Archive for 2010

Five Sites to Watch in 2010 – Pt. 5 – Volkswagen

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

VW - Another venerable and well-known consumer brand, VW.com has a clean, highly usable design reminiscent of Apple’s—perfect for showcasing products that have become all but iconic. I also like how the search for dealers call to action is front and center; together with clear and accessible shopping tools, it speaks directly to the user’s agenda and shows an interest in truly engaging the market.

I am curious to get your view on the car configurator tool  that VW offers. The tool enables a user to e-mail a link to the configurator to others. But I am curious if there are a couple of missed opportunities here:

  • should the link enable recipients to view the car configuration the original sender designed?
  • perhaps a  “gallery” of designed automobiles would encourage car aficionados to visit and revisit with the aim of viewing other people’s designs and comparing notes…maybe? maybe not?

Volkswagon clearly has its audience’s interests in mind, but I think we’ll see it refine its approach to make sure the social media elements of its site really add value to the browsing—and the buying—experience.

Does Social Media add value?

We have reached a point where social sharing via interactive methods is commonplace; any offerings in this space now have to work hard to offer value to users. This value could present itself in a few forms:

  • Offering valuable content that enhances a user’s or customer’s understanding of the brand or product
  • Providing valuable offers that facilitate purchasing
  • Providing current news, reviews, and events so that a user or customer may feel part of the brand or product
  • Tools allowing for individual creativity to be expressed more robustly

The sites I’m watching in 2010 all have different audiences with different needs, and they’re trying to engage those audiences in a variety of compelling ways. Of the five sites reviewed in the past four months which of these sites do you think makes the most successful use of social media?

Are there sites I should add to my must-watch list? I’m curious to hear from you!

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Posted in Social Media, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Five Sites to Watch in 2010 – Pt. 4 – Apple

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Apple - As one of the most recognizable brands in the world, Apple is a curious case study for social media implementation. Arguably, the company doesn’t really need it—who doesn’t already know about the brand, about Apple’s new products, or about its sales initiatives? All you have to do is open the newspaper. And sure enough, though there is plenty of opportunity to share information in the iTunes store, for instance, when it comes to the Web site and product lineup, the social initiatives run dry. Is there an official Apple Twitter account? It’s unclear.

At any rate, one area Apple seems increasingly interested in developing further is enterprise/B2B engagement. iPhones and iPads certainly opened the door to this, though they’re still largely considered a consumer device. Will the iPad be any different in adiption? If Apple thinks there’s a market for it among the business community, we can expect to see areas of Apple.com built out to speak to that market. It’s certainly something to keep an eye on. Who has and IPad out there? What do you think? Are you still getting crabby about the Apple/Flash support issue?

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Posted in Mobile, online strategy, Social Media | No Comments »

Five Sites to Watch in 2010 – Pt. 3 – SAP

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

SAP.com  

What really impresses me about SAP.com is that SAP is willing to try new things and use the home page to sandbox interesting ideas—like incorporating a partnership message into the solution pathway. SAP has also incorporated social media into the site to help sell solutions, which is a smart idea for products complicated enough to provoke questions that static text might not be able to address. But given that SAP’s services and solutions focus on social behaviors (e.g., CRM, ERP), it is notable that the site does not have a consumer-facing presentation of social initiatives to demonstrate the claim that SAP brings people and resources together. Will we begin to see linkage from these pages to the company’s Twitter or Facebook offerings? Given SAP’s interest in trying things out, I wouldn’t be surprised.

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Posted in online strategy | No Comments »

Five Sites to Watch in 2010 – Pt. 2 – CDW

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

CDW - Online Commerce Machine!

What caught my eye about CDW is that it is stretching the Amazon/B2C model to suit higher-end products not normally associated with retail sale—including a surprisingly large stock of Juniper Network products. CDW is a revenue-generating machine, and it has been extremely smart about integrating social media into the browsing experiences, including a prominent Twitter feed on the home page and a great “Click-to-chat” feature in the banner. 

One of the primary motivators for subscribing to corporate social feeds is “to find deals,” so this hits the sweet spot. In the coming year, it will be interesting to see whether CDW really takes advantage of its Twitter feed and updates it more frequently to promote loyalty. I personally would like to see the company offer methods to share on individual product pages.

Have you seen other successful B2B online commerce models? What are your favorite/least favorite features on CDW?

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Posted in B2B marketing | 1 Comment »

Five Sites to Watch in 2010 – Pt. 1 – Disney

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Good news for 2010: the business community is finally realizing the productivity potential of social media. As this trend continues, it will be interesting to see B2B companies explore, adopt, and integrate the technology—especially into e-commerce—often using B2C social media initiatives as a model. 

I’m certainly keeping an eye on these trends so that Juniper.net users continue to benefit from all that social media integration has to offer. With this in mind, in my next few blog posts  I’ll provide my insight on five sites—both B2B and B2C—whose use of social media, eCommerce and brand extension will be worth watching in 2010- or at least I’ll be wathing them.  In this post, Disney is the object of my affection.

Disney

Disney has had over 90 years to perfect its brand, and  it has accomplished this by understanding its target market. Disney.com is a near-perfect distillation of everything the company’has learned: the seamless e-commerce, the perfectly integrated video—all within a strong adherence to the brand. And yet, as you play videos and Flash experiences, there is no clear way to share them. It will be interesting to see whether Disney develops more apparent social sharing mechanisms around its great video assets. Overall, the company could make it even easier for its advocates and evangelists to share a wider range of content. Will it use avatars? We’ll see in the year to come.

What do you like or dislike about Disney.com? Share your favorite site.

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Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »