Archive: 2022

Whoosh! Another year has flown by, and what a year 2018 was too. Life at immediate future is an absolute rollercoaster and we’ve got our hands in the air while screaming “Woohoooo!!” at the top of our lungs. Thank you to everyone who’s contributed to all the thrills we’ve…
Read More
Since 2016 Twitter users have been frustrated with the way their feed has been presented to them, an issue brought on by changes to the platform’s algorithms. Twitter added this in to highlight current affairs, trends and updates as they happened, meaning that users weren’t always able to see…
Read More
Memes have been around for quite some time now. The word “meme” itself is Greek, meaning “that which is imitated.” Memes are so commonly shared that, based on Google Trends, “memes” are becoming a more popular search term than “Jesus.” Recently, a tumblr user shared what…
Read More
Many of us now turn to online shopping to avoid the queues, the tired feet, the unhappy children you find on a traipse up and down the high street – especially at this time of year. One of the other things we love to avoid is that annoyingly…
Read More
Last week, LinkedIn released some fab blogs about daring to succeed in 2019. Now that sounds like something we definitely want to get on board with. So, of course, we’ve been keeping up, and we’ve summed up the best bits from last week. Audience Trends Let’s…
Read More
  Instagram is testing another new feature to improve the social platform for influential creators. According to The Hollywood Reporter*, a small group of Instagram users are testing new “creator accounts” on the social platform that provides them with added attractive features. Similar to business-focused profiles on Instagram that…
Read More
Facebook has been positioning itself for a TV and movie offering for a while now. It wasn’t long ago that the social network was rumoured to have shown a lot of interest in winning rights to show Premier League football…
Read More
As another year draws to an end, it’s time for Facebook to release the annual ‘Year in Review’, taking a look back at the best (maybe most memorable) things to come out of 2018. And yes, I know what you’re thinking, but honestly it really wasn’t all bad!   The…
Read More
  It’s that time again when everyone looks back on the year to remind themselves of all the work they’ve done and look at what performed really well, what shocked people, what didn’t quite work out as initially thought, etc… It’s a time of reflection but it’s also a…
Read More
Often seen as one of the “old school” social media platforms, we just wanted to check in with you to find out if you’ve kept up with what’s great about Twitter and how to use it best. If you haven’t… perhaps we’ve just solved one of your social…
Read More
      I’m not even going to reiterate to you how fast this year has gone by! But, as the year comes to an end, I thought I would share with you some of the most tweeted topics and trends from Twitter’s annual #ThisHappenedReport.
Read More
Over recent months, we’ve seen a bunch of additions to platforms that encourage users to share, engage with and enjoy music via social media. Harking back hundreds of years, people only heard music in concerts, in churches or concert calls with hundreds of other people. Music was inherently a social…
Read More
The latest Facebook feature allows users to curate and share saved posts with selected friends and collaborators. They’ve packaged this latest update as a way to to make organising gift purchases during this holiday season easier for all their users. Of course, the timing of the launch is meant…
Read More
What’s Driving the TikTok Trend? TikTok, the app born out of the online lip-syncing trend, is now the name on everyone’s lips. Just a few weeks ago, it was the top free app on Apple’s App Store, and inspired a new regular…
Read More
Instagram is hot property right now and slowly but surely becoming Facebook’s golden goose. So it’s no surprise the social giant is putting more efforts in to make sure people are spending even more time inside the app.   One annoyance when it comes to Instagram Stories is that…
Read More
You know that stage, post break-up, where you change your hair or your clothes to make yourself feel better? Well it seems Instagram is doing just that, with new changes being disclosed every week. Just last week we saw the announcement of fake followers being removed from the platform…
Read More
  Right now as we head into the dead of winter, our summer holiday is just a distant memory. But it’s now, as we turn the heating up at home, that we dream of going away. Our latest research makes it clear that social is a…
Read More
When you’re running a campaign, it’s so easy to get WOWed by the longest numbers in your analytics. Reach and impressions are two of the metrics that are likely to be the largest. They’re both important in the right contexts, but there are some other metrics that you may…
Read More
  A new generation, one that no-one can put their finger on to how they became so adept in technology. How they use their spare time to create profiles on social media, that now make them more money than the average degree-holder would make. How they are so influenced…
Read More
Seemingly inspired by Snapchat, LinkedIn has launched a new feature called Student Voices, which has a few similarities to Stories.   In fairness, every other social platform including Twitter and WhatsApp, has their version of Stories so it was only a matter of time before LinkedIn found a reason…
Read More
Does size matter? The latest chatter around Twitter is that it could have been a mistake to gauge the value of accounts on the size of their follower count. With the Facebook algorithm benefitting content with high views and engagement, Instagram cracking…
Read More
  It’s been a good year for social media. Marketers are steadily shifting more of their budgets into social media marketing. In the second quarter of 2018, global advertising spend on Instagram was up 177% year-on-year and, subsequently, influencer marketing continues to grow. But, because social media…
Read More
When was the last time you said yes to the WHSmith or Robert Dyas staff who always say “would you like to try this [product you’ve not picked up, or expressed any interest in] for a pound?” Personally, I always decline. And why is it invariably Cadburys Caramel, or sink…
Read More
It’s often mentioned that Marketing is a combination of Art and Science. It’s totally right! In a recent #SeriousSocial, Katy chatted about how insights and data (science) can open up and direct creative opportunities (art). The pair go hand-in-hand. With a background in Music, and now…
Read More
  What sins have you committed in the past week? Have you told a lie… or a couple? “That pitch you did James was fantastic! I really believe you can take the company somewhere far!” Maybe you’re greed lead you to have more on your…
Read More
Social platforms and search engines don’t always make comfortable bed-fellows. The two digital marketing channels are typically run by competing parent organisations. There’s little reason for Microsoft’s Bing to point its users toward Twitter. The one attempt to combine search and social came from Google. The expectation was…
Read More
It’s not going to come as a surprise to many that the latest statistics on social media use show that we’re spending 24 hours a week* on platforms, or that we’re bombarded with thousands of different types of messages, from several different sources both offline and digital during…
Read More
  Stories have been around for a fair amount of time now and many brands have joined the party. But some of them are thinking even bigger… Hopper, a flight-booking app, has gradually increased its spend on Instagram Stories since the platform enabled mobile app installs last…
Read More
Instagram has got another revenue-generating option for their Story feature in the pipeline, which should prove to be a fantastic addition for their 2 million active advertisers. The update, similar to Facebook’s ‘boost’ option, will make it easier for brands to make their Stories appear as adverts and…
Read More
    2012 was a great year for comedy on the internet, we had Vine! This short-form video platform really stood out in the video market as there were a very limited number of apps that could even try to compete. Snapchat had just launched their 10-second…
Read More
How well do you know your audience and what they want? As a business, you might be in the camp which has spent countless hours in a boardroom scoping out personas and defining which segments are your best to target for purchase. Alternatively, you’re in a business where…
Read More
  It’s curious that since Twitter doubled its character count to 280, people have become politer. The latest data shows that 54% more tweets use the word ‘please’ and 22% use the word ‘thank you’, which is probably making customer service more bearable. Another result from this change is…
Read More
Facebook have announced a variety of new features are coming that will allow users to express themselves through music. It all feels a little MySpace-esque, however, they’re hoping the additions will enhance their focus on moments, as Tamara Hrivnak, Facebook’s Head of Music Business Development says, “moments are…
Read More
 As Aristotle once said: “One swallow does not a summer make.” And, if Aristotle was busy Instagramming today, he would undoubtedly post: “Instagramming a TV Advert does not a Social Media strategy make’. Ok, so he may prefer Facebook over Instagram, as, let’s face it, he’s a little outside the…
Read More
Let’s talk about the value of our client work. We’re wholly committed to doing a great job for every single one of our clients, meeting their individual needs with the aim of smashing goals and making a huge impact in the world, whether B2B, B2C or charity. The work…
Read More
Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest…we could even push it as far as Mumsnet. Your brand could sit on all of those platforms if you truly wanted to connect to ALL demographics. But, which one is right for you? If you want to hear it from a…
Read More
This is probably why we love social media marketing so much: everything changes continuously and evolves constantly!   Not too many years ago the idea of watching a show on a mobile device would have horrified most of us… How could a tiny little screen, such as our…
Read More
The Messenger app for Facebook has been around for a long time, initially launched as Facebook Chat in 2008 and becoming a standalone app in 2011. New features have been added and updates made but a thorough consolidation of purpose and design has been long overdue. The…
Read More
Let me tell you a story… The centrepiece of all business is persuasion, and the greatest vehicle to persuade is storytelling. So is it really a surprise to anyone that the Stories format is growing 15 times faster than newsfeed as a device for people to reach their audiences…
Read More
Every year millions of creatives around the globe wait in anticipation for what is seen as the biggest creative conference in the world – Adobe MAX. Every year it leaves people walking away speechless and this year was no exception. From moving stills to designing…
Read More
We all know that the Facebook algorithm changes almost daily at the moment. With all the constant changes, it’s hard to know what Facebook will now choose to classify as incriminating and will choose to demote, and there’s no doubt that the platform is clamping down on content.
