theIdeaStudio (Customer Crossroads)

This just in: [1] dealing with shopping bags; [2] world of apps and app data [3] upcoming webcast on mobile qualitative

[1] To bag or not to bag at checkout?

In Toronto, where I live, the city has a bylaw that retailers must charge you 5 cents to give you a bag. But many retailers are using really cheap bags now, likely for environmental reasons. The result is you pay for a bag that is kind of horrible. Or can buy a re-usable bag for a buck or two.

I was in a clothing chain called Laura yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised to be given a really nice re-usable bag for my 5 cent charge. Nice little loyalty initiative, and of course great free advertising. Positive experience.

[2] World of apps and app data

The current project I'm working on has me seeking out information about the world of apps and casual games. I found some interesting sites that one could waste all sorts of time browsing around checking out data.

AppData  shows which developers are leading (look at those stats for Zynga!) and which apps, and lets you click around for more details.

I also found some interesting game demographics on DataGenetics, another site you can easily get lost in.

[3] Upcoming webcast on mobile qualitative research

If you've been wondering about mobile research, this May 3 2012 webcast may be of interest to you. Colleagues of mine through QRCA (I sit on their board) are doing a QCast webinar next week talking about mobile qualitative research.

In the Moment with Mobile

QRCA webinars are free, and are pitch-free zones designed to educate.

Here's the description:

Presenters: Kristin Schwitzer, Beacon Research, and Dana Slaughter, Slaughter Branding

Broad consumer usage of smartphones and web-enabled phones allows respondents to participate in qualitative research like never before.  Learn how mobile can generate additional insights to your current qualitative studies, regardless if those are in-person, online or both.  Kristin and Dana will share examples of creative uses of mobile technology to go where researchers have not been invited before, as well as share some tips from their experience regularly using one of the hottest new tools in our industry.

 

 

 

Which social network can get you business? LinkedIn is for B2B

I'm a big fan of the work of CB Whittemore (@CBWhittemore), who I have previously interviewed on this blog. When I was building my presentation "Hate Selling? Build Profile Instead", she kindly provided me with some compelling examples, and this wonderful quote:

LinkedIn is for your professional network; Facebook is for your personal network; Twitter is where you find kindred spirits"

Obviously, this is not the whole story, and she would be the first to tell you that Facebook can be a fantastic marketing resource for consumer-oriented businesses. Today, I'm talking B2B however, and just found proof for this.

HubSpot has data to back this up, which I discovered via David Meerman Scott's excellent blog, WebInkNow.

The chart shows how many visits were converted to leads based on a 2011 study of more than 3,000 B2B companies.

My take: if you are selling to business people (even if the service you are selling is only quasi-business, like personal training, for example), you absolutely must be on LinkedIn. And be there in a thoughtful way.

Resources

A Social Media Case Study: Using social media in a traditional industry: Flooring the Consumer Blog
January 2009

Using social media: focus on the message, and bridge new and old January 2009

LinkedIn 4x better for B2B leads than Facebook or Twitter says HubSpot study April 2012

Instagram fan reaction to Facebook acquisition defines customer passion

I'd heard of Instagram, but wasn't a user.

Listening to all the fan love in the last while following the Facebook purchase makes me wish I'd been there, though.

The commentary makes interesting reading, and not just for what it says about Instagram, but also how Facebook is clearly becoming a big brother figure.

Facebook becoming a walled garden

David Meerman Scott on WebInkNow suggests that Facebook is following the long-discredited "walled garden" approach of the former AOL et al.

It seems to me that the big social players – Google, Facebook, and Twitter – are building walled gardens around their users in the exact same way that portals like Lycos, Excite, AOL, and Yahoo did a decade ago.

Ann Handley on MarketingProfs observes that Instagram is a service many value enough to pay for, but Facebook is not.

To its fans, Instagram is a social network that many value enough to potentially pay to access. Yet it was purchased by a network many would never pay to access. And that, I suppose, is the nature of irony.

I loved her analogy that this announcement is like hearing your best friend is engaged to a jerk

She might be thrilled. But you can’t help but feel a sense of doom about the whole arrangement.

Definition of passionate engagement: great mobile design

If you have ever wondered what genuine consumer passion looks like, check out what Instagram's users are saying about it. People love the simplicity, the creativity, the empowerment, the fun. This is what great mobile apps must do. 

Is Facebook really the inevitable end?

Facebook does seem to have tremendous momentum, to state the totally obvious. But so have others. Remember Ning? I remember seeing it getting cover stories in business magazines, and wondering if that was the inevitable peak. Such as this breathless story in FastCompany, describing Ning as "a perpetual growth machine."

When Facebook said it would go public, it seemed inevitable it would become more and more driven by the usual obsessive need for stock price growth, and would become less and less oriented to the needs of individual users, and more and more oriented to the revenue stream.

AOL was supposed to take over the world, too. [You can probably add lots of great examples here -- please do.]

My own hope is that the flattening of power that new communications technologies have enabled will continue to result in a democratization of access, and make it difficult for any operation to really become a big brother. In other words, you can build the walls all you want, but you can't really stop the users from going out the gate, because it is really the garden of Eden out there, filled with richness and adventure, and that is magnetic to our natural human curiosity.