Riding Hong Kong’s shiny MTR subway trains, an observer is immediately struck by the number of commuters wired into (or playing with) their mobile phones. The city’s buses are Wi-Fi-enabled, and taxi drivers often have three or more mobile phones on their dashboards.

Despite its proximity to the global manufacturing giant, Hong Kong is not China. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, banned in the communist behemoth, thrive in Hong Kong. Accordingly, Hong Kong’s 7 million citizens have their own unique cell phone culture. Here, the devices are as ubiquitous and inexpensive as dim sum dumplings, and most citizens therefore indulge in more than one. The Office of the Telecommunications Authority Hong Kong reports that the city’s mobile penetration rate is 200.6 percent.

Hong Kong: Connected

Because of its geography, population density, and unique history, Hong Kong also has a distinctive culture, one that trickles down into how locals use their mobile phones. Denizens’ twin passions, shopping and eating, also have unique mobile practices.

To better understand how people in Hong Kong use their cell phones to shop for goods and services, Edelman conducted survey that asked about smartphone use related to shopping.

Edelman Survey: Shopping via Smartphone Still Developing

Despite the high penetration in the community, 35 percent, the direct impact of smartphones on shopping is still developing. Smartphones in Hong Kong are heavily used by a younger demographic (aged 21-29) for researching and on-the-go information gathering of products and services (e.g., places to eat out, finding phone numbers, and reading movie reviews). Comparing prices and sharing pictures of intended purchases (or of meals about to be devoured) is also common.

However, on the whole, these smartphone users do not make purchases on their devices, with only a small percentage saying they had done so. Those that do confined those purchases to what they consider low-risk items (cheap and easy to obtain products, generally priced under US$20). Fear of lack of payment security, and possible fraud, increases reluctance of making purchases by smartphones.

When probed further, most respondents stated that they preferred to go to a shop and try a product themselves, even if they were relatively sure about its reliability beforehand. In fact, most stated that they find storefronts to be more convenient and fun places to shop when compared to online buying.

Shopping: A National Pastime

This brings the discussion back to environment. Hong Kong is a high-density urban city with easy and ready access to retail brick-and-mortar outlets and malls with long operating hours (10 a.m. to 10 p.m. in many cases). It’s a busy, crowded place. Physical shopping is often social and a family event – in fact some laugh that it a national pastime much like sports in other countries! As the average size of a Hong Kong home is generally small, shopping locations serve a role as places to meet, socialize, and eat meals with friends. In addition, the tactile nature of shopping at a store is still important here – people trust a product more if they can feel it in their hands, especially if the product is expensive.

Not surprisingly, Hong Kong consumers closely evaluate risks versus rewards when shopping. This, coupled with retail outlet saturation, means that local storefront shopping is convenient and reliable. Their shopping habits related to online purchases and, therefore, are culturally and environmentally informed. Given the market conditions, there is good reason to believe that opportunities to grow the mobile purchasing marketing Hong Kong exist.

Risk-aversion and a propensity to experience products firsthand before buying are obstacles, but not insurmountable ones. Building consumer trust will be a major factor in breaking through the barrier of apprehension. Companies and well-established brands, with known and reliable brick-and-mortar storefronts, are likely to be more trusted by shoppers to safely conduct mobile and online purchases. Companies without these advantages are likely to have more difficulty.

Building Brand and Consumer Trust

While having a trusted, established brand and a multitude of stores is helpful, it does not eliminate the need to motivate customers to change their well-entrenched purchasing habits. Those that make it easier to scroll through meaningful information on phones by creating comprehensive online and mobile-ready catalogues of their wares will likely fare better in Hong Kong. Further, market networking, offering discounts for online and mobile purchases, sale campaigns, and couponing also will help win early adopters. In fact, more than 75 percent of respondents to the Edelman survey answered that a mobile coupon could convince them to make purchases on their phone. Location-based deals or real-time offers during key shopping times will incentivize and sway purchases to brick-and-mortar outlets.

Mobile Payments Internationally

Mobile payment service providers, too, should be ready and willing to show their reliability to gain the trust of early adopters, and to build trust in their brands and services. Despite the fact that 75 percent of respondents in the Hong Kong mobile shopping survey said they never use their mobile phones for banking, the industry is expanding rapidly. PayPal alone projects $3 billion in transactions from its PayPal Mobile service in developed nations next year.

It is only a matter of time before more trusted mobile payment platforms are available in Hong Kong. As they arrive, these service providers will help bring down risk associated with executing monetary transactions on mobile phones, leading to wider adoption of the trend.

