Enterprise Results at Startup Prices

We all want the 250% spike in leads that social media can deliver to businesses. The problem is that having one or even two full time employees to produce high quality content costs $$$$$… especially if you are not sure of what you need to do and you spend months writing random posts with zero results.

Every morning these potential leads don’t call and don’t submit your contact forms because you are not talking to them!

It seems like everyone is already doing great business using social media but you…

The learning curve just seems too risky with the current economy.

Our offer is simple. You don’t need to buy a cow to have a glass of milk every morning.

We have the best social media and content creation team that money could buy and we produce and sell highly tailored content to businesses like yours.

With this offer you get a free evaluation of your current social media budget and expectations and the first 10 pieces at a 50% discount; but only if you are one of the next 10 customers that sign up…

We estimate that you have a day or two to take advantage of this promotion.

Please download this file for a description of our company, and our social media marketing with associated pricing:

WIWN Social Media Programs 14-4-14-V2D

Contact us today at 905-709-8582 or whatifwhatnext (at) on.aibn.com.

Ted Talk – Shyam Sankar: The rise of human-computer cooperation

We are in the era of fusion of machine and human, this fusion not only will be a evolved biological entity, we are talking about a much more complex symbolic field than the human mind can imagine, the expansion of consciousness is a reality and the two forces have begun to collaborate with each other.

EMR systems deliver better health care – but not necessarily from massively expensive systems.

Breakthrough solutions at a clinic or health facility level will come from more modest EMR systems. In the Long Term Care sector for example, simpler, smaller highly focused EMR systems allowing facility managers, healthcare professionals, patients, and their families to track healing processes will do the most good.

Its about minimizing the friction between people and the system. Watch the talk to understand this idea.

Industrial Trends: On one hand and the other

We are tracking these stories…

One one hand:

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)–Industrial Info is tracking more than 900 industrial projects worth an estimated $148.85 billion that are set to begin construction in Canada in 2013. A large portion of the spending is planned for the western half of the country, primarily due to the large oil sands projects set to kick off, which help make the Metals & Minerals and Oil & Gas Production industries the country’s top spenders.

And on the other:

Canada’s Mid-Sized Firms in Decline, BDC Study Shows

Manufacturing sector suffers biggest blow

Highlights

• Canada’s number of mid-sized firms plummeted by 17% from 2006 to 2010. Mid-sized companies have 100 to 499 employees.
• The worst-hit sector was manufacturing, which saw over half its mid-sized companies disappear from 2001 to 2010.
• While every region saw declines, Ontario was hit hardest, with a 25% drop in its number of mid-sized companies followed by Quebec
• Mid-sized businesses cited access to financing as the most important barrier to growth

MONTREAL, Feb. 13, 2013 /CNW Telbec/ – Canada’s mid-sized companies, a key motor of the economy, saw their numbers decline by 17% – 9,370 to 7,814 – from 2006 to 2010, according to a new study by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).

Hardest hit was the manufacturing sector, which saw over half its mid-sized firms vanish between 2001 and 2010 from 2,807 to 1,381.

BDC undertook the study to fill an important research gap on mid-sized firms. The study is based on StatisticsCanada data and supported by survey results from market research firm Harris/Decima. The study is one of three that the BDC plans to release this year on economic issues of importance to Canadians.

“This decline should signal a call to action as mid-sized firms are vital to the Canadian economy,” says Pierre Cléroux, BDC Vice President, Research and Chief Economist and lead author of the study. “They’re few in numbers, yet their contribution to Canada’s economic prosperity cannot be overemphasized. They really do punch above their weight.”

Mid-sized firms represent 1% of the total number of companies, but contribute disproportionately to the Canadian economy, accounting for 16% of Canadian jobs, 12% of GDP and 17% of exports. It is worth noting that a greater portion of mid-sized firms have their head office in Canada, compared to large firms (90% versus 77%).

“During the last ten years, medium-sized firms have faced serious challenges from the rapidly appreciating Canadian dollar, financial crisis and recession,” added Cléroux.

The study also found:

• 14% of mid-sized firms became small firms (below 100 employees) or closed down each year from 2006 to 2010. Only 1.4% grew to become large-sized corporations with 500 or more employees.
• While mid-sized companies declined across the country, Ontario was hit worst, losing 25% of its number of mid-sized firms between 2006 and 2010 (from 3,810 to 2,861).

But the news is not all bleak, the BDC study found. Many CEOs are optimistic about their prospects during the economic recovery, with 64% of mid-sized firm leaders saying their annual sales will go up by 4.5% over the next three years.

Firm owners said the main obstacles standing in their way to becoming large companies are fierce competition, availability of financing and employee acquisition and retention.

