Digital Lifescapes

In hindsight, the outcome of short-sighted CEO Return to Office (RTO) mandates was somewhat predictable. Less than one-third of employees now report they are engaged, enthusiastic, and energized by their work, according to the latest market study by Gartner. This research was showcased during their recent "ReimagineHR Conference" event. Gartner defines engagement in three ways: Employees feeling energized. Employees find purpose in their work. Employees feel empowered to do valuable work. The problem: many are not engaged. Employee Engagement Crisis Explained "Despite organizations making investments in engaging their employees, our research shows that almost 70 percent don’t feel as engaged as they should be and aren't feeling a meaningful connection to their job," said Keyia Burton, senior principal analyst at Gartner . Figuring out how to actually impact employee engagement is a huge priority because it has a significant impact on several key business outcome...

Findings from a worldwide market study by Juniper Research highlights the growing disparity between traffic volumes and revenues in the mobile messaging market. Despite accounting for 75 percent of the traffic -- or 63 trillion messages -- by 2018, Instant Messaging (IM) apps will only generate 2 percent of the mobile messaging market's revenue. It's easy to be distracted by the recent media hype and miss the key significance of this market development opportunity. The service provider revenue from mobile messaging is not the big story here, and neither is the Facebook acquisition of WhatsApp. I believe it's how mobile messaging will transform marketing communications. Let me explain. Impact of Exploding Mobile IM Adoption The findings from the Juniper market study stated that the increasingly high IM traffic volumes are the result of a number of key factors that should be on the radar for all savvy marketers. Chief among those findings is the fact that usage of m...

If you're a marketer and you envision mobile device platforms as simply one more advertising opportunity, then you're likely going to be disappointed -- assuming that's the extent of your mobile consumer engagement strategy. According to the latest market study by eMarketer, the mobile web and apps are like parallel highways, with distinct rules and scenery and their own versions of congestion and confusion. The more effort you invest to fully understand these differences, the more you'll benefit. "The day may come when HTML5 matures to the point that the experience of using a web app differs little from a native app," said Noah Elkin, senior analyst at eMarketer . "Ultimately, however, focusing on the underlying technology in part misses the point about what makes apps popular." According to Elkin's assessment, app users are drawn to the encapsulated experience that improves content delivery and draws on the hardware features of smart d...

I was an early-adopter of the LinkedIn.com platform, having received an invitation from Reid Hoffman shortly after the beta site was launched. Back then, the user experience was very different, because the site was little more than a U.S.-centric online directory of member profiles. The site is now an invaluable worldwide business development tool, for those who apply its unique attributes that enable commercial-oriented interactivity. eMarketer reports that merely a month after its debut as a public company -- and now eight years after its launch -- LinkedIn has recently passed Myspace to become the number two global social networking site in terms of visitors, according to the latest market study by comScore. Marketers can learn how to most effectively reach LinkedIn members by observing how they typically use the site and where they interact on the platform. In July 2011, market research firm Lab42 surveyed LinkedIn users and found that the membership is somewhat engaged. ...

Marketers value engagement with their content marketing efforts, because it indicates that people actually care enough to interact. However, according to a recent eMarketer report, while engagement is compelling, 10 marketers might define it in 10 different ways. As the interactive ad format that most attracts brand marketers, much is riding on internet video advertising -- mainly their marketing budget ROI. But are consumers really paying attention to online video ads, when most say they avoid or ignore them on broadcast television channels? As spending for online video rises and takes a bigger slice of the display ad pie, marketers must be confident that they are spending wisely. Engagement may be difficult to quantify abstractly, but is key to the worth of video advertising. "All effective advertising today -- not just video -- requires some degree of audience engagement," said David Hallerman, eMarketer principal analyst. "However, unlike some metrics that pr...

eMarketer reports that according to a market study performed by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland, small-business social media marketing use has apparently plateaued in the U.S. at 24 percent adoption. The study of American small to medium businesses (SMB) found that most primarily use Facebook (82 percent), and that common activities are maintaining a "company page" on a social network and posting status updates or links to interesting content. About half of those businesses that used social media also monitored social networks for mentions of their company and/or product names. As small business gains experience with social media, some have realized their expectations are not in tune with reality. As most begin to look at social media as a channel more for customer loyalty than for prospect acquisition, they're also finding that hopes for increased brand awareness and attracting new customers have not been fully met. However, while fewer small b...

