Social Media in Technology/Electronics Business Area

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R

EPORT

Valon Fetahu, Freiburghaus Steve, Ekaterina Matveeva, Krieger Timo, Sandri Tiziano, Röhrenbach Ines, Agbamu Kenoma Eugene, Azubogu Chidubem Cletus

Digital Marketing 2010

Table of Contents:

Table of contents…………………………………………………………..........2

Introduction……………………………………………………………………..3

Logitech International S. A…………………………………………………....4

Jura Elektroapparate AG……………………………………………………...6

KABA Group……………………………………………………………………9

Schindler Group……………………………………………………………….10

Phonak…………………………………………………………………………..12

Visualization of analysis……………………………………………………….13

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Introduction

In this paper we try to analysis the level of engagement in social media companies

from technology and electronics business area. Also we should mention that the

majority of analsized companies are Swiss based with long history of operating

on the market which have traditional approach on the advertising.

The main aim of this paper is:

• To detect the level of engagement in social media channels;

• To understand reasons why companies did not yet involved in social media

activities;

• In some cases to give quick overview of social media activities of the main

competitors of analyzed companies;

• To find out “fresh” insights into business of each company;

• Try to make appropriate suggestions of further social media strategy;

• Attempt to explain value proposition, benefits from being in social media

“space”.

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Logitech

Logitech International S.A. was co-founded in Apples, Vaud, Switzerland, in 1981 by two Stanford Masters alumni, Daniel Borel and Pierluigi Zappacosta, and Giacomo Marini, formerly a manager at Olivetti. Logitech is the world’s leader of peripheral devices for PCs. They produce keyboards, mice, microphones, game controllers (Xbox, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 e Wii) and webcams. Logitech also makes home and computer speakers, headphones, wireless audio devices, as well as audio devices for MP3 players and mobile phones. The headquarter of the company is based in Romanel-sur-Morges, Switzerland. In 2009 they made $2’209 millions revenue and counted more than 6’000 employees worldwide. Official website: http://www.logitech.com

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Social Media Platforms Analysis Publishing

Corporate Blog

http://www.blog.logitech.com/ Not available in my pc!

Social Networking

Facebook

1. Logitech Australia (40’744 fans)

2. Logitech (32’746 fans) Official

3. Logitech Gaming (17’826 fans) Official

4. Logitech Taiwan (5’790 fans) Official

5. Logitech Hong Kong (3’153 fans) Official

6. Logitech Mx518 (2’798 fans) Non-official

7. Logitech G25 Racing Wheel (2’524 fans) Non-official

The most popular Facebook page about Logitech is “Logitech Australia”, it is official and receives 103 messages from users to his wall for a total of 670 answers/discussion. Most of the messages are positive (78%). Many people thanks Logitech for their products and some of them ask support or help. Few of them are complaining about troubles they face with Logitech products.

Almost all messages are answered (94%) especially the ones asking about any help. 15% of users are asking about products improvement. In this page there are 20 page boxes who link for

8. Logitech Z5500 (1’562 fans) Non-official

9. Logitech (1’394 fans) Official Wiki

10. Logitech (1’075 fans) Non-official

example to YouTube, twitter, to help and support, official website and 60 other Facebook pages. Around 55% of the wall post are commented by other users. There is a box in which is possible to win a trip and a laptop.

In conclusion Logitech is have a really good interaction with his users on his Facebook page providing any support for the products users and create some discussion between them.

MicroBlogs

Twitter

http://twitter.com/logitech (9’039 followers)

Logitech is present on Twitter in different language (English, French, Spanish, ...) The main pages has 9’039 followers and is following 371. The have made a total of 1’703 Tweets. They post their official updates really often on Twitter and have a good interaction with the followers.

YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/logitech Logitech is present on YouTube since January 2006, 4’323’534 users downloaded any content and 21’013 of them subscribe to its channel which is viewed by 1’110’291 people.

There 138 uploads available, 17 favorites and 17 Logitech + Google TV.

Writing “Logitech” on Youtube we find 163’000 .

