The ecommerce channel expanded by 57% in 2011. Samsung leads fast-growth category LED-TVs and is the main CE challenger of traditional IT brands. Boretti fastest-growing brand in 2011, while HP still dominates.
The continued double digit expansion of the online sales channel represents a long cycle in the economy. Recession or no recession, the ecommerce channel has continued to expand dramatically for more than ten years in a row. It's logical that manufacturers and retailers continue to shift budgets and resources from traditional to online outlets and media as the ecommerce channel represents big business right now.
Ecommerce channel expanded in 2011 by 57%
The ecommerce channel, as measured by Icecat, has expanded in 2011 by 57% year-on-year in terms of Data-sheet Downloads (DDs) via 18,115 ecommerce partners. The growth of the ecommerce channel has slowed down only a little bit because of the Euro crisis and a slow-down in some markets. The ecommerce channel continues to be an exponent of the rise of the digital, worldwide economy.
The number of connected channel partners has grown by 37%. These partners were downloading 1.4 billion data-sheets in 2011, and are expected to download more than 2 billion data-sheets during the 2012. This roughly corresponds to 30 billion data-sheet views via the websites of connected ecommerce partners in some 40 different countries.
The number of brands monitored, has expanded year-on-year with 67% to 4,994 and the numbers of monitored sub-categories has increased by 29% to 1,203 in the sectors IT, Telecom,
Consumer Electronics and Office Supplies.
Top 10 overall: HP still dominates, Samsung rises
In the brands top 10, HP and Lenovo maintain the numbers 1 and 2 positions respectively, as in the previous year. Relatively, the download share of HP has eroded, a long term trend, to a still magnificent 21% of the total number of data-sheet downloads in the ecommerce channel. Philips (+95% increase) re-entered the top 10 together with Epson (+77%). Samsung (+84%) made a big leap within the top 10 to a 3rd position behind Lenovo. Samsung is successful with it's Android-based technologies.
Boretti is fastest growing brand in 2011
Boretti (ovens & cookers) and accessories brands Value and InLine are propelled into the top 200 channel brands 2011. Basically, these brands are entering the ecommerce channel.
The highest ranking fast-growth brands are respectively Startech.com (+258% increase), Gigabyte (+248%), and Trend Micro (+337%).
Interesting is the presence of mobile computing brand BlackBerry (+276%), that has embraced the ecommerce channel to regain market share from Apple and Samsung. Notable is the rise of consumer electronics brand Braun (+242%), consistent with the trend that consumer electronics becomes more important in the online market.
Top 15 categories: Notebooks lead, servers drop
In the top 15 categories little is changing. Notebooks are still by far the most important category in the ecommerce channel. Followed by warranty/support upgrades and PCs. Servers drop out of the top ten, probably because of stagnating demand. Digital cameras and mobile device cases enter the top 15.
CE categories and Tablets on fast-growth path
The fastest expanding category is that of LED TVs (+394%), clearly starting to replace older TV technologies. Other fast-expanding CE categories are cookers & ovens (Boretti!), and refrigerators. The rise of Tablets (+145%) is as expected given the eye-catching battle between Apple's iPad and Android-based competitors.
Fast-growth category LED TVs dominated by Samsung
The fast-growth category LED TVs is dominated in the ecommerce channel by a mix of IT and CE players: Samsung (40%), LG (23%), Philips (15%), and Toshiba (10%) the big four counting for 90% of the market. The last 10% of the market is shared by 35 other brands including Sony-fame. It's understandable that such a competitive environment makes players like Philips consider an exit from the TV market altogether. Especially, if the rumour that Apple is going to develop an iTV materializes.
About Icecat, http://www.icecat.biz/
Icecat NV is an independent worldwide publisher of ecommerce statistics and product content, part of the iMerge BV ecommerce group. Icecat is rated as a Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA company based on 411% business growth over the past five years.
Icecat produced 1.5 million product data-sheets in 35 world languages. Icecat analyzes the performance of 5000 brands. Its statistics are based on 1.4 billion annual product data-sheets downloads by 18,000 connected ecommerce websites: online shops, ERP systems, comparison sites, purchase systems, rating portals, and other applications.
Open Icecat is an open catalog, part of Icecat's full catalog, via which the product content for 280 top technology brands is distributed for free (see: http://www.icecat.biz/menu/partners/index.htm ).
The download popularity of a brand's products is influenced by:
the popularity of its individual products;
product ratings by buyers and professionals;
the availability of its products via distributors and ecommerce partners;
the level of standardization of its product data for search & comparison engines;
online campaigns;
compatibility, cross-sell and up-sell intelligence;
free of charge distribution of (multimedia) product data.
Disclaimer: due to updated measurement methodology, the published historic data may differ a bit from report to report. However, within the same report the same methodology is used to take care of valid comparability. Only the indirect, channel activities of brands are measured.
More information:
- Full report
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Iceleads secures $720K in seed capital from Dutch investor iMerge
Iceleads, a new international lead management network for retailers and manufacturers, has raised $720K in seed capital from Dutch investor iMerge BV.
Iceleads enables manufacturers and brands to convert visitors on their website into buyers via (local) channel partners by adding a “buy now” button on the product pages on a manufacturer’s website. The new, innovative service is currently in pilot with several manufacturers.
