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We know that Instagram doesn’t stop when we all leave the office at 5:30pm, and at the weekend, when we’re all making the most of our two days off, it’s especially alive. Whilst there have been unofficial solutions like Schedugram, which we’ve made the most…

Influencer Marketing – From mega to micro Using a celebrity or sports personality to endorse your brand or product is no new concept. However, in 2017, we saw brands use social media to find new and effective ways to use endorsement and incorporate it into their overall marketing strategy.

Earlier this month, the WhatsApp Business app officially launched in markets such as Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S. A wider roll-out is planned later in the year. The addition will see business profiles and new messaging tools available for customers as part of a…

Instagram is at it again! The latest update includes an integration with GIPHY, meaning only one thing – Stories are going to be a lot more animated! GIF stickers can now be added to all of your Story photos and videos, and the fact that they’re from GIPHY’s database means that…

Not a Snapchat user? Doesn’t mean you won’t be finding out more about it… On Tuesday, Twitter announced that you can now share certain stories outside of the app with a shareable link & open them on a webpage, mobile browser, or within Facebook & Twitter. At the moment, the…

We know the clock’s ticking for May 25th, and there’s still scepticism around the application and effects of GDPR for every business sector. One thing is clear though, there are definite concerns for marketers. This blog answers a lot of questions, but glaringly, without the opt-in holy…

Following Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to once again change the inner workings of the Facebook news feed, the real impact of the newsfeed algorithm change is becoming clearer. Initially, publishers and advertisers alike were thrown into a panic by assuming the change meant the end times had come and we were…

Here’s a story about a young lady who wanted to spend five nights in a luxury Dublin hotel. As she says herself, it was to be for “an early Valentine’s Day weekend”. Nothing too unusual there. Here’s the kicker, because of who she is, rising social media influencer Elle Darby,…

The latest trend on social? In the US, it’s comparing yourself to 70,000 works of art and sharing your best match. Sounds fun, right? However, there’s a lot more cool stuff going on in the background than you think. Google has been experimenting with gamifying AI algorithms…

It’s been quiet at the water cooler recently, what with having to wait FOREVER for GoT to return. But, even if you’re not a business, the recent Facebook news means Zuckerberg’s plans have got everybody talking. January as a slow news month? Not anymore. Facebook’s long shadow…

Facebook is saturated with brands on the constant lookout for new ways to engage with their audiences. We’re all fighting for our voices to be heard. Getting people to engage with brands on social media is getting harder, and people’s opinions are becoming more and more valuable. Unless your content…

It appears Facebook bit off more than they could chew with their AI experiment, the powered virtual assistant, better known mysteriously as ‘M’. Released in August 2015, M is a text-based virtual assistant that involves using human employees to train an artificial intelligence system. After being offered to around 2,000…

Following Mark Zuckerberg’s prediction that video will be the largest driver of business for Facebook over the next two to three years, it is easy to see, that the desire to become a ‘video-first’ platform is at the heart of their efforts. A further…

Did you know it would take you 10 years to view all the photos shared on Snapchat in the last hour? In amongst all of the cat videos and selfies are a surprising amount of conversations about cinema. Snap Inc. recently teamed up with Greenberg and the MPAA to conduct some…

Everyone at immediate future has had a terrific year thanks to our bloomin’ amazing clients, agency friends and colleagues. We’ve learned lots along the way, won an award or four and laughed a huge amount (we know how to have fun!). We’ve tweeted, posted and insta’d our way through 2017, but…

Staying on top of the latest in the fast-changing marketing industry is a challenge. There isn’t much time to stop and read or watch everything you want to. Podcasts offer a superb alternative to getting your social, digital or marketing fix whilst you carry on doing something else. I listen…

We’re all guilty of blindly interacting with engagement bait. Like! Vote! Share! React! To things that… actually aren’t that engaging, but yet we do it. Does this mean that our own content quality control filter is failing? I mean, am I realistically going to win an X Box One for…

They say money never sleeps and it appears neither do Instagram’s developers. The latest update is jam-packed with holiday spirit, so if you’re not into sending actual Christmas cards (you know, the ones that come in envelopes), Insta’s new creative tools might be just for you. Like recent Instagram…

Spoiler alert: if you’re not using Facebook Live then you should be – even if you’re a B2B brand who DOESN’T believe they work for you! We use them and we’re smashing it for Fujitsu. If it’s not working for you, then you’re not using it correctly, or addressing the…

Social platforms have become much more than a place to share words and pictures. You can stay in touch with your Aunt, play Scrabble with her and tag her in hilarious cat videos. Social has long replaced traditional forms of communication like writing, to keep in touch. In many cases,…

Terminator? No joke. It’s been used as a lazy, negative cypher for AI for years, but it’s now actually developing at visible speed and catching up to 80’s premonitions. However, according to an article, Google’s DeepMind ‘has simple tests that may prevent AI apocalypse’. Phew.

