Uncategorized Immediate Future

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The end of October brings pumpkins and other Halloween paraphernalia to the fore of our local supermarkets. In a matter of weeks, if not days, these will be replaced with Christmas products, displays and information on how to make catering for the big day easier. Some people (like my…

People say that there is someone in this world for everyone. Well the same is true of social media sites. Fed up with Facebook? Tired of Twitter? Loathing LinkedIn? Why not try one of these social networks? Although you are going to need some pretty niche interests to…

All brands, big or small, can benefit from market research. And it can feed into an organisation at any level – whether that is for something as big as a re-brand; a change in strategy; a product launch; or something as ‘simple’ as a seasonal campaign. However, market research…

With the very recent developments in GIF posting on both Facebook and Twitter becoming somewhat relaxed the temptation to get involved in what seems like the most irresistible comedy action on social seems inevitable. When one can express themselves through the most iconic subtitled…

IF have been working in social for more than eleven years, and this question has consistently been asked throughout. “PRs will shape your narrative and manage your reputation – as we’ve been doing for years with your media relations”, some might say. Marketers will challenge: “now social is…

In the wake of the 2007 global financial crisis, many depositors have grown wary of over-sized banking behemoths taking high risks with their money, while corporate borrowers have been locked out from loans as those same lenders curbed their excesses and conformed with a plethora of new and…

We all know the 50+ generation is hot on social. 2014 figures from Adweek showed that one in five Twitter users are over the age of fifty and 49% have a Facebook account. So how does one go about targeting this age group aside from age?…

Following recent conversations with various clients, marketers and other agency peers there seems to be an element of obscurity and misconception on the actual role of the ‘community manager’. The term commonly adopted for someone who sits on communication channels for followers, fans and audiences of brands, companies and networks…

Whether you are a budding blogger, a professional journalist, or just trying to ramp up your brand’s content portfolio, Facebook’s latest content offering could prove a useful app with which to familiarise yourself. For years, tabloid newspapers and radio stations have been citing celebrity comments prised from verified Twitter…

In recent weeks there have been a few big stories surrounding Emoji that represent the turning of the tide as more and more social platforms adopt them as the future. Firstly Twitter have sold the first of their new offering “Admoji” or custom Emoji, to Coca-Cola to promote…

If you work in social media, you’ll be used to hearing the term ‘real-time’. It’s been one of the hottest industry talking points since Oreo’s ‘dunk in the dark’ tweet. In reality, using social media to communicate at speed has been on brands’ radars for far longer than…

With Instagram Ads slowly rolling out to engagement-hungry marketers, and Twitter adding advanced coverage of all events as well as upping their game on Windows 10 and iPad Twitter apps – where does that leave the ever-dominant Facebook? With the…

From Iceland to India, Twitter ads are open for business, and the global reach of its network of 100,000 active advertisers is about to get a whole lot larger! Although late in the game compared to other social networking giants, the event marks a substantial…

As brands become comfortable with social customer service, crisis response, in-house community management and even some command centre style executions, the thirst for an ‘always-on’ approach to marketing only gets more intense. Let’s face it, it’s sexy stuff, some would say a necessity but it ain’t that…

Video is racing ahead of any other medium on the web. It’s capability to lead on engagement and shareability is undeniable. Web consumers are eating up video at a rate that is literally shifting mainstream provision from larger production channels. On demand services like Netflix are clearly challenging…

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…

The quality of today’s brand engagement is seeing owned content and publishing flourish at rates and volumes almost unseen before. Out of all the most current HD, Hi-Res, 3V, native-video, animated gif and micro-moment storytelling the most creative, responsive, quality-consistent and to-the-second content is winning. Some of the…

The oldest enemy of e-commerce has always been customer drop-off, losing potential customers during various points in your purchase funnel as they slip through the gaps in your carefully crafted user journey. It often left us feeling like Wile E. Coyote trying to catch Roadrunner. In-app commerce could…

This month both the London Times and Financial Times have run horror stories about social media. The FT featured its own FT/ICSA Boardroom Bellwether survey which found that just over a third of FTSE350 index companies have never discussed a social media policy, while roughly the same proportion…

