By Jeremiah Owyang, cross-posted on Web Strategy Blog Is SXSW for Business or just a Boondoggle? That's the wrong question. More than ever, I heard more folks debating if SXSW was good for business, or just a big party. Those who have attended the event for over a decade swear the soul has been stolen, and local Austin denizens often leave town and rent their place on AirBnb for a pretty penny, there's no shortage of critics. Looking closer, the components for a unique petri dish are … [Read more...]
Social Media Crises Has Many Points of Failure
by Alan Webber, Jeremiah Owyang, Altimeter Analysts. Yesterday’s Burger King brandjacking was an important reminder to brands and their agency and software partners about how vulnerable social media accounts are. These forms of attacks are increasing in frequency, such as Jeep’s recent twitter hack. Surprisingly, Altimeter Group’s research has found from analyzing 50 crises that 76% of crises could have been minimized or avoided had companies been prepared internally --external … [Read more...]
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...]
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...]
A New Category Defined: Social Performance Software
A new software category has emerged to bring performance marketing to social channels. After interviewing over 10 software companies and 10 agencies, a new trend has emerged that will change the social business landscape. What is this trend? The marketing performance techniques to refine TV, Radio, SEO and other marketing mediums are now moving to the social space. Read my definitive post on Mashable to learn how this impacts not only brands, but also Facebook and my long term predictions … [Read more...]
Altimeter’s Research Themes And Upcoming Research Calendar

As an analyst and research firm focused on disruptive technologies, our clients and others frequently ask us what we are paying attention to and what we are researching. There are a multitude of areas we would like to be paying attention to and probably just as many that we would like to research, but we can’t. So instead, we are focusing on just a few key disruptive themes that have the potential to significantly impact organizations and consumers from tomorrow through three years from now - … [Read more...]