Iceleads founder Joris Kroese has a track record of almost 15 years in the e-commerce sector and developed several international ventures. He notes: “We have been preparing the new venture for almost a year now and we spoke to several venture capitalists about it. We are excited to announce this investment since it enables us to develop the service and company to meet the high expectations of our customers. I feel confident about our successful international roll-out and today’s investment contributes to that confidence.”
In essence, Iceleads displays a list of authorized resellers on the product page of a manufacturer website including prices and stock positions in a specific country. Iceleads tracks the consumer spending behavior during the buying process to be able to provide in-depth reports to manufacturers on sales conversion. The collaboration with our founding partner Icecat.biz enables us to list the sellers of a product in any country. Icecat has an active network with over 15,000 etailers worldwide.
“Many of our international customers – IT, Telecom & CE manufacturers – don’t convert their web visitors into buyers.” says Martijn Hoogeveen, CEO of iMerge BV. “The successful pilot shows that the service is well understood by manufacturers and that there is a large global demand for the service. The collaboration with our founding partner iMerge encompasses it's daughter company Icecat which enables us to list the sellers of a product in any country. For these reasons we chose to partner with Iceleads and have our trade name associated.“
Iceleads enables manufacturers and brands to convert visitors on their website into buyers via (local) channel partners by adding a “buy now” button on the product pages on a manufacturer’s website. The new, innovative service is currently in pilot with several manufacturers.
Iceleads founder Joris Kroese has a track record of almost 15 years in the e-commerce sector and developed several international ventures. He notes: “We have been preparing the new venture for almost a year now and we spoke to several venture capitalists about it. We are excited to announce this investment since it enables us to develop the service and company to meet the high expectations of our customers. I feel confident about our successful international roll-out and today’s investment contributes to that confidence.”
In essence, Iceleads displays a list of authorized resellers on the product page of a manufacturer website including prices and stock positions in a specific country. Iceleads tracks the consumer spending behavior during the buying process to be able to provide in-depth reports to manufacturers on sales conversion. The collaboration with our founding partner Icecat.biz enables us to list the sellers of a product in any country. Icecat has an active network with over 15,000 etailers worldwide.
“Many of our international customers – IT, Telecom & CE manufacturers – don’t convert their web visitors into buyers.” says Martijn Hoogeveen, CEO of iMerge BV. “The successful pilot shows that the service is well understood by manufacturers and that there is a large global demand for the service. The collaboration with our founding partner iMerge encompasses it's daughter company Icecat which enables us to list the sellers of a product in any country. For these reasons we chose to partner with Iceleads and have our trade name associated.“
Monday, July 11, 2011
Icecat: the online channel expanded 49% in Q2-2011. HP's top position erodes as PCs decline.
Icecat.biz, July 11, 2011: The online channel expanded 49% in Q2-2011, according to Icecat's download figures. HP's position in the online channel is gradually eroding further as PCs, Workstations and PDAs are in the decline, and imaging manufacturer Epson surprises. Competitor DELL consolidates a top 30 position and has momentum. Further, networking brands Juniper, StarTech.com and Cisco are fast-growth champions. The importance of online sales of whitegood categories continues to increase relatively quick. Finally, Sony Ericsson is a shaker loosing online footprint quickly similarly to Nokia.
Download the full Q2-2011 report here: http://www.icecat.biz/en/forum.cgi?post=6003
Online channel expanded in Q2-2011 with 49%
The online channel, as measured by Icecat, has expanded in Q2-2011 with 49% year-on-year in terms of Data-sheet Downloads (DDs) via 15,446 online channel partners. The growth of the online channel has doubled compared to Q1 2011, which means that the recovery of the online channel is gaining momentum. The number of connected channel partners has grown with 31%. These partners were downloading more than 346 million data-sheets in Q2-2011, and are expected to download more than a billion data-sheets during the whole of 2011.
The number of brands monitored, has expanded year-on-year at a faster rate with 45% to 4060 and the numbers of sub-categories has increased with 12% to 1070 in the sectors IT, Telecom, Consumer Electronics and Office supplies. It implies that the long tail of brands active in the online channel has increased at a similar pace as the online channel itself.
Top 10 overall: HP's online share is decreasing rapidly, Epson and Cisco are surprising
In the top 10 brands, HP (+8%) and Lenovo (+40%) stay the numbers 1 and 2 respectively. Relatively, the download share of HP has decreased further, which is a long term trend, to a still magnificent 20% (down from 25% one year ago) of the total number of data-sheet downloads. HP is both under pressure from competition in a number of its major categories, and experiences the effect of having a rapid increase (+45%) of brands that are now also included in the measurement. Epson (+99%) and Cisco (+91%) enter the top 10, outgrowing their competitors formidably. Toshiba (+15%) and IBM (+26%) leave the top 10, as their online visibility grows far less than average (+49%).
Juniper and StarTech.com, networkers that outgrow all others
If we look at the 20 fast-growing brands in the top 100, networkers Juniper (=738%) and StarTech.com (+433%) are the surprises of Q2 2011, compared to the same period one year earlier. StarTech.com was also in the previous quarter a fast growing brand, but has accellerated even further, and now enters the top 30. Juniper is a suprise for us, just entering the top 100 from 'nowhere' (place 318 one year earlier).
Other steady fast-growth brands are Trend Micro (+413%), 3M (+250%), Verbatim (+238%), Gigabyte (+203%), Fellowes (+187%), Ricoh (+146%), and DELL (+121%). DELL continues its rise to the top of the channel, and consolidates a top 30 position. If DELL is able to continue its growth, it will next year reach the top 20, and become a serious challenger of top computers brands that sell indirect. Toshiba, Fujitsu, and IBM are - given their B2B profile - the first possible 'victims' of DELL's new channel strategy.