Facebook Messenger’s had an interesting month. It literally failed to deliver twice in the last month as it inexplicably went down. There’s been some firm conversation around the kids’ app that’s worth keeping an eye on, and intriguingly, for an avid ‘bayer such as…

Christmas is done. It’s over. There is no more time for planning. Execution is (well it better be) in full flow. It’s time for marketers to turn their planning heads to the New Year. And I don’t mean the 1st January 2018. I mean 16th February. Chinese New Year (CNY)…

Snap has been under a lot of pressure since it’s Q3 Earnings report and as we have reported recently change has been on the horizon for a while. In an attempt to invigorate their stagnating user growth beyond the 3% mark and boost their low revenue Snap Inc.

We welcomed a broadcasting behemoth to our office for this week’s Serious Social. Gavin Dawson, head of comms for international markets, came in from the BBC to look at what we do, and discuss the changing role of social for broadcasters. How do you create content and always-on plans…

Snapchat is undergoing an extensive app re-design, billed its ‘biggest redesign in years’, in a bid to keep their audience engaged, attract new users & regain their position in the social platform battle. This will see a redesigned user interface, making the social platform easier to use, and ultimately more…

Following its shocking Q3 results (which I’m not going to talk about again, promise), Snap is still keen to prove its worth to brands with big budgets. This time, the company has commissioned app analytics tool, App Annie, to report on the amount of time Snapchat’s users spend…

‘Tis the season we all start panicking about what will land under who’s Christmas tree. Whether it’s family, actual friends (which is a much smaller list than my Facebook friends), or a random colleague (if they happen to be your Secret Santa at work), buying the RIGHT Christmas present can be…

Is it the marketing holy grail when your business, platform, proposition, brand…grows to such planet-swallowing size that you make it into the common lexicon? Yep. Who doesn’t know what Netflix & Chill really means, but, we haven’t heard from their brand guardians or CEO to stop using it (yes Lucas,…

It’s been a week since Snap’s shocking (though somewhat expected) Q3 results, and yet we’re already hit with some exciting news! Snapchat has rolled its advertising self-service tools onto a single platform with Ad Manager 2.0. The new Ad Manager unifies several of Snapchat’s existing ad buying and management tools,…

We ❤ Instagram, but it seems like the days when we were able to see content that we’re actually interested in on our feed, are slowly slipping away… For a while now, it seems Instagram have been prioritising and promoting posts that generate a lot of engagement, and these very posts have…

Following Snap’s Q3 Earnings report it’s become apparent that a big change needs to happen if Snapchat is to remain a credible player in the world of social media. According to the report Snapchat’s user growth is down to a meagre 2.9 percent. Revenue targets weren’t met to the tune…

What are you talking about? Shopping. What are you talking about? Reality show influencers who break the rules. Serious Social gets serious around the clampdown on influencers not declaring brand endorsements, while the Instagram conversation centres on social commerce, and how it’s a match made in shopping heaven.

Let’s face it, at some point in our lives, we’ve all said something we’ve instantly regretted. In the days before social and messaging apps, the fallout might have been painful but the worst of it was usually over pretty quickly. In the mobile-first world we live in now, a regretful…

Last week, Marnie Simpson was rapped firmly on the knuckles by the ASA for breaking CAP code rules and promoting brands without making clear she was paid to do so. There was coverage across OK!Magazine, BBC, Sky News, Daily Mail and so on. High…

Just when we thought 2017 couldn’t get any worse for Snap, turns out Spectacles are a commercial flop. Snap’s first attempt at creating a hardware product failed to excite customers past their initial purchase. Despite the initial hype, the company has sold only 150,000 pairs to date, and less than…

Netflix has been on a bit of a tear, producing high-budget original content at a rate of knots that few production companies can keep up with. The video streaming services has become so good at it that even Disney pulling content from its platform is not enough to slow its…

Social commerce is growing and shows no signs of stopping. eCommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce enable purchases through social platforms, which drastically changes the customer experience and customer journey in a multitude of ways. It’s simpler, quicker and easier than ever for us to discover products and make purchases…

We’ve settled in nicely to our new format, and we’ve got two new guests to impart social wisdom to the world. Our CEO, Katy Howell is talking to our MD, Colin Jacobs about tourist industry tweaks and 2018 holidays. Yes, it is only October. Catrina Burns shares her…

