This is a guest blog post contributed by Brian Donellan from The One Image

Good design informs our decision making. It is often the most influential factor when we are deciding what we buy, where we go and what we do. This is because the way objects, systems and services work and look, throughout their evolution and life cycle, are the result of people designing the underlying plans, processes and build specifications.

Our individual experiences with the functional and aesthetic qualities of objects, processes and services, consciously and subconsciously, acts as the basis for our personal benchmark for what is good design. And that benchmark not only evolves because of new experiences, it also changes depending on a wide range of variables, including environment, mood, whether we are working or relaxing, etc. When we are faced with a new experience or a purchasing decision we refer to the logical and sensori-emotional (aesthetic) values we associate with our most relevant benchmarks for what is good design.

This means that there are no hard and fast rules about what makes for good design. There is good design, bad design and ‘that’ll do’ design. However, designing your product and/or service and support systems should always come at the end of the development process, not the beginning. This is true whether you are designing a product/service to sell; logo and stationery; website; brochure; tender submission; etc.

Pre-Design: Research; Evaluation and Concept Development

There are many ways of approaching the pre-design stage of any project but it can be simplified down to three steps: Research; Evaluation and Concept Development. By thinking in these terms you can make the process as straight-forward and fast-moving, or as complicated, as you want.

A good designer/developer will do the heavy lifting for you, and steer you through the process in round table discussions and by asking key questions. If you decide to take it all on yourself, you should find a friend or colleague who can offer you a client’s perspective, and is willing to ask difficult questions, as you progress.

To make the most of the pre-design stage you should use a range of decision making models. Among the most widely know analysis models are ‘SWOT’ and ‘PEST’ but looking at resources like ‘The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking’ by R. Tschäppeler & M. Krogerus will help you find models that are a good fit for you. By evaluating the existing service/product providers and the service/product alternatives in diagrammatic form you can quickly see shared traits and trends. It also means you can easily update the profiles as products, services and the market adapts and evolves.

As part of the Evaluation and Concept Development steps you should look at Design under two key headings: Functional and Aesthetic.

Functional Design

Under the heading Functional Design analyse how the products/services work throughout their lifecycle. How intuitive, robust and enjoyable in the user experience (UX) from the perspective of the target user? How intuitive, reliable and flexible is the UX from the perspective of the people building, maintaining and evolving the service/product?

If you are looking at Logo Design you should be asking how legible the logos are when reproduced at different sizes, in different contexts and on different materials, and the inherent production costs. If you are looking at Website Design you should be looking to identify the target audiences; how easy the sites are to navigate and, in terms of structure and content, are they optimised for the UX of the target audience or for the site owners and managers.

Aesthetic Design

Aesthetic Design is all too often dismissed as being far less important than Functional Design. This is not the case. Our initial reaction to any proposition is a sensori-emotional one and a negative reaction will inform all subsequent decisions. Research has show time and again that people make their mind up about products and services within seconds, often ending the interaction there and then. An existing relationship with an owner or advocate of a product/service can alleviate some of the negativity but a sense of doubt will linger.

An analysis of the effectiveness of the Aesthetic Design of the products/services under review should look at how their sensori-emotional values compare to those of the products/services that are the most likely benchmarks for the target audience. It is about drawing up a mental model of how people would expect, and want, the products/services to work and then comparing it to how products/services actually work. The analysis should also include an exploration of the visual language, including the underlying semantics, of the services/products.

If you are looking at Logo Design, Website Design, etc. you should be looking at the balance achieved between friendliness, familiarity, surprise and professionalism, with the hierarchy of these traits being informed by the sector and type of product/service. Additional traits such as angularity or roundness, hardness or softness and solid colour or gradients should also be considered.

