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

My post-graduate degree comes to a close with a 15,000 word dissertation on influencer marketing. With the pressure of getting that word count in, I was at risk of losing sight of what I was actually trying to find out. But upon reflecting on all of the things I’ve learned…

Gone are the days of shaky videos that make you feel queasy. Facebook saves the day with its new algorithm designed to stabilise 360-degree shots. The smart technology will combine 2D motion with 3D reconstruction to fill in the gaps and reduce the unwanted effects caused by conventional…

Recently I had a baby – well not personally, but my partner did. I also had, probably, the longest period of time off in one go I have ever had since working – 17 days! It was a magical time, filled with ‘firsts’ and all kinds of wonderful, scary and…

The trouble with paid social is tracking the customer journey from click to brick. Facebook thinks it has the answer to this problem and is in the process of revamping its offers program. Core updates include: Bookmark: People can easily claim an offer on mobile or on desktop and it will…

Shortly after Facebook announced a range of changes to its Trending Topics section things started to go wrong. As this blog post describes the update – “Today, we’re making some changes to the Trending feature on Facebook that will make the product more automated and will no…

The biggest news to come out of social over the weekend has been the controversial reveal that WhatsApp will now be sharing its data on consumers with Facebook.

Marketers can now measure the success of a campaign by tracking how many people are talking and engaging with a brand’s social activity. The Twitter Ads dashboard will display the engagement metrics and the earned media metrics generated by the campaign’s success. Struggling to encourage your fans, audience or followers…

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

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

Advertising can be a pain. You’re scrolling down the news feed and BLAM – an advert for dog food. When you don’t own a dog. Frustrating isn’t it? But for brands, Facebook’s ad platform is a brilliant way to serve copy and content to a specific target audiences. The problem…

As Facebooks user base ages it’s no secret that it has been trying its hardest to appeal to a younger audience. Facebook even made similar app in 2012 called Poke, with a built-in self-destruct feature that was intended to take on Snapchat. After that flopped in 2013, Mark…

Over the last few months we’ve been fortunate enough to have on-boarded several new global clients spanning lifestyle, consumer and technology markets. One of the first things we’re always asked is: “what are the quick wins we can deliver together?” Clearly I cannot reveal too much about how we…

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

Instagram just launched its new feature: Stories. It’s this nifty feature that lets you create streams of pictures and videos and share them with you friends or just people you have never met – whichever you fancy. Just to make it feel more unique and fleeting, this lovely…

Twitter have introduced a couple of new developments in the past month, one fairly minor interface change and one entirely new function called Stickers. If you use the Twitter iOS app you may have noticed some changes taking place with the basic layout,…

Social media marketing has come to be a popular way for brands to advertise products and services. But recently, the charitable sector has taken advantage of this growing trend for fundraising activities. Some of the most memorable social media campaigns have been extremely successful in terms of donations. The #NoMakeUpSelfie…

B2B content has the habit of falling into a mould – whitepapers, research reports, brochures etc. There are a number of reasons why this content can be problematic: it can be boring, it can be the ‘same old’ stuff and, if done well, it can be very expensive. Budgets are…

Organic vs paid social: the audience you have vs the audience you want For those who live and breathe community management, or even for those who don’t, it will have not escaped your notice that your organic engagement is only going one way… downhill. Whilst the impact will vary per…

Twitter’s new marketing campaign opens its doors to non-users clearing the misconceptions they have with the brand and its purpose. CMO Leslie Berland announces the new campaign saying that it’s content and ads will spread awareness of what Twitter has to offer and invite non-users to give…

Social might be almost a decade old, but it is still a young industry. And as more and more brands embrace social media marketing the need for skilled and experienced talent is growing at a rapid pace. Working in social media is a sophisticated business these days. You need to…

It isn’t exactly new news that content is king. Particularly on social where you have a noisy opportunity to connect with millions of people and conversations. The keywords there were ‘noisy opportunity’. If you do what the rest of your category or industry are doing, then your content isn’t going…

Despite its popularity, Instagram is a bit behind other platforms when it comes to management tools. It’s like Facebook’s little sibling that has its friends and a little community but is still trying to catch up with Facebook, not fully realising its full potential just yet. Being a younger sibling…

Facebook seems to be showering us with new features and updated API functionality every other day at the moment, so we collected the relevant nuggets of info and melted them down into this easy-to-digest erm…digest. Facebook are rolling out Instant Articles in Messenger, Android folk you already…

Avoiding online trolls is hard work for anyone. They hide in just about every corner of the internet, waiting for the perfect opportunity to harass or insult you. But its not just your average tweeter that has to deal with it… Marketers working within social media are having to find…

