The rapid growth of these channels, such as Twitter and Facebook as well as the proliferation of corporate blogging (which, while still a force, has been stalled by the social media rise), is indicative of a broader, sweeping change in the ways that businesses are using these tools to connect and engage with their customers.

This infographic from Go Gulf takes a closer look at the social media statistics of Fortune 500 companies.

The leading scholar of ‘Open innovation’, Henry Chesbrough is forming the European Innovation Forum to discover, discuss and share the most effective ways to organise and improve business innovation in Europe.

The forum, launched with Prof. Wim Vanhaverbeke, is in collaboration with the Barcelona based ESADE Business School and the SciencelBusiness Innovation Board, a Brussels not for profit association. It will be an invite only platform for senior innovation managers at leading companies across all industries in Europe. The first meeting for the forum will be held in June at ESADE in Barcelona.

Chesbrough is the world’s leading academic expert on open innovation. He is a professor at the University of California-Berkeley where he heads the Centre for Open Innovation, and at the ESADE Business School. His key books include Open Innovation in 2003, Open Business Models in 2006, and Open Services Innovation in 2011. He also runs an industrial forum for open innovation in the US.

The term “Open innovation”, was first coined by Chesbrough in 2003 as one of several approaches to innovation management, whereby big companies openly collaborate with each other in an exchange of new ideas and ways of doing business in the marketplace.

Chesbrough explains:

“The biggest challenge of open innovation is that you really need to change the way you organise and operate the company. You have to change the way you work: with your legal people, your suppliers, your customers and distribution partners. Typically, in many large companies, they don’t even share information very well within the company or across different units of the company. The European Innovation Forum will provide a place for companies to discuss the management issues raised by open innovation.”

In Europe there are both advantages and disadvantages according to Chesbrough, in getting open innovation to work. In many Northern European countries such as the UK, Finland and Sweden, open innovation is well advanced due to local universities and their spin-out companies being well connected with big industry, whereas in Southern and Eastern Europe this is not the case. There are obstacles throughout Europe to open innovation, Chesbrough says, including a very expensive patent system, which can be obstructive for small companies.

ESADE Business School in Barcelona is one of the world’s leading business schools, with a strong practice in innovation-management methods. The Science|Business Innovation Board AISBL is a Belgian not-for-profit association formed to promote a better climate for innovation in Europe. Members include ESADE, INSEAD, Imperial College London, Microsoft, BP, SKF and the Science|Business media group.

For more information, please visit the Forum website.

Since March 2010, Pinterest has been attracting millions of users, who use the site to share and explore their interests by ‘pinning’ all the things that they find interesting on their profiles in a way that both allows for visual self-expression and helps users to organise and display what they think is worth sharing. The website has no visible advertising such as pop-ups and banners and creates a safe environment for sharing information, which is probably the reason why Pinterest’s referral rate is reportedly higher than that of Google+, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, and MySpace combined (as written by Meghan Casserly for Forbes). The posting of “pins” is easy and not as time-consuming as blogging. The visual and expressionistic way in which the users can share their information creates a sense of community with a subtle charm that the bigger social networks such as Facebook seem to lack. The main difference here is the sense of trust that Pinterest appears to inspire in its users, which has only been mildly shaken by the recent revelation that the site embeds tracking codes into the links that the users post to affiliate commercial websites to generate profit from the sales resulting from its referrals.

Whilst advertising on Facebook is a relatively simple task due to its openly commercial nature, Pinterest’s strength lies in its non-threatening character, where users can recommend items, but don’t feel the need to keep their guard up against aggressive advertising. It creates an atmosphere of openness and sharing that is almost intimate. From a business perspective, this very quality of the website is what makes it so unique. How then to collect and utilise this precious consumer data without compromising Pinterest’s charm and without antagonising its users?