The top 20 fast-growth brands are a mix of IT and office supplies, imaging, software publishers and computers. A surprise to us is the revival of software brand Corel (+125%), just entering the top 100. Corel is a competitor of both Microsoft and Adobe, which both have a stable position in the online channel.
And the shakers are... Sandisk, Sony Ericsson, and APC
If there are movers, there are also shakers. Top brands that dropped out of the 100 and saw a decline in online popularity, the true shakers, are Sandisk (-10%) and Sony Ericsson (-11%). These two brands are under pressure in both the online and the traditional channel. Sony Ericsson has similar problems as Nokia (-6%), to keep up with competition in the field of smartphones. Another brand - still in the top 100 - that is clearly under pressure is APC (-37%).
PCs decline, but Netbooks are stable waiting for the next generation of Tablets
In the top categories little is changing. Notebooks (8.25% download share) are still the most important category in the online channel. Warranties/support guarantees (4.73% share) follow, and next PCs (3.46% share). PCs are declining in terms of downloads, similarly to workstations (down 9 positions) and PDAs (will drop out of the top 100 soon).
The relative increase of Netbooks has come to a stand still for the first time in years around position 33. At the same time, Tablet PCs are stable as well around position 99. Clearly, the market is waiting for the new generation of Tablet PCs - running on Android, Chrome OS or Windows - in answer to the splashing break-through of Apple's iPads. Computer manufacturers are clearly uncertain if they should continue to invest in Netbooks or should fully gamble on their next generation of Tablet PCs.
HP continues to dominate Notebooks
In the online channel, HP (37% share) continues to dominate the category notebooks, followed by Lenovo (16% share), Toshiba (11%) and Acer (10% share). Acer continues to loose footprint, and will soon be overhauled by Asus (8% share). Apple (2% share) has hardly an online channel strategy and continues to sell direct, successfully. DELL (1% share) is increasing its channel position step by step, has become visible on the radar, but still has a long way to go to reach the top.
White-goods on the rise
More dynamics can be found in the rest of the top 100 categories. The top 20 fast-growth categories in the online channel is led by cookers & ovens (+182%), projection lamps (+173%) and audio/video cables (+142%). In the top 20 further a lot of other supplies, options and security software. Also refrigerators (+83%) are next to the cookers & ovens a successfully expanding white-goods category. Like we noticed in the previous quarter, white-goods are strongly on the rise as consumer electronics etailers are becoming mature.
White-goods, dominated by traditional local brands
The fastest growing category, cookers & ovens, is a traditional white-goods category, dominated by traditional, mostly European players. It has taken some years, but the white-goods manufacturers are incorporating the online channel as their foremost retailers develop online stores. In total, we measure 93 different brands. Boretti (23%) is on top, followed by Bosch (6%), Smeg (5%), Siemens (4%), AEG (4%), ETNA (4%), ATAG (4%), Miele (3%). In the top it's mainly an Italian-German affair. It seems highly unlikely, that this white-goods category will be trampled by Asians as is the case in many ICT categories.
Juniper uses online channel to distribute options for its high-end routing solutions
The number one fast-growth brand in Q2-2011, Juniper Networks, is known for its high-end routing. But, it's not the routers that are searched for in the online channel, its mainly the options: warranty & support extensions (80% of downloads), software license & upgrades (2%), network management software (2%). Around 10% of online buyer orientation is spent on Juniper hardware: firewalls (7%) and network switches (2%). It makes clear that Juniper has still more upwards potential in the online channel as more of its main categories are made available through internet partners.
About Icecat, http://www.icecat.biz/
Icecat NV is an independent worldwide publisher of ecommerce statistics and product content, part of the iMerge BV ecommerce group. Icecat's statistics are generated by 1 billion product data-sheets downloads by around 15,000 ecommerce websites: online shops, ERP systems, comparison sites, purchase systems, rating portals, and other applications. The online channel activity of more than 4,000 different brands is analyzed by Icecat and their products are extensively described in 35 world languages.
Open Icecat is an open catalog by which product content from 260 top technology brands is distributed for free (see: http://www.icecat.biz/menu/partners/index.htm ).
The download popularity of a brand's products is influenced by:
the popularity of its individual products;
product ratings by buyers and professionals;
the availability of its products via distributors and online channel partners;
the level of standardization of its product data for search & comparison engines;
online campaigns;
compatibility, cross-sell and up-sell intelligence;
free of charge distribution of (multimedia) product data.
Note: the direct online activity of brands like Apple or DELL is not included in Icecat's measurements.
Download the full Q2-2011 report here: http://www.icecat.biz/en/forum.cgi?post=6003
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Alpha International launches new webshop based on open source: Batavi
Alpha International is launching its new Batavi based webshop, in collaboration with Iceshop. Batavi is a state-of-the-art open source ecommerce platform that specializes in solutions for the online channel. Alpha International has selected Iceshop to implement this complex project because of the Batavi open source web services concept.
The new shop of Alpha International has a number of important features. It is multilingual, opened up to for prospects to request for a price quote, and has an intuitive navigation added. Furthermore, by fully integrating with the internal ERP system from Alpha International, customers have the option of real-time inventory and price checks, but also can look into outstanding orders, returns, and electronic invoices.