For a while now Facebook have been trying to address the fact that the individual users Newsfeed has, has become the most echoey echo chamber since Echo the dolphin started that fan site. As anyone is bound to notice users are served content from sources they follow, that usually reflect…

Facebook and their updates are killing the social game at the moment; here are the details on Facebook’s latest push into the mobile commerce industry. Last year, PayPal’s initial partnership with Facebook messenger allowed customers to connect their accounts with Facebook and use PayPal to shop on messenger. This year,…

With the near constant innovation we see from Facebook’s ad offering, it’s easy to forget that other social media platforms release new products from time-to-time. This week there have been two announcements that have got us excited, and they’re both about video. LinkedIn First up LinkedIn is FINALLY testing…

Scrolling through our social feeds has become routine to us, but it’s also something we do to pass the time. Wake up, scroll. Boring commute, scroll. You might feel like you’ve missed out on something today if you haven’t checked the latest Tweets, scrolled through Instagram or checked your Facebook…

Keeping in line with keeping things fresh at IF, we’re giving 60 Second Social a shake-up. It’s now called Serious Social. Sometimes, there’s just too much news to fit into sixty seconds. The second tweak to our news format is that we’re going to be interviewing members of the…

We’ve been broadcasting a lot of great news recently from IF, which puts us in a shining spotlight as an agency: a move to a stunning new office, nominations for awards, new business, visits by inspirational guests, but there’s a date in the calendar this week that gives us the…

Alas! There’s a new app in town that lets you post photos to Instagram directly from your Mac or PC desktop. Meet Windowed! Created by Felix Sun, a photographer and computer engineer student, this open-source software is basically a stripped down mobile browser that tricks Instagram into thinking you’re using…

Got a favourite emoji? Now you can listen to songs based on them, with a new music recommendation update on Facebook messenger. Sooo 2017! Facebook and Apple have joined forces to create an Apple Music bot that recommends specific songs or playlists based on one particular emoji. If you prefer…

Last week we welcomed Paul Hewitt, playwright & creative strategist, to our office. In this week’s 60 Second Social he tells us the importance of the link between playwriting, storytelling, and social. Our greatest takeaway was, considering what celebrity or family member your brand would be, and…

To celebrate the release of iOS 11’s all new emoji set we thought it was time for a refresher course on the use of emoji in social media, to prevent some of the more common crimes against emoji. With Apple announcing the release of everything from…

“Your eyes will go square!” – one of the many myths my parents preached in my youth. Eating crusts never made my hair go straight. Nor did eating carrots give me night vision (much to my disappointment!) Though they tried to talk us out of it, our eyes and minds…

In May, the RSPH named Instagram the worst social network for mental health in their #StatusOfMind Report, so it’s no surprise that the social network is trying to strengthen its support for users with mental health issues. Now, during live videos, you’ll be able to anonymously flag…

I mean finally! Recent announcements of Snap’s major losses have had everyone asking the same question: why can’t they lure advertisers? Well, they might have just flipped the coin. Snapchat’s Chief Strategy Officer Imran Khan took to the Advertising Week New York stage on Thursday to announce what we’ve all been (not so…

On Tuesday Twitter joyfully announced the rollout of a shiny new 280 character limit in nearly all languages. (Sorry Japan, China & Korea). Although initially the wonders of double tweet space were only available to a select few (Sorry Ellen) the internet was quick to point out that adding a chrome…

Remarkably, the desire for vanity metrics is on the return. Why? Well, I’ve not got a tangible answer for you. Lazy marketers lacking robust experience? Increasing board pressure? Perhaps. Vanity metrics are the devil of Social Media. At immediate future, we’ve worked hard (for many years) educating clients, and industry,…

Developing countries don’t have the same access to Internet facilities as we have in the West. The high cost of data on mobile plans and poor infrastructures mean that it is harder for people living in developing countries to access social media networks. To remedy this, Facebook has…

If you’re an Instagram junkie you’re probably already clued up on Instagram comment pods, however, if you’re clueless, here’s everything you need to know… Although they’ve been around for a short while already, I only became aware of the ‘Instagram comment pod’ concept recently. Most likely because I don’t have…

Are you being bombarded on Facebook with jealousy-inducing updates, all posted by that one friend we all have? Of course you don’t want to unfriend or permanently unfollow them because you do care, but if you see one more photo of them posing on a pristine…

Hi Nick. I know you’ve got more hats than Mr Benn but thanks for taking the time to answer some questions on you, social, creativity and whatever else we throw at you. For those not in the know, Nick Entwistle is a creative polymath. Still shy of his 30th,…

