Search Engine preference and usage patterns are unique across the APAC, especially in East Asia.  Of note is the dominance of Yahoo in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, Baidu in China and Naver in South Korea.   This post presents a road map to the SEO opportunity in the Asia Pacific including a look at how digital trends will transform the top 3 triggers for using a search engine from offline, to online.  The complete post is available at Webstrategy.Asia

The complete post is at Webstrategy.Asia

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Air New Zealand's new pricing model reflects recognition of the growing market share of low cost carriers.  The flexible pricing means you can decide what flying experience you want and if it's worth the price tag, through i'm sure the air crew will be just as nice to you regardless of how much you spend on your ticket.

The message is clear: Price should not be the reason you decide not to fly with Air New Zealand on their uber-competitive domestic, Trans-Tasman and Pacific Routes. The competitive angle aside, this demonstrates how Air New Zealand are listening to, and catering to their customers' needs and zeroing in on an airline industry opportunity worth 10.6 billion.

Remember the last time you were in IKEA and got that great furniture deal because you were willing to pick it up and assemble it yourself?

In the UK, electronics retailer Kogan now offers shoppers the choice of buying goods at different points in the manufacturing cycle.

You pay a premium for the added convenience as the product moves through the manufacturing and shipping process.  A great deal or a marketing ploy? Time sensitive deals are compelling, which is one reason why daily deal sites are so popular.   You decide.

With services,  I think these transparent pricing models actually make more money for the companies behind them not because more people are accessing product at the lowest price point, but rather, because the customers become aware of exactly what they are missing out on and choose to upgrade their service level.  We can't resist a bargain or a little pampering.

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How long before Facebook Credits (FBCs) becomes a payment option across the web? With Facebook Connect continuing to spread quickly across the web, FBCs could become the micropayment system that opens up revenue opportunities for media owners wanting to make an income with their premium content. This is about making it easy for consumers to buy what you are selling.   We should pay attention to FBCs because:

1. Virtual Currency Monetisation is a trend that is becoming an industry unto itself.  In fact, South East Asia is at the forefront:

The QQ coin is challenging the status of the renminbi [yuan] as the only legitimate currency in China.

 - Public prosecutor Yang Tao, AsiaTimes Online, December 5, 2006 / The Rise of Virtual Currency

2. Facebook, through the Open Graph, is becoming ubiquitousness across the global web.

In the coming digital sphere, without a 'gold' standard, consumers could vote with their thumbs.

- Brett King, FinExta, November 4, 2010

One opportunity could be for retail chains to accept FBCs as a payment method in-store.  This could work via a charge card or loyalty card. Now i'm not suggesting issuing another piece of plastic to your customers, rather i'm suggesting adding functionality to what they already have.

Facebook Credits  in your eCommerce Business

The best eCommerce companies offer a frictionless checkout process.  Multiple payment options that cater to individual preferences is an essential part of this. I have made a countless number of online purchases using PayPal because the process was just so easy.  Firstly, I did not have to waste time signing up for another website and secondly, I did not have to worry about the safety of my credit card details.

For eCommerce retailers, it's also important to consider the positive effects of using FBCs to their ranking in the increasingly important social graph, i.e It's another point of intersection between the retailer, the consumer and Facebook.

Facebook Credits for Airlines

Imagine something along the lines of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" sponsored by an airline.  The player is rewarded for completing tasks that are favorable to the brand and in return, earn Facebook Credits, or even better, points in the airlines frequent flyer program.  Gamification.org breaks down the elements of the formula that make games like Farmville so successful.   The point is that there is a tried and tested formula for creating a success social game like Farmville or Mafia Wars, and it can be adapted to the tastes of any niche audience.  We can already earn miles through non-flight activities, at the places we shop, eat and sleep, so why not somewhere that we play online ?

Source

CityVille demonstrates the in-game advertising opportunity, where you enable any player to include your brand in their city and they can open up more branches in their friends' cities.  That's potentially putting your brand in-front of a prospect every time they log in to play, which tends to be everyday of the week.

With Internet access at 35,000 feet coming of age, another possibility is for an airline to accept Facebook Credits as payments for upgrades or other rewards.  Casual gamers on Facebook and other virtual environments are already used to spending credits to buy virtual goods and services. If these people also like to fly, then this could be an especially good fit.  Low cost carriers could even use FBCs to collect on-board payments for entertainment, food and beverages.

Note that the opportunity is not limited to Facebook.  It extends to any social network or virtual world operating their own virtual currency.

First there was Facebook Connect and then the LIKE button proliferated across websites. Facebook Credits is a natural next step in the integration process.

