atkinson advisor

Entrepreneur ran an article recently about the impact of excessive communication interruptions in the workplace. The article was titled “Blunt the e-mail interruption.”

A few of the findings from the article:

• E-mail volume is growing at a rate of 66 percent a year.
• The average employee checks e-mail 50 times a day and responds to 77 instant messages.
• University of Minnesota researchers discovered that frequent interruptions caused error rates on other work to double.

Research suggests the brain can focus successfully on one task at a time and that frequent switching reduces productivity. The Entrepreneur article highlights how several companies have purposefully created time without interruptions to improve productivity.

The opposing school of thought is that businesspeople cannot afford to unplug given the volume of information that is important to our everyday business lives and the speed with which that information is moving. The proponents of this approach are more apt to embrace social media and the constant connectedness that it brings.

What do you think? Is multitasking good or bad?

Businesses often tout the strength of its team and exult, “Our greatest competitive advantage is our people.” Some experts estimate talent can account for as much as half of a company’s market value.

Yet rarely do you see the people unless you engage with the company.

The equation has flipped thanks to social media. It’s now affordable, practical, and srategic for employees to build a dynamic online presence that connects them with potential customers and existing clients. It’s powerful stuff.

The new equation also raises some interesting marketing challenges that businesses will have to tackle.

• Who controls the content? Right now, marketing departments have complete control of their marketing message. Social media requires giving up some of that control and trusting employees to do the right thing. Social media guidelines are a must for any business.
• What’s the balance of professional insights to personal information? Social media is predicated on personality. Too much business information = pushy sales. Too much personal information = TMI.
• Why invest in employee branding when they could leave? This is a valid concern. Pioneers in the area of employee branding will be able to point to their investment in an employee’s brand as a reason point for staying. Eventually we believe employee branding will be a necessity for attracting and retaining any top talent.

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A recent statistic caught us off guard. The following are the top five countries in the world by population:

1. China — 1.33 billion
2. India — 1.17 billion
3. United States — 307 million
4. Indonesia — 230 million
5. Brazil — 191 million

If Facebook were a country, it would be No. 4 in this list. The wunderkind of social networking has topped 250 million users worldwide. Nearly half of those users log on to the Web site every day.

And to think that Facebook barely existed five years ago.

And to think that Facebook still hasn’t figured out how to make much money yet.

Next time you want to direct people to an exact spot in a YouTube video, try adding the timestamp in the link. To jump to 1:32 in the clip,
add #t=1m32s to the end of the URL.

For example, during the July 28 House press briefing, reporters questioned Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the meeting among President
Obama, Harvard professor Henry Gates, and police officer James Crowley.

 This link takes you to the start of the YouTube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDtOKodLdhE&feature=PlayList&p=42029F03573BDA18&index=0 
         
By adding #t=17m42s to the end, you direct users to a humorous exchange between Gibbs and reporters that starts at 17:42 of the clip.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDtOKodLdhE&feature=PlayList&p=42029F03573BDA18&index=0#t=17m42s

http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

It’s essential to understand your target audience when developing a social media campaign. Where are they online? How active are they? Forrester’s Consumer Profile Tool is a good place to start.

Forrester’s Social Technographics® classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, and inactives. The Consumer Profile Tool allows you to analyze your intended audience by age range, country, and gender to see what percentages our your target demographic is in each group. The site also offers an explanation for each of the groups.