2014 Immediate Future

Archive: 2022

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 have…

With the news over the last few weeks that Instagram now has more active users and at $350m is worth more than Twitter, audiences clearly have a huge appetite for rich content. Short-form video is something that brands are already doing really well, but…

It has been a very busy year for Facebook, from the re-launch of Facebook Atlas; which has opened up up new opportunities for re-marketing without cookies and linking online ad engagement to offline purchases; to Facebook’s rooms, a new way to discover and explore interests with like-minded individuals. It’s clear…

As we near the end of yet another jam-packed year we take a look at a selection of content and in social media predictions as forecasted by leading industry experts. Here are some our favourite predictions from the clever folk over at Strategy Digital: Content will continue…

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 and similar…

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 9:45am a…

The debate that has erupted after Sony’s David Boies’ “cease and desist” letter to media outlets was published invokes the paradoxical nature of trying to control and predict the media a la; have you ever walked into a crowded bar and demanded everyone stop talking?…

You’re scrolling through your newsfeed when a friend shares some unfortunate news, and naturally you want to express your sympathy. Do you click “Like”? It just doesn’t seem appropriate! So how about “Dislike”? It’s a question Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg has recently been mulling over. The suggested addition of the…

Earlier this week YouTube announced its Top 10 most viewed videos of 2014. Coming up in tenth place was the 10 Hours of walking in NYC as a woman showed the multiple harassments she undergoes in one day despite being very…

It’s been a tough time for advertising execs as the industry fights on several fronts; with first the news that half of media spends on display ads via Google may have been wasted on “non-viewable” impressions, to…

This week it seems social is all about search. Led of course by Facebook’s news that it is rolling out its graph search on iOS as a keyword search. Well it is launching in America for now, but coming soon to other countries both on mobile and desktop (and android…

An eye opening study this week released by Google on the state of the ad viewablity has startled advertisers. According to new research, the 5 Factors of Viewability, an estimated 56.1% of ads are not seen by human eyes. If you’re an advertising exec with a media…

New research conducted by Group M has forecasted that in 2015, the UK will be the first country where over 50% of total advertising spend will be allocated to digital and online media. Why? Because we are a nation obsessed with social media, online shopping and all…

From success to scandal, Uber are never far from the headlines. Having announced today the latest $1.2 billion dollar cash injection they have received, you can’t help but ask…How have they created a $40 billion company in 5 years? From stereotypical Silicon Valley beginnings, Uber sprung onto…

Last Christmas they gave us #hareandbear but the very next month they took them away. This year instead of a deer they gave us a penguin, special. This time of year we annually see some of the most engaging social campaigns and as the holidays rapidly approach.

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…

After the madness of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we are all gearing up towards one thing: Christmas. As more people go online to buy and research products, Twitter have got involved with a social commerce launch of their own. That’s right – after giving merchants the ability to sell…

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…

I was tracking the conversation yesterday at the Content Marketing Summit on the #content2014. With the knowledge it was my blog the next day I thought I would perhaps cover the key topics and themes from the event in this post. I took to Crimson Hexagon to help me quickly…

Today the BBC reported a crackdown on paid promotions via vlogging (video blogs). The example was given of Mondelez brand, Oreo, paying well-known vloggers to promote their biscuits (not a new or particularly unethical practice in itself). However, the vloggers did not declare that this was a…

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…

Sharing content that is relevant to your audience at the right time is one of the main facets to success on social channels, but as we heard from Tania Seif at the most recent Social Speakeasy, it is especially important for betting firm Coral. Learning fast and playing catch up…

With 8 in 10 adults in the UK adopting the “second screen” culture and indulging in the availability of endless entertainment and information online, attention spans have dwindled from 12 minutes to 5 minutes over the past 10 years in our offline lives and…

Following a mutually evolving development towards an increasingly more convenient and on-demand service, one focusing on music the other on cabs, it was surely inevitable that the music streaming platform Spotify would partner with taxi-cab booking app Uber for a service that would culturally tie the brands…

