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s.mueller

Why Social Media Is Not For Everyone

Our comment on the recent article published on mashable.com

You cannot repeat it often enough!

Social Media does have great poential, no doubt.
It enables companies to reduce the ever growing distance between them and their consumers, between producer and buyer, takes them closer to their target groups and provides answers to the increasing desire for personalized products, or to sum it up: unpredictable consumer behavior.

But blindly investing into this miraculous segment may also cause harm. Not only in terms of an investment.
Social media is, as the name implies a social sometimes even personal phenomenon. No impressions are stronger than personal ones. But if whatever you do or say is not credible, the strength of the personal, social contact turns into the opposite of what had been desired: ignorance, distrust,  and negative word of mouth. It is like selling insurance contracts to family members in order to fulfill goals set by an insurance company you work for.  This will ruin social relationships forever. The same goes for companies who half-heartedly use Web 2.0 to boost profits .
Not every company fits into this personal sphere. And not everybody wants to be addressed this way. You cannot push a brand into the personal sphere of a consumer. Especially not if a company or brand does not possess the required desirability.
Consumers may be „victims“ or information overload, unlimited product varieties, etc but they still have control over their private sphere. This has to be respected at all time. They decide what brands they „pull“ into this sphere.
Usually it is brands they trust, have known for quite a time, that accompanied them during their life, brands they long have been admiring, or they use to transform features of the brand onto themselves.

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s.mueller

10 Black Friday Secrets Retailers Don't Want You to Know

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By Mike Elgan
published on internetnews.com
November 16, 2007

They don’t call the day after Thanksgiving „Black Friday“ for nothing. It’s all about launching the megastores „into the black“ – into profitability. They profit not by offering goods at a loss, but by using ultra-low prices to lure you into their stores, where they can employ dirty tricks to make money.
But with my secrets, and some smart planning, you can make „Black Friday“ profitable for yourself, not the store.

Here are the 10 things they don’t want you to know:

1: Most Black Friday deals are leaked early online. Check sites that post leaked Black Friday ads and info, and give yourself an advantage over the masses. The four best sites are: bfads.net, blackfriday.gottadeal.com, blackfridayads.com, and blackfriday.info. Some of these sites will optionally send you an e-mail whenever they post a new ad or new information. (So will Wal-mart’s „Secret Section.“) Some have cell phone versions of the site for referring while in-store.

2: Many Black Friday deals are bait-and-switch scams. They may sell you a very cheap product with a very expensive warranty, or use a given price, but add software, accessories or other over-priced add-ons as a required but unadvertised part of the purchase. You’ll find out about this only at the register. If the price at the register is significantly higher than advertised for any reason, ask to speak to a supervisor and insist on the advertised price. If they still refuse, threaten to write a letter to the attorney general.

3: Get the best price without hassles by knowing price-match and return policies. Many stores offer price-match guarantees (if a competitor offers a lower price, they’ll match it). Increasingly, Black Friday sales are exempt from all this. Others have a return policy that, in effect, is a price-match guarantee for the store itself (if they drop the price, the difference is later refunded to you if you ask for it). If you know which product you want to buy, and can find a store with a price-match guarantee that honors Black Friday prices, buy it! When Black Friday rolls around, you can go looking for the best price, and not have to worry about whether the store is out of stock. If a store is willing to refund the difference between its own normal price and its Black Friday price, buy it early for the same reason.

4: Beat the system by shopping in teams. Stores rely on a long list of tricks, from limited sale hours to low inventories in order to lure you into the stores without giving you the time to comparison shop for the product you want at the best possible price. Have one team member in each store when it opens, each with a list of what everyone wants to buy. Use Joopz.com to set up broadcast SMS. Each team member finds every product on the list, then broadcasts pricing. The person at the store with the lowest price for each item buys it.

5: Use your cell phone browser to check competing deals, and also product quality. You can also use standard sites like BizRate.com, Shopping.com and PriceGrabber.com to check just how good prices are. Sometimes Black Friday prices can be beat online anytime.

6: Some Black Friday promos are designed to unload loser products. Products that are obsolete, unpopular, damaged or returned are prime candidates for Black Friday sales. Make sure you narrow your list of products, so you don’t end up buying something you don’t really want.

7: Shop early. Very early. Many stores will open at midnight this year. Many open as early as 5 am. Find out in advance what time each store opens, so you can plan accordingly.

8: Some of the best deals are advertised only on Thanksgiving — or even on Black Friday itself. Make sure you get all the local newspaper on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday.

9: Some Black Friday deals are actually buyable online. Others are buyable only online, or have prices that actually beat in-store prices. Start checking prices on Thanksgiving. Check Web sites again very early Black Friday morning, and shop there first — then go to the stores only if you have to. Still other stores let you order items online the day before, and pick them up on Black Friday.

10: Plan ahead to think clearly. Bring food, wear comfortable shoes, and leave the kids at home (kids can influence impulse buying or convince you to leave early). Stay focused, and don’t let yourself be caught up in the frenzy.

Black Friday is a zero-sum game. Either the store wins, or you do. Use these tips to beat the stores at their own game.

In addition to writing for Datamation, where this column first appeared, Mike Elgan is a technology writer and former editor of Windows Magazine. He can be reached at mike.elgan+datamation@gmail.com or his blog: http://therawfeed.com.

Article published at InternetNews.com
Read the comments on this article here: href=“http://www.internetnews.com/commentary/print.php/3711701″>http://www.internetnews.com/commentary/print.php/3711701

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s.mueller

FEED: The Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report 2009

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FEED: The Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report 2009 Key Findings

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s.mueller

New Models for Engaging Consumers: A Report from Opportunity Green

The business and sustainability conference Opportunity Green, held this past weekend in L.A., was an amazing experience. As we watched the various films and presentations, my wife and I moved from fear (How will the world survive?) to guilt (Look how we’ve polluted our planet!) to the hope that we can all work together, connected by the belief and passion that we will find a better way.

