisors to aid them in their journey toward their vision. They work to develop better and more effective processes and better alignment across the company. They are looking for help to manage the challenges of growth and all the thrills and challenges that come with it. They are hungry and open to learning. They are on the journey to become a CEO#1 True Leader.
So, which CEO type are you?
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My latest article on Adotas… Welcome to the world of Me-Cast
Posted on August 13, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, Insights, Press, Trends.
Once upon a time we lived in a world of ‘Broad-cast’. But those days are over. The world of ‘Broad-cast’ was followed by ‘Narrow-cast’ with the introduction of direct marketing and interactive. Nice, but again, it’s not nearly as effective as it once was.”
The new mantra for today is the world of “Me-Cast”
Who needs to spend $350,000+ on a slick commercial these days? In the world of Me-Cast, if you give consumers the content they want, the platforms to create their own content and the tools to share it with their networks, you’ll get more visibility for your brand than through traditional methods and at a fraction of the cost.
So, what should marketers do as the world of Me-Cast takes over?
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Social Media, Web 2.0 And Internet Stats
Posted on July 11, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, News, Trends.
I came across a terrific post from Adam Singer listing some mind-blowing statistics. These numbers tell a very powerful story about the power of Social Media.
As our digital and physical lives blur further, the internet has become the information hub where people spend a majority of their time learning, playing and communicating with others globally.
Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of just how staggering the numbers are of people collaborating, researching, and interacting on the web.
Google search stats:
1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) - approximate number of unique URLs in Google’s index (source)
2,000,000,000 (two billion) – very rough number of Google searches daily (source)
$110,000,000 – approximately amount of money lost by Google annually due to the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button (source)
24,400 – number of people employed by Google (December, 2008)
68,000,000 – the average number of times people Googled the word Google each month for the last year (source: keyword tool)
$39.96 - the average cost per click for the phrase “consolidation of school loans” in AdWords (source: keyword tool)
1,430,000 - the number of Google results for “Robert Scoble”
136,000 - the number of Google results for “Admiral Ackbar”
Wikipedia stats
2,695,205 - the number of articles in English on Wikipedia
684,000,000 – the number of visitors to Wikipedia in the last year
75,000 - the number of active contributors to Wikipedia
10,000,000 – the number of total articles in Wikipedia in all languages
260 – the number of languages articles have been written in on Wikipedia
(source)
YouTube stats
70,000,000 – number of total videos on YouTube (March 2008)
200,000 – number of video publishers on YouTube (March 2008)
100,000,000 – number of YouTube videos viewed per day (this stat from 2006 is the most recent I could locate)
112,486,327 – number of views the most viewed video on YouTube has (January, 2009)
2 minutes 46.17 seconds – average length of video
412.3 years – length in time it would take to view all content on YouTube (March 2008)
26.57 - average age of uploader
13 hours – amount of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
US $1.65 billion in Google stock – amount Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for in October 2006
$1,000,000 – YouTube’s estimated bandwidth costs per day
Blogosphere stats
133,000,000 – number of blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002
346,000,000 – number of people globally who read blogs (comScore March 2008)
900,000 – average number of blog posts in a 24 hour period
1,750,000 – number of RSS subscribers to TechCrunch, the most popular Technology blog (January 2009)
77% - percentage of active Internet users who read blogs
55% – percentage of the blogosphere that drinks more than 2 cups of coffee per day (source)
81 - number of languages represented in the blogosphere
59% – percentage of bloggers who have been blogging for at least 2 years
Twitter stats
1,111,991,000 – number of Tweets to date (see an up to the minute count here)
3,000,000 – number of Tweets/day(March 2008) (from TechCrunch)
165,414 - number of followers of the most popular Twitter user (@BarackObama) – but he’s not active
86,078 – number of followers of the most active Twitter user (@kevinrose)
63% – percentage of Twitter users that are male (from Time)
Facebook stats
200,000,000 – number of active users
100,000,000 - number of users who log on to Facebook at least once each day
170 - number of countries/territories that use Facebook
35 - number of different languages used on Facebook
2,600,000,000 – number of minutes global users in aggregate spend on Facebook daily
100 – number of friends the average user has
700,000,000 – number of photos added to Facebook monthly
52,000 – number of applications currently available on Facebook
140 - number of new applications added per day
Digg stats
236,000,000 – number of visitors attracted annually by 2008 (according to a Compete survey)
56% - percentage of Digg’s frontpage content allegedly controlled by top 100 users
124,340 - number of stories MrBabyMan, the number one user, has Dugg (see updated number here)
612 - number of stories from Cracked.com that have made page 1 of Digg (see all 41 pages of them here)
36,925 – number of Diggs the most popular story in the last 365 days has received (see story here)
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Entrepreneurs Can Change The World – An Inspiring Video
Posted on June 23, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, Insights, Videos.