Mobile and online buying has potential to be explosive, but retail will survive. They may adopt mobile purchasing platforms, but Hong Kongers will always find a thrill and sense of accomplishment from lugging multiple shopping bags home like trophies after a long Sunday shopping marathon.

Social Shopping in the US

Meanwhile, in the United States, the shopping experience starts well before you ever step foot near the local mall. And consumerism is no longer static, tethered to your house or your favorite store. It’s dynamic and constantly changing, able to go wherever you do and stay on your schedule. It’s not exclusive, but inclusive, and most of all, it’s portable.

Once upon a time, we read a magazine or the Sunday paper, and we spotted something that we absolutely had to own. So we read a little more and we discovered how we could buy this shiny new life-changing item. Then we drove to the appropriate retailer with credit card in hand. It was that simple. But too often we flew in optimistically blind. Armed with sparse legitimate information, we found ourselves at the mercy of the retailers and paid the price, quite literally.

But let’s buy something today. Where do we start? At our computer? Sure. Maybe we search Google or take a look around eBay* or Amazon. But we’re all busy. There’s no time and not a minute to waste. Most likely, we’re out the door and in our cars before the computer even turns on. Luckily, we can do all of our shopping with that little thing in our pockets.

Mobile Shopping Research: Staying Connected

And our mobile devices don’t merely provide us gateways to our favorite retailers, they allow us to interact with these venues in more efficient ways. They inform us about the products we want to own, with intelligence we wouldn’t have dreamed possible before. They connect us to communities of other shoppers, many discerning, plenty more critical. They even offer us incentives and deals for purchasing the very items we would have bought anyway.

For example, let’s say I zoom out the front door, messy hair, make-up partially applied, on the quest for the local Starbucks**, of which there are actually six. On this block. The official Starbucks app not only directs me to the closest store, it allows me to build a triple-shot Venti Latte, and then pay for it from my phone.

Now it’s off to the mall to pick up a birthday gift for my nephew, and maybe a new outfit for myself while I’m there. A quick check of the IGN app shows that the new Legend of Zelda Wii video game scored a 10 out of 10. The app also lets us know that the game is rated E for everyone, which means that it’ll pass the parent check, too. A map search of ‘videogame’ returns a nearby GameStop. That’ll do. Ten minutes later, I have the game in hand, but it’s nearly seventy bucks. Is that really the best deal available? I boot up my eBay RedLaser app to find out. It seamlessly uses my mobile’s camera to scan the Zelda package’s barcode, showing the cost of the game at eBay, Buy.com and other online retailers, as well as brick-and-mortar retailers nearby like Best Buy. A few clicks later, and the video game is purchased, and en route to my mailing address.

All of this shopping for others reminds me that I haven’t purchased anything for number one. The Gap is nearby. A half hour later, I’ve got four outfits waiting in a dressing room for my perusal. Mirrors can’t always be trusted, there are no girlfriends to accompany me on this outing and the salespeople will naturally swear that everything looks absolutely fabulous.

So, again, I turn to my smartphone and take a few snapshots of each outfit in the mirror, striking my best poses in the process. The Go Try It On app uploads photos of my potential outfits and allows other like-minded fashionistas to instantly vote and comment on them. Within minutes, I have honest feedback, and I’m two outfits lighter. I text pictures in group chat to four of my best friends. Studies show that 10 percent in the U.S. with smartphones have texted photos or videos prior to purchase. I use my phone to quickly scan Gap.com to see if I can find the same items for less, which I do, so I negotiate with the store clerk to give me the online price. I check out, using the mobile check-out feature (and receipts emailed to me!), and am so excited about the deals I just scored that I post the sale on my Facebook page and “like” the Gap’s FB page while I’m at it.

Checking-In and Checking Out

Shopping accomplished, and best of all, I checked in via Shopkick and earned some ‘kicks’ that I can redeem for movie tickets later. Now it’s time to eat, so I load Yelp’s monocle feature, which augments retailers over my camera screen appositionally aware real-time, and choose a five-star-rated Chinese restaurant. I need some cash, so I use Google ATM Finder app to find the closest and safest ATM from my mobile.

This is a snapshot into the connected shopper not of the future, but of the present. All consumers need is a mobile phone and the ability to download some apps, which do all the heavy lifting.

