SHRM released its Future Insights Report on the Top Trends for HR according to SHRM’s HR Subject Matter panel.  This report highlights key HR-related topics and trends, as seen by subject matter experts from SHRM’s Special Expertise Panels. These trends are a valuable resource for any HR professional interested in seeing what issues HR subject matter experts believe will have the biggest impact on the workplace today and in the years ahead.

The report is broken down into key categories for HR, with each area having about 10 top trends. The trends indicate a promising revolution to the traditional role of  HR in the organization and how organizations interact with employees and HR’s important role in this change. Of note, however, is the distressing (but not all that  surprising to read) insight that technology and social media are seen as becoming more of a negative influence on workplace civility, manners, company information, privacy, business writing and etiquette. And their use is seen as increasing opportunities and avenues for harassment.

The full report is available here.

Here are some highlights from other key categories:

Employee Engagement

• HR is seeing the importance of being high-touch in a high-tech world and is increasing efforts to maintain and enhance employee engagement.
• As companies and workplaces change with economic, social, technological and other demographic shifts, HR is becoming more instrumental in facilitating effective change management and integrating culture as a regular duty as opposed to a special project.
• HR has seen the need to increase efforts in building trust between employees and the company, especially when lack of trust is not based on one specific incident or a situation specific to the employee. Companies have forgotten that employees matter.

Employee Relations

• Effective employee relations practices are becoming essential to business continuity in the context of possible natural or other unforeseen disasters.
• HR continues to develop an acute sensitivity to the impact of the external environment on the workforce and the business as a whole. In that context, effective employee relations practices are becoming increasingly important as companies observe the link between employee engagement/satisfaction and productivity. Recognizing the importance of embedding effective employee relations practices in all HR disciplines will make HR more effective as a business and strategic partner.
• HR is increasing efforts toward workforce readiness now and in the future. As the economy changes, those currently in the workforce—especially the underemployed—are becoming more of a focus for HR. That is, HR is determin­ing whom their organizations can—or want to—retain once the economy has turned around while keeping an eye on the possible overall talent loss as international workforces expand.
• Managing multiple generations in the workplace is not the issue some thought it would have been. Baby Boomers are not leaving in masses, and they have shown that they can work with Gen X and Gen Y; generations in the workplace isn’t an area where HR professionals are spending their time.

• User experience and ease of use are becoming significantly more important to employees when it comes to HR technology solutions.
• One-size-fits-all solutions are decreasing in popularity and effectiveness, given the increasing diversity and complexity of issues affecting HR departments.
• Employees are increasingly expecting a more integrated digital experience when it comes to their interactions with HR (e.g. single sign-on, one-stop shopping).
• Employees are increasingly expecting their HR departments to provide mobile access to core HR functions.
• Social media tools are increasingly becoming an integral component of virtually all HR functions, including employee relations, benefits management, and training and development.
• HR less frequently views its role in social media as a policing function and more as a means of helping its organizations leverage social media for maximum employee engagement.
• HR departments are gaining more autonomy and flexibility in making technology decisions that affect their work.
•  HR departments are increasing their reliance on video conferencing as well as helping their organizations adopt this technology in appropriate ways.
• Software as a service as well as cloud-based software solutions are increasingly becoming the preferred direction for HR technology.
•  HRIS solutions are increasingly offering integration with social media tools such as LinkedIn.

About the Special Expertise Panels’ Trends

As part of the thought leadership pillar within the SHRM strategic plan, Special Expertise Panel members act as thought leaders whose input creates pathways for SHRM’s thought leadership within the profession and among a wider business audience. The lists of key trends the panels produce make use of these experts’ insights to uncover a wide range of HR-related trends. These lists assist SHRM in creating forward-looking information and content for our members in forums such as the online HR Focus Areas, research articles, reports and surveys, and through media and outreach efforts.

Top Areas For Social Marketing Investment and Biggest Social Marketing Challenges in 2012

From Awareness, Inc
Creators of the Social Marketing Hub

The definitive social marketing industry report.

In December 2011 Awareness surveyed over 320 marketers from a wide variety of industries and levels of social marketing experience. This report brings to you those insights and benchmarks to solidify your social marketing strategy, grow your social footprint and engage with your audiences for maximum return. You will learn how leaders allocate resources, discover the top social platforms and social media management tools they use,  social marketing investment priorities, and the practices companies will adopt to ensure 2012 is the year of the social business.