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 the green…

As we approach the end of the year, two things are certain that we can look forward to: Christmas [obviously] and 2015 predictions. That’s right, because over the next 6 weeks, the good and the great of social media will be sharing their predictions and forecasts for 2015. Whether it’s…

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…

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 film…

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 up,…

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 for…

John Lewis ads over the past few years have always been a hotly anticipated affair, and for many marks the countdown to Christmas. The department store is renowned for creating highly evocative commercials which tell moving stories around the magic of Christmas and going the extra mile for our loved…

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 to gaining positive…

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 more sensory…

Over the last few years, white papers have become extremely popular and effective as a content marketing tool for B2B marketers. With so many companies pushing their whitepapers, we now have a deluge of content. Has the white paper reached saturation point? White papers have gained significant adoption as an…

Brands use Facebook and Twitter in a variety of ways, most of them very successfully. But as effective as they are, existing channels don’t necessarily result in more sales, page views or direct engagement with the customer. Spot.IM, a free, one-size-fits-all social network, aims to…

Last week the guys over at Facebook Creative Labs launched a new app ‘Facebook Rooms’ – the app seems to take inspiration from the 90’s style chat room where users can create ‘rooms’ based on a specific topic of interest. Rooms can be created around themes ranging from skateboarding and…

Linkedin, the “Facebook for business” has released maps of the USA and Europe converting user’s professional skillsets data by city and area. A welcome step towards providing visualization of Linkedin’s unique mountain of data, the maps released last week provide a…

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…

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 recently changed…

Nestle relaunched the Rolo online brand earlier in October with the classic strapline ‘Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?’ via a series of five videos, and the immediate reaction has been largely positive. They’ve racked up over 180,000 views on YouTube in just over two…

As digital content marketers we are in the throes of two concurrent data revolutions. That of Big Data and secondly, the contextualization of big data. You won’t win customers with Data solely – but when you use…

Social media is saving lives – a bold statement perhaps, however as smartphone usage continues to grow, it is becoming a whole lot easier to contact loved ones and emergency services should a catastrophe hit. Even when power is lost, mobiles can become the go-to tool in emergency situations. Take…

Internet trolls will (from March 2014) face up to two years in jail under new laws proposed by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling. The previous maximum term of 6 months will be quadrupled under the plan to tackle the “cowards” who post abusive comments online. Mr Grayling said the plan…

Content is king, we all know that. But when it comes to social media, particularly when you have so few characters to get your message across, the words you use become incredibly important. We all want to seem intelligent, witty and eloquent when we post on social, but in the…

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 accounts per…

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…

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 partnership with some…

The next generation of social listening is fast coming. Whilst social media offers a vast wealth of consumer data in response to brands and initiatives, solely monitoring the social sentiment will not provide the complete, deep nuances of consumer social interaction. Listen up; your social listening needs to be more…

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…

Having managed communities spanning from global secret music parties to Euro-wide white goods brand, and having been lucky enough to have had both the freedom to experiment with new platforms and new types of content, with the discipline of strict brand guidelines and superb customer service; we feel it’s only…

Focussing on the elements that influence and shape user preferences online, The Social Consumer Study explores how connected consumers are in today’s ‘always on’ environment. What is clear is that buyers are far more likely to invest time, money and trust in an emotional brand – something…

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 experience, real-time…

For many social media users, the answer is a very probable yes! Picture this scenario, you’re out with friends, catching up on the latest juicy gossip – no matter how riveting the conversation may be, hands up how many of you will check your mobile at least once, to get…

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 earlier blog…

With a reported 31,000 sign-ups per hour on Thursday 26th and a current growth rate of double that every day, Ello, a brand new social networking site has already made huge waves in the tech world. The question to ask now is – is this is biggest new hype or…

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…

If you’re like me you probably have an attention span that can only be measured in nano-seconds. To grab your attention online, especially on social media, things need to explode and cartwheel about just to stop you scrolling for 5 seconds. That being the case I…

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 has no…

“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 the fashion…

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…

Social media has changed the way we communicate and engage with politics, igniting grassroots activism, clearly demonstrated in the lead up to last night’s no vote, in the Scottish Independence Referendum. With so many taking to social media to share their 2 cents, it became an open forum for the…

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…

You will soon be able to purchase items from Twitter, as the micro-blogging service announced this week that they are featuring a ‘Buy’ button on tweets. This is a big step for Twitter as they enter the realm of e-commerce, and the new button will sit inside a tweet and…

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 building a…

Little else has dominated UK news headlines in recent months than the impending Scottish referendum. Not satisfied by traditional media coverage, many have taken to social media to voice their beliefs. Individuals, as well as the Yes and No campaign brands themselves, have chosen social to raise awareness and support…

Since the very much unwelcome re-haul of Foursquare there has been much room for location based apps to gain traction with an eager user base. Foursquare’s new check-in app ‘Swarm‘ has totally divided up Foursquare, the platform now having one app to check-in with,…

Unless you live under a rock, you will by now have read about the scandal over the unfortunate (some may argue not so unfortunate!) release of those explicit celebrity pictures leaked all over the internet – ostensibly taken by infiltrating the iCloud accounts of the rich and famous. And the…

Last week we were joined by Clare Izhaky, Head of Social Business for Microsoft Mobile (formerly Nokia) at the Social Speakeasy, who shared some terrific insight into her team’s approach to social media… Don’t be Bob. Who is Bob, you ask? Bob is dull, unsociable, doesn’t listen to people and…

Ever since my first day here at immediate future I have taken a real interest in social media crisis management. It was my first social media project and I really enjoyed researching and reading about crisis management cases. I discovered many different success stories and found an array of horror…

As a new report is published uncovering Police social media behaviour over the last 5 years we discover hundreds of cases of alleged Police misuse or misconduct of ‘social media’. Several cases of officers blurring the boundaries between personal and professional activity often confusing personal authority, professional responsibility…

Mannequins turn hi-tech, revolutionising the window shopping experience, as a select number of retail outlets such as Hawes & Curtis’ in London, House of Fraser’s Aberdeen store and even our very own Bentalls in Kingston will be taking the lead in trialling the innovation. So what is it exactly? Using “beacon”…

As you might expect, being in the social media industry, means I often find my work filtering through into my personal life. It doesn’t help being a self admitting social geek but, I must admit, that I often find myself looking at the engagement and activity of my friends Facebook…

Last week Twitter announced objective based ads. A new way for those using promoted tweets service or Twitter ads’ to set up new campaigns. The new feature allows marketers to create tweets based on their key function and only pay when that function occurs. So if you were trying to…

Twitter has recently unwittingly dropped hints they may be shifting closer to becoming an Ecommerce channel with the discovery of a ‘payments and shipping’ option in the settings window of their android app. The discovery followed a tweet by a developer in South Africa, the window clearly showing a currently…

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…

Do you know which social media sites are best for your business? Most B2C companies would admit they focus their efforts towards Facebook and Twitter, whereas, B2B companies predominately use LinkedIn. Without research and insight it’s easy to make these assumptions, but are marketers are forgetting one of the largest…

Twitter analytics service SocialRank is expanding its service to further evaluate the people who are following you on Twitter, giving you the option to segment your followers by location, keyword searches and a combination of the two. The original version of…

Ever wondered where all those ‘new’ competition entries are coming from on your brand page? Is there a way to attract new page fans that aren’t simply ‘gamers’ but real fans of your brand or product and not simply there for the competition. (Yes, there are people…

Tsunami, Tornado or hurricane – some of our favourite social media platforms, especially the likes of Twitter and Facebook are radically transforming disaster relief efforts. They are serving thousands of citizens with a vital lifeline of information to make preparations ahead of a catastrophe, connect communities during the unfortunate event…

