Guest post by Greg Narain (@gregarious) co-founder of Chute, a company that helps brands discover or collect relevant photos from social networks and incorporate the visuals into their websites and apps Brands finds themselves at a challenging crossroads in their evolution. For decades, companies have utilized a command and control model as it pertains to their brands. Billions of dollars have been spent to carefully craft specific messages and deliver them via campaigns. However, as consumers continue to create and…
Empowering Employees with Social Media Improves Customer Relationships and Grows Revenue
Employee empowerment is about creating brand advocates to scale customer relationships and effectively compete in new digital markets. Organizations can no longer rely on inbound and outbound sales reps, people willing to jump through hoops and obstacles via call centers, or traditional marketing to boost awareness and demand. Customers demand engagement, in real time, and that takes human beings, training, and support. In January 2014, the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the countryās oldest remaining metropolitan newspapers, opened a technology…
4 Steps to Connecting withāand EngagingāGeneration C
Connected, empowered consumersāalso known as of Generation Cāhave come to expect businesses to know them, to understand them, and to deliver what they want, where, when and how they want it. I recently published an ebook with IBM,Ā The Connected Consumer and the New Decision-Making Cycle, that explores the new decision making cycle of connected customers. You can download it for free here. Thanks IBM! The goal of the ebook, and also this post, is to introduce readers to the differences…
Business Transformation: Why General Motors is Investing in Customer Experience
As editorial director and conference producer of The Pivot Conference, I have the privilege to meet with the people who are bringing about real change inside organizations. During the 2013 conference, I had the chance to interview Dr. Rebecca Harris (@RebeccaHarrisDr), who leads the Social Media Center of Expertise at General Motors in Detroit. Her role is all about transformation and integration as she works across brands and around the world on social strategy, social tools, social processes, points-of-view on…
2014 – The Embolden Years: Change agents lead the way for digital transformation
Happy New Year! 2014 is upon us and itās once again time to share our (Altimeter Group) predictions for the year ahead. Except this time, predictions are moved aside in favor of important trends that are on the horizon. Letās use this time together wisely in the hopes of prioritizing our investments in relevant strategies and the time and resources necessary to bring them to life this year and next. In 2013, Charlene Li and I published several reports, infographics,…
5 Steps to Improving the Customer Experience with Big Data
Guest post by Lisa Arthur, CMO of Teradata Applications and author of the new book Big Data Marketing (Wiley). Follow her on Twitter @LisaArthur. Technology advancements are making it easier for people to constantly, effortlessly and sometimes unknowingly generate massive amounts of data every second. Lurking in the sprawling data pipelines of global corporations are complex tangles of information that have the potential to become your companyās most profitable resource. The opportunity has never been greater for savvy marketers and…
The Future of Business is Creating Meaningful and Shareable Experiences
Special guest post by Peter Guber, noted business leader and author of best-seller, Tell to Win While everyone’s talking about social media, professional motivation, or the need for change in business, people who are actually looking for answers to bring about change are left to draw upon the classic treatises of Peter Drucker, Dale Carnegie, Geoffrey Moore, Tom Peters, et al. Yet, what those pundits don’t provide is the “how to” shape your role and opportunity in this evolving landscape…
![Time to Grow Up! Social businesses mature, yet many still lack a strategic foundation [infographic]](https://briansolis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/All_sizes___Social_Media_Matures__Yet_Many_Companies_Still_Lack_a_Strategic_Foundation__Infographic____Flickr_-_Photo_Sharing_-1024x508.png)
Time to Grow Up! Social businesses mature, yet many still lack a strategic foundation [infographic]
This year has been particularly busy yet productive for Charlene Li and me having published two reports that detail the six stages of social business evolution and the true state of social business in 2013, an ebook on how successful social businesses are evolving, and an image-rich slide deck complete with all the graphs and charts you need to benchmark where you are compared to other social businesses. Now Charlene and I are proud to introduce our latest infographic that…
Social Business is not Dead: New charts and data reveal the real evolution of social businesses
In recent times, Iāve noticed a rise in discussions around the ādeath of social businessā and also an increase in alternative āfill in the blank but donāt use the word socialā businesses. Some of those discussions have been hosted here recently. Thereās strong merit to the discussions of course, especially those Iāve hosted (be sure to read the comments). But as an analyst tracking the evolution of social businesses and equally the cause and effect of digital transformation overall, Iām…
Leadership Unplugged: Stripping out the noise to uncover a new direction
Guest post by Roland Deiser and Sylvain Newton Twenty years ago, on November 18th, 1993, the music band Nirvana agreed to an unplugged performance at the Sony Music Studios in New York City. It was part of a television series called āMTV Unpluggedā, which invited popular music groups to perform their songs ānaturallyā. Unlike in a studio, the sound of instruments would not be electronically amplified and engineered; the artists had rather to rely on the ārawā performance of a…