Twitter is testing a secret tweetstorm feature making it easier for users to publish content faster on mobile. It currently takes serious skills to chain a conversation of tweets together in a cohesive tweetstorm, ultimately exposing the flaw in Twitter’s user experience. Publishers are unable to unleash their storytelling skills…

Every now and then, it feels like the world is falling apart. Terror attacks, natural disasters, etc. all too often make the headlines. Social media plays a big role in breaking the news. Twitter, of course, but not only… In 2014, Facebook launched Safety Check which lets you in a…

Since its inception in August 2016, Instagram Stories has been a runaway success. It now boasts over 250 million users a day. Launching ads was always part of the road map for Stories…

According to eMarketers’ Time Spent with Media forecast, UK adults this year will spend 1 hour and 59 minutes a day browsing on their mobile devices. That’s one minute each day more than they spend browsing via their desktop or laptop computers. There’s a first! Emarketer expects the margin to widen, predicting…

On Friday, we saw yet another rolling update from Facebook, this time encouraging users to interact with old friends and to try and discover new ones. This feature is more in-depth than the basic ‘friend suggestions’, it’s based on things you have in common, such as pages liked, events attended…

School of life is never out for summer. No matter what job you do, there’s always room to learn more, especially if you’re a perma-switched on curiosity driven creative. Your employer could (and should) be looking to develop you in your role, either by team training or on an individual…

We’re hiring! Katy Howell, our CEO talks about the qualities needed to be a social media professional. It’s a combination of skills that goes way beyond your online activities. Do you ask a lot of questions? Curious by nature? Courage to grab an opportunity, fail and learn? Switched…

Looking for the latest sports game, music show or world event? YouTube’s Live feature never looked so good with video broadcasters connecting with fans during the moments that count! With YouTube new updates, video creators now have the opportunity to select the ultra-low latency option when broadcasting. The new feature…

Never one to go out of focus, FrontRow is the new wearable camera from WiFi product maker, Ubiquiti Networks. The gadget is made up of not one, but two cameras; one on the front and one on the back, so its guaranteed not to miss any of the action. It’s…

It’s not personal, it’s just business. Actually, it’s a balance of both. The whole point of LinkedIn is to be a social network for business, yet, in the fifteen years since its inception, detractors have been chipping away at everything from its design, to UX and lack of products like…

When Facebook first announced Watch, there was scant enthusiasm for its offerings, and that didn’t change over the months as information about the first programmes available were released. Now the platform is being trialled to a select group of users in the US, we’ve been taking a closer…

For those of us that do paid on social, this is a question that comes back very often: should we or should we not use audience network as an ad placement? In case you need a little reminder, ads you place on social media don’t only appear there- the networks…

When Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for £11.4bn, it understood one vital thing – we like talking to our friends. As technology has changed, so have our habits – we’re not picking up the phone to talk any more, we’re picking up the phone to text. This makes messaging platforms…

Here we go. Another ‘creepy’ app has hit the app store and this one is after your face. What if you could see if your Insta posts made people happy or sad? Polygram does exactly that. This new photo-sharing social network uses facial recognition technology, which then…

One of the friendlier pieces of social news this week (that’s not Snapchat slump related) was the celebration of ten years of the hashtag. That humble little symbol that identifies messages on a specific topic blew out the virtual candles after a decade of activism (#blacklivesmatter), brand brilliance (Always’ #LikeAGirl)…

We’re not decking the halls just yet, but as September looms the big focus will be on where you will spend your paid this Autumn and Winter for upcoming Christmas ad campaigns. It’s a key part of the ad mix, so, which platform will be unwrapping…

Where do you go for your fill of breaking news? Now you can head straight to YouTube. This week the video-sharing site has launched a new feature; a horizontal scrollable carousel with the latest news stories from a variety sources including ABC & BBC news. The new feed is available…

Facebook steps up its game with another feature for video marketers. Advertisers can now buy video ads that will only be served when people are viewing a video. This should increase the chances of viewers watching your content! Shortly after Facebook revealed its video service, Watch, the company didn’t waste…

Facebook are testing out a number of big changes within Marketplace having recently expanded the product into 17 new countries in Europe launching in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, in the biggest expansion Marketplace has…

Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram… You can’t really escape videos on social media! Up until now, LinkedIn was resisting the temptation, but not anymore. The professional network has also succumbed to the video’s charms! So, what does the platform offer in terms of video creation and how can you integrate it…

Facebook seems really keen to make its Stories feature work. So keen in fact that I think it’s seen more functionality updates than any other part of Facebook for a long time – but why? The company is already making strides into younger audiences with Instagram, and many think that…