Mid-sized firms with a board of directors or an advisory board are most likely to say they expect sales to go up.

“Canadian businesses will continue to face major challenges as competitive pressures will not disappear. As Canada’s development bank, BDC will look closely at how it can better support our mid-sized firms, particularly in the manufacturing sector, in order to help them make the investments required to increase their competitiveness,” Cléroux said.

For detailed study findings consult BDC’s “Analysis and research“. Do read the report.

 

Note the comment about fierce competitiveness. Canada has a huge domestic industrial construction market. We wonder if the introduction of innovative products and  effective, measurable marketing remains an underlying issue to the survival and growth of Canadian mid-sized firms.

Tending – Native Advertising

However you cut it, Native advertising is a disruptive technique that is will evolve the business model of advertising.

Watch for huge amounts of coverage since Native Advertising was used in The Atlantic by the Church of Scientology.

For a good overview read the following piece from From iMedia

Native advertising will be the fastest growing monetization solution this year. For those unaware, native advertising goes by a few definitions. CEO of Sharethrough Dan Greenberg refers to native advertising as “a form of media that’s built into the actual visual design and where the ads are part of the content,” while Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer defines it as “advertising that takes advantage of a platform in the ways consumers are actually using it.” The most prominent current examples are Facebook’s Sponsored Stories and Premium Ads and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, but look to a greater number of media sources and networks like LinkedIn and Pinterest to partner with native ad platforms like Sharethrough to offer advertisers a valuable method to deliver good content without interrupting consistent user experiences.

Definitions that resonated with me are:

– A form of media that’s built into the actual visual design and where the ads are part of the content
– Advertising that takes advantage of a platform in the ways consumers are actually using it
– Good content and a user experience that’s consistent.
– A specific mode of monetization that aims to augment user experience by providing value through relevant content delivered in-stream

Some initial observations from the coverage of this tend:
– Native advertising is a natural extension of content marketing. Brands trade relevant information for brand exposure or time spent directly on their websites. The difference is that with native advertising, you pay to put that content in front of more eyes.
– Until now, content marketers have been happy to focus on owned and earned media. Paid media brings its own benefits to the table, including the opportunity to extend reach to your intended audience across trusted channels.
– Publishers accept that the life span of a blog post or other piece of content is unpredictable. With native advertising, there is opportunity to bring older but still powerful content back to the forefront.
– Native advertising fits with the evolving nature of content personalization, using advertising to guide prospects through the sales funnel. There is a fit with marketing automation.

I wonder if some of the trade media I know will jump on this?

I’m going to send along this post to some of my friends and colleagues that work in the agency space. Looking forward to their reactions that I will report on later in the week.

Howard

Trending – Crowdfunding

Deloitte Predicts that Crowdfunding will raise $3-billion globally in 2013 – a 100% increase over 2011.

Click here for more

OK. It’s the weekend and its really cold outside…..

On innovation

A recent George Brown College report titled Toronto Next: Return on Innovation explains why companies struggle with the concept of innovation. We are most likely to think of innovation as creating new things, rather than creativity to solve problems. However, the study shows that innovation is best tied to concrete and measurable outcomes, especially making a an existing business or technology process more efficient or effective. Innovation as it turns out is about solving concrete problems.

One area we are interested in, suggested by the study, is creating data roadmaps to achieve innovation. Big data is expected to go from a $200 million industry in 2011 to a $3 billion industry in 2013. To our interest, there are many opportunities for marketing folks leverage this massive business analytics opportunity. We are actively building a data science resource to bring this capability to our core social media marketing efforts. Stay tuned.

Click here for more on the report.

Click here for a white paper entitled: 7 Tips to Succeed with Big Data in 2013 from Tableau Software.

Innovation Tracking

Warren Buffett says his company is likely to buy more newspapers in the next few years and added that he believes all newspapers need to quit offering their product free online. Buffett said he believes newspapers will do well if they remain the primary source of information about their communities.

“The original instinct of newspapers then was to offer free in digital form what they were charging for in print,” Buffett wrote. “This is an unsustainable model and certain of our papers are already making progress in moving to something that makes more sense. It’s you job to make your paper indispensable to anyone who cares about what is going on in your city or town.”

What a comment about the how local newspapers will compete against the local web!

Click here for the whole story.

Innovation Tracking

MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith and a team of mechanical engineers and nano-technologists from the Varanasi Research Group, have finally solved the problem of geting condiments out of the bottle. The super slippery, non-toxic coating keeps condiments like ketchup, mayo and mustard from sticking to the sides of glass and plastic bottles, and allows them to slip right down to the most important place: your food.

There are currently 106 news articles on Google for this slippery coating. It was covered on Breakfast television this morning. ‎