Consumers are already using their phones to complement or bypass traditional brick-and-mortal retailers. According to data from IBM, mobile traffic increased from 5.6 percent in 2010 to 14.3 percent in 2011 during the Black Friday shopping time frame. Meanwhile, on Cyber Monday, 10.3 percent of shoppers used a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site, which is up from 3.9 percent the year before. That survey of 1,000 consumers found that more than half (62 percent) would be willing to make a purchase on their mobile device this holiday season if prompted by coupons, discount offers, text alerts, gift cards, or loyalty points. In a similar survey conducted by Sybase 365 a year ago, only 32 percent of respondents said that mobile incentives would encourage them to make a purchase on their device.

As our mobile devices become more powerful and more capable, we turn to them again and again (and at increasing rates) to interface with our digital world. In the U.S., our phones are increasingly extensions of our selves, and we rely on them, even with their limitations. A dropped signal or slow data speeds are acceptable caveats as we browse our favorite retail store from a public park bench.

Forrester reports that by 2012, almost every mobile phone in the U.S. will, in fact, be a smartphone with an Internet connection. 3G and 4G data speeds will slow up some commerce, but perhaps not for too long. By 2020, we’ll be connecting at speeds of 1 gigabyte per second, or approximately 500 times faster than we do today, according to Google.

So, whether you are shopping in Hong Kong or Nashville, chances are your smartphone is coming with you. It is our job as marketers to understand the relationship our target audiences have with their technology and leverage that to our client’s best advantage.

Edie Kissko assisted with the composition of this article.

*eBay is an Edelman client.

**Starbucks is an Edelman client.

We’ve always lived and worked in a state of flux but one can make the argument that recent developments in technology, society and business seem to have accelerated the pace of change we have to contend with. Our mobile devices would have been considered fairly high powered computers not that long ago. We live in a hyper-connected state of existence, constantly sending out signals to friends, family, work associates, peers , etc. If this year belongs to anyone, it is the change agent.

You may be thinking—”that’s exactly what I am,” but chances are, if you aren’t frustrated or feeling like you are constantly hitting wall after wall, you may not be the change agent you think you are. It’s a thankless job, but a necessary one, now more than ever. Change agents aren’t sprinters, they run marathons—and this will be their year whether they know it or not. But in order to do the job (and really, it’s everyone’s job if you’re interested in innovation) there are a few key areas where the seeds of change will need to take root.

Thoughts

Change cannot happen without first influencing the thought process—the way we think about ourselves, our jobs our business and most importantly our missions. Change starts with the core of how we think about everything before we ever take action. It is thoughts which drives strategy and strategy which drives execution (when done right). Change can begin with a whisper—often times as a thought formed in our minds.

Behaviors

If thought is the seed then the living organism which springs from it is the behaviors which take root upon them. Without action, thoughts and ideas serve little purpose other than to inspire—which can ignite change, but not sustain it. A change in behavior can range from a shift in daily ritual, to the adoption of new technologies to reacting to environments in new and unexpected ways. When what we do is aligned with what we think, anything is possible.

Perception

When we realize that we are more in control of the way we are perceived than we think—change is possible. Sometimes altering the perception of ourselves whether we be individual or organization acts as a catalyst to influence thoughts and behaviors and other times it is a result—but either way we change when they way we are perceived is altered.

Outcome

Without a meaningful outcome which indicates the measure of change that has either occurred (or not) there cannot be change. An outcome can be an attitude—or it can be financial, but it’s tangible. Not so long ago, the world thought Apple computer was dead. Having owned my share of overpriced and underperforming beige machines—I lived through that sentiment. Then change took root—thoughts, behaviors and perception of the company shifted and one of the indisputable outcomes is reflected in valuation of the company. Ask Apple’s shareholders what they think of change.

2012 belongs to the change agents. But real change takes a complex formula of vision, perseverance and stubbornness to pull off.

Here’s to all of the above.

Image credit: David Reece

Anyone who predicted December to be a quieter month due to the winding down period before the holidays couldn’t have been more mistaken. After much anticipation and speculation, this month saw major changes rolled out across the four biggest social networking platforms: Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and YouTube. Hopefully this end-of-year timing will give users and developers some time to adjust before all launching headfirst into continuing our exciting work in the New Year.

Twitter

This month Twitter launched a big change to their user interface called the ‘Let’s Fly’ design, now readily available for the web app, mobile (Android and iPhone) and launching for iPad apps soon. This new design helps users ‘Discover’ new content and interests, and offers a shiny new lay out for brands, which is a first for Twitter. A few great add-ons included in this new layout are the ‘jump to the top’ function (no more endless scrolling!) and ‘tweet details’. Tweet details allows users to tap a tweet and immediately find out more information such as the full page, shared multimedia, linked web pages and the number of retweets and favorites the particular tweet has received.

To find out more information on the new mobile design, follow @Twittermobile with offers tips and updates from the team. To see how the button layout has changed into the five new and easy to use functions (Me, Home, Connect, Discover and Tweet) watch this video brought by Twitter here.

December Updates:

• 8^th December: Twitter Launches Brand Pages; The ‘Fly’ Design
• 16^th December: Twitter Launches TweetDeck as Web App
• 21^st December: Twitter available in four new languages: Finnish, Danish, Norwegian and Polish

Facebook

The much anticipated Facebook Timeline was rolled out to users this month. This big change was first rolled out New Zealand and is now available for users across the globe. Currently, users must opt-in via the official Facebook link to swap their layout from the old version. The biggest addition is of course the cover photo which is the most eye-catching feature of the page and thus important for users to choose wisely – especially once it is rolled out to brands.

Posts made by you are now called Your Stories this is because the content you share on your page now comes in different formats. You might share what you are currently listening to on Spotify which groups together, the Places, Events’ and Pages you like/attend/visit will also be grouped together, making your profile easier to manage and control. One of the biggest changes I noticed is that there is a distinct lack of the ‘Wall’ which used to be the biggest feature for many users. Posts are dotted around the Timeline which make up a week based on time, rather than just one wall than you continuously scroll through. It’s kind of like a very personal RSS feed.

Once you have Timeline, you have seven days in which you are able to check it out, move things around and test your preferences before you click Publish. Once published,  your Timeline is live to all your friends and you cannot go back to the old version. You are able to delete, hide or add anything you wish to your Timeline. The Timeline homepage you can see how many of your friends have currently implemented Timeline, and check out their pages for inspiration!

December Updates:

• 6^th December – Timeline is rolled out in New Zealand
• 15^th December – Timeline rolled out Worldwide

Timeline rolled out for brand pages yet to be determined

Google+

It’s a month on from the launch of Google+ brand pages (November 7) and a lot has happened since then. Notable events include Britney Spears becoming the first Google+ page to top 1 million users and the release of the 2011 Google Zeitgeist list (of which the elusive iPhone 5 is listed). On December 19, Google+ added three new improvements to its platform to primarily aid the management of brand pages. The finer detail of publishing content has been improved dramatically in which page admins are able to ‘graphic-equalize’ the publisher stream. This means that you can manage your streams down to the minute detail (in order to create the most optimized stream for your brand and its audience). A slider tool allows you to choose how you wish to filter you posts into the main content stream to increase visibility/impressions.

The next update is the improvement made to page management. Along with Buddy Media who was been selected last month as official launch partner, it looks like Google+ pages are finally taking off in terms of content management. You can now have up to 50 admins on your brand page by ‘Adding a Manager’ via the page settings. This new feature also allows you to ‘Transfer Ownership’ which you can pass on admin rights from yourself to a new user. This is useful for when a community manager is stepping down from the page and needs to pass on all relevant information. The limitation of 50 admins per page also means more security control over the page. The other feature that makes the page management easier is the new notification flow that allows managers to communicate and keep abreast of all page activity at all times.

December Updates:

• 12^th December – Further integration between Gmail and Google+
• 14^th December – Google+ expands ‘on-air’ Hangouts
• 19^th December – Multi-admin control
• 19^th December – Adjustments for Volume Control to ‘Circle’s feature
• 21^st December – Google+ Pages showing as primary search result

YouTube

For a big part of this year the questions on many people’s lips has been what the heck is Cosmic Panda? This month, it appears that YouTube has now unveiled this radical new look this month for its more than 800 billion users worldwide. Shishir Mehotra, the VP of product development for YouTube, highlighted the reasons for these changes:

“We’re trying to take what we see as the best of TV and the best of online and bring it together”.  This makes sense considering the way in which users are now consuming videos online more than ever and the ever rising social integration with TV.”

The first thing I noticed when logging on is the stream in the middle of my homepage. I can now ‘subscribe’ to other channels which will feature in my feed as well as already getting updates from my Google+ circles. My YouTube and Gmail account are also even more closely aligned.

Channel pages have also changed and are now much slicker, with the addition of larger video screens, several new layout templates (creator, blogger, broadcaster, everything – screenshot below) and customization options. The ‘Video Manager’ allows you to edit your videos with text, audio, transitions, annotations and a cutting tool. You can also personalize your homepage with the video suggestions with the ‘Recommended For You’ lists. It seems that this updated focus on social integration might be YouTube’s aim to make the website a place users spend longer periods of time by networking rather than a short-lived hotspot for watching a five minute videos.

