How Can Marketers Have More Influence?

smarterplanet:

Join us for a FREE live virtual panel discussion to learn about the obstacles facing chief marketing officers, including control over marketing mix and access to customer data, and how to overcome the obstacles to gain greatest marketing influence and control.

Sign up now and get a free PDF download of the research briefing “The Gap Between the Vision for Marketing and the Reality.”

Tuesday, December 18, 2012 
12:30 - 1:30 p.m. EST

PANELISTS

Peter J. Korsten, IBM Institute for Business Value

Peter J. Korsten
IBM Institute for Business Value

Bobby J. Calder, Kellogg School of Management

Bobby J. Calder
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Martha Mangelsdorf, MIT Sloan Management Review

Martha Mangelsdorf
MIT Sloan Management Review

Edward C. Malthouse, Medill School of Journalism

Edward C. Malthouse
Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern

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Students, social influence and social media

IBM 2012 Global Student Study: almost half find social voice through social media 

Social media is exposing students to alternative ideas, philosophies and life experiences. It is also giving them an opportunity to exert influence in a much more interconnected world.

  • 61 percent of students say social media helps increase their awareness of the world. They  believe that “compared to older generations, social media has made  me more aware of global issues and how I can make a difference in the world.”
     
  • Nearly half of students said social media has given them a more powerful voice in society (47 percent) or helped them increase their engagement in real-life activity (40 percent).

Insights from the 2012 IBM Global Student Study

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Is middle management blocking your social business transformation?

The middle is very often a conservative place in organizations. The challenge is that the top can be sincerely interested in incorparting social business, and there can be a lot of frontline people who are sincerely interested, but it’s what happens in the middle that can determine success and failure.

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The IBM Institute for Business Value surveyed more than 1,100 executives and conducted in-depth interviews with 26 companies worldwide. This study shows how leading companies are integrating social into their strategies to: Create valued customer experiences Drive workforce productivity and effectiveness Accelerate innovation Read all the results and discover how well organizations are facing the opportunities and challenges.

The IBM Institute for Business Value surveyed more than 1,100 executives and conducted in-depth interviews with 26 companies worldwide. This study shows how leading companies are integrating social into their strategies to:

  • Create valued customer experiences
  • Drive workforce productivity and effectiveness
  • Accelerate innovation

Read all the results and discover how well organizations are facing the opportunities and challenges.

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A new global report released today by IBM  and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford reveals that most Big Data initiatives currently being deployed by organizations are aimed at improving the customer experience. Yet, despite the strong focus on the customer, less than half of the organizations engaged in active Big Data initiatives are currently collecting and analyzing external sources of data, like social media. Via IBM News room

A new global report released today by IBM  and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford reveals that most Big Data initiatives currently being deployed by organizations are aimed at improving the customer experience. Yet, despite the strong focus on the customer, less than half of the organizations engaged in active Big Data initiatives are currently collecting and analyzing external sources of data, like social media. Via IBM News room

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IBM CMO Study Part 2: Challenges in the Digital Age - Business Analytics

In the second part of this series, we look at new digital challenges that IBM’s CMO study pinpoints, including the explosion of data and mobile devices.

In the first part of this article, we discussed how IBM’s new CMO study, which gathered information from nearly 2,000 chief marketing officers worldwide, reveals marketers lagging to keep up with new social media trends. In addition to this shift, the study shows several other key challenges, including information overload and new devices, facing CMOs today.

While CMOs are struggling to gauge consumer opinions on social media platforms, they are also having trouble using social media as a communication tool.

According to the research, “56 percent of CMOs viewing social media as a key engagement channel.” The various choices in platforms—from Twitter and Facebook to YouTube—and the vast numbers of users makes it complex for companies to reach a targeted audience.

The study identifies the worldwide data explosion as another key challenge facing CMOs. “The increasing volume, variety and velocity of data available from new digital sources like social networks, in addition to traditional sources such as sales data and market research, tops the list of CMO challenges,” IBM reports. With such massive amounts of information, obtaining valuable and accurate insights about consumer views can be nearly impossible.

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Your Customers Aren’t Listening - Business Exchange

We appear to have a bit of a disconnect on our hands.

According to a recent study by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, there’s a significant divide between how companies want to leverage social media channels, and how their customers use them.

For example, more than 60 percent of executives surveyed believe social media will fundamentally change the way they do business. Seventy percent of executives reported that their company has at least one profile on a social media site.

However, more than half of consumers (55 percent) said they do not engage with businesses using social sites. They don’t trust them, and are worried about privacy and spam issues if they engage.

“But that’s just for prospective customers,” you say. “With my customers, I’m good.”

If that was your response as well, 70 percent of executives polled agree with you. But only 38 percent of consumers think connecting with businesses via social media will have a positive impact, and a third think it won’t matter at all.

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Analytics: The new path to value

How the smartest organizations are embedding analytics to transform insights into action

Download the complete IBM Institute for Business Value study (602KB)

In every industry, in every part of the world, senior leaders wonder whether they are getting full value from the massive amounts of information their organizations already have. New technologies collect more data than ever before, yet many organizations still seek better ways to obtain value from their data and compete in the marketplace.

Knowing what happened and why it happened are no longer adequate. Leaders need to know what is happening now, what is likely to happen next and, what actions they should take for optimal results.

To help organizations understand the opportunity of information and advanced analytics, the MIT Sloan Management Review partnered with the IBM Institute for Business Value to conduct a survey of nearly 3,000 executives, managers and analysts working across more than 30 industries and 100 countries. The findings led to recommendations addressing different pieces of the information-and-analytics value puzzle:

  • Focus on the biggest and highest value opportunities
  • Within each opportunity, start with questions, not data
  • Embed insights to drive actions and deliver value
  • Keep existing capabilities while adding new ones
  • Use an information agenda to plan for the future.

It takes big plans followed by discrete actions to gain the benefits of analytics. For analytics-driven insights to be consumed – that is, to trigger new actions across the organization – they must be closely linked to business strategy, easy for end users to understand, and embedded into organizational processes to take action at the right time.

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Students Work toward Sustainability, Says IBM Study · Environmental Leader · Green Business, Sustainable Business In a few short years, the millennial generation, sometimes called Generation Y, will make up half of the worldwide workforce. According to a growing body of research, their attitudes, behaviors and leadership styles will be markedly different from previous generations. Where they will diverge most, according to IBM’s recent global student study, centers around their views of globalization and sustainability. Since 2004, IBM has published a Global CEO Study every two years to understand and articulate the goals of leaders worldwide. In 2010, for the first time, IBM supplemented insight from the CEO Study, with a global student study. More than 3600 students responded from more than 40 countries to a detailed questionnaire about global issues and their impact on organizations.

Students Work toward Sustainability, Says IBM Study · Environmental Leader · Green Business, Sustainable Business

In a few short years, the millennial generation, sometimes called Generation Y, will make up half of the worldwide workforce. According to a growing body of research, their attitudes, behaviors and leadership styles will be markedly different from previous generations. Where they will diverge most, according to IBM’s recent global student study, centers around their views of globalization and sustainability. Since 2004, IBM has published a Global CEO Study every two years to understand and articulate the goals of leaders worldwide. In 2010, for the first time, IBM supplemented insight from the CEO Study, with a global student study. More than 3600 students responded from more than 40 countries to a detailed questionnaire about global issues and their impact on organizations.

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