social media research Immediate Future

social media research

Social media marketing benefits businesses in many ways, not least as it facilitates a unique, direct relationship with your customers. However, many businesses, despite having and managing a social media presence, are failing to recognise one of the key benefits of this media – social listening. What exactly…

Creating and finding content to share on your social channels never ends, it is a lifelong commitment. And it is true that timely content is crucial to engage your following. But you don’t need to pressure yourself on just creating newsworthy posts; evergreen content can be posted in…

If the last week few weeks in the world of social media x politics have taught us anything, it’s that the public does “give a toss” about the cut and thrust of social – even if this politician doesn’t think so. In October 2019, Twitter…

As a consumer, you’d be forgiven for missing the change in product branding which occurred this week by Facebook. Sorry, FACEBOOK. Their announcements around the rebrand focus on their objective to be “clear” about which products belong in their wheelhouse. This effort may seem little…

Included in Facebook’s latest Graph and Marketing API update, the social media platform has announced that in 2020 they will limit the number of ads a page can run at one time. Your initial reaction might be that this update could limit capabilities for your business. However,…

We recently saw the amazing Kipchoge run the marathon in under two hours. Kipchoge and his team achieved this after their dedication and focus over many, many months. So, you are asking yourself, what has this got to do with social? Here’s why! The big ‘C’ – commitment…

Starting anything new can be scary, and for some, social media marketing is no different. Whether it’s a brand new channel to you, or you’re testing new content, new paid strategies or going after a new audience, there’s an element of bravery needed. At IF, we’re always aiming…

Sometimes people reply to your Tweets about things you don’t want to see. And sometimes you just don’t want any replies to be seen at all. So, to help, Twitter has been testing out a new feature that lets you do just that. After launching an initial…

Whilst most of the population is settling down to our favourite end of summer programme, Great British Bake Off, community managers are poised, fingers on keyboards, ready to work the show to get their brands noticed on social. And it makes a lot of sense after all the first…

This is one audience tech brands want to reach. The audience where 70% are the decision makers and the rest influence the purchase. We took a look at who they are, what they talk about and what motivates them. And produced a report which digs into…

Tech brands are a social bunch. Socially savvy and active, you’ll see messages posted on social networks everywhere. But look closer at the content and it appears that very little of it is targeted at senior buyers who make or influence the purchase decisions. And that’s a HUGE…

We LOVE social media at immediate future (you would certainly be surprised if we didn’t) but even we know that there is more to marketing than just being social. And even if you deliver terrifically engaging and converting campaigns, you still need more than just a social presence. Which…

Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the fast-moving world of social media, but this is where we step in. Keep on scrolling for the latest updates and tips from the industry! Snapchat’s working on new music rights deals to enable users to add songs to their snaps.

Amongst the excitement of F8 it can be hard to stay up to date with the social news. But, fear not, we’ve rounded up the best articles from the past 2 weeks for you below ⬇️ Because, you know, we’re good like that! Snapchat releases latest update of…

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…

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…

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.

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.

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…

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…

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…

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.

Emotional content is the zeitgeist of modern marketing from TV and outdoor to, of course, social. We know it works because the results speak for themselves. The challenge for most brands though, is getting that emotional bit right. Pups and sappy might work for John Lewis, but it is…

Freelancing gave me the freedom to experiment and share knowledge without major application. It was invaluable to me as usually social media newbies often land as a junior in an agency with little in the way of being able to experiment with serious application. I feel I was lucky to…

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…

These days the buzz seems to be around ‘social listening’ – it sounds cool, it sounds sexy, and there are a million and one tools out there ready to take your money to offer you a world of insights into your customers, markets and online audience. However, in…

Social data is unstructured data. It needs a framework to corral the noise into making sense. Beyond the structuring of the numbers though, lies the real value in social data: The insights. Last week I found myself in a room full of data geeks (my idea of heaven) listening to…

When thinking of research, data and insights, it’s easy to assume it’s all numbers and data crunching and not much else. However, the role of a good insights consultant is to be able to translate this data into tangible and meaningful information that can then be easily…

Back in the pre-Kardashian era of 2002, HSBC ran a campaign called ‘the importance of local knowledge’ and it’s as relevant today as it was then. More specifically the importance of local dialect in relation to social media. This week…

No, this isn’t another blog about Amazon’s Prime Day. Nor is it a battle-cry for us all to dress in red suits and feast on plates of Turkey during the height of summer. I’m exploring why the brands who have Christmas ‘locked down’ in July, thrive in H2.