One of the ways in which businesses can potentially profit from the website is to utilise the very quality that makes outright advertising on it an unviable option. Pinterest allows people to explore their interests and to comment on each other’s findings. This gives a wealth of opportunity for companies to ask customers some questions about the direction in which they should take their services or products. For instance, as Pinterest is an intrinsically visual medium, it could help collect valuable customer feedback on product design. This of course requires the kind of openness that a lot of businesses may still shirk from, but the potential benefits could be significant. Sharing information and publicly asking users about what they want on a public forum such as Pinterest can help to build trust and improve products as well as brand awareness. Also, since user profiles reflect their general interests, and not just their opinion on a particular brand, it might be a brilliant opportunity for a company to see what appeals to the public about its competitors and to get an honest assessment of how to improve its product or service.

Pinterest, if used carefully, can potentially become a fantastic marketing tool that can help to develop products and services collaboratively with the other users. The crucial point, however, is to utilise this network whilst respecting its unique intimate character, without attempting to aggressively market or advertise a busines

The food chain McDonalds has recognized the moving trend in crowdsourcing and is incorporating it in their recent selection menu of Chicken McBites. The rise of this “cupholder cuisine” selection will be supplemented alongside ten selected short crowdsourcing films.

The online project gallery forum Tongal will create the mini, short videos accompanied with capital rewards appealing to the most prominent film.

Anyone who signs up as part of the Tongal group can participate in the event. Though the short video has to dictate the expression “on-the-go,” what it conveys to the establisher showcasing its adequacy. The early section of the contest imposes ideas of proposals, where the likely contestants craft a 30-second clip with a short deliberating piece of writing.

From this point forward the claiming entitlement develops a great level of intricacy. The available award of $35,000 is open for any contestant not just the winner as they take $15,000 in reward. The highly acknowledged ten 30-second films will appear on McBites online plus the producer will be awarded a sum total of $250. Further recognized applicants will receive an unknown sum.

The accredited short clips will solely accommodate the online advert though there have been discussions on whether the clip should be part of the televised campaign. Regardless of the contest boundaries this venture will enormously impact the use of crowdsourcing, as the artistry of individuals is being showcased by McDonalds a dominating business. McDonalds is providing contestants with greater then 1,400 music records from arising musicians, record labels and songwriters over Audiosocket.

The start of this competition is scheduled this week and in January the prospering videos will be presented online.

Introduction:

The imminent approach of 2012 portrays the European social media scenery as persistently innovating, resulting in an uprising year of exciting developmental change. With the rise of various different social networking platforms, myriads of content and the accumulating progress towards mobile media utilization which is enhancing individual’s knowledge, acquiring exclusive advantages to partake in the European social media Market.

Research:

Whilst carrying out research on how social media is evolving and developing in Europe I found various circulating trends on the high usage of social networking, search engines, mobile and online video in European countries. Current studies display the gathering of digital marketing in Europe to be part of many divergent segments. eCircle an email marketing facility who underwent research into communication in Europe, resulting in the conclusion that email is still currently the most significant method of interaction. eCircle one of the largest providers of online email marketing examined individual behaviour online and how they interact with brands all over Europe. Findings displayed six distinct countries in Europe are ahead in terms of the way individuals interact within online communities. Individual communities in Spain, UK and Italy indicated a highly significant favourable inclination towards multiply online usage of platforms; whilst communicating with brands online through social media communities and via email. Italy has a momentous amount of multi-platform users with more than fifty percent of online users working with both social media and email.

Therefore brands worldwide using European publicity need to direct their campaign according to a particular community, consequently not directing one strategy to numerous societies. Recently there have been various discussions on how social media is assassinating emails. Though research conducted by eCircle services defies this notion, subsequently consumers want to use different online sources whilst interacting on numerous platforms. The combination of social media platforms and email displays a strong marketing system for any business. Countries in the European continent like Germany, Netherlands and France seems to have a strong tendency controlled by email, as more than half the populations central source of contact being via email. In regards to email being a main source of online interactivity persisting as the most collective trend across these six countries. Using email individuals consume also subscribe to newsletter, articles created and subsequently establishing certain brands and companies across Europe.

Key Leading online social Media Platforms in Europe:

Predictably Facebook the social media platform has shown to predominate the majority of European countries, though in Netherlands the use of Facebook is diminishing resulting in the use of a close cultural social media platform similar to QQ in China. Facebook is conveyed as one prevailing force ruling online social media however a minority of groups are apprehending profiles of businesses and products, consequently displaying the inability of Europe to engage with online consumers. The UK is Facebook’s largest consumers with the majority of “fan pages” created by individuals. The below graph displays the United Kingdom as the Leaders for new online entertainment trends.

