DigitalNaiv in 2013 – Looking back & Summary: Social Business not yet on the peak – Stop Social Media-SPAM!

And again another year is close to pass. Good reason to look back on my blog postings, the German and the English language ones. Some of the English articles have been published on Cmswire or on SocialMediaToday. What is my summary of 2013 ‚as of today‘? The topic ‚Social Business‘ did become much more mature, but hasn’t yet reached the peak. We still need to convince on the side the managers – better the leaders – and encourage them to give away control, to allow and support transparency and to reward ’socially active employees. On the other side we still need to heavily encourage employees to act ’social‘, inside the enterprise and as brand ambassador outside in Social Media. There is still a lot of skepticism and insecurity around. What is in it for me? Is this once more additional work they want to put on my shoulder without rewarding me? NSA and Prism aren’t making it easier in particular in Europe and Germany to convince employees to be social. A huge amount of trust in the social world and in a friend have been lost. We – and the American people and their government – should take this real serious. So – before we are a Social Business a long way is still in front of us.

In my own job  – Marketing – we are hopefully on our way away from thoughtless mass marketing, from SPAM-my email newsletters, from old-fashioned events with front speakers to a one on one dialogue marketing with our individual customers. Ok, I am kidding, a much to positive analysis of the current situation. Not only old fashioned marketing tactics are still executed, on top we are now using Social media as a SPAM catapult, a centrifuge sending out senseless, content-less, useless marketing messages and event promos not only through company social media channels, but also through personal channels of the employees. .Sit down: Mission failed. You did not understand the mechanisms and the heart of the Social Era. These days I read a posting laying out, that a maximum of 20 % of Tweets and Social media messages should be brand-related. 80 % need to deliver valuable content to the recipients. This is something the so called Social Media experts should write in their books for 2014.

I appreciate any comments and opinions from you on Social Business and Digital Marketing. I do apologize for my English. As a non-native speaker – and a professional writer – it is hard to write in a foreign language. You are used to be good or perfect in your own language and now you lose quality. This is why my English language postings often take longer and are not as frequent as the German ones. But I really appreciate the dialogue with the international peers looking beyond the German border. Thank you very much for your ideas and input. I am looking forward to stay in touch with you in 2014.

Here are some of my more in-depth English language postings. I have not included „curated“ content and postings, although I feel, this content is extremely important, to:

[EN] The carrot: Does the Employee 2.0 need a rewarding system to be active? (November, 11, 2013)

[EN] Why Human Resources Needs Social Business (October, 24, 2103)

[EN] Yes, they can PRISM us – The impact on Cloud, Trust, Data Privacy and our belief in Obama (October, 23, 2103)

[EN] Yes, they can PRISM us – The impact on Cloud, Trust, Data Privacy and our belief in Obama (June, 26, 2103)

[EN] From Mass Marketing to Person-2-Person-Marketing – Dialogue and Real Communication (April, 29, 2013)

[EN] Cloud growth in Germany (and Europe) to be driven by Collaboration and CRM (April, 9, 2013)

[EN] “Vorsprung durch Technik”: Why Germany Needs to Become a Social Business (March, 22, 2103)

[EN] How the customer experience sets you apart in the age of social business: Part 2 — The value of community | SmartBlogs (February , 6, 2013)

[EN] From Lotusphere to IBM Connect 2013: Solutions for satisfied customers and motivated workforce (February, 5, 2013)

[EN] How the customer experience sets you apart in the age of Social Business: Part 1 — The value of knowing your customer | SmartBlogs (February, 2, 2013)

[EN] My IBM Connect 2013 Outlook: Focus on the Employee (January, 22, 2013)