Customers can use the product selector with "pre and after search" capabilities, to rapidly find the right products and place an order directly if desired. Besides, the possibility is created to easily place an order by uploading an Excel sheet. Useful when it concerns large orders or repeat orders. The collaboration between the Iceshop Batavi team and the "in house” team of Alpha International, has made it possible to reflect the customized logistic processes of Alpha International into the online shop. The efficient shop connects to with Alpha International's philosophy to distribute computer printing supplies at low market prices.
About Alpha International
Alpha International is a distributor of original electronic office supplies and belongs to the top five in Europe. Only A-brands in for the European market are distributed to retailers such as wholesale, retail and webshops with IT and office products. To ensure an international coverage Alpha International has sales offices in the Netherlands (headquarters), Germany, England and France.
About Iceshop BV
Iceshop BV, part of iMerge BV including Icecat NV, is since 1998 a leader in e-business solutions in the sectors IT, Telecom and Consumer Electronics. Iceshop has 12 years of experience in interfaces and supply chain integration, and has her 12 years of expertise successfully translated to its open-source ecommerce platform Batavi (Latin for Batavians).
Since 2007 Iceshop has been developing Batavi, which primarily distinguishes itself as an open source channel solution through seamless XML-EDI links with distributors, Icecat and e-order systems. Batavi distinguishes itself further by an object-oriented integration and data exchange model and a designer driven CSS template system, in which design and code are completely separate.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The many overlapping acronyms for product information management
There's a whole lot of confusion in the are of systems for managing product catalogs. They can be called PIM (product information management), PDM (product data management), PCM (product catalog management), CMS (content or catalog management system), PLM (product lifecycle management) and today I learned that they also can be called MDM (master data management system). I'm sure there are a whole lot of other acronyms on the block to confuse and frighten the potential system buyer ;-).
Probably most understandable is to talk about product data, product information or product catalogs and forget about the acronyms. If I have to choose one, I stick to PIM. We use it for Icecat PIM (free open source download), which we developed for product and management of millions of product data-sheets and related multimedia product information
.
Probably most understandable is to talk about product data, product information or product catalogs and forget about the acronyms. If I have to choose one, I stick to PIM. We use it for Icecat PIM (free open source download), which we developed for product and management of millions of product data-sheets and related multimedia product information
.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Twitter Effectively: Tips & Trics
First of all, true for everything you do in life, it is important to think what you want to reach through Twitter, and what your target audience is.
What can Twitter be used for?
1. Fun: just another channel for interacting with family, friends, colleagues, your group of interest
2. Publishing great content
3. Marketing an idea, website, product, service.. yourself (f.e. to find a job).
FUN
If you want to use Twitter for fun, you have probably reached your goal already. Find your mates via Twitter's Who to Follow tool. Upload them via Gmail or another webmailer or enter their email addresses as a list. As they know you, they will follow you back. Skip the rest of this page!
CONTENT IS KING
Publishing great content is spreading honey for the bees.. or the bears! Great content is the real thing, and long-term the only thing with which you can provide value to your current & future audience. Only because of great content, they will stay with you, and will they be motivated to retweet your messages, to reply to you, to discuss your input, to follow the links you provide...
Most people or companies don't take this serious. Content is King after all. If you don't take content serious, you don't take your followers serious. That's kind of a sin, actually. ;-)
There's a lot of noise on Twitter. So, let's first assess, what's NOT great content:
- Timelines full of tweets about your whereabouts: I arrived in the supermaket. Now in drugstore. Now back home. On highway 66. Play with dog Sara. Bitten by my boy. Etc. etc. A distraction. Only interesting for family and close friends.
- Timelines full of private messages (@blahblahblah about #blahdiblah), non-understandable for the rest of the world. A dissatisfier for many. This is only good if FUN is your only objective.
- Brainless retweets. Retweeting everything that is remoteless of interest. Think of your audience, is this really something worth retweeting?
So, what's great content? Just avoiding the above leaves out the true crap, but will not necessarily result in great content.
The basic message is: try always to be original. Use your own words, your own insights, your own perspective on things. If everyone is writing in the same way, don't do it. It has no value add. Dare to be different and stand out in the Tweep masses.
Like in the traditional word great content can be
- A relevant and motivating Twitter profile
- Funny jokes in 160 characters
- News: hot and live. Like guys in Benghazi when under attack by Ghadaffi forces.
- Sharp comments on new
- Stories using the 160 character format
- Publish the title of your blogs including link to the blog
- Announcements of new news, products, services, works of art to the interested audience
- Retweets adding your twist to it
Etc. etc. The list is as endless as the variety of great content we already produce and consume. Creativity is our limit.
A GOOD PROFILE IS GREAT CONTENT
Creating a good profile is often neglected, but essential. It is in the end the most read content from your Twittering hand. Keep it readible (I dislike too many #s for keywords as it makes the text less easy to understand), list all main things you do or want to convey, and include links to your website(s), blog(s) or your @other_Twitter_account. When people decide to follow you (back), they often follow those links to better understand who you are, and decide then instantly about following you back or not. Don't underestimate the power of a good profile. If you can't say it in 160 characters, you probably can't explain it all!
CREATING A PUBLICATION CHAIN
Take care that your Tweets are automatically imported in the social networks you are using, like Facebook and LinkedIn. In this way, you can connect the whole narrowcasting chain of content, e.g.:
Your press release -> Put that on your blog/website -> Refer to it in a Tweet with a meaningful title -> Auto-distribute this Tweet to Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media.
This maximizes the chance that your target audience will get your message via the web.
EFFECTIVE EXPANSION OF YOUR TWITTER NETWORK
Given that your ambitions are beyond Fun, that you have defined clear goals with your Twitter activities, and that you have started engaging your peers and start to produce some Great Content, it is important to quantify your goals. Because, marketing is all about getting your message across, despite all the Twitter noise. And Twitter is all about conversation, not just sending or receiving.
One interesting, but complex, measure is your Klout Score. This score from 0 to 100% gives an indication of how "influential" you are by Twitter. Because it weighs the interactions you generate (messages, retweets, likes, ..), the size and quality of your network, and a few other things, improving your Klout Score puts you on the right track:
- Creating Great Content that invokes responses from your audience
- Conversating with people connected to you
- Expanding your network of followers, focusing on active and influential ones, not just robot followers.
INCREASING YOUR ACTIVE NETWORK TO ENJOY NETWORK EFFECTS
There's a threshold with regard to the size of your active network (following and followers). If you pas that threshold, you'll start to experience network effects. The network will start to produce results. You'll get interesting responses. The first level, I would quantitatively set at 500 followers (of which may be 50% or 250 are an active follower according to Klout.com).
On this level, I started to receive invitations of business partners to offer a service to them, get messages from users interested in a book I wrote, get resumés and relevant offers from potential suppliers, and start to generate some focused traffic of my target group to one of our websites (http://www.icecat.biz/).
How do I get to the level of the first 500 Followers? Remember, the first 100 followers are the most difficult ones. Afterwards, you'll be found via your network.
When you start with a new account with 0 followers, I would advise simply:
- Lookup friends, families, colleagues and other peers in Twitter and follow them. If they are not on Twitter yet, mail them to join Twitter. Directly or via Twitter.
- Use Twitter's connection to Gmail, Hotmail or other mailers to auto-generate a list of users to follow.
- Mail your friends in Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networks.
A rule of thumb is that for every four people you follow, one will follow you back. I.e., you need to follow 400 Tweeps (Twittering people) to reach the first 100 Followers.
For the first 100 followers, it is still quite feasible to do that by hand, without robots or supporting applications.
How to select the ones to follow?
- Search by looking into the list of following/followers of examples, i.e., people that match your interest profile. They are likely to follow the right people, or are followed by people that are probably also interested in your profile.
- Search by topic. Find people that match your topics from your profile, by searching via Who to Follow. (If you want to expand your network beyond the first 100, you'll need some tools to help you do this more efficiently).
If people start to follow you, ann you don't follow them yet, consider to follow them back. Many people remove (flush) now and then the one who are not following them back. If the Tweep following you, is absolutely not interesting for you, don't follow the Tweep back. Often these are robots with no network value at all, except that they try to get their marketing message across without listening to you.
YOU ARE YOUR NETWORK
There are many tools out there, that are integrating with Twitter, and provide interfaces to handle multiple Twitter accounts, e.g. Tweetdeck. In the messages you get from Tweeps you follow, you will often detect a line saying which tool they are using to automate to a certain extend the management of their Twitter account.
However, Twitter is limiting the automated following and flushing (unfollowing) of large numbers of Tweeps.
An interesting tool to expand your network is Tweepi. The free, basic version helps to Flush the Tweeps your are following, but are not following you back. It helps also to search for interesting Tweeps using some keywords. With some effort you can easily add 100s of new Tweep friends, and after a week Flush the ones who didn't follow you back.
With every tool you use, you have to keep in mind that you should only select meaningful contacts, interesting persons or organizations given their profile. Not just everyone. Because You Are Your Network! Also take care that your are not following inactive Tweeps, who are hardly doing anything with their Twitter account. Tweepi is provides insight in that aspect as well.
A more effective tool to quickly expand your network is Twiends. Twiends gives you some points, they call it seeds. If people are following you through Twiends, you'll pay at least two seeds. If you follow Tweeps through Twiends, you'll earn at least one seed. Take care that you adapt the standard settings, so that you only allow Tweeps to follow you if they have a record of being loyal (i.e., not just flushing you at the next occasion), because it is worthless to have followers who only follow you to earn seeds. If you follow Tweeps via Twiends, also take care only to follow Tweeps with similar interests - you can set these - or a profile interesting to you.
Also follow back the ones that start to follow you via Twiends, if they are interesting to you. That will consolidate the gains you make in network size, and at the same time guarantees that you stay on course to build a meaningful network.
What can Twitter be used for?
1. Fun: just another channel for interacting with family, friends, colleagues, your group of interest
2. Publishing great content
3. Marketing an idea, website, product, service.. yourself (f.e. to find a job).
FUN
If you want to use Twitter for fun, you have probably reached your goal already. Find your mates via Twitter's Who to Follow tool. Upload them via Gmail or another webmailer or enter their email addresses as a list. As they know you, they will follow you back. Skip the rest of this page!
CONTENT IS KING
Publishing great content is spreading honey for the bees.. or the bears! Great content is the real thing, and long-term the only thing with which you can provide value to your current & future audience. Only because of great content, they will stay with you, and will they be motivated to retweet your messages, to reply to you, to discuss your input, to follow the links you provide...
Most people or companies don't take this serious. Content is King after all. If you don't take content serious, you don't take your followers serious. That's kind of a sin, actually. ;-)
There's a lot of noise on Twitter. So, let's first assess, what's NOT great content:
- Timelines full of tweets about your whereabouts: I arrived in the supermaket. Now in drugstore. Now back home. On highway 66. Play with dog Sara. Bitten by my boy. Etc. etc. A distraction. Only interesting for family and close friends.
- Timelines full of private messages (@blahblahblah about #blahdiblah), non-understandable for the rest of the world. A dissatisfier for many. This is only good if FUN is your only objective.
- Brainless retweets. Retweeting everything that is remoteless of interest. Think of your audience, is this really something worth retweeting?
So, what's great content? Just avoiding the above leaves out the true crap, but will not necessarily result in great content.
The basic message is: try always to be original. Use your own words, your own insights, your own perspective on things. If everyone is writing in the same way, don't do it. It has no value add. Dare to be different and stand out in the Tweep masses.
Like in the traditional word great content can be
- A relevant and motivating Twitter profile
- Funny jokes in 160 characters
- News: hot and live. Like guys in Benghazi when under attack by Ghadaffi forces.
- Sharp comments on new
- Stories using the 160 character format
- Publish the title of your blogs including link to the blog
- Announcements of new news, products, services, works of art to the interested audience
- Retweets adding your twist to it
Etc. etc. The list is as endless as the variety of great content we already produce and consume. Creativity is our limit.
A GOOD PROFILE IS GREAT CONTENT
Creating a good profile is often neglected, but essential. It is in the end the most read content from your Twittering hand. Keep it readible (I dislike too many #s for keywords as it makes the text less easy to understand), list all main things you do or want to convey, and include links to your website(s), blog(s) or your @other_Twitter_account. When people decide to follow you (back), they often follow those links to better understand who you are, and decide then instantly about following you back or not. Don't underestimate the power of a good profile. If you can't say it in 160 characters, you probably can't explain it all!
CREATING A PUBLICATION CHAIN
Take care that your Tweets are automatically imported in the social networks you are using, like Facebook and LinkedIn. In this way, you can connect the whole narrowcasting chain of content, e.g.:
Your press release -> Put that on your blog/website -> Refer to it in a Tweet with a meaningful title -> Auto-distribute this Tweet to Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media.
This maximizes the chance that your target audience will get your message via the web.
EFFECTIVE EXPANSION OF YOUR TWITTER NETWORK
Given that your ambitions are beyond Fun, that you have defined clear goals with your Twitter activities, and that you have started engaging your peers and start to produce some Great Content, it is important to quantify your goals. Because, marketing is all about getting your message across, despite all the Twitter noise. And Twitter is all about conversation, not just sending or receiving.
One interesting, but complex, measure is your Klout Score. This score from 0 to 100% gives an indication of how "influential" you are by Twitter. Because it weighs the interactions you generate (messages, retweets, likes, ..), the size and quality of your network, and a few other things, improving your Klout Score puts you on the right track:
- Creating Great Content that invokes responses from your audience
- Conversating with people connected to you
- Expanding your network of followers, focusing on active and influential ones, not just robot followers.
INCREASING YOUR ACTIVE NETWORK TO ENJOY NETWORK EFFECTS
There's a threshold with regard to the size of your active network (following and followers). If you pas that threshold, you'll start to experience network effects. The network will start to produce results. You'll get interesting responses. The first level, I would quantitatively set at 500 followers (of which may be 50% or 250 are an active follower according to Klout.com).
On this level, I started to receive invitations of business partners to offer a service to them, get messages from users interested in a book I wrote, get resumés and relevant offers from potential suppliers, and start to generate some focused traffic of my target group to one of our websites (http://www.icecat.biz/).
How do I get to the level of the first 500 Followers? Remember, the first 100 followers are the most difficult ones. Afterwards, you'll be found via your network.
When you start with a new account with 0 followers, I would advise simply:
- Lookup friends, families, colleagues and other peers in Twitter and follow them. If they are not on Twitter yet, mail them to join Twitter. Directly or via Twitter.
- Use Twitter's connection to Gmail, Hotmail or other mailers to auto-generate a list of users to follow.
- Mail your friends in Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networks.
A rule of thumb is that for every four people you follow, one will follow you back. I.e., you need to follow 400 Tweeps (Twittering people) to reach the first 100 Followers.
For the first 100 followers, it is still quite feasible to do that by hand, without robots or supporting applications.
How to select the ones to follow?
- Search by looking into the list of following/followers of examples, i.e., people that match your interest profile. They are likely to follow the right people, or are followed by people that are probably also interested in your profile.
- Search by topic. Find people that match your topics from your profile, by searching via Who to Follow. (If you want to expand your network beyond the first 100, you'll need some tools to help you do this more efficiently).
If people start to follow you, ann you don't follow them yet, consider to follow them back. Many people remove (flush) now and then the one who are not following them back. If the Tweep following you, is absolutely not interesting for you, don't follow the Tweep back. Often these are robots with no network value at all, except that they try to get their marketing message across without listening to you.
YOU ARE YOUR NETWORK
There are many tools out there, that are integrating with Twitter, and provide interfaces to handle multiple Twitter accounts, e.g. Tweetdeck. In the messages you get from Tweeps you follow, you will often detect a line saying which tool they are using to automate to a certain extend the management of their Twitter account.
However, Twitter is limiting the automated following and flushing (unfollowing) of large numbers of Tweeps.
An interesting tool to expand your network is Tweepi. The free, basic version helps to Flush the Tweeps your are following, but are not following you back. It helps also to search for interesting Tweeps using some keywords. With some effort you can easily add 100s of new Tweep friends, and after a week Flush the ones who didn't follow you back.