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Jura Elektroapparate AG is a company that operates in households electrical appliances. It was founded in 1931 in Niederbuchsiten, Switzerland and, as pioneer, it has specialized in the field of coffee machines, becoming one of the first firms in this sector. However its range of products is quite limited, in fact the company decided to focus its attention on just a few product, in order to be very specialized and therefore to exploit economies of scale, in order to offer the consumer a high quality product at lower price. Nowadays the company is present in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the US, the UK and South-East Asia with its own store and join ventures. In the last few years, in the rest of the world, it also entered the market of coffee automatic distributors.

Below we briefly list the range of products that Jura offers to its consumers:

14 different models of Jura automatic household coffee machines, which differs from each other by their functions and performance.

10 different models of Jura automatic commercial coffee machines. Irons and ironing accessories Toaster Other accessories:

Cup warmers Milk containers Glasses Spoons Cups And other customizing accessories for coffee machines

Main Communication Channels: The main communication channels which Jura adopts to advertise its products and to reach the consumer are quite classic (advertising on newspaper, television, etc.), in fact as we can understand, its products belong to a certain sector which is difficult to be advertised only through internet and digital channels. On the other hand, one of the most important channel is directly the store with the showroom, in which the consumer can personally test the coffee machines. Another communication channel on which Jura pays attention is the web site (www.jura.com), where the whole range of products, news, information and special editions are explained and advertised. A very interesting aspect, closely related to the topic of this report, is that, when we enter Jura’s web site, on the main page it appears the Facebook symbol and a button that invites you to join their group on the social network. This makes us reflect about the importance that Jura begins to give also to the advertisement, but especially to the image, of the company on a similar social network.

We understood that Jura is not present on other social networks and it does not have an own blog.

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Why does Jura want us to enter its Facebook group ? What we have noticed while surfing on Jura’s web site, was its innovative idea to create a product line more and more stylish and fashion compared to the previous ones; everybody knows that if you want to transmit a fashion and “cool” image of the company, you also have to transmit the sensation that who belongs to this specific environment can really be a better person! In order to do this it is very important to create something exclusive that only who really has good taste, or just think to have, can join. Facebook could actually be the good choice to do this, in fact Jura created a group, which people can join and, in this way, simultaneously communicate to their friend that they belong to this exclusive circle of people!

The Facebook group is also useful in order to increase customer loyalty, in fact once they join it and show it their friends, they automatically decide that, since that moment, they belong to this company. Moreover Facebook is a free window where introduce, advertise and link Jura’s products and services, simply thanks to comments, images, news and videos sharing between users. Going back to the fashion and exclusivity of Jura’s products, we can see that there is a new line of products which is named Roger Federer Edition. These specific line has been created with the goal to attract the market segment that likes this tennis player and wants to continue their support even in the kitchen! Also this innovation could be seen as a strategy to share a sense of elite exclusivity.

Facebook Group Analysis: Social network size: 500 million users Number of official and non-official pages and groups: 2 Number of fans: 2’504 on the main group & 3’535 on the UK group Number of fan posts in 2010: >100 Main topic of fan’s posts: in most of the cases they just want to highlight the performance of their new tools, they post pictures of their new coffee machines and they want everybody to know that they are “cool” too! Last month positive/negative messages: 16 positive comments, 5 negative comments.

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Activity of the MODERATOR (Jura) in the last months: Jura actively intervene on its Facebook wall, often to advertise or introduce a new product or also a special event, but it especially care about giving answers to fans questions or complaints, in order not to give a bad image. The moderator most of the times posts new products and news about the company, directly followed by the link to the main Jura’s website, in order to lead people to see the full range of their products. Jura, as I have just written, answers to ALL fan’s questions or complaints, and, also here, it happens that there is the link to the main website at the end of the post. Brand engagement: Jura is only present on Facebook, as social network channel; it does not have an own blog or a Twitter account for instance. Leadership:

- Is there a company moderator? Yes, it posts and it answers fan’s questions - Does the brand directly manage proprietary brand communities in social media? Yes, 2

Facebook accounts - Number of posts/comments on the wall in the last six months: 24 - Does the brand offer free content? Yes - Links back to the brand social media spaces: 15 links which lead to the main or other

websites

Linking value:

- Percentage of users who discuss with their peers using the brand-related social media spaces: 30/110 posts contain discussion between users, or between users and Jura.

