Social Media Marketing in Germany

Guten Tag!
European companies need to increase traffic to their website, to build a strong brand in India, and drive more online sales.  You need to be noticed, to attract targeted visitors in India.

Let us look at how social media is used in Germany:

• Germany trails behind the US in adopting social media.  Blogs are not yet a part of mainstream media and have no significant influence on public opinion.
• Only 58% of German internet users are on social networking sites (compared to 77% in the US).
• The most popular social networking site in Germany is called StudiVZ, however Facebook is quickly gaining market share.
• Culturally, Germans tend to be very private and do not freely share personal information.  Many still feel that their data is not safe online.
• Germans place a high value on university degrees or professional certifications and do not trust unofficial sources.

(status as on May 2010)

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5948/3-Social-Media-Lessons-For-Global-Marketers.aspx#ixzz1sjZHUIWS

What is the status today?  Please leave your comments in the space provided below.

Google’s First April News

On the eve of the Fools Day I remember how Google’s takes the world for a ride every year

Google announced Chrome Browser 3D version, Google told Netizens to download .exe file and even provided .PDF file to make instant "3D" Glasses, too much.  Would you believe?  Millions of people actually downloaded the 3D Chrome and the 3D glasses on the First April 2009.  Hahhaa ha haa..

Here is extreme example of cyber branding - Google announced popular Gmail that works with motion....Google told on April 01 :   "Gmail Motion is a new way to control Gmail using BODY LANGUAGE !   To us Gmal Motion software, you will need a comptuer with a webcam.  Google Gmail will recognize your movement with a spatial tracking algorithm.

We designed the movements to be easy and intuitive to perform and consulted with top experts in kinestetics and body movement in devising them.

Google also had a number of non-hoaxes on April 1. The biggest was the Gmail launch in 2004, something that many had thought to be a hoax.  For instance:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="100%" height="407" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Bu927_ul_X0?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Google's history of April 1 jokes can be traced back to the year 2000 when Google announced the launch of MentalPlex, when Google asked its users to focus on a swirling spiral and project a mental image of what they wanted to search for and the results page displayed humourous error messages.

MentalPlex was followed by PigeonRank, where Google claimed that it used pigeons for its PageRank system.  

What is your guess?  What do you think Google prank will be on this April Fool's Day ?