With every tool you use, you have to keep in mind that you should only select meaningful contacts, interesting persons or organizations given their profile. Not just everyone. Because You Are Your Network! Also take care that your are not following inactive Tweeps, who are hardly doing anything with their Twitter account. Tweepi is provides insight in that aspect as well.
A more effective tool to quickly expand your network is Twiends. Twiends gives you some points, they call it seeds. If people are following you through Twiends, you'll pay at least two seeds. If you follow Tweeps through Twiends, you'll earn at least one seed. Take care that you adapt the standard settings, so that you only allow Tweeps to follow you if they have a record of being loyal (i.e., not just flushing you at the next occasion), because it is worthless to have followers who only follow you to earn seeds. If you follow Tweeps via Twiends, also take care only to follow Tweeps with similar interests - you can set these - or a profile interesting to you.
Also follow back the ones that start to follow you via Twiends, if they are interesting to you. That will consolidate the gains you make in network size, and at the same time guarantees that you stay on course to build a meaningful network.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The online channel expanded 21% in Q1, 2011. Philips enters top 10, explained by the rise of LED TVs and other CE categories
Icecat.biz Quarterly Update: Q1 2011
The online channel expanded 21% in Q1, 2011. Philips enters top 10, explained by the rise of LED TVs and other typical Consumer Electronics categories in the online channel. Dell enters the top 30. Nokia is the biggest shaker. Tablet PCs are not a killer of notebooks and netbooks. HP again market leader in notebooks market, Acer falls further behind.
Online channel expands in Q1-2011 with 21%
The online channel as measured by Icecat has expanded in Q1-2011 with 21% year-on-year in terms of Data-sheet Downloads (DDs) via more than 14,000 online channel partners. The number of connected channel partners has grown with 28%. These partners were downloading more than 200 million data-sheets in Q1-2011, and are expected to download more than a billion data-sheets during the whole of 2011.
The number of brands monitored has expanded year-on-year at a faster rate with 64% to 4028 and the numbers of sub-categories has increased with 13% to 1032 in the sectors IT, Telecom, Consumer Electronics and Office supplies. It basically means that the long tail of brands active in the online channel has increased much faster than the online channel itself, implying that the online competition between brands has surged dramatically.
Philips enters top 10 and DELL enters the top 30 in Q1-2011
HP, Lenovo and Acer still form the top 3 of online channel brands in the Icecat monitor for Q1-2011. No big surprise. More interesting is the dynamics lower in the top 100. The four bigger brands that do relatively well are Philips entering the top 10 (+64%), LG and Symantec entering the top 20 with both 65% growth in channel exposure, and finally DELL growing with 101% and entering the top 30. DELL's progress – though still significant – seems to be loosing gear somewhat. With the current speed a top 20 position is possible in the next year, but a top 10 position may take at least another year.
The fastest growing brands in the top 100 are, however, Ricoh (+380%), Advanced Cable Technology (+308%) and Verbatim (+185%). Ricoh's relative progress can be explained by an increased focus on the online channel. ACT is doing well, in line with the growing importance of cable accessories in the online market as a cross-sell. Verbatim is a successfull storage supplies brand, discovering the online channel as an efficient means for its sales ends.
And the shakers in the online channel are...
The shakers in Q1-2011 top 100 are: Nokia (-38%), Projecta (-36%), Nikon (-34%), Microsoft (-29%) and Intel (-29%). Nokia suffers from a general decline in interests in its products as it is rapidly loosing market share to Android-based smartphones, Blackberries and the Apple iPhone. Also Projecta and Nikon clearly seem to loose general market share, also reflected in the online channel. Relevant for Microsoft is that it's already a while ago that a new PC operating system is introduced, which always causes a temporary increase in online visibility. Finally, Intel's footprint in the online market has never been very strong as it mainly relies on OEM sales, not on box sales. The same goes for Microsoft, actually. Still, the strong decline is too significant to ignore for both ambitious tech companies.
Tablet PCs are not (yet) outperforming Netbooks
Constantly, we read in the press that Tablet-PCs are putting Notebooks, Netbooks and ordinary PCs under pressure. Is that true or is it just the usual journalistic dramatization and an easy excuse for CEOs of underperforming computer companies? According to our market data, the latter seems to be closer to the truth: the online interest in Notebooks is still expanding (+27%) close to an average pace, and Netbooks (+58%) are performing relatively even better than Tablets (+48%). Only PCs are clearly stagnating (+8%) and actualy relatively in decline as they perform below average. As the competition for Tablet PCs by channel brands is just taking off, it may be too early still to witness any lasting effects.
Notebooks, PCs and warranties still form the categories top three in Q1-2011. Nothing has changed there. The most signifcant changes in relative category popularity in Q1 2011, compared to the same period one year earlier, are the continued rise of cable locks (+586%) to secure mobile computer products, and the sharp decline of PDAs (-24%) and projection screens (-25%). Smart phones and smart boards are killing the latter two categories.
Most notable are the rise of typical consumer electronics categories like LED TVs (+569%), refrigerators (+119%) and LCD TVs (+103%). The rise of such CE categories explains the relative good performance of the typical CE-brand Philips. It's unknown what the future will bring in this respect as Philips recently closed a TV-outsourcing and joint-venture deal with the Taiwanese producer TPV Technology.