There are also new additions to the Analytics toolkit, where the reporting facility has been made easier for users. YouTube have now included a ‘data filter’ in which you can now categorize by content, location and time. The graph facility has also improved, the data granularity is more focused; you can now pin point data daily, weekly or monthly in a specific date range. You can also compare your data by charting Viewers directly next to Unique Viewers. For even more information on ‘What’s new’ in YouTube Analytics click here.

December Updates:

• December 1^st – YouTube takes web remake live

A Focus on Integration

In conclusion, it appears that these huge networks are looking for ways to improve user-friendliness and add integration options. Twitter’s focal points are on shareability (with newly embeddable Tweets), extending their focus to brands and also strengthening their ‘discover’ functionality, continuing to cement Twitter as the ‘news source’ in the social media landscape. Facebook is focusing more on the visual nature of pages, shareability, third-party integration and the bringing together of old and new data. Facebook is also concentrating on making the platform all-inclusive. Google and YouTube are further integrating their services and will continue, it appears, to incorporating the results in enhanced search functions more than anything else.

Image credit: Luxuryluke

Kred is the latest tool designed to measure your Twitter influence, built by the good folks at Peoplebrowsr.

The Good Stuff

In the version I’ve had a play with, there are several sections choc-full of data to play with.

Overview: This is your dashboard that gives you the headline, ie, your score and recent activity; who you’ve retweeted, conversations you’ve had, who has mentioned you etc.

Activity: This is where it starts to get very cool. One of the best things about Peoplebrowsr is the ability to segregate by community – Kred has taken this technology too. This means that when you’re looking at influence, it can be broken down by interest area, such as social media, or sport.

What’s really interesting here is that you can not only see your communities, but click through to see what other communities people you’re engaging with are a part of. Neat.

Friends Activity: This outlines who has been mentioning your friends. This is incredibly useful if you’re trying to understand who potentially you should be looking to reach as a second or third contact point.

Get More Kred: This is a feature that I’m yet to see any of the influence analysts include within their offering: a solid offline meaure of influence. You can include all those speaker slots you get, your level of education (and therefore connections you might have), memberships to clubs and organisation, charity and sport involvement and how often you travel (the unspoken metric for importance is of course frequent flyer miles…).

There is also a little more analysis on your online profile too and a sample of people to consider following.

Community Kred: This section looks at the sphere of the different communities Kred is analysing, who is influential in them and where you rank (if you rank at all). This again is incredibly helpful if you’re deciphering who you need to try and engage with to raise your profile.

Analyse: “Coming Soon” is filed under this section, I wait with held breath!

How It Works

Each community is relative to itself – this, for me, is key.

Kred have have put together a Rules section, outlining how your score is calculated:

• Kred Influence is the measure of what others do because of you. Influence increases when others take action because of your content. Your Influence score increases when someone retweets, @replies or follows you.
• Scores range from 1 to 1,000 with higher scores representing greater influence. The score of the person with the most Influence is set at 1,000 and all others are normalized relative to it. Kred Influence is normalized for the Twitter universe and within communities, which means that someone in every community has a score of 1,000.
• You receive Influence Points every time others interact with you or your content. 10 Points are assigned for the most common actions like replying to people and retweeting content. You receive more Points if someone with a large following does something for you, like having a message retweeted by someone with more than 10,000 followers.
• Influence Points are then translated to your Kred Influence Score. Since Kred Influence is normalized on a scale with a maximum score of 1,000, the rate at which Influence Points convert to Kred Influence constantly changes as everyone in the social universe accrues Points. The ‘Points To Score Conversion’ curve also grows steeper as Kred Influence Score grows. The higher your Kred Influence, the more points it takes to move up.

In Summary

Whilst acknowledging that influence is extremely difficult to measure, Kred is offering a different perspective to the other tools that exist.

I must admit I am a fan and I’ve been pretty excited in the build up to it going live – I’ve not been let down, it is very promising indeed and I look forward to the next iteration being rolled out.

In a December 19 Twitter conversation with Helen Tobin, a public relations student from the University of Southern California, David shared the motto of his alma mater, Pratt Institute, as the best career advice he ever received. He also answered Helen’s questions about maintaining online privacy, the impact of Klout scores, job searching in a challenging market, and the future of social media and digital integration.

Helen won the opportunity to chat with David through a recent sweepstakes hosted by the Los Angeles office via their Twitter channel, @EdelmanLA. Over the last several months, the LA office hosted three sweepstakes where entrants could win a chat with an influential Edelman employee. In the third installment, Helen tweeted with the hashtag #EdelLASweeps and won the chance to ask David Armano about the latest news and trends in social media during a 30-minute Twitter chat.

