study Archives - AndreaVascellari.com

This is Something Personal

Do you know what’s missing here? Me, the real me.

Sounds crazy I know, but it’s true.
I spent the last few years sharing tons of valuable stuff that can help you to succeed online. I did it because I believed in it, because I wanted to help people and because the time was right. Now all the late comers joined the party and it seems to me that there’s nothing else to read online. “How to do this, what to to do to get the best out of that, or 1,000 tips to kick ass on this other thing…”

What’s missing is the personal perspective on things.

So, I think it’s time for me to change gears and share my experience from a different perspective.
Because when you need to find out ‘what’ or ‘how’ in order to do this or that, what do you do? You search on Google and you find all the answers.

From now on, you won’t find the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ here, I’ll leave that to Google. On my blog, you’ll find the ‘why’.

And you’ll find an absolutely unique ‘why’ because it’s going to always be from my experience, which is something that no one else will be able to tell you. That’s the new value that I’ll offer and share with you.

At times you might actually end up disagreeing with me, but hey…isn’t learning from each other the best part of a sincere discussion? It will be great to do this on a new and different level.

Every now and then, I might share an interesting post on what and how you should keep your eyes on things, but I’ll focus more on this new direction.

Love it? Hate it? Questions?

This is my digital living room and you are welcome here. Grab a drink and let’s talk.

Andrea

P.S. If you like the new vibe, here’s my RSS feed and this is my newsletter. Let’s stay tuned.

Communications Report for December 6th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Online Advertising Sucks – How often do you hear about a traditional mass media company shifting to a “digital first” strategy? Those companies may want to take a look at this…
How the Fortune 500 Use Social Media to Grow Sales and Revenue – The truth is, there are only five different ways the Fortune 500 use social media. Seriously — just five. And once you know what they are, you can figure out which ones would be most useful for your business.
College Students Admit To “Shocking” Text Messaging Habits in Class – According to data released from Nielsen this fall, that age group sends around 1,630 texts per month – roughly three texts per hour.
Research Examines What Motivates People to Comment Online – The study examined user activity specifically to try to gauge the influence of “emotional content” on users’ behavior. Using sentiment analysis, the researchers looked at content, separating “objective” and “subjective”, and then examined users’ responses
How 10 Year Olds Explain Cloud Computing – They explain cloud computing in a simple, clear way. They don’t see limits to the cloud. They see it as infinite, accessible anywhere, any time.
Intelligently silence Gmail conversations with “Smart Mute” – If you enable “Smart Mute” from the Labs tab in Gmail Settings, muted conversations will only appear in your inbox if a new message in the conversation is addressed to you and no one else, or a new email in the conversation adds you to the “To” or “Cc” line. Once you enable Smart Mute, mute behavior will change across all versions of Gmail: web, mobile, Android, etc.
Study: Two-Thirds of Marketers Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing – Just because social media may be a new addition to your marketing mix doesn’t mean email marketing should be eliminated. In fact, social media can help to enhance your email marketing efforts.
The State of Small Business Online Marketing Budgets [REPORT] – According to the survey, 54% of respondents indicated that their businesses currently have websites. Regarding website features, the vast majority (80%) of websites include general business information, while customer service (45%), lead generation (35%) and e-commerce (30%) features trail in at a distant second, third and fourth places. A mere 13% of businesses reported having a blog.
YouTube top search term in Japan for third year running – #trends A survey by Yahoo! Japan of the most used search terms in 2010 has shown that YouTube is still the most popular search term in Japan for the third year running.
How To: Build a private collaboration site on WordPress.com in 5 minutes – #productive & #smart
Introducing the PostRank Facebook Analytics App – This new Facebook analytics application, which will help publishers solve not one, but two problems at once…
Popularity does not equal influence on Twitter: Seeking influence – only one in 318 messages containing an internet address is “retweeted” the researchers found.
Social Media Case Study: Cold Stone Creamery – The payoff goes well beyond greater customer engagement; Cold Stone’s promotions add to the bottom line by moving people from their computers to physical stores.