HP leads in Notebooks, Acer falls further behind
HP (37%) has regained in Q1-2011 its dominance in the notebooks category, the most import category in the online channel. Runners up are Toshiba (15%) and Lenovo (14%). Surprisingly, the once leader of the pack, Acer, has been dwarfed into a forth position (10%). The pressure on its market position in notebooks, must explain the disappointing results of this Taiwanese manufacturer who put the blam on the rise of Tablet PCs, but that is only a tiny factor as Tablet PCs is hardly hampering the notebooks market. Tablet PCs are like Netbooks just another form factor, useful for presentations, but not useful for document processing and data-entry, serious office work in other words.
For the full report go to Icecat.biz Quarterly Update: Q1 2011
The online channel expanded 21% in Q1, 2011. Philips enters top 10, explained by the rise of LED TVs and other typical Consumer Electronics categories in the online channel. Dell enters the top 30. Nokia is the biggest shaker. Tablet PCs are not a killer of notebooks and netbooks. HP again market leader in notebooks market, Acer falls further behind.
Online channel expands in Q1-2011 with 21%
The online channel as measured by Icecat has expanded in Q1-2011 with 21% year-on-year in terms of Data-sheet Downloads (DDs) via more than 14,000 online channel partners. The number of connected channel partners has grown with 28%. These partners were downloading more than 200 million data-sheets in Q1-2011, and are expected to download more than a billion data-sheets during the whole of 2011.
The number of brands monitored has expanded year-on-year at a faster rate with 64% to 4028 and the numbers of sub-categories has increased with 13% to 1032 in the sectors IT, Telecom, Consumer Electronics and Office supplies. It basically means that the long tail of brands active in the online channel has increased much faster than the online channel itself, implying that the online competition between brands has surged dramatically.
Philips enters top 10 and DELL enters the top 30 in Q1-2011
HP, Lenovo and Acer still form the top 3 of online channel brands in the Icecat monitor for Q1-2011. No big surprise. More interesting is the dynamics lower in the top 100. The four bigger brands that do relatively well are Philips entering the top 10 (+64%), LG and Symantec entering the top 20 with both 65% growth in channel exposure, and finally DELL growing with 101% and entering the top 30. DELL's progress – though still significant – seems to be loosing gear somewhat. With the current speed a top 20 position is possible in the next year, but a top 10 position may take at least another year.
The fastest growing brands in the top 100 are, however, Ricoh (+380%), Advanced Cable Technology (+308%) and Verbatim (+185%). Ricoh's relative progress can be explained by an increased focus on the online channel. ACT is doing well, in line with the growing importance of cable accessories in the online market as a cross-sell. Verbatim is a successfull storage supplies brand, discovering the online channel as an efficient means for its sales ends.
And the shakers in the online channel are...
The shakers in Q1-2011 top 100 are: Nokia (-38%), Projecta (-36%), Nikon (-34%), Microsoft (-29%) and Intel (-29%). Nokia suffers from a general decline in interests in its products as it is rapidly loosing market share to Android-based smartphones, Blackberries and the Apple iPhone. Also Projecta and Nikon clearly seem to loose general market share, also reflected in the online channel. Relevant for Microsoft is that it's already a while ago that a new PC operating system is introduced, which always causes a temporary increase in online visibility. Finally, Intel's footprint in the online market has never been very strong as it mainly relies on OEM sales, not on box sales. The same goes for Microsoft, actually. Still, the strong decline is too significant to ignore for both ambitious tech companies.
Tablet PCs are not (yet) outperforming Netbooks
Constantly, we read in the press that Tablet-PCs are putting Notebooks, Netbooks and ordinary PCs under pressure. Is that true or is it just the usual journalistic dramatization and an easy excuse for CEOs of underperforming computer companies? According to our market data, the latter seems to be closer to the truth: the online interest in Notebooks is still expanding (+27%) close to an average pace, and Netbooks (+58%) are performing relatively even better than Tablets (+48%). Only PCs are clearly stagnating (+8%) and actualy relatively in decline as they perform below average. As the competition for Tablet PCs by channel brands is just taking off, it may be too early still to witness any lasting effects.
Notebooks, PCs and warranties still form the categories top three in Q1-2011. Nothing has changed there. The most signifcant changes in relative category popularity in Q1 2011, compared to the same period one year earlier, are the continued rise of cable locks (+586%) to secure mobile computer products, and the sharp decline of PDAs (-24%) and projection screens (-25%). Smart phones and smart boards are killing the latter two categories.
Most notable are the rise of typical consumer electronics categories like LED TVs (+569%), refrigerators (+119%) and LCD TVs (+103%). The rise of such CE categories explains the relative good performance of the typical CE-brand Philips. It's unknown what the future will bring in this respect as Philips recently closed a TV-outsourcing and joint-venture deal with the Taiwanese producer TPV Technology.
HP leads in Notebooks, Acer falls further behind
HP (37%) has regained in Q1-2011 its dominance in the notebooks category, the most import category in the online channel. Runners up are Toshiba (15%) and Lenovo (14%). Surprisingly, the once leader of the pack, Acer, has been dwarfed into a forth position (10%). The pressure on its market position in notebooks, must explain the disappointing results of this Taiwanese manufacturer who put the blam on the rise of Tablet PCs, but that is only a tiny factor as Tablet PCs is hardly hampering the notebooks market. Tablet PCs are like Netbooks just another form factor, useful for presentations, but not useful for document processing and data-entry, serious office work in other words.
For the full report go to Icecat.biz Quarterly Update: Q1 2011
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