In honour of their 20th birthday, Amazon have declared today to be Amazon Prime Day and are celebrating in a big way with a 24 hour global sales extravaganza billed as having even more bargains up for grabs than Black Friday. With exclusive member-only deals…

While immediate future and some of its clients enjoyed the hottest day of the year beside the River Thames at the very enjoyable Henley Royal Regatta on July 1, another hot event was taking place across a wider pond over in Washington DC. Heralding a new digital dawn…

If you’re not already ‘paying to play’, you should be. Get your targeting right, and your customer engagement rates can be as high as 20%. It is compelling data like this that is helping to evidence the success of paid social versus above the line (ATL) advertising.

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE! Facebook have made a few significant changes to how video ads work on both mobile and desktop clients. Firstly the new pricing options for video ads, which will now offer advertisers the option of paying for video ads only when they are viewed…

There’s endless bloomin’ rhetoric on how you make content relevant in social media and beyond. It is after all, the hottest topic in marketing. It’s proven that the greater the relevancy and context, the more content resonates with audiences. The more it resonates, the more…

According to Tinder’s website the total number of user swipes is around 1.6billion, with around 26million matches being made daily. It is also one of the most popular applications on both iOS and Android devices, making it a lucrative channel for any brand that wants to try this controversial…

It’s been 20 years since Bill Gates uttered the famous words “content is king” – and for the last two decades, it has been a mantra by which marketers have lived. But mobile and smart technologies have changed the way that people interact with brands and their content,…

Facebook’s presence is becoming ever more omnipotent, as Sir Martin Sorrell stated how Google’s dominant position in online advertising is threatened by the social networking giant. This may not be surprising to some, as Facebook beat YouTube in terms of desktop video views for the first…

Recently there has been a lot of talk about Twitter’s supposedly secret upcoming feature, Project Lightning, and it’s easy to see why. What we do know is that it will curate and display events-based content in rich feeds which will be visible whether the user is logged…

The festival season is here and brands globally are cashing in on sponsorship, branding, presence and product demos of all kinds; taking over stalls, stages, arenas, performers and musicians to get in front of the most dynamic audiences, be in the background of their selfies, and inevitably be part…

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…

As more marketers are taking innovative steps toward reaching their target audiences on digital channels, it is becoming even more important for the messages they are pushing to be as relevant as possible. The most effective way to gain relevance like this is to use the digital data at…

With the introduction of the modern computer in the 1950s through to modern-day hand-held devices, technology has empowered us to communicate and process facts faster. It has also forced us to assimilate data and phenomena quicker. But as a result of that faster data and message transmission, we…

Industry events, trade shows, exhibitions and all the other events that companies have to attend are, in many ways, a necessary evil. They are great fun, and they show the industry that “we are still here and we mean business”. However, more often than not, they cost the earth…

A recent article published by the FT has announced that several mobile providers may soon be launching ad blocking software over their networks. This new service, developed by an Israeli start-up, Shine will block most types of advertising on mobile devices, including…

It’s no secret that social media connects millions of people worldwide and has irreversibly changed the way we interact. The abundance of social media platforms has necessitated a change in the way brands engage with customers,…

With all kinds of summer events on the agenda and the corporate convention season already rumbling away, marketers are increasingly looking for reliable ways to bide the attention of attendees, eager to solidify connection with their target prospects and make sure they stay on their radar to develop a promising brand…

“What’s Twitter saying?” “What’s the hashtag?” So entwined is social to our world, that to get the latest news we often go there first – but are we right to look to Twitter and other social networks to gauge wider public opinion? A study in 2013 by Pew Research…

On Sunday 26 April, alongside around 38,000 other intrepid runners, I ran the 2015 Virgin Money London Marathon (I promise this will be the last time I mention it). To make it harder for myself, I decided to live tweet my way around the course.

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:…

In the event of Klout’s new feature to identify expertise, and the fact that I seem to be increasingly talking more and more to clients around this subject, I thought it seemed timely to discuss influencers. Firstly, what is Klout’s new feature? Well, in a nutshell, it…

A huge change in readily accessible data on social media is about to occur. On 10 March Facebook announced it would be closing off third party API access to its user activity data to make way for something a lot more exciting. Facebook Topic Data.