Sigh! My biggest frustration after 12 years in social media marketing is the view that vanity metrics are the only way to place a value social. Only measuring followers, likes, engagement and fans misses the opportunity social presents to deliver into the pipeline – to ultimately drive revenues by being…

Live-streaming has been around for a long time, but the ease and availability of numerous tools such as Meerkat and Periscope have made it possible for anyone to “go live” and broadcast to the world. Years ago, marketers used to spend huge budgets on TV advertising, billboards, print media and…

Once upon a time, there was a King and a Queen. They weren’t any ordinary King and Queen. They were special, because together, they ruled over all of Social Media land. Forgive me, I read a lot of bedtime stories to my two under three-year olds and we watch a…

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

Pinterest is the biggest beauty platform in the world – at least that’s what Pinterest says. But is it true? Is Pinterest really the Holy Place for beauty brands. Let’s take a closer look at this, shall we? Social Media Demographics for Marketers |…

Anyone who has worked on a project covering multiple languages will know the value of good translation, especially in the fast paced world of social media. Getting the right message across in the right tone of voice is near impossible for a non-fluent speaker of any language. However…

Almost exactly a year ago the super-clever tech folk at Pinterest launched Buyable Pins across their mobile apps in a bid to give users a simple way to buy and sell through Pinterest. For businesses this meant going through one of 5 partners to…

Since Facebook launched its video broadcast feature back in August 2015 as a feature for verified Pages, it has been made publicly available for brands and the public. The Facebook feature allows users to post live broadcasts on their News Feeds, watch real time comments on their stream,…

Rather than leading your social media traffic to the home page, why not take them on a journey via your landing page and turn visitor numbers into conversions. Creating web pages with a specific purpose is a gold mine for gathering new leads, encouraging event registration and guiding visitors to…

I’m going to delve into how you can be more effective with your brainstorming and I’m specifically going to link that to how you can better define audience-first solutions. I’m doing this for two reasons: 1) the challenge of yielding business-impacting ideas has been shared by marketers globally, since Madison…

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

Instagram is no baby anymore. It has grown so fast. How fast? 500 million users in about 6 years. Today we have 500 million reasons to celebrate, and you’re one of them. Thank you from all of us at Instagram. ♥️ https://t.co/7QHMN4x3Kl…

Snapchat has finally launched its advertising API, giving brands the ability to push third party video ads directly into users feeds without having to deal with Snapchat directly. The new ad portal is called Snapchat Partners and it’s really the first major push to monetise snapchat ad…

Irrespective of your audience focus – consumers or businesses, the need to adopt audience-first marketing exists. Channels are increasingly cluttered with conversations and similar content, so the need to standout is greater than ever. Without disclosing specific intellectual property, I’ve recently been looking at an industry who sees 55 million…

Snapchat means business. Literally. We have written several blog posts about how businesses can benefit from investing into a solid Snapchat strategy. However, despite the benefits Snapchat can bring to brands in terms of audience acquisition, engagement and UGC. not many brands have tapped into the world of Snapchat. One…

Influencer marketing is this year’s craze. Not just because marketers are increasingly wanting to use it, but because there is much debate on whether there is any value in doing it at all. Blogs and networks are lit up with the discussion. At immediate future we started out in activating…

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

My mind tends to wander at its best when on public transport, usually heading out of the city or a long underground trip. I thought about why this might be, and didn’t take me long to realise it was because I was out of signal, 3G or WiFi. However, with…

This is not going to be the ‘exercise daily’, ‘read a book’ kind of thing you can read in business magazine. Although these things are definitely helpful and it’s important to find ways how to relax, this list is a bit different. It includes various daily tips that I’ve learned…

We are coming to the end of the first 3 months of Facebook Reactions, and data is rolling in on all sides. Initially the majority of people were delighted that their ability to express their emotional range had suddenly become slightly more than that of the house hold refrigerator, but…

Like many tech start up’s, Snapchat joined the ever-expanding queue back in 2011, hoping to be the next Facebook and Twitter. In the expeditiously evolving world of social media, it seems that Snapchat is here to stay and is attracting advertisers, all of which are desperate to reach the lucrative…

So last week immediate future turned 12 years old. That’s 12 years we’ve been working with brands in social media – it doesn’t seem possible does it? Surely social media didn’t exist back then? OK, it wasn’t called ‘social media’ in 2004. It was working with…

In a blow to those championing using simple competitions to grow audiences on social, I’m going to explain why this mechanic is actually far from simple. It’s a common sight: “follow @brandx and RT to #Win, or, “LIKE our page and tag a friend to enter”. We’ve all done it…

“Let’s gamify this!” A sentence that can mean many great things and also nothing. After the rapid raise of Gamification a few years ago, it became a wide-used buzzword that some professionals dump into their proposals to make them sound more interesting. Very often, they mean ‘running a competition’ which…

