B2C social media Immediate Future

B2C social media

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. The online…

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 – whether this…

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 on…

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 it, so…

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 and grabbed…

Approximately 2 billion people use social media. Figures are expected to grow as mobile device usage and mobile social networks gain more traction. With customers using social media 24/7, and on such a variety of platforms, what was best practise last week might not work today. Keeping up…

Earlier this month, Facebook spoke of some very exciting planned updates for Instagram to be rolled out throughout 2018. Given the platform’s Stories feature now has 300M active daily users alone, viewing organic and brand-based content, it makes absolute sense for substantial investment. It really is the perfect…

JD Wetherspoons has announced its exit from social media. You’re bound to have plenty of questions. Why come off social media? Will it hurt the brand? How about the long-term? Should other brands follow suit? We’re giving you the answers in this Serious Social. As a single-brand operator, the…

Many of its 44,000 Twitter followers were shocked at yesterday’s announcement that JD Wetherspoon will be closing all of its accounts across all social media platforms. The reasoning behind this bold decision however, remains relatively vague. Wetherspoon’s CEO, Tim Martin, listed a few reasons why he’s calling it quits –…

Facebook’s Paid Media proposition is changing. After the data breach, and with GDPR coming up, it’s clear why they’re doing it. But, if you use Facebook for advertising, you’ll want to know what’s changing and how. As a Facebook partner, we’ve got all the finer details. In this week’s…

In this week’s Serious Social, we’re updating you on the Instagram changes and the latest on Facebook’s fallout! Shoppable posts. What can they do for you? Online retailers won’t want to miss this – you can tag and link products in your Instagram photos! This is really streamlining the…

You’ll wanna jump back onto Twitter when you hear this. Twitter has dramatically changed its ad proposition in the last 18 months and it’s been a great success. For their platform, for our agency, and it can be a success for you too! In this week’s Serious Social…

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 …

Since its recent algorithm change, Instagram now rewards posts with high engagement. Your reach is based on how much interaction your posts are getting. Anything from video views to comments and shares, if your post receives high engagement, it tells Instagram that your content is quality and worthy…

Facebook and Instagram are increasingly being used in the consumer holiday planning process. According to a recent survey commissioned by Facebook, 68% of Millennials found ideas and inspiration for their most recent trip on Facebook, and the same goes for 60% on Instagram. Travel advertisers on Facebook won’t have to…

Anniversaries are a great opportunity to celebrate the high points from the last year. They also give brands an opportunity to devise a social campaign to make strengthen their brand messaging and appeal to a particular audience. For optimum success, they’re best celebrated alongside a news story, launches, initiatives, products,…

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg made a bold statement about his plans for 2018. With the aim to fix and improve the social network, he stated that big changes will be made to Newsfeed. The algorithm will now prioritise user posts over public content, such as posts from businesses, brands…

Snapchat have now made it possible to create your own AR lens. By launching a new desktop app that can be used on both Mac and Windows, Snapchat intend to make it easy to create AR objects and experiences on top of the geo-filters we all love! Snapchat have come a…

So, a six-year-old can now be on Social Media? Yes, you read that right! Facebook have released an App that targets parents with children younger than 13. This is Facebook’s first product aimed at children and they are not the first to focus on this large, untapped audience. Whilst it…

It’s that time when we start to reminisce about the year we’ve had. What went wrong? What was a success and what can we do better next year? We’ve seen updates galore from all platforms. Twitter increased their character limit, Snapchat launched a self-serve ad manager, and we’ve lost count…

One week until Black Friday, and businesses all want to run a wow factor Social campaign to entice customers. The question is: Are you equipped with your strongest Black Friday strategies yet? If you think about it, just like you, almost every other business wants to make the most of…

At IF, it’s been slowly and now concretely drummed into us: Christmas is coming. If your clients aren’t ready yet, then you need to be. Internally, it means designing our Christmas card, sorting the festivities and most importantly, making sure we are effortlessly ready to deliver everything before 2017 magically…

If you still haven’t considered including Instagram as part of your Paid Ad spend, I’m hoping by the time you’ve finished reading this, you’ll change your mind. From its launch in October 2010, Instagram has become one of the most popular Social media channels with 800 million active users.

At IF, we’re all about creating a meaningful connection between the Ad products of Social platforms and the marketing strategies of our clients. Ever since Snapchat went public, it’s been really interesting to see a delay in waiting for them to launch a decent, competitive Ad proposition. The evidence…

The online consumption of Sports Online sports viewing has been growing significantly and as consumer attention gets scattered across multiple platforms and devices, it is interesting to understand what major marketing players are doing to follow suit. Trends A positive problem? Opportunities arise for advertisers as a need for engaging…

It’s time we talked about the mediocrity of social media. Brands that are filling the noisy, noisy, world of social with average content for the sake of being social. It’s been an issue that has been creeping up on us for some time, but it is reaching silly proportions now.