The hot topic of the moment is Digital Transformation. As you would expect of any agency principle, I regularly attend and speak at events on this very topic. Whilst I applaud the information that is being shared to help inspire and evidence the increasing importance of digital, all…

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…

Here at immediate future we like to stay in shape. Whether it’s running the London Marathon or maintaining brand health, we are always on the ball. With that in mind, we put together the following Social Media Brand Workout to help you keep your…

I recently spoke on the panel at a wonderful Social Media Leadership forum event hosted by Founder Justin Hunt, on the theme of how to embed a data driven culture. Whilst by title, the focus was on social media, it was inevitable that we…

Finding yourself in a new location, town or city can be quite daunting. But being able to connect to others and discover new venues can be key to quickly getting the most out of your new whereabouts. On a…

Are private messenger platforms due an overhaul? The latest trends suggest that brands are looking to leverage their customer interaction with product information, advice and sheer selling. Is private no longer private, as the messages get commercial? Private messaging has been around for yonks. In the late 1980s the…

Clinton passed on an ostentatious announcement, and opted for online social conversations to kick-start her campaign for the White House. And the buzz which followed was far greater than fellow candidates from the opposing Republican Party. After announcing her presidential bid, last Sunday via YouTube, Clinton has…

On 26 April, I’ll be running the Virgin Money London Marathon for the very first time. My IF colleagues all think I’m completely bonkers, and after 5 months of (barely) training, I’m starting to agree with them. Why is this blogworthy, you may ask. Well, despite…

It is one of the UK’s fastest-growing retailers and its name and mission have shunned the city centre for nine years. But notonthehighstreet.com, which recently underscored its aversion to the high street by opening its new Surrey headquarters overlooking the Richmond roundabout, has ambitions to –…

Yesterday I spent the day with one of our global clients getting into the nitty-gritty of social compliance. As a business operating globally, they sensibly wanted to understand the latest social regulations, ensuring their social media policy was updated – sage advice indeed, I would urge any business to…

There is a lot of social noise when it comes to travel. From flights and holidays to hotels and destinations; brands and consumers alike are chatting, posting and broadcasting on social media. In all that noise though, there is insight that can change the game for travel brands. Get…

Your audience on social media can be a fickle, and tricky one to crack. But it’s a quest worth fighting for! Did you know an astonishing 47% of people who follow brands on social are more likely to visit the company’s website? Precisely why it’s…

Occasionally we all need to brush up on our social etiquette, so immediate future have produced this useful infographic of some of the worst things a brand can do on social media. There are plenty of lists of what you should be doing on social media to further your…

Whether you’re at the beginning of your journey working in digital or progressing a career, it seems to me that conventional paths to success are not all that common. In fact, getting on in tech often comes from idiosyncratic and unorthodox approaches. This Sunday, I had the rare and…

Did anyone hear about Madonna’s fall last week? Well, yes I think the whole world did and they heard about it in the precise moment even if they weren’t watching the Brits. #BRITs2015 anyone? The power of social. By the time the newspapers had printed…

So Facebook has at last, after 4 years, got its patent to identify influencers and experts in a social network. And so influencer marketing comes back centre stage. I say it comes back, because when immediate future started 11 years ago, influencer marketing was a…

Moving pictures. The phrase has been around for more than one hundred years but in 2015 they really are just that. Only the buzz name for them is cinemagraphs. And they are the next big thing in social media and marketing opportunities. Based on the humble GIF file, they…

Fireworks illuminated the skies across Asia as millions celebrated the Year of the Sheep on Thursday. Wednesday night, Lunar New Year’s eve, was marked by loud booms as people set off firecrackers across china and families came together to enjoy the festivities. In China over 600 million people…

Voice is a big thing for me this week, partly because I have a cold and appear to be losing mine, but mostly because so many brands on social, need one. There is just no excuse for posts and tweets that are vanilla, samey and predictable? After all,…

Today I am going to show you how you can take your pre-made video content on your desktop computer and turn it into a Vine in 4 easy steps. Of course the real first step is producing some really top quality video content, but here’s some I…

