Social Networking Immediate Future

Social Networking

Social Media may well be a key element in your company’s marketing mix but have you considered alternative uses for Social Media in the work place? It is entirely possible for Social Media to run much deeper than simply being another channel for your marketing communications. For…

Do you remember the days before Instagram and Snapchat, when Facebook and Twitter were just getting started, and when social networking felt new? Since the turn of the millennium, there have been many big players within the social media industry, with millions of users and aspirations to match.

LinkedIn is one of the most used social media channels for recruitment and staffing, but how effective are all the other social media channels for recruitment purposes? Some say the death of the traditional paper CV is upon us, but this stance may be a bit premature, although…

Facebook has announced it will be partnering with Eutelsat, a French satellite internet operator, to transmit internet connections to offline parts of sub-Saharan Africa from late 2016. Although it now claims a mindblowing 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook has long been looking to…

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…

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage yesterday for the latest Facebook Townhall Q&A. He spent the better part of an hour fielding a mix of serious and silly questions about everything from virtual reality and artificial intelligence to why he doesn’t wear a different coloured shirt…

All too often driving attendance to events in the B2B world is an afterthought. Companies spend hundreds-of-thousands of ££’s on set-up, stands, design, product and offline marketing and organisation. Then, in the weeks running up to the event, they realise they have not placed enough focus on making…

We call it ‘the power of a connected network’; uniting your workforce to harness the potential influence available on social. “Well that’s just social media tosh”, you might say. I assure you it is not. And here’s why: The most overlooked use of social is internal communications and…

The UK wedding industry is worth around £10 billion every year, with an average of around £36 thousand being spent on each wedding (W.I.F.E). It’s an industry which is steeped in tradition; from the importance of wearing something old, something new, something borrowed and…

Now, there’s a question! The issue of one of three giants buying Twitter has started gaining some serious traction over the last few weeks. Those giants are, of course, Apple, Facebook and Google. Although there is a viable case for Apple to buy the flagging social network,…

“Imagine for the first time in history, humanity firing on all cylinders, everyone, everywhere, new voices, new dreams and new inspirations” (Internet.org). With Facebook’s latest technological advancement in aerospace, we are now a step closer to achieving Mark Zuckerberg’s global vision. Specifically, a worldwide web…

The recent Facebook “townhall Q&A” session with CEO Mark Zuckerburg has left the internet buzzing about what the future holds for the world’s biggest social media network. The hour-long session saw Zuckerburg fielding questions from everyday Facebook users and famous personalities such as Stephen Hawking and…

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…

Clinton passed on an ostentatious announcement, and opted for online social conversations to kick-start her campaign for the White House. And the buzz which followed was far greater than fellow candidates from the opposing Republican Party. After announcing her presidential bid, last Sunday via YouTube, Clinton has…

On Friday night, Twitter announced it is ditching third-party agreements for reselling firehose data. To date, businesses have used Twitter firehose APIs to stream real-time tweets and all related metadata. Friday’s announcement won’t have come as a shock to some, having seen how swiftly Twitter moved to help…

Getting your employees to share content can be a struggle, but when they do it can pay off in ways that company posts cannot. Generating positive employee shared content is easy when you know how. These are five types of content that employees should willingly share that will boost…

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…

When news broke earlier this month that a former news executive on whose watch Britain’s phone hacking scandal occurred was joining the ranks of the social media universe, it raised a few eyebrows but also thrust attention on a nascent, high-risk but intriguing area: social media dictating the news.