The attributes of the typefaces used are very important. Do you think the typefaces were chosen because of a then-current trend or are they appropriate for the product/service and the target market? Following a trend can prove to be a very costly mistake. In 2010 the Waterstones launched a new logo, presumably to convey a more modern, dynamic identity. Only 25 of the company’s stores were rebranded before January 2012 when the company launched a new new logo – the pre-2010 logo without an apostrophe – because they realised the sensori-emotional values of the 2010 logo were not in keeping with the company. James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones said: “Waterstones is an iconic brand deserving a capital W, and a font that reflects authority and confidence — Baskerville does just that.” (see http://www.logodesignlove.com/waterstones-logo)

Colour is also a very important consideration as in certain contexts and cultures it can have significant meaning. In some sectors dominant brands are seen as ‘owning’ certain colour, e.g. Vodafone is Red, O2 is Blue and Meteor is Orange. You should also be looking at the tone of the language, use and type of images, the hierarchy of images and text, etc.

Concept Development: Setting the Design Brief

As part of this final pre-design step you should review your evaluations and map out the desired Functional and Aesthetic traits of your product/service. The resulting Design Brief should establish guidelines that you believe will ensure your product/service will appeal to your target market while at the same time differentiate you from your competition.

A guiding principal is that you strive to compete on your own terms while ensuring the payoff to your target audience, from their perspective, is at least equal to the payoff they get from your competition. This applies to all stages of the interaction between you and your audience, starting with the payoff they’ll get for giving you their time and attention.

The Design Brief should set guidelines and minimum standards for the Functional Design of your product/service. How do you approach delivering an intuitive, reliable, flexible and enjoyable UX for all stakeholders, within the constraints of your budget? What is the realistic lifespan of your product/service? What aspects of the functional design can you carry through to other products/services to help you move people from being product/service advocates to being brand advocates, open to other products/services?

When deciding on your approach to the Aesthetic Design of your product/service you should look at the pros and cons of designing to your audience’s mental model of how your type of product/service works and the visual language, including the underlying semantics, employed. Challenging these preconceptions so as to create a sense of surprise and personality can work to your advantage. It can establish a reputation of being ahead of the curve, not following it, and – as in the case of Apple, Google and Facebook – allow you to make changes without needing to firstly get the buy-in of focus groups. At the same time, the majority of products/services rely on communicating an impression of ‘responding to the market’. As both approaches work you need to decide which is the best fit for you and then just go for it wholeheartedly.

The Design Process

All design projects are subject to constraints but leveraging Functional Design and Aesthetic Design has been proven to pays dividends. Throughout the Design Process you should alternate between focusing on developing and testing the functionality of the component elements and building in the desired sensori-emotional triggers, until you have achieved the optimum balance possible.

Enthusiasm, inventiveness and attention to detail will ensure the Design Process is enjoyable, and the resulting sense of achievement can be immense, if you trust yourself and your approach. And remember, there are no hard and fast rules. There is good design, bad design and ‘that’ll do’ design.

This is a guest blog post contributed by Chris Byrne of Newsletter.ie.

So youʼve used email marketing tools to send email, are comfortable with designing effective newsletters and you track email open rates for your campaigns. So whatʼs next? This article on welcome series will show how you can produce more effective and meaningful results than just knowing who opened your email or clicked on a link.

Whilst a single welcome or activation email is useful, a welcome series is a more effective strategy to continually engage, connect and up-sell with your subscriber over time. Let’s admit it, we’ve often purchased something online, then months later cannot recall where we bought it, right? This lack of recall could, and very often does, drive your hard-won customer to the competition. A Welcome series can help avoid that. Let’s look at an example of how this might work:
Amy buys a pair of running shoes online on Monday. Great, she gets an activation email with the usual shipping and returns info. All good so far. Now let’s look at how a Welcome series differs to sending repetitive promotional emails that could drive Amy away from your product.

On Wednesday Amy getʼs the running-shoes and goes for her first 10k in them; all is good. The next day she gets an email asking “How was your run?” and reminds her of the basic steps to share her running experience online. 3 weeks later Amy gets an email survey asking for feedback “How are the running shoes working for you?” and “Here’s some great stories from other runners just like you” . A special offer for a sports bra is included; f this were Keith, heʼd have an offer on running socks. 6 months later Amy getʼs an email with an offer on the latest running shoe and because sheʼs purchased before, a coupon code is included that she can redeem online or bring in-store. So how do we do that, without sending the same email to every subscriber or worse, in the wrong order? With Autoresponders, you can set these messages up ahead of time and create the rules that will only send the relevant email at the right time and importantly, in the right sequence. And knowing gender with integrated apps like Rapleaf saves some embarrassment too; Keith would not be too impressed with a Sportsbra email !