Conclusion:

Therefore email unpredictably generates the basis of online communication of marketing, hence it is one of the reliable source individuals turn to in order to communicate. European consumers are substantially using numerous online methods, which are thus choosing the way they want to network with specific groups and communities around the world. The arising technology of smart phones is consequently changing the way technology is adapting to meet certain consumer needs. The approaching exclusivity of online interactivity in business and marketing is shown to be a new light of evolution of how individuals are connecting with a given brand.

Graph from Econsultancy Digital Marker United 

Mashable 

The key resource for the European Social Media and Email Marketing

Netnography consists of various online disciplines; comprising mythologies such as content analysis, “text mining” of anonymous knowledge which is yet to be explored, creating a story through “word of mouth”, ethnography and observational research. The use of Netnography is “consumer centric”, allowing any niche or global business to continually enhance their consumer and marketplace knowledge. Netnography enables the social media industry to gain an insight, on how consumer co-creation, influences product development online. Research and design specialist constantly gain product knowledge from Netnography, in order to identify solutions for the “innovative” process of product development. This is usually a systematic study of conversations held online by “creative consumer communities”. As Kozinets states:

“Netnography is a new qualitative method devised specifically to investigate the consumer behavior of cultures and communities present on the Internet”.

Netnographic research uses natural observational techniques to gain an unbiased point of view. Thus utilizes an ordinary conversational style on various platforms including blogs, forums and social networking sites. It can be used to understand the characteristics and values of the online community. Expressive consumer developed networks, as well as links allow Netnographic analysts to gain an insight on “new-product buzz”; opportunities along with threats in their business market. The use of “Storytelling” through word of mouth has shown to create a great level of shock and bewilderment for a brand, consequently increasing brand loyalty in order for the business to grow. Social media platforms such as Facebook permit consumers to express self-emotions regarding advertisements and products via links; this significantly develops “search engine marketing”, through the use of rapid interweaving and sharing of information in web 2.0. A business uses “word of mouth” to progress a narrative wherein the message portrayed is analysed, so the meaning is able to form a relationship with the public. A good example is the Marks and Spencer’s advert: consisting of The X Factor contestants engrossed with the Christmas Theme, allowing the business to coincide with their chosen community. This generates a discussion between the advert and business, further establishing the brand.

Netnography provides rejuvenating perceptions by examining necessities and solutions. The necessities of consumer demands being motivation and needs to keep them engaged, displaying a problem with a great desire to resolve the situation. The solution is a valuable method from the business point of view, creating a sense of surprise. Netnography is a flexible research strategy, proposing an advocate observation on fresh and inspirational new ideas, owing to vast volumes of users. It is not restricted to a particular corporation, hence it analyses both business-to-consumer and Business-to-Business firms. Crowd sourcing explicitly presents insights into community web based interactivity, online research, thus provides numerical and linguistic tools to interact and pursue unconscious supremacy over the consumers. Therefore observes individuals in their natural environment using social media websites, such as Hi5 which comprise of public profiles. This provides a sense of trust furthermore authenticity, as Netnographic researchers are able to obtain acuities, aims, and anticipations of their certain consumer crowds, enabling engagement with a selected community. It presents the world through the viewpoint of the consumer, displaying ideas and interpretations of a certain field.  Learning the “who, what, why, where how, when,” in order to develop a consumer relationship by listening and understanding to what influences your consumers innovation.

Netnography facilitates the web and social media industry by providing numerous ways to analyse their consumer behaviour. “Search engine marketing” (SEM) offers online marketing in order to strategize and improve website stimulation by refining their appearance in “search engine result pages” .This information is  made available on websites, through the interconnecting links formed on  search enquiry platforms. SEM involves a method known as “search engine optimization”, a positive search result allows websites to gain superior association for small word searches and expressions .This is identified as “paid search”, the “advertiser bids for the chance to have their ad display when a user searches for a given keyword”, as the business is able to generate work flow by the “Pay Per Click” model.