You will notice some underlying themes in this report:

• Executives and senior managers are looking for traction in three key areas – ROI, integration of social with lead generation and sales, and expansion of social presence and reach.
• While social marketers feel they do not have the necessary resources to execute initiatives successfully, they must meet the expectations of senior management who demand to see tangible business value.
• Companies experienced in social marketing are moving beyond growing social presence and reach. Their focus will shift to active social media management for increased lead generation and sales.
• You will see less-experienced marketers following their visionary peers, adopting established practices as they move along the maturity continuum.

For more information or to download your own copy please visit Awareness Inc.

The Fortune 500 and Social Media: A Longitudinal Study of Blogging and Twitter Usage by America’s Largest Companies
Conducted By: Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., Eric Mattson CEO, Financial Insite

Due to the hugely influential role of Fortune Magazine’s list of America’s largest corporations (“Fortune 500″) play in the business world, studying their usage of new technological tools like social media offers important insights into the future of commerce.

In 2009, the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth released one of the first studies of the Fortune 500′s adoption of one of the best-known forms of social media – blogging.

This new study revisits and refreshes that prior in-depth study and expands to look at the Fortune 500′s usage of the most dramatically growing new social media site – the microblogging service Twitter.

Methodology

For purposes of this research, the following definition was used to locate 2009 Fortune 500 companies with blogs. A company was counted as having a blog if they had a public facing corporate blog from the primary corporation with posts in the past 12 months. This is the same definition used in the 2008 study.

Summary

1. Blogs in the 2009 Fortune 500 – One hundred-eight (22%) of the primary corporations listed on the 2009 Fortune 500 have a public-facing corporate blog with a post in the past 12 months versus 16% in 2008.
2. Blogs by Industry – As might be expected, companies in the industry of computer software, peripherals and office equipment have the most blogs while specialty retail saw a significant increase in blog usage.
3. Blogs by Rank – Numbers show that rank continues to influence the adoption of blogging by the Fortune 500.
4. Level of Interaction – All the corporations make good use of blogging through frequent posting, on-going discussion and the ability to follow the conversation easily through RSS or subscriptions.
5. Comparison with the Inc. 500 – Although blogging increased by 6% from 2008 for both Inc. 500 and Fortune 500 the later is still blogging at a much lower rate.
6. Corporate Twitter Accounts – One hundred and seventy-three (35%) of the primary corporations listed on the 2009
   Fortune 500 has a Twitter account with a post within the past thirty days. Of these companies, four of the top five corporations consistently post on their Twitter accounts.
7. Use of Podcasting and Video – Nineteen percent of the 2009 Fortune 500 is podcasting and 31% are using video on their blog sites.

Conclusion

The continued steady adoption of blogs and the explosive growth of Twitter among Fortune 500 companies demonstrate the growing importance of social media in the business world. These large and leading companies drive the American economy and to a large extent the world economy. Surely a willingness to interact more transparently via these new technologies with their stakeholders is a good thing. Where it leads will be fascinating to watch!

Historically, brand owners were able to determine the relationship that consumers had with their brand. Now, thanks to social media, consumers are the ones who increasingly define how the brand is perceived.

The law firm of Reed Smith, LLP has published, “Network Interference—A Legal Guide to the Commercial Risks and Rewards of the Social Media Phenomenon.” This guide highlights the benefits of social media, while giving you tips on protecting yourself against the inherent legal risks surrounding this phenomenon. These tips will help you:

1. Understand the sensitive nature of information that flows through social media.
2. Recognize the serious compliance and litigation risks that the collection and distribution of such information entails.
3. Know your obligations under all applicable data privacy and security laws and have a plan to meet those obligations.

Visit the AAAA’s web site for more information and to download the guide in its entirety.

Research commissioned by Microsoft in December 2009 found that 79 percent of United States hiring managers and job recruiters surveyed reviewed online information about job applicants.

Most of those surveyed consider what they find online to impact their selection criteria. In fact, 70 percent of United States hiring managers in the study say they have rejected candidates based on what they found.

Review the results of the survey to see how online reputations impact people’s lives. The research comes from interviews with over 1,200 hiring and recruitment managers and 1,200 consumers in the United States, the U.K., Germany and France.

The results of the research reveal what you post on the Internet and what people post about you can affect your professional life.

Monitor your online reputation

Protect your online reputation

Learn what action you can take to manage your online reputation.

Original Post: The Talent Dialogue Approach to Employee Engagement, Deloitte

For many organizations today, the importance of managing talent is no longer an abstraction – it’s an all too pressing reality. Even in the current economy, business leaders are searching for solutions that can help them continue to attract, retain, and engage key talent in an increasingly competitive environment. But though it can be tempting to jump right in and start fi xing things, it’s essential to first develop a foundation of facts that can help you put the right elements together in a winning combination.

The convergence of new technologies and cultural evolution now makes possible an emerging superior approach – one that can provide specific insights into the drivers of engagement and help continually refi ne that insight through ongoing two-way communication. We call this approach “Talent Dialogue.”

Talent Dialogue Explained

Using the Talent Dialogue approach, an employer establishes a systematic, ongoing dialogue with its employees to better understand their views and expectations about the employment experience. Unlike point-intime employee engagement surveys that offer little opportunity for interaction, you use a variety of tools with Talent Dialogue, including social media platforms as well as more traditional forums such as interviews, focus groups, and surveys, to facilitate two-way conversation and enlist employees’ active involvement in shaping the organization’s talent management strategies. A thorough Talent Dialogue can provide companies with a competitive advantage in Employee Engagement by understanding employee preferences, wants, and needs; by creating an organizational culture of engagement; and by enhancing the return on investments in talent.

For all the talk today about the importance of listening, it’s not easy to do it well, especially when it comes to talent management. It’s about more than asking questions; it’s also about listening for opportunities .

The Talent Dialogue approach can help organizations do both.

How to Start Your Talent Dialogue

1. Create a Talent Dialogue Strategy. Define a strategy that includes specific Talent Dialogue objectives and a plan for analyzing, responding to, and using the information it generates.

2. Dialogue 1.0. Once the strategy is in place, a company can jumpstart the dialogue with what we call “Dialogue 1.0” – pursuing Talent Dialogue through the tools, processes, and vehicles it already has in place for interacting with its employees .

3. Dialogue 2.0. The next level of Talent Dialogue, “Dialogue 2.0,” supplements Dialogue 1.0 by using social media mechanisms, enabled by modern communications technologies, to help knit employees and employers into an evolving, interactive community.  (As a platform for Talent Dialogue, social media tools have several advantages over many of the Dialogue 1.0 mechanisms: They’re more economical to deploy on a large scale; they’re available 24/7, so employees can engage in dialogue at their convenience; they’re collaborative, allowing employees to interact with each other as well as with management; and they’re fl exible. Most of all, as evidenced by the popularity of sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace, many employees have already embraced social networking in their personal lives and would likely fi nd it natural to engage in it at work as well, discussing and providing feedback that is more targeted at their employment experience .

Dialogue 1.0, Dialogue 2.0, or a mix, some general principles to consider that could help strengthen the results: • Use multiple approaches. People who hate fi lling out surveys may be avid bloggers and message board readers. Employees skeptical about posting to an online forum may be amenable to sitting on a live or tele-/videoconference focus group. Consider which tools and methods are most appropriate for particular audiences and objectives, and combine them in a way that allows you to reach the people you want to reach in a way that works for them.

Guiding Principles of Talent Dialogue

• Consider your employees’ adoption of and comfort with technology. A company where almost everyone spends their working hours at a computer with e-mail and the Internet will find Dialogue 2.0 easier to implement than one where most of the work is done “unplugged.”
• Rely on continuous feedback from employees instead of intermittent spot checks. Build Talent Dialogue into how you do business so that it helps you anticipate and plan for workforce issues.
• Respond to employees’ views in a timely manner, even if it means admitting you’re not sure about something. This can represent a major change for leaders who believe that it’s better to keep things quiet until decisions are set in stone.
• Ask “What if?” questions with scaled responses that allow you to crunch the data more reliably.
• Avoid fuzzy questions that are open to a lot of interpretation
• Keep improving. Refi ne your questions to build on answers already received.

Companies today can’t afford to ignore the voices of their employees. The global talent crunch is creating a seller’s market for talent with scarce skills, while modern communications technologies give the masses greater visibility and infl uence than ever before. In a highly networked world, employee feedback is a given; the only choice for employers is whether to fear it as a threat or leverage it as an opportunity .