To conclude this short report, we can say that Jura works a lot in order to keep a close link between its Facebook group and its main website, because of the huge potential of viewer that Facebook has (over 500 million), who could easily be aware of the whole range of products that a company wants to advertise.

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The Kaba Group is one of the world's leading players in the security industry. An internationally active, listed company, it employs around 8,000 staff in more than 60 countries. Kaba provides innovative, comprehensive access control solutions for buildings, facilities and sites as well as solutions for staff and enterprise data collection which meet client's needs for security, organization and convenience. The company is a key expert and technology leader for a range of security solutions. Kaba can look back on more than 145 years of tradition.1 The firm‘s main channel of communication are traditional channels. In terms of advertising Kaba is very contained. No advertising campaigns are demonstrated in the internet. Consequently, Kaba is not actively involved in any social media activities. On YouTube some unofficial videos about Kaba products are available i.e. cyclinder locks, but there are no official activites to enhance the brand equity and value through social media engagement. This might be due to the follwoing reasons: Culture Kaba is a Swiss based and founded company. In Switzerland and this is true especially in the Swiss German part, companies rely on their values, strengths and achievements more than in many other parts in the world. The corporation is able to rely to its huge brand value and equity. And success proved the firm right in doing so. However, we are not sure if Kaba just is not able to see the huge opportunities which are allowed by social media or the firm just acts very careful and restricted in order to prevent any failures. Business model The success of Kaba is linked to the outstanding performance of its security products. One could argue that promoting the firm and its products are in contradiction to its values which are based on confidential, discretion and reliability. Tradition of the company Members of the board at Kaba are all in der mid 50s. They are all from the Swiss-German part and not very diversified. Furthermore, they have a technological background and only a limited awareness of web 2.0 applications. If we take a closer look to the competitors the composition of the board is more internationally oriented in terms of culture, ethics and openess. The authors requested for an official company statement about social media policy, but did not get any answer. However, two of Kaba`s competitors recently started to enlarge activities in social media. The U.S. corporation Ingersoll Rand has a Facebook fanpage with around 1.400 fans and recently launched a YouTube channel additionally with 30 uploaded videos and had around 50.000 hits. Additionally a Twitter account (@ingersoll_rand) is launched with around 410 followers. Also, Assa Abloy is active in Facebook and Twitter (@assaabloygroup) with 500 resp. 330 fans and followers. These numbers seem to bee rather slow. but both companies are in their very beginning of the social media activities. 1 See: www.kaba.ch

Schindler Group was founded in Switzerland in 1874 and is the largest manufacturer of escalators and the second largest manufacturer of elevators worldwide. Schindler installs, maintains and modernizes elevators and escalators in all kind of buildings (Residential, Commercial and High-Rise). The company is present in more than 140 countries and employs 45,000 persons worldwide. The production facilities are located in Austria, Brazil, China, France, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and the USA. Globally, Schindler equipment moves more than 900 million people per day.

