YNovation moves to Germany

Dear Reader,

YNovation has moved to Germany and continues most of its blogging and posting in German.
You can find our German Blog here, and please visit us on our German Facebook page!

In case you are looking for English Social Media consulting, please do not hesitate me on
stephanie.holmes@ynovation.de - my English is still there!

I look forward to hearing from you,
Stephanie

YNovation at the WWF Learning Week

The WWF Learning Week offered YNovation a great platform for yet another wonderful session on Social Media and Engagement today.

It was an intense two-hours of powerful discussions, meaningful interactions and a taste of social media practice. Social Media can be scary and the digital natives are intimidating, but as long as our level of awareness is high and we have a suitable strategy in place, there are many ways to create value.

Thank you Laila, Teo and Tatiana for the opportunity!

         The Ynovation Team

YNovation is happily growing!

Hello! I'm Alessandra and I am the latest addition to the YNovation Team. I will be their Marketing Wiz...

I'm Italian but I have spent 7 years living and working in the US and the past 2 in Switzerland.

I have 11 years of working experience in marketing, communication & sales strategies in the luxury consumer goods and executive training industries, always in a global context. 

I think of Facebook as the life saver that helped me settling in a new city. I found myself promoting LinkedIn in a business context back in 2006 when few knew about it. One day I signed up on Twitter & it was love at first tweet!

After that, YNovation felt like a very natural fit and the ideal way forward. Working with Stephanie & Rafael is refreshing, inspiring and an extremely valuable learning experience at 360°. What I love about YNovation is that it really helps clients being forward thinking with their social media strategy!

According to Klout, I'm a networker with a very high true reach potential score, just a few points away from becoming a real influencer! In my own words I'm a twitter lover who likes to share and comment on anything I am passionate about from branding and entrepreneurship, through to various social media topics including, well... life in general!!

Check out some of my posts @twittalea - and hope to see you soon amongst my followers!

How fast do I see paying results from my Social Media activity?

Guest post by Sarah Santacroce from Simplicity

How fast do I see paying results from my Social Media activity ? This is a question I get asked a lot. Understandably, since after all, we are all here to do business.

Let me try to answer it:

Social Media is a long term investment
It takes time to get your audience’s trust. You invest time interacting with people, sharing information, building a long term relationship. Seth Godin calls it “building your tribe”. You are not directly selling your products or services, but you are generating leads. Once the lead comes in, your normal sales process takes over.

According to Mike Stelzner’s Social Media Marketing Report 2011 entrepreneurs quoted the main benefits of Social Media Marketing as follows:

• generates exposure for the business
• increases traffic to website, increases number of subscribers
• improves search rankings
• results in new business partnerships
• reduces overall marketing expenses
• and last but not least: increases sales

So, the truth is that you will not immediately see an increase in sales. I would say it takes at least 6 months until you will make the first sale related to your social media activity.

Why does it take so long? It takes time to develop trust. But after interacting on your Facebook page, reading your blog posts and watching your Youtube videos for about half a year, your potential client has a good idea of how your services or your product can help him/her with his needs. And you will be the first one he/she contacts.

So what are you waiting for? Better late than never!

Please share your experience below. How long did it take you to convert a social media lead into a sale?

Here are two other posts that you might be interested in:

• How to measure social media return on investment for the complex sale
• 4 tips for converting social media leads

Sarah Santacroce from Simplicity – Simple Small Business Solutions, is a YNovation partner.

Sarah is a certified social media, internet marketing, and virtual event specialist. She enjoys every aspect of small business marketing. It is her mission to help other small businesses and solopreneurs to increase their visibility and use social media tools as part of their marketing strategy.

She lives and works in Ecublens, Switzerland. To find out more about her business and how she might be able to help you, please visit her website at www.simplicityadmins.com

The Motorola deal – has Google become evil?

By Stephanie Weg


One of the biggest news in the technology sector last week was the Google-Motorola deal. Google have agreed to acquire Motorola for a handsome $12.5 billion, or $40 per share, which is a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on August 12, 2011.


This deal shows that Google is serious in the battle of giants against Apple and Microsoft. Recently, Microsoft and Apple teamed up to purchase patents in an anti-competitive attack on Android. While they claim that Google was invited to join the deal but declined, the fact that Microsoft and Apple seem to have found a common goal makes one wonder whether that goal might be the war against common “enemy” Google. 
So now, Google is pushing back. 


Besides trying to establish Google+ as a rival to Facebook on the Social Networking front, the search giant also puts its money on mobile as one of the big trends for the future. The acquisition of Motorola gives late comer Google not only access to thousands of patents but also allows it to set mobile standards for hardware and software in the future without any formal constraints. It will be in a position to dictate the strategy for other players in the market who use the Android platform for their devices. The risk is that Android partners like HTC or Samsung will be lost to Microsoft, so Google will have to keep them happy by sharing Motorola’s intellectual property with them strategically. For now, the comments from HTC, Samsung and LG indicate that Google has done its homework and made sure the Android partners do not feel left behind.


Google’s bet for the future does not end in the mobile industry. According to a blog post by Larry Page, Motorola was also acquired for being a “market leader in the home devices and video solutions business.” It will be interesting to see what Google creates in this space. 
Overall, the news sounds interesting, are welcomed by Google’s partners and offer interesting opportunities for new Google endeavours in the future.
So why does this this deal make us stop and think while a similar acquisition by Microsoft would have been “just another one”? 


