Media'ZBiz!

Co-creation is a powerful trend in product development that has been around for quite some time. But as I have written in an earlier blog post (Brand 2.0: when crowdsourcing becomes a must…) co-creation has recently started to gain more traction with social media bringing communities together.

Most companies have innovation as one of their top priorities. But many face challenges in innovation management – be it ability to co-create with customers, or utilizing employee talent. To address this challenge, enterprises have to embrace open innovation, co-creation and collaborative innovation.

John Windsor’s recent blog post about his friend who runs a business in the outdoor sports market is very relevant:

He described the paradigm shift we’re experiencing really well.

My friend says that he’s at a crossroads. He currently has his agency produce TV spots to run on targeted cable channels. All in, he’s spending a few hundred grand to reach a similar number of viewers.

It’s all good.

Until he starts looking at what his fans are doing on YouTube. People, who love his brand, are making their own spots by the hundreds. And, they’re popular. A half dozen of the videos have been viewed by over 1.5 million people.

At the end of the day, it comes down to math. It’s either creating TV spots and buying the media for them for a lot of money or getting 9,000,000 viewers at the cost of $0. The decision seems easier than it really is. While the cost of the 9,000,000 viewers is 0, my friend has lost some of the control he had over his brand when he used his agency. The trick is moving from a creation mindset of controlling the message and broadcasting it to a curation mindset of inspiring and guiding the people who are creating and sharing the digital videos.

While most companies understand the power of collaborative innovation, the means to achieve it is not always available. They need an alternative to current ad agencies and crowdsourcing platforms. At  90:10, we have been working on a whole series of products that offer companies the strategic direction, engagement, connectivity, relationship management and ROI.

The following slidedeck gives you more details about our approach.

If you’re interested in the products themselves and how they can create value for your company – let me know.

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Related articles:

A definition of co-creation

What the heck is co-creation?

As Facebook has become an incredible online community (more than 120 million users in Europe) and has shifted from being not only a social network for personal use but also as a key platform and medium for brands online, businesses have started to look into spending more time hanging out and engaging with their fans and users, in a legit way.

The BBC has spent tens of thousands of pounds on teaching staff how to use Facebook.

PBS’s new 102-minute documentary will debut on Facebook before being broadcast on PBS.

Amy Porterfield in her last post says:

When you hear that Facebook is yanking Yahoo from its ranks and inching up on Google’s traffic throne, you can’t help but pay attention.

She shares with us 5 studies, that show how Facebook is undoubtedly a leading online social contender and a key tool that is continually changing the landscape of online engagement and fan loyalty.

To know more about how to promote your business using Facebook Fan Pages, I recommend one of my older blog post and if you want to know how to customize, optimize and monetize your Facebook Fan Page, watch Amy Porterfield’s video.

Another interesting article: How to setup Google Analytics on your Facebook fan pages.

Businesses are increasingly adopting customer-focused processes to gain competitive advantage. But for building a business around customers, companies need to understand them. They need to engage in regular dialogue and conversations.

Research has shown strong evidence that Social Media Engagement correlates to Financial Performance (see report on world’s most valuable brands – Who’s most engaged?). This study emphasizes quality of customer engagement through social media by concluding:

It pays to engage meaningfully in social media. Emphasize quality, not just quantity.

Engagement is more than just setting up a blog or Facebook profile and letting viewers post comments, it’s keeping your content fresh and replying to comments; it’s building your friends network and updating your profile status.

Engagement can’t be skin-deep, nor is it a campaign that can be turned on and off. True engagement means full engagement in the channels where you choose to invest.

To scale engagement, make social media part of everyone’s job. You must do something, else risk falling far behind other brands, not only in your industry, but across your customers’ general online experience.

This clearly illustrates the importance of Social Engagement, i.e. engaging customers via Social Media for building trust and loyalty towards companies’ products, services and brand.

Businesses have to shift from marketing products to cultivating customers demands.

But many companies are still reluctant to invest in social media initiatives and programs. This has recently been confirmed by findings of a recent study conducted by Burson-Marsteller: Global Social Media Checkup.