Here is a snippet from their conversation:

Read the full transcript here.

Be sure to follow @EdelmanLA on Twitter for the latest LA office updates, and keep up with social media news and trends by following @armano.

If you could ask David Armano any question, what would it be? Tell us in the comments below!

Image credit: JoelAZ

“Smart” gift-giving applications work like a gift-idea version of Pandora.com, recommending specific gifts your friends might enjoy. With a plane home to catch and the holidays inching closer, I don’t have time to shop in stores or spend hours online picking something out. These gift-giving applications offer suggestions and recommendations for everyone on my list. It’s that easy.

Fifteen Is the Magic Number: 15Gifts.com

15gifts is a seven-step gift-giving site that allows you to plug in the “type” of person you are shopping for. You enter male, female or couple, the name and the age range of the person. Next up, you select from several options including their relationship to you, the occasion, and “what makes them happy”. Two optional questions are next: “What is the style of their home?” and “What does this person normally wear?” and lastly, you enter your price range. Simple!
The 15gifts site imports the information you submit and offers fifteen suggestions with a link to a point of purchase. The site collects gift ideas from what “types” of people want to purchase and provides shoppers with gift ideas to guide their purchasing decision quickly and creatively. As an added convenience,  you can save your friend’s name and preferences to pull up new gift ideas next time you need to shop!

Shop for Your Friends on : Shopycat

Shopycat is an automated gift-giving Facebook app created by WalmartLabs through Walmart’s* acquisition of Kosmix. Shopychat leverages Facebook’s social graph to find the perfect gift and enhance the social shopping experience. Facebook users can pull Likes, shares and interests from their Facebook friends to create gift recommendations. Like most of the apps discussed in this post, Shopycat personalizes gift. If your little brother lists “soccer” as an interest on Facebook, gifts like a sports trivia game or season tickets might be recommended. The app specifically chooses “giftable” items, rather than  just based on what your Facebook friends have listed as an interest.

Users aren’t just directed to Walmart products, but instead to retailers including Barnes and Noble, RedEnvelope and ThinkGeek. Note: Shopycat is only available on your desktop Facebook; not through your mobile device quite yet.

Good Things Come in Small Packages: Givvy.com

Month-old self-funded startup, Givvy is another social gift-giving application recently launched by two friends. Givvy combines aspects of Shopycat and 15gifts evaluation process. Rather than offer gift selections based on a specific Facebook friend (similar to Shopycat), the app provides recommendations based on “type” of person discovered through a series of questions, a process similar to the model used by 15gifts). In addition to these questions and formulas, Givvy adds an interactive element. The app operates like a Facebook sub-community that pinpoints specific users and influencers and gift-idea curators. These influencers create gift lists and ideas online. The Givvy team translates the ideas, turning Gifts.com URLs into product pages within the app.

According to a CNet article, “the foundation of Givvy is social commerce, which happens when online social networks mix with e-commerce transactions. The most popular examples of social commerce are shopping communities like Etsy, group buying models like Groupon, and retail storefronts on Facebook, known as F-Commerce.”

Finding Recommendations That Fit You: Hunch

Okay, let’s be honest: while doing holiday shopping, it’s important to get a little gift for yourself too! But what if you don’t even know what YOU want? Hunch is your solution. Hunch is a recommendation site that pulls your interests into Taste Graphs based on your Facebook and/or Twitter profiles, as well as your answers to a fun questionnaire. You can answer these questions based on yourself, or someone else you are shopping for. Hunch’s advantage is the use of algorithms to aid in decision-making. Sites like Gifts.com have partnered with the application and recently found that its conversion rate (the number of shoppers who turn into buyers) is as much as 60% higher than it was before they started using Hunch.
The company, recently acquired by eBay**, shares their taste graphs on a range of topics; from “what Ivy League School is Right for You?” to the average Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo or AOL user and everything in between. The tool provides allows you to rate their recommendations; which in turn strengthens their Taste Graph system.

“Bee” Generous this Holiday Season: Present Bee

Present Bee is a gift-giving application that allows YOU to suggest gifts that you think your friends would like. Currently in public beta, this smart app is the brainchild of seven Northwestern students. Present Bee users have “Buzzlists” where their friends discuss gifts for that person. Here’s the fun part: you can’t view your own Buzzlist! Your online friends are the ones who are recommending gifts for you in order to help other friends purchase gifts for you. Although in public beta; a Facebook login is all you need.

