The jury is still out on QR (or Action) Codes, but clearly we are entering a phase of not just randomly applying them but actively trying to educate users on how to make them work (23% have instructions about getting an app to scan the code and other information to encourage people to scan the code). That suggests a problem in itself, however if this is solved the next step will be to make the reward of scanning a code worthwhile.

Bear in mind I'm scanning the code with a smartphone or tablet, so from a user experience or service design perspective what and how do I as a consumer want to do next?

We’re floating in data. Our phones, computers and devices are spinning off more data than anyone knows what to do with. At the same time, however, we’re living in an attention economy where eyeballs are a currency, and enticing people to click on links or forward content through their social networks is the key to success. The result is an endless stream of half-baked infographics from marketers who could care less about the art and the science behind true data visualization.

Can these competing forces continue to coexist?

This has been the subject of a long running discussion on Dachis Group's own internal microblogging network. Lets call a spade a spade: if it doesn't meet the criteria of an infographic, then don't claim it is one.

Hat tip Mark Owen.

the challenge for advertisers and marketers is to stand out above the general internet noise and create what the industry calls a value proposition for their brands. In this, Facebook has emerged as a crucial platform for social interaction with 750 million users worldwide, as has Twitter with 250 million. But simply having a Twitter "hashtag", which more easily identifies subjects being discussed, or "liking" something on Facebook are no longer enough.

"We are starting to move away from the mad arms race of [increasing] fans on Facebook,"

Timely article from the Guardian. There is a school of thought around social media marketing that basically calls for business and organisations to get online and then follow a strategy of what I call, "getting loud with social media". Success will follow if you can overcome your fears of the medium - you just need to be on it for this to happen.

Today I've been browsing around looking at some major Australian brands and organisations that have an active presence on Facebook. Its pretty a disappointing picture to be honest.

For one well known consumer brand, a recent Facebook post attracted well over a hundred "Likes" and about 50 comments. Sounds like a great reaction? When you look at the actual comments, the largest categories were complaints (6%) and wants (14%). The brand itself was absent in the conversation, but at least some of their fans (3.4%) did at least bother to reply to questions and comments from other people. As a potential customer looking in, there is no evidence that the brand actually cares or is listening to feedback - a missed opportunity.

Another well known and family-friendly brand has a wall full of spam posts and in appropriate comments (e.g. mentioning alcohol) in breach of their own community rules, mixed in with genuine fans/customers. However, there is evidence at least of that brand engaging with people on customer service issues. That good work in customer service and the promotions on their page is being undone by poor community management and moderation.

In another example, a major industry association has attracted about 130 "likes" in about 6 months for their page. Sure, its not harming them but its not adding much value in its current form either.

Personally, in Australia at least, I see smaller consumer-orientated companies doing a much better job of engaging but with a smaller audience. Like Frisk Espresso, who I discovered in Perth recently. They only have about 1,500 fans but the engagement is better at that scale. Its important to recognise that their fan base is probably built on an excellent customer experience in the real world and through promotion at their shop front (that's how I found them). Rather than faking it and expecting noise on social media to make their online engagement successful, they are working social media more smartly than many large (and well resourced) brands. And I'll be back at Frisk when I'm next in Perth.

However, I'm prepared to be corrected. Have you got an Australian example where getting loud with social media (i.e. getting lots of followers or likes) has worked? Or maybe you've got a horror story of where this strategy has crashed and burned?

The White House is claiming success in using its LinkedIn social media group as a forum for a public policy discussion on reforming the financial services industry.

The Wall Street conversation has generated 296 comments from members of the White House's LinkedIn group in 12 days. The discussion is being led by Jen Psaki, deputy communications director at the White House and one of the group's three leaders.

This example is from the government sector, but across the board - commercial and non-commercial - I think there is good reason to consider LinkedIn as a place to host a discussion with stakeholders or customers.

The main benefit of using LinkedIn over either hosting your own discussion or using the 'default' strategies of Facebook or Twitter is that you have a ready made community of mainly professional users that you can engage with - if done right - through a platform they already have some level of familiarity with.

It does help that LinkedIn finally rolled out some improvements to how groups work a few months ago. To be honest, I had almost given up participating in any LinkedIn groups because the user experience was so bad. That now looks like it is improving, which is why I think LinkedIn is now worth a second look.

Of course, all the functionality in the world doesn't make up for poor community management, which in most cases is the root cause of a bad LinkedIn group. The signs of poor community management are often quite obvious - too much spam, a hands off moderation style, no content curation, lack of community focus and endless questions from people to lazy to research an issue for themselves. There is nothing new here, but as with many community orientated Web 2.0 technologies I find that access to collaboration tools doesn't immediately equate to quality of collaboration.

Learn more about group functionality, in LinkedIn's online help. There is also a case study on how uses Phillips' marketing use their Innovations in Health group.

A nice short article that actually shares some good advice on listening to social media. The author puts forward the following six guidelines to help you avoid making assumptions about the trends you see the data:

1. Learn about the competitive landscape;
2. Look for unexpected themes;
3. Dip deeper into the stream;
4. Look for user experiences;
5. Learn why negative words are coming up; and
6. Learn about conversation dominators.

These guidelines are mostly applicable across all kinds of social media and not just Twitter.

Of course when it comes to listening to social media, it helps if you target something specific like the iPad launch, which attracted over 500,000 tweets. :-)

Hmm. I'm trying to work the significance of this research (if any). However, more data is good, right?

I can't but help think that their perspective is all wrong, rather than anything else. I get the impression that social networking and social media is thought as something out there beyond the walls of the organisation, rather than something that is in fact everywhere. Does this explain why they are surprised that these tools are being used for collaboration within and between organisation, not just between companies and their customers?

Their main conclusion is the "need for stronger governance and IT involvement", but again I wonder if in fact what they mean is that these new technologies have a broader impact beyond marketing and therefore need involvement from across the organisation to determine how to best integrate them into business as usual.

I come back again to the Headshift/Dachis Group's Social Business Design model - focusing on governance and IT involvement is just a symptom, when what is needed is new perspectives to management.

Hat tip to Oliver.

I need to come back and read through these slides a little more carefully, but on the face of it this could be a great case study of what Social Business Design is getting at - the application of social computing holistically in an organisation. Its not just about social media marketing, but neither is just about 'Enterprise 2.0'.

What isn't so clear for me is how well the outside and inside is connected... but still its a good start.

Hat tip to Lars Basche.