Anthony Baker - Yet Another Digital Marketing Blog?

I just read an interesting article over on Nowwearetalking where Telstra's Consumer Executive Director, Jenny Young had this to say about Christmas Day text messaging;

We're expecting more than 46 million text messages to be sent, a 35 per cent increase over last Christmas and double the number sent on a normal day.

I'd be interested to see the customer trends and segments that highlight this increase. I completely agree that mobile usage is on the increase (duh), but I am not convinced text messaging is as well. Not too surprisingly, most of the Christmas greetings I have received today have been through mobile social network channels, namely Facebook and Twitter.

According to new research, the usage of social networking applications on mobile phones is only going to increase - I am actually watching my cousin message all his friends through Facebook from his iPhone. From an end user perspective it's great to see social networks reaching out to the mobile users with mobile versions of their sites and device specific applications. I believe the increase Jenny mentioned above, will be seen here not through text messaging, as it becomes even easier for users to upload text, take pictures and share videos with family and friends.

The Guardian's article is an interesting read, even though I don't know who the research company is - oh it's Christmas pudding time!

After a lot of nagging from friends, namely the tweet addicted Jon Hoel, I have decided to join and become a 'recreational user' of Twitter. Which makes it sound like a party drug for the weekend - so it should be good.

Even though I prescribe micro blogging and other social media tactics as part of a client's communications mix, I just believe these new tactics aren't really that new. In my opinion, the only difference between online social media and old school word of mouth, which has been around since cavemen could grunt, is the speed at which word of mouth is spread.

With technology finally meeting consumer expectations, we are given the opportunity as marketers to accelerate conversations with our customers. Using blogs and social commentary for example, we can deliver even faster communications and ultimately greater results.

Enough of my ranting.. what was I talking about.. oh yeah, if you like follow me on Twitter.

I am currently in the process of migrating over all my old blogs from wordpress to movable type. Check back after 16th December.

Thanks,

/A