February 29, 2012 Monique Vanek Tablets,
More urban consumers in South Africa have smartphones than any other country, according to a recent report by Accenture called “Always On, Always Connected- Finding Growth Opportunities in an Era of Hypermobile Consumers”. The report looked at consumer electronics products and their usage in Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Sweden and [...]
Accenture, Always Connected- Finding Growth Opportunities in an Era of Hypermobile Consumers, Always On, MTN, Smartphones, tablets, Vodacom
February 28, 2012 Monique Vanek Social media,
When new social media platforms become popular do you believe you should jump to be on them? Do you know what your business priorities are? Have you translated them into social media objectives and strategies? Are you measuring these? Is there co-ordination on social media between various structures in your organisation? Are you spending a [...]
Matt Dickman, Pinterest, Weber Shandwick
February 13, 2012 Monique Vanek Social media,
That’s if Portland and Tweetminster’s Africa tweet research is to be believed. After contemplating their research, it occurred to me that either it is seriously flawed or the confirmation bias bug bit me ie, I wanted the research to confirm my proposition that companies should take Twitter seriously. Their twitterville Africa research, which analysed over 11.5m [...]
Portland, Tweetminster, twitter
February 11, 2012 Monique Vanek Social media,
The wonderful people at Portland, an independent consultancy, and Tweetminster, a media platform that helps people and organisations discover content and insight around their personal and professional interests, at the end of last year analysed over 11.5m geo-located tweets originating on Africa and conducted a survey of 500 of Africa’s most active Tweeters. Their twitterville [...]
Africa, Facebook, Google+, Linkedin, Mark Flanagan, Portland, TweetMinister, tweets, Youtube
February 7, 2012 Monique Vanek Social media,
Deloitte’s “Global Powers of Retailing 2012: Switching Channels” report predicts that the “search for new markets, multi-channel retailing, more aggressive use of technology and social media and better use of data to understand consumer preferences will be some of the key drivers of the global retail industry” this year. A recent News24 online survey conducted [...]
Deloitte, Facebook, PayU, Pick n Pay, Shoprite, Woolworths
February 3, 2012 Monique Vanek Social media,
Facebook’s autumn listing was covered in thousands of articles, by hundreds of TV shows and news bulletins but what happens after that famous day? How will it grow future profits? John Battelle reckons it could launch a competitor to Google’s adsense, I disagree, here’s why: Firstly, Google has built a sophisticated network to back up [...]
Facebook, Google+
January 30, 2012 Monique Vanek Social media,
I once read that every idea has been conceived and every thought thought. Reading and listening to other people’s views can become a pain, when what is common knowledge for you is expressed as a eureka moment by them until that moment is a eureka moment. Such a eureka moment occurred on Friday after a [...]
Gmail, Google+, Jared Molko, twitter
January 25, 2012 Monique Vanek Smartphones,
Apple sold 92m iPhones and 40m iPads in 2011. It overtook Samsung in the last quarter of 2011 to regain its position as the world’s largest smartphone maker. More iPads were sold in Q4 last year than HP PCs. The iPhone 4s was in such demand in SA that in less than a month, Vodacom sold out [...]
Apple, FNB, iPads, iPhones, Smartphones
January 18, 2012 Monique Vanek Smartphones,
Smartphones – once the domain of the upper and middle classes – are about to increase their reach thanks to the introduction of dumb and dumber sub-$100 (R800) smartphones. Deloitte estimates that by the end of the year there will be 500m of these phones of which at least 300m will be sold this year, [...]
Deloitte, paidContent, Smartphones, Vodacom, Wi-Fi
January 15, 2012 Monique Vanek Social media,
Social media and blogs were abuzz this week over Google’s decision to change the way its search works. The search engine started deeply integrating Google+ into search results prompting the Federal Trade Commission to probe it. Google, in its blog, argues it took the decision to introduce “Search plus Your World” to ensure it keeps [...]
Business Insider, Gizmodo, Google+, Picasa, SearchEngineland, Social media, Youtube