Content Marketing Immediate Future

Content Marketing

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),…

Back in Q1, 2014, Mark Zuckerburg announced Facebook’s $2.5 billion acquisition of Oculus VR, signalling his intention to bring virtual reality into mainstream digital life. Two years on and Facebook have finally begun taking pre-orders for Oculus Rift. That’s right you can now place…

With the new year come new trends…yada yada yada yes. But there’s no denying, as we try to keep up with the cascading popularity of the annual Consumer Electronics Show or #CES2016, that there are some highlights of this year’s show that hold clear opportunities for the…

New services like Facebook’s Instant Articles and Snapchat’s Discover allow publishers to host and monetise content on third-party social media platforms, without the need for users to click through to their site. Media publishers are currently uploading content on social media platforms in the hope users will click back to…

For many of you, tomorrow is the long awaited day. That’s right – there is only one more sleep until the theatrical release of the highly anticipated 7th Star Wars film – The Force Awakens! Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have noticed that (much to…

When I joined the content team at IF just over a year ago, I came in with the mantra that creative writing made me a better copywriter, and copy writing made me a better creative writer. Despite the obvious differences between the two styles, I strongly believe that they complement…

Drake is one of the most famous rappers in the world right now, and is currently sitting at the top end of most music charts. You are probably thinking, “What does Drake have to do with social media?” and why are you writing a blog about him. Well the answer…

On 22nd of October, we welcomed back Rachel Kneen, O2’s social media manager, to our monthly Speakeasy to speak about the importance of content. Rachel has been working in social since 2009 – to put that into context, at that time, people spent more time on average on Myspace…

Apps have revolutionised speed-reading through displaying single words in rapid succession. These apps are based on a method known as Rapid Serial Visual Presentation, or RSVP. It’s nothing new and has been documented in cognitive psychology since the early 1970s, but with the rise of mobile and apps, its popularity has…

Did you know that there are almost 78 million search results for the term ‘infographic’? Content in the form of an infographic hit the mainstream in 2012 and its popularity with brands continues to rise steadily. Snack, share and stand-out There are plenty of reasons…

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…

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 handles.

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.

Apple’s recent announcement that it was going to be embracing ad blocking software has sparked some serious social debate and birth of the hashtag #adpocalypse. The move by Apple has brought into spotlight the morals and ethics behind the media industry and am sure will bring about another shift because…

Everyone has heard about the spectacular fails on social media. But this isn’t a post poking at those brands that make mistakes. This is about raising the bar on the quality of social communication. Which right now, isn’t always that great. Social media marketing is on pretty much every brand’s…

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

Do you wake up in the morning and look forward to tweets from brands? Me neither. If someone decides to follow your company, it’s a massive deal. They’re allowing you to enter a news feed most likely to be populated by family, friends and colleagues. The opportunity to deliver the…

We’re in the middle of the summer silly season – traditionally the time of year when there’s little actual news to report (unless of course, you consider air conditioning being sexist as headline news). And this is just as important for a social media strategy as planning…

As serious marketers we are all well versed on the benefits of social media and content marketing. In reality as marketers, we have always produced ‘content’ anyway, albeit now the channels and types of assets have changed. We moved from print to website, brochures to PDFs & micro sites, seminars…

The social media storm around Cecil the Lion is undeniable – with over 800k mentions of this name online and 444k uses of the hashtag #CecilTheLion. For those that don’t know the story goes something like this: Cecil is a famous lion from Zimbabwe that has been…

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

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 into Twitter or…

We all know the old cliché that content is king, and it is hard to argue. However, kings have a long and often bloody history of being toppled, so always need to be on their toes. They should be seen to be learning from and listening to their peers and…

If you are a regular to the immediate future blog or follow us on Twitter then you will know that we were very much behind #SMWF last week. I was there, taking selfies, storming the stage, speaking on a panel but most importantly networking and talking to industry peers about…

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

“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the minds stays up all night, telling itself stories.” – Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal American author and journalist, Ernest Hemingway once made a $10 bet with some writer friends that he…

Video killed the erm, everything star. There is no question that video is the future of content marketing and by proxy social media or that by 2017 video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic worldwide. As video dominates marketing strategies left right and centre it can…

Antony Robbins, the Director of Communication at the Museum of London, began his address at our last Social Speakeasy by saying the following: “This evening I’m going to let you in on a little secret, I’m going to tell you an inappropriate story, if you’re good I might sing and…

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

One challenge for me day-to-day is helping clients extract the best content possible for their digital activity. When we think about B2B content, we think whitepapers, videos, case studies etc. However, more often than not, the most valuable content is not stored in the form of a document or a…

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

The days of visiting actual travel agents and waiting on faux leather couches to be served whilst being visually accosted by A1 posters of smiling families splashing in the waves and creatively bankrupt taglines (“New Zealand! Bring Your Mum!”) are long gone. A holidaymaker’s entire journey from skiving off work…