Communications Report for December 6th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Online Advertising Sucks – How often do you hear about a traditional mass media company shifting to a “digital first” strategy? Those companies may want to take a look at this…
How the Fortune 500 Use Social Media to Grow Sales and Revenue – The truth is, there are only five different ways the Fortune 500 use social media. Seriously — just five. And once you know what they are, you can figure out which ones would be most useful for your business.
College Students Admit To “Shocking” Text Messaging Habits in Class – According to data released from Nielsen this fall, that age group sends around 1,630 texts per month – roughly three texts per hour.
Research Examines What Motivates People to Comment Online – The study examined user activity specifically to try to gauge the influence of “emotional content” on users’ behavior. Using sentiment analysis, the researchers looked at content, separating “objective” and “subjective”, and then examined users’ responses
How 10 Year Olds Explain Cloud Computing – They explain cloud computing in a simple, clear way. They don’t see limits to the cloud. They see it as infinite, accessible anywhere, any time.
Intelligently silence Gmail conversations with “Smart Mute” – If you enable “Smart Mute” from the Labs tab in Gmail Settings, muted conversations will only appear in your inbox if a new message in the conversation is addressed to you and no one else, or a new email in the conversation adds you to the “To” or “Cc” line. Once you enable Smart Mute, mute behavior will change across all versions of Gmail: web, mobile, Android, etc.
Study: Two-Thirds of Marketers Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing – Just because social media may be a new addition to your marketing mix doesn’t mean email marketing should be eliminated. In fact, social media can help to enhance your email marketing efforts.
The State of Small Business Online Marketing Budgets [REPORT] – According to the survey, 54% of respondents indicated that their businesses currently have websites. Regarding website features, the vast majority (80%) of websites include general business information, while customer service (45%), lead generation (35%) and e-commerce (30%) features trail in at a distant second, third and fourth places. A mere 13% of businesses reported having a blog.
YouTube top search term in Japan for third year running – #trends A survey by Yahoo! Japan of the most used search terms in 2010 has shown that YouTube is still the most popular search term in Japan for the third year running.
How To: Build a private collaboration site on WordPress.com in 5 minutes – #productive & #smart
Introducing the PostRank Facebook Analytics App – This new Facebook analytics application, which will help publishers solve not one, but two problems at once…
Popularity does not equal influence on Twitter: Seeking influence – only one in 318 messages containing an internet address is “retweeted” the researchers found.
Social Media Case Study: Cold Stone Creamery – The payoff goes well beyond greater customer engagement; Cold Stone’s promotions add to the bottom line by moving people from their computers to physical stores.

[Communications Report] for September 1st 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

