Independent Thinking » Apple

7 Digital Trends to Watch in 2012

Daria Steigman — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 06:01:14 +0000

From l-r: Steve Radick, Dan Horowitz, Daria Steigman, and Rick Dunham

Integration, mobile, and consolidation were all topics under discussion at the January 12 IABC/Washington panel on trends in digital communications.

Here are my top seven takeaways:

1. Silos will start to fall. According to Steve Radick of Booz Allen Hamilton’s Digital Strategy and Social Media Practice, government agencies will better integrate their social media initiatives. He noted, in particular, that people are starting to understand the disconnects that happen when customer service is not integrated.

2. Government social media will be in “wait and see” mode. Radick said not to expect a lot of big Government 2.0 initiatives. He suggested that most agencies will be in waiting mode during this election year.

3. Companies will start to clean up their act. Dan Horowitz of Fleishman-Hillard’s Digital Group and Social Media Practice pointed to a new Altimeter report that found that large companies have an average of 178 corporate-owned social media accounts. In 2012, he said, they will consolidate and coordinate better–which involves, of course, aggregating efforts via smart tools (e.g., Buddy Press).

4. Social media reaches maturation. Horowitz pointed to Forrester’s just-released research on social media adoption that found that 86 percent of adults who use the Internet use social media.

5. The press release is dead. Okay, Rick Dunham, Washington Bureau Chief of the Houston Chronicle and chief author of the Texas on the Potomac blog, didn’t really say this. But he did say that he’s relying more and more on Twitter search and other social media to discover trending stories and breaking news–and to get ideas for news stories–and not so much on press releases.

Plus two trends from my remarks:

6. Mobile has arrived. eMarketer estimates that there will be 113.9 million mobile Internet users in 2012–an increase of 17.1 percent from 2011. This includes 72.8 million mobile shoppers and 37.5 million mobile buyers. This means that every business–large and small–needs to have a mobile strategy.

7. “Find-ability” will be more important than ever. With Google rolling out “Search Plus Your World,” having a solid content marketing strategy (and quality content) will be more important than ever. Businesses that are still relying on static, corporate-brochure-type Web sites will be left in the dust.

Bonus Trend: Platforms. I just read Phil Simon’s The Age of the Platform (review coming soon), and I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and think through how small businesses will be able to take advantage of what he calls “extremely valuable and powerful ecosystems” (think Amazon or Apple) that allow you to scale, morph, and bring in partners, users, vendors, and so forth. While the business concept may not be new, technology has made doing this very different. I think Simon’s on to something. This is one emerging trend to watch.

Agree with these trends? Disagree? Think something’s being over-hyped? Please weigh in below.

Photo courtesy of Capitol Communicator.

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The End of Brand Loyalty

Daria Steigman — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:04:09 +0000

Is brand loyalty dead?

One of the interesting findings in the IBM survey of CMOs ( here is is my take on the overall report) is that companies are unprepared to deal with “decreasing brand loyalty.”

They’re asking the wrong question.

Were travelers loyal to Wells Fargo?
Were households loyal to Ma Bell?
Were airline passengers loyal to Pan Am?

Customers don’t have less brand loyalty today. We have more choices.

People are fiercely loyal to companies that don’t suck. Apple isn’t the only computer maker, phone maker, or music maker. Zappos isn’t the cheapest place to buy shoes. And Disney isn’t really the happiest place on earth.

What are you doing to earn customer loyalty?

Photo by MoneyBlogNewz (Flickr).

“To Infinity and Beyond”

Daria Steigman — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:47:27 +0000

I didn’t realize until last night how much Steve Jobs changed my world:

He added color (orange desktop computer, red netbook).
He added usability (point-and-click operating system versus the old DOS).
He made music truly portable (mp3 player, streaming capabilities).
He changed the way we connect (smartphone).

My only Apple product is an iPod nano, and yet Steve Jobs’ impact is everywhere. Oh, and his tenure at Pixar produced the little movie clip above.

The world needs more disruptive innovators.

To infinity and beyond, Steve Jobs.

Spotify’s Business Disruptive Factor (And Why Vinyl May Finally Be Obsolete)

Daria Steigman — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:05:52 +0000

Spotify has landed in America.

The music-streaming service with 15 million songs in its catalogue is likely to be disruptive to the music industry in a way that Apple only dreamt of. Here are three reasons:

1. My vinyl is finally obsolete. I have a large collection of albums and cassettes that I’ve been reluctant to jettison–even if I listen to them only rarely. Enter Spotify, and I’m listening to The Go-Betweens, The Mekons, and Gang of Four again.

2. I don’t need a bigger iPod. It drove me crazy that I only had access to a small portion of my music library on the go (not to mention all the CDs that I’ve yet to burn). Until Spotify came around, I was thinking of investing in a mega-gigabyte iPod just to have everything at hand. Now I can stream what I want or download a playlist to listen to offline.

