Data Immediate Future

Data

When you pay for a service, you absolutely need to know the value of it. That’s why reporting is so important. Depending on your needs, reporting can be done over different timescales, can be campaign-based or time-based, and can be pulled for paid or organic media. We know reporting is…

We’re serious about social media. That’s why data analytics and insights get us excited! For a while now, we’ve been drumming into everyone that Facebook and video content are harmonious. So, as we’re all using video, we bet you’re itching to know what Facebook have done with its…

Over the last week, we’ve heard a lot about the data breach between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. 300,000 users shared their data and, as a result, 50 million users had their data taken without their express consent. Mark Zuckerberg has finally made his statement. You can see it …

There’s that supercilious phrase, “if you ‘assume’, you make an ASS out of U and ME”. Bloomin’ awful expression, but it did pop into my head when I read this summary of research on MarketingProfs. It takes a look at how marketers get it wrong when they…

While social media companies are often dragged over the coals as a result of how they handle their platform content, their responsibility to protect vulnerable individuals or how they contribute to the countries they operate in through taxes, there doesn’t seem to be much commentary yet on their suitability as…

Reporting back to senior management with low conversion rates can become the bane of one’s life. And then to top it off, you are probably working extremely hard to persuade for more budget towards your social campaigns. It’s 2017, and you shouldn’t have to battle to prove the success rates…

According to Statista, there are 3.17 billion people online of which, 2.3 billion are active social media users. Yes, you read that right. That figure alone can trigger businesses to invest in social media, with the aim of reaching their target markets. Businesses want to be able…

How many times have you swayed away from social content, thinking, “What pile of absolute fluff?” That’s right- you are todays customer- a well-informed, savvy and socially aware individual who has access to vast sources of data which hold the truths & certainly the untruths of a brand. This could…

Sometimes social gets a bad rep. This is due to the lingering hangover our industry is still suffering from the bad old days of “social rockstars”, “ninjas” and “gurus” who sold vanity metrics at a premium and contributed very little to actual business objectives. The…

Social listening is all the rage when it comes to analysing consumer behavior, determining people’s views of a brand, service or product and comparing a company’s public reputation to its competitors. One of the challenges social listening faces however is the vast majority of social users the internet classifies as…

In the last decade or so, social media has evolved into a data mining, user generated information goldmine, which is drawing ever more attention from those who can interpret the data and put it to good use. This is a…

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…

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…

As a community manager I get to see the back and front end of a lot of audience platforms. Seeing the content that resonates on a community feed and then ‘popping the hood’ to see how the content actually measures up against other posts and types of interactions. Simply gaining…

As we near the end of 2015 I wanted to avoid a ‘social media trends for 2016’ style blog piece. Of course everyone will be eyes on for what is going to happen over the next 12 months, how the platforms will adapt and technology updates will take place. However,…

One of the industry’s earliest and longest standing social data start-ups Brandwatch has raised $33 million series C funding last week, this after raising $22 million series B in 2014. There has been a great deal activity this year in the social intelligence space. Twitter revealed its preferred partner…

Facebook has announced it will be partnering with Eutelsat, a French satellite internet operator, to transmit internet connections to offline parts of sub-Saharan Africa from late 2016. Although it now claims a mindblowing 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook has long been looking to emerging markets…

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you are consuming content online hardly a day goes by without someone somewhere dropping the “M” word. Millennial. “How millennial are you?”; “The Millennials Are Coming”; “10 Surprising Habits of Millennial Art Collectors”;…

Back in the pre-Kardashian era of 2002, HSBC ran a campaign called ‘the importance of local knowledge’ and it’s as relevant today as it was then. More specifically the importance of local dialect in relation to social media. This week Facebook released…

Social data is powerful. We should know, our performance-driven campaigns are based on extracting the right demographic, geographic and psychographic data from unstructured social conversations. It delivers results. Knowing your social data works. It works because we subscribe to the 10:90 rule by Avinash Kaushik who says…

Now, there’s a question! The issue of one of three giants buying Twitter has started gaining some serious traction over the last few weeks. Those giants are, of course, Apple, Facebook and Google. Although there is a viable case for Apple to buy the flagging social network, it seems that…

No, this isn’t another blog about Amazon’s Prime Day. Nor is it a battle-cry for us all to dress in red suits and feast on plates of Turkey during the height of summer. I’m exploring why the brands who have Christmas ‘locked down’ in July, thrive in H2. The banking…

Facebook is as much an evolving ecosystem of data as ever before. We proactively share what we care about with people we care about at some of the most revealing levels of intimacy. It is no wonder that among such an environment of personal information, marketers can use this data…

As busy professionals, I am sure that you often feel stretched for time to complete your ever-growing to-do list. As your inbox relentlessly piles up, have you ever uttered the words ‘there simply aren’t enough hours in the day’? Or if you are super busy, perhaps there aren’t enough minutes…

What is the ‘best’ performing blog? Which piece of content performs the best on my website? What should we make more of? These are all questions I am used to hearing from clients. There are a number of ways to measure ‘success’ and ‘performance’ but before doing so you need…

Holidays: the Holy Grail of the working world. The one time each year where you can kick back in an exotic locale and collect a paycheque for lying in a hammock and reading a dog-eared copy of “Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. The importance we place on holidays…