Last week Facebook and LinkedIn announced their intention to focus on social enterprise. Facebook at work launched with small scale trials by invitation. It functions like Facebook, but allows for a separate login and the opportunity to keep work and personal separate. LinkedIn, already considered the de…

The world’s most popular mobile messaging service, WhatsApp which launched back in 2009 and has now reached over 700 million active monthly users across the globe. WhatsApp’s co-founder Jan Koum made the announcement on his Facebook page. The company was acquired by Facebook for $19…

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…

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…

OK! I am going to come out and and say it – I am very excited about yesterday’s launch of Google Glass in the UK. As a bit of a technology and social media geek, this is awesome news and I can’t wait to see the British public’s reaction to…

Spreading campaign messages via Twitter with the use of hashtags or recruiting dedicated supporters has always been a labour of gaining organic strength. Relying on the persistence and influence of others to spread the message. Now we see the emergence of new apps that access supporters’ social…

It’s exactly a month yesterday (14 May 2014) that over 200 Nigerian school girls were abducted from their boarding school by local Islamic militia group Boko Haram. The media and western world initially skirted over the story as just another political tragedy in Nigeria’s…

With the ever increasing world of social apps encouraging us to connect friends and family, the new app, Cloak has been developed to specifically help you avoid people you don’t want to see…think exes, co-workers and the guy who likes to stop and chat. It has been…

Fashion House Temperley London is helping raise funds for the Somerset flood victims. The fashion house has created a dedicated web page to educate people around the terrible flooding in Somerset and the West Country, helping raise awareness of the crisis which is close to…

Since it’s inception Google+ hasn’t had the greatest cut through compared to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram when it comes to the world of creatives. However, the tables are turning and Google+ is starting to enjoy further mainstream success as yet another channel for us to…

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…

It goes without saying that social plays a part in most of our everyday lives. Our focus, time and attention can only lie with a few of these networks, and those that struggle to remain on top are either forgotten or left to float like driftwood. You may have heard…

As usual predictions for 2014 abound. Rather than add to the melee with only our voice, we asked some of the most influential movers and shakers in digital to tell us what they thought would be big this year. Interestingly, even though we asked for opinions individually, the feedback revealed…

There’s no use denying it. We are well and truly in the social media age. An amazing 89% of all web users are on social media networks, and active internet users tend to spend around 16 minutes of every hour they’re online using social media. Despite the unquestionable prevalence…

If, like most, you are struggling to find new music and can’t bring yourself to thumb through endless blogs, magazines, buy redundant CDs, download or ‘torrent’ illegally or can’t even fathom what those big black discs Dad used to play are called, then you may want to try out some…

Having a firm grasp of Facebook advertising mechanics is a must when it comes to social media marketing. Any creative campaign can be turbocharged by way of Facebook ads, assuming they are managed effectively and optimised in real-time. But Facebook doesn’t always make it easy for marketeers to get started,…

© Snapchat. Logo What is Snapchat? Snapchat is an application that allows users to take pictures or capture videos, with the option to add captions or doodles, to then send to friends. The catch is that the sender sets a time-limit before the picture or video disappears. Can…

Sounds like common sense? You’d be surprised! With 66% of companies using Facebook to recruit, should you really be posting profanities on your Facebook page? NO is the answer. As a candidate, either looking for your first step into the professional world, or as an experienced professional, your social media…

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_video link=”“][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Are you struggling to cook a specific dish and need urgent cooking advice? Or looking to improve your home but need guidance from someone who knows best? Or are you having computer problems and need help fixing it? Sometimes it’s helpful to speak to someone who has…

It’s that time of year again when we pack two nights of fun and festivity into one week – Halloween and Fireworks Night! These familiar friends are much welcome occurrences in the calendar, lifting our spirits as the temperature quickly cools and the nights draw in early. My Facebook and…

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…

At immediate future – we love LinkedIn and the opportunities that it provides for meaty social media marketing. In the last two years, the social network has really risen up as a star platform for lead generation with LinkedIn Groups and Company Pages being worked hard by…

I have recently started with immediate future as Head of Talent, recruiting the best talent in social media and keeping the great staff we have already happy in their workplace! On that note, if you work in social media marketing – at any level, or want to – we…

Despite the negative opinions held by some with regards to the so-called detrimental effects social media is having on humanity (my grandma for one!), I view it as an enabler, which can be harnessed to add further depth and to better human interactions and relationships. With that in mind, I…