What People Think of the Ad/PR Biz | Reuters – One-third of respondents voiced a positive view of the advertising/pr industry (6 percent “very,” 27 percent “somewhat.”) Twenty-seven percent were “neutral.” Twenty-five percent expressed a “somewhat negative view,” while 11 percent were “very negative.” (The rest didn’t venture an opinion.) The numbers aren’t significantly different from those yielded by last summer’s edition of this annual survey.
Is it time for a Chief Social Media Officer? | ZDNet – The role may not be prominent now, but it will happen.
New report on “The State of Mobile Communications” – Now is the perfect time for businesses to jump into mobile communications, says “The State of Mobile Communications,” a newly issued report by Burson-Marsteller and Proof Integrated Communications. The report provides recommendations based on the implications of a range of key mobile research reports.
5 Tips to Maintain Social Media Momentum – Servant of Chaos – One of the challenges with social media is that it’s easy to start and it’s easy to stop.
The UK’s media consumption habits – Ofcom released its seventh annual communications market report last week. Its a goldmine of information about media consumption habits in the UK and is worth reading in full, the internet section in particular.
Facebook Usage Still Rising in Europe, but UK Growth Slows – eMarketer – The Facebook juggernaut rolls on in Europe, but the first sign of declining growth rates has appeared. In particular, the site’s meteoric expansion in the UK is tailing off.
Skype Etiquette – Some good tips to keep in mind when using Skype by Michael Arrington
Pre-recorded TV viewers cut out ads – The increasing use of digital television recording devices means fewer viewers will watch advertisements. Online video adverts have failed to make an impact on consumers with only 3% citing them as the kind of ad they were most likely to pay attention to.
Want an SEO job? Check out the Daily Mail’s robots.txt file … – This is actually a great idea!
10 Tips For Aspiring Community Managers – Tips from community builders on what it takes to land a job and be effective at cultivating community.
The Value of a Social Media Fan….Priceless – CPM models are generally used to price traditional media ads which represent only a monologue selling a specific product and are not customized to measuring the overall value of social media. Facebook “impressions” are a completely different kind of media where more often than not, the post should be as divorced as possible from trying to make a sale and are more about creating dialogue, brand awareness and positive social conversation which indirectly leads to higher sales.
Top 5 Mobile Advertising Trends To Watch – After a tough 2009, advertisers are expected to increase mobile and digital marketing budgets over the next year. With this in mind, it’s essential that advertisers keep up-to-date on their options in the mobile space. Here, we’ve laid out five mobile advertising trends to watch over the coming year.
Infographic: The Geosocial Universe – This infographic, created by Jesse Thomas of digital creative agency Jess3, shows the relative size of social networks and online services such as Skype, Gmail, MySpace, Twitter and Foursquare, and also shows the proportion of their user base that access the service via a mobile device.
How to Handle an Employee’s Controversial Online Comment – Stuff just happens. In most situations, though, the most important factor is how the situation is handled.
5 Items to Delete From Your Website Today – When we add ideas and actions, websites become more complicated. Complication creates confusion and often translates to lower effectiveness.
Youtube stars making 100000 plus per year: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance – There are 10 independent YouTube stars who made over $100,000 in the past year, according to a study done by analytics and advertising company TubeMogul.
5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now – What follows are five of the hottest social media trends right now. Each are influencing our social, online and mobile behaviors in significant ways.

[Communications Report] for July 29th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Coca-Cola forced to pull Facebook promotion after porn references – The Coca-Cola company has pulled an internet promotion campaign, after parents accused it of targeting children by using references to a notorious pornographic movie.
Facebook introduces Questions – New Feature – Ask the Facebook community a question on any topic and get quality answers from people in the know.
HOW TO: Help Employees Talk About Your Brand Online – The question boils down to this: If a brand is supposed to give customers something to identify with and add meaning to their lives, shouldn’t helping employees express themselves as individuals help the brand as well?
Old Spice polishes its monocle smile all the way to a 107% sales increase. – According to Nielsen data provided by Old Spice, overall sales for Old Spice body-wash products are up 11 percent in the last 12 months; up 27 percent in the last six months; up 55 percent in the last three months; and in the last month, with two new TV spots and the online response videos, up a whopping 107 percent.
How Big Brands Take On Social Media – Nice video interview with Bruce Upbin and David Armano.
Convert Twitter lists to RSS feeds with one click – You can’t create more than 20 lists. There’s no function to combine lists, and managing list entries is only slightly less difficult than if you’d chiselled them into marble. Alex Kessinger created a simple web app called Twitter Lists 2 RSS. Copy the URL for any Twitter list, paste it into a field on the app, and with one click, you get an RSS feed.
Google Maps Gets a (Much-Needed) URL Shortener – The web addresses of Google Maps that you shared with your friends used to be unmanageably huge, but Google has just solved that problem with a new Labs feature that dramatically shortens Maps URLs.
Two Arrested In Venezuela For Tweeting Banking Rumors – According to Reuters, the authorities claim that the tweets were aimed at destabilizing the Venezuelan banking sector and that “a man was arrested in possession of a cellphone used to send the first illegal Tweet, and that detectives had also detained a woman and seized hard discs and computer equipment from her.”
Recorded Future – Temporal & Predictive Analytics Engine – Amazing research tool.
Prince: “The Internet Is Over” – Is Prince missing out on something by withdrawing himself from the web? Or could he be correct; is the Internet just a fad, after all?
Exclusive: Failwhale Over San Francisco! – LOL
Signs of Social Media | Friday Flickr Fix – This Flickr group is focused on how brands are promoting their social media presence. It includes consumer packaged goods flowing it into their packaging to signage and how it’s injected into the built environment by any brand with a physical location, including food, retail and banking.
The Future of Online Socializing – The social benefits of internet use will far outweigh the negatives over the next decade, according to experts.
Consumers engaged via social media are more likely to buy – An impressive 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of.
Twitter Users “More Likely To Get Job Interviews” – Apparently, Twitter users write better CVs and are more likely to be shortlisted for job interviews than the average jobhunter.