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. Along…

For small business owners, automation tools can be incredibly useful things. But, like all tools, relying too heavily on social media automation will end in tears. Maintaining a brand identity and personality on social media is an important part of the relationship you want to have with your customers,…

We are all aware of the latest marketing buzzword – personalisation – and the notion that brands now have the ability to follow users every “internet” step to ensure they get a 360 degree understanding of their customers. This, in theory, allows brands to personalise messaging, offers, new product announcements,…

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]With Pepsi Max’s new “Genius” campaign officially kicking off this week, the timing of Aman Matharu, Digital Marketing Manager at PepsiCo’s, address at our most recent Social Speakeasy couldn’t have been better. Aman addressed an eager crowd of Social Speakeasy attendees on a balmy spring evening to share the secrets…

Recently, I have been working with clients across a wide range of verticals in the B2B space, from pharmaceuticals to chemical engineering to sports equipment. These disparate markets have completely unique business challenges, requirements, sales processes and routes to market. However, there is one thing that many of these companies…

Knowing your influencers is a key goal for most companies. However, there is no straight forward formula, or right or wrong way to identify these evangelists. Repeated engagements and metrics such as Klout will help in assessing how engaged and how influential they are in their own merit, but without…

Oh no! Yet another bloomin’ blog post about content marketing. Well not quite. I won’t be suggesting you produce more. Please, let’s create less. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 92% of B2B companies say social media is a key content marketing tactic. And weirdly, slightly less,…

Yes that’s right. There are (unfortunately) far too many senior marketing professionals, even boardroom directors, who are to blame for consumer brands failing on social. Simply put, whoever signs off their approval for junior marketers running social are idiots; whoever hasn’t bothered to understand the critical role social plays for…

The UK Government’s new anti-smoking video has been dubbed as its most striking visual yet. If you have not yet seen it, the video shows a dad with his kids in the park, rolling up his cigarette. As he prepares his cigarette, the tobacco packet is filled with mucus and…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

“Leads are metrics that, as marketers, we rely on. Because leads mean money.” That was Kipp Bodnar, VP of Marketing for Hubspot. Generating leads is one of the primary goals for marketers, yet only 1 in 10 marketers feel their lead generation campaigns are effective. Why is it that marketers…

Content, content, content. I am not quite sure how many times I use the word “content” in a day but if I did, and I got a £1 for every time, then I would be buying myself Google Glass (even if they are £1000, seriously!). So back…

As businesses begin to appreciate the value that quality visual content can bring in capturing the attention of prospects, which in turn drive clicks and sales, video becomes an ever more compelling part of a brand’s content strategy; Cisco predicts that by 2017 video will account for…

Curating your social media feed can be a tricky business. You may be overrun with photos of your friend’s babies or hourly updates on wedding planning from that random girl from one of your university classes… The content bugs you, but not enough to delete that friend…

You may or may not have read countless articles, suspiciously pointing the finger at Twitter’s re-design and how it closely matches the appearance of another popular social network. Or you’ve logged into your account and have been taken aback by an enormous cover photo. Yes Twitter has had an image…

Most of the consumption of digital media is now very much based on image, text or video via our mobile handsets. Countless mornings see the commute of the working masses, heads down, staring deeply into their handsets narrowly avoiding road accidents and lamp post encounters. For those…

There are now countless blogging platforms on the web that specialise in a multitude of great features but which of these features do we actually need? Some of the most innovative new blog platforms strip away the list of add-ons and focus on the basics. Now, more than ever before,…

LinkedIn is running ‘full steam ahead’ in its content marketing efforts as it announces the release of two new content analytics tools, dubbed as the “Dynamic Duo” for businesses. Read on to discover why the news should come as music to the ears of B2B brands marketing…

Whether it’s writing headlines for blog posts or creating content for Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, the key to creating great content is testing. Test everything – from the topic, to the length of post, to the image and time of day – it requires constant testing and optimisation to find…

Rumours are circulating the net of Twitter’s planned revamp and eventual elimination of the platform’s most prominent symbols, the #tag and @reply. With conjecture that testing is well underway, we take a look at what the change could spell for brands. Testing and updates to the functionality…

Best of Branded Content Marketing: 10th Anniversary Edition from Justin Kirby I know everyone is talking about content. But I urge you to take time to read the eBook, Branded Content Marketing. For a start…

Measuring, analysing and benchmarking your social activity is essential. It highlights what you are doing well, when you need to improve, and whether you are delivering what your customers want. But in truth, social media isn’t about promoting your business at all. It’s about engaging with your community (something easier…

Before Destiny’s Child ‘Bootylicious’ starts playing in your head… stop! I’m referring to a different sort of Jelly – the question-and-answer app launched in 2014 by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone which has already become the 76th most downloaded app in the UK. What is Jelly? Jelly is a…

The way consumers purchase products has changed. The internet, and particularly social media, has transformed the ways in which consumers buy and research products. No longer do you simply walk into a shop and purchase a product you have never used before. Consumers are researching the product online: reading reviews,…