So what are the arguments for businesses to make it happen. Henning Hansen CEO of Conformit in an article from CRM-Buyer says:

- Cement Your Customer Relationships

- Involve the Crew

- Rebuild Your Processes

- Check Your Measurements

- Share Responsibility and Construct a Common Goal

he adds:

Changing a corporate culture cannot and should not be an immediate process, and neither can it be a half-hearted one. Businesses that truly dedicate themselves to building a customer-focused culture can be stronger competitively — and provide better places to work.

We at 90:10 Group, help businesses connect with global communities to discover and engage advocates. We empower those advocates through tried and tested processes, tools and creatives. We believe that the sooner businesses adopt and start using Social Media for engaging their customers, the better for them, else performance of their business will suffer.

A common feature across the Middle East region is that young people make up a relatively high percentage of the population (in some over 50% are less than 21 years old). In most countries the “net generation”, regardless of its geographic location or cultural background, tends to be comfortable with online technologies and prefer the speed and variety of content delivered through the web and mobile channels.

Next 25th and 26th of March will be held for the first time in the region (in Beirut Lebanon), ArabNet 2010, the first international conference for the Arab web industry, bringing together leaders from across the MENA, Europe and Silicon Valley to discuss cutting-edge trends and emerging opportunities.

I’ve been invited (and am very pleased) as a guest speaker (representing 90:10 Group) at the ‘Social Media’ panel, featuring among others, Ghassan Haddad, Director of Internationalization at Facebook and Timothy Bataillie, the MENA Biz Dev Manager of Netlog, the region’s largest social network for youths (14-24). Full program here.

But where does the Internet stands today in the Arab world (source: startuparabia).

• At present there are roughly around 56 million Arab internet users in the Arab world, representing only 17% of the 337 million population.
• More people are getting online in the Arab world, and are relying more and more on the Internet for their news, videos, social interactions and more, but only 1% of all content online is in Arabic, not offering them much choice.
• Online news consumption is gaining ground with 22% to 34% of the people using internet at least as much as print media to read news.
• On average, 70% of the people in the four main Arab markets researched use social networks in some capacity and about 15% use social networking sites at least once a day.
• About 6 million internet users in the Middle East – or about 12% of the total online population in the region – have access to broadband networks.
• People in the Arab world are spending about three hours per day on the internet on average, which is already on par with the amount of time spent on TV.
• About $56 million or 1% of the total media advertising spend is online in the Middle East.
• 8.3% of active Facebook users come from the Middle East & North Africa, representing a 7.9% penetration. The number of users under 25 years of age represent 60% of active Facebook users in the region. Fastest growth in user adoption in the region is in the 55+ age group.
• Among the Arab countries, the top 7 countries in active Facebook user numbers are: Egypt (1,820,000), Saudi Arabia (920,000), Morocco (860,000), UAE (840,000), Tunisia (690,000), Lebanon (680,000), Jordan (490,000).

Last November in Paris, at LeWeb, Joi Ito moderated a panel on the Middle East with Rabea Ataya, Chairman & CEO of Bayt.com and Habib Haddad, Founder of Yamli. Their shared with us (video below) their view and vision of the future growth of the web in the region.

The Arab Media Outlook latest report (PDF) summarizes the region’s opportunity:

Our analysis points to significant opportunities for media companies in the region to use the power of web 2.0 to develop new revenue streams and to maximize the value of both new and existing premium content. Distribution to mobile broadband devices including mobile television will play an important part in this. Another priority area is the development of audience measurement processes for both print and broadcast media. The absence of reliable audience figures makes it difficult for advertisers to target their advertising and to assess its effectiveness, which reduces their willingness to spend.

As far as Twitter is concerned, it is difficult to have any precise figures. Last July, the region counted less than 15,000 users (source SpotOnPR). Since, the growth has been phenomenal, but still difficult to measure precisely its impact on media and brands. Hopefully, I will learn more about the region’s adoption of social media and new web 2.0 start-ups at coming Arabnet conference (25th and 26th of March in Beirut). Promise you to tweet from there and blog as I return to Paris.