The Story of Stuff

One of the presentations that struck me most was when sustainability expert Annie Leonard shared her film, „The Story of Stuff.“ The animated work takes a hard (yet humorous) look at the pitfalls of our consumer society. It has developed quite a following, with more than 7 million views to date. After watching it, you come away wondering if it’s possible to have a consumer-based economy and achieve true sustainability.

This is something that both industrial designers and their clients have to consider. Traditionally, we are dependent upon consumers to buy the things we create. Shifting the consumer paradigm has to begin with a fundamental shift in the way we think, the way we do business, and the way we all live our lives.

This syncs up well with a point cognitive anthropologist Dr. Bob Deutsch has been making for years now. According to Deutsch, we need to do a „search and replace“ in the way we speak, and to move from talking about „consumers“ to talking about „people.“ Perhaps this is the first step on the path to finding ways to thrive in business without consuming ourselves and our world into oblivion.

There are many aspects to consider in building a new paradigm for sustainable products, practices, and business models. But perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle is creating sustainable experiences. The experience is where we connect with people. If we create products or services that are terrific for the environment, but which fail to empower and delight, people will not use them. To truly be sustainable, a product or practice must feel more like a reward than like something we „should“ do. If it feels like penance, we may do it once or twice, but it won’t become a part of who we are.

The viral videos of The Fun Theory (a Volkswagen initiative) are a terrific example of how appealing to key emotions (in this case, joy and surprise) can be used to create positive change in behavior. In the videos, a staircase is turned into a huge piano keyboard to encourage people to take the stairs, the „world’s deepest bin“ encourages people to use a trash can instead of littering. In the video below, the simple act of recycling is turned into a fun arcade game. In each case, people were enticed to change their behavior not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was a more fun and engaging experience.

Opportunity Green showcased several fine companies who understand the power of emotion and who know that empowering people is the first ingredient in finding a better, more sustainable way. Still, it’s clear that we are at the beginning of this paradigm shift. And it is equally clear that to make a shift of this magnitude we will all have to work together to find new ways for companies to continue making money while making a difference.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ravi-sawhney/design-reach/opportunity-green-shifting-consumer-paradigm

Posted using ShareThis

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s.mueller

Blogging about harddisk shopping…

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Where to buy an external harddrive when you know you need one?
Usually my purchase decision-making processes are fairly complex. Often more complex than necessary. That’s the fate of many marketing people. Anyways, having bypassed the procedure of realizing a true need, I at once jumped into the phase of searching for the ideal shop. The next big issue. A big electronics chain such as Conrad, Media Markt or Saturn? Or rather an online store? The first offer the opportunity of really being able to hold the product in your hands. That is, if it is unpacked. The „price you pay“? Usually unexperienced personnel with no time always in search for the next shelf to hide behind. I must say I barely shop there because of a constant fear of being fooled by the advertised special offers (which often are attractive, I must admit) while other products cost more than elsewhere. But even if the price seems right, does the product really hold up to the promises of the store clerk? Or is he just trying to sell what the management told him to, for example to get rid of overstock. Decision-making can be a pain in the ass in our culture of affluence. Buy a TV and choose between a hundred different models. Buy an mp3 player and you’ll be overwhelmed by at least 25 models, many many more when shopping online. This is the golden hour of strong brands serving as lighthouses, visible from afar although perhaps equipped just like the others. Take a basic iPod for example. Comparing such a magnitude of products is almost impossible. At least in the store. But there is one feature, one critical advantage of online stores that no clerk can outmatch. The objective and critical opinion of the crowd, of the masses of consumers out there, all searching to maximize their utility given a certain budget they are willing to pay. Recommendations put light into the darkness. They offer personal impressions that are so much closer to everybody’s daily life. They praise good products and positive experiences hoping that when you do good something good might come back to you. And although this system could theoretically be corrupted by companies, in the overall run it can be trusted.
This leads me back to my initial purchase process. I need a new external harddrive.
As time is usually limited, I too, am glad about every simplification and short cut. So it was a reasonable thing to first check Amazon.de for harddrives. The benefits? Good overview of what harddrives currently offer, a good impression of the price level, and user insights on most of the products offered. This eased my choice alot. I barely felt a risk buying a product that with more than 80 recensions received an average of 4,7 stars. Plus free shipping on top. This post is not intended to glorify amazon but it just shows why amazon is so popular and the perfect place to shop for me. At least when it comes to electronics. Amazon is also an example of the democratizizing effect of the internet. It may be easy for a store clerk to fool a pensionist but given the transparency of prices and product evaluations on the internet, the internet gave the consumer one thing: power. Power to quickly access expert knowledge, to easily compare and to look behind the product specifications on the package. May the best platform win!

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s.mueller

Is Social Media a Fad?

A very convincing presentation of the social media issue and its enormous reach. Who would have thought some years ago that anything could change the saying „the internet is porn“. Social media did just that. And it managed to surpass physical boundaries, bringing into every home live tweets from crisis areas such as Afghanistan or even Iran. Or as recently in Germany, election estimation results before the public press. That this phenomenon may collide with existing laws or regulations is another issue of social media. More and more companies, sports teams and parents need to intervene to avoid the post of critical information. But still, social media enables people all over the world to link, exchange impressions, attitudes, and insights in a way conventional media such as TV or the press could never do.
As to social media as a business strategy: it can work but it largely depends on how honestly you use it. At the end of the day, the internet is one huge civil courtroom, where inappropriate behavior oftentimes is immediately punished (United Airlines may just be one example).

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