As time spent social networking per day continues to climb (now standing at over two hours), networkers have been presented an ever-expanding choice of content to engage with. Cutting through this noise demands compelling content, and social’s ability to allow brands a way of associating themselves with…

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…

Years ago, when immediate future first started, we talked a lot about social being the oil in the engine. The same is still true today. Social works at its best when integrated into marketing machine: amplifying and enhancing performance both within social and across all your marketing and sales activity.

Express yourselves! Say more with Twitter’s latest tweak We can all agree that saying everything we need to within the character limit on Twitter can become quite tedious and at times extremely frustrating! Yet somehow, being the super-species we are, we have adapted and now excelled at this. In 2006,…

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…

It’s safe to say that the use of visual content is going to stick and there is a wealth of data that can be used to support the benefits of this type of content. On average, visuals perform 4.4 x better than text-based content and as social media marketers, we…

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…

Chasing vanity metrics such as likes and followers is pointless (given most of the algorithms on social don’t favour organic posts). But losing followers is still bad. It’s a sign that maybe you’re turning people off your brand. Take a deep dive into your losses and you’ll uncover insight that…

The quality of Periscope’s live streams is about to skyrocket thanks to the launch of Periscope Producer. It’s a bold leap forward for the Twitter-owned live-streaming platform which, until now, broadcast content exclusively shot on mobile devices. Periscope Producer allows content creators to stream highly polished video…

It’s no secret that Mark Zuckerberg is trying his hardest to tap into developing world markets. In 2015 Mark hosted a town hall, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to talk about Facebook’s ‘Internet.org’ program now named Free Basics. A year on from that meeting and India regulators banned the…

Social media is meant to be all about the one-to-one conversations. Yet the large reach of many social networks often sits counter to this philosophy. The truth is that brands may well want to be part of the conversation, but the temptation to target reach numbers is too overwhelming. After…

According to Campaign Live, a fifth of top brands’ social media accounts are ‘fraudulent’. It seems many household brands are plagued with promotion spams, impersonators, phishing profiles, trademark violations, hacked accounts and counterfeit profiles. Ouch! And this number is on the rise. Sadly, the fakers are making…

Back in the days before the internet, the main stay of audience insight beyond surveys was the focus group. A gathering of relevant demographics in order to get feedback on products, adverts etc. Now we have social data and insight. A magnificent cauldron of opinions, views, trends and sometimes plain…

Following hot on the heels of Twitter’s announcement that the platform was introducing #Stickers as “…a fun new way to add creativity to your photos and connect them to the world on Twitter”, the platform has now invited brands to join the party with “Promoted Stickers”.

It’s no secret that Facebook is killing it when it comes to the roll-out and monetisation of video on its platform. The platform’s second quarter earnings, which were published last month, revealed that more than 1.1 billion people are currently using the platform each day and ad…

Anyone who’s seen Peanuts knows the football gag. In it, Lucy challenges Charlie Brown to kick a football which she then moves just as he’s about to punt the life out if it. The joke ran yearly from 1951 to 1983 and yet every time Charlie B somehow…

If you haven’t worked out that the current Facebook hoax is just that – a hoax – then you might wanna take down the scaremongering posts that you shared. Yes, just like the celebrity death rumours that always do the rounds on social media, that 7-year old Facebook hoax is…

From the adorable To the daring From the weird To the wonderful There can be no doubt that the internet loves a good GIF. And that love affair is growing stronger by the day. From 2012…

It’s true. Reacting to real-time moments with speed and relevancy all begins weeks, if not months ahead of time. No, we don’t employ Mystic Meg, Uri Gellar or the Octupus who famously forecast FIFA World Cup results. What we do employ are smart people who layer creativity and innovation on…

There have been massive changes in the Twittersphere this month with the arrival of Twitter’s new block feature wiping out unwanted users and the character count updates. We all thought removing photos and usernames from the Twitter character count was the cherry on top, but recently Twitter announced a new…

It’s official – Instagram has shaved, traded its fixie for an Audi A8, suited up and launched Business Tools. Considering the platform has over 200,000 advertisers and upwards of 400 million users, many would say this move was inevitable. Credit Suisse estimates that Instagram’s ad business brought in…

Many digital marketers that I’ve spoken to recently are not active on Snapchat. Most have given it a go, but either their family and friends weren’t using the app, or their friends and family weren’t sharing the most engaging of content. Both are understandable reasons for not enjoying the experience,…