These welcome series emails can be completely automated if your email platform supports this and can be easily integrated with your transaction systems. Communications which are relevant to your subscribersʼ preference and behaviours are more likely to result in repeat purchases from you -not your competition.

CHRIS BYRNE
NEWSLETTER.IE

This is a guest blog post contributed by Brian Maher  of WebAgency.

Choosing the right digital agency has never been more important. Digital marketing offers the potential to track ROI much more accurately than is possible with offline media. Plus, the digital revolution is not going away; more users are engaging online more often and with more brands than ever before. Simply put, few brands can afford to be without an effective digital marketing strategy.
If you want to embrace this “new” industry and benefit from the advantages that it presents, you must work with a company that understands your unique marketing and communication requirements.
In this article I’ll present 5 elements that will help you choose the right digital partner for your business.
1. Capabilities
The first question you should ask is: What services does the company offer? Your digital agency should offer digital marketing as well as web design services. When your web designer understands digital marketing they will be able to build your site to incorporate your marketing objectives; this means that they’ll design with consideration for search engine accessibility and usability (this is sometimes called SEO web design).
Working with a single, full serviced digital marketing company also means less work for you as you won’t have to source multiples agencies or manage communication between each of the people providing different digital elements.
A full serviced company should offer:
• Web design and development
• Web strategy and planning
• Search engine optimisation
• Search engine marketing
• Online advertising
• Social media marketing
• Copy writing
• Mobile web solutions
• Email marketing

These days, it’s usual that most of the above services will be delivered as standard by one agency, but the agency may also work closely with preferred partners to deliver specific technologies, like mobile or social media applications. This is the norm and you can feel comfortable working with agencies that operate like this as long as they have an established relationship with their partner vendor and they will stand over the quality of the finished work.
2. New technologies
Online marketing is evolving faster than any marketing medium that came before it. Just a few years ago, companies including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter did not even exist. Now, some of their sites boast user numbers as high as 800 million.
Digital marketing moves quickly, so you should work with an agency that values research. Seek out an agency populated by people who are geeks for trends and who enjoy learning about and trialing new technologies. They will ensure that your brand remains at the crest of the digital wave. Make them your new best friends.
3. Portfolio
An experienced agency should have an extensive portfolio of work. Review this and familiarise yourself with it. This portfolio will give you a good sense of an agency’s capabilities and will help you to make better sense of references and testimonials.
However, there’s always a pinch of salt. When you’re viewing an agency’s portfolio remember that the agency is only as creative as their client and that the work that the agency does is tailored to that client’s marketing and communication objectives (and the specifics of the brief).
It’s particularly valuable to review work completed for clients in an industry or sector similar to your own. This said, avoid partnering with an agency that currently works with one of your direct competitors as this can create a conflict of interest.
4. Meet key people
People drive ideas and people rather than technology will determine whether your project is a success or a failure. With this in mind, always take the time to meet the key people within an agency. This will help you to ascertain whether the company has the values and work ethic that you are looking for.
I usually request an initial meeting at their offices. This helps me to gauge their work environment and get a feel for their operation. You might also request a presentation on their services and existing clients.
5. Do they practice what they preach?
It’s not unusual to meet an agency and walk away with a positive feeling, only to find out that they have no digital strategy for their own business – or worse, that they appear beside negative comments in reviews or on board sites.
Personally, I don’t feel 100% comfortable giving my SEO account to a company that has a low search engine presence, particularly for really closely related terms or for their company name.
It’s important that the agency you choose to work with believes in the services they are selling to the point they are implementing them themselves.
Finally, when you’ve narrowed down your search and are selecting between a handful of agencies, remember that you should choose an agency on the basis of quality rather than price. All too often clients are fixated on the price tag and think that the lowest fee will guarantee them a good return on investment. This is rarely the case. High quality, effective and efficient service will always win in the long run.
Choosing an agency should never be about the first date, but rather about the potential for a meaningful, long-term relationship (yep, digital marketing just got soppy). Choosing the right agency can be the beginning of something beautiful.