2012 Summer Olympics in London, affectionately coined as the ‘Twitter Olympics’, saw the use of social media as a tool to bridge the gap between athletes and their fans. Social has garnered a new kind of enthusiasm around the Olympic Games, changing the way we consume and talk about…

It’s 14th February, which means one thing… Valentines Day! Brands are celebrating in full effect, but which ones should you be looking out for? And are you getting involved? The UK population will be spending an estimated £595 million this Valentine’s Day, with many consumers choosing to…

You have built your empire with blood, sweat and tears. You have a small, dedicated team who stand by you. They love working for you, they love the culture, the hours, pay, flexibility offered and the general working environment. So who wouldn’t want to work for you? Well it seems…

Key to any effective social media strategy is the ability to monitor what people are saying about your brand across social networks, blogs and forums. There’s a wealth of data available at your fingertips – the challenge is how best to turn that collated data into real-time actions. We asked…

Social media has been bringing humour into a somewhat dismal situation as commuters take to social media, specifically Twitter, in the wake of the London tube strikes. Surprisingly the sentiment has not been quite as negative as expected. I’m sure many of you have seen signs of chaos, with endless…

The ever dividing gap of age generation is now so evident within the digital sphere of social media. With statistics evident of teens turning from Facebook or Twitter it’s safe to ask what the social media platforms are they turning to have or don’t have. The inevitable…

In our recent blog post, ‘6 social media 2014 predictions from some of the most influential industry authorities’ one of the core predictions identified for this year was to embrace the power of content. ‘All the research at the end of last year suggests that marketers know…

Recruiters have taken social media by the horns and well and truly learnt its power to connect them with candidates in a totally new and exciting way. Although it is bringing much success for some, it’s not for all. 2014 will be the year that, finally, recruiters globally…

As social media, connectivity and the web in general continue to evolve and transform our lives, the crossover between social media and behavioural science is becoming ever more evident. Even though I’m not a psychologist, I found the article written by Sean D. Young on TechCrunch a couple…

With London’s Social Media Week well under way, there has been engaging discussions about social media flying around all over the internet. Both individuals and companies have been getting involved in the action. Even Richard Branson has been offering his advice. We enjoyed watching…

After our recent accolade claiming a top 10 spot in the Cision’s best UK social media blogs, I thought it would only be right to give you a little top 10 of my own. At our B2B breakfast event last week, and…

For a couple of days now I’ve been reading City AM‘s passionate reports on my way to work, about one of the latest scandals in London’s City. This time it is nothing to do with the usual hype around investment banks, bonuses, interest rates and share prices. It is the…

Photography has become huge, with 10% of photos in the history of the world being taken in the last 12 months! But do you know how important photos are to your online presence? by klynnetrabue. Explore more infographics like this one on…

Yesterday LinkedIn announced a feature just launched on the social network, ‘University Pages’ – essentially data hubs relating to universities and their alumni, from all over the world. So far, the new feature has been released to a seed number of universities including University of Oxford…

Any business, alert and looking to drive natural search is already running Google+ and Facebook accounts at the moment. Facebook because people are using it and Google+ because it is this persistent beast, which is ignoring popularity and instead providing fantastic ingredients for functionality and the ability to…

Your business is full of experts. And people who know a lot about what they do is extremely interesting to others. Some businesses are starting to move towards being an authority in what they do, to get people to buy into their expertise, rather than just telling people they are…

Marketing for B2B companies on LinkedIn just got more interesting. At the end of this month, LinkedIn is introducing ‘Sponsored Updates’, which gives users the ability to promote updates on LinkedIn beyond their own followers or connections. In a similar style to ‘Promoted Posts’ on Facebook, LinkedIn…

Content is being created…quickly and in quantity! There is a vast amount of content being created in today’s world. Content makes the internet work and every second of every day ‘we’ are creating more content. Now in 2013, 9 out of 10 marketers are using content marketing, according to the…

Corporate communication is undergoing rapid change. As a rule of thumb, the challenge for large businesses is to maintain a genuinely personal approach to the customer, despite the sheer volume of enquiries, whilst keeping in line with the overall marketing strategy. Web solutions, intertwined with thought-through social elements provide a…

Content marketing has received a lot of attention of late – it’s really coming to the fore for marketers, who are increasingly paying attention to its true value. I want to share with you this lovely infographic from Demand Metric, which…

Last week Twitter announced a brand new addition to its suite of Twitter Cards – one designed solely to help brands capture leads and drive purchase. The Lead Generation Card will now enable brands to push incentives and offers directly to consumers, who by expanding the tweet will see their…

Hashtags have become the standard way to label social media posts, not only on Twitter but also on Google+ and increasingly on LinkedIn. Monitoring hashtags is an easy way to spot a social media trend and to respond accordingly. However, it is rather unclear what kind of hashtags tend to…

A content inventory is a bit like a labyrinth. You could find yourself deviating down many paths with little sight of the exit. And even if you are lucky enough to find the exit before being savaged by a Minotaur, there’s always a chance that you might…