Social Media in the Tech World

The role of SMM in the laptop choice and selection

It is not a secret that often people prefer to make decisions based on the others' opinion. How do you think so high interconnected the efficiency of the social marketing media and consumer behavior? Right, it is highly tied.

Let's consider on the computer industry. When you want to buy a new

gadget you do some target

research, observation, based on the results of which you make your final choice. 

Today, the possibility of laptops reached the point of technical equipment of personal computers. Each laptop - its own set of advantages.
Choosing a laptop computer, you need to take into account the features of the memory card and processor, almost you need to know as well as exactly how will you plan to use the laptop.

 However, even identify with the necessary parameters for your future laptop, you'll still be wondering: "Which manufacturer to prefer." 

  A large number of firm producing them offer to buyers a wide variety of different ways to accelerate their choice.

And now, it is time to learn what specific activities company conduct in social media and how it uses  specific channels and what for?

In order to make easier buyer's choice I give brief overview of the lead computer brands.

What is behind Samsung’s social media success?

What is the main goal of Samsung’s presence in social media? Are they more focused on increasing engagement or rather growing traffic? 

Samsung is focused on growing reach and engagement by creating high quality local or localized content. As a company that needs to sell a lot, Samsung also helping to sell products via social media. 

However, what’s even more important is to be accepted by the community and be an active & helpful part of the community.

Company trying the best to be as human as possible in the corporate world; it working on credibility, regularity and cohesion in it's communication efforts. One amazing case study can bring you fame, but it won’t change much in brand perception.

What is about usage of specific activities and of the specific channels?

Samsung use different channels, different goals and usage. Social media architecture no longer evolves around Facebook. It’s still a dominant social media platform but more like an amplifier, reach and awareness creating platform, than a center hub. It is perfect for product launches, supporting existing campaigns, and news and information spreading.

Twitter and Instagram are highly mobile, more specialized and direct platforms. They are using them as engaging platforms, for daily & direct communication, lifestyle communication, identifying influencers (with a use of social media monitoring), real-time communication,  and supporting existing campaigns. 

Youtube, as a second-largest Internet search engine is a search-enhanced platform, though Samsung thinking about expanding the role of their channel.

Anti-social Apple

Quite the contrary Apple Inc use social media.

It is amazing, but this is really truth! Apple is not only abstaining from a major marketing opportunity, but turning its back on an increasingly vital channel for customer feedback and support. 

The company’s philosophy toward customer input was probably best summed up by Steve Jobs himself. In 1998, he told Business Week: “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

It’s hard to argue with a business that has revolutionized multiple industries with a string of category-defining products, but Apple’s indifference to social media is puzzling.

By the way 

As you can see how the two big competitors, producing computers use quite different way to attract target audience. 

According to my brief overview I can say that buyer's choice not always depends on efficiency of social media, but this is more exception than rule.

Anyone who’s ever used an Apple product or stepped inside an Apple store can tell you how the company earned those fans. Apple knows its customers. It’s a loyal, passionate one-to-one relationship the company has invested decades and billions in cultivating. And who needs community when you’ve got a relationship like that, right?

Through innovative technology and aesthetic design, Apple Inc. has established a unique reputation comparable to the cult in the consumer electronics industry.

To sum up, the majority of buyers need to customer feedback and support to feel themselves in safe. So that is why, people search some responses about products before they will buy.

The groundswell is not just for consumers 

First of all, I would like to say a couple words about really desk book for them, who dealing with marketing business. It is great textbook titled “Groundswell: Wining in a World Transformed by Social Technologies”, and narrates about various practical insights into how and why people participate in social technologies and how traditional companies can leverage this undeniable phenomenon.

Let us try to understand why Groundswell recommends using Forrester’s Social Technographics as a foundation for social computing strategy?

The first thing that needs to be said is social technographics segment users into seven categories like creators, critics, spectators. This is certainly a useful way to understand what underlying user behavior and interaction is needed to create and sustain vibrant communities. 