Compendium announced results from its Corporate Blogging and Social Media Trends Survey. They gathered data from 266 companies about blogging traffic, visitor trends, and their business related Twitter usage. The results counter the commonly held belief that business blogs have a core group of loyal readers. The study found that almost two-thirds of respondents reported more than 80 percent of all blog traffic was "first-time" visitors. "As more traffic is being driven to corporate blogs through organic searches and more first-time visitors are landing on blogs, companies need to develop blog and social media content that is appropriate for this audience in order to be effective," said Chris Baggott, CEO and co-founder of Compendium. Therefore, a keyword-optimized blogging and social media content strategy geared towards first-time visitors is a valuable tool for marketers to increase conversions. Of the B-to-B companies surveyed, 64 percent of respondents said tha...

U.S. marketers are "willing" to start a conversation about their brands through social media -- some actually follow-through and do it. But, that's only the beginning of their digital marketing intent, according to a recent eMarketer assessment. In late 2008, MarketingSherpa surveyed social media marketers about the effectiveness of their practices. Large majorities rated social media marketing effective at influencing brand reputation, increasing awareness and improving search rankings and web site traffic. Social media was considered less effective, but still useful, for internal communications and driving online sales. Marketers thought the best specific tactics were user reviews, relationships with bloggers and discussion groups. But they also found those tactics difficult to measure -- only around 10 percent of respondents thought they were very accurately measured. While one-third of larger businesses had a written policy to manage brand communications, only 13 perc...

According to Forrester Research, the permanent transition from IT-led technology purchasing (IT) to business-led solutions implementation (BT) means that marketers must begin adopting "community marketing" disciplines now. In order to succeed, tech marketers must address new audiences, forge and deliver on more substantive value propositions, and play by the new Web 2.0 interaction rules. Seems simple enough, right? Well, in practice, execution of these strategies will largely depend on your current talent pool -- particularly their digital marketing skills and willingness to change. Technology marketing professionals must be able to participate directly in IT communities and customer adoption networks -- and guide the activities of other community participants. That said, headcount allocations, internal relationships with other business functions, job descriptions, and incentives must all be tuned to support community marketing practices. Community marketing processes treat...

Has traditional advertising and public relations lost its prior influence on the public? That was the overriding question that the authors of the book " Groundswell : winning in a world transformed by social technologies" left me to consider. Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, both of Forrester Research, have written a balanced perspective regarding the implications of social technologies impact within the marketplace. Granted, this is the type of commentary that can be interpreted in several different ways. That said, as mass-media buyers apply their legacy skills in measuring impressions and imprints, you can't help but wonder if those metrics -- and therefore the results being reported -- have any meaningful relevance or benefit to advertisers. High Price of Mass-Media Irrelevance Likewise, when assessing the results of traditional public relations investments, if the vast majority of people that are exposed to the carefully crafted content have learned to disregard...

Marketers need an intuitive framework that allows them to move away from treating customers as generic segments to focusing on an individual's buying process, according to the latest market study by Forrester Research. Forrester's assessment says that the framework must align with the multifaceted buying process of today, not the linear process of the past. How can marketers evolve? The answer is engagement -- the level of involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence that a person has with a brand over time. It's the new approach necessary for mapping intricate customer behaviors into an actionable strategy while aligning them with the buying process. Engagement measurement encompasses the quantitative and qualitative metrics collected from both online and offline channels. It comprises the concrete individual metrics from store visits and online purchases, to the softer, aggregated insights from brand awareness studies, sentiment, loyalty, and advocacy. Four component...