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If you're launching a new product or have a new TV commercial, there are compelling reasons to propagate it across the internet and cultivate regional online video communities across the Asia Pacific.

1. It's engaging, entertaining and easy to share.
2. Television is becoming a mainstream gateway to the internet and we will see more long-form and premium content become available.  For example: Home Project
3. 90% of Chinese internet users have access to broadband.
4. 1/2 of the world's internet population resides in APAC.

You could use Tubemogul.com to propagate it out to video aggregation sites across the globe or leverage your existing consumer touchpoints (like email or your website) to cultivate a community on a specific site like Youtube. You can also step outside the mould and try to use video remarkably like Esprit.com.  Or rather than a broad distribution strategy, you might instead choose to develop your presence on just one video site that dominates your target market.  One innovation on Youtube is the ability to add your own custom clickthrough links like in this example,  so as well as experiencing and sharing your video, the viewer can visit your website or any other online property that you specify, like at the end of this video:

 Done right, this can be a great customer acquisition and brand engagement campaign.

source source 2 (Checkout Comscore's Video Metrix for some market intelligence or take a look at Alexa.com's country specific site rankings for guidance on what video sites to focus on.)

YouTube.com, is the predominant destination across most of the Asia-Pacific, but did you know that there are country specific portals that should be factored into your planning? For example, in China the top three video properties are Youku, Tudou Sites and 56.com.

In Japan, you would also factor Dwango Co., Ltd. (which includes Nicovideo.jp) and NTT Group (which includes OCN.ne.jp) into your plans.

In Singapore and Malaysia Facebook is also a significant online video destination.

Tudou Sites ranked second in China, Hong Kong and Singapore.

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Two years ago becoming a fan of generic pages like "Dark Chocolate" was all the rage. With 92,541 fans at last count, the page is of significant value to any chocolate brand wanting to launch a new product or stay front-of-mind with chocolate lovers.  In fact, there's a healthy trade in administrative rights that allows a company to access niche fan pages for a price.  I also think there is significant opportunity to any business who understands vanity URLs and the importance of the Open Graph to their Search Marketing Strategy. The value is  comparable to owning chocolate.com.

Chocolatier: Sweet Society.  Source

Today, social gaming can be an excellent way to launch a new brand.  For example Chocolatier: Sweet Society has 900,000 monthly active users and now a product that these people have only been able to access on a computer screen is actually in real-world production.

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let's consider how mobile location based applications like Foursquare and Gowalla have proved how game theory can be applied to the real world.  Now consider all the plastic in your purse or wallet. This post demonstrates the power of game mechanics and its application to the real world.

source: Wikipedia

Foursquare and Gowalla educated the market on mobile gaming, check-ins and rewards. Facebook is now taking full advantage of the trend with their launch of 'Places' and 'Deals'.  The gap between online and offline marketing is getting smaller by the day.

The principle is simple: Perform an action, get rewarded and attain new heights:  stuff, power, access and status.  Get a rush of endorphins, an ego boost and bragging rights. We are competitive and territorial by nature and we seek out opportunities to express these traits.  Some of us prefer material possessions,while others are more interested in VIP access. I have been participating in loyalty schemes for years. I make purchases at specific stores with a specific credit card to earn points to get me to my reward goals faster.

A loyalty program does not necessarily have to be a formal card program.  It can simply be a case of visiting the same restaurant where you are friendly with the owner and she rewards you with a free glass of wine or a discount on your meal.

The best loyalty programs have SMART (Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) reward targets.

We are all driven by pain and pleasure stimuli and a good loyalty program is one that is designed to condition our behaviour towards achieving a goal that is aligned with a brand's strategic interests.  Our behavior can be conditioned in a manner similar to what's been described in Ivan Pavlov's famous experiment, where he conditions his dogs to salivate in response to specific stimuli.  This is the same way people can form new habits and adapt our behavior and also one reason why Daily Deal websites like Groupon and Grabaseat are so popular (The other reason being an inability to resist a bargain.)

Now game theory is penetrating our lives in new ways. As Springwise.com puts it:

Mobile gaming can help turn something we should do into something we want to do.

 For example:  http://www.ridekicks.com rewards you for sharing car rides.  The more you share, the more points you earn towards grandiose titles like King of the Road or Captain Planet.  This is an example of Gamification, an idea that some consider to be the future of marketing.

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As email marketers, we are fundamentally interested in finding ways to increase:

• The numbers who click links in an e-mail
• Sales revenue that is generated as a direct result of an e-mail campaign.