It is very exciting to be at immediate future at the moment! Everyday we are having conversations with intelligent people at brands who are embarking on a digital transformation journey. Within the first few slides in our presentation documents we share a common immediate future belief “social is not the…

People who spread racial hatred on social media could soon be issued with ‘Internet ASBOs’ under new proposals from a group of UK MPs. The proposals seek to ban users who persistently spread racial hatred online by extending existing legislation that prevents convicted sex offenders accessing the Internet,…

A lot we think. I saw a quote last week in an article that was shared by @SaraFdezM that got me thinking – if social helped get Barack into the white house – when will it catch up in the UK elections? As…

Brands are demanding results from social media. They want ROI. Quite rightly too. Social has matured and now investment is required for paid and organic (and the content to go with it all). Yet 52% of marketers say they still struggle to prove the worth of…

Sometimes brands make mistakes. Sometimes they are huge, glaring, thousand foot high mistakes in neon pink and people usually have something to say about it on social media. In the ramp up to Super Bowl XLIX last night (the most social superbowl ever!) many brands released…

Even ostriches don’t bury their heads in sand; it’s a myth that probably originates from the birds defensive behaviour of lying low and pressing their long necks to the ground in an effort to be less visible. I’m no longer shocked by the volume of brands…

What can we learn from the health and fitness industry when it comes to engaging customers? Every January marketers spend thousands of pounds on health and fitness campaigns, targeting Brits who are trying to shed their Christmas pounds and fulfil their New Year resolutions of being fitter and…

Last week Facebook and LinkedIn announced their intention to focus on social enterprise. Facebook at work launched with small scale trials by invitation. It functions like Facebook, but allows for a separate login and the opportunity to keep work and personal separate. LinkedIn, already considered the…

We use the LinkedIn paid platform for clients on a daily basis. Despite its rather dated layout and reasonably thin set of features (when compared with the big boys like Google and Facebook), there is no doubt, for me, that LinkedIn still very much has the…

Social channels are constantly evolving and keeping up to date with the optimum way to use each one can be a big task, so immediate future have made this handy guide to optimising your social content to the channel of your choice. Statistics have shown that the…

As we move through social media maturity, with some organizations already focusing on optimizing activity and performance based models, the question is – when does social media just become part of everything else? And what is the future of the social media department or even team?…

There are almost 10,000 vacancies for social media manager on Indeed right now and the numbers keep on growing. In fact there are even more jobs in social media, especially when you search for social analyst, content manager, editor and the many burgeoning job titles. There are university courses…

At the back end of last year myself and a colleague delivered a social media training session to a customer service team – slightly different audience to the marketing bods that we are used to. And what was the purpose of the session? It’s actually something that we as…

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year The team would like to thank you all for your continual goodwill and loyalty throughout the past year. It’s been a fantastic 2014 and your support has been amazing. Expect to see a lot more of Immediate Future in 2015 as we…

2014 has been something of a segmentation process for the top social media channels. Revealing the true age, genuine activity and fluctuating engagement levels of some of the most active social groups. Despite attempts by Twitter to take action to re-engage dormant users with features like custom news feeds during the World Cup…

This week has seen two horrifying terrorist attacks, the Lindt Café Siege in Sydney and the Peshawar School Attack, both resulting in tragic loss of life and inspiring heartfelt online responses in the form of the hashtags #ILLRIDEWITHYOU and #IndiaWithPakistan Monday saw Sydney struck by terror when at…

You’re on your phone, in an app, an ad pops up, what are you more likely to spend your money on? • A Jacket • A Meal • An App SPOILER ALERT; It’s an app. Everyone and their mum wants you to download their app these days, from…

This week, Twitter came out in force to remember the tragic death of Australian cricketer Phil Hughes, with a range of poignant hashtags. The first of the Phil Hughes hashtags was #63notout – a reference to the score he was on when he was hit on the neck…

It has been predicted that this year’s Black Friday will be the fastest growing online sales day of the year, with an estimated 28% year-on-year growth in sales (Social Bro) in the US. Over here in the UK Black Friday has also been taking retailers by storm, thanks mainly to…