This is a guest post by Robert Purcell. Robert is a member of the IIA Social Media Working Group which seeks to support businesses in the development of strategies for engaging with social media. As Marketing Manager for Post Consult International Ltd. (PCI), Robert’s main focus is developing the marketing and product strategy for the company’s Security Solutions offered under the corporate brand, Post.Trust. Post.Trust is a national-level Certificate Authority, wholly owned by An Post, providing security solutions that enable organisations to communicate with one another more securely and confidently in a trusted environment. You can find him on LinkedIn or @robgerard on Twitter.

Engage! Revised and Updated: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Brian Solis (Author), Ashton Kutcher (Foreword)

The second edition of Engage! written by social media thought leader Brian Solis really is a fascinating read. I haven’t read the first edition, but this instalment focuses more on enabling you to design a new media engagement program specific to your business and your customers. It empowers you to develop metrics and KPIs to measure the success of your activities and translate that data into bottom-line benefits. As anyone who has ever tried to champion a social media program within their organisation knows; the first question you are asked is, What’s the ROI of social media? This book will help you answer that question.

A word of warning though – Engage! is not a book you can pick up and read from cover to cover. Sections of the book are quite dense and academic – but then isn’t that what you would expect a Complete Guide to be? The book doesn’t define its target audience but whether you are new to social media or experienced in social media marketing, this book has plenty of substance and will serve as a source of reference in your social media activities. As Solis says, this is an opportunity to “hit ctrl-alt-del and restart with a fresh perspective”.

The book starts by defining social media and introducing the arsenal of social media tools available for creating touchpoints across the Social Web. It explores building a framework to amplify the visibility of your social objects, extending the reach of your online presence to new audiences, and defining the end game, ultimately guiding people to action through participating, listening and engagement.

Solis reminds us that understanding the rules of engagement is critical in this new world of socialised media. It’s about training and putting the necessary policies and guidelines in place to ensure everyone is singing from the same hymn book. The latter part of the book looks at the realignment and restructuring the organisation as part of this socialisation process. Finally, it focuses on the management of this social media activity; how to track, measure and translate that social data into tangible value for the business.

Solis discusses the concept of unmarketing as one of the most effective forms of marketing in this new genre of socialised media and really unmarketing underpins the ‘How’ organisations should use Social Media. Marketing is no longer about broadcasting brand messages – it’s about embodying the characteristics of your brand, being an active participant in the conversation, contributing value to earn relevance, build influence and create brand advocacy and loyalty toward a desired outcome.

At times, reading the book was a bit of a slog and I found myself going back over passages each time I picked it up because there was a lot to absorb. But on the whole, I found it uplifting and insightful, reaffirming my understanding of the real power of Social Media – so stick with it. Solis’s voice comes through the words on the page, inspiring the reader to embrace the social web, to champion new media engagement and become the expert to drive change within the organisation. The book is ‘peppered’ with frameworks, methodologies and tools to assist you in your journey towards building a two-way information bridge between the organisation and the online communities in those networks you choose to participate.

As Solis says, “The future of business is social”. Social Media cannot be confined to one person or department. The entire business must socialise. Organisations must embrace and ride the social wave or risk being engulfed by it.

“The greatest advantages of social media reside in its ability for worthy individuals and companies to shape perception, steer activity, incite action, and adapt to the communities that establish the market. Engage or die.”

Brian Solis is regarded as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. Engage! is available on iTunes, Kindle, online bookstores and a book store near you.

My parting gift to my colleagues

Today is my last working day as Membership, Marketing and Communications Manager with the Irish Internet Association. I’m going to work with one of our member companies Prosperity and looking forward to the change.

I will of course miss my colleagues Joan and Vicki much as I miss my daily interactions with Fergal, Irene and Darren who worked with me also during my time here.

But I think I will miss working with members a lot too. I know sometimes it may have seemed to you that I needed a lot of “reminding” to help you but there was also times when my thrice named role was a job for three people! However over the last three and a bit years I got into the habit of referring to myself as simply IIA Membership Manager. Another individual taking on this role that was newly created in 2008 might have found themselves focussing on the marketing or the communications but for me it was always about the members.