Image Source

Even though social network usage has surpassed email, this chart suggests that email still rules the roost.  9/10 US consumers receive promotional email, only 4/10 are followers of a brand on Facebook and only 5% follow on Twitter. However, the results are overly simplistic for 2 reasons:

1. Once customers are given the choice to hear from a business via social media in addition to or in place of email, the gap will narrow. Greater freedom in contact choice is also linked to greater loyalty.

2. Furthermore, the comparison fails to take into account the increased viral potential offered by Facebook. The average Facebook user has 130 friends who could potentially see your brand endorsement and continue to exponentially spread your message. This fact alone is compelling enough to make your social network page the hub of a promotion using WildfireApp, run an e-commerce store using Payvment or do a product launch like SPCA Petfood or Dentyne have successfully done.  With 500 million users worldwide, Facebook is a safe bet, but for data to back up a channel decision, try using Flowtown to build a social profile for each customer.

1. The most elementary of steps is to include social sharing links in your email

It's time to go beyond the default 'email to a friend' option. Here's why:

A Getresponse poll that analysed 500 million emails that included links for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Digg found found that:

• Overall, social media links improve CTR by 30% (7.2% to 9.4%)
• A Twitter link drives the best CTR: (10.2%) than email without one.  An increase of 40%
• The more links, the more clickthrough (11.2%)
• Interestingly, the social bookmarking service that started it all, Digg, offers the lowest CTR (5.3%)

2. The next step is to create hybrid email that drives traffic to both your website and social media.

More people use social networks than email.  It's prudent for us to position ourselves to adapt to changing contact preferences. So in your email communications, you can demonstrate a compelling reason to connect with you on a social network including samples of the unique content available and remember the entertainment and social-interaction elements that people are looking for.  Balance the email with your regular product offers that customers have come to expect.  Remember, either/or options are better than yes/no options.

Your marketing team should be able to copy/paste the needed HTML code, or you could try using a hosted email marketing provider like iContact, Netsuite or GetResponse that have built-in social media features (including tracking.)

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I previously stated that social media is one way to disaggregate your customer database so you're not completely reliant on email. 

Your customers' habits are changing. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

This chart from Morgan Stanley shows that social networking usage has now surpassed email usage.  Disaggregation is important.

Source: Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley
Corroborating Source: 2009 Marketing Trends by StrongMail

Furthermore, with this shift in behaviour, comes a shift in marketing budgets. Forrester estimates Social media spend of US$3.1 billion by 2014 versus only US2.1 billion for email.

We are past the tipping point.  Social media can be more effective than email because:

1. You can offer seamless experiences that keep the prospect on one channel and medium throughout the sales funnel, thereby reducing friction.
2. Overcome the noise associated with email marketing and reach prospects through a channel of their preference.  People who ignore your emails may listen to your message via an alternative channel.
3. The perception of a brand on a social network, is a brand that listens.  a brand that cares about me. And that asset - that social capital will deliver you customers that are worth more than those who you are not connected with on social networks.
4. It's easier for a recipient to share your message within a social network, than from an email client.
5. It's faster and easier for you to create a brief (and more easily consumable) post rather than produce a much longer html newsletter.
6. There are more relevant targeting opportunities than was possible with email segmentation, at least in the early stages of the customer lifecycle.

What's critical to remember, is that the tone of social media communications and it's approach is starkly different to email messaging. It's typically shorter and contains more rich media.  It's also a more passive message,  entertaining and has a level of personalisation that is unseen in email marketing.  It's ideally suited for targeting a niche group of subscribers who are interested buyers and / or influencers who are likely to think your message is remarkable enough to share it with their friends.

Here's how you can start integrating social media into your email marketing.

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Understand and Implement SEO with this strategy guide and checklist.  Yours for a tweet!

Related Reading:
A Word on SEO Strategy. Plus a 35 Point Implementation Checklist

Winning Search Engine Oscars with Social Media

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Preference. With greater freedom to choose, we as online marketers must enhance our targeting capabilities so that we get noticed by a larger proportion of our potential audience (subscribers, followers and fans.)  I feel like i'm stating the obvious here, but ExactTarget have provided the evidence to back it up:  People don't interact with brands in silos:

There's an overlap between channels like Email, Facebook and Twitter but different audience subsets have their preferred interaction channel. For example, it's a younger audience that is more likely to share your message on Facebook.

The report supports what we have come to accept as best practice content guidelines for engagement:

On Facebook, provide infotainment

On Twitter, it's all about what's new and keeping people informed.

How is Social Media impacting your email marketing?