Read More
We’re out and about again! This time, our CEO Katy was captivated by insights at the Brandwatch Now You Know conference, learning how digging up data can open up creative opportunity for brands. Katy’s very own roundtable discussion got people from all sorts of brands fired-up, talking about…
Read More
Twitter used to be the place for short, snappy messages. It still is, to some degree, but in the industry landscape where storytelling is everything, it’s getting more and more difficult to tell story, or even parts of your story in one Tweet. Twitter Moments allow you to create…
Read More
There’s been a great deal of talk over the past few months of the future strategic moves that LinkedIn might be making. As always, LinkedIn is extremely slow at implementing radical changes. The result of this perpetual situation is that the social network of the working people has announced…
Read More
One of the reasons Facebook stands above all other social media networks, is that it isn’t just a social media network. Facebook is a technology giant. That’s why it is in the same category as Google, Apple and Amazon. A lot of this tech is deployed behind the scenes,…
Read More
Since announcing partnerships with publishers out recently, and in the past testing a more Netflix-esque offering, Snapchat brings us news of Snap Originals. Tapping into the lucrative reality show market which frequently gathers herds of young people who often morph into influencers, the new effort…
Read More
It’s fair to say that social media receives more bad press than it gets appraisals. From the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the continuous battle against fake news, the bullying problem amongst youngsters, negative effects on mental health…the list goes on. These issues shouldn’t be ignored, but sometimes…
Read More
Ask any marketer, and they’ll tell you that generating engagement on social media all comes down to persuading your audience to respond to you. In order to persuade, you need to apply simple psychological strategies to trigger emotional responses from your audience, as a result of them viewing…
Read More
It’s exactly 28 days until I hear our Producer and Director speak into my earpiece, issuing the famed cue I so love hearing: “And we’re live in 3, 2, 1”. The production lights will be illuminating our on-location set, and I’ll see the red lights appear on our Blackmagic…
Read More
Facebook updates are endless. If you use the platform to share branded content, you need to know what’s changed and what’s new, but it’s just taking up so much of your time. It might seem like a whirlpool that you keep getting caught up in. Now, they’re building up…
Read More
Can ­­Youtube exist without its UGC base? Surely not in the form we know today, but this might not just be hypothetical speculation. YouTube users are currently leaving the platform at an alarming rate, in favour of the Google video colossus. It seems to be a mix of…
Read More
Letting your friends know where you are to have an impromptu meet-up is a nice idea and something that a number of social networks have tried, with varying success. Facebook views Snapchat’s implementation of the feature as one of the better examples of how it should be done. Given…
Read More
A recent Facebook study using eye-tracking and device-tracking has found that TV viewers are also looking at their smartphones 31% of the time, most often at a social app. More than half of participants’ mobile time was devoted to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
Read More
It’s been 4 years since Facebook bought the messaging app WhatsApp for a whopping $22 billion, and so far the app has remained ad-free. However, that is about to change in 2019, as WhatsApp plans to roll out targeted ads to its more than a billion users.
Read More
  Have you considered making Facebook Groups part of your Facebook marketing strategy? Recent research from Facebook has shown that Groups are seeing more engagement than pages. Groups allow you to start conversations in a way that feels more private, and everyone that joins the Group is likely…
Read More
It’s easy to think that strategy is a siloed task best undertaken by a planning team, but that’s far from the case. The best strategies are delivered by a multi-disciplined team with differing levels of experience. And never more so than when it comes to social media – there…
Read More
  I’ve spent most of this week doing interviews. I’m combing for the next batch of talent to join immediate future. It’s something that I thoroughly enjoy, particularly when a vacant role is entry level. There is an unbridled enthusiasm and honesty that you only experience from people looking…
Read More
Ads have existed on Instagram Stories for a while now and are earning the platform a fortune, with a daily userbase of 400 million. Recently, having reached 300 million daily users, Facebook has followed in its footsteps with an identical ad proposition. The first brands to test the format…
Read More
Once upon a time, Kevin and Mike loved playing with pictures. They created the Instagram app in 2010 to share their passion for photography and image composition, in particular the famous square format. The app, though, grew much bigger and more powerful than the two dads ever…
Read More
Snapchat has announced new functionality it’s calling Visual Search. This is a way for its users to search for products on Amazon from the Snapchat camera. It’s not a feature that will be immediately available to everyone, as there’ll be a slow roll out, but Snap…
Read More
In the week that we released our latest Serious Social focusing on travel, one of the biggest sites in this sector, TripAdvisor has revealed they will be developing a social feed within their proposition. There are 56 million conversations around travel…
Read More
Once overlooked, Pinterest has been going from strength to strength in the social stratosphere. For travel, beauty, and fashion brands, it offers the perfect opportunity to showcase products or experiences, and now they’re looking to improve their influencer offering. Pinterest have realised influencers are becoming more and more…
Read More
  It’s our travel edition! On this week’s Serious Social, we spoke to the CEO of Sagittarius, Paul Stephen, about his experience working in digital marketing for travel clients. The travel industry is so commoditised, it’s important for brands to stand out on social. To do…
Read More
Sure, sure… high street economy is a bit on the low side with big franchises announcing closures of big flagship stores, but not everything is lost. The economy, though, is not sinking worldwide. Markets are just shifting towards the easier (at least for the consumer) e-commerce.