This terrific video reminded me why this crazy roller-coaster ride is worth it! Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy, and you can often lose sight of the big picture.
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The Next Google?
Posted on June 23, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, News, Trends.
BusinessWeek just did an interesting feature on 50 up-and-coming companies. There are some really innovative and interesting companies on the list:
Fifty Promising Tech Startups
Chances are you already know a lot about hot tech startups like Twitter and Facebook. But what about Jajah, an inexpensive alternative to the traditional phone company? So far, 15 million people use its service. Or Scribd, an online literary exchange that’s drawing more than 50 million readers per month. BusinessWeek and market researcher YouNoodle have teamed up to identify 50 tech startups flying under the radar. Our list includes fledgling tech companies—most started in 2005 and later—from the U.S., China, India, Israel, and Russia that are attracting some early buzz and are poised to grow beyond their regional or niche-market origins.
There’s a wide range of companies on the list, below are some of my favs. Including one that I happen to be an early stage investor in! (you’ll have to guess which one) Well done Sheldon… I’m proud to be along for the ride.
Adconion
Adicon is an online advertising network that helps companies place their messages on thousands of Web sites and also distributes digital content via syndication. Founded in 2005, the company says it already reaches an estimated one-third of all Net users worldwide.
Etsy
Call it the eBay of handmade and vintage items. A well-designed, easy-to-navigate Web page has made Etsy a fan favorite for gifts that show a flair outside the usual shopping sites and stores. With 1.9 million members and more than 200,000 sellers, the site features an active blog and message board for sellers to exchange advice on the crafting community.
Ibibo
A Web site that depends mostly on user-generated content to attract eyeballs, Ibibo.com has made a bit of a splash with its catchy radio ads and cross-promotions with major Bollywood films. It’s a bit like American Idol meets YouTube, but Ibibo’s management team has focused on the business fundamentals. With 3.3 million registered users, overwhelmingly young and mostly male, ad money is coming in, and so is the VC funding. Its parent company, South Africa-based Naspers (NPNJ.BE), estimates Ibibo’s startup costs at more than $10 million. So, Ibibo has sold a stake (for an undisclosed amount) to China’s Tencent Holdings, which runs QQ, a popular instant messaging service in mainland China.
Justin.tv
What began as a live video “lifecast” of Yale graduate Justin Kan in 2005 has grown into a platform that lets anyone produce his or her own live broadcasts over the Web. Each month, some 35 million people watch Justin.tv videos, which range from live coverage of sports and music events to streaming footage of puppies. The 15-person company expects to take in $5 million in revenues this year—mostly from users who pay $10 per month for “pro accounts,” which allow them to watch video on the site during peak hours in certain countries, where access would otherwise be limited.
Zynga
Zynga is an online game site that specializes in making gaming a group experience. The site, which features casino games, word games, board games, role-playing games, and party games, claims to be the largest social game network on the Web with 10 million daily active users.