Link To Robert Kozinets Blog

Further Reading:

Innovation Boosting: A Blog For Innovation Agents 

Advances In Consumer Research 

Innovation at Google

Wikipedia

The aim is that the thirty Unilever marketers will gain a better understanding and a sense of what consumers really like. For three months the marketers will have weekly contact with the consumers, ultimately they will meet them in real life as well.

Willeke Brokking , CMI Manager Foods at Unilever puts it as following:

“We expect it will lead to more insight on what consumers really moves.  This can lead to change and improvement of our products and provides a wealth of ideas.”

Open business

The project by Unilever is an example of Open Business. An organization that is open to external participation in its processes for competitive advantages in communications, product- and service innovation. By scaling participation the organization will be able to:

• Extend innovation to all departments;
• Scale the range and relevance of its research;
• Embed the customer throughout their business processes.

The Open Business process invites the organization to shift from thinking about consumers to working with partners, takes the second-guessing out of business planning, delivers bottom-up innovation and means that the organization markets with the people for whom the products and services are intended – rather than at them.

Bottom-up innovation

Unilever leverages social technologies and their data for the purpose of engagement, insights and possible co-creation. This bottom-up innovation exercise will broaden Unilever’s understanding of its consumers, because it breaks with the past. It enables to go beyond validation of existing perceptions and find new and relevant ones. Having periodic contact with consumers enables open marketing and communication planning, informed by these insights.

The engagement part is equally important, because that what people create or participate in, is embraced and talked about. Even if people can’t participate themselves, knowing that a specific brand is open to participation is in favor of the brand perception.

The continous innovation with the advent of Social networking via the Internet became overnight, a major social, technological, and business phenomenon with serious new legal implications. Companies and Organisations with the advent of this new social feature have undergone somehow a definition of open business and redefinition of open in a social perspective within boundaries of admnistration,management and legal strategies.

The Use of low-cost social technologies means that the fact of to connect with friends, family and old acquaintances, to form new relationships, and to broadcast personal, social, financial, academic, and other information has come to rival the massive cultural shift involved with the advent of the web. This continued development and expansion of innovative social networking services, pardigms and uses have obliged companies and organisations to expand the way their brands and message was perceived and expose them to criticism, complains and in some ways to have them in conflict to the public eye in a way never seen before. All this brings new legal challenges to companies.

The social networking phenomenon presents a new set of challenges for legal set ups and the way companies, organisations and governments have managed their legal and complaince strategies. Open Business Council wants to be a place where Social networking information can open and provide vital evidence in connection with disputes and regulatory proceedings.

There are a lot of research and books on this such as the one by Carolyn Elefant and Nicole Black where it is discussed legal ethical issues facing lawyers who use social media, in their new book, Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier (ABA 2010);

Millions of users are unaware of the unique legal issues surrounding their new communication(s) tool(s). Social media, and of course social business is opening new perspectives within legal and complaiance frames for business, brands and the way they identify and interact with their peers, customers. Only understanding the legal issues can prepare business for the problems for a given business or organisation in the immediate moment and in the future.

Open Business Council wants to be a place for the overview of the main areas of International law(s) (namelly in Europe) that affect social media. It intends to help its members to spot problems and give practical advice on putting preventative measures and policies in place.

Open Business Council is designed for anyone using or thinking about using social media open business approaches towards their processes and management. It aims to be a place to reflect the new innovative trends within social business and open business, including:

- Business intelligence, business systems, Strategy;
- Open business and Change management;
- Collaboration / collaborative / co-creation systems;
- Corporate/internal communications and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility);
- IT, online, new media, ebusiness, elearning;
- HR, ICT, data centers, information;
- Universities, Governance and policies;
- Knowledge management, information management;
- Marketing and PR;
- Performance, operations, project / programme, portals, psl, shared-services.

“10 years ago the web was content oriented. Now it is PEOPLE oriented….that is a great evolution!” #smwbeirut

The importance of ROA Return on Attention & ROI Return on Investment for Social Media innovation metrics. An Open Business has te be built upon the foundation about open data.

A small research and insights with some data.

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Posted under supervision of Dinis Guarda.