Read More
At first glance, the news of the Facebook Messenger assistant M being able to translate French could be a little underwhelming. French translation isn’t a feature that most users are crying out for. But what makes this announcement a little more interesting is how this translation functionality is being…
Read More
Remarketing can be a powerful tool to engage and retain your audience, but are you thinking enough about it? Often it’s the best performing campaign line within our social strategies, gaining clicks from users who have already engaged with your brand in some way  –…
Read More
  Rumour has it, Instagram could be developing a standalone shopping app, aptly named ‘IG Shopping’. First TV, now an online shopping platform, is there anything they’re not branching into?! This would make sense for the platform as Facebook recently confirmed 25 million businesses are using the service. Added…
Read More
Facebook has decided to rename its Canvas ad format and along with the name change come a few new features. If for some rare and unexplained reason you haven’t heard of Facebook Canvas, here’s a recap: “Facebook Instant Experiences, formally known as Canvas, load instantly, they’re mobile-optimised and designed…
Read More
In digital marketing, we’re utterly brilliant at creating confusing titles and acronyms. Given the volume, you’d be forgiven for thinking industry had employed a Head of Wanky Titles. I only wish our Head honcho had created these abbreviations with the wit and humour of the late great Robin Williams…
Read More
Of course, copywriters and designers need a creative flair. However, when it comes to social media, the art of social creativity is elevated. It becomes a marriage between art and science. With so much audience data from behaviours and interests, to real-time and ‘moments’, there’s an opportunity to create…
Read More
Social media is the place for meaningful conversations. Hashtags are a way for people to find and join particular conversations. Twitter was pretty centralised around hashtagging for conversational purposes. Facebook and Instagram jumped on the bandwagon too. LinkedIn introduced hashtags to the platform a hot minute after the rest…
Read More
  Planned your live stream video? It’s now worth thinking about how to keep your costs down. Depending on the event that you are going to stream, you might need a camera crew and an outside broadcast van. If this is the case, the advice would…
Read More
Reports have emerged of a new standalone app being worked on by Instagram. Tentatively known as IG Shopping, the app will allow users to browse products and services from retailers that they follow and purchase them directly from within the app. Instagram has declined to comment…
Read More
When it comes to social media updates, far too often the platforms will change something that sends its users into disarray. Just look at the Snapchat layout or the chronological order of our Instagram feeds! In the case of Twitter, however, they want to implement some changes, but it’s…
Read More
I must confess that lately I find myself spending less and less time on Facebook and quite a bit more on Instagram. Maybe it’s because I prefer pictures over words but a lot of it is to do with Stories. Generally speaking, my Instagram feed…
Read More
Investing money in advertising can feel like a bit commitment, however deploying paid on social doesn’t need to be scary. As long as you have a plan in place before you start, social is a great way to test campaigns and creatives easily, with real-time feedback. Here’s how to…
Read More
Facebook Watch, the video-on-demand service, is launching globally after previously only being available in the US. The video destination proved to be somewhat of a success in the US. According to the head of video at Facebook, Fidji Simo, the time spent watching videos has increased by 14…
Read More
Earlier this month, Facebook acknowledged the growing number of game developers who advertise and make money on the platform. The platform rolled out a couple new additions to its offering for game advertisers and, most notably, playable ads. It’s a genius solution for social media gamers…
Read More
If you consider yourself to be a “notable public figure” and have a healthy follow on Instagram, you can now apply to have the blue badge that makes your public status official. Instagram considers the badge to be an important way for the wider community to know that the…
Read More
  Time poor, but feeling creative? Fret no more. A couple of weeks ago Facebook announced its Creative Shop, a simple way for brands and marketers to easily convert static images into video. You may be lucky enough to have a wonderful design team who can whip up…
Read More
Add a Pixel to your Group Since GDPR, Facebook has stopped collecting or using data for behavioural targeting and removed thousands of targeting options. According to Marketing Land, Facebook removed a further 5,000 ad targeting filters to fight discrimination against religious and ethnic groups. So now, in…