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

Social Media is an incredibly fast paced and exciting industry in which new platforms, aps and blogs rapidly spring into the digital landscape. With social media facilitating innovative approaches to real time marketing, it has never been more important for marketers to keep their finger on the pulse of these…

From asking followers for hidden-gem holiday destinations to posting the ubiquitous sunset selfie (framed by palm trees for added effect) and bragging about how amazing and life-affirming their holiday was afterward, travellers are a noisy bunch in social media. So much so that a recent study shows…

Being in the business of social media, we like to believe that it helps bring people together, incites communication and debate amongst large groups of people, and simplifies access to that communication. These remain true, and can be backed up with a plethora of hair-raising facts and figures…

Research and software released this week suggests that computers can predict our personality traits with a higher accuracy rate than our friends, family or spouse. Should we be scared or excited by the prospect of computers using the data we share online to make informed…

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…

Moves are afoot, and money is being spent, to dig a whole lot deeper into the Twitter conversations. Earlier this year Twitter gave researchers data grants to back-test hypotheses with large quantities of historical data. It is also funding (to the tune of $10m) an MIT programme to…

The 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…

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,…

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…

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…

This week Facebook released their employee diversity report, a new ideal brought about by Google to provide more transparency over large tech companies’ employee intake. In theory, this is a nice practice which would reveal the fair and positive mix of race, sex and ethnicity amongst the…

What is real-time marketing about? Responding to customers, following trends and ultimately creating a strong, relevant relationship with your audience. It doesn’t sound so bad when you sum it up like that. But real-time marketing is easier said than done. Our research report ‘In the…

Paraphrasing some recent advice at our Social Speakeasy from Jerry Daykin of Mondelez International, “If you want to become a real-time engagement focused business then you need to break some of the traditional marketing practices”. Advice that is mirrored in our brand survey results on real-time social engagement. Where brands…

Everyone is talking about real-time social engagement – it was certainly hot topic at SXSW. So at immediate future, we thought we would ask blue-chip brands for their views. A chance to benchmark the status of real-time marketing. You can download the full report,…

For all you ladies out there, it looks like we’re taking over social media, and smartphones are our weapon of choice – in a metaphorical sense of course! According to research conducted by PR agency Porter Novelli, also published by marketingmagazine.co.uk, women are dominating the…

I have recently returned from a blissful week in the Mexican sunshine, lazing on white sandy beaches, drinking margaritas and of course, eating out lots *feeling smug*. Of course, like most holidaymakers, we logged onto trusty TripAdvisor to do our detective work into where we should go for the…

Who hasn’t been trying to monitor their online performance and hit a road block because you can’t access the proper tools? Maybe you’re up to your eyeballs in meaningless figures and graphs? All you need is a little context, some simple analysis, a general overview – but you don’t…

The most romantic week of the year is upon us once again. The cards are stocked, the roses reduced and the restaurants ready for their annual influx of covers. But what can the world of social tell us about Valentine’s Day in 2013. Is this a year of carefree…

I love to talk about social customer service. I think it’s fascinating and incredibly pertinent in our digital world. It also still amazes me how brands and retailers are still missing a trick! I’ve experienced this slow uptake for myself recently; waiting nearly 2 months for a replacement washing machine…

Whether you’re planning your tactical social media campaign or reengineering your business for the social consumer, social media research is invaluable in setting benchmarks. They help you manage expectations, isolate priorities and best of all, define KPIs that set the evaluation bar. But there is…