Mochi Media
In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a lot of money to be made in finding ways to get office workers to waste time on the Web. Flash-based casual games are one of them, and Mochi Media is a company that aims to help the creators of these games do just that. If you’ve blown 15 minutes playing Bloons or Boombot, then you’re right in Mochi’s target audience of some 100 million people who play these games. The company provides analytics that tracks usage, serves ads, and helps publishers make money on their games.
Sermo
An online social network for physicians, Sermo provides a place where doctors can talk about cases and share insights about patients and clinical trials for drugs. The site is free for doctors, but Sermo makes money by selling access to the comments to drugmakers and other companies.
TheFind
With more than $20 million in funding, TheFind is on a mission to help every shopper find exactly what she wants, and to help every merchant, large and small, reach those shoppers.
TokBox
TokBox is a free service that allows anyone to do video e-mail or chat over the Web. The startup claims about 200,000 visitors to its site and last December raised a total of $14 million from top venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital, and a few well-known angel investors.
Proclivity Systems
E-commerce analytics firm Proclivity helps retailers turn more online clicks into purchases by drawing on everything they know about their customers—from the Web to catalog calling centers to the cash register. Proclivity’s tools might, for example, help a clothing retailer decide which color of sweater it should recommend to a customer based on past purchases. Backed by about $10 million in funding, the company is working with six major retailers, which each pay $500,000 to $2 million a year for the service.
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Is Green Marketing Here to Stay?
Posted on June 16, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, Insights, News, Press.
My latest article for Adotas just launched… it tries to answer the question “Is Green Marketing Here to Stay?” The article breaks down several factors to come up with an answer.
First, we must look through the consumer lens to evaluate the marketplace, consumer motivation and accessibility. Additionally, we need to understand how those factors impact the key players responsible for developing, distributing and promoting the products that fill the marketplace: manufacturers, brands and marketers.
The full story and detailed breakdown of these dynamics (marketplace, motivation, accessibility & key players) as it relates to “green marketing” can be found in my complete article on Adotas: Is green marketing here to stay?
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Video Best Practices: Part 2 – First Came Story… Now The Strategy
Posted on June 2, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, Insights, Press.
This is the follow up to last weeks article covering online video best practices — here’s an excerpt and link to the full article is below:
ADOTAS — So we talked last week about the importance of content, and we showed you a few examples of online video that delivers with a strong story.
Now you have hit all the important points, element of surprise,thrown in a few laughs, some subtle sex appeal, and now you wait forthe eyeballs to come to you. And…nothing. Outside of views fromeverybody in the office, and snickering rivals, you’re barely a blip inthe forest that is YouTube.
Link: Read the full article at Adotas.com
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Keys for successful online video advertising
Posted on May 27, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, Insights, Press.
My first article as a contributing editor on Adotas.com — the first part of a 2-part story on video best practices… a quick excerpt is below, and a link to the full article follows. Enjoy!
ADOTAS — Every minute, about 10 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube, the number one site for uploading and viewing videos online. In fact, hundreds of millions of videos are watched each day on YouTube. Most quietly fade away. At Big Fuel, we’ve been working with advertisers to effectively deliver online video for years. Our videos don’t fade away, in fact, our last two videos generated over 1.5MM video views in less than 2 weeks. (Facebook Manners, Real Life Twitter) Here are some basic, yet essential, guidelines for success. These are some of the rules that we follow which allow us to guarantee results for our clients.
link: Read the full article at Adotas.com
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Del Monte Social Media Strategy
Posted on May 26, 2009, by Avi Savar, under Business, Insights, Trends.
Del Monte’s social media initiative created a new breakfast treat for dogs.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — It’s one thing to debate the potential power of social media marketing to influence product sales but quite another to watch a social media project actually create a popular new product. In his keynote address at last week’s Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Social Media Conference, Forrester Research’s Josh Bernoff explained how Del Monte Foods did that very thing in just six weeks.
link: How Del Monte Social Media Strategy Created A New Pet Food – Advertising Age – Video