[Communications Report] for April 5th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

The Collapse of Complex Business Models « Clay Shirky – Some video still has to be complex to be valuable, but the logic of the old media ecoystem, where video had to be complex simply to be video, is broken.
Report – Future of the Internet IV – In an online survey of 895 technology stakeholders’ and critics’ expectations of social, political and economic change by 2020.
Facebook Summarized In A Single Picture – The chart breaks down Facebook’s history as well as some of the most important facts and figures from the company. Included in the chart is information about the site’s user base as well as the impressive engagement levels that Facebook is able to maintain.
Study: Mobile internet traffic is set to grow 400% by 2015 – What does that mean? As smartphones become more commonplace, phone companies could start charging a lot more money to keep them up and running. But consumers may not go along willingly.

Twitter Starts Featuring Popular Tweets in Search Results – Twitter has turned on a new feature in search that lets user filter for what the microblogging service is calling “top results.” As opposed to strictly showing the most recent mentions of a given query, users now have an option to click a “top results” link that displays a few popular tweets on top of the page.
40 of the Most Useful Social Media and PR Blog Posts of Q1, 2010 (Jan – Mar) – Collection in the following categories: Tools, Social Networks, PR, Blogs / Blogging, Content, and General / Other.
3 New Studies Prove Social Media Marketing Growth – Marketers are taking note of many different social media opportunities and beginning to implement new social initiatives at a higher rate than ever before. Here are 3 new studies that show social media is still on the rise.
Americans Using TV and Internet Together 35% More Than A Year Ago | Nielsen Wire – In the last quarter of 2009, simultaneous use of the Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month, up 35% from the previous quarter. Nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV.

[Communications Report] for March 4th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Foursquare Sees Its Name in Lights in Vegas – An enormous digital display pulls checkin data via Fousquare’s API and displays the latest tips and to-dos, as well as the mall’s mayor, for all onlookers to see.
Special Report – Marketing to the Millennials – One of the most evident changes is social networking, which is embraced by 75 percent of the Millennials, compared with 50 percent of the Generation X members (ages 30 to 45) and just 30 percent of Baby Boomers (aged 46 to 64).
Getting the Most Out of Twitter, No Posting Necessary – A COMMON reason given by those who have yet to try Twitter: “I have nothing to say.”… well…
E-Commerce Sites Freshen Up to Grow Sales – Among those sites that will refresh their looks, better organization and updating of home, category and product pages are top priorities, followed by better search engine optimization.
The State of the Twittersphere 2010 – According to the report, Twitter’s user growth peaked at 13% in March 2009 falling to just 3.5% in October 2009. And while this is the most recent date for which HubSpot has access, it is revealing nonetheless.
Lady Gaga And The Death Of The Login – 9 out of 10 people creating special purpose web accounts are doing so using their social networking platforms.
How to Create a Successful Company Blog – Is it worth blogging, and if so, what they should blog about.
Facebook Drives 3X Traffic to Broadcast Than Google News – A key difference here might be that people are sharing news on Facebook that has an aspect of immediacy. When something big is happening in the world, some news is breaking, we might tend to look toward media outlets where we expect to find breaking news – broadcast media.
Study: 61% of small businesses accomplish identifying & attracting new customers via social media. – Social media usage increased to 24%, from 12% the year before.
Roadmap: Make your corporate websites relevant with social integration (via @jowyang) – Companies and orginizations are confused by the wide variety of choices that social networks offer to help them connect to their customers. Jeremiah created this menu to help them in understanding.
Social networking, phones grow as news sources – 26% of people are getting news through mobile devices.
10 Tips for Successful Twitter Fundraising – It takes more than posting multiple tweets a day to get the job done.
5 Simple Twitter Listening Tips Every Marketer Should Know – Good overview on the basic steps you need to get the best out of your Twitter searching and monitoring.
E-Book on building and sustaining brand communities – Radian6 – (direct PDF download).

