News on Social Marketing, according to The New York Times: A new age of speed and precision has entered on retail price wars online. This has created a confusing landscape for shoppers in which prices leap and plummet on short notice.
Amazon was offering a discounted price of $49.96 on a popular Xbox game the day before Thanksgiving. The price is the same as Walmart and 3 cents lower thanTarget. Then the holiday pricing shuffle began.
Amazon dropped its price on the game, Dance Central 3, to $24.99 on Thanksgiving Day, matching Best Buy’s “doorbuster” special, and went to $15 once Walmart stores offered the game at that lower price.
Over the holiday weekend, retail price war was ferocious. The pricing firm Dynamite Data followed prices of three major online retailers — Walmart.com, Amazon.com and Target.com.
The study reveals that retailers fight to have the lowest prices to increase sales volume and they paid close attention to competitors’ online prices and in-store specials and forcing each other into out-of-stock positions as they pushed prices down.
According to Diana Schulz, chief executive of Dynamite Data, “There was definitely some gamesmanship going on.” Dynamite Data tracks online retail pricing, stock status, ratings and other information for clients like Samsung and Abt Electronics.
Ms. Schulz said sophisticated retailers set algorithms to change prices in response to competitors. “Retailers pipe a bunch of information in electronically, like internal information — cost, availability of inventory, sales goals,” along with competitors’ prices, she said.
Dan Toporek, a Walmart eCommerce spokesman said that while Amazon has long tinkered with prices, its competitors are now fighting back. Walmart has invested heavily in pricing tools in the last year.
A marked increase in how much Walmart played with prices have been observed by Dynamite Data and smaller retailers were now also adjusting some prices at least daily. This is to attract shoppers with competitively priced products that show up on Web searches. However, there is also a risk involved as consumer’s tire of price changes. Rafi Mohammed, a pricing consultant said “People are starting to realize, ‘I can’t trust the price I’m getting, because it might change.”
Read more at Retail Frenzy: Prices on the Web Change Hourly
News on Social Marketing, according to Edelman: A company’s employees are seen as one of the most trusted sources of information about their business. A 16-point increase in the credibility of regular employees as sources of information about their company was shown in the latest 2012 Trust Barometer data.
Edelman is working with clients to speed up their business performance by helping them effectively engage their employees. This is achieved by making meaningful connections that build trust. We also help connect employees with their company, with each other and with the outside world.
Engaged employees are individuals who willingly advocate their organization to customers, colleagues, friends and family because they feel a connection to their work and are proud of what they do. They are always looking for ways to create additional value for their business and are willing to go beyond what is required of them.
Edelman has the expertise in creating and telling a consistent, inclusive story that employees understand, support and feel proud to share with others; Developing programs that help leaders and managers feel engage their teams with authenticity, credibility and consistency; Deploying collaboration tools (digital and low-tech) that help employees share ideas and best practice and learn from each other; Identifying the right communication channels (digital and low-tech) to ensure messages reach employees in the most effective, appropriate and timely way and bringing communications strategies to life through compelling content and the use of creative design, video and digital media.
We also have the expertise in activating programs that create a critical mass of support to accelerate the adoption of new ideas, systems and ways of working; Measuring engagement via the Edelman Connections Index to show at-a-glance what employees think, feel and do, and whether engagement efforts are successful and Implementing simple, yet effective processes to capture powerful stories from around a business that can be shared with employees and the outside world.
Read more at EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
News on Social Marketing, according to Edelman: Employees’ connection to their company, employees’ connection to their colleagues and employees’ connection to the outside world are the three important elements of employee connections that are critical to a businesses’ success.
The Connections Index tool is designed to help companies understand the strength, quality and drivers of these key elements and is derived from the aggregated analysis of three distinct data sets:
A short and targeted employee survey to measure current attitudes, opinions and behaviors; An independent analysis of employee behavior to see how actual behavior matches self-reported behavior, including an analysis of employee activity on company-related social media sites, and in on and off-line exchanges of information with each other and their colleagues and a comparison to Edelman’s just-in-time employee engagement benchmark.
The Connections Index results are then reported back on a virtual dashboard. Executives can now evaluate performance across geography, line of business and type of employee and examine the strength of their employee connections compared to best practices and company objectives.
The Connections Index tool is perfect for companies that want a new and fresh approach to measurement engagement and wants to understand drivers of engagement and where it should focus employee engagement efforts for utmost results.
Read more at EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT CONNECTIONS INDEX
Other Social Marketing Articles of Interest
Infographic: The Social Network Landscape
Identified.com Is Like LinkedIn, But Sexier