These are only five applications that use algorithms and your social media profiles to find and recommend gifts for you – there are many more, so find the one that works best for you! What’s better than being able to click and purchase items without having to fight holiday crowds or spend time brainstorming gift ideas? After all, the best part of the holidays is giving someone the perfect gift.

Would you connect your social media profile to one of these sites to receive gift recommendations? Why or why not? Happy Holidays!

Image credit: alancleaver_2000

*Walmart is an Edelman client.
**eBay is an Edelman client.

Each year at this time, I look forward and predict trends in social media for the coming year. But first, I look back at my predictions from last year. How’d I do? Not bad.

2011 Recap: Social Business, Google+ & Facebook Places

Social media continues to move forward toward business integration, a trend that I identified last year. In a joint study from Booz & Company and social platform developer Buddy Media, 57 percent of businesses surveyed plan to increase social media spending, while 38 percent of CEO’s label social as a high priority.

I was also partially accurate in predicting that Google would “strike back” in 2011. They did, with Google Plus, a formidable initiative that acts as Google’s “social layer” to the Web. Part social network and part social search, Google Plus has industry observers scratching their heads, wondering if Facebook will be given a run for their money or if the service evolves into something complimentary in a highly social Web.

I had one big swing-and-miss on Facebook’s intrusion in the location-based services war. While Facebook still supports location tracking in a number of ways, it has not put Foursquare out of business. Foursquare still enjoys a niche audience of highly active participants who enjoy telling the world where they are and post pictures to prove it. It is however worth noting that Facebook recently acquired location based network Gowalla, so continue to watch this space.

2012 Predictions

So what can we expect in 2012 in a world that seems to grow ever connected by the hour? Here are six predictions to ponder, in no particular order:

Convergence Emergence

For a glimpse into how social will further integrate with “real life,” we can look at what Coca Cola experimented with all the way back in 2010. Coke created an amusement park where participants could “swipe” their RFID-equipped wristbands at kiosks, which posted to their Facebook account what they were doing and where. Also, as part of a marketing campaign, Domino’s Pizza posted feedback — unfiltered feedback — on a large billboard in Times Square, bringing together real opinions from real people pulled from a digital source and displayed in the real world. These types of “trans-media” experiences are likely to define “social” in the year to come.

The Cult of Influence

In much the same way that Google has defined a system that rewards those who produce findable content, there is a race on to develop a system that will reward those who wield the most social influence. One particular player has emerged, Klout, determined to establish their platform as the authority of digital influence. Klout’s attempt to convert digital influence into business value underscores a much bigger movement which we’ll continue to see play out in the next year. To some degree everyone now has some digital influence (not just celebrities, academics, policy makers or those who sway public opinion). But for the next year, the cult of influence becomes less about consumer plays like Klout and more about the tools and techniques professionals use to “score” digital influence and actually harness, scale and measure the results of it.

Gamification Nation

No we’re not taking about video games. Rather, game-like qualities are emerging within a number of social apps in your browser or mobile device. From levels, to leaderboards, to badges or points, rewards for participation abound. It’s likely that the trend will have to evolve given how competition for our time and attention this gaming creates. Primarily, gamification has been used in consumer settings, but look for it in other areas from HR, to government, healthcare and even business management. Perhaps negotiating your next raise will be tied to your position on the company’s digital leaderboard.

Social Sharing

Ideas, opinions, media, status updates are all part of what makes social media a powerful and often disruptive force. The media industry was one of the first to understand this, adding sharing options to content, which led to more page views and better status in search results. What comes next in social sharing is more closely aligned with e-commerce or web transactions. For example, Sears allows a user to share a product or review with their networks directly from the site. Sharing that vacation you just booked, or recommending a product, or service from any site to a social network is where sharing goes next. We probably don’t know what we are willing to share until we see the option to do it.

Social Television

For many of us, watching television is already a social act, whether it’s talking to the person next to you, or texting, tweeting, and calling friends about what you’re watching. But television is about to become a social experience in a bigger and broader sense. The X Factor now allows voting via Twitter and highlights other social promotions, which encourages viewers to tap social networks while they watch. Another way media consumption is becoming social comes from a network called Get Glue which acts as something of a Foursquare for media. Participants can “check-in” to their favorite shows (or other forms of media) and collect stickers to tell the world what programs they love. Watch for more of this this year as ratings rise for socially integrated shows.

The Micro Economy

Lastly as we roll into 2012, watch for a more social approach to solving business problems through a sort of micro-economy. Kickstarter gives anyone with a project, the opportunity to get that initiative funded by those who choose to (and patrons receive something in return). A crowdsourcing platform for would-be inventors called Quirky lets the best product ideas rise to the top and then helps them get produced and sold while the “inventor” takes a cut. Air BnB turns homes into hotels and travelers into guests, providing both parties with an opportunity to make and save money. These examples may point to a new future reality where economic value is directly negotiated and exchanged between individuals over institutions.