So a bit of advice for all members based on how I have seen some of our members really make the most of their IIA Membership:

1. Get involved: share content, write a guest blog post, volunteer in our working groups.
2. Come to events: the discount for members on two to three paid events will easily cover the cost of your membership.
3. Share your views here on the blog, in our LinkedIn DISCUSSION (ahem!) group, on our Facebook page and even now in our Digital Digest.
4. Network online: see point 3 above.
5. Network offline: come to Meetball or better still present at it (especially those of you who want to tender to be an IIA Training Partner: gives us a chance to get an idea of your unique presentation skills)
6. Email us or pick up the phone and ask us to help. Honestly two heads are better than one, especiallywhen  one of them who isn’t stuck right in your problem. Consider us a sounding board for your online business.

The more the IIA knows about what you are up to the better we can connect, promote and inform!

So it’s goodbye from me but you can of course find me in numerous places online

The hallowed day has arrived. Actually it arrived on 27th June but I have been busy training my new colleague Vicki in advance of my departure from the IIA so apologies for not noting this sooner on the blog.

Nominations for the 13th Annual Net Visionary Awards are open!

You can go right ahead click on the image above to nominate your favourite online business in 14 different categories.

But before you dash off I thought I would draw your attention to our new categories.

We have done away with a few (sorry!), updated three (mobile app developer, social media & digital marketing) and created 4 entirely new categories:

• Best Open Data Initiative
• Best Breakthrough Brick to Click
• Best Cloud Service
• Best Rookie

We’re particularly excited about these 4 categories (yes, yes, of course, you’re all winners to us) because they reflect changing technologies, society and practices. We devised Best Breakthrough Brick to Click to recognise some of the amazing cases we’ve heard about over the last year and a half or so while running our 8 Ways series for Online Retailers (although nominees don’t have to be just retailers!). Best Rookie was devised to recognise not only graduates who are making a splash in online business but also those who have made a change to their career to get involved in any aspect of online business.

After the success of Open for Business it made perfect sense for us to celebrate Open Data Initiatives and we’re hoping the shortlist will be an inspiration to many other initiatives in the future. Best Cloud Service acknowledges some of the fabulous and innovative cloud projects that have grown up, many of them wholly Irish, in the last few years.

So now you are dismissed to go and nominate to your heart’s content. Nominations close 29 July 2011.

Here in IIA HQ we are very excited about a new event on our calendar for 2011. For the first time ever we are running an Internet Expo! It’s the first trade exhbition for the internet industry in Ireland and we are delighted to be partnering with Ireland’s premier exhibition company Irish Services Ltd. on this project. They know a truck load about exhibitions and I, for one, have learned lots from them.

Fingal CEB Enterprise Week. Photo by Krishna De

I’ve worked on our own stand on a number of occasions at conferences all over the country and it’s something that I have always enjoyed and at which we achieved great results whether it be new members, new newsletter subscribers, referrals for our members or event registrations. I’ve always attended these conferences with a specific aim in mind, not least of these being exposure at a grassroots level. Much of the time I spend answering industry related queries where I can or as mentioned I refer the visitor to a member who might be able to help them. Every time we’ve taken a stand at conferences like this we have usually invited members along to join us.

Trade shows and expos can be big business not least of all in the states and I found stacks of videos on YouTube offering advice to the sales and business development teams who look after the stand on the day. To summarize them very swiftly it seems to be important to

• make sure exhibiting fits with your marketing and sales plan and
• once that’s decided it is essential to have an pre-, during and post-exhibition plan,
• have definite goals and activities,
• measure the team’s success and
• follow up on leads and connections developed at the exhibition (and that should be the really easy bit for all you geeks with your email marketing, eh?).

Many of the videos I came across give ideas for attracting more traffic (free coffee or other treats, discount vouchers on business cards, demos etc.); some of them talk about the success killers and there’s even a sample from an Association of Events Organisers training video with Jack Dee sharing some of their 30 Trade Show Secrets (and I thought the sellout Rick Spleen in Lead Balloon was based on fiction. Apparently not…!) This video is well worth a watch whether you’ve already booked your place at our Internet Expo or are thinking about it. And it’s funny too! You’ll also find other tips and tricks in the How To Secion of their Facetime website.