If you’ve used LinkedIn’s publisher platform in the past, you will now have access to detailed information on how well your content has performed, and the audience it reached. In an effort to be more than just a professional’s social network, and to place itself as a prominent…

As if you didn’t know already, social media is a noisy space. And the latest research from GlobalWebIndex (GWI) gives us one of the reasons why. Because on average people have 5.39 social networking accounts. Now that is a lot of chatter! But here’s the thing: for…

Every 6 months or so another infographic appears informing us of the best times to post on each social media platform. Well I can tell you that most of these timings are unworkable. Useless insight that is meaningless. Why? Because the best times to post depends on a number of…

On Friday night, Twitter announced it is ditching third-party agreements for reselling firehose data. To date, businesses have used Twitter firehose APIs to stream real-time tweets and all related metadata. Friday’s announcement won’t have come as a shock to some, having seen how swiftly Twitter moved to help its streaming…

Being in the business of social media, we like to believe that it helps bring people together, incites communication and debate amongst large groups of people, and simplifies access to that communication. These remain true, and can be backed up with a plethora of hair-raising facts and figures like…

Most people, when they think of the 1960s, will probably recall the ‘swinging sixties’ or the relaxation of social taboos (clothing, music, drugs, sexuality, formalities and schooling). You may even bring to mind the conflict that raged in Vietnam, the Kennedy assassination or the Apollo 11 mission placing Neil Armstrong…

Convenience has been at the fore-front of user experience in computing for at least the last 30 years and for the web, this emphasis on convenience has resulted in the proliferation of easy-to-use login services. After all, who wants to fill in lengthy forms…

New research undertaken by RadiumOne has revealed that of all online sharing activity in the UK, only 26% is visible and traceable by marketers. A staggering 74% of all online sharing takes place in Dark Social, the term for one line content sharing that denies…

Last week, Facebook updated its privacy policy alongside the terms and conditions, with the intention of making them more appealing and comprehensible to users. By launching a new Privacy Basics microsite alongside the changes, it is, on the surface at least, handing more control back to the…

Moves are afoot, and money is being spent, to dig a whole lot deeper into the Twitter conversations. Earlier this year Twitter gave researchers data grants to back-test hypotheses with large quantities of historical data. It is also funding (to the tune of $10m) an MIT programme to analyse social…

It sounds bizarre, but it’s predicted that by 2017 the CMO will spend more on technology than the technology officer will. (Gartner.) Following on our post on the coming age of Social Intelligence, data-driven marketing is…

Last week Katy Howell and Tom Ball shared their insight and experiences in b2b lead generation through social. Get up to date on key takeaways from their live discussion here, and discover the difference that creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content can make to attract your target audience…

It’s more or less been accepted that with targeted advertising online, be that AdWords or social, the main drivers of the targeting algorithms lay in your browser dropping cookies and particularly in social, your likes, shares and other forms of engagement. However is the rise of…

The most tweeted about sporting event in history. The day Germany smashed world cup hosts Brazil in a 7-1 victory. Twitter set out to win big during Brazil 2014 and they continue to excel their own benchmarks in smashing records and taking their event coverage to the…

Want to learn more about your customers? You can with Facebook’s new ‘Audience Insights’ tool! Whilst the feature is currently only available in the US, UK marketers can expect to see a wider expansion in a few short months… And we can’t wait to get our hands on it!…

Many marketers recognise the advantages in using social media, but those sentiments aren’t always shared. Particularly by the board. So the challenge is how to prove social value? We invited Richard Clark, former Online Controller at Argos.co.uk and a founding member of the Marketing team at Best Buy in the…

So this week I am staying away from social media, but looking to gauge responses on topics for staff retention and candidate attraction. Leave a comment below and share what you think about flexible working! This is a sore spot for many people the world over, flexible working, or indeed…

Since the interview aired on BBC Newsnight less than a week ago, social media commentary about the Brand v Paxman debate has exploded. On the official BBC Newsnight YouTube upload of the interview, there has already been 7,562,772 views: that’s a whopping 1,260,462 views per…

Google has developed yet another mind-blowing research tool. Despite the rather unimaginative name, “The Customer Journey to Online Purchase”, it nevertheless provides extremely valuable data to boost the imagination of online marketers, providing even further evidence to treat social media as an integral part of any serious marketing strategy. So…

Health services in South West London are in the process of being reconfigured. Which means the A&E department and maternity ward at my local hospital could soon close. Residents have been told not to worry as it will only take 13 minutes to travel to the reallocated wards in Tooting.

The most romantic week of the year is upon us once again. The cards are stocked, the roses reduced and the restaurants ready for their annual influx of covers. But what can the world of social tell us about Valentine’s Day in 2013. Is this a year of carefree romance…

For those of you who don’t care for American Football you would be forgiven for thinking “what is all of the fuss about?”. Simple answer – Social TV and advertising, it is certainly worth taking note! Real-time conversations are shaping brands all of the time in social, some brands are…

Alan Turing came up with a test for assessing the intelligence of a computer back in the 1950s. A human being and a computer are engaged in natural dialogue and asked the same questions by another human judge. If that judge is unable to distinguish the computer apart from the…

We were delighted to read the news this morning that David Cameron and his team at number 10 are trialing an application which will pull real-time data from social media and other sources to aid with decision making. The application will give the PM an at-a-glance view of how the…