These are a few emerging trends which come to mind. As with anything, looking to the past often gives us clues for what may come in the future. Please weigh in with your thoughts: where do you see “social” going in 2012?

Image credit: Stockerre

I didn’t attend LeWeb this year, but judging by the chatter, one of the more discussed talks was given by Forrester’s CEO, George Colony who outlined three “thunderstorms” approaching the tech & business world. I just finished watching his talk, and thought it would be interesting to outline portions of his talk with my take layered on it:

Thunderstorm 1:  The Death of The Web

You’ll have to watch the video (above) to grasp the full intricacies of what George is putting forth, but essentially he’s making a call that app economies which have the potential to tap both processing power and the cloud, will change the Web and move it away from a network/browser model to something which leverages devices, apps and the cloud in a more powerful way.

My Take: Scale & Sustainability vs. Experience

I get what George is saying and claiming the death of anything gets headlines, but really what this will likely come down to is user experience vs. sustainability and scale. Apps already show promise of providing better experiences than browser/network, but a question remains how scalable it is for enterprises vs. consumers. While HTML 5 is already working on a more stable browser experience, apps are often dependent on OS systems. What’s more probable is that the Web as we know it doesn’t die—but loses dominance in the consumer area specifically. For businesses specifically, the demand will be formed around what model scales and can be sustained globally over time.

Thunderstorm 2:  Social Saturation

Social is running out of hours and people meaning there is finite demand to meet the current glut of social start-ups and networks competing for our attention, usage and loyalty. As a result, we are moving into a “post social” world in which we see the demise of platforms like Foursquare which don’t offer enough value to survive. The post social web will see new or evolved players who offer efficiency and value.

My Take: Value Is In The Eye of The Beholder

I think George is right on the bubble assessment but claiming that social platforms will move away from the Foursquare’s of the world to platforms which offer concrete effiiencies and value is debatable. Both Twitter and Facebook emerged and evolved as different tools from which they started. Essentially the free market will demand what happens here, but it is likely that the ones who succeed will look more like a Kickstarter over yet another photo/location sharing network.

Thunderstorm 3: The Enterprise

George cited that 72 percent of enterprises are either interested in or already implementing social technologies as part of how their business operates. He cited a number of players in the enterprise space such as Salesforce, IBM and Microsoft and hinted that these could evolve and new players could emerge as well. He also noted that one of the core reasons enterprises are interested in social has a lot to do with their customers (the primary focus of enterprise social as he puts it).

My Take: Social Business

George isn’t just talking about the internal social enterprise, he’s talking about extracting business value from social, like more efficient employees, better business decisions made from data and data analysis, and improved products and services informed by customers to give a few examples. Most organizations are in their infancy of figuring out how to get real value from a newly connected environment and I agree that it’s going to take a changing of the guard over time but there are massive opportunities. He’s essentially describing social business, which over the next 10 years will need to be executed upon.

Great talk overall, highly recommend viewing it.

Image credit: Striking Photography by Bo

Creating a successful Facebook page requires more than just a few clicks. There’s so many things to consider, it’s difficult to stay on top of it all. But we’ve got just the thing for you: A checklist. Print it out or save it on your computer so you can check off tasks once you’ve completed them.

1. Analysis

2. Strategy

3. Basic Set-Up

4. Community Management

5. Additional

Photo credit: adesigna

The Edelman Global Public Affairs team has released findings from the 2011 Capital Staffers Index, an annual global study that analyzes top trends in global public affairs and communications.

This year’s expanded report is the third annual survey based on interviews with over 500 senior staffers (legislative directors and above) from cities in 11 different countries around the world including Washington, D.C., Brussels, London, Beijing, Ottawa, Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, New Delhi, Buenos Aires and Brasilia. It tracks many baseline public affairs metrics first established in our 2009 benchmark study.

Although traditional public affairs components, such as grassroots outreach and fact-based messaging, remain critical to advocacy success, the results also demonstrate a meteoric rise in social media channels in shaping and influencing policy worldwide over the past year.

Specifically, policymakers have shown a dramatic increase in their use of Twitter, Facebook and mobile technology which underscores the importance of social media and the Internet in educating policymakers and galvanizing them to support a policy issue.

Other details from the report may be found in the materials posted below. If you’d like to learn more about the study or the public affairs practice, please contact us.