The video below is simple but I think this chap,  Sam Manfer, sums up the experience of taking care of business at your company stand with five tips to make the most of your investment in an exhibition stand.

If you think you’d like to discuss the idea of exhibiting at this cool event get in touch with Roseanne or Vicki in the IIA offices today at 01 5424154 or events@iia.ie

Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh and her sugru

I have been intrigued by sugru and how it achieved so much in a short period of time since seeing them in Time magazine and buying/testing some of its products over Christmas.

Company founder Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh from Kilkenny shared some insights into the company and how it has made great strides in getting and harnessing user generated content in its social media platforms and achieved worldwide word of mouth exposure.

Sugru (www.sugru.com) is a UK based company that has invented a silicone based modelling clay that helps people fix or improve everyday items.  The product itself is a new development in this class and has some unique properties in that it cures at room temperature, is very self-adhesive, heat resistant, waterproof, flexible and dishwasher proof.  The company has one core product with 5 colours and has shifted over 40,000 units in its first few months.

How did the idea come about?

The idea came from a process of material experimentation and an observation of the development of the open source community.  Jane has an active interest in how additional life can be given to products and giving people an ability to ‘hack’ and personalise products.

She felt that traditional product design was very static in that once a product emerged from the factory, there was very little interaction where focus should be on discovering and finding out how people use it at home and other areas.  This could lead to better products and also connects the company with its user base.

 

 

Sugru packs

How did the idea come into fruition?

Jane’s story reflects many other SMEs as they build their brand but some initial kick starts have really helped.  Jane’s product came from research she did when studying at the Royal College of Design in London, following previous study at NCAD in Dublin.  One of the big lifts she received was when the British Airways inflight magazine featured the product in a column which sparked off lots queries from consumers and people in industry.

With help of the innovation department in the college she set up sugru with business partner Roger Ashby and after six years of development and initial grant and investment funding of £350,000, with a modest investment of £100,000 they converted their lab into a production facility.  Their initial production of 1,000 packs sold out in 6 hours following their launch and they knew they had a viable business but needed to scale up production.

How do you go to market?

sugru is mainly sold from its website and also through some shops in Ireland/UK and is now  in the process of setting up in the US.

• 25% of its orders come from UK,
• 45% from US with
• Ireland and Germany accounting for much of the remaining sales.

Initially they have focused on shipping small single orders and reacting to who wanted to buy it from the website but are now scaling to additional retail distribution.

What marketing do you deploy?

A vase made from a Thermos interior and sugru

sugru defied much of the text book approach to marketing in that it spends very little on traditional marketing.

Most of sugru’s growth has come from word of mouth which has led to some high profile articles on the company also the inclusion in Time Magazine’s Top 50 Inventions and features in the Irish Times amongst others.

Its website, blog, email and social media platforms are still the key drivers of the business and Jane manages these directly.  The company also organises and facilitates ‘Hack It Sessions’ such as a recent one in 091 labs in Galway.

Social Media Presence

According to Jane

“the Blog has been brilliant in terms of articulating our mission.  This is not just a product.  It was invented to reduce waste and give people an easy way to improve stuff”.

This is where sugru really excels.  The company and product has plugged in to a growing movement of people fixing and repairing items and is an enabler of this movement.  Rather than just looking at social media channels to push company news it sees the community as central. Most of the content on the channel tap into how people are using the product. Jane receives a lot of emails and correspondence from users who take the time to document what they have fixed/improved and even supply photos showing the degree of connection that the company has with users.

The company rewards and encourages this and as Jane puts it

“all of our marketing comes from customers in the form of hundreds of photo, stories and videos”.

The Hack of the Month profiles how innovative users have been in the use of the product which ranges from fixing medical devices to protecting school bags.  sugru also asks for suggestions on who they should send sugru packs to and this recently resulted in packs being sent to scientists working on the largest bore holes in the world based in Antarctica.  They featured stories on how they used it to repair diverse items from glasses to knives.