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Here's a little something I put together while trialling Virtual Assistant company GetFriday.  Following some initial research, I asked them to see how they could put that data into an infographic.  This is the result:

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Augmenting your customer database with user interest data from social network profiles is possible using Flowtown or Rapleaf.  But these solutions require an email database for you to plug-in to their systems.  If you don't have an email database yet, you can still gain some insight into how your audience interacts with social media by tapping into market research conducted by Exact Target, Forrester and GlobalWebIndex.  Play time: 

Forrester Research

Exact Target

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The total number of social network users in New Zealand is about 2.3 million people. 

The total Internet population of New Zealand was 3.5 million as of 2009.  Assuming a nominal growth rate of 5%, the 2010 figure is around 3.675 million people. Therefore, 62% of the internet population are social network users.

Note that this chart covers only social networks and not publishing platforms with community features like Youtube, Wordpress and Slideshare.

Feel free to re-use this chart, but please link back to this page referencing Social Network Stats | Kryptonite.co.nz as the source.

There are 1.65 million kiwis or 72% of social network users on Facebook.  NZ Daily Unique Visitors

Twitter

NZ Daily Unique Visitors

Bebo is in steady decline as its audience migrates to Facebook. However, for now, Bebo is still more popular than Myspace. 

NZ Daily Unique Visitors

Myspace is steadily losing volume, but they have a very niche,  music-centric offering. 

NZ Daily Unique Visitors

Linkedin is steadily increasing its New Zealand user baser.  They claim 250,000 members, but the actual number of active users is closer to 180,000.

NZ Daily Unique Visitors

Sources:

1. Saatchi and Saatchi / Colmar Brunton Survey via Kelly Gregor at The NZ Herald
2. Google Ad Planner

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Image Source

• The most effective email marketing delivers relevant and well-timed messages to a properly segmented customer database.
• After performing a cohort analysis, we understand the best time to send a follow-up email to a first-time purchaser, to maximize the odds that they become a repeat purchaser and then a lifelong customer.
• The resulting customer lifecycle email messaging plan might look something like this:

Image Source

An e-commerce store might be looking at automated emails for triggers like: 

1. Abandoned shopping carts
2. Post purchase product reviews requests
3. Birthday reminders
4. Wishlist reminders
5. post browsing recommendation emails.

Segmentation data that allows us to deliver relevant and well-timed communications comes from querying our databases.  Unless you have an understanding of SQL, you will require the assistance of your IT department.  If you don't have one already, the first thing to do is write a functional specification for an email marketing dashboard.  This will allow marketing to get on with their job with minimal delay.

Looking beyond our own customer data we can now create individual customer profiles based on data publicly available on social networks.  Here's a couple of situations to illustrate how this can be useful:

1. We know that a customer visited us and purchased a laptop X with high-end functionality.  Looking at the purchaser's social profile, we see that they are a web-designer by trade.  We can now safely guess the purpose of the new laptop and email the buyer with a timely and relevant offer for a 24" widescreen LCD dispay and pitch how wonderful it is for web design.
2. If a visitor registers on your website, but does not order anything, you can use their social profile to get a better idea of what they will be interested in, rather than send them a generic reactivation email.

Read on to learn how to build a subscriber's social network profile using Flowtown. The great thing is you can import the data into your CRM system.

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One of the key questions for a business is:

"Which social media channel should I use?"

There is a need to justify the investment of resources. The answer is to focus on the networks that your customers are already using.  Go to where they already are rather than trying a "build it and they will come" approach.  

Furthermore, this is also a way of identifying which social network is likely to be a source of new customers.  Since your existing customers are on the network, it's reasonable to infer that people like them (that like your product) can also be found on that network.  One useful tool to help identify which social network(s) you should focus on is Flowtown.  

It's easy to create social profiles for every person in your email database:

A social profile provides data on a customer's demographics and interests as indicated on the social network and can therefore be used to not only enhance your social media marketing, but also to send more relevant and targeted email communications.

An alternative to Flowtown worth assessing is Rapleaf.

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We've all read that followers of brands on Facebook spend more money than consumers who are not fans:

Why do your Facebook Fans spend more?

1. Your brand is front of mind, leading to increased frequency of purchasing and therefore a higher annual spend
2. You have more regular, yet informal contact with the brand, which as a consequence, penetrates your subconscious mind.  We have a greater affinity towards things we are familiar with. ( I studied Neuroscience at university, so I take an interest in these things : )
3. As customers, we feel like brands on Facebook are really listening to us. Since they care more about us than their competitors do, we return favor in kind.

So when situations arise when retail therapy comes to the surface, your brand wins. Triggers for increased purchase frequency:

1. Indecisive moments where you might be thinking about where to eat.  I keep thinking about Giapo Gelato when it's dessert time.
2. Idle time when you might be tempted to make an impulsive purchase. You might be browsing your newsfeed and buy a pair of shoes online that were on sale.  You could be walking down the street and see a Facebook sign in the window of a store that makes a connection to something you saw online earlier.