Read More
We all know that the trend of taking photos of your food and sharing them on Instagram is nothing new. However, now it seems we’re not only taking photos of our food to document what we ate, but to help others decide where to eat too. More so…
Read More
In an effort to make “Feed the best place to share and connect with the people and interests that matter most to you”, Instagram is testing a feature which will add recommended posts to your content stream from users you don’t already follow. A similar feature was…
Read More
  It’s easy to overlook Pinterest, with the likes of Facebook and Instagram dominating the social space. But, whilst Facebook has been stealing the limelight with data breaches, algorithm changes, and updates to its ad offering, Pinterest has quietly been growing in the background. Is it time your brand…
Read More
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…
Read More
If you said LinkedIn Groups to me, I’d break out in a cold sweat thinking of all the spammy emails I used to get on a daily basis trying to persuade me I wanted to pop over to the platform to participate, so I was really interested…
Read More
Mobile usage has increased over time, but did you know that 66% of the global population now has access to information online? That’s 5 billion and 16 million human beings! And the fact that the time spent on mobile devices continues to increase year on year…
Read More
Earlier this year, Instagram launched IGTV, which lets users upload videos up to an hour in length. Until then, video content on Instagram was limited to 60-seconds in feed and 15 seconds for each Stories frame. It’s no secret that vertical video is quickly…
Read More
Snapchat’s Q2 report was a bit of a surprise in the industry. It has lost 3 million users compared to the previous quarter. There are various reasons why we saw this coming and we’d put the controversial redesign down as the main reason. A whopping…
Read More
On this week’s Serious Social, Annabelle and Katy discuss the findings from our latest insights report – Devouring the GBBO Social Opportunity. Bake Off is responsible for a huge level of conversation, with almost 1M mentions on Twitter alone last year. You don’t have to be a baking…
Read More
  You have to give Google full marks for effort. While the list of social media failures is pretty lengthy, they’ve not let that deter them from making further attempts. This time around, they’ve at least got a toe in territory that they can claim as their own. With…
Read More
  Facebook recently announced a new requirement for managers of large pages to go through an authorisation process to ensure their accounts are legitimate. The process follows Facebook’s widely available two-factor authentication offering, meaning that it will be less likely that Page Manager accounts will be…
Read More
  If you’ve reached this blog, you’re probably wondering why you should implement multi-camera live streaming into your digital marketing strategy and how to pull it off. Firstly, if you feel overwhelmed by the amount of technical terms, don’t worry about it. There is a lot of science behind…
Read More
Recent news that Facebook has been in discussion with some of the biggest banks in the world has caused a bit of consternation. On the face of it, a site that is concerned more with frivolous messaging shouldn’t also be the place where you go to…
Read More
With the Great British Bake Off just around the corner (Yippee!) it’s not too late for brands to take advantage of the engaged and vibrant social community that #GBBO attracts. This year’s Love Island proved how fruitful social TV campaigns can be. Savvy marketers tapped into the zeitgeist…
Read More
This week on Serious Social we discussed our philosophy of why you wouldn’t buy a one player football team…so why should your social media team be any different? Despite all the platforms and tools available, you still need a social media team in place to ensure you have the…
Read More
  Video content is kind of a big deal when it comes to social media marketing, or any marketing come to think of it, but you probably already knew that, didn’t you? So how do you make the most of your killer video on social? Here are a few…
Read More
Mark Zuckerberg once said that Facebook’s main purpose is “bringing the world closer together.” When I moved away from home to go to uni, I eventually gave in and created a Facebook account for one reason – to keep in touch with friends I was no longer around anymore.
Read More
After Facebook introduced the WhatsApp Business app in September last year, it’s looking like it’s set to be their next moneymaker. In contrast to the standard app that revolves around conversation between family and friends, the Business app is designed for businesses to interact with their customers by…
Read More