The outreach and investment in the online community now means they have a large gallery of photos and stories of customers documenting their use of the product.

User generated content is the nirvana for a lot of companies and getting customers to tell their stories can be notoriously difficult.  Even if people really enjoyed the product getting them to invest the time and allowing you use their stories is rarely successful.  Although there is no doubt that this is a very innovative and good product, the subtle difference having the ethos of the company – to reduce waste and allow people to personalise and improve stuff -  central in all they do is key to their success.  It’s not about sugru but rather what people do with it and how it helps their lives.  This approach means people are happier to contribute as it plugs into their lives and the sugru community feels like a grouping of like-minded people rather than a community website.  Even the website itself clearly positions it as being about the user and not the product itself.  You get a clear impression that much as sugru benefits from user engagement people are learning, teaching and educating each other how it could be used.

Sugru iPhone bumpers and a blob

Jane is the first to admit that although they do a lot with communities that there is more to do and she feel they are only scratching the surface on what could be done.  Similar to most companies, measurement is evolving and difficult to quantify.  Easy to measure items such as ‘likes’ are less a concern than the quality of interaction such as conversations and comments.  Key is seeing if people are getting the message and spreading it.  Twitter is also another active daily channel with most activity taken up by answering queries and interacting than pushing company messages. Jane herself still manages these channels directly herself showing the level of commitment to the users.

One of the other positive aspects of so much user generated content is that now the company can see recurring uses and this can be fed back in to product research, design and marketing. This translates as possible future iPhone cable and adapter products/packs as the company has seen lots of examples of sugru being utilised to fix or improve these.

Real World Interaction

As with much social media activity it’s important to have a real world footprint also.  The ‘Hack It’ Sessions facilitate this and are almost a real world reflection of what goes on in the online world. sugru sometimes organises these itself or facilitates them by sending product to users who want to create a shared experience of using the product.  People learning from each other and being creative opens up new views on the product that sugru could never do by itself.

Much could be learnt from the sugru experience online and according to Jane companies could really improve their online presence with some simple philosophies including:

• Have a clear mission that is people/users focused and not company centric
• Tweet and interact with people the same as if over a shop counter
• Don’t be frightened of people or interaction
• Don’t be overly promotion
• Remember people are not interested in you but rather what you can do for them
• Have conversations
• Facilitate, reward, and respect the input from people who contact you

Future Plans

sugru is now working on expanding its US presence directly through stores and setting up shipping locally.  They are also talking to hardware chains in Ireland to extend its reach and easy of buying.

Summary

sugru has achieved a worldwide presence after only 9 months in operation and sold over 40,000 packs.   Its marketing is mainly word of mouth and customer based.  It has made huge progress into cracking the ‘user generated content’ nut and has built a very strong online brand by having a mission driven and customer centric approach.

In Ireland you can get Sugru in the Science Gallery, Designist, O’Sullivan Graphics. and from www.sugru.com

Eoin Kennedy, Slattery Communications and Chair of IIA Social Media Working Group

This case study is part of the IIA Social Media Working Group‘s series of studies on how companies are using social media to achieve their business aims and objectives. This study was written by Eoin Kennedy of Slattery Communications, chair of IIA Social Media Working Group.

If you answer yes to either of those questions then you shouldn’t miss IIA Member Company Microsoft’s upcoming event reMIX Dublin.

This free event brings you the best of Microsoft’s premier web & devices conference (MIX) at no cost to you. All you need to do is register and get yourself down to the RDS in Ballsbridge on June 9^th!

Join the conversation at reMIX Dublin – see the latest tools and technologies and draw inspiration from a professional community of your peers and experts.

The morning session from 9am to 1pm focuses on tools and technologies for developers: developing for Windows 7, the Cloud, what’s coming up with Windows 7.5 and Kinect Hackables.

The afternoon will be focusing on UX (User eXperience) especially multitouch and Miscrosoft’s Surface device including a look at the future of user interaction and designing infographics for Web Applications with Des Traynor from Contrast.

The final session of the day is a set of lightning talks by some well known designers and developers from Microsoft and beyond covering topics such as storytelling for user experience and the lost art of simplicity.

Now I really wish I was a UX designer or developer…