3. I can hear what my friends are listening to. Once our school days are over, most of us don’t talk music that much. Heck, if it weren’t for my brother (who totally turned me on to hip hop by suggesting artists to explore), my music collection would be stuck in the 20th century. Spotify lets me subscribe to my friends’ playlists. It’s digital curation, the music edition.

BusinessWeek has a terrific article about Spotify. One snippet that really stands out:

“Americans own their music; Swedes rent it… If Spotify gets what it wants, your records will no longer define you. Your playlists will.”

It’s an interesting piece about a changing marketplace, and worth reading.

Have you tried Spotify? Agree or disagree that this model will change the business landscape?

Update: A link to the BusinessWeek article has now been added thanks to alert reader Bill Farrell, who was able to find it online.

Disclosure: I received a beta invite to Spotify via a Klout Perk. Within two days I had upgraded to a Premium (paid) subscription.

Photo by Pink Sherbert Photography (Flickr).

Scratching the Surface

Daria Steigman — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 10:05:39 +0000

Bling only gets you so far.

You can own a big house, but you still have to mow the lawn. You can buy expensive china, but your food still has to taste good. You can put on an Armani suit, but your product still has to wow the customer.

My first experience at an Apple Store was miserable. I waited in a short line at the counter for over 10 minutes to pay for an iPod charger while roving employees came back and forth helping other people who’d wandered into the store after us. (Apparently the counter is just for show and you’re supposed to snag an employee on the go.) For all of Apple’s attention to hipness, their customer experience was a fail.

If I scratch the surface of your business, what will I find?

Photo by Bitterjug (Flickr).

Is Your Business Disruptive?

Daria Steigman — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:24:30 +0000

Chevy Chase Bank (now owned by Capital One) appears to have discovered free business banking. I know; I used to be their customer. In fact, I had one or more accounts with the bank for over 20 years.

While there are lots of reasons I left that bank, there’s exactly one reason I landed at PNC Bank a few years ago. They offered free banking to small businesses. They treated me as though my business is important to them. Bank staff learned my name, welcomed me in, and otherwise provided amazing customer service. Can you guess what happened next? (Yup, I moved all my accounts.)

It doesn’t take an industry changer (i.e., Apple and music distribution or Amazon and book publishing) to be disruptive. You just need to tilt the market in your direction.

What can your business do to be disruptive?

Photo by Christina (Flickr).

What’s Wrong with a Public Health Care Plan?

Daria Steigman — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:24:56 +0000

Am I missing something? I really don’t get all the handwringing among insurers and the pharmaceutical industry about a public health plan component to reform.Â One of the latest naysayers is Eli Lilly‘s CEO, John Lechleiter, who said that a public plan is “a slippery slope towards the days when all Americans would get their health insurance through a government-run plan.”

As a business owner, I face competition every day. And almost all of it is from companies that are far bigger players in the marketing communications field. Heck, unless you’re also a solopreneur, everyone is bigger than I am.

I realize that insurers fear that Americans will drop their private insurance and flock to a government plan. That’s likely true. But companies typically lose their customers because they aren’t valuing them or providing value to them. This happens every day. And yet, while cost alone may determine some purchasing decisions, examples abound where we will pay a premium to support a brand we love. Nike makes money selling high-end running shoes; Apple‘s enthusiasts pay top dollars for a mobile phone. In the insurance arena, I’ve accepted higher auto premiums in exchange for terrific service.

My advice to the insurance industry: Stop worrying about possible competition and look at what you can do to deliver what your customers want.

Duracell, BlackBerry, and an Elegant Solution

Daria Steigman — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:22:34 +0000

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most elegant. Not the Apple design kind of elegant, but rather the functionality of wheels on luggage or mini air canisters for the road cyclist.

I found the coolest gadget at Costco yesterday: a plastic case for two AA batteries with a BlackBerry adapter for charging your phone on the go.

No more cursing the fact that you forgot to charge your phone overnight, no more worrying about your battery life while checking your e-mail, no more searching for an open electrical outlet.

The cost: $20 for two (hey, it’s Costco, you can’t buy just one of anything), batteries included. Connectivity peace of mind: helpful. Bonus feature: an iPod adapter.

Steve Jobs’ Smart PR Strategy

Daria Steigman — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:20:50 +0000

Business Week’s Heather Green has a very interesting Blogspotting post on the strategy behind the “leaked” Steve Jobs memo about the underwhelming customer reaction to Apple’s new MobileMe application. She writes:

By doing this through an internal email he gets to control the perception of how Apple is dealing with the issue, rather than opening himself up to any pesky follow-up comments or reporters’ questions if he did this on a blog or through a news interview.

A smart communications strategy indeed.