[Report] for February 3rd 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Procter and Gamble embraces Facebook – When the world’s biggest marketing firm, Procter & Gamble, says it’s making a huge marketing move with a massive online presence, you really need to sit and up and pay close attention.
Major brands sceptical of social media – Just 22% of those surveyed said that social media forms a major part of their promotional strategies. Meanwhile, many marketers are confused about the role the channel should play in their company’s plans.
2010 Nonprofit Social Media Benchmarks Study – An analysis of growth and social engagement metrics for nonprofit organizations.
Context is King: How Videos Are Found And Consumed Online – An incredibly detailed post by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan.
Rethinking the Value of Social Media to Online Shopping – This research implies that the promise of Social Media for eRetailers should be carefully balanced by logistics and understanding of what customers actually want, otherwise mutual disappointment is sure to follow.
Active Business Blogs Draw 6.9 Times More Organic Search Traffic Than Non-Bloggers – Blogging, which is equivalent to content building, helps attract more site visitors. The rationale is similar: more blog articles mean more chances to create something that grabs readers’ attention and indirectly build up a company’s reputation.
Harvard on foursquare – Harvard is the first university to use foursquare to help students explore their campus and surrounding places of interest. “…this represents a smart use of FourSquare — which still has plenty of doubters — by an organization. I’m certain organizations of different natures will find a way to leverage the service to achieve their own business goals.”
Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right – Social media marketing campaigns are proving to be goldmines rich with customer engagement and insight that companies wouldn’t likely have otherwise. Companies like PepsiCo are going to extensive lengths to foster this type of collaboration with fans, and the payoff has been big.
National Lady Gaga Day Draws 100,000+ on Facebook – How social networks can unleash community power. Still wondering if there’s any return on social media investment? Get your “social media embassies”, now.
Themeleon – Twitter Profile Designer – Nice tool to easily customize the way Twitter looks for you and how your profile looks to others.
Baby Boomers Get Connected with Social Media – Stats: 77% of millenials, 61% of gen X, 46% of Baby boomers maintain a social network profile.
Engagement on Social Networks Top Priority for Marketers – The “2010 Digital Marketing Outlook” report found that 81% of the brand executives surveyed expected an increase in digital projects in 2010, and one-half will be moving dollars from traditional to digital budgets. Further, more than three-quarters think the current economy will push more allocations to digital.
Ikea’s Easy to Assemble video series breaks new ground in branded entertainment – “Easy to Assemble is a wacky online video series created and written by Illeana Douglas and sponsored by Ikea. According to Advertising Age, Easy to Assemble has racked in 5.1 million views since first going online last year and the numbers are still growing. Ikea had the vision to give Douglas the creative freedom to place entertainment ahead of marketing”.
Digital Marketing: Facebook Ads Not So Annoying – It turns out users find ads on social networks no more annoying than any other ads on the web.
Google – Search is getting more social – Google is pushing the feature to beta status and turning it on for all signed-in English Googlers. Google Social Search is a standard search results page add-on that displays socially relevant content from people in your online social circle, as determined by your Google Profile.
Content Curation: Why Is The Content Curator The Key Emerging Online Editorial Role Of The Future? – What is content curation and why is it so important for the future of web content publishers…the next emerging disruptive role in the content creation and distribution chain.
20 Most Important Social Media Buzzwords for 2010 – The most appropriate buzzwords to describe our curious stampede to the social media and mobile future.