2016 has seen some big changes in the world of social advertising and it seems it’s all about video ‘ads’ this year. Nielsen claims 64% of marketers expect video to dominate their strategies in the near future. It’s not difficult to see why, with advertisers being spoilt for…

It’s that time of year again that we have all (well most of us) been waiting for…You will probably have seen the billboards, the ads on TV, it’s the new, sixth season of Games of Thrones! But how is it that we are all so excited and full of anticipation?…

We speak to brands “on the reg” with a similar set of circumstances: social media has grown organically over time within the organisation, there is lots of activity (some of it really rather good) but no one really knows why they are doing it! They set out on a journey…

What! Yup. If you have just one social strategy then you may as well consign it to the dustbin. Social is now too sophisticated for one strategy with a social channel (platform) agnostic approach. Every social network now has different audiences, varying behaviours and whole swathes of content formats that…

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

Social listening is all the rage when it comes to analysing consumer behavior, determining people’s views of a brand, service or product and comparing a company’s public reputation to its competitors. One of the challenges social listening faces however is the vast majority of social users the internet classifies as…

While “Facebook and the Potential for Social Engineering” sounds like the worst Harry Potter book ever, it is actually a fairly frightening possibility. The potential abuse of something as powerful as a social media network is a reality we have explored before, Facebook in particular have gone as far as actually…

As I sat here on a Sunday evening, you can imagine my surprise when I realised that Made in Chelsea season 11 had started last Monday and I actually missed the first episode! How could this be?! I mean, I knew it was due to start…

The world of social media is faster than your colleagues when you bring over some cookies for the office. New updates, news, and innovations flood the internet on daily basis so it’s very easy to miss crucial information that could transform you next campaign into a success. So, because we…

In part one of our “Pro Tips for Powerful B2B Content” series, we looked at three ways to help you create B2B content that inspires action, outstrips the competition and wins business. In this, the final part of the series (for now), we will dive into three…

Private messaging has been on the rise for a while. With the continuous growth and success of apps like Snapchat or WhatsApp (that recently added end-to-end encryption), it’s no surprise others have been trying to play catch-up. One of the platforms that is trying to improve its private…

It’s 7pm and you’re still at the office. A posting plan for your company’s social channels stares mournfully back at you. You’ve read phone books that are more exciting. It’s okay, you reason, we’re a B2B brand. Our audience is time-strapped. Professional. They want facts, not fluff. “Out there” content…

Welcome to part two of the Getty Images 2016 Visual Trends highlights! We covered the first top three visual trends here, and we have just three more to go! But before we get to it, let’s answer one of the top questions we got on the previous blog: How…

Lunchtime. 21st March 2006. Jack Dorsey sends the first ever tweet: “just setting up my twttr” And now the company claims to have reached 320m monthly active users include celebrities, politicians and quite a number of trolls too. Twitter Monthly Active Users…

In the age of moment-driven marketing and with brands creating more content than ever before, you need a plan. Borrowing from the “original” publisher world, we have adopted the use of content calendars as the lifeblood and centre piece of our marketing planning. But on the whole, this really means…

It’s true! Social doesn’t increase your volume stack. Businesses who are yet to embrace social are still being complained to. The consumer picks up the phone and gifts you their feedback. They may also share an email with senior management AND then, they will go onto social to bemoan your…

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

Our team had the pleasure of going to a seminar by Getty Images talking about the visual trends for 2016. The event took place at their new exhibition offices in London, and it was organized by the lovely folks at The Drum Network (shout-out…

On February 25th Facebook launched what they are calling Canvas, a full-screen ad experience. Originally announced at Cannes Lions way back in June 2015, Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox demonstrated mock-ups of a new mobile format that takes over the mobile screen after a user clicks on it from…

It struck me this week that social media is not really a new thing anymore. I know it sounds obvious. We have been doing it for 12 years. But this year it feels like social media got serious. Serious enough that it is…

With over 100 million daily active users on the platform and well reputed penetration into the ‘millennial’ audience, Snapchat is on the rise… However, once platforms are well established as “cool” they have to make some moves that will render themselves seriously uncool to their user base, to appease the…

How you respond to negative comments says more about your company than any other thing you do. Whenever you respond to anything online (and often even offline), you are never responding to just one person. Even if it’s a simple DM. Your answer can always be seen and judged by…

For those of you who have somehow avoided the awesome spectacle that was the marketing campaign for the latest Marvel movie, Deadpool, here is my salute to a truly fantastic piece of work. The Fox Marketing team and Reynolds. – 20th Century Fox The Ryan Reynolds…

From conferences to books and a plethora of blog posts, we are obsessed with targeting Millennials – especially through social media. But there is a hidden gem on social media. A demographic that at best is being ignored and at worst stereotyped. “Wake up to the social savvy seniors, or…