Strategic direction Schindler Group has chosen strategy to be successful through traditional core values such as customer service, quality and safety with combination of their key strengths of creativity and innovation of to produce superior solutions in response to customer`s needs. Schindler`s vision: Leadership through service . Social Media: analysis of presence After observation most popular social media channels, we found out that Schindler Group has low engagement to social media activities. For example, in the first popular network – Facebook, there is one non-official page with 387 people who like it and also 3 pages with 3 people. As far as the first mentioned page with 387 members, we can say that it`s just page with brief overview of the company where people have option just to “like” – there is no wall for sharing some kind of information. And, consequently, this page doesn’t have sense. And the following reasonable question is why Schindler Group don’t expand social media activities ? We decided to find the answer on this question by finding the main competitor and examining their activities. The first one competitor is OTIS. Both companies work within vertical transportation and produce elevators, escalators. They were founded within approximately the same period of the time. But OTIS is considered to be the first one worldwide while Schindler Group is considered the second. Anyway, these two companies is equally known in worldwide scale and have strong brand name and reputation for their core values quality, service, reliability and innovation. OTIS has one official page on Facebook platform with 959 members who is in particular young people carried by technology, design, innovation and also employees who is currently working in OTIS company from subsidiaries all over the world. Besides, this page is really diversified like the OTIS company which has subsidiaries in every corner of the world. The context of messages is really positive – people interested to know about internship, post photos from events related to company`s activities, sharing information about future event related to technology, innovation within this industry – all in all, they try to communicate in informal way. The number of non-official pages is seven with 439 participants who like it. The titles are “Otis elevator company”, "Otis just for fun”, “Otis elevator common interest” etc. As far as web site of Schindler Group, we can say that they have on-line communication but between company and suppliers. They globally spread out following eCollaboration - “standardization – automation – digitalization”- tools:

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1) eSourcing (the online negotiation empowers the supplier negotiation phase by exploiting the competition in a defined market) 2) eOrdering (special platform where they can select an item from an electronic catalogue, place the selected item in a shopping chart and have the shopping cart content ordered from the supplier) 3) ePtP (electronic communication between Schindler and its external suppliers) This is really great electronic platform for formal collaboration which saves time, cost and create global network for the whole company to deliver best solutions in short time.

Conclusion The creation of informal collaboration system can be not so much critical for the company (that’s maybe the reason why they didn’t yet launch it). But Schindler Group has high level of social responsibility (different types of events, support of educational institutes, charity, grants for young and talented students, care of impact which their business processes have on the environment etc.) And judging by this maybe it can really some kind of good idea to create presence on social media (e.g. open official Facebook page and Twitter accounts which will be guided by several young, creative and technology advance people). Finally… What’s the benefits/value from being in social media “space" for Schindler Group:

• cheap and easy way of communication and awareness about the company; • quick awareness of the past and future activities within corporate responsibility – what’s the

contribution company making to society; • collaboration between people who are really interested and inspired by Schindler`s business

activities which can give opportunity to gather “fresh” and interesting ideas, insights etc.; • collaboration between young people in worldwide scale who is keen on technology,

innovation – opportunity for the company to grow up, develop, find out talented persons for future generation of employees;

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Phonak is the world's leader in wireless earpieces and intelligent hearing protection. The company was founded in Switzerland in 1992 and has become the technology and market leader in the development, design, production and worldwide distribution of ultra-miniaturized wireless systems. In 2006 Phonak established the “Hear the World” foundation. This initiative aims to improve the quality of life and promote equal opportunities for people all ages coming from all parts of the world. The foundation provides financial funds as well as listening technology and hearing aids. People can leave a social bookmark for this initiative on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, del.ici.ous, digg.com, googlemail, Mister Wong, YahooMyWeb and YiggIt. Analysis of presence on Social Media platforms: Facebook Phonak is present on a Facebook site. 301 people like the page, however the content of the page is only available in French and is derived from Wikipedia. The “Hear the World” Initiative by Phonak on the other hand is supported by 1782 people and displays a much broader information and follower interaction through frequent updates and news. Twitter Phonak has 322 followers on Twitter and 13 people being listed. On Twitter, Phonak regularly posts news, “tweeds”, combined with links to the youtube webpage. Youtube On youtube, customers of Phonak give their hearing aid evaluation via video clips, officially and unofficially. Playlists with reviews, problems and discussions have been created. LinkedIn Phonak is presented on LinkedIn. The company offers additional information about innovative hearing solutions. Xing On Xing, Phonak published an article about its initiative “music as an ambassador” in a forum within the group “from CEOs to CEOs”. Blogger.com On this blog, people can create free blogs. Every internet user has free access to the blog contents. Blogs containing information about Phonak are about benchmarking with competitors and product quality

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Visualization of analysis

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