Snapchat have joined forces with online payments company Square to bring you the latest peer-to-peer money transfer service, Snapcash. Simply put, it means Snapchat users can now transfer funds to contacts as easily as starting a chat, typing a dollar sign followed by an amount and hitting…

Over the weekend The Sunday Times reported on yet another big social media valuation, this time it was Snapchat’s turn to grab the headlines with a $12bn valuation. It follows the highly anticipated first ad running across the messaging platform last month – a 20 second trailer for horror…

This post has been inspired this week by a hell of a lot of model drawing, inter-brand and agency conversations – scoping the models that will shape our clients in 2015 based on sterling work during this year so far in the real-time social arena. Then this video came…

When the social world swarms around an issue or to protest, change happens (most of the time). In many instances this is for a greater good – for injustice, to correct a wrong, or defend a situation. From the world changing Arab Spring; to the recent, and heart-warming, search…

Sourcing fresh content that genuinely engages and adds value among your community is always a challenge. Making sure you discover content that is not only fresh but also on-trend and totally relevant for curating back to your social following is key…

5 Reasons Why You Should Be Using Infographics The use of infographics in marketing and on social media is nothing new but here are a few reasons why you should be using these incredibly versatile tools; 1) 90% Of Information Transmitted To The Brain Is Visual. Your eyes have…

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…

The rise of Clickbait headlines on social networks is a content marketing tactic that we’re all familiar with, and many of us now bored with. From Buzzfeed to Upworthy, Clickbait has garnered some content aggregate sites with unprecedented hit ratios in the last few years. However, Facebook has…

The next phase of The Government Cyber Streetwise has launched. This time it’s tackling the subject of passwords. On average a person will have between 19 to 26 online accounts, (figures according to Experian), 25-34 year olds being the most prolific users with no fewer than 40 online…

Nearly one in two people in the UK will get cancer. But, as we learned from Amanda Neylon, Macmillan Cancer Support’s Head of Digital at the Social Speakeasy, 38% will not die from the disease. Macmillan exist to improve the lives of everyone living with cancer. Engaging and inspiring others…

Pinterest has solidly established itself as one of the top visual content-sharing platforms, primed with plenty of user-generated content but also curates content itself, through its Pin Picks feature – a lesser-known collection of a few of the Pinterest team’s “favourite things”, compiled in…

In a world where the constant battle to strive to make things smaller and smaller seems to be never ending, the boys (and girls!?) over at Tiny Circuits have created a miniature screen that you can put on…well…basically anything. At an inch across (diagonally), the…

Yesterday we wrapped up a social command centre for the Thomson Reuters brand Accelus OrgID. It has been a week of frenzied content creation, tweeting and posting. All designed to amplify the company’s presence at Sibos 2014 (a major financial trade conference) and drive leads. And in our…

Despite the ubiquitous nature of social media and its increasing impact in digital marketing, the majority of marketers fail to maximise the channel’s full potential. We are seeing it time and time again. What many seem to have forgotten is that social is sold on relationships. In an…

It’s official. Instagram Ads are going live in the UK. Like Pinterest before them, the photo sharing app is evolving into an advertising hub for social businesses. Having tested sponsored ads with select partners such as Channel 4 and Waitrose, all UK brands will soon have the opportunity to promote…

Since yesterday, Dave Lewis, Chief Executive at Tesco, has been in the firing line. He is new to the role and battling against a crisis that, whilst not of his making, puts him centre stage. Yet a search on the networks shows that Mr Lewis…

“Luxury retailers are leading the way with in-store technology” was the title of an article that I read recently and something I have been watching for a while. Yes, because I have a natural interest in fashion but also for me I really believe that…

News flash! B2B marketing is emotional. More and more marketers are recognising the importance of psychology behind purchases, and the emotional state that customers are in when they connect with a brand. Not dissimilar to the concept of H2H (human 2 human). Brands need to lose the unnatural techie jargon…

Safe and small micro-sharing apps like Cluster have been adopted as a new way of sharing sensitive or more private information & content with a select group of people. In an attempt to compete in this space and allow its users to share information more selectively, Facebook is…