You may or may not have noticed, but your Twitter timeline has changed – it will no longer automatically show Tweets in chronological order. We know Twitter users don’t like change, and with a raft of changes announced in the past few months and weeks, including the furore around…

Don’t you love when you finally have a grasp on something only for it to change instantly? Both Twitter and Facebook have announced major changes coming to their platform. Both of them have one thing in common: the focus on bringing value to their…

Superbowl; The Olympic games of modern marketing and definitely a leading event in competitive and cutting edge digital marketing tactics. More than with any Superbowl before, brands were positioning their narrative across multiple channels (TV, Social; Twitter Snapchat, Instagram) on an increasingly active timeline, talking to different channels and audiences…

Regular readers of our blog will know that for well over a year we’ve been advocating the importance of micro-moments and owning them – “owning the moment” is lorded in every brainstorm we have at the agency. Our philosophy is built around identifying the many micro-moments relevant to a brand…

The idea behind curation is to link and/or excerpt the work of others. Therefore, social has always been about content curation, but most businesses don’t have the time, staff, skill set or budget to regularly publish great content and that’s where content curation comes in. Why curate content? Audiences do not…

…it’s something that grabs hold of my brain tightly, keeps me awake now, daily and nightly. Ok well, maybe not quite, but it does get me thinking a lot…. Joining the dots between teams, countries, platforms and technologies in a bit to marry data sets at scale is a tall…

The brakes are off, the lights are green and 2016 is well underway. 10 years after Twitter was founded and Facebook became a mainstream platform, another batch of social media strategies are being rolled out by marketers. Objectives will include lead generation, reach and awareness, community growth and improving sentiment.

The folk over at Smart Insights reminded me last week about the deluge of content churning through every social media platform. Much has been written about getting the content right. Investing more time, resource and money in storytelling and crafting visuals that resonate. But this is only…

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…

As 2015 ended, the good folk at Twitter HQ updated their policy, adding new rules and procedures to combat abusive behaviour and hateful conduct on the platform. The latest update, announced in a blog on December 30th, sees the introduction of the following passage into the abusive…

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas from immediate future We’re off to join the festivities and will be back on the 4th Jan with our first blog post in 2016. Happy, jingly Christmas and good health and happiness to all . . .

There have been many predictions for how social media will play out in 2016. But enough of the speculation…here are 28 things that are guaranteed to happen. Do you agree with them? Have I missed any? Shiny new platform labelled the ‘next big thing’ will emerge. Digital professionals…

Having a blog, whether it’s on a personal level or a corporate level is, and will remain, a fantastic way of building a brand and showing your knowledge and expertise on a specific subject. In reading my esteemed colleague’s summary of IF blogs in 2015, I realised just how…

At IF we pride ourselves on leading innovation and helping to shape the next industry standard. Our recent award win evidences we’ve checked that box for another year. To many, our blog is their source of digital insight into what is about to happen within industry. With this in mind,…

Everyone loves a list. Which is just as well considering it’s that time of year when people publish the most lists. Whether it’s lists of the best music or books from the year; lists of predictions for the coming year; or lists of Christmas gift ideas for your partner’s uncle’s…

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 a lot…

With 2015 drawing to a close, there will no doubt be many articles over the next few weeks covering the biggest digital trends of 2015 and making bold predictions for what lies ahead. Before all of this happens though, we thought it would be appropriate to take a look at…

Over the last week you will have noticed that the hacker Collective Anonymous have been at war with ISIS online. from shutting down websites, hijacking social accounts and identifying users they have been very active. Their most recent tactic has been to rickroll ISIS…

When it comes to digital, personalisation is nothing new, and throughout the year we have talked about it extensively in many blogs – whether it’s for your audience or adverts, personalising the way you reach your audience via their platform of choice and so on. The advance in CRM systems…

Ever been on your friend’s profile, wondered where they had bought an item of clothing and how best to describe it so you can buy it for yourself? Or have you been stuck for words when browsing through interiors and wanted to know more about a specific item? Well if…

It’s like Marmite. And whether you love it or loath it, you’ve probably discussed it, and potentially even posted online about it. In doing so, you’ve contributed to the consistent and proven marketing machine that is the John Lewis Christmas advert. This well-oiled machine triggers divisive debate and motivates consumers…

Every 6 months or so Facebook releases its Global Government Request Report from deep within its cold concrete halls. Basically it’s a giant list of requests to snoop on us or hide Facebook content from us by men in long billowing trench coats and dark glasses, who I…

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…

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 presented to senior…

Ever want to send a video to someone but your subject just refuses to slow down or move in the right direction in time? Yeah? Me too. Well fear not, Snapchat has got your back. Yesterday Snapchat added slow motion, fast-forward, and rewind effects to your video filters with…