Waze, the crowd sourced traffic-mapping and navigation company, was recently acquired for $1.3bn by Google after a supposed bidding war with Facebook. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has actually begun investigating this acquisition after demands from consumer groups concerned that Google’s takeover of the company could…

It’s 2009. A new location-based social networking website for mobile devices has been launched. Four years later, and the platform has an estimated 35 million users worldwide. But what happened to that social network, and did it ever achieve its full potential? I am of course talking about Foursquare, the…

The team have just returned from a week of handling the social media for our client IBM and their #SmarterCommerce conference. We worked hard, partied harder and didn’t sleep much. What else would you expect when in Monaco? It was long nights and social media collaboration heaven!…

Word of mouth is a coveted form of marketing. There is nothing like your customers talking positively about your brand, product and services. Google suggests that the value is on the Zero Moment of Truth where consumers jump online to check out a brand before…

Although Vine is still a relatively new app, it has shown that it has clout with brands and advertisers in a short period of time. Vine is a mobile app that lets you shoot six-second videos, or Vines, to share on social networking sites. With brands continuing to utilise the…

I’ll admit it. In the early days of my first PR job I flung my press releases far and wide, hammering as many contacts as possible in the hope that somewhere, somehow, the story would stick. Did it work? No. Did I receive seething emails from journalists informing me that…

Rumours are plentiful that Facebook will begin to roll out a video advertising offering this summer. This would have Facebook users finding video ads popping up in their Newsfeeds, as soon as July this year. The video ads would begin playing in silent mode, until the Facebook user opts…

Social media continues to revolutionise corporate culture. It opens up new avenues of communication, breaks down barriers between employers, employees and the public, and provides new opportunities for brands to put a human face to their image. CEOs are no exception to this quiet revolution. Customers want to see that…

In its bid to constantly evolve and improve the mobile experience for its billion-strong user base, Facebook has introduced a brand new feature for their Android and iOS users. Chat Heads have recently debuted on Facebook’s mobile apps, allowing users to keep a list of conversations going on without having…

LinkedIn has been making a sea of changes recently to its service, and a new feature unveiled this week promises to be very exciting indeed. LinkedIn announced that their 200 million users will soon be able to mention connections and companies in conversations on the site, which has the potential…

There have been many questions raised as to the benefits of using Pinterest for business. The visual content hub is increasingly being used as a way of linking back to other, often text based content. Brands can post images on Pinterest to lead users to content on other platforms, such…

Social media networks, in particular Twitter, have been under the limelight in the past week due to an outbreak of pictures claiming to identify the two killers of James Bulger, who was murdered 20 years ago. UK police have ordered social network users to stop outing the…

I recently read a blog post that ranked universities in the US on how well they were engaging with social media. I thought it might be interesting to look at how our UK establishments were shaping up alongside them. Traditionally speaking, social media is not something…

Socialbakers recently released its Q4 results for the best and worst performing brands on social media, defined by a brand’s level of attentiveness to its community. I was immediately struck by giffgaff’s position at number four in the worst offenders list. This is a…

In the past, for many organisations, the struggle to successfully incorporate social media was due to a lack of understanding and often a downright fear from higher management. A report by Weber and Shandwick in 2010 highlighted this by revealing that 64% of CEOs from the largest companies did not…

Last week after much anticipation, the new and improved version of Myspace was rolled out to the general public. The launch coincided with the release of singer (and major Myspace investor) Justin Timberlake’s new single. Although the launch may have been overshadowed by Facebook’s announcement of graph search, the site…

Recently I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people about their social media monitoring pain points and challenges. Everyone knows and has been told many times about the opportunities offered by scanning the social media space for golden nuggets of information about your brand or company. And yes, it’s…

Could a revamp give MySpace the competitive edge needed to survive the fierce digital market of today? The new MySpace design which was launched by their new owners Joseph Mark (backed by Justin Timberlake) gives Myspace users a unique opportunity to enter a social network that caters to a…

Findings from BT’s study earlier this year may have pointed towards females being the social media obsessives; but the latest data from Global Web Index into social platforms indicates it’s more of a man’s game. Almost every platform skews male, with the highest male ratio on LinkedIn…