In our ‘blink-and-you’ve-missed-it’ digital world, social media is leading the way in which most of us receive information. Instagram’s influence continues to grow. The platform topped 700 million monthly active users earlier this year and Instagram Stories reached 250 million daily active users just over a month ago. As we’ve been…

A new Instagram feature lets users team up to broadcast live videos, opening up all kinds of possibilities for collaboration. The latest update is one in a string of changes to both Facebook and Instagram, intended to encourage more people to use live video on their platforms. While it’s only…

Ever heard the saying that quality is better than quantity? It hits the nail on the head when it comes to your social media community. There’s currently over 1 billion monthly active Facebook users ready to engage, endorse and buy your product. Leveraging the social media market is no longer…

Forget Tinder…now you can find your perfect match on LinkedIn, in a professional sense of course! LinkedIn is currently trialling a new service that identifies potential mentors with people who are looking for mentorship or guidance in a specific area, whether it be a new career path, or just general…

Since its inception in 2004, Facebook has enjoyed largely uncontested growth. User acquisition has been consistent, and subsequent monetisation has been compelling. Last month’s earnings call, revealing a $3.89bn quarterly profit, up 71% from last year, revealed success that wasn’t foreseen by City Analysts, or Facebook’s own leadership team –…

Some time ago, I wrote an article about Facebook launching Messenger 2.0 bringing group bots and a lot of cool updates to the platform. It is now returning with an updated 2.1 version that comes along with some updates that will please brands and marketers! For this new version,…

Time flies in social media, believe it or not it’s already time to wish Instagram Stories a happy first birthday. A whole year since the launch of Facebook’s first foray into Snapchat territory which inspired so very many knock-offs. We have recently asked if there is a place for so…

If there was an update we didn’t really need on Facebook – it would be Facebook Stories. Like Instagram, the addition sits very obviously at the top of your mobile feed. Yet, nobody seems to actually be using it, and it remains permanently empty. (Seriously, apart from that one friend…

Earlier this week it was announced that Reddit, the social network that only a few of your outlier friends hang out on, had raised $200 million in new venture funding. That means that it is now valued at $1.8 billion according to CEO Steve Huffman. Now, that’s…

With news that WhatsApp Status has 250M daily users, and that Facebook is allowing users to share their Stories publicly, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s enough room in our busy lives for all of these Stories apps? And precisely which platform should I pick to share the intricacies of…

Will copywriters remain part of the digital furniture, or be chucked out? Copywriting obviously needs a degree of intelligence. Hell, maybe not even a university degree, but a sound knowledge & understanding of language, with an embedded personal style that’s flexible enough to adapt to business needs. As copywriters, we’re supposed…

A recent survey compiled by Statista showed that Facebook is still reigning supreme over the social media-sphere – with its monthly views sitting comfortably ahead of the competition. 706 million view’s worth of comfortable to be precise. And it’s not just Facebook. Whatsapp…

It really is a constant battle between Instagram and Snapchat, but maybe, just maybe, it’s finally a little clearer which Stories your brand should stick with….for now! Firstly, Snapchat’s growth has slowed since Instagram Stories launched last August. There’s also been a 15 to 40% drop in the…

Here’s a great example of a social media channel listening to the needs of businesses today! Finally, we are able to see if our content works, measure the brand’s organic presence and optimise accordingly, all within the Instagram app. Since the introduction of business accounts last year, the new development…

It’s time for the summer holidays here in the UK which means we are weeks away from the second most wonderful time of the year; back to school and you can almost hear the sound of retailers, advertisers and marketers up and down the country clicking launch on campaigns designed…

Lead generation through social? The whole point is to drive revenue and hit that C-suite spot. Do it, measure it properly, and you can challenge with conviction at how effective it is, for those that are sceptical. There’s a divide of those that do, and those that don’t…

With Facebook & Twitter’s Q2 results looming this week, we’re predicting the future! We expect healthy results for Facebook, who have talked the talk & walked the walk when it comes to their new product offering. On the other hand, Snapchat still lag behind as their main focus…

I am not, nor have I ever been on Tinder – which is some kind of a miracle for a person my age. (Don’t worry though, I lost my Tinder-ginity playing around with my colleague’s profile, and now it’s a regular pub past-time. I think I’m very good at it.

Millennial’s always want more. If you think something is new and upcoming, millennials are already ten steps ahead. With this in mind, they are also avid users of social media. However, it’s much more complicated than we think to reach them and keep up with what they want. Not only…

Have you considered using LinkedIn for talent development and enhancing your business brand? Yep, without doubt, it used to be the place you’d go to find a job but that’s not quite the case these days. At its inception, LinkedIn delivered a clear offering to its users. If you wanted…