We’ve said it before, but nurturing a social media account is a lot like having a baby. They require constant attention in order to thrive and achieve greatness. Take your eyes off the prize and you run the risk of your precious campaign tugging the tablecloth and…

I think I may be the only person getting excited about this, but in case you hadn’t heard, Periscope is now allowing users to doodle over their live streams. Officially it’s called “sketching” and is available to iOS users, after a pilot was launched just a month ago. The live…

Over the last few years, an overwhelming number of beauty consumers have focused their attention to the advice of beauty vloggers in order to judge cosmetic products, how to wear them, and if certain products are worth purchasing. Precisely why it makes sense that almost 60% of…

At IF, we pride ourselves on evolving. Curiosity is one of our brand values, championed daily by our fabulous staff. Our event format has been well received for many years but it was time to evolve. After a few months of planning and tinkering, all was…

Chances are your social timeline is featuring a lot of commentary around new Facebook features. Some being available immediately others with defined development roadmap. But why the sudden flurry of comms. Well, for the unaware, Facebook has just closed their annual developer conference – F8. The annual gathering in San…

Getting your message across can be difficult in the digital age. People have very short attention spans and there is a lot of competition. Twitter allows 140 characters to get the job done, but data shows that tweets shorter than 100 characters get a 17% higher engagement rate. If a…

The moment social marketers have been waiting for has finally arrived. The 20% text rule on Facebook adverts has changed. I can hear the cheers from here. Don’t pop open the bubbly just yet – let’s look into the details first. So what has Facebook actually said?…

So it’s happening. It was only a matter of time. Instagram is planning on using algorithms to organise content within timelines, as announced on their company blog this week. Following in the footsteps of their owners Facebook, who started to move away from a chronological display way…

After Christmas, in a bid to get fit, I (like many thousands of others) bought the Joe Wicks book ‘Lean in 15’ and have been avidly testing out his healthy 15 minute recipes ever since! (I’ve even done the odd work out or two). But what interests me the most…

E-volution Working in an ever developing industry that requires a balanced knowledge of data management, strategy and creative flare is a never ending challenge. A wonderfully colourful challenge that demands any given media agent (of any typical agency that works with technology) to submit to a never ending practice of constant wit sharpening.

How should we humanise our social presence? How should we show the people behind our brand? How should we display the softer side of our company? These are common questions from organisations who (quite rightly) invest much of their social media resource into gaining hard, tangible results. After the campaigns…

Last Spring, in a bid to increase the number of users, Facebook announced its plans to start letting brands and businesses use its Messenger app to handle customer service issues. Then, having reached over 700 million monthly active users last summer, they went public with their…

As the minefields of social advertising get ever more complex and essentially a very far cry from simple tweet or post boosting we must move toward to putting audience first, defining your objectives and monitoring closely to optimising your targeting as you go. All very good practice, yes, but what other,…

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

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

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

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

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

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

As 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,…

Tone of voice is no longer simply a case of using your corporate brand tone on social – you now need specific guidelines (or the opposite, depending on your brand!) for social channels. Now, I’m not necessarily talking about the marketing messages, the sales posts or the brand broadcast-style posts…

Are you a fan of Hunted, the Channel 4 fugitive chasing reality tv show? It’s been great, hasn’t it? The mind games, the use of technology, and that thrill of the chase. What’s also been great has been their use of Twitter. The social media platform famed for hosting TV-related…

Social media levels the playing fields to building a brand in the modern age. The ability to be able to connect with the world at the click of a button means that with the right message/product/offering anyone can build a brand. As an individual, talented musician using YouTube to get…

Welcome to part two of our Q & A with two of the industry’s leading digital marketers: Alex Ayling, Head of BBC Worldwide Digital Studios and Nick Moxham, Head of Digital, Universal Music TV. In case you missed part one which focussed on Alex, you can view that here:…

Last night immediate future, together with our friends at CDD, hosted a Q & A with two of the industry’s leading digital marketers: Alex Ayling, Head of BBC Worldwide Digital Studios and Nick Moxham, Head of Digital, Universal Music TV. Alex teed us off; he’s a wonderfully…

August is gone with the wind. With it go Notting Hill Festival, Reading 2015, V Fest, National Burger Day and summer. Relive the glory days of balmy summer evenings, sizzling barbeques and 30+ degree weather (sort of) by having a read through our top five IF blogs for August.

Psst! Would you like to join a team of select brands – Old Spice, Pokemon and the BBC among others — who have led growth in a form of digital marketing gaining traction? The online gaming industry is rife with user-led content, with one of the biggest platforms making use…

Real-time engagement has been a real buzzword in 2015, but is it easier said than done? And how far are brands pushing the concept of real-time engagement? How realistic is it for brands to be ‘always on’? These are all questions that have been bandied around the industry this year,…