Here is the reason: 
Google used to be legendary for its official inofficial value “Don’t be evil”. It was the Robin Hood of the web, the one company which was not following solely its own interests, but the player who really added value to the web in a way that no one else could, or wanted to deliver. This deal shows Google in a different light. This is not a smart new solution which is provided for free for all of us. This is a tough deal, an action of a player in the market trying to position themselves in a battle for the rulebook of the digital world. It does not fit the Robin Hood image at all. 


But let’s be honest: Google has probably no choice. If the company wants to survive and grow, they need to play the game, and need to bend to the rules to a certain degree. The next years will show whether Google is doing this while keeping the “Don’t be evil" spirit, or whether it is on a slippery slope of succumbing to the temptations and pressures that one of the biggest players in the digital world faces. We all hope for case one, and the statement by Google that Android will stay an open source platform supports this. But then, “evil” also depends an awful lot on where you stand and which alternatives you have.

Do you think Google is becoming more evil? Do you think they can afford not to?

How to implement a Social Media Strategy (Part 2): How are you going to achieve your targets?

by Stephanie Weg

Last week’s article  described how you can start building a Social Media Strategy by checking your Status Quo, defining your Business Objectives and by breaking them down into clear targets, measurable Social Media metrics.  

This week, I will explain the other 3 steps in the YNovation SOCIAL framework.

4)    I – Initiatives

After setting the base with the first three steps of the framework, you can now define the content of your Social Media Strategy. Decide who your target audience is and which interactions you want to support in the Social Web. Define which resources, content, tone of voice and processes you want to use to frame the initiatives. Also define community guidelines for your audience to make sure you have terms of use in case something does go wrong. Always think back to your business targets and apply the three core considerations for a successful Social Media campaign.

5) A- Architecture

Now, and only now is the time to define the platforms you will use in your Social Media strategy. It is increasingly important to make sure that your Social Media presence is not tool-driven. Tools might change, and they always have to be just a means of creating initiatives which support your type of business and resonate with your target audience. If the people who you want to reach are not on the most popular platforms, you do not need to be there either.
So think carefully about which platform(s) best support your Social Media initiatives, the conversations and interactions you want to have with your clients. Often, it will be the big names (such as Facebook or YouTube), but there will be cases in which it is not about getting the biggest audience, but rather using a small niche product which allows you to enable the conversation with your intended audience in the most suitable way.

6)    L-Loop

This is the point where we come back to the ROI. If you go to the effort of creating a Social Media Strategy and being “out there”, you want to get some benefits out of this. Once you are running your Social Media Initiatives, make sure you “loop back”: Review your activities and track your metrics, in the Social Media space as well as your operative results.
It is often hard to exactly hit the mark at the first attempt, so be ready to adjust your initiatives and remember that Social Media is considered to be always in beta, i.e., in testing stage. Having to change things is not a failure, after all, Social Media is about listening to your audience and learning from them how to improve your business. 

With this framework, you have a step-by-step description of how to create a Social Media Strategy. I'd love to hear how you go!

How to implement a Social Media Strategy (Part 1): Where do you stand and where do you want to go?

by Stephanie Weg

Last week I wrote about how to get into Social Media as a "beginner". Today, I want to elaborate on how you can go about putting together a Social Media strategy. YNovation has developed a framework called “SOCIAL” which allows you to create a Social Media strategy which suits exactly your company. 
Let’s look at the first three components of this framework today.


1)  S - Status Quo

The first step in building a strategy is to know you stand today: Assess your current situation in terms of Social Media equity: What knowledge is there in terms of Social Media in your company? Are there initiatives and processes around it, how are they coordinated and what are the results? What is already available about your business in the Social Web, provided by you, or maybe by others? What do you competitors do? 
Try to get a clear answer to all these questions to you know what your Status Quo is. Once you have an overview of the current situation, you can define your Objectives. 


2)    O - Objectives
The ROI of Social Media is subject of many heated discussions. Our firm belief is that Social Media has to have an ROI to be worth it. It might not always be a short-term rise in sales, but there has to be something in this for your business. 
Defining business objectives is key in making your Social Media strategy a measurable success for your company. 

So define why you want to use Social Media and what the business benefits that you want to achieve are? 
There is a long list of opportunities: You could boost your sales, increase customer satisfaction, source new ideas for product development, connect customers to evoke more passion around your brand, enhance your brand image, market new products, improve internal communications, and many more. Always keep in mind that Social Media somewhat integrates different interactions. Since all conversations are transparent, happy customers on the Social Web might also increase sales by others who see how happy your current customers are. 
To make sure you can track this, use this step also to break down your objectives to clear, measurable operative results. Consider indicators like sales figures, customer service efficiency, customer feedback and other traditional measurements of business success. 


3)  C- Clear Targets
Now, after you have defined what benefit Social Media is expected to bring to your business in measurable operative figures, you can translate these into Social Media results. 

Let me give you a straightforward example: If you aim to increase your sales, track direct sales through Social Media platforms or changes in Sales aligned with Social Media campaigns.  
Not as intuitive, for instance, is how to track more indirect objectives such as customer satisfaction or brand equity. One Social Media metric you might want to measure here is “positive replies to answers you give your customers on Facebook” or “sentiment towards your company or your brand in the Social Web”. 

Defining meaningful metrics is one of the most difficult, but most important parts of creating your Social Media strategy. We will see next week why.