We’ve all been there, a relationship breaks down and you have to think about petty things such as how to share out your joint furniture, how you’ll split the DVD collection and who’ll get ownership of the cat. But in the age of social are there now…

The opening up of the LinkedIn publisher platform is another symptom of a potentially unwell state of content marketing. Quite simply, we are drowning in a sea of content and some of it is just ain’t that good. From the recent Content Benchmarking…

The ability to know what engages your audience has always been important but marketers, consultants and analysis are turning their attention to why? With more social media insights than ever we are empowered with the ability to optimise our social content and this allows us to answer…

immediate future is thrilled to be celebrating a decade in social media; what a landmark! And we’re going to make the most of the occasion. Much to the IF team’s delight, we are having a fabulous party! This is a once in a lifetime moment, after all! We’re looking forward…

There are multiple applications on the market under the “save for later” offering, be it Evernote where you can archive media pieces to read at your convenience or Chrome plugins such as Readability where you can bookmark websites and articles to view at a later date. In recent months the…

Timehop The app service that sends you a reminder of your updates of this time last year, 2 years ago, 3 years and so on, is by no means a new app. However their more recent functionality changes have increased downloads and driven engagements, now enabling users…

A recent survey by LinkedIn has revealed co-worker friendships are key to employee happiness and a thriving workplace – having worked in previous jobs where the office banter was very much lacking, I can definitely vouch for these results! The study of over 11,500 professionals around the globe aimed to…

LinkedIn announced this week that they have acquired social sorting site Newsle. This machine-learning site, scans all social sites to cut out the noise and deliver to you only the most relevant information and content that you are looking for. It has been stated for…

Cover your tracks, you can no longer hide! Snapchat have just released their new geo-filters feature, allowing users to add quick, designed-up location tags to their pictures. Swiping right on a picture once you have taken it creates a text or graphic sticker which gets overlaid onto your picture showing…

Last month we were joined by Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate, perhaps better recognised by their brands Taylors Coffee and Yorkshire Tea. Brand Communications Manager Dom Dwight, AKA Coffee Enthusiast, delivered a presentation on creating inspirational social content. The outcome? We all left feeling rather inspired! Funny and endearing, Dom…

The Brazil vs. Germany game earlier this week was devastating for this year’s hosts, with the sad faces of their fans been made into countless memes and shared relentlessly across social, making it the most tweeted about sports game ever with over 35.6 million tweets posted throughout the game.

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…

Grab your glowsticks and other party paraphernalia as Facebook enhances events discovery with new tool, “Events for you”. Recently reported by Techcrunch, Facebook is optimising its events calendar tool. Not all users will have immediate access whilst the feature remains in its testing stages, but we will see…

2.7 million views. 100 hours a video. 1,388 channel subscriptions. A lot can happen in a minute. We are of course talking about YouTube, the video sharing behemoth that is the third biggest website in a world and not only has millions of views every 60 seconds: it’s also raking…

The days of going to a shopping centre with a group of friends on a Saturday afternoon could be something of a myth soon. The ecommerce boom has meant that more and more of us are taking to our laptops, mobiles or tablets and it doesn’t look like its slowing…

Lithium customer service management tool, used by services such as Spotify and Post Office and Skype, plans to incorporate its, recently acquired, online influence scoring app; Klout into it’s monitoring system. Adding value and unique…

Facebook has come under scrutiny recently over the ethical implications of a study conducted on its user base back in January 2012. The study manipulated over 689,000 user’s news feeds through fixing the sentiment of the content visible in their newsfeed and assessing the effects through “emotional…

Fashion brands are almost always amongst the best in class when it comes to maximising the power of rich and visual content across their digital channels, particularly pioneering activity on visual social networks such as Vine, Pinterest and Instagram. With highly creative, engaging imagery and video content at their fingertips…