You may have seen the other day that GPS navigation system Waze hit 10m users. It’s a social tool that aggregates user reports on traffic, accidents and the like. I’m a recent convert and signed up a few months ago, since…

Twitter has launched new brand pages with a new look and some useful functionality. For those companies already on Twitter, this news is worth your attention. Twitter’s new brand pages will better promote your brand in 4 ways: A large header image gives greater prominence to your logo and/or tagline. …

Before hastily setting up a Google+ page for your business, you need to step back and consider whether there is any value in joining the early adopters. We pulled together 4 points to help you evaluate whether it is worth your company embracing Google+: 1. Objective…

Since Google’s announcement, there has been an enthusiastic response to Google+ branded pages. Generally the applause has been loud and energetic, with over 600 news articles and innumerable blog posts. The positive response has proved interesting. After…

Google+ has really got the social media world excited. Twenty-five million users in 6 weeks, makes the growth of similar social networks like Facebook and Twitter look positively stunted in comparison. And the blogosphere is just as fired up – a quick Google blog search for Google+…

Those looking to ensure staff are equipped to represent their brand across social media platforms could do worse than learn from some of history’s most famous and infamous historical figures. So what can your social media training learn from the past? “To be ignorant of what occurred before you…

If you type the name “Roland Bunce” into Google you return 41,600 searches. According to media reports, Roland Bunce is a 24-year old computer science graduate, who has entered fashion and homeware brand Next’s online competition to find the next model. Despite being atypical model material, he’s…

So the Royal Wedding quickly became old news. Wills and Kate’s wedding of the year was quickly overshadowed on Monday by the news that the world’s most wanted man has been killed. And while this was a significant day in history, it also became a significant day in the…

So you may have seen a report on Twitter doing the rounds, that details the most stressful careers in the US. Now as a PR I don’t mind brand developed reports, as long as they are impartial, well researched and provide clarity about how…

You may have seen news of Google’s latest attempt to introduce social recommendations to its platform. +1 (US only service at the moment) allows people to up vote any website they like; this can then be seen by their social connections on Google in…

OK we know this is just some SEO basics, but given our recent social search report, we thought this was just great advice on to get you started… © Charles Lewis. “Page Rank”. Video.

We like this visual representation of the size of the internet, wow is it big!…

When Santa Claus comes to town, the rules are simple. You watch out, you don’t cry and you don’t pout. I put to you that in 2009 the social media marketeers ignored every single one of these rules, pedalling Christmas campaigns that involved risks, made people cry and yes,…

Brands on Facebook are a lot like teenagers in high school; both crave popularity. Conventional wisdom teaches us that to be popular you need to be seen fraternising with the cool kids. A recent study by…

As brands adopt and implement more social media marketing in house, so the demand for enhancing social skills and capabilities is growing. But building social capabilities takes more than a one day training course. Perfecting your social media…

They may be slow adopters but the British Monarchy finally joined 500 million people across the world last week and signed up to Facebook. Instead of having a personal profile, the…

You may have noticed that we’ve been had a very retail focused week here! As a leading social media agency we’re particularly interested in how social is changing the way we shop. Given this focus, here’s…

Developing brand loyalty and encouraging repeat sales is a challenge for online retailers, particularly in an increasingly competitive and crowded marketplace. With the ability to move between retailers at the click of a mouse and with a multitude of comparison sites for the savvy shopper, encouraging brand loyalty can…

Today we are launching our report on social shopping and its impact on consumer behaviour. Online retail has traditionally been characterised by price-driven sales and purchase-driven consumers. The focus, for retailers, has been on engaging the…

The extension of the ASA’s CAP code to cover digital marketing communications – both on brand’s own websites, but also through social media, has been driven by a need to close the gap related to companies’ claims online, in particular to regulate marketing to children. There is…

I was casting my eye over the Facebook Places logo this morning, yes I know I have no life, and noticed something a little odd. Under the pink marker there is definitely a number 4 inside a square. Go on have a look yourself.