However, the relevance of differences in technographics across regular demographics maybe a bit overstated. Such differences tend to be small and are likely to fade as social tools are embraced across all demographics.

  "...business people are people too.There is no such thing as a social network for a business commenting on a blog.Business don't interact. People do." (p. 70)

In the book described a good instance of groundswell thinking is for business-to business companies. This is about successful applications aimed at franchisees of McDonald's restaurants.

A McDonald's restaurant in Tokyo. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota 

Here is the Point of Sale distribution at the McDonald's. Each unit is paying customer calculated their time from the beginning of giving their order to the time when they received their receipt.

Here is the same data, but the iPhone App calculated the IMR Control Chart, showing Upper Control Limit and Lower Control Limit. I am not sure how useful this is for operation, but it is very cool that the iPhone App conveniently does this.

And below is the graph of the data and the cycles that was abe to measure:

http://www.shmula.com/mcdonalds-franchise-queueing-study/10209/

A future where customers could order Big Macs on a smartphone, it is very interesting, right? Almost later that vision remains far off, even though fast-food apps have become commonplace in majority of the industry.
An app will not cure all that ails McDonald's, but without one, Chief Executive Officer - Steve Easterbrook will struggle to reignite growth and attract younger diners who live online.
It is truth that, in business-to-business settings, picking an objective first is still the best practice.

Social Media and Russian Banks 

Let's thinking about how Social Media can influence on the banking area? What are the Social Media Marketing solutions for banks, particularly for Russian banks?

In this post I would like to review a few examples of interaction between banks and SMM.

Undoubtedly, the communication of financial products is a considerate theme, especially in a particular period of global economic crisis.

And it's even more critic to consider how social media and banks can work together in order to provide a better service for their customers. 

One of the great example of investment on social media is Bank of America. It was opened a Twitter customer care channel back in 2009 @BofA_Help. Currently, Bank of America have an active social media presence to help to stay in touch with it's customers and serve them better. 

source bankofamerica.com

It’s really hard to not notice how emerging economies are representing a new frontier in the field, due to huge and fast-growing amount of customers, and a high level of innovation too.

In Russia, despite a high peneration of smartphones (about 200 every 100 people), but a very low usage of mobile banking (around 1.6 every 100 people). This is mainly due to heavy usage of cash for financial transactions (source: blogs.worldbank.org).

The usage of social media for communication purposes still not very widespread among Russian banks, although there are some relevant examples of best practices.

One of them is Moscow-based Promsvyazbank, active mainly on Vkontakte and Facebook, where they counts over 18K fans and launched a specific app to promote their special edition Angry Birds-themed MasterCard. An evident sign of how the younger  target is the one showing greater potential.

Another good example of using social media is Sberbank (Savings Bank), the biggest bank in Russia and the third biggest in Europe, with a strong focus on Eastern countries.What's more interesting that over the last years Sberbank launched a program of communication and financial education strongly involving social media channels.

As we can see on the Sberbank's website, there is a section to showcase all bank's communities on various social networks:

The most popular in Russia social channel is Vkontakte, with two different communities. One of them is Sberbank: bank of friends, counts over a million followers, which is an enormous amount for Vkontakte standards.

The VK page has a strong daily activity, with hundreds of posts on the discussion board, and an intense activity of comunity management and customer assistance.

Also, Sberbank is very active with Vkontakte apps: one of them is the Financial Navigator, an interactive game with a point-based ranking related to the usage of credit card.

Also, every year Sberbank going Green Marathon, on the VK page bank allowing users to "run together'' in order to support the Russian national team.

A bit weaker the presence on Western fields, where Sberbank is still communicating only in Russian. Currently, Bank present on Youtube channel series of corporate videos and TVCMs, and runs official pages on Facebook and Twitter-the last one used for customer care purposes.

And one last reason why one need to invest in Sberbank: