2016 Immediate Future

Archive: 2022

How you respond to negative comments says more about your company than any other thing you do. Whenever you respond to anything online (and often even offline), you are never responding to just one person. Even if it’s a simple DM. Your answer can always be seen and judged by…

For those of you who have somehow avoided the awesome spectacle that was the marketing campaign for the latest Marvel movie, Deadpool, here is my salute to a truly fantastic piece of work. The Fox Marketing team and Reynolds. – 20th Century Fox The Ryan Reynolds…

For many brands using social media to generate sales, the priority list often consists of lead generation, brand awareness, content creation, campaign management and customer service. Whilst all of these can play a major role in creating sales, one important item is missing from that list – online reviews. A…

These days there are more ad blockers than most people have had hot dinners. The most popular ad blocking companies now hold all the power, and have completely changed the landscape of digital advertising. In an aim to monetise their service, some ad blocking providers are essentially blackmailing companies into…

From conferences to books and a plethora of blog posts, we are obsessed with targeting Millennials – especially through social media. But there is a hidden gem on social media. A demographic that at best is being ignored and at worst stereotyped. “Wake up to the social savvy seniors, or…

You may or may not have noticed, but your Twitter timeline has changed – it will no longer automatically show Tweets in chronological order. We know Twitter users don’t like change, and with a raft of changes announced in the past few months and weeks, including the furore around…

Recently Guinness launched a new advert but instead of the ad creating a perfect storm stemming from TV it was actually Instagram as the medium of choice. Guinness opted for the new 60 second ad placement in a bid to engage a younger audience, branded content has the most impact…

As the most romantic weekend of the year approaches, I am once again filled with joy as I get to spend it working with one of my favourite clients, working in a fast-paced, action-packed, real-time social media command centre. Social listening has become more than accepted by almost every business…

Don’t you love when you finally have a grasp on something only for it to change instantly? Both Twitter and Facebook have announced major changes coming to their platform. Both of them have one thing in common: the focus on bringing value to their…

The internet has drastically transformed our lives and there is no question that it’s an incredible tool, but as with every rose, there comes a few thorns! The negative issues it has brought to the fore range from cyber-bullying and trolling, through to increasing concerns over data privacy. And it’s…

Superbowl; The Olympic games of modern marketing and definitely a leading event in competitive and cutting edge digital marketing tactics. More than with any Superbowl before, brands were positioning their narrative across multiple channels (TV, Social; Twitter Snapchat, Instagram) on an increasingly active timeline, talking to different channels and audiences…

Regular readers of our blog will know that for well over a year we’ve been advocating the importance of micro-moments and owning them – “owning the moment” is lorded in every brainstorm we have at the agency. Our philosophy is built around identifying the many micro-moments relevant to a brand…

A colleague and I recently had the pleasure of joining the fab team at Twitter HQ for their ‘Plan for 2016’ agency talk. It was an informative session, involving a large handful of top UK social media agencies revealing extensive insight into how 2015 played out, and upcoming plans and features for the platform in 2016 (follow all the highlights on Twitter via #planfor2016). immediate future usually…

Many of you might be surprised to read that the seemingly infinite hoard of Facebook users click the iconic “like” button more than 6 billion times a day, driving the relentless social machine that is rapidly absorbing the Internet. This, however, was not enough for Facebook’s chief product officer Chris…

Bill has been a busy man, appearing on Facebook feeds up and down the country, leading by example with his behaviour and etiquette. His dedicated Facebook page has 1.5 million fans and counting. Now you may or may not want to “be like Bill” – his memes definitely split opinion.

The idea behind curation is to link and/or excerpt the work of others. Therefore, social has always been about content curation, but most businesses don’t have the time, staff, skill set or budget to regularly publish great content and that’s where content curation comes in. Why curate content? Audiences do not…

Monday 1st February sees the launch of Shield 5. The UK’s first ever Instagram-only drama series. By no means the world’s first Instagram-only TV show, as US audiences have enjoyed several platform-dedicated shows in the past: Desert Friends Artistically Challenged…

…it’s something that grabs hold of my brain tightly, keeps me awake now, daily and nightly. Ok well, maybe not quite, but it does get me thinking a lot…. Joining the dots between teams, countries, platforms and technologies in a bit to marry data sets at scale is a tall…

Firstly, I want to start by saying….I hope this is not the beginning of the end! I, for one, love Twitter and hope it is here to stay. However, it is hard to ignore the ongoing share drops, negative news coverage and acquisition rumours. As the mainstream press reported Twitter’s…

With the 82% rise in ad-blocking software, marketers are increasingly re-allocating resources away from digital display ads and drawing their attention to social. If you do have a slice of marketing budget assigned to social advertising, the rewards may very well be fruitful, and…

I’m sure that many of you are well versed in brand building in the traditional sense, but when it comes to your own personal brand, how would you rate your online brand identity? These days, everything from landing a new job to scoring a hot date can result in an…

Sharing third party content is a major part of social media, as I’m sure you’re aware from the countless Buzzfeed lists of ‘things that only kids born in the 90s with Ninja Turtles as parents who watched Friends and grew up in a village will understand’ that appear on your…

Charles Darwin once famously said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”. Fast forward to the 21st Century and Darwin’s principle of ‘survival of the fittest’ is still very much relevant, although this blog won’t…

Demographic data has always been key to any marketing or social strategy. After all, the most compelling campaigns were based on understanding what makes a target audience ‘tick’ – think of the Dove campaign for Real Beauty, the famous ALS Association’s Ice Bucket challenge…

Facebook is rapidly becoming the all-singing-all-dancing internet within the internet it has been aiming for for years. Here are a few functions Facebook products have that you might not know about: PAGES Pages is one product by Facebook that has…

The brakes are off, the lights are green and 2016 is well underway. 10 years after Twitter was founded and Facebook became a mainstream platform, another batch of social media strategies are being rolled out by marketers. Objectives will include lead generation, reach and awareness, community growth and improving sentiment.

Gone are the days when you would receive updates from politicians through a press conference or televised announcement. Instead, more and more state officials are opting to voice their policies and connect with their constituents through popular networks like Twitter and Facebook. According to Pew Research, 61%…

The folk over at Smart Insights reminded me last week about the deluge of content churning through every social media platform. Much has been written about getting the content right. Investing more time, resource and money in storytelling and crafting visuals that resonate. But this is only…

Of all of the consumer tech and social media news coming out of #CES2016 last week, I wasn’t expecting news of a new Twitter ad product to be one of the most talked about. But with its ‘brand enthusiast gallery’ (purely a working title, I hope),…

It has only been 12 days and the first part of prediction 1 in our Blog 28 things guaranteed to happen in social in 2016 may soon become a reality. We predicted that a ‘Shiny new platform labelled the ‘next big thing’ will emerge’ and that ‘Digital professionals will…

When I was writing this I did think to myself ‘aren’t we all sick of talking about post-millennials?’ But upon a bit of pre-Xmas digging and realising that these tech-savvy go-getters were going to save Christmas by vowing to spend more than ever before and…

The limit of 140 characters on Twitter is destined to disappear, and may potentially be extended to an incredibly lengthy 10,000 characters, as reported by Re/code. “So what does that equate to in words?!” you may cry. That’s probably the length of a 2,000 word essay! Why…

Back in Q1, 2014, Mark Zuckerburg announced Facebook’s $2.5 billion acquisition of Oculus VR, signalling his intention to bring virtual reality into mainstream digital life. Two years on and Facebook have finally begun taking pre-orders for Oculus Rift. That’s right you can now place…

With the new year come new trends…yada yada yada yes. But there’s no denying, as we try to keep up with the cascading popularity of the annual Consumer Electronics Show or #CES2016, that there are some highlights of this year’s show that hold clear opportunities for the…

And now to hammer home the message (see what I did there?!). Many businesses are still figuring out how to go about exploiting the many benefits of social. The start of a calendar year is usually the time companies discuss needing a social strategy, but are unsure…

As 2015 ended, the good folk at Twitter HQ updated their policy, adding new rules and procedures to combat abusive behaviour and hateful conduct on the platform. The latest update, announced in a blog on December 30th, sees the introduction of the following passage into the abusive…