A well-managed dialogue between critical talent and business leaders is an essential way of getting the insights you need for strategic workforce planning. After all, your employees are the ones doing the work. They’re the ones trying to balance their lives and careers, and they’re the ones you depend on to deliver enterprise value. Listen to them. Get the facts. Understand them. And act.

In July, Mashable wrote a post on how statistics confirm that teens don’t tweet which was based on Morgan Stanley’s report “How Teenagers Consume Media” and Nielsen Wire’s article, “Teens Don’t Tweet.” All of these reports generated an incredible amount of response and trending topics from teenagers who either commented on these posts or responded via Twitter.

I happened across Danah Boyd’s article which has a very in-depth and insightful response on why all of these reports should be taken with a grain of salt.

Original Post: Teens Don’t Tweet… Or Do They?

We have a methodology and interpretation problem. As Fred Stutzman has pointed out, there are reasons to question Nielsen’s methodology and, thus, their findings. Furthermore, the way that they present the data is misleading. If we were to assume an even distribution of Twitter use over the entire U.S. population, it would be completely normal to expect that 16% of Twitter users are young adults. So, really, what Nielsen is saying is, “Everyone expects social media to be used primarily by the young but OMG OMG OMG old farts are just as likely to be using Twitter as young folks! Like OMG.”

We have a presentation problem. Mashable presented this report completely inaccurately. First off, Nielsen is measuring 2-24. My guess is that there are a lot more 24-year-olds on Twitter than 2-year-olds. Unless Sockington counts. (And she’s probably older than 2 anyhow.) Regardless, the Nielsen data tells us nothing about teens. We don’t know if young adults (20-24) are all of those numbers or not. If all 16% of those under 24 on Twitter were teens, teens would be WAY over-represented in proportion to their demographic size.

We have a representation problem. The majority of people are not on Twitter, regardless of how old they are. Those who use Twitter are not a representative percentage of the population. Geeks are WAY over-represented on Twitter. Celebs and celeb-lovers are WAY over-represented on Twitter. Newshounds are WAY over-represented on Twitter. And while Joe the Plumber has an account on Twitter, I doubt it’s him. Age is not the right marker here.

We have an interpretation problem. Saying that 16% of Twitter users are 24 and under is NOT the same as saying that 16% of teens are on Twitter. We don’t know what percentage of youth (or adults) are on Twitter. If you want to compare across the ages, you need to know what percentage of a particular demographic is using the technology.

We have an impression management problem. There are teens on Twitter. Thousands of them. Saying “Teens Don’t Tweet” gives the wrong impression because there are plenty of teens who do tweet (as they so kindly vocalized on Mashable and on Twitter). Still, just because they suddenly became vocal doesn’t mean that those who are there are representative of teens as a whole. Furthermore, the presence of teens on Twitter doesn’t mean that Twitter is a mainstream tool amongst teens. It’s not.

Given all of these problems, I immediately dismissed the Nielsen report and the Mashable post as irrelevant and meaningless. Then it became a Trending Topic. So while I had a million things to do yesterday, I spent 6+ hours reading the messages of the people who added content to the trending topic, reading their posts about other things, going to their profiles on other sites, and simply trying to get a visceral understanding of what youth were engaged enough on Twitter to respond to the trending topic. What I found fascinated me. I’m still coding the data so you won’t get any quantitative data just yet, but I want to give you a sense of my impression.

Teens On Twitter

The majority of teens who responded to the Trending Topic simply responded to the statement “Teens Don’t Tweet” by noting that they were a teen and they tweeted. Others just noted that the trending topic was dumb. Many didn’t know why the term had become a trending topic, were unaware of the Mashable article or Nielsen study, and thought that Twitter chose the trending topics. (I was in awe of how many teens commented that Twitter was stupid for making such a lie a trending topic. Some thought it was Twitter’s attempts to tell them they didn’t belong. One did ask if it was a trap to get teens to come out of the closet about their real age.)

Many of the teens who responded to the TT were not American or Canadian. I saw bunches of Brazilian teens, some Indonesian teens, and a smattering of teens from Europe, China, and Mexico. Many of their Twitter streams mixed English and the local language of their country. English dominated the responses but I did see non-English responses to the English trending topic.

About half of the teens included a link to a non-Twitter page in their bio. The pages were really mixed. Among the SNSes, MySpace dominated, but there were some Facebook links and links to Piczo and Multiply. There were also links to YouTube, Blogspot, LiveJournal, Deviant Art, and personal homepages.

Very few of the teens put their age in their bio, although quite a few made their age available in the content or through links. Teens posted messages like “I’m 16 and I’m on Twitter.” And birthdays are a big enough deal that I was seeing things like, “I can’t wait until I’m 16 and can get a car. Only 3 months to go!” And of course there’s MySpace.

Most of the teens on Twitter followed on the order of 40-70 other people (with fewer followers). Who they followed included a smattering of other teens and a collection of big names – celebs, bloggers, geeks. There wasn’t much discussion on their feeds about the number of people following them but they frequently highlighted how many tweets they had. I was surprised by how many of them would write a tweet saying nothing more than “this is my 1207th tweet!” Their content is primarily phatic in nature with an eye for updating as often as possible.

The most salient visceral reaction that I got when looking at the teens’ Twitter streams was that teens on Twitter seemed to fit into three categories: 1) geeky teens, tech teens, fandom teens, machinema teens; 2) teens who are in love with the Jonas Brothers/Miley Cyrus, musicians, or another category of celebs; 3) multi-lingual foreign teens with friends/followers around the world who seemed to participate in lots of online communities.

While I can’t make any meaningful conclusions until I spend more time with the data, it seems to me that the teens on Twitter – or at least the teens responding to the trending topic – are not representative of teens as a whole. That’s not a bad thing. They’re geeks and passionate creators and trendsetters and pop culture addicts. I don’t get the sense that they’re dragging their friends into Twitter, but rather, focusing on using Twitter to engage with other people who share their interests or people that they admire.

By Charlene Li: Many companies approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — a blog here, a podcast there — to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. Forrester categorizes Social Computing behaviors into a ladder with six levels of participation; we use the term Social Technographics® to describe a population according to its participation in these levels. Brands, Web sites, and any other companies pursuing social technologies should analyze their customers’ Social Technographics first and then create a social strategy based on this profile.

B2C Profile Tool

Companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — a blog here, a community there — to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.

Forrester’s Social Technographics® classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see short presentation). Forrester Research’s Consumer Technographics® data covers hundreds of brands and behaviors globally — customers of specific retailers and car owners by brand, for example. Work with us to profile your customer base, then develop a social technology strategy.

B2B Profile Tool

Social media give a voice to buyers who can now describe their experience and disappointment to a global audience. And, wow, are they saying a lot. Forrester surveyed more than 1,200 business technology buyers and found that they exceed all previous benchmarks for social participation.

B2B marketers, eager to know how social media fits into the marketing mix, can use the Social Technographics® Profiles of business decision-makers to design marketing programs that not only capitalize on emerging social behaviors but also fundamentally change the nature of the marketing relationship between B2B buyers and sellers.

Original Source: Groundswell

Data comes from the following surveys:

US: Forrester Research’s North American Technographics® Interactive Marketing Online Survey, Q2 2009 (US), 4,766 respondents
Europe: Forrester Research’s European Technographics® Benchmark Survey, Q2 2009, 25,932
Asia Pacific: Forrester Research’s Asia Pacific Technographics® Survey, Q2 2009, 7,652

By Charlene Li: Many companies approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — a blog here, a podcast there — to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. Forrester categorizes Social Computing behaviors into a ladder with six levels of participation; we use the term Social Technographics® to describe a population according to its participation in these levels. Brands, Web sites, and any other companies pursuing social technologies should analyze their customers’ Social Technographics first and then create a social strategy based on this profile.

B2C Profile Tool

Companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — a blog here, a community there — to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.

Forrester’s Social Technographics® classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see short presentation). Forrester Research’s Consumer Technographics® data covers hundreds of brands and behaviors globally — customers of specific retailers and car owners by brand, for example. Work with us to profile your customer base, then develop a social technology strategy.

B2B Profile Tool

Social media give a voice to buyers who can now describe their experience and disappointment to a global audience. And, wow, are they saying a lot. Forrester surveyed more than 1,200 business technology buyers and found that they exceed all previous benchmarks for social participation.

B2B marketers, eager to know how social media fits into the marketing mix, can use the Social Technographics® Profiles of business decision-makers to design marketing programs that not only capitalize on emerging social behaviors but also fundamentally change the nature of the marketing relationship between B2B buyers and sellers.

Original Source: Groundswell

Data comes from the following surveys:

US: Forrester Research’s North American Technographics® Interactive Marketing Online Survey, Q2 2009 (US), 4,766 respondents
Europe: Forrester Research’s European Technographics® Benchmark Survey, Q2 2009, 25,932
Asia Pacific: Forrester Research’s Asia Pacific Technographics® Survey, Q2 2009, 7,652

Original Source: Using Social Media To Redefine The Customer Experience, Analysis by: Josh Weil, CEO & Co-founder,Youth Trends, Inc.

Summary

As social media technologies increasingly become viable marketing solutions, there are significant emerging opportunities for retailers to rethink how they deal with their younger customers. With new tools, resources and learnings released daily, the notion of an improved and technologically enhanced customer experience strategy adds real and tangible value to the factors that influence shopper actions and transactions.

Analysis

The objective of creating a social-media enhanced customer experience strategy is ultimately one that is unique and differentiated from your competitive set. Moreover, a tech-infused customer experience strategy should be able to deliver positive experiences for teens and college students across all channels, which will drive favorability and loyalty. When all is said and done, perhaps the most powerful characteristic of a sound social media led customer experience strategy is the fact that your brand or service won’t necessarily be competing on price alone. Social media marketing isn’t just about communicating a brand’s value; it’s about constantly confirming its value through relevant communications and interactions. Over the next 12 to 18 months, we strongly feel customer experience strategy will move up the value chain as behaviors and actions teens and college students demonstrate before, during and after the transaction become significantly easier to identify, monitor and analyze. We’ve outlined a series of best practices to consider and highlighted examples of companies and brands with leading customer experience strategies.

• Enhanced Customer Experience Strategy Considerations Intelligence Build – inclusive of all relevant pieces of information regarding your products, services and other related offerings that you want your youth customer to know. Equally just as important is the consideration of the ideal target market segment based on their activities and interactions via branded social media applications and services
• Empower – stimulate ongoing feedback through multiple communications channels including blog posts, email, fan pages and live events
• Review & Share – leverage all of the intelligence gathered and share throughout all applicable groups within the organization including but not necessarily limited to marketing, research, brand management and product development
• Ongoing Engagement – one characteristic the customer experience leaders all share is their willingness and effectiveness in providing an ongoing communications stream with their customers that results in further intelligence and learnings
• Seamless Integration – customer experience should be consistent and retain the brand’s equity regardless of the channel
• Optimization – a continuous evaluation of the intelligence build will enable you to both adapt to current customer needs and interests and potentially identify new target segments

Customer Experience Leaders

Zappos – Although the number two online retailer among teens and college students is probably best known for its success in utilizing social media to build their brand, the true key to their popularity and growth is the shopping experience they offer their customer base. The Zappos customer experience strategy centers on their service approach. In a word, it’s tremendous. Beyond just allowing customers to return products for up to year without a reason, they offer personalized one-to-one communications through various channels and reward their most loyal customers (who typically are also their most vocal) with special promotions like free shipping. For Zappos, their relentless focus on their customers’ needs and wants has been quite rewarding as it’s grown into a billion dollar business in less than ten years.

Apple – It was certainly no accident the company changed its name from Apple Computer to Apple a few years back. The purveyor of all things technologically cool literally transformed itself into the ultimate consumer facing company that sells experiences instead of unfashionable looking desktop computers. Its focus on a simple and rewarding customer experience has turned not just the technology world on its head, but the retail sector too as evidenced by the success of the Apple retail stores. What is also unique for Apple is that their customer experience really gets revved up after the purchase. Or you can think of it this way, without iTunes where would the iPod be, or sticking with current trends, would the iPhone be as successful as it is without the App Store? The company was quick to realize in their transformation to a consumer company that their customers value experience, not just cool technology. Regardless of your industry or product category, you should definitely be able to pick something up from Apple.

Bank of America – Banking is generally one of those touchy subjects for teens and college students. Bank of America realized early on that they needed to build and develop relationships with the youth market and were one of the first to offer student-specific banking services. Bank of America was also an early adopter of social media, a pretty bold move for a company under a media microscope since the start of the financial crisis last year. Their customer experience sets a pragmatic tone of accessibility and convenience for the typically transient young adult. And just as important, its social media offerings help distill it from an image of being a stodgy old company that should be approached in the same way one would approach a library. It’s no coincidence that Bank of America’s iPhone app was the top financial services-related app downloaded by college students through the first half of 2009.