For years we’ve been told that the internet and new technology is stopping traditional face to face communication. Parents have been warned that if their kids spend too much time surfing the net and chatting on social networking sites they’ll become void…

In this week’s New Media Age we find eBay talking down social commerce. This seems a bit strange to me given it is the leading light in social retail.Let’s think about that for a minute, the online auction site has made…

Image via Wikipedia As I ponder England’s dispirited performance in the World Cup, or to be more honest, listen to my colleagues discuss it, I wonder about what makes us great. How can we be our best? Apparently, the…

Taking a look at the evolution of social media as a communications tool over the past year, it is clear that one thing in particular has changed, businesses now take it seriously and include in their communications strategy. Brands now automatically lose their shine with customers if they do not…

Times they are a changin’, or so it seems. The powerhouse of the internet that is Google has a pretender to its crown. Facebook has managed to gain a level of momentum that could well see it take over as the most…

This ash cloud has been quite a strain, my wife and baby are still stuck in Dubai five days after they were due to fly home. The good thing is that they are staying with friends and have a great support network. What it has shown me is how great…

It’s taken a while but the fashion industry has finally woken up to the wonders of the World Wide Web! Online stores such as ASOS are booming, fashion designers are tweeting like there’s no tomorrow and the majority of high-street retailers now have some form of blog…

February marks a milestone in the social networking calendar as Facebook celebrates its birthday. The site turned six last week and is showing impressive figures of late, with double the amount of users (now standing at 400 million worldwide), compared to this time last…

Just for fun I thought I’d use Google Trends to compare the leading social networks in terms of how much traffic they’re getting from UK web users. This first chart shows that Bebo and MySpace both declined at a fairly similar rate over the past 12 months, while Twitter has…

Whilst reading the econsultancy.com online PR benchmarking report, it struck me that PRs and brand marketers were still talking a different language. Clients wanting increased brand mentions online are met with agencies delivering blogger relations. Those asking for brand reach are offered optimised…

Sadly I missed being on Ian's NMK panel for 'Clients in the Wild' as I just had over 200 staples taken out after an op. But it seems the discussion and subsequent blog by Will McInnes has created a stir - causing several blogging PRs some deeper introspection. Antony Mayfield summarises the issues up rather eloquently. Like Antony , I too am an optimist. I also lived through the similar, if not so public, growing pains of the digital ad agency industry. Back in the 90s these start-ups and specialists departments were dismissed by the powerful TV ad world. And we all know how that has changed now. We now have a very different marketing landscape with digital taking the lead and the more handsome budgets.

Just gave this presentation at the Online Marketing Show. Not sure it makes a lot of sense without the banter over the top, but I thought I would share. The slides really fall into four categories: How brands are performing in social media The changing landscape online How you can trigger…

Our latest research looking at brand conversation in social media shows that techie companies, [tag]Google[/tag], [tag]Apple[/tag], [tag]Yahoo! [/tag]and [tag]Microsoft[/tag], take the lead in terms of brand mentions in blogs, social networks and photo and video sharing sites.The study, launched at the Online Marketing Show examines the [tag]Interbrand Top 100 global…

Positive and negative comments in groups on social network sites, such as [tag]Facebook[/tag], [tag]Flickr [/tag]and [tag]MySpace[/tag] reveal [tag]Disney[/tag], [tag]Nintendo[/tag] and [tag]Google[/tag] are the most popular brands. This comes from our latest research, [tag]Brands in Social Media[/tag]. [tag]Social networking[/tag] groups are proving very popular in the UK. They are a very…

We are launching research exclusively at the Online Marketing show this week. The study looks at the Interbrand top 100 global brands, to reveal which brands have the largest share of voice and the most positive conversations. The report measures brand mentions across…

Trevor Cook and Lee Hopkins at the Corporate Engagement blog have just published their free (second edition) Social Media white paper. Updates on Second Life, Twitter and wikis and some new case study examples of Australian brands experimenting with social media.Great snapshot of the…