Report: How Brands Manage Complex Social Business Programs

Last week, Jeremiah and I published Altimeter Group’s first “short doc,” focused on in-depth case studies that illustrate how large brands are managing complex, distributed social media programs. We look at how four brands prepare and organize internally, and employ technology, to meet distinct business objectives: • Whole Foods puts local social engagement into the hands of store managers. • General Motors organizes for social business internally, then supports regions. • … [Read more...]

See You in Austin! Altimeter Group Analysts & Researchers at SXSW

That Time of Year is rapidly approaching: "Will you be there?" "Are you speaking?" "When are you in town?" The Altimeter Group analysts attending SXSW 2013 next month are Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis, Susan Etlinger, Chris Silva and Rebecca Lieb. We'll be accompanied by several invaluable members of our crack research team:  Jon Cifuentes, Jaimy Szysmanski and Jessica Groopman. Where will you find us?  In company briefings (if you're interested in requesting one, please do so … [Read more...]

2013 Superbowl Ads Favor URLs, Hashtags –Not Facebook

For the last few years (see 2012 data). This analysis is a bellwether on how brands will spend on an integrated experience for the year. Overall, we saw brands still hold onto corporate websites, although a big jump in hashtag usage, and decline in Facebook integration. 2012-2013 Superbowl Ad Tech Integration Tech Integration Type 2012 2013 Percent Change Corporate … [Read more...]

Social Business vs. Social Media: Take Altimeter’s 2012 Survey

Social business success measures

Businesses may be seen as having a “successful” social strategy by virtue of citations in case studies and speaking at conferences. But, by far, the best metric of success is concrete examples of how the organization creates business value via social technologies across multiple departments and dimensions of their business. In our upcoming research report, we will take a closer look at successful social business strategies that are clearly aligned with strategic business goals AND have … [Read more...]

Ed Terpening Joins Altimeter Group

Altimeter continues to grow with the addition of Ed Terpening as Senior Consultant, where he will be leading Altimeter's client engagements and develop Altimeter Academy the company's new training offerings. Ed joins Altimeter from Wells Fargo where he was the lead social strategist for seven years and created the first blog by any US bank in 2006. He was also a founding member of SocialMedia.org. Ed comes to Altimeter with a long history of innovative leadership, from building social … [Read more...]

Social Media Crisis Prevention: Can You Defuse an F-Bomb?

It's a nightmare scenario. You get a frantic text or call from a co-worker that someone tweeted a tasteless joke or profanity from your corporate Twitter account. The keywords in the post start trending among your brand mentions, soon to be followed by the hashtag #fail. Your customer service team receives outraged calls complaining about the foul language and lack of judgment of your employees. You scramble to delete and/or apologize for the offending tweet. The apology tweet must be … [Read more...]

New Research: Building A Foundation For Mobile

One of the major themes in our research this year is Adaptive Organization. As we think about what makes organizations adaptive, it's not just the tools and services that they embrace but also their ability to adapt to change to stay in touch internally and to reach customers and prospects proactively. A key ingredient to making companies more adaptive is the use of mobile technology, but many organization are not yet in a position to truly capitalize on mobile due to their lack of proper … [Read more...]

Call for Insights #3: Altimeter Blog Ring and the Sentient World

Sentient World

Request: We want to hear from you. Tell us on your blog or website how the Sentient World impacts your business (positively or negatively), and we’ll cross-link to the conversation. Altimeter Group continues its blog ring in September and October to deepen understanding of our three research themes.  The next theme of focus is the Sentient World.  Consider these key questions when contributing to the conversation on your blog or website: Once the information exchange begins, how can … [Read more...]

Samsung, Apple, Innovation And Fishwrap

This post first appeared on Chris Silva's blog Make Mobile Work. In the wake of the Samsung/Apple trial verdict the news is crawling with hyperbole about how disruptive the verdict will be to the mobile OS ecosystem, specifically Android’s momentum. Nothing new in the world of tech reporting, of course. In reality, life is long and the sea changes predicted rarely amount to more than surface ripples. Will Android and its ecosystem be affected by the recent pro-Apple verdict in its battle … [Read more...]

Google+ The New Enterprise Social Network?

by Charlene Li and Chris Silva Google announced Google+ for Enterprises today with Hangouts integration into Docs and Calendar as well as administrative controls such as default posting to only within the company. We've been doing some research on the topic of enterprise social networks and, with Google moving into this market, have some thoughts around why this is a bigger deal than just another Google feature announcement. Google has a few things going for it that the pure plays like … [Read more...]