The Emarketer article reporting on the Syncapse and Hotspex study

The Syncapse Whitepaper describing their research methodology

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As of today, Amazon.com only has 71,477 Facebook Fans - a meager amount for a company of their size, especially when for example, Best Buy has 1,190,477 fans.  Why is this?

A jack of all trades is a master of none.

Try to be all things to all people and end up being no good to anyone.

On the other hand with Best Buy the focus is narrowed to consumer electronics.  If I choose to follow them, I know to expect electronics news and deals.  Further, it seems the more niche we get the greater the potential for community - The social object becomes clear.  For example, Starbucks, synonymous with coffee, has 7,952,792 fans. But go too niche and the audience can only get so big (which is fine too.) For example, the  Frappucino Page has about  2,000,000 followers.

The Hubspot chart above demonstrates a clear opportunity for Amazon, Ebay and Trademe on Facebook:  Form communities around specific movies, TV shows, bands, products and books like this one.

Your company can have a page, but communities also need to be cultivated for your key offerings.

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"Humans have a natural proclivity to want what they cannot have. "Greg Ferenstein,Mashable

Legitimate Concerns with Social Media in the Workplace

1. Intranet security: Malware may be inadvertently downloaded and spread.
2. Bandwidth. Potentially a significant expense:

• 6.8% of all websites visits go to Facebook. 10% of all corporate bandwidth is taken up watching Youtube Videos.

"It is commercially unwise to have a bandwidth free-for-all, especially when you consider that downloading a single half-hour TV show consumes more bandwidth than receiving 200 emails a day for a year."Mark Hutchinson,Managing Director,Telindus

Evidence in Favour of Social Media in the Workplace

“People who do surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t. “It’s the same in the work place. Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days work, and as a result, increased productivity.” Dr Brent Coker,Department of Management and Marketing,University of Melbourne

Productivity:

• If your people are still meeting their deadlines, then does it matter if they spend their down time on Facebook?
• Why do they have so much downtime?  Fair question - You're paying them to work 8 hours a day, but they seem to get their work done in about 4.  Fine, their obviously very productive people.  Give them more responsibility.  They obviously know how to increase operational efficiency and could help you do this business wide.  It's your employees who aren’t connected to the rapidly evolving business climate around them that you can't afford to keep.
• I think the issue has more to do with perception: Your peers walk past your work station and seeing you on Facebook, creating an impression that you're not working.

There's no reason to treat your people like children or residents of some military junta run state.

• When phones were first introduced in the workplace, they were banned for personal calls.
• Today anyone can pick up the phone and tip of the press.
• The point is, your people are not going to. You hired them because you trust them to do a job.  That trust needs to extend to how they conduct themselves in the workplace.
• Further, you have signed contracts with them through which they have agreed to adhere by your policies.

So you don't understand social media and you've heard that its all hype and more likely to cause sensitive information to leak out of the office and harm your brand.  Who did you hear that from?

• Well then you need to learn social media and set an example for how its used in your organisation because not engaging will do even more harm.  A very visible conversation is happening and if you're not participating, then your communications team can't manage your online reputation.

 To succeed in Social Media, it needs to become part of your corporate DNA

Win new clients and give customers a unique experience they can't find anywhere else.  To be able to create these remarkable marketing campaigns, your people need to have a practical understanding of the channel.  It has been common place to hire an agency, but unless you have some familiarity with the channel, how do you know what to look for in an agency?  The inevitable result will be paying too much, getting burned and taking a hiatus from social media.

A first step.  3 options that can streamline information sharing and enhance collaboration that is currently faciliated by legacy project management tools:

• http://www.socialcast.com/
• Yammer.com:  Your company's very own version of Twitter - with a 99% SLA
• A Wiki:  These group collaboration systems are simple, customizable and used by multimillion dollar companies.

“Since I’ve started at Google, I’ve been extremely impressed how well the internal version of Google Buzz (Google Buzz) works to facilitate routing important information to people who need to hear it, and facilitate fast reactions.” Tim Bray, Developer Advocate, Google Inc.

Launch a pilot program to prove the concept. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

And besides, since most of us own or will be getting smartphones, we can access social media at work anyway. - Corporate policy be damned.

Take the Social Media in the workplace survey. If you're an employer: Do you have a block access to social media? Why? Answer in the comments. If you're an employee:  Do you